Ep221 Mike Blake - Are Your Top Talents Being Wasted? One Executive's 4,000-Mile Journey to Reclaim Purpose

Mike Blake 0:00

I think a lot of people get stuck to use your theme because they're trying to find the costless solution. They're trying to find the risk, free sacrifice, free trade off the world often doesn't work that way. Sometimes you just have to look in the mirror. You have to look in your coach's face, your spouse's face, and say, I'm either willing to pay this price or I'm not

Mike O'Neill 0:24

welcome to get unstuck and on target, the weekly podcast that offers senior leaders insights and strategies to not only lead with competence and vision, but also to achieve groundbreaking results. I'm your host. Mike O'Neil. I coach top level executives on the power of ethical leadership to forge teams to be as united as they are effective in each episode, join me for insightful conversations with leaders just like you providing practical advice to help you get unstuck and propel you and your company forward. Let's get started.

Mike O'Neill 1:07

If you've ever felt stuck in a role that didn't fully use your strengths, you're not alone. In this episode, I sit down with Mike Blake, a business valuation expert and founder of high score strategies who made a bold move, he relocated his advisory firm from Atlanta to Portugal. Why? Because he realized that his top talents weren't being used, and it was slowly wearing him down. In this powerful conversation, Mike shares what it really takes to lead through reinvention, why curiosity is a competitive advantage, and how living abroad made him sharper, more focused, and frankly, a better business leader if you're facing a big decision or wondering what's next, this episode is for you. My guest today is Mike Blake, a business valuation expert, strategic advisor and founder of high score strategies, after decades of experience leading folks through high stake decisions in the US, from mergers to exits to investments, Mike made the bold move. He relocated his business from Atlanta to Portugal. So why does this matter to you? A leader. Well, because adapting to a new environment, whether it's a market, a role or a business challenge, it requires strategic thinking, cultural curiosity and the courage to rethink how we lead. I've been looking forward to this conversation for some time. Welcome

Mike Blake 2:38

Mike. Thanks for having me, Mike. It's gonna be fun. Well, it's

Mike O'Neill 2:42

gonna be fun. Mike and I know each other in another group that we're part of, and I get a chance to profit by his wisdom and his dry wit, and not to put any pressure on you, but we got about 30 minutes for that to come through loud and clear. Why don't we just jump right in Mike, if that's okay, and that is from Atlanta to Portugal. You know, relocating your advisory firm, that's a big shift when you're talking about moving from one country to another. Can I ask first, what sparked that decision?

Mike Blake 3:19

You know, what sparked the decision was that I was very unhappy and getting in becoming unhappier by the day. Many people assume incorrectly that I'm a political refugee. I'm not. I love the United States. I love going back every time I have a chance, and I appreciate the United States more from 4000 miles away than I think I did living in it. Sometimes that doesn't mean I'm going to move back anytime soon. I don't know that I ever will, but the Genesis was really this is that when I take an inventory of the things that God or the universe or random chance. Slash, Chaos Theory made me good at two of the things at the top of the list are learning foreign languages and assimilating into foreign cultures. And I learned this in high school, and later learned, as I was in in the early stages of my career, and I lived and worked in places such as Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, never went back to the US, or hardly went back to the US. Spent most of my holidays in Western Europe. And, you know, I really did well, and those things came very easy to me, and then I was at a crossroads in my life, where I received a job opportunity for to work full time in Kiev for a venture capital fund. And I. Uh, one of the hardest decisions in my life was turning that job down because I received well intentioned but what turned out to be terrible advice, which was that I need to come back to the United States because, because, back then, the No, well, the people who are advising me when they're in my stage of the career, there was a sense that once you're abroad, it's very hard to move back to the United States. That's no longer true, and I'm not sure is even true in the late 90s, to be honest with you. But you know, there are people whose opinions I deeply respected, and I don't blame them. Nobody put a gun to my head. I took the advice. I figured, you not always have a chance to move abroad again. And you know, the years went by, and for the most part, that that chance never really sort of materialized, and I never even really had a chance in a professional capacity to travel abroad a whole lot, and to use a technical term, was increasingly bumming me out, you know, imagine, and I ask anybody Imagine, imagine the things you do best and you never use them, yeah, you know. And for me, the fact that I know some languages, it was really just a bar trick, you know. So, say something in Ukrainian, say something in French, say something in Russian, whatever, you know. And it gets old and and, and the few times where I really got to use it and sort of meet people where they were and engage with them on their language and cultural level, it was so, it was so meaningful to them, and therefore to me, and I just, I just didn't have those that opportunity, and I felt like I was going through life in a way handicapped, not from a practical standpoint, but from a a spiritual standpoint, if you will. Okay, because everything I was, everything I had been doing, was my 1b my 1c my second best, third best thing that I do, I see. And it after, after 25 years, it just wore on me to the point where I couldn't, I couldn't take it anymore. And it was impacting me in in some fundamental ways that we can go into if you want to hide anything, but I don't want to burn up too much time on it. And finally, one day, I just turned to my wife and I said, Hey, I want to move to Europe. What do you think now? She studied in Madrid. She's been an au pair in Paris. She loved to travel. She's she's like, Yeah, I'm in and I said, I said, Well, do you want to? Do you want to go now or wait until I retire? And she says, I can burn down the house yesterday and make it look like an accident, and then we can just leave tomorrow with the insurance money. So she was in. And then that began. That started the journey of, okay, now what? And I don't know if you may ask about that later. I don't want to jump ahead, but that's the answer to your question. Is the Genesis the whole thing was, I was I was unhappy, not not because I was in America, but because I was just in a place where my best skills were never being used and they were not meaningful, and it deprived me of the of the opportunity to to give full meaning to my life.

Mike O'Neill 8:28

So Let's marry that up with what you do professionally. You provide a variety of services, all very high value from the perspective of you've made the move. How long have you all been in Portugal now?

Mike Blake 8:43

We are at, actually, we're at 23 months today.

Mike O'Neill 8:48

Well, happy anniversary today. That being said, You're just shy of two years. You work with clients literally all over the world, but the language capability, the cultural awareness, living in where you live now, how has that made you a better business person and a business leader?

Mike Blake 9:16

I think it makes me a better business person, if it has. I'm not sure I agree with the statement, but let's just assume that's let's assume your way, you're the host. You're always right. So you know, engaging with people on their level, linguistically and culturally, requires a certain mindset. One is that judgment, judgmentalism, has to go out the window. And I think in business, I think that's extremely helpful. So, you know, Ted lasso put this way better than I ever could have, you know, he said, he said, you know, don't, don't judge. Be curious. Yes, and, and as it turns out, that that really fits what I do. And, you know, in Portugal, things don't, they don't do things exactly the way we do them the United States. But I don't judge them. I'm like, why do they do that? Or how do people in this environment manage, given that that's the cultural norm, right? How do, how do I solve that puzzle? And and that, it turns out that that that approach does very well with leading teams. It does very well with talent development because, because I asked a lot of questions and, and for any given behavior, I'm curious, I'm not judgmental. You know, you're there are errors in this work pilot. Why did that happen? A deadline was missed. Why did that happen? A client interaction didn't go great. Why did that happen? And, and the reason I think that that that that's useful one. I mean, it builds, it builds tremendous trust, yes, and it's philosophically aligned with me. Plus, I know I sure as hell aren't perfect. And it also it, it, it adopts a posture of problem solving over blame. And I, you know, I think, I think that's so important, you know, I just, you know, I don't want to blame. I want to work problems. And the only reason, the only reason I really care who is quote, unquote, responsible is because that's part of the calculus of figuring out what went wrong and then what. What is it that broke down so that doesn't happen again. I don't mind mistakes so much, but I do mind that if they happen repeatedly. So but and I think a posture of curiosity and trying to meet people where they are, and you're a coach, you'll appreciate this. Everybody needs to be coached differently. Yes, you know, some people really appreciate a hard nosed old school football, football styles to a day coach, and others need more of a philosopher that engages you in conversation. And neither approach is right or wrong. The wrong approach is to take the approach that that that makes the person shut down, drives them away and and I think the things that that that make me do well, when engaging with with other cultures and languages, help there. And you know that it also helps, frankly, it does help to a certain extent within the United States, because when you deal, when you work with people with different backgrounds, you know we have to have, we've all we always needed, but we now recognize the need to have a certain amount of of sensitivity, and not false sensitivity, but a real kind of engagement. You know, somebody who's African American, somebody who's homosexual, somebody who is Jewish, somebody who's a woman, somebody who's trans, whatever it is, they have a life experience that I don't, I cannot pretend to understand. I'm a middle aged I'm a middle aged, white guy from a wealthy background, and I started life on second base, maybe third. So being curious. Being curious enables me to engage with people in a way that they will respond to and also and also not step my foot in it, not again, not because I'm afraid of being canceled, because I don't want to hurt people

Mike O'Neill 13:45

you shared curiosity, non judgmental has served you well in life and in business. We've talked a little bit about the I characterize as a bold move, but it sounds as like this move to the outside person looking in might would characterize that as bold, but that you and your family relocated, and my sense is based on what you shared so far, though you are modest, is it's made you a better business person. It's given you perspective. You provide a variety of services. Let's just pick one that resonates most with you as we record this call, you do business valuations. You advise on our mergers and acquisitions and alike, which of the things that you do have been probably most impacted by this move to Portugal?

Mike Blake 14:39

Yeah, for sure, for sure, business valuation. I'm a better practitioner now, and and I'm a better I'm a better practitioner for a number of reasons. Number one, I don't use the mental energy I used to use fighting myself because, because, as we talked about, I was really unhappy. I. Was and I was lacking a sense of purpose because my my talents and gifts were not being used, my best talents and gifts are not being used. And I can tell you, it's a it's a horrible place to be, in a drainage, and it takes a lot of energy to fight that and suppress that so that you can function elsewhere in your life. Second, there's a flip side to that, being liberated. You know, the excitement, the energy I get from walking around town, navigating, navigating life in Portugal, you know, meeting people on the street now that I know and I'm talking to them in their language that you know most of them know. They do not have to switch to English for me in most cases, and and, and the appreciation that they get, or when somebody who doesn't know me and I engage with them, and they're just stunned that somebody who looks like me, talks like them, and the joy and relief that they feel just makes you feel good. And that that energy has to go somewhere, and one of the places where it goes is into, is into my work. And I will say one other sort of environmental piece to this is that is that Portugal is a very peaceful place. People talk about laid back life, lifestyle and so forth. Yeah, that's there. Although it's more active than people think. If you're a tourist, you learn that it's more active. It's just not a spectator sport like it is in the United States. But it is. It is a very, a very peaceful place. And you know, when I first, my first trip back to the United States, a few months after we'd moved, I had a migraine headache for two days, really, because the sensory stim, I was not prepared for the sensory stimulation, the sight, sound, sounds, smell, everything, just grabbing at your attention. I my, my mental defense against that had atrophied, and building that up again was physically difficult. And again, not having to spend energy on that here in this, again, this awesome town that I'm in, the very few people outside Portugal now, enables me to have more concentration and more deep thought. And I think access sort of a higher percentage of my brain, not a metal Scarlet, your handsome Lucy kind of way, where I'm bending spoons or anything, but nevertheless, you know, it's, it's, it's deeper thought.

Mike O'Neill 17:47

Well, Mike, your deeper thought comes through loud and clear on your LinkedIn post. I read your post. I don't scan them. I read them. It's clear to me that you give thought to these posts, and it's very clear to me that they're not just brought off top of your head. You deliberate. It would appear that being said, you shared with me at one point that you wrote a post in Portuguese, and the effect that that had on Portuguese business leaders, business owners. Can you speak to that?

Mike Blake 18:27

Yeah, so, um, you know, in in Portugal, I suspect other countries too, I just haven't tried it yet. You know, the the they when they're on the internet, they expect to see English and social media is, for the most part, an English dominated medium. I had to look really hard for influencers that are in Portuguese, even harder for European Portuguese, because Brazilians outnumber Portuguese like 10 to one or 20 to one or something. And we started, we've started translating some, and we started upgrading some of my posts into articles, and we've hired professional translators to put those into Portuguese. I'm not qualified to do that yet. And, you know, from a marketing perspective, it started generating and it generates results. It generates inbound leads every time we do it. Not because I think the content is so profound. I certainly appreciate your your your comments and readership, but I think again, just just the fact that somebody, somebody's trying to meet them where they are, and, you know, getting into brass tacks and business development in a Leadership isn't isn't that a match that everybody teaches. You know, meet people where they are, don't expect them to come to you. And the most fundamental way you can meet somebody where they are is to present content in their language. They don't have to. To click the Translate button, they don't have to get out of dictionary. They don't have to engage the different part of your brain that uses foreign language as opposed to native language. And also, I think there's a lot of I think there's a signaling effect that you're showing respect to the local culture that you know I'm going to make the effort, whether I knew it myself, or I'm going to pay somebody to do it, to again, communicate at the level that is convenient to them, and sending a message that, look, I know I'm a guest here, and I'm I'm delighted that I'm a guest, and I try to do the equivalent of clearing the table and making dinner and making sure my bed's made every day in the guest house.

Mike O'Neill 20:48

I love that example, Mike, we've had yet another conversation on your role doing business evaluations, and part of that is assessing bench strength. But what I'm mindful of is that when you begin your work with a client, and you approach it with curiosity, you approach it from a kind of a non judgmental but you approach it with the thoroughness in which you go about doing what you do, it seems to me that, yes, you're going to be asking very hard questions, questions they may not want to answer, but by approaching them with a sensitivity for who they are and where they're coming from, it would seem to me that when you come back with a business valuation, it would seem to me, there's more a readiness to accept what you're saying and not reject it just because Fill in the blank. Does that make any sense?

Mike Blake 21:44

Yeah, it does. I mean, you know, I think when you're performing an appraisal, really any kind of analysis, its validity, its credibility, is only as good as the nature and scope of the questions you ask. And you know, I'll, I'll give you, I'll give you an example, kind of, where I really learned this by accident. Actually, my first ever case is an expert witness. I don't do that anymore because I suck at it. I tell people, the best way I can help you win your case is not to try to help you win your case. But the first case that I did was, was a restaurant matter, chain of restaurants in Atlanta. And, you know, I did my analysis, I said the values this, and the opposing expert did their analysis, said the values why, and we won. And you know, as often happens, the the attorneys will interview the jurors to find out kind of you know, what led to their decision. What, what? What did they like, not like? And they said, your expert, when ate at the restaurants, the other expert didn't, you know, so, you know, the fact that I just the fact that I had receipts, just this, just the fact that I went or five restaurants. I had five lunches at the restaurants and, and, you know, again, it was, it was the jurors. It was a juror saying, you know, you, you bothered to go, yeah, you bothered to see if the restaurants were actually there. You could actually speak intelligently about, did you like the food? Was the service Good? Did a rat run across the floor while you were there? Was there parking right, that sort of thing. And that taught me that asked that that that credibility comes from asking questions. If I can add on this please. You know, I ask a lot of questions now, to the point where I've started to give clients T shirts that say they've survived a high score, strategies valuation. Because I really, I really do drag them through the ringer, and I get, I do get clients that complain, like, why do you need to ask all these questions. I said, Well, I'll tell you what. You go through the questions, any question you don't think is relevant to the valuation, you just tell me, and invariably, they come back and they say, yeah, these questions are all relevant, right? So you know they they know it, and that's what, that's what gives the credibility.

Mike O'Neill 24:26

Mike, you know, I'm a fan. One of the things I have admired about you is your capability to do business valuations in a variety of of industries, to put a value on something like computer code, for example. I would have no idea how that would work. I am going to ask you to reflect on you know, the theme of this podcast is I ask each guest at least share an example where either they or a client got stuck. How would you like to field that question? Do.

Mike Blake 25:00

Yeah, you know, I get stuck in a lot of valuations, actually, and I think that's a good thing, because when you get when you get stuck, it means the data is telling you that something's missing, or the data is telling you that there's something there that I haven't fully that haven't fully considered, and I have developed an instinct to know whether I should be stuck or Not. And you know I've now I'll tell you what the best weapon I have in my arsenal, intellectually, is a good night's sleep. I can't tell you how many valuations I have solved because I just got tired of banging my head. I stop at 10 at night. I go probably play Pac Man for a couple of hours, and then I fall asleep, and then in the morning, I look at it again, and the number it just comes right to me. Or what I'll do is I'll start writing the report. And I've discovered, as I write the report, because it forces me to think, step by step, oh, that's what I've missed. That's where I've sort of, that's our sort of figured it out. If I may, I'd like to add another answer this, and you may have seen actually I posted on this. Here's another incident, incident where people get stuck, and I like to think that I help them, and that is to tell people when they really are stuck. Yes, you know, sometimes, sometimes there's no good solution to your problem, sometimes your business is just not sellable right now. Or sometimes you signed a bad contract and you got bad legal advice, you chose not to use a lawyer, and you're just stuck, and you got to live with it, and and, and you just got to learn from it for the next time. And I wish I could figure out a way to charge this, but a lot, but many times I tell clients not to hire me because I won't be able to make a difference. I know that there's, they're stuck by a bad contract there. They've got a they've got a bad business partner, but they didn't write a Buy Sell agreement. Yes, right? And they hope that if, if they show their partner my valuation, that that business partner will magically say, oh, yeah, you can buy me out at that price, when, in fact, that shareholders gonna say, you know, look, there's nothing in our shareholder agreement that says I have to work so you can do all the work, but I'm gonna take 50% of the dividends, and if you wanna shut it down, that's fine. I'm really no worse off. And, you know, telling clients that, telling clients that they are stuck and they're sort of beat and the and the answer is to the the getting stuck on part, is to simply work your way through and start over. I think that's, I think that's useful advice. It isn't talked through enough, because there's so much toxic positivity on the internet that tells you can do anything you want if you just want it hard enough, if you just pray enough, or if you just if, if you just wake up positive and deny that negativity exists and and the world doesn't work like that. Sometimes, sometimes the bad guy wins.

Mike O'Neill 28:35

I cannot believe how fast our time together is flown by. I do want to make sure, though, I give you an opportunity to kind of reflect. I kind of queued up our conversation about facing major transition, and I guess what I would ask, if you were to use that as the context, what might be a kind of a practical mindset, or maybe even a strategy that you would offer our listeners, leaders who are facing a major transition,

Mike Blake 29:06

that no transition comes without sacrifice or cost. As happy as I am here and I would, I would do it all over again, 100 times out of 100 without a millisecond of thought, I sacrificed quite a bit to get here, and to some extent I just, I just can't talk about it. It's inappropriate for me to talk about it. I had a good professional gig going, and it was a wonderful opportunity that was given to me, and I worked with people that I really cared about, a team that I cared about and still care about, and I had to own the fact that it was my decision that I was creating the disruption. And I. Uh, that I was I was putting myself and my family out on an immense limb to do this. I think a lot of people get stuck to use your theme, because they're trying to find the costless solution. They're trying to find the risk, free sacrifice, free trade off. And again, the world often doesn't work that way. Sometimes, sometimes you just have to look in the mirror. You have to look in your your coach's face, your spouse's face, and say, I'm either willing to pay this price or I'm not. And you know, sometimes I do that. You know, one of the things I've done with my own vernacular, I work very hard to no longer say I don't have time for this. I say, I say, I'm not willing to give up what I would have to give up in order to make this happen. And people, at first found that very jarring, because I was basically telling in some cases, like, you're not as important as this other thing that I've got but But over time, they've told me, I respect the heck out of that because you're, you're being, you're being entirely honest. And also I know, I know you're, you're not saying what I need from you is not unimportant. It's just less important than something else. And you're making a conscious, thoughtful effort, or thoughtful act to to make that trade off.

Mike O'Neill 31:27

Mike. In closing, I want to invite our listeners, if today's conversation has challenged you to think more globally or perhaps more strategically, pay attention to that. Listen to what Mike has just shared the ability to pivot, to recalibrate and to stay relevant in changing markets. It isn't just about geography. It's about leadership. Mike, thank you so much for sharing a portion of your story and your perspective of navigating change with clarity and purpose. For folks who want to connect with you or learn more about your work, what's the best way for them to do

Mike Blake 32:05

that? No, I'm not hard to find. You can find me at, on LinkedIn, Instagram, threads, Facebook, at, at unblakeable, and the website is high score strategies.com.

Mike O'Neill 32:19

Perfect. We're going to put that in the in the show notes. So again, thank you for sharing your story. And I also want to invite our listeners if something that Mike has said has sparked something in you, maybe a transition that you're navigating, or leadership challenge that's kind of had you feeling stuck. I want to invite you to something a little different. It's called a game plan, strategy call. It's not a discovery session. It's a focused two hour coaching conversation where we're going to work through one leadership challenge together. You're going to walk away with some fresh insight, greater clarity and a meaningful next step forward. So there's no pitch, there's no pressure, just real coaching. If that's something you would benefit from, have that conversation with me, just find that link in the show notes as well. Mike again. Thank you for sharing who Mike is, and to everyone listening. I hope this episode has helped you get unstuck and on target. Thank you for joining us for this episode of get unstuck and on target. I hope you gain insights to help you lead with competence and drive your organization forward. Remember, at bench builders, we're committed to your success, your leadership excellence and your strategic growth. If you've enjoyed our conversation today, please leave a review rate and subscribe to keep up with our latest episodes. This show really grows when listeners like you, share it with others. Who do you know who needs to hear what we talked about today? Until next time, I encourage you to stay focused on the target and continue to break new ground on your leadership path. You

Speaker 1 34:24

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