The Climb | Stories With Traction Podcast

SHOW NOTES:

SUMMARY: In this episode, Eric Curtis and Matt Zaun talk about Eric’s adoption story and how climbing a physical mountain led him to climb another kind of mountain.

ERIC CURTIS: Eric is the CEO and Managing Partner at Curtis Strategy.

For more info on Eric:
LinkedIn
Website

MATT ZAUN: Matt is an award-winning speaker and storyteller who empowers organizations to attract more clients through the art of strategic storytelling. Matt’s past engagements have catalyzed radical sales increases for over 300 organizations that range from financial institutions to the health and wellness industry.

Matt shares his expertise in persuasion with executives, sales professionals, and entrepreneurs, who he coaches on the art of influence and how to leverage this for profits and impact.

For more info, check out Matt Zaun HERE. 

 

*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors

 

Matt Zaun

In April, I did a podcast episode with my phone called the inferiority complex of leaders.

I found this discussion to be fascinating. Mike shared his adoption story with me and insights that he learned on his journey to becoming a business leader.

I highly recommend you check out this episode. In fact, I will include the link in the show notes. After the conversation that I had with Mike, he highly recommended that I have Eric Curtis on the stories of attraction podcast since Eric also has an interesting story regarding adoption.

So I'm excited because today I'm joined by Eric Curtis. Eric is a CEO and managing partner of Curtis strategy.

Welcome to the show, Eric.

 

Eric Curtis 

Thanks, Mike.

 

Matt Zaun 

Great to be here. I appreciate it. And I appreciate your time. Let's dive right in.

 

Eric Curtis 

So you had mentioned to me several years ago, you climbed a mountain.

 

Matt Zaun 

So take us through what it's like to climb a mountain.

 

Eric Curtis 

Yeah, so a little more than several years ago, it was in 2005, I was working in the banking industry at the time doing commercial real estate finance.

And during my weekends, I would go. Mountain climbing and ice climbing and just, you know, really enjoyed mountaineering and decided that I wanted to climb the highest mountain in North America.

And so, scheduled my time to climb Denali in May of 2005. And it was an amazing trip. were on the mountain for 21 days, took 19 days to go up.

Obviously two days to come down pretty quick. And it's just, you know, one of the goals I had set for myself and it was one of the probably most transformational moments that I had.

You know, as the only thing you really have to do all day is hike, sleep and eat, right? And so you have a lot of time with your thoughts.

You have a lot of time to just, you know, be present with yourself and think. And so it was also a big discovery, self discovery journey.

me as well while I was climbing. But it was great. flew into Anchorage, Alaska, made our way up to Talketna.

We took what I'll consider the scariest plane ride I have ever taken from Talketna on this five passenger beaver airplane.

I believe it was onto the glacier at 7,000 feet. And as you're flying through Denali Pass, which is kind of this V-notch in the mountain, you do this really fast descent and land on a glacier.

So that was kind of the welcome to the mountain ride that you get, little bit of a roller coaster effect with the drop coming through the pass.

And then as we landed on the glacier, we got set up and we figured out what we needed to do and cashed some of our gear at base camp, specifically some beer and spirits.

In case we did summit, there were some celebratory drinks waiting for us when we got back. And then the next day we woke up and we started our hike up the mountain and it took us quite a while to get to 14,000 feet to take several days to get there just to make sure you're acclimatizing if you're doing it mountaineering style.

And along the way as we're going through all these camps from 7,000 to 7,800 to 11,000 to 14,000, I was doing a lot of journaling.

And just typical journal writing, you start with writing about the weather and what you did that day and if you keep writing, it tends to morph into wherever your mind takes you.

my mind always took me to the fact that I was adopted and did I want to find out who my parents were.

And that started quite a bit of self discovery and discussion with myself. self around whether or not I wanted to take that leap and figure out who my adopted parents were and what that all looked like.

Because up until that point when I climbed McKinley I was about 30 years old. And so I think it was probably the point in my life where I realized it was the right time I had a good job, had started a family, and I knew enough about, I thought I had knew enough about myself until I decided to go through that journey, that process, that really originated out of that climb on Denali.

And after 14,000 feet where you get the most amount of time, you get to spend about five days there, climatizing, you're not journaling anymore as you go up the mountain, you know, you're trying to get off it as quick as possible because you start to go to 17,000 feet and then 20,000 feet.

120 at the summit. It was very little time to journal, plus you don't really want to carry that weight up there.

So that's something I cashed at 14,000 camp. then, you know, as I got off the mountain and was able to reflect back on that journal and that time I had spent with myself, I realized that was something I had to pursue.

But I think I dragged my feet for a little bit when I got back home in making the move to find my birth parents.

But when I did it, it was such a great experience.

 

Matt Zaun 

Wow. Okay. I have so many questions, lots on pack with what you said. So let's talk about the physical climb and then we'll talk about the figurative climb regarding regarding your parent piece.

So as far as the physical climb, you'd mention the highest mountain in North America. So how does this compare?

 

Eric Curtis 

I think a big visual that people have is Mount Everest. Is this similar in scope to an Everest? So Mount Everest is about 29,000 feet and McKinley is roughly just over 20,000 feet.

So the difference on McKinley is that you do not need to use oxygen like you do on Everest. There's still a lot less oxygen at the top of Mount McKinley, so you're moving a little slower, taking a lot of deep breaths to kind of keep up with yourself as it gets physically exhausting.

 

Matt Zaun 

Because lot of cost is huge.

 

Eric Curtis 

That's a real life.

 

Matt Zaun 

So 19 days. So was there a lot of training that went into this?

 

Eric Curtis

There was a lot of training. I live in the Boston, Massachusetts area and I would make my way up to Mount Washington, which is the highest mountain in New England.

And you know, I'd be the guy I'd tone a sled up the hill with a backpack full of bird seed for weight.

And then that was on the weekends. During weekdays, I was that weird guy on the stair master in the gym with hiking boots and 60 pounds of bird seed and a backpack and the hiking for one to two hours on the stair master.

So there was a lot of physical training and preparation that went into it because as you're hiking, you have a backpack on it.

Maybe there's 40 pounds in there, 50 pounds, but you're also carrying a sled and that might have 80 to 100 pounds in that because you need to be able to carry the fuel for the stoves and you've got food for several weeks and then you've got all your clothes and so that all that stuff kind of weighs up and so each person had their own their backpack and their sled and then you're hiking with that stuff but the other part that is just as challenging as hiking when stuff is coordinating on a rope team because you're tied into three to four other people on a rope because you're walking

a cross a glacier that has crevasses. So if there's like a small snow bridge over the crevasse and somebody falls in, it's up to the rest of the rope team to kind of self arrest to stop that person from falling deep into the crevasse.

And then you need to know how to get out of that because you've got a, you know, 120, 150 pounds a gear attached to you.

So you have to get out of that stuff and then make your way up the rope. And so there's a lot of preparation and training that goes along just to make sure that you know how to navigate some of the challenges that might be on the mountain.

 

Matt Zaun 

So you climbed it. I believe you mentioned you were 30 years old when you climbed it. Correct. So was there anything in your upbringing or your teen years that positioned you to have a desire to climb or the outdoors or to have a lot of physical activity?

 

Eric Curtis 

Was there anything that you look back to and say, this is what started to spark in me to do this grueling of an activity?

Well, I I went to Norwich University and it's up in central Vermont area and we did a lot of hiking in the mountains there with some of the groups that I was involved in.

And I think that's what got me started and in post-graduation I wound up, you know, rooming with one of my friends from college and we would go hiking and scuba diving every weekend to some extent.

And so I think that's where it just, you know, it went from a fun hobby to I want to do more of this at a different level and that escalated pretty quick.

 

Matt Zaun 

Wow. Okay.

 

Eric Curtis 

So then you get to the mountain and did you expect to be unpacking elements of your early childhood while you were like, no, not at all, not at all, mean, I went there thinking I was going to have, you know, have fun on the mountain and that was it.

think my mind was a blank slate with regard to anything. you know, regarding my background or things like that.

like I said, you have a lot of time with yourself and as you're just kind of hiking for hours and hours and hours, you know, a lot's going through your head.

I think that's maybe where I kind of landed on it.

 

Matt Zaun

But you took journals, right, and pens. did you, were you journaling prior to this?

 

Eric Curtis 

It was the first time you had started journaling. No, I mean, I've done some, you know, some early morning journals or, you know, sitting on the deck with a cup of coffee kind of journaling, but nothing where it was kind of consistent in my life.

But on the climb, it was very consistent up until point where I wasn't able to do it. But yeah, I would say I was journaling every day because again, you have plenty of time when you're at camp, whether you're in your tent or kind of hanging outside.

I had to think through stuff and capture that. like I said, I didn't intend to start it. The journal I bought was for capturing day one in the mountain, day two, day three.

what were those things like? What was the weather like that here, avalanches, things like that. But it quickly went the other way.

 

Matt Zaun 

So I personally have found journaling to be incredibly helpful.

 

Eric Curtis

agree.

 

Matt Zaun 

But it was really inspired by my wife, my wife telling me again and again, and again, the journal. So I, for many years, I've battled insomnia in some degree, some way shape or form.

And I, for me, it's, I don't have difficulty falling asleep. It's staying asleep. So I would fall asleep for couple of hours.

And then I'd get up and then I'd just be up the whole night, couldn't get back to sleep. And she was the one that said, why don't you get out of bed, right out your thoughts?

 

Eric Curtis 

Because for me, it's a racing mind.

 

Matt Zaun 

My mind races, I just, I can't shut it off. And getting words out on paper radically transformed my sleep pattern, which I'm sure everyone listening could agree like major quality of life spike in that regard, because I'd rather be hungry than sleep deprived.

absolutely hate being sleep, and that was what started me on the path of journaling, and then I realized journaling can be really good at business as well, because I could be way more creative just getting ideas out.

And then going back and editing and doing the organizational piece to it. So I'm just, I'm imagining this picture right now where you're climbing, climbing, but then you have time to stop, to pause, to reflect clearly the great outdoors, stunning beauty around you, which is probably more inspirational to journal.

So then you start journaling and it transitions to basically your adoption story, is that right?

 

Eric Curtis 

Yeah, well, just the The dilemma of, you know, I was adopted, do I want to see if I can find my birth parents and learn who they were?

And that was the big kind of pivotal transition.

 

Matt Zaun 

So take us rewind a little bit and we'll go to that moment about finding your parents. So let's rewind to the moment that you found out you were adopted.

What was that experience like?

 

Eric Curtis 

Well, I was really young. mean, maybe four, five, six, somewhere in that range, you know, I grew up with the most loving family and they were pretty good about telling me I was adopted from the point that I could understand and have a conversation.

know, they even, I even remember getting a book called Why Was I Adopted. And so they were very forthcoming and, you know, we're very happy to talk about it at any point in time.

But I think I was so young when I first learned about it, that I didn't. I didn't know how to process it.

I didn't know what it was. didn't know what it meant, because I was very young, like you're five years old and what is adoption.

That's a really hard thing to comprehend when for that period of time, five, six years, you've had your mother and your father.

But they're just your adopted family, not your birth family. that was something that really didn't dawn on me probably until high school college after college, as that became more prevalent.

yeah, that was the starting point for when I first learned about it.

 

Matt Zaun

What kind of feelings did that provoke, recognizing that you were adopted? Anything that you can point back to?

 

Eric Curtis 

I think that the biggest emotions probably happened in high school. Um, nothing that I remember from, you know, being really young, but from high school,

I struggled with anxiety quite a bit, and I didn't know what it was connected to. I just thought I had anxiety, I had trouble being in classrooms, and the older I got, I think between sophomore and junior and senior year, the more anxious I got between each years, if there was any kind of formal setting, or I had to do a presentation, I got really uncomfortable, social settings, I got really uncomfortable, and I didn't really understand why, and then in college it was less of a factor, because I went to a military school or university, and I think that had so much structure in it that I didn't really have time to think about the anxiety or those types of things, but it would rear its head every every now and then, but then as I got out of school and I entered the workforce, I think it, you know, in my in my 20s it became

And just more prevalent for me that it was an issue and I didn't know what it was connected to.

I don't even think I knew what it was connected to until my mid-30s when I started to kind of really do more journaling and I guess you'd call it more self-discovery work.

But yeah, it was something that felt always helped me back, is having that anxiety and now I can look back and say that that probably had a lot to do with some identity things that I was going through at a young age and maybe that was as a result of being adopted.

 

Matt Zaun

You know, one of things that always amazes me is, and one of the things that I've had the opportunity to do, I feel very blessed to do, as I do a tremendous amount of travel, I have spoken in almost every U.S.

state, every industry that you can imagine. Very, very, very successful individual. that I rub shoulders with and it always amazes me that everyone has some sort of an inferiority complex or something in their past that they need to grapple with.

And a lot of it's tied back to early childhood trauma, early childhood stories. And that's why I think it's so important when we're talking about self-discovery to do some deep, deep story work.

And a lot of clients that I work with or see sweet executives, so very polished, very put together, successful, very organized.

But it always amazes me that they don't truly start processing their early childhood and the stories until they're in their mid 30s or their early 40s when they can really step back and say, you know what, there's some reason why I do what I do.

So for instance, I was working with a CEO not too long ago that would have these explosive bouts of anger and tear into a state.

to start screaming at them. It was tied back to an early childhood experience with his father screaming relentlessly at him.

So here you have a very successful person, someone that we would probably put on a pedestal, very well put together.

yet behind the scenes, he continues to lash out at his senior leaders.

 

Eric Curtis 

it was all tied back to his early childhood trauma.

 

Matt Zaun 

So I'm saying that because I think that that T word we run from, and I think a big reason, at least I date for quite some time, because whenever I heard the word trauma, I was thinking the capital T trauma, where people go and have horrific instances of war and all like horrible car accidents like trauma in that way.

But I do think there's many other elements of trauma when it comes to our past. So I just want to talk a little bit more about this, because you mentioned the verbiage a few times self discovery.

just mentioned about story work and early childhood trauma. If someone's listening to this episode, that they've come to the realization they have something, you mentioned anxiety, so maybe they have anxiety, maybe they have anger issues, whatever it is.

What would you recommend that person does to start some type of self-discovery, even if it's not taking 19 days off from work and climbing them out?

What would they start to just, where would the journey begin of self-discovery in your mind?

 

Eric Curtis 

So I think, as I mentioned, know, journaling on McKinley was probably like a very big pivot point for me in that I started doing a lot more self-discovery after that.

And I think part of that was just due to like in my early to mid 30s, a lot of things were a challenge, right?

starting my own business, that business getting hit by the 2008, 2009, market crash, and then starting another company and things like that.

know, I started I started to experience a lot, emotional on the family side, could have kids going through the adoption journey, and then on the business side, going through some pretty big ups and downs.

what I learned was that the certain things that I held against other people, whether that be my parents growing up or a situation that had occurred to me, had two sides of the story.

It had a positive and a negative. And the challenge that I think I had was I was only seeing the negative, which either kept me in a state of depression or sadness or anger about a particular issue.

And it wasn't until I was able to look at both sides. And so if I had some issue, let's say, around my father growing up or something like that, was able to kind of listen to

out all the things I held against him. But I never forced myself to look at all the things he gave me, right, and all the things I was thankful for.

And that really made a huge difference. And then looking at all the areas that I was angry at him about and recognizing where I do that in my own life helped me really to kind of like bring myself together with him and our relationship got a lot better.

Not that it was bad. I just didn't hold any kind of grudges anymore because I could see both sides of the story.

I think that's probably the most important thing that I utilized as a way of looking at trauma differently. Because you don't want to play the role of the victim.

You don't want to use it as an excuse, right? The best thing to do is look at it as something that strengthens you.

But usually because we see it as a trauma or something like that, you know, we don't realize. that maybe we're mentally in comfort, you know, maybe, maybe because of the trauma was so bad, it gave us purpose in life.

And with our careers now structured around something related to that trauma. And so I think looking at it from two lenses, and obviously it's hard to look at when you're in the moment, if that trauma is happening to you, maybe you're losing your house because of financial loss or something to that extent, like that's a really hard thing to stop and say, hey, what are the positives of this, right?

So I think it's only when you have time and perspective to be able to reflect back on it, because then you start to understand what the strengths that that moment gave you.

Because if you're always mired down in the negative, you're living in the state of despair, right? And if you're always looking to the positive, you're living in the state of elation, right, and you make just silly decisions in that state as well.

And so bringing that kind of balance perspective was probably the number one thing that helped me.

 

Matt Zaun 

I really appreciate you sharing that, especially the two sides of every story. I think a lot of people have heard that.

But you mentioned about focusing so much on the negative side to the story. think everyone does that. I think it's really important to think about that more.

So I appreciate you sharing it. One of the things that I found helpful and I don't know if any counselors listening would be horrified with what I'm about to say.

But whenever I experience really difficult circumstances in business, I gamify the process and make a game out of it.

So sales can be very challenging at time going out and doing the whole sales process. So how do you gamify that process, right?

How do you make a game out of getting notes, right? So that kind of gamification. One of things I do regarding the two sides of every story is I do gamify it in a way, which what I'll do is imagine, imagine if you had to play the person that you're angry about, like you had to play their part in a movie.

So you're the actor. you're going to play their part, actors would sit down, they take it all in, they think about the element of that person's story, maybe their background, why they have the anger that they do, or they're acting in a certain way that they are the different behaviors.

And I feel like it's almost like you end up walking in that person's shoes, and it kind of turns the negative to not necessarily a positive, like it's not like you're flipping from negative positive in that round, because the person might still be doing frustrating things, but you can kind of see their side to the story.

So I found almost the gamification, if you will, to that piece has been helpful to me.

 

Eric Curtis

That allows you to change the psychology around the issue into that gamification, which makes it kind of more indurable to enter into.

 

Matt Zaun 

I like that approach. Well, I mean, everyone listening to this is frustrated at someone or many people, right? There are people, whether it's

family whether it's close colleagues that we're just we get really frustrated about the way the person acts the way they respond different elements of behavior so I think it is really important to how do you walk in that person's shoes and I think sometimes we hear statements or things that are cliche we kind of stiff-arm that notion like oh walk in someone's shoes like what does that mean like I've heard that a million times well how would you gamify that process to walk in that person's shoes figuratively speaking to try to really tap into their psychology and go from there so that's been that's been helpful so I appreciate you mentioned that so let's let's talk about the figurative climb elements we talked about the physical climb and now you have a figurative climb ahead of you because now you need to figure out are you actually going to go out and pursue meeting your biological parents so take us through that all right just to kind of go back to the gamification I did kind of what you just said is I broke it into step

 

Eric Curtis

and tried to take just step one. And I think as I got off McKinley, I left there pretty resolved that I did want to find my birth parents.

And so step one for me was knowing that I was adopted through Catholic Charities was to reach out to them to figure out how does this whole thing work, right?

Because at that point, I'm not asking them to go find my parents. What I'm doing is I'm trying to figure out what's the process even look like to realize if I want to go through that or not.

so I spoke to this lovely woman at Catholic Charities in Boston and asked her to do a search to see if she could find my birth father, my birth mother, and hung up the phone.

And that was that. I want to say it was maybe six months later that I got a letter saying we have news on your case, please give us a call.

And so, I wanted to reach him back out to Wendy, I got the charities and she, you know, it's been a while, but I still remember her name and the conversations.

And she had said, we've found your birth mother and we have not found your birth father. And so I said, okay, great.

she didn't ask, would you like us to reach out to her? And, you know, it's a lot of decision-making on the call, but I just said to Helen, and it said yes.

And so they wound up sending her letter and she called them, I believe, right away. I got back to them and so Wendy called me and said, you know, your mother got the outreach, I spoke with her.

She does not want to meet right now because she is going through treatment for cancer. And I want to say that was in two...

2006, 2007 and so I didn't think anything of it at the time and you know I could understand why someone doesn't want to talk or meet anybody if they're if they're going through cancer that's kind of a lot to bear and and so you know years went by maybe maybe four or five years and you know I said hell with it I gotta I the older I got the more I had a craving to know and I think it's because I like I recognize that part of my identity issues or some of the anxiety in the past was tied to this and and I realized that I need to do some discovery there and figure out what was about this big unknown gap and I just 13 that I reached back

out to Wendy, and you know, decided, hey, listen, I want to try reaching back out. And so she did, and she had found out that my mother had passed away and at a very young age.

And she was 16 when she had me. And so, you know, very lucky that I was given up for adoption and, you know, for the decisions that she made.

But what Catholic Charities did say when I was on the phone that they're delivering the bad news was that, you know, her name was Jennifer.

She was from this particular town on the North Shore in Massachusetts. And she was a hairstylist. And that's all we can tell you, because it's a closed adoption.

Well, Google, Google took care of the rest, right? Those three facts and her, I found the news article about her passing and that she had married man that's not by

other, his name is Giuseppe, and just one wonderful man, I reached out to him as a letter. And so I kind of put myself in his shoes for a second, like, what's it going to be like to receive a letter?

Like, he might not even know I exist. And, you know, you reach a let, you know, after somebody passes, you know, you might have fraud, people reaching out and stuff like that.

So I wrote this, this thank you letter, and, you know, condolences letter, and then put the most like crappy picture of me and my family in there.

And, and while getting a quick response from my half-sister, who I didn't know I had a half-sister, and that started the whole journey.

and so I wanted a meeting with my half-sister at a cafe. And it was the, it was the, the most amazing, strangest experience I've ever had, where two hours went by and five minutes,

minutes. And it was like, you know, you have those friends where you've known each other forever, but you haven't seen each other for 10 years.

And then you get together and you pick right up where you left off. When we met, it was like, we had known each other our whole lives and we picked up where we left off.

And I think that's where, like, this whole like identity thing started coming in. And like, she was the female version of me.

She was six years younger, but we talked the same, we moved the same, we looked the same. It was, it was like looking at a female mirror of myself.

It was unbelievable experience. And like that moment I started to realize like I was getting bits and pieces of who I was.

And that had all started to come through. And like, I still can't put into words, like the emotions that I went through, because I like, I thought like just, oh, it was a hard decision to determine whether I wanted to find my birth family.

was a hard decision. an emotional one to kind of reach out to Catholic Charities. then it was like an emotion that I didn't understand when I found out my mother had passed away, my birth mother.

And then like when I met my half sister, like I can't even comprehend the emotions. wife would always comment when I came home that I was just like the space cadet sometimes because like I was processing so much and getting to meet other members of my family.

 

Matt Zaun 

All right, so there's a few things in this story I'm envisioning. So first Wendy, I just imagine this incredible sitting behind a desk answering calls helping people because she answered the phone every time you called was Wendy, right?

I find that really just fascinating. She seems like an awesome person. The mother piece to me, it almost sounds like it's like a devastating ending to a story.

It's like we're watching this movie, we really wanted to end like a positive note, but yet you don't get that closure.

So was this a significant blow when you had found out that you weren't going to meter, take us through that.

 

Eric Curtis 

I'm sure that was an emotional roller coaster. Yeah. Again, when I found out, was like, oh, didn't impact me as much the day I found out as much as I think it started to impact me more and more the more family members I met.

What's her voice sound like? Right? Things like that. What does she look like? Luckily, I was able to find some of that stuff out, but it became more of a gap the more people I met.

So I got a little sadder each day that I didn't get to meter the more of my family members that I did meet because it turned out she was just a wonderful person.

 

Matt Zaun

Now, the half-sister piece sounds like it is triumphant. does sound like it's really really a really good part to the story.

So did that was that? And I even know if I'm using the right terminology, like a closure type piece.

What would it be when when you actually do achieve what you want in this journey, you're getting the pieces of information, you're you're almost like puzzle pieces, you're connecting them, what was your what was your half sister to you and that that part of your journey?

 

Eric Curtis 

Yeah, so I want to both a half sister and a half brother, neither of them knew that I existed.

And so when I had said that letter to Giuseppe, that was the time he told them. And so I would imagine there was quite a bit of a process on their side to unpack all of that and that they didn't know that from their mother.

And so when I had met them both, I mean, there's there's so much similarities and behavior and and just words that we use.

It's really The interesting, you know, Nick names that I would call certain people that they would call the same people Uh, it just it was unbelievable and and so we we initially kind of I met my sister at that cafe And that that Christmas my brother came home from the west coast where he lived um with his girlfriend now wife at the time and I got to meet them for the first time which was just Unbelievable experience.

It's just like the emotions coming at you and and And as we got to know each other we realized we were very similar Um, and and we became really really close Um great friend.

I talked to my sister once a week still Uh, I appreciated my my brother's wedding Uh, and and you know, we're really close and and and you know now they've moved back to the east coast And so the like this this connection to them was just you know Absolutely amazing and as i'm processing all these emotions i'm realizing that some of the words

I do things and some of the things about me are maybe, you know, because this is who my family was and, and you know, I can start to reconcile with that identity issue.

 

Matt Zaun 

You know, one of things that is very intriguing to me and I just didn't know. I just didn't know until the last couple of years, I would say, based on how prevalent this is because situations like this are not as rare as some people may think.

There's so many people that have an adoption story, whether they've adopted a child themselves or whether they've been adopted.

You know, the more circles I'm in, the more I realize that someone somewhere in some room has a story similar to yours.

Like, it's a big deal. There's a lot of people. And I think talking to Mike Thorne really changed my perspective on this, which is just how many kids, especially in the United States, if we're talking just strictly US.

How many kids need to be adopted? How many kids are adopted? It's absolutely fascinating. So can you speak to that for a moment?

I went on how common something like this is.

 

Eric Curtis 

Well, so Mike's a great guy, and I've learned a lot about leadership from just, you know, as we were on a board of directors together.

But in the past, as probably over the past three years, I've gotten more comfortable talking about being adopted prior to that.

was very quiet and closed about it, not by intention or design, just because I didn't feel I needed to speak about it.

The more I talked about it, the more my clients came up to me, the CEOs of these big companies came up and said, I'm adopted too.

I didn't realize that. And we kind of got to share our stories. you know, some stories are really good.

Some stories are really not good. but, you know, there's, there's that kind of common connection because the brother that I grew up with was adopted from another family.

My cousins adopted. So a lot. of us, you know, like just from me vocalizing and acknowledging that I was adopted, several of my clients came forward and they were the CEOs of companies which was pretty interesting and ironically enough some of my best clients.

 

Matt Zaun 

Wow. One of things I want to talk to you about is I've heard a lot of horror stories and then a lot of success stories and I think part of it is when someone realizes that they're adopted, sometimes they will lash out and try to still figure out if the parents that adopted them still love them.

So there's a lot that they'll do to those individuals to see if they still are loved or they go in another direction where they say, you know what, I'm going to conquer the world.

I'm going to do amazing things like a Steve Jobs type perspective. I'm adopted, I'm going to show the world that I'm worthy enough.

Essentially, that's it, right? That I'm worthy enough. So do you find that when people do go the quote unquote success route, that there's still an element of pain to that act, because we're still doing in order to get that I'm worthy perspective into the world?

Like, how would you, how would you recommend someone who's adopted still can be successful, can still make their mark, can still do great for society?

But yet that them being is still enough.

 

Eric Curtis 

They don't necessarily need to prove anything to someone. But we'll put recommendation. advice would you that's such a big question with so many different elements.

I mean, I think when I when I look at me and some of the things that I went through and realizing you're going to this identity crisis and really for me, that was a blank slate to do anything I wanted to do.

And you still you're you're balancing like the anger or the sadness. on this of being adopted, and maybe you don't recognize some of the emotions that you have, the bad, the negative ones are connected to that, because maybe there's this concept of abandonment or things like that, then you struggle in relationships with people, trust, anger, those types of things.

I think the more you learn, the more I learned, that I was able to find purpose from being adopted, the more I embraced some of the things, you the negatives as positives and kind of looking at those through a different light, as I mentioned before.

I think it's a tough question to answer because the success factor, I think, is driven by feeling a void, and maybe that void is creating your own identity, at least for me it was, like I wanted to

to be something. And I don't know why. I don't think I can verbalize like why did I have the aspirations to run my own company and things of that nature.

But it's something that I see with a lot of adopted people. Like the ones that I mentioned, all my brother, my cousin, and the three that are my clients, they're all the CEOs of the company.

And so maybe there's some some purpose found in that that leads people towards that pathway. Or maybe it's because we have relationship issues.

We can't have a boss. Like I knew that as I was employed, having several bosses throughout my career that I could always do things better.

I needed to be my own boss and things like that. And that that I think still holds true today is that I would struggle having.

 

Matt Zaun 

a boss. So was part of your doing the launch of the company prior to the Great Recession?

 

Eric Curtis 

So yeah, I launched my consulting firm in 2008, but I was also kind of transitioning out of my other company and it wasn't until 2013 that I had sold my other one and went both feet in my consulting firm and then quickly realized that in 2013 and 2014 and 15 that all the clients that I was working with were nonprofits and that I was being successful in the services that we provided and we were growing very, very fast and it was just me at that time and it wasn't until 2016 at the end of 2016 when I was working seven days a week and trying to really grow that I realized that I can't grow anymore past me.

I need help. need to hire some folks.

 

Matt Zaun

And that's when you transition into Curtis Strategies and what you do today?

 

Eric Curtis 

Correct, yeah. And so we specialize in strategy work from strategic planning to mergers, the org design to governance, to succession planning for nonprofits.

we're in kind of the large nonprofit sectors, which is healthcare, human services, higher education, credit unions, associations, foundations, and so kind of a very diverse group of clients that we have, with the different types of services that we provide to them.

 

Matt Zaun

So everything that you laid out for us, the story that you shared so far, just the journey in of itself, literally and figuratively, climbing a mountain and all that entails and all the pain and all piecing all this together, it sounds like it positioned you to have a tremendous amount of empathy.

Do you see how your empathy has transitioned you into this Curtis Strategies? role that you can connect with others, you can understand more of their pain, where they're coming from, and you can help guide them on their journeys better because of all the pain that you've experienced.

 

Eric Curtis 

I think it could be a combination of that, and one of the things that I always craved growing up was mentorship, whether that was just life mentorship or career mentorship and never really got it, probably wasn't mature enough to receive it, and that was always a big void for me, and so I think part of the reason I ended up where I'm at is because that's what I like to do and help other people with, is supporting them in some way, shape or form, helping them in some way, shape or That's had in life, giving me purpose in my

My career, and now I love what I do. I love working with CEOs and boards of directors on all kinds of stuff that we deliver as services.

you know, it's really helped me find my pathway. I think I was steered this way, maybe by fate, but it was just interesting see how, you know, everything transpired.

 

Matt Zaun

are some of the things that you guide nonprofits through?

 

Eric Curtis 

So give us some examples of some of the things that you would do for a nonprofit. Sure. So, if an organization, you know, every three to five years does a strategic plan with their senior leadership team and their board of directors and they need to kind of map out what the next three to five years are going to look like.

We'll come in and we'll facilitate that process and we'll help them structure what that plan looks like and how to implement it over that over that time period.

I would say when I first started the firm and maybe up until COVID, you know, that was a lot of what we were doing was mainly focused.

on strategic planning. But as the world has changed and costs have risen and technology is advancing at an unbelievable rate, we're seeing a lot of mergers and strategic affiliations that we're facilitating.

So if two nonprofits want to come together in any of those sectors, we help facilitate that relationship. So we're almost that bridge between the us versus them, right?

you know, that's usually how you start out any merger or strategic partnership is an us versus them mentality where that bridge that creates the relationship to kind of lead it to just us.

And then org design, which is really a fancy way of saying helping improve performance management productivity or restructure an organization.

A lot of nonprofits have gone through a substantial amount of growth. In the last five years, even 10 years, and what happens is, as they grow, they wind up breaking their interests.

structure, which is a good thing, right? know, congratulations, your victims of your own success. But at some point, you need to re-look at that infrastructure and put it together a different way for the next iteration of growth.

And then, like, another big one is board governance, you know, helping boards that want to improve their functionality, their engagement, their performance, how can they operate differently more effectively, what does that need to look like, or how do they go find the right people from the board if they need to add some additional candidates?

 

Matt Zaun

So I want to talk about, first, strategic planning piece, because I think, you know, in the past, it might have been a little bit easier, but to plan out, you know, three to five years.

Today, you know, you had mentioned technology is moving at such an astronomical rate. world is changing on so many different fronts.

Where do you see, let's say, one thing. Where when people come together to even think about a strategic plan, what's one thing that you see that often they do wrong that you would recommend that they should not be doing, but you see all the time with a recurring pattern or theme where you'd say, you should not be doing that.

 

Eric Curtis 

So I think it's kind of with society as a whole as well as the nonprofits I work with is like our ability to understand timelines.

So when we think about, you know, just the United States, you know, what does the United States look like, you know, we're thinking maybe next year.

Well, what does it look like in 50 years, 100 years, right? Those are two very, very different conversations. And so part of the biggest challenge that we have is pulling boards and senior leadership teams out of the day-to-day to get them to work on the organization, but at larger scale time.

Everyone says, you know, all we have to do, you know, this. Shorter plans and things like that because the pace of change is so crazy today.

That's not really acting intentionally About where you as an organization want to head in the future. Yeah, certain components or tactical things or Technology tools may change or tweak over over that period of three to five years But the general kind of sense of where you want to be and What are the realities of getting there that that stuff should remain pretty consistent?

You'll have disruptors along the way, but that shouldn't dissuade Organizations from thinking three to five years out And you'll see colleges and universities and and hospitals though They'll be thinking on their physical plant, which is a kind of like a different type of strategic planning around their their buildings and their infrastructure Are 10 20 30 50 years out Because they need to be thinking sequentially if we want to grow to the size or serve this population like what does

The buildings look like that we're going to need, because it takes five years to build something from the time you plan it and raise the money for it and maybe even seven years.

And so they're looking at master planning in a much longer time horizon. So why shouldn't the nonprofits that we work with and nonprofits around the country look at three to five-year windows?

It's just about getting maybe elevating the scale of their thinking into a bigger framework of understanding.

 

Matt Zaun 

Yeah, I like that perspective. And I'm thinking almost like a GPS, so to speak, where you're an East Coaster as well.

if I drove up north to New England and I picked you up and we were in the car and we punched in our GPS Los Angeles and now we're driving to LA.

We're going to somewhere along the line, there's going to be a bridge that's going to be out. We're going to hit an area that has major flooding.

 

Eric Curtis 

We're going to have to reroute. We're going to have to go a different way. But ultimately the goal would be to get to Los Angeles.

Angela. So I see this as you have that big picture, obviously, you're being strategic, you're being very intentional.

 

Matt Zaun

There might be some bumps along the road, but ultimately you get to your destination. So I appreciate you.

 

Eric Curtis 

That's great analogy, great analogy.

 

Matt Zaun 

Thanks. So another question that I have, I think is incredibly important is I do want to talk about the board member piece.

And I want to talk about this because I feel like I've seen this often and I want you to add light to this.

want you to give some type of advice in this regard. Being a board member of a nonprofit is different than being a board member on a company, right?

And I think that I see often there are a lot of very successful people in the business world and they want to give back.

So they say in order to give back, I'm going to become a board member of a nonprofit. And then they do that.

And they don't really know how to respond, how to act, how to lead in that capacity. So what would you recommend for for someone listening?

that maybe they're at a different chapter in their life. They really do want to give back. They want to be a board member of a nonprofit.

What would be some pieces of advice that you would give them so they can understand and recognize that being a board member of a nonprofit is different?

What would you say?

 

Eric Curtis 

Yeah, that's a great question. So when you look at being a board member of a for-profit, the board has a fiduciary obligation to the shareholders, which is usually tied to increasing shareholder value.

In a nonprofit, there's a fiduciary obligation to the organization and the individual served. Because there's no monetary gain with a third party in a nonprofit situation like shareholders.

And so I think several things that board members need to understand is that one, that there's not a lot of margin that's made in nonprofit organizations, right?

For-profit might have 20, 30 plus percent. set margins, profit margins in the organization, those don't exist in nonprofit organizations, right?

And so there's no massive pool of resources to use for a lot of things that's usually generated through philanthropy grants and things of that nature.

so I think the expectation of what resources are available needs to be understood. I think the understanding of the pace at which operate in the nonprofit communities probably going to be a little slower than the expectation and taste that would happen in the for profit.

And that may be due to part of those resources and capacity and things like that, because as you add new things to the plate in nonprofits, you're still using the same workforce versus having enough margin to hire a significant amount of people.

It's part of the reason that we're seeing a lot of mergers right now is to create some of that margin, not only to increase salaries, but to afford technology and things like that.

But... The board members understanding in a merger is very, very different. Non-profit mergers are similar in some ways in process to the for-profits with the exception of there's no valuation of the organization, meaning there's no purchase of the organization.

Someone's not coming in and handing the organization a check by the company. It's really built on trust and relationship.

And so because it's built on trust and relationship, a merger is going to happen much slower, and they're not going to have these big deal teams to do all these mergers, unless they're a very big non-profit.

might have some of that resources, but for the most part, they don't. And so the expectation of a board member that maybe had an M&A experience, mergers, and acquisitions, affiliation, in the for-profit, they need to realize that things like due that deal are going to take a lot more time because it's

it moves at the speed of trust. And, you know, that's probably a good thing in comparison to for-profits because it allows you to understand if the culture is the right fit before the deal closes and the more you're rolling up your sleeves and the longer you're working on things, the more you're bringing two cultures together as well.

So, I think there's some things that nonprofits can learn from for-profits and vice versa.

 

Matt Zaun 

But those would be some of the big things that I would recommend for members just pay attention to. I really appreciate you mentioning that.

Thank you. You've given us a lot to think about. I appreciate your time today. Thank you for this conversation.

There's a lot that I feel that I learned from you, that I was able to process with you based on you sharing your story with us, your journey with us.

There's three big takeaways that I'm going to need to think about more. I'll be honest with you. I want to walk away from this conversation.

I want to process It's more of what you said, but there's three different things I'm going to focus in on.

The first is the self-discovery element when it came to the trip that you were on. For me personally, I'm going to commit to girdling more.

I have a bunch of trips coming up myself, and I think there's time that I could be intentional carving about that time and the paper journaling.

So I'm going to commit right here, right now, that I'm going to be doing that in a month's I appreciate that point and you sharing that story with us.

The second thing I'm going to take away is I really appreciate you mentioning two sides to every story. I have found recently that I have been focusing too much on negative aspects of some of the stories in my life as it pertains to certain individuals, so I'm going to process that more.

I know that's something that I can do a better job on. And also, I do really appreciate you sharing the strategic planning piece, because I was in the same camp thinking, well, I guess,

Different camp from you, but in the same camp of people that say the world's moving so quick. on earth can we plan that for out?

really do appreciate you. You're bringing some clarity and wisdom as it pertains to strategic planning. So Eric, thank you for the conversation.

Thank you for your time. If someone wants to get more information on you, what you do, they want to reach out to you for your services.

 

Eric Curtis 

Where's the best place that they can go to get that information? Well, thanks Matt. This has been a great discussion.

I really appreciate the opportunity. If anyone wants to find out more about the work and services that we do, they can go to our website, which is CurtisStrategy.com.

And again, I appreciate it. Love the discussion and got me thinking about some things as well.

 

Matt Zaun 

So I appreciate that. Great. Thank you. And I will include that in the show notes. People can just click and go right to your website from there.

 

Eric Curtis 

Thanks again, Eric. I really appreciate your time. Thanks, Matt.