Leadership, Gratitude, and Authenticity: Frank T Ziede’s Journey to Inspiring Change

So I did auto show for three years. As a part of that, I met my mentor. I stopped talking about product a long time ago, and I started talking about people, interpersonal skills, leadership, mainly the lack of great leadership and why people matter more than any process or any product. There’s a lot of leaders in older generations now that are from the world of sports or the military.

The great thing about values and the great thing about a core belief is that your employees know how to act when you’re not around. Fatality has taught me that being altruistic, being kind is its own reward, like the stuff that I do for participants. Multiple stories came up from Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazine and all these different things, and it showed that Gen Z is the hardest working generation.

I think a lot of people in business think that the most important thing is how much you know about the product. Eq, iq, emotional, and in quotient, intellectual quotient. I always look at them as both necessary, but one is in massively short supply. There’s one thing that all champions have in common. They get shit done, so welcome to the Get Shit Done Experience.

Alright. All right. We are back at it. You are in studio with us. This is the Get Shit Done Experience. I’m your host, John Morris, and this is also called the GSDX podcast. You can find us@www.gdxpodcast.com and wherever you are consuming this amazing content. We appreciate you very much and thank you. And don’t forget to rate, follow, subscribe, and do all those little things.

It’s very helpful, you know, and I’m a very helpful person and I appreciate that you are as well. So without further ado, we got a story today of an amazing gentleman. His name is Mr. Frank Ziti. Hello Frank. Say hello. Thanks man. I appreciate the compliment. It’s great to, it’s great to see you. Great to be here.

We are very excited. He brought toys, so he brought me a, a beautiful, uh, hot wheel. Check this thing out. We got a hot wheel. It’s A BMW and by the way, I am A BMW driver. That was not planned, so that really worked out. This one’s a lot cooler than the one that I have, but mine is a white one. That’s fantastic.

Uh, so you gotta dig that. Uh, so thank you very much for that. We met through LinkedIn. This is the power of, uh, social media and this is why we love it so much because we get a chance to meet very interesting people that are doing very interesting things. And, uh, Frank, we want to get started with kind of understanding here.

Um. As I said, like you woke up one morning. Yeah. You were a child and, and you went into the kitchen. You said, mom, I think I want to be a corporate facilitator and author. Um, is that pretty accurate as to how you got your start, your start? That’s a hundred percent word for word. That’s exactly what I said.

Yeah. No, uh, first of all, it’s great to be here. I’m a big fan and thank you. I, I love, I love some of your guests too. Like Dale Dupree is on my get to know list. Well, you gotta come back next week. Be here. I well, great. Put it on the calendar. Yeah. Um, but I watched what you’ve done and I’m just grateful to have the opportunity to talk to your audience and talk to LinkedIn and anybody else that’s out there.

Um, but my name is Frank. Uh, my last name is Zdi. If it seems hard to pronounce, just think of the baked pasta. Big zdi. You can call me Big Zdi if you’d like. We love both Zdi, we love Big Zdi and Frank Zdi. There you go. And I’m, uh, originally from Arizona. I spent about eight years in Southern California.

That’s where I became a diehard Laker fan. If you don’t like the Lakers, you just don’t like winners. Um, and it’s like the Yankee effect, man. He comes in here, he is just throwing it down. Right? And I now live in Illinois because I met my amazing, changed my life. Miracle Savior Bride, whose name is Elise, like a new Elise on life.

Hello Elise. So we dated long distance for about a year and I was like, I’m coming to you. And it changed my entire life, my entire journey. Um, yeah. So, but I, I start, when I was a kid, I wanted to be an actor. I’m a movie junkie. I grew up on movies and I, I had big dreams and hopes and wants, and I went to a performing arts high school.

So I was an actor and I did a ton of plays and this is cool ’cause musicals. You saw the one with Greg Cox, right? We had Greg Cox on, he was a theater. Oh. So he was on like two episodes ago. Okay. And you know this big burly guy, he’s in business management consulting. Heck of a guy. Yeah. And I’m like, so what was your major?

And he is like, oh. Theater. There you go. I’m like, so you’re doing Shakespeare? He is like, yeah, absolutely. I was a theater major for about a week and a half, and then I’m like, I, I don’t know what I wanna do with my life, but yeah. So you were, you were up on stage doing the thing. Doing the do. There’s always savings, but it’s about way more than savings alone.

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It was a little bit longer than two than two weeks, but, uh, I went to, I left and I moved to LA and I auditioned for, and got into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, which is where Oh kidding. Robert Redford went at Danny DeVito and Paul Rudd and I did two years there. Uh, as a part of that, uh, I was trying to get my SAG card and people said, you know, if you have other skills, well, I used to be, uh, a hip hop dancer when I was a young teenager.

Okay. Yeah, you’re blowing my mind. Yeah, so I did, I did dances and concert shows and would go to clubs and stuff. And so when I went to LA I needed a SAG card and I started to dance. So I ended up getting an agent, uh, Dorothy de Otis in, in LA and I worked, I did a music video with Usher. I did a music video with Genuine, I did a music, I did, uh, the Billboard Music Awards in 1999 with Celine Dion, with the, for the Song.

That’s the way it is. Um, the Usher song was called Popular Collar, the Genuine Song. The video is online and it’s, don’t even tell me which one. It’s Oh, okay. I won’t then The Pony song? No, no, not Pony, which is his biggest track. Yeah. Okay. It’s called Ain’t None of Your Friend’s Business. Okay. Um, there’s only one white guy in the dance sequence in the middle.

That’s me. I slide between Genuine’s legs. Um, yeah, I have a do-Rag on, uh, and it’s a former life. It’s a former life. I danced. I danced for an artist called Savala, who was from Norway, who Priority Records signed her in the time of like West Coast gangster rap and quick story, we were working there. The two, the two choreographers I worked with the most were was Zero and Jamal, um, Jamal Sims is an, I think an Emmy award-winning choreographer.

Now he did Aladdin with Will Smith Oh, wow. And all these things. But I was tall. And they were tall. Um, and we’re, we’re doing this show, we’re doing a showcase for her for priority records, and we had three songs and she’s like a Britney Spears. When Britney Spears was hot. You could have heard a Britney Spears.

I mean that when she was at an all time Prime. Oh, you could have heard a pin drop for these three songs in this room, in this club in la because everyone in the Priority Records family was like, no, we are not going to do this. The exec and priority who wanted this? Was that? No, no. We have to get into the pop scene.

And it did not happen. But Savala is still out there making content music. Yeah. But it was so wild to me. Um, I worked at Universal Studios for a long time. I worked at a show there called Totally Nickelodeon with Wayne Brady. And we, he’s wife, they were improv right there at the same time. And, and uh, and yeah, I was just doing that.

That’s what I wanted to do. I I got, I got an actual real agent. I did my first audition at Warner Brothers for a television show, and I met my wife, Frank. This is ama, I mean, talk about just spiking a ball. Playing a flag right off the bat. This is, okay, so Frank, you are put together. You’re a handsome dude.

You’re sharp. You’re, you’re what? 6 2, 6 3, 6 3, 6 3. Yep. Opposing dude, right? Yep. You walk in, and by the way, you’re LinkedIn, your profile, right? You’re buttoned up. Okay. Okay. So you walk in and I’m like, this guy’s. Articulate, intelligent. The fact that you just dropped it like, like you doing acting and hip hop dancing.

Yeah. Was former life. Okay, so here’s what I need to do. The next wedding you go to. Yes. Okay. I need to be invited. I will, I will rent a busboy uniform. Nice. Or like a mare d whatever the uniform is. Yeah. I just want to be in the room. Yeah. When they’re like, alright, ladies and gentlemen, let’s hit the dance floor.

They’re, we’re gonna get it started. We’re gonna cut the cake, we’re gonna hit the dance floor. Let’s, let’s have ’em come out. And then they drop one of the genuine songs or Ussu comes on. Yeah. And here comes Frank in his suit and tie with his lovely, beautiful, uh, Elise, right? Elise, yeah. Hers out there and, uh, and all of a sudden just throws down.

It’s 100%. I don’t know if you like psychically know that, but that is the only time I dance anymore. Yeah. Is that what, because Yeah, because there’s, and now I’m at an age where everybody’s already been married because if you went to a club. If you went to a club right now Yeah. And you danced the way that you know how to dance.

Yeah. You’d be on 90 tiktoks. Yeah. That you probably don’t want to be on. So this a guy that I knew in the, in the LA dance community who actually has a lot of great dance contexts called, uh, Bradley Rapier. What’s up Bradley? And he is an Emmy nominated choreographer, but he uses dance in the corporate world for a thing called Step Into the Circle.

So he gets these corporate people that come together and he forms a circle and plays music and tries to get them to come out into the circle and dance. So imagine all these, it’s, it’s awesome. It’s awesome. It’s like a team building kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And really to get outta your comfort zone.

Yeah. Stop thinking so much of yourself and get outta your own head. Um, yeah. So. That was, yeah. Wedding dancing. Awesome. I love it. Okay. And that’s probably the only time I really dance anymore, unless it’s at home. I came, when I came to Chicago, I met my wife. We dated long distance for a year, but I came here Chicago, I still taught at Lu Conti here in town.

And I had a class that was one of the biggest sort of hip hop classes I would have at like 80 students show up for a time. Okay. But it didn’t pay well, no, I would imagine that. So I needed a job. I needed a job. And I have, I’ve had many jobs, movie theater and Arby’s and all these different things. Now, let’s not get into Arby’s here now Uhoh you, I can suck down a beef and cheddar like a tic-tac.

It’s, it’s a, it’s like, it’s a, so it’s a super roast beef. Yeah. With double beef ar beef sauce, curly fries, fresh out of the fryer. You can’t get ’em cold. Yes. And a large Dr. Pepper. And by the way, I am. I am forbidden. From having Arby’s. Are you okay? Um, it tastes so great, but apparently there’s like a chemical reaction that happens in my, in my body and my stomach.

And so we were on a road trip one time. Okay. And we stopped the place, like the stop off the highway. Was Arby’s going there? I just. Pounded down like two or three, though. I have a beef and chi or sandwiches. Yeah. Get to my sister’s house in Atlanta. She’s a, uh, a member at like LA Fitness or Lifetime Fitness or something like that.

And she’s like, well, tomorrow I’ve got a plan. My personal trainer is gonna be there and he’s gonna help us with a workout and we’ll go to the pool and my son’s playing basketball there and it’s gonna be a whole day. We’re like, okay, cool. So I’m nervous. I get about 10 minutes into the training, I start sweating profusely.

Now the guy who’s the personal trainer Yeah. Is like, apparently he’s like David Chochi from Baywatch or something. I mean, he is got like abs on his abs. Yeah. Um, and his, his chin was chiseled and, and my, my beautiful wife is, you know, not even aware that I’m in the room. Yeah. Other than the fact that the Arby’s is now starting to protrude out of my pores cheddar coming out of this.

Oh my God. It was a stench. I was offended by how I smelled and this, and the trainer’s looking at me like, dude. Like here, why don’t you go work on dumbbells over there in the corner. Right. So, uh, I love the Arby’s. I’m not allowed to, this episode is not brought to you by Arby’s. It is not brought, no, it’s brought to you by Arby’s, but it should be co-sponsored by some form of deodorant or like internal cleansing process because it sounds, that sounds great.

It sounds great. It doesn’t work for me though. Anyways, so, uh, we digress. I digress. Anyways. Yeah. Um, I needed a job. Yeah. And she got a call to do auto show, and I didn’t even know what the hell that was. It was for Mercedes. Okay. So the, the Chicago Auto Show, everybody knows it. Yes. Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

There are product specialists that stand on turntables and talk about cars. And I went in her place and Mercedes is like, where y’all only looking for ladies? Thank you. And I was like, okay. As I’m walking out, there’s a sign for a Nissan, and I sold Nissans when I was 19 years old for a year in Arizona.

And I was like, okay. I went in there, I knocked and I was like, hi, I, I know about Nissans and I can talk good and stuff. Mm-hmm. And I could talk good and stuff, you know, I was wearing like, just regular clothes. And I’ll never forget the woman from the, the agency was like, do you own a suit? And I was like, yes, I own a suit.

Yeah. And I came back the next day and that really was like a turning point. So I did auto show for three years. As a part of that, I met my mentor, a guy named Dave Sweet. I. And he, I told you this briefly, the story. He came to me after a two day event and was like, listen, you don’t know me, but I’ve got the job for you, for the rest of your life.

If you listen to what I have to say, you’ll have to turn down, work it. It’s, and this was at that young of an age? Well that, by that time I was, this was definitely later. I was 30. Okay. So you had taken the job. Yep. Started to create some mastery. Right. And then he, and then he met you and he said, I can take you next level.

And I had mentors on that side for product. I learned all about how cars work and technology and suspension and engines and infotainment technology, but, and training is very different from facilitation. This guy found me, recognized something in me, and then just became my Yoda. Okay. My Jedi. And so that led to my career that I’m in today.

It’s been 23 years. I’m a corporate trainer, facilitator full-time, and I’ve worked for to 30 different clients. Everything from automotive to high-end appliances. Big clients are like BMW, Jaguar, land Rover, Rivian, Tesla, Polestar. I’ve worked either as a facilitator, trainer or content developer, but also like Sub-Zero Wolf Cove, who’s up in Wisconsin.

I had a blessing to work for them ’cause that’s a family owned business. And talk about $20,000 refrigerators, you know, how do you position that to a client? And then, uh, other brands like Colgate Toothpaste, uh, coach Bags and Northrop Grumman. But I stopped talking about product a long time ago and I started talking about people.

Mm-hmm. So interpersonal skills, leadership. Well then mainly the lack of great leadership and why, and just got into that people matter more than any process or any product. Can you, in your own words, explain eq? Yeah, I have an idea. I have a feeling. I think I know. Sure. But this is something that you’re an expert at and you’re working on and you’re teaching and you’re studying and you’re refining.

Yeah. And um. And you know, you’re collaborating with these massively large. Powerhouse brands. Yeah. They have a lot of intelligent people. A lot of iq. Yeah. Um, but you know, the more IQ we develop, the more EQ becomes important. Yes. The more technology takes over portions of what we’re capable of doing and does it better and smarter.

Yeah. The more important EQ becomes. So can you explain in your own words what is EQ and uh, and how does it work? Yeah. First of all, what a great talking point and I’m gonna need your take on it when we’re done. Cool. Or when I’m, because I want, uh, that’s, I want it to be a dialogue, not a monologue. ’cause that’s what I do for a living.

But eq, right? Eq, iq, emotional and in quotient, intellectual quotient. I always look at them as both necessary, but one is in massively short supply. So to your point, IQs everywhere, everybody seems to be really great. And I think a lot of people in business think that the most important thing is how much you know about the product.

Like, how much do you know about this item, this thing you get? Your credibility and you get paid. Your success comes from how well do you know this widget? And then I’m gonna be clear, you do need to know the widget, but what if you know everything about the widget and you are terrible with human beings, right?

What’s the point of purpose? Who buys the widget? Yeah. Not other widgets. It’s correct. Yeah. So for me, eq, emotional intelligence is about man at the heart of it, I guess it is about being selfless. That’s where it starts. You know, you’ve, you can stop making it about yourself and make it about the person you are talking to or dealing with.

And that’s really, really hard. ’cause ego is very, uh, it feels good, it tastes good in mouth, right? It’s like it makes you feel so powerful. But the second you set that aside and say, how can I serve this participant? Or how can I serve this client? And just ask great questions. Truly listen to the answers, deliver exactly what they want the way they want.

Then you set aside your own bias, your own ego, your own wants, and you make it all about the person in front of you, even if it’s just for five or 10 minutes. So I think a lot of people have to first admit that they’re the center of their own universe. There’s a guy named Jeffrey Gitr who wrote this book called the, the, the Little Gold Book of Yes Attitude.

And I, I saw a piece of content he did one time and he said, who’s the most important person in the universe? You are the customer. What’s a typical answer? Me. Yeah. It should be. A lot of people think they’re trained, like the customer comes first. Well, I gotta tell you, there’s this big, there’s this big thing that is happening and I, you know, remember I create, so in order to create, I have to be in it.

So I have to be on it. Yep. So I have to be on social media constantly. ’cause I gotta see what’s happening. Yeah. So I, I hear this, this narrative and, you know, I’m a mental health guy, right? Yeah. I’m Me too. I’m in it dealing with it. Yep. And I, and I want to inspire people and, and so on. And I keep hearing this thing about like, you know, you gotta put yourself first.

You have to love yourself. You have to do this. And, and, um, as much as I am starting to agree with that, I still feel yucky by it because I really feel like there’s a contradiction there because I’m a faithful person too. Yep. And my face says I’m supposed to put God first. Okay. And then I’m supposed to be next.

But even in that case, you’re supposed to be humble. So I’m really supposed to put my. My, I’m supposed to put my, uh, dominion Yep. Ahead of me, which is my wife, my kids, people in my surroundings, because my, the covenant that I have with God sure is to be the master of my dominion. And the way to do that is to steward to those people.

I, I’m fu man. I don’t know what to do. That’s right. And so the way, the way that Gitr pushes that question out, he says, of course, you’re the center of your own universe. When you wake up in the morning, the world’s revolving around you. It’s not, not revolving around the customer. What, what I’ve used that gitr quote as for a long time is the faster you admit that you’re the center of your own universe, that every time you go in with any customer, client, coworker, or friend, that you have your own wants for that conversation or your own agenda in that situation.

The better you’re gonna be at acknowledging it and setting it aside. Mm. And so that’s the mindset. It’s like admit, admit, you’re first. Got it. Admit, we’re all egotistical and we’re all focused. And, and there’s a lot of survivalism, I think, in, in society. It’s like you’re on your own, figure it out. Get, you know, go get what you gotta get, but you gotta do it on your own.

So everybody is so guarded and protected. But the, the, the starting points of great customer service in my experience is, okay, let’s, let’s, let’s be honest. Making the customer come first is gonna take a lot of work. Yeah. I think a lot of people think that customer service is easy. It’s really, really hard.

It’s very hard. So you, you, if you start to admit that you’re gonna, okay, now this is heavy lifting. I really do have to put in the work. And it isn’t just as simple as what a lot of hiring managers wanna say is, you’re a human, you have a pulse, you show up on time. Cool. Go out there, go work with cover bears.

Good luck. Lemme know how it goes. Hmm. Like, give them the necessary skills, train them, inspire them, make them feel supported and in a comfortable working, safe environment. Then you’re gonna start to have an employee or a team member that looks around and goes, all right, what’s, what’s, what’s the heart of this?

The heart of this is the person that’s directly in front of me. I can’t remember the coach of, I heard Ryan Holiday talk to you other day, the coach of the, the LA Rams. But their mantra is Keep the main thing, the main thing. Um, Shaw McDermott. There you go. Yeah. And you know, that keep the main thing, the main thing.

It’s just, so if you know Christina Brady, you’re a LinkedIn guy, you should follow Christina Brady on LinkedIn. So I know his husband Leo. Yeah. With the White Sox, right? Yeah. So, or ex-husband or thing? No, no. Or I don’t know. Did something just happen? It might’ve. Oh geez. Um, well, side story, I, because I wanted to be an actor and I moved out here while I was doing all this career stuff, I became a filmmaker.

So I’ve had, uh, like seven films and film festivals across the country. Most of them are short films. We did a digital series called Black that’s on Amazon still today. That’s like a spy sort of action thriller. That’s how I know Bobby Hitz. Yeah, because Bobby was an extra in that. Yeah. Yeah. Pete Kelly was in it.

Um, and so the filmmaker side of me, that’s how I met Leo Brady. Okay. Because Leo’s a movie reviewer with movie guy.com and that’s, oh, maybe we’re thinking of a different, different person then. Christina Brady. She’s, uh, the CEO at, uh, lush. Luster. Luster, yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. We’re thinking of the same person.

Alright, there you go. The reason I brought her up though is because on a previous podcast, um, she made that point. Mm. Which was, uh, make the thing, the thing. Because I asked her, I said like, how are you managing a rollout of a company? Plus she’s in like 50 different associations. She’s a public speaker, she’s like a, a now a single mom.

She’s like doing all of these things. I’m like, how are you managing all of these things? And when you wake up in the morning, your feet hit the ground, like, what’s going through your head? And she’s very easily and quickly said, when my feet hit the ground, I, I identify the priorities. I pick the one or two, and then I make the thing the thing, and nothing else gets in the way of the thing.

That’s great. Like, so that’s very similar to what you’re, what you’re saying. Yeah. And I think that that’s a powerful thing, especially for somebody like me who’s like, Hey, there’s something shiny. Look at that. Whoa. Right. Like that is, if I could get mastery on that, I might actually get, I might be, I might become somebody if I could get that under control.

I think you’re on your way. Oh, thank you. You’re welcome. Uh, or a tranquilizer gun, that would be good too. Sure. Maybe just right in my neck. I, I, I resemble that comment. Exactly. Yeah. So you, you, you work with companies Yep. Uh, to help to install and implement this. They write the curriculum. Yeah. They might have an outside party that, let’s say, put some edits on it, put some mastery to it, or, or develops it from the ground up.

Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then they have a contract with you where they sub it out. Yeah. And then they rotate employees in to essentially you, for you to run this seminar. Yeah. You made a really interesting point, and I, I want your take on this. Okay. You talked about how companies really need to inspire Yes.

People, um. What are companies missing that they should be doing? Because I’m very much a culture believer. I believe in culture. Some people hate the word, they think it’s foolish. It’s crazy. Go in, do your job, get the hell out of there. And I gotta tell you, like I, I’m an athlete. Yeah. And the best teams that I was ever on, we had a culture.

Whereas if you hit a double, I’m gonna hit a triple Oh man. And then the, and then if I hit the triple, the guy after me was like, whoa, you watched this. I’m hitting a homer. Nice. Right. And that culture of competition caused a comradery. Mm-hmm. And we were lifting each other constantly. Yeah. And those were always the best teams.

And you get on this roll. Yeah. And the momentum just goes and it’s like the Lakers. Yeah. Or any professional team. Yeah. They might have an, uh, a decent record. They get to the playoffs if you’re hot in the playoffs and you got that momentum. Yep. And it’s like if you score 20, I’m scoring 21, and it’s how many people can we get in double digits and so on.

Like that momentum starts to kick. Yeah. It’s like this self inspiration that starts to happen. Sure. But somebody’s gotta tap into starting that. Yeah. And building that co that, that foundation, that tradition. So like how do you help companies do that? How do they, how do they achieve that? You talk, I mean, you just asked so many questions.

I know. I that Let’s start, uh, this one will be founders. Yeah. We’ll come back to the founder mentality. This is, uh, leadership tools and this is the difference between business and sports in the military. Okay. We’ll come back to that one. The founder mentality is what? You know, Howard Schultz realized, and what Steve Job realized is that you, you have to have somebody who leads the charge.

Right. The, I remember the Tennessee volunteers statue. I didn’t know what the hell the volunteers were. The vols. Yeah. And I was doing something one time in a conversation and I, I googled it and looked it up and their mantra on the statue on the college campus is be, be the light that casts the shadow.

Hmm. And that situation, the, the best leaders, the best culture, the best team have an inspirational leader at that core. And they are, they’re the motivators and they provide top cover and they make people feel empowered and they let them get out over their skis and they fail. Like Tom Peter says, reward epic failures, punish mediocre successes.

Hmm. Right. So this, this is if, when, if you’ve got a founder, and I don’t know who your coach was or I don’t know who it was on the team, or maybe it also, it doesn’t have to be the, the coach. As Steve as my writing mentor, Steven Schletske, who’s awesome. His, his thing in his book Speak of Culture, what he talks about is capital L leaders and lowercase leaders.

Yeah. So capital L leaders, yes, you’ve got the title, but anybody can be a lowercase leader and they could create the culture. It’s so much better when it comes from the founder or a founder mindset. Yeah. So let’s say you don’t have that right. Then it’s leaders just in general. And so you’re talking about culture.

So many people who, I don’t know why I’m so focused on your coasters, but I love them. You’ve, you, you could have those coaster. They’re helpful. They’re helpful. Very helpful. I’m a visual learner. Do you wanna, like, do you wanna like throw some D Do you wanna, I’m gonna need more. Do you wanna throw some zens in there and move the car?

No. Oh, but ahead here. How about remote? Remote? No. When you, you mentioned culture. How does it come from? Where does it come from? My experience, uh, heavily on the retail side, a lot of high-end retail brands, the people who were picked to be a manager. Let me ask you, why do you think they got the job as the manager?

Because they were one of the top performers, right? Which is a huge mistake, right? Tell me why. It’s a huge mistake because number one, you just took one of your best, uh, producers off of, off of the table, right? And I have found that the top producers in many cases. They just have whatever that it is, they have that it, it’s almost innate.

They don’t even know how the hell they did it, which means that they probably aren’t analyzing the systems, controls, procedures, the steps, the methods. They’re not analyzing any of that. They just literally zip their pants go to work and big time shit happens and get shit done. They get shit done. Right.

And when you put a person like that in a management role, the expectations that they have are that everyone will be able to do that a hundred percent. So they don’t know how to communicate with the bottom third or the middle third to help them to rise up. Yep. And they tend to just gravitate to the top people and commiserate with them.

Yep. That’s a hundred percent. And I’d, I we’re like-minded and that makes me feel great. This, this situation is you move them up and you didn’t give them any leadership skills. And then you leave them to your own devices and might fill the void, right? But you leave them to their own devices and all of a sudden their ego says, well, I’m the best.

I got picked to be the best. That’s why I’m here. Guess what? Everybody has to do it the way I do it. Mm-hmm. Why wouldn’t you? I’m the top performer, right? And that’s problematic because people are, you know, I look at employees no different than customers. What’s the root of the word? Customer custom. Like what are their customs and their customers are different than yours.

So you have to try to people, so this, this situation here is are you giving the leadership. And most of the time, leadership at its heart, at its core about providing circles of safety and trust and the ability to be autonomous. That top performer in no way, shape or form is in that vein. They’re not in that lane.

They don’t want that. I love this and I think you will, you will too. But this is kind of the way that I pictured it and I think I had had conversations and that’s how I arrived at it. Yeah. You know, growing up in the Chicagoland area, obviously Michael Jordan, just an absolute legend, but so was Phil Jackson.

Yeah. And so we would always talk about like, is that person a Phil, uh, Michael Jordan, or are they a Phil Jackson? Because like Michael Jordan would suck as a coach. Right. Could you imagine being the, the a 10th man on the bench Yep. For a Michael Jordan team. Yep. And your job is just to play d and shoot three pointers, like he probably looks at you like, but how are you even a professional Alpha is a player.

Kobe the same way. Yeah. If it was a player, probably not a great coach. Exactly. Meanwhile, Phil Jackson was a bruiser, did all the small stuff as a player. Yep. Had to go like overseas to play. Barely made it. Yep. Right. And, um, was like a fighter. And then found his zen, was well read, and then becomes this unbelievable leader of leaders like the, the, like the, the zen master they call them.

Yeah. So we would start to look at our sales team and we’d go, that’s a Jordan. Like we’re not putting them in a management role. What we need to do is make sure that we never lose them though. So we need to just like heavily incent them. And what we need to do at the same time is maybe like hand ’em a microphone and be like, Hey, can you just, could you just kind of describe real quick how you did that?

And then, and then put the mic in front of ’em and be like everyone else, listen real quick. Right, right. And just recognize them. Yeah. And then we would, and then we would go, that’s a Phil Jackson. There you go. That’s the person that was like in first left last. Yep. Always hit all their metrics, had all their stuff in on time, followed the company process.

Wasn’t the top performer, but wasn’t the worst performer. But they, they seemed to gra, they seemed to, everyone kind of gravitated towards them. Like they were like a safe person. Yeah. For everyone. That was always the person we were like, that’s, that’s a great manager. And you need to be careful here getting me started on anything to do with the Lakers.

Alright. Because I’m a diehard Laker fan. Anybody who knows me knows that I love the Los Angeles. Wait a minute, the World champion Los Angeles Lakers. There you go. Uh, also Boston sucks. Um, the, I could just picture you like in the, uh, the Fletch Oh, the Fletch outfit, you know. Yeah. With the, what does he, what does he say?

Uh, six foot 3, 6 8 with the Afro. That’s right. Fletch. That’s right. Right. But, uh, when we got Phil, I studied Phil. I hated the Bulls. Yeah. ’cause I was a sons fan when I grew up as a kid. Man. You first year Barkley Michael abused you guys. Oh yeah, a hundred percent. But then I moved to, I moved to LA the year that Kobe got traded from Charlotte.

Oh. Though I became a Laker. But there’s so many things that he did. Number one, he, the very first practice, he made them practice without any basketballs. So there’s Rick Fox and Kobe Bryant. Mm-hmm. Shaquille O’Neal running plays all over the court. I remember a video of Rick Fox going, we were like, what the hell are we doing?

Yeah. Yeah. And he took them back to fundamentals and he said it, the, the basketball was kryptonite to the actual work of the team. Mm. That it became the spotlight that everybody was looking at. And it should not be. I heard Coach K say one time too, uh, he talked about how he was talking to his new players and he was like, you know that you hold the ball or have the ball in your hands.

Only about 7% of the game. Yeah. What do you do in the or 10% of the game? What are you do in the other 90%? Yeah. Right. Rebound screens, all these other we aspects, but everybody loves the ball. Right? Yep. And so coach, well, you’re a dancer, right? So that’s kind of like a choreography, a hundred percent. Right?

They’re, they’re, they, you all gotta kind of be moving in unison. Yeah. And you’re, it’s like fluid, but you gotta know like, if I go here, you need to go there. Yeah. Within the context of the system of the play. Yeah. Your, your question was about culture. The one thing I would throw in there about culture is there’s a lot of leaders in older generations now that are from the world of sports or the military.

Mm-hmm. And they often come into a, a culture situation in corporate America. And a lot of the military people are like, you know, pull it together, suck it up. Yeah. Let’s go. This is it. It that’s what they know. It’s, it’s life or death. And it’s like, no, you’re, you’re taking training that has a lot of useful elements, but you are doing it through the lens of having to either kill someone or not be killed.

Yeah. So you have to, you have to bring that down a little bit. No, I get to go home and watch my kid wrestle. Okay. It’s the other one is sports, right. That, that win all mentality and the sports mentality. And like, I’m coming to find out, there’s a lot of people who’ve never played sports. Mm-hmm. So it’s not, you know, the, the, there, there are use filaments in there just so long as it doesn’t become the guiding factor.

But boy I’ve, so I’ve dealt with so many managers who are former military and I can immediately sense it. When, I mean very good leadership skills in there to learn, but if it’s my way or the highway, you know, that’s a hard leadership line to follow, is practicality. Um, a gift of a manager or, uh, something they have to fight against.

Tell me what you mean. Well, think about all the personalities Yeah. That exist within one department. And so, you know, personalities that are like snowflakes. They, they, they’re all snowflakes. They look, they look similar, but there’s a lot of unique differences in there. Yes. And so what’s practical to one person might be completely off the wall to another Yeah.

So, you know, I, I’ve always had to kind of be careful as a manager of being like, well, yeah, this, this is, how do you not know this? Yeah, no. This is the way showing up on time is showing up on time. Like, yeah. Yeah. Uh, but. Then you have to realize who your audience is. Yes. And for them, they might be an ultra creative Yes.

Who operates in a different vibration and a different kind of universe. Not in your email, in a timely manner. Doesn’t wanna see it spreadsheet in front of their face. I, this is, again, this, I resemble this remark. Yeah. But I’ll go to something you said, I think in your, your last podcast, which was core values.

Mm-hmm. So if you can come together as a team, yes. The leader’s gonna have to refine those core values and establish what they are, but when they’re, when they’re decided upon and when they’re on the wall, I, the great thing about values, and the great thing about a core belief is that your, your, your employees know how to act when you’re not around.

Like, they can always just look around and go, what should we do? Yes. Probably should do that. Oh, Frank, I’m so happy that you, you’re saying that because I, I felt like, and I feel like sometimes I’m speaking into the abyss, um. But for me, it was a life changing event to go through that process with a group of people that were doing well, but then went through this process of really defining our brand slogan, our brand promise, our our, uh, core values.

Our set of principles are, are kind of like around the center, like on the outskirt type quotes that like, they weren’t the core values, but they was like our language. Yeah. This is, we say these things and we believe them. Yeah. And I just watched exactly what you said, like the, the, the departments and the company Yeah.

Started to manage itself. Um, and when that starts to happen, you have the ability to really grow because you’re not having to, to turn the, you’re not having to turn the, the wheel. Yeah. It’s already turning, which means you can go start another wheel. Yeah. And so, uh, but again. If it’s not up, if it’s not on the wall, if it’s not seen, if it’s not talked about, if it’s not embedded into, um, incentives.

Yeah. Uh, the, the recruiting, uh, job descriptions, like if it’s not embedded in all of those things, then it’s just a, a box check. It’s just slogans on the wall. Also, if it’s on the wall, but it’s horseshit in the building Exactly. Then everybody gets angrier. Mm-hmm. But no, absolutely. It’s, I I, I, I was talking with somebody in corporate conversation, corporate culture in, in a training, and they were like, one of the mantras for their group was no lying, no cheating, no stealing, done.

Like, it’s just, I, I, I hate that we have to say it, but we’re gonna say it. And I said, where’d that come from? And one of the people that, the leaders in the company that really drove that out was their mantra was, if you’ll steal for me, you’ll steal from me. Mm-hmm. And so it’s like, I don’t ever want you to ever think that our company is down with you doing something that is, that is under the table, even if it’s beneficial to us on the, on the spreadsheet.

And so it just became this, like, we gotta say it. My mentor has a document that when you work with him, Dave has this page. There’s the legal, there’s all the disclaimers and everything. And then he is got this one page, which is Dave’s page, and it’s got all these things. No whis, no clock, watchers, right. Uh, our, our, our clients are the focus, not us.

Mm-hmm. And you go through this thing and you’re forced to sign it. And so if, if, if somebody’s new to this whole thing and you come up, Dave will sit you down and go, did you read that page? Like, it’s what we do here. It’s there we are, you know, and it’s okay. I think that’s awesome. Yeah. It’s okay if you’re not, but that’s who we are.

Yeah. And that’s what we do. I mean, my, I wish, I don’t have any tattoos, but I’m thinking of a couple, and one of them is how you do one thing is how you do everything. I’ve, I like getting, my dad used to say that to me. I take the garbage on and then tie the bag, right? Yeah. And he wasn’t upset necessarily about the, the bag not being tied properly unless like the raccoons got into it, right?

Yeah. But what he was more upset about is that that exact notion. He would say to me all the time, he goes once a short cutter, always a short cutter. And his, his premise was how you do one thing right? Is how you do another thing, right? Yeah. So like, if, if you shortcut it on this, the old shortcut on your relationships, you’ll shortcut on your saving of money and all, all the other things in your life.

So yeah. Great premise. How do you, how do you apply that to your, to your training? Like in your training, do you have a set of core values? Yeah. Like an agreement that you go through with the people in the class ahead of time where you maybe, um, you, let’s say institutionalize. Yeah. You start off with like, Hey, here’s the expectation in this class.

If you’re here, you’re fully here, and then here’s what we do in this class. Do you do something like that? Or do we just. Did we just collaborate and come up with an idea? Well, I mean, in every program we lay out our agenda and we lay out what’s called, uh, an ERO, an end result outcome. And af at the end of this class, six months after this class, what do you want, what do we want you to do differently?

Yeah. But we also lay out sort of some ground rules and they’re kind of funny, cheat. You’re here for three days to learn stuff. I don’t expect you to learn at all. Feel free to cheat, feel free to look it up. Google it. Bribe my co-facilitator. It’s okay. This is the place to ask. Ooh, I like that. Nice. Number two, uh, perfect practice.

Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. Just ask Charles Barkley when it comes to his golf swing. Mm-hmm. Then, uh, feel free to make mistakes because if you do, you’re safe. And the last one is have fun. Like we, it’s really weird for these people. They come in and they do not expect to have a good time.

And we are like we. The, and having fun is what this is all about. Yeah. And when participants are engaged and having a good time, they are more likely to retain the information. 1000 place it their own. Corporate cultures just frowns on this for some reason. Like, like they’re like, oh, we just be, can’t be having a good time.

We’re not really learning, spending the money. Why is that? It’s ones and zeros. There’s a book called Human Stigma that I’m a huge fan of, and in there they call it the Terminator School of Management. So it started way back in Henry Ford, that the old quote, he said, why is it that I got the whole person when all I wanted was a set of hands?

And so it’s like I just, A lot of people are like, I need you to just come in and do the job. And No, you get the whole person. You get all the pieces and parts. So the Terminator School of Management is about spreadsheets, quarterlies, monthly totals, you know, daily totals. And those things are all necessary.

It’s iq. Yeah, but you can’t just be about that. I don’t think there’s a whole lot of soul to iq. It’s all soul with eq. Remember, I’m, I am not. I am not here to bash iq. No, it’s, I think it’s pretty damn important. You gotta have it. Yeah. But the shortage is an eq. Yeah, and I think a lot of people don’t believe that EQ sells.

I think they think that IQ sells that book. Humid Sigma. You can find it anywhere. Amazon, whatever. It was a 25 year study. They interviewed 20 million people, and what they found was when customers are emotionally engaged, they pay 23% more profit, 33% less price sensitive, 44% less likely to shop around, and 300% more likely to bring repeat and referral business back.

The only separation was both groups rational and emotional, were satisfied with products or services. But the only separation is that there was an emotional group over here and they were so much more exponentially beneficial. Yeah. More of a brand experience. My gosh. And that’s, you know, it’s really just hard.

I think a lot of these people, I had one guy one time, I was in New York, really thick, like Armenian accent and I’m talking about to service customers when they’re coming for oil changes and stuff. Um, videos are a big thing now. Shooting technician videos. Mm-hmm. What cars up on the lift to show you the actual repair?

Yeah. We are trying to, to encourage them to be nice on the video. Yeah. Show your face, say Thank you for bringing your vehicle in. We really appreciate. I can only imagine what, and this guy is like, wait a minute Frank, you want me? So you’re saying you want me to kiss their ass? And I was like. Kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don’t, I don’t want you, you want ’em to come back, do like that If they come back, you kind of have job security that the whole point. Yeah, that’s the whole point. And I, again, I don’t wanna fault anyone ’cause I don’t know what mental health struggles are going through. Mm-hmm. I don’t know if their boss is terrible.

I don’t know if they’re making enough money, but those things are still their thing. It doesn’t take anything away from how EQ is necessary for long-term repeat referral business and loyalty. You’re a big Gary V fan, as am I, yeah. One of the things he talks about is the best marketing strategy you could possibly have is to be kind, good care.

That’s whole care. It’s easy. Just care. But it’s hard. It’s easy, but it’s hard. Yeah. I mean, man, I’m, I’m a Vayner junkie. Shout out to Claude Silver, who I will tag in one of these. That’s his cheat heart operator officer. Amazing woman leader in their company. But man, one is greater than zero. Uh, you know, you’re gonna die.

These are things that three, three word statements. Mm-hmm. You know, whatever, that just were branded, almost kind. Ran slogan expert. Yeah. Yeah. And, and empathy is a superpower. These are, and these are not really corporately known. Yeah. I think everybody’s conscious of all these things, but, but it’s about awareness.

But why isn’t corporate USA paying attention to the fact that, um, this guy, you know, came from a, a Russian immigrant family? Yeah. His dad owned a very small liquor store. He, you know, came up in the liquor store coming up as, as the son of a immigrant entrepreneur. He’s, you know, hustling on the corner doing his thing.

Then he goes into the wine shop. Then he figures out this whole internet thing and he realizes that he can take the, the wine sales next level if they start marketing to the masses. Yeah. Next thing you know, it just puts a phone on record and starts recording himself. And now he’s got, got off close to what a.

Oh, half a billion followers or some crazy number seems, seems corporate America. Like there is a need. Yeah. Like why isn’t corporate, why isn’t corporate USA, like realizing that so many human beings are gravitating to a person like that? That is speaking that EQ mantra, that empathy mantra that kill ’em with kindness.

Yeah. That, you know, be emotional, speak your truth. Swear if you want to like, yeah. And, and yet the public gravitates to that. Yeah. The public works for corporate USA, but corporate USA has a hierarchy that says, no, that’s not possible. Is that because there’s HR balance? Like I don’t understand that. I would imagine.

The answer is, I don’t know. Yeah. But my guess is, is that those big corporations didn’t do what Gary did, which is work person to person. Customer. Customer. Yeah. Every single date his, his mom and dad’s liquor store. You know, he tells a story one time of somebody calls and they ordered some wine or something and it was for either Thanksgiving or Christmas.

I dunno if you know the story. No. And he, he gets that call and he’s working for his dad and they’re like, oh man. Well, the boy we’re having Christmas dinner or Thanksgiving dinner, we’re like, we need this. So Gary, and it was like a snowstorm or something. He takes these two or three bottles of wine, which are not that expensive at all.

And he drives like an hour to their house and he drops it off in person. Now here’s the cool part of the story. The person who opened the door goes, oh, thanks. Closes the door in his face. Yeah. Right. And his dad was furious. His dad was like, what are you doing? Leaving the store and go, you know, what are you talking about?

And Gary still, he was like, it was the right thing to do. Mm-hmm. It’s the right thing to do. And I won’t know ever if that customer is gonna come back. I don’t think, you should never expect that customer to come in and be like, you did that one thing for me that one time, and that’s why I am here and giving you all my money.

But should you do nice things because you expect them in return? Or do you do nice things just because you should do nice things, man, you’re speaking to all my digital milour. Well, Guera in a unreasonable hospitality has taught me that being altruistic, being kind is its own reward. Like the stuff that I do for participants, I would, yes, I would love a needle to move.

I would sure great. More work will come my way. But I will say to you, whatever I have done for them, these little things that I do, I get so much more out of it than anything they get from it. Yeah. My wife says to me, she goes, we’ll be at a wrestling and I’m cheering for my son, like crazy. But he’s on a team too.

And it’s an individual sport, but it’s a team sport. Sure. I’m cheering for every kid, like they’re my own kid on the team. And she looks at me one time and she goes, why do you, why are you cheering so hard, like slapping five with all these kids? Like, like, why are you, like, why are you doing that? And I go, ’cause it makes me feel good Yeah.

To try and make them feel good. So it’s not completely about like, I wanna make them feel good. So they say thank you. Yeah. It’s more like, it just feels right to me. Right. To kind of just share that energy, to let ’em know that I, I see you man. I see you, I see how hard you’re working. Like I just feel like I get in, I, I feel validated by validating a hundred percent.

That’s the, and it’s the right thing to do. Right. It’s a bigger mission. You talked about your belief and, and talked about faith. Yeah. And it’s, it’s just the way it should be. You know? It’s, that’s, it’s, it’s what it’s about. So don’t stop doing it. So give us your best story. Yeah. Um, of a a a class. You’re facilitating a class.

Yeah. You’re running this class right now. You, you’re doing a contract with BMW, right? Yeah. So I’ve worked for them for almost 20 years. And, and that’s a, an amazing gig. I just saw some of your content with some of the executive staff and some of the folks that like are dealing with the race team. So like, you’re, you’re in it, man.

You’re, they’re, they’re just such. They’re a really good company and really good people. Shout out to the entire BM BMW group universe. Damn. Good car too. It is back to back. BMWI freaking love ’em. All the brands I’ve worked for, I’m so lucky that I have not had to work for a crappy brand. Yeah. Like DSU calls me up or you go and like, we’d like you to come chain on our car.

But I’ve worked with like premium, you know, high-end brands and it’s such a blessing because I, I, I leave the, the car stuff to the car people, the factory reps. Yeah. They’re gonna make it. I can’t control how it’s made, but then I’m like, okay, now we have a fantastic car. My job is to try to come in and generate a really complimentary experience to go with that.

I wanna say go. So go ahead. I was gonna say just, I, I can’t imagine the brand pride. Mm. Like to be an engineer at BMW. Yes. That’s like, I. Carry some weight, man. Like the, the stuff that they do, the, the capability and there’s there, all of the brands are great, right? Mercedes is great. All these different things are great, but there is, there is stuff that BMW does that is so cutting edge and it is a global team.

I think it’s 150,000 employees now and 33 countries and, um, 110 countries and 33 different factories. So I am one facilitator, by the way, who’s just based in Chicago, who works the us Yeah. Um, but I know that I’m part of a big, big global team that does all this stuffs the ultimate driving machine baby.

Uh, and we create the ultimate customer experience to go with it. Let’s go. That’s, so tell us the coolest story. Like, you, you, you’re running one of these classes. Yeah. Let’s say that, you know, there was, uh. There was a stallion that you had to break in the class, you know, just wouldn’t fall in line there.

Or, you know, there was a, there was a, uh, a person that just was, you know, a doubter from the jump and at the end of it they stood up and they were like, slow clapped you, you know, like, like, shut Nelson. Exactly. Like, let’s go Frank. Yeah. I mean, I don’t, like, do you get, do you get that positive feedback where like, Frank, I gotta tell you, I thought this was gonna suck and this has been one of the best experiences.

Like, give us one of those every class. Yeah, come on. I am not joking. That’s so cool. And let me be clear. Let me set ego aside. I try to do the best I can do. I absolutely try to make it fun and entertaining and engaging, but it is the principles and teachings of what, uh, adult facilitation is. Ask first, discuss second.

Yeah. Lecture is not learning, telling is not teaching. Never do for participant what a participant could and should do for themselves. These are all things that I got from my mentor and I’ve, I’ve now tried to find two or three people that are up for the journey of what facilitation is. And it’s, I, I want to say it’s me, but it ain’t me.

Okay. Like, it can’t be me every time they’re like, best class ever. It’s not. They’ll, there are people. So you’re giving, you’re tipping your cap to the, to the curriculum then to the trade. Yeah, to the trade, to skillset. It’s like, it’s humble of you woodworking, you know, like you, you can be a great carpenter, but there are decades and generations of people who know how to make these tools and these things work.

So I think it’s a balance of both those things. I’ve had many times where people have come up to me and said, listen, I’m gonna be honest with you, thought this class was gonna be dog shit. Mm-hmm. But, and a waste of my time. But when you did that hip hop dance No, no. They’re, they’re like, I’m, I’m glad it was, I’ve had, I’ve had several times where people come up and said, this changed my life.

I’ve had people come up then say, I, I was gonna quit. Really this has changed, you know, my mindset. I’m glad I went through this. It’s re-inspired me. Uh, and I also, I co-facilitate with a lot of other amazing facilitators. So these, it’s not just me. I’m always got a partner in this and what they’re doing. I will say that I got better and better and better.

The less of I, less and less I went from making the training about me and made the training more and more about the participants and. You know, a lot of these mantras are from my mentor Dave, but one of the key ones is participants first, content second. Mm. So if I’m told I have to train on these five things, but somewhere in the midst of that, somebody’s like, Hey, I, I have to speak up here.

This is what I’m struggling with. Yeah. They can see actively. When I was like, I go, first of all, thank you for raising your hand. Thank you for saying that it’s not part of the program, but we’re gonna stop and we’re gonna talk about it. It also encourages the rest of the participants to sit back and go, oh, that gives me the capability to raise my hand as well.

I’ll never forget, I was co-facilitating with someone a long time ago, and we had a participant who was a know it all. So this is a person who every time you’d bring a fact, they’d be like, actually, uh, it’s Subline Subline four second. You know, it’s weird. I don’t recall being there, so, but okay. But they, and, and that was their ego.

I recognize it. Now they wanna feel validated. Mm-hmm. Often they’re like, why are you up there? And I’m down here in the seat. So I’ve, I’ve let the, I don’t get defensive about that. I haven’t for a long time. So when he was doing this, every time this person would sort of raise their hand to do something, I knew it was coming, and I’d be like, mark, you know, I don’t remember the name, but Mark.

Yeah. Tell me what is it? Oh, well, you know, the 3 28 is this and that model year was that. And I was like, I love it when participant teaches me something, man. Yeah. I told you from the beginning, I’m a facilitator. My job is just to help, to facilitate. Just means to help you know what you already know, maybe a little bit better.

And so I could diffuse all of that. Well, my co-facilitator was not, not down for this and, and is a, it was like a multi-day training right in the middle of it. This person couldn’t take it anymore. And the person stops the training and goes, I know what you’re doing. I don’t appreciate what you’re doing.

Everybody in here doesn’t appreciate what you’re doing, and I’d like you to stop. Woo. I’m in the back of the room going, oh shit, here we go. We’re screwed. Yeah, we’re screwed. Because now what’s that say to every other participant? If I have something I wanna challenge or if I have a question Yeah. I don’t buy into this.

Mm-hmm. And it was, it was crickets for the rest of the couple of days. Yeah. They, you don’t want ’em to necessarily fall in line. Yeah. When you lose, when you lose your authority, you give away all your authority. Yeah. And you don’t, it’s, it’s a really, a great leadership tenet. You know, leaders, uh, when, when you’re a leader, uh, again, shout out to shed on this one.

When you’re a leader, a whisper is a shout. You shouldn’t have to be the person yelling you, shouldn. You should never be that person, you know, trying to crash down on people. You should let them sort of figure it out on their own. And I’ve had participants. Two, three day class. Start off just naysayers and I will, I just, great facilitation is just gonna ask more questions like, tell me what you feel that way.

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Get back your time and your money with GSD Drive business forward. Leave the technology the GSD GSD now.com. Those are the best managers I’ve found that I’ve worked for. They would guide me to the answer. There you go. But it, it felt like I came up with the answer. Yeah. So because of that, I was felt more accountable to, to implement it.

Yeah. Whereas I’ve had managers who told me what needed to be done and how it needed to be done. Right. And I wouldn’t in any way, shape, or form approach that problem that way. Yeah. And I don’t even know if I’m capable of approaching the problem that way or executing it in that way. Yeah. And then you fi you feel like you’re fighting, you’re fighting the, um, the, the, the process of getting it done Right.

Um, because like, it’s not my idea. Yeah. It’s not, not my idea. Yeah. So I, I always, I love that concept because it’s, it’s very true. And I think it’s also very true in sales. I think people are really tired of being sold to. Mm-hmm. Um, I’ve talked about this on numerous episodes. I’m sticking to it because I’m in branding and marketing, and I truly believe that attention awareness leads to demand, demand leads to lead generation.

Lead generation. If you have a volume of it increases the odds that you can partner with the people that will be great partners for you. You can kind of cherry pick in that regard. Yeah. And you can really manage relationships at that point. So that’s awesome. And that all comes from. You know, giving people reasons to buy and that can’t just be products and services and price.

That is, that has to be on the total brain experience. The culture, the core values, like the whole picture. Yeah. That when somebody looks at your content, they’re like, Ooh, I like that about that. Oh, I can relate to that. Oh, I have that in common. Ooh, that feels right. Like if they can get all of that before they get to the point Yeah.

Of interaction with a salesperson, it makes the salesperson’s journey a lot faster and easier and probably a lot smoother. Yeah. That being said, um, I have found that I. The, the method of selling seems to remain. Um, and we talked about this, you know, like the, the, the, the bro culture of sales, right. Of like, and I came up in this culture of like, yeah, buyers are liars.

That’s right. Like, you know, all those things you tell yourself so that you can overcome the pain of rejection. Yeah. Because if, if you’ve made 10 calls and you failed on all 10, if it’s your fault, it’s hard to make the 11th call. Mm. So you almost go, buyers are liars and you say these crazy things that you wouldn’t say in any other context.

Yeah. You would not say something like this. You say it almost so that you can. You know, maintain your confidence. You can make the 11th call, but it becomes a culture killer. Yeah. Because if the, if the vets are saying it, the younger folks are embracing it. The younger folks come up, new folks come in, and it just, it just radiates throughout the culture and it creates a bad customer experience.

So how are you diffusing that? What are the lessons that you’re teaching? Well, how does sales and marketing need to change its style of communication, whether it be in person or through content, um, to, to connect with people on a deeper level? Well, uh, there’s so much there in that question. So I, number one, I’m not a marketing person.

Like I see you and I see Dale and I see what you’re doing with these unique styles of marketing yourself out to customers. The days of cold calling are so gone and it’s just not there. Tough, as Vayner would say, attention is the asset. You can get somebody to give you five minutes, you should be incredibly grateful.

Yes. Um, but I think it’s, when you, when you talk about culture, it’s, first of all, just trying to put it on the table. I, I did this with this class this last week. I was talking to a bunch of people who work at a car dealership and they’re in retail sales. And I say, what are, what do you, what are the typical words that customers use to describe people in the car industry?

And what do you think their answers were? Uh, sleazy. Yep. High pressure. Yep. Um, scumbags. Scumbags, transactional, right. Dealership. Yeah. Where everybody goes, oh, the steel leadership, that’s a new one. I haven’t heard that one. And so they’re all, you know, they’re just like, they’re there and they just, I can feel that they hate it.

And, and there are some people who embrace it, like you said, they do it as a badge of honor. Like, I’m gonna, you know, and then I flipped that coin right over and I was like, okay, what are terms that our own industry uses to describe customers? And they’re like, buyers are liars, tire kickers, time wasters.

You know? And I’m like, show me another business that has a natural adversary relationship with their customers. And I think what, in conversation with you, what I’m realizing is it ain’t just this, it’s selling insurance or washing machines, huh? Like, you know, customers need things, you sell things. How do you approach that?

And it’s, I think this is also why we get back to the manager, the, uh, the Terminator School of Management. There’s always a quarterly report. There’s always a spreadsheet and a number that we have to hit. Yeah. So it’s these two hills that are going against each other. I often frame it as a hunting lodge versus a farm.

I can walk into any business most of the time, and I can tell if it’s a hunting lodge because there’s stuffed heads of customers over the sales counter with all the plaques underneath of how much money we, you know, we got from them. Yeah. But the problem is, is you skill you, you killed them and they’re done.

Yeah. They’re never coming back. But if I walk into some businesses or dealerships or just teams culture, I could tell it’s a farm. They know the long-term game. Mm-hmm. They are the ones that are planting and, and they are okay with a no. And they treat a no with respect, but at the same time they keep offering value.

Yeah. Right. As Vayner would say, like jab, jab, jab, jab, jab, and then left hook. Right. Give value as much as you can. And that is creating content like this and it’s inspiring their own employees so that some internal, you know, low level employee will go to the leader and be like, Hey, look at this message.

Look at this company. Like they’re really cool. Let me share this with you. So I don’t know if that answers your question. It does answer the question and I, I do wanna make it clear that, that, um, while I, I love that you said, I love that you lumped we with Dale. Thank you. Uh, ’cause I think he’s absolutely brilliant and phenomenal, but the, the fact is like we’re sellers.

Yeah. We just happen to figure out that like, this is an amazing platform and vehicle to be able to always be providing a message, to always be showing up, to always be showing people who we really are and what we stand for. So, you know, we get to a point through doing that where people go, I feel like I know you.

That’s, and they don’t really know me. Right. They feel like they know me. So that, that just took the sales cycle down by about 25% because there’s trust already established. And then if we show up the way that we show up on content Yep. Then there’s authenticity, so then that establishes even more trust.

Yeah. So, uh, the reason that I lumped in marketing with sales is because I really think that salespeople need to start to market. You are not wrong a hundred percent. And I think it’s so key, and I think that that’s the lesson that a Gary Vaynerchuk, who is a consummate salesman Yeah. Has become a marketer.

But is he really a marketer or is he a brand champion? He’s just always talking the brand. He’s always talking the whole brand picture. Yep. Not the, not the product of the service, the whole picture. Yeah. His brand. He’s not ever on there. Like, you know, our brand is wine or our brand is more, you know, yeah.

Marketing for Apple or whatever our, you know, our, our brand is, you know, doing these commercials. He, he, he’s our brand is our culture. Yeah. So it’s like, oh, by the way, we also sell this. Exactly. I wanna be clear, when we talk about automotive dealerships and all my experience, that bad sort of Apple experience is less and less and less every day.

Well, that’s your mission. Yeah. That’s what you’re talking about. And this is also the reason why they’re hiring you to do this. Yeah. And this is why you have to applaud BMW and in Nissan and some of these other companies that you’ve interacted with, and you’re one of, of many Yes. Um, that are, that are doing this throughout the world.

And I, and I do applaud them for it because I think that they have recognized that there is a stigma that the, that society has that they need to break in order to move forward and have better relationships. What I say to them is, is that this is actually a great thing because it means the bar is so low when they actually come into your building.

You don’t have to be miraculous Yeah. To be awesome. Yeah. Just to stand out a bit. Just do a little bit better than what their expectations are. But the problem is, is one or two false steps, you’re gonna immediately fulfill the negative receptor. But there are so many great dealerships out there and so many great B businesses, whether they’re in appliances or clothing, that, that do get it?

It’s just hard. ’cause it takes time. Yeah. And that’s the, you have to have the patience to, to see a big picture in what’s going on. How, I mean, Vayner started 20 years ago. Yeah. You know? Um, and so yeah. It’s, it’s about that. So when you’re interacting with, especially the, the youthful salespeople Yes. And you’re inter interacting with all demographics.

Yeah. Um, but before we started recording, we had a conversation. You were talking a little bit about Gen Z. Yeah. I, I’m always interested to kind of get people’s perspective on Gen Z because. Um, as a Gen Xer. Yeah. You know, I clearly we’re the best generation ever. Right? Yeah. I mean, look, course, of course.

When the streetlights went on, we knew to be home. How did I, every one of our moms and dads had a whistle, and that whistle typically was two fingers in the mouth. And we, we knew the distinct whistle. Well, who’s that was my dad. That was your, your dad just whistled. You gotta be home. Like we knew the whistle.

Yeah. You know, I, I was talking, uh, I was talking to somebody the other day who was like, you know, their kid wanted to go down the street to target. I was like, I gotta drive the kid down the street to target. I’m like, you realized that we would’ve just hopped on our skateboards and we would’ve rode our skateboards in the middle of the street.

Yep. With cars like piled up behind us, honking at us. We wouldn’t have cared. Like, but the Gen Z group gets a bad, they’re getting a bad rap. Yes. They can’t be all bad. Uh, most of them aren’t. And, and there’s gotta be a lot of fantastic attributes about. Yeah. And by the way, like they’re kind of the future.

So US Gen Xers, the majority of the workforce now. Yeah. Yeah. And US Gen Xers kind of need to understand and learn and cope because Yeah. Um, they’re gonna be the ones taking care of us when we can’t. The knees are bad and we can’t take care of ourselves. Yeah. They’re gonna take this world to the next level.

So what are your thoughts on Gen Z? What are some of the things you would love to see them improve upon? Sure. Work on? And what are some of the things that you wanna highlight that you think are absolutely amazing you tip your cap to, I think the, first of all, I’m not a generational specialist, but I would say that one time I was dealing with a group of leaders and the older generation leaders were doing nothing but complaining about the, the, the, the, the, the millennials.

They were just like, they’re the worst. They’re so lazy. They don’t do this. They don’t show up. And I did a quick Google search on my computer while the projector was up and I typed in, you know, millennial generation, you know, thoughts and multiple stories came up from Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazine and all these different things.

And it showed that Gen Z is the hardest working generation. Yeah. Well, I do wanna make it clear as a Gen X. M Millennials are the worst generation. I’m talking about Gen Z. I’m just kidding. Millennials. I’m just kidding. Well, you and I didn’t have cell phones back then. You and I didn’t have 24 hour email.

Had to be tough. We didn’t have to create video content. Mm-hmm. Was you, you sent a letter or you you did photocopy or fax. Wrote a card. Fax machine. Will you go on a date with me? Right. Check the yes box. We didn’t have social media to deal with market sell, no Snapchat. And, and there is a 24 hour work cycle that these people are in now.

Yeah. But at the same time that’s, that, that, that is tough. But they figured it out. They figured it out because they’re making content at 11 o’clock at night. Mm-hmm. Because that’s when they like to work. And then you’ve got the older generation leaders who are like, you were five minutes late to work this morning.

Give me a break, bro. Okay. Can, can, so, uh, editors on this podcast, so at that clip right there, yes. If you could like, turn it up to 11 because I have this. In my head, it bothers me because you can’t yell at somebody that they came in at 8 0 5, right when they were on from 11 to 1:00 AM doing work for your brand.

Right. Did you pay them extra for that? Did you pat ’em on the back? Did you reward them when you saw they were online, right? No. Right. You didn’t say a damn word. There was no bonus check. There was no recognition. There was no nothing. And they were on from 10 o’clock to one o’clock, a customer reached out to them at 11 o’clock they’re sitting there watching Seinfeld reruns and they responded and engaged in a lengthy conversation.

Yeah. They’re managing their LinkedIn and Instagram profile and they’re engaging with people that are engaging on their content. That’s work. They’re working. It’s just a different form of work than maybe you’re accustomed to. ’cause it’s not a door handle. You’re pulling or a phone, you’re dialing. But it is work and they’re, and they’re representing the brand.

Yep. And then they show up at 8 0 7 because it was five lights out and a tree that fell down. Yep. And we got an issue with that. Yep. Come on. Yeah. And then they, they, so they then they’d refer to them as lazy and all these different things, and there’s a ton of statistics that say that that’s not the case.

What do they do really, really well? They are very fast thinkers. They are incredibly creative. They’re entrepreneurs at heart. YouTube basically shows them that if they start a channel and they open toys full time, they could be millionaires. Mm-hmm. Does that happen all the time? No, it’s a lightning bolt.

It’s just like the NBA. There’s no guarantee that your channel’s gonna be the one, but there are a lot of channels. They grew up in the Mr. Beast generation. Correct. And they can, they can start up and do these different things. So when somebody from an old generation comes in and says, Hey, in my day. Just first of all, stop there.

But in my day, you got to a company, you worked with that company for 30 years. You gave your heart, you gave your soul. They’re gonna turn right back around and look at you and go, I don’t have to do that anymore. Yeah. I can go from one company to another, to another, and I can build the life that I want and I can be a specialist.

That’s it. That’s it. I, I don’t have to be in your world because your world really doesn’t exist anymore. And they often, the younger generation, in my experience in leadership training looks at these older generations like, what’d you get for those 30 years? Did you, I got bald. Did you? Right. Did you come out of that like a miraculously amazing.

I. Because I don’t, they, they’re all freaking out when these people work until they’re 60 and then they retire, they’re like, what? What? Did you go on vacation? Yeah. Now you’re gonna go on your vacations. Yeah. Like, I’m gonna go on my vacation when I’m 22. Mm-hmm. You know, they wanna see the world. That’s it.

And they are. And they are. So I think that especially people in the retail, they’re really, the younger generations are really good at social media, really good at marketing themselves or building a brand. They do need guidance. They need somebody to come along and say, what is corporately professional?

What represents our brand? How is this gonna be reflected? I think if you don’t give them some sort of framework, they’re just gonna go off on a table. So I so appreciate that you said that because I have this belief that like I’ve watched brands fight their people. Off of the idea of being a personal brand.

Mm. And there’s a multitude of reasons why they do that. Number one, they don’t have the social guidelines and they’re nervous that their person is going to speak out of turn, say something bad. Yeah. Misrepresent the brand, whatever. Number two, they don’t want ’em necessarily to create a personal brand because they could become big.

Mm. They could become recruitable. They can be taken away. Yeah. So they kind of don’t want ’em, uh, un you know, in in that situation. Yeah. To be So what you just said, to be clear, uh, BM BMW’s a client of mine, I’m not a corporate employee. Yeah. And everything I say is just on my own. Yeah. Then I hope I’ve said nothing to I, you, anyone, you haven’t, I mean, I’m gonna get fired, but you’re fine.

But I mean, I have to do that. I, every, any client that I, that deal with Right. Rivian, I, I have to represent myself still in that way that I’m, I’m a vendor of theirs. Yes. And I’m held accountable. I can’t, you know, so building my own brand and at the same time doing that, it is a balance. And that’s why I, I say that I, I really think what brands should lean into is teaching.

Yes. Social media and branding in a corporate setting, because these, these Gen Z folks have mastered social media. They grew up on it. I watched my 15-year-old son. Take 38 pictures of himself, um, in about a 15 minute span. And I looked at him and I said, what are you doing? He said, oh, I’m just chatting with friends.

I said, you’re chatting with friends through pictures. He goes, yeah, we take pictures of facial expressions. That’s right. We write a little quote and then we flip it over to them on Snapchat and then they do a picture of what they’re doing and that’s how they’re communicating. Okay. Well I could go, that’s crazy.

But that’s kind of what they grew up on and that’s the way the app works. So they understand it from a social standpoint. Yes. Like they understand the ins and outs of it. Yeah. What they don’t understand is how to do what a Dale Dupre does, or what a Darren McKee does. Um, or an Alex b Sheridan where they can stand in front of the camera.

Yeah. Present. The organization in a very professional manner. Yeah. Right. And still transfer energy, passion, authenticity, and, and inspiration. I really think what companies should be doing is investing in training their, their staff members, especially in sales and marketing. Yeah. Of how to become corporate influencers instead of fighting with them.

Yeah. Uh, against it. And the franchise model in the United States, basically any manufacturer, Toyota, they, they’re all, all the stores are still independent. So the only person making that decision is the, the dealer principle. Yeah. So it’s from store to store to store. The policies are gonna change, but the, I’ve seen salespeople, the ones that create their own sort of personal brand and do it in a professional way that honors the brand they’re selling.

But, but a lot of these salespeople sell like seven brands. Yeah. That’s the thing. Their dealer franchise has a group that, you know, like Penske or something. Mm-hmm. They sell a whole bunch of brands, so they do have to make their own personal brand. Those are the ones that are super, super successful. Yeah.

Word of mouth comes around. You said something earlier, like, people wanna get to know you. The, the old adages people know, work with people that they know, like, and trust. That’s it. So you gotta get in to know you, like you and trust you. Uh, foresight did a study that, uh, people want 86% of the buying experience to be human list.

Mm. So what that tells me is like they don’t wanna talk to a salesperson until they wanna talk to a salesperson. Yeah. But, so if that’s the case, then you’re just really waiting until somebody’s 10% away from the buy. And you can’t really do that as a company that’s not safe. Yeah. Especially when you’re dealing with big competition, has major advertising dollars and you’re dealing with just competition of people in roles, peers and and so on across the board.

Yeah. So, so. What you really have to do is you have to show up online where people are. Yeah. Where they are is on social media. They’re spending 36 days, the equivalent of 36 days a year. Wow. We spend on social media, I think that mu that number is up in the forties now. Wow. 40, 40 day equivalent of our life in a year.

We spend scrolling on social media. Yeah. So if you look at it like, I don’t wanna see a paid ad. Mm-hmm. Um, and I also don’t wanna see somebody rifling through their products and services. We got this thing, especially in a boring way. Like if you’re selling BMWs. Yeah. Like. Make it cra like take it on a test drive, put the camera on and like do something pretty cool with it.

Right. Or, but we wanna see people doing interesting things in an entertaining way while informing us a hundred percent. I think that it’s, it’s about being also a really good storyteller. Yes. Some of the great content creators in the car world, those people, the ones that tell their customer stories.

Mm-hmm. If the customer is up for it, they’ll shoot a quick video and they’ll tell the story of how you got to BMW. Yeah. Like why out of all the cars we were there and these people, it’s a third generation family car for us. Or my dad had one, or I’ve always aspired to have an M three. It’s an immediate testimonial though.

Yeah. And it’s, it’s about that building of trust. I think you said something though that was super powerful, that 86% is done online. Mm-hmm. That tells me, yes, I’m gonna leave the marketing to you and to Dale about that 86% and making it great. My job, my wheelhouse is that other, I’m not good at math. 14. 14.

There. That 14% in person better be miraculous. It has to be miraculous. You gotta be ready. And so in the automotive world, and this is all manufacturers, they’re now selling cars digitally, so different from a Rivian and a Tesla, which are, they don’t have the franchise model. They’re selling direct to consumers.

Everybody else in the United States sells through a franchise. Those stores now have an online platform where customers can do the entire sales process for a car all the way to buying the car. You, in their credit report, the only thing they come into the dealership for is the delivery. Mm-hmm. That delivery better be fantastic on point because you make your money on absorption rate.

Yeah. You need them to come back for the service. That’s why when you go into a dealership now, it’s like a fricking spa. But I remember one time there was a store, and I don’t remember the brand, that’s probably good, that I don’t, they were charging a delivery fee to customers who bought their car digital because they didn’t make their money on the backend or the finance office.

So they were punishing the digital customer by saying, we, you have to pay a delivery fee to come get the car. It’s terrible. Yeah. It’s absolutely terrible. It’s, it’s, again, it’s hunting lodge versus farm. You, you can never penalize a buyer. Right. Especially if you’re giving them the platform. Well reward ’em and tell a friend.

Yeah. You’re the one that, that you set up this digital platform to do this and everybody who does digital shopping in that way. Uh, the overwhelming majority. I think a, a stat we saw from either Accenture or something that we use in our content and trainings was that people who do 50% of greater of their research for a car online have the highest level of satisfaction in an overall experience.

So if they’re doing more online before they get to you, they are actually happier when they come to buy the car. It’s amazing. Yeah. So Frank, the life journey has been amazing. I mean, theater, uh, hip hop dancing. Yep. You know, a stinted, Arby’s a Correct. A stint at Nissan. You know, getting in with these big, uh, these big automotive brands.

Yeah. Um, getting to interact with like, just amazing top to bottom talent. ’cause you’re, as a facilitator, you’re not just working with entry level Right. You’re working with executives, mid management, all different roles. Yeah. And you’re kind of, you know, downloading, um, you’re downloading, um, in an eq a Yeah.

Culture inspiration. Um. Policy, procedure, principles, you kind of mixing it all in there. Sure. So it’s like, it’s not just what we should do, it’s why we should do it. Yeah. And how we should do it to get the best results. So it’s pretty damn cool. This has led you Yeah. To build up this, this knowledge base, which now you’ve been asked to write a book.

Right? Well, I didn’t, nobody asked me to. Well, I did. I am. I’m asking you. So finish the book. Dammit. Yeah. Oh yeah. But you’re working with an editing team who’s putting some demands on you to write it a certain way. It’s right. Even to put it out there. It’s a really wild story. If I can make it quick, you can make it, you could make it not quick.

During CIDI made a pledge that I was gonna work for Simon Sinek. And I was like, that’s it. I’m gonna work for him. His book, start With Why. We’ve been talking about the while all day Leaders Eat Last Target, um, you know, just, these are amazing and I, I wanted to do it and I filled stuff out and it went off and they, they lost track of me because of Covid.

They lost people and it all changed. But from that, I met this guy named Steven Shaky, who is the, is the author of Speak Up Culture. He’s worked for Sinek, still works for Sinek today, but he’s building his own brand now with his own book. And he saw me sort of trying to, you know, gain an inroad to work for Sinek.

It didn’t work out, which is fine, but he and I became friends and we shared this same like-mindedness of how it’s about people and it’s about doing better and, and business and his whole thing is creating a culture that is worth it and safe to speak up. In his whole first chapter of his book, he talks about the, uh, Boeing scandal with these planes and how not having a SpeakUp culture can be life and death.

And that two planes went down and hundreds and hundreds of people died and there were whistleblowers and people didn’t feel comfortable speak up. So that’s, his book really resonated with me. Anyways, we, we became friends and I said, um, off on an offhand comment one time we were talking and I said, yeah, I, I’ve wrote a book during Covid, and he was like, I’d love to read it.

I was like, okay. So I gave him my manuscript and he, he read it and he was like, it’s really good. Would you be okay if I took it to my publisher? So he took it to the publisher in Canada, shout out to page two, and Jess, Jesse, and they read it and they liked it. And they’re like, we like it. We, we would like to publish it.

And I was like, okay. And they were like, here’s our fee. And they’re, they’re a hybrid publishers. Mm-hmm. So the simple understanding is they do all this work up front. You pay up front, and then you own the book sort of outright. It’ll help you publish it digitally and all those things. The fee was pretty high.

And I said, it’s very, very nice of you. I, I do wanna do this book and I, you know, I just, but I can’t afford it right now. Mm-hmm. And so they were like, the, the, the publisher is so nice and, and I don’t even know if I’m okay to tell the story, not when I’m going to. She, the, the, the woman, Jesse was like, when you’re ready, you come back to us and we got you back.

We’re excited. And I was like, okay, I’m gonna go find some job that’s gonna help me pay for it. Mm-hmm. And I went to shed, ’cause he was my referral. And I called him and I said, Hey, I just want you to know that I’m not gonna be able to do it. And he was like, why? What’s holding you back? And I was like, money?

Yeah. I, I work a lot, but I have a lot of bills and all these things. Yeah. And he was like, is that the only reason? I was like, yeah. He is like, okay, how about this? I’ll pay for it and then you pay me 500 bucks a month. And I was like, what? How cool is that? And I was like, why? And he said, well, because you never asked me.

And I was like, I wouldn’t, I’ve only known you for a year. Yeah. And he said, number two, it’s a good book. It needs to be out in the world. And then his most important thing was number three. Why would your, why is your book any less worthy of being out on the marketplace versus mine? Just because you don’t have the resources?

And I was like, so I asked him all these, my wife was like, no, no, no. We’re gonna ask some questions here. Yeah. Uh, is there any interest on this? And he was like, Nope. And is, do you own any of my ip? He’s like, Nope. I said, what if I miss a payment? Like I’m a little late one month. He’s like, just gimme a heads up.

So that’s what we did. Wow. Yeah, so I’m, I mean, it’s crazy, man. So yeah, I have a car payment every month. Yeah. Get my book done. And it’s, it’s absolutely incredible. Uh, he, he, like many other people have just found me and helped change my life. And so, yeah. So we started in January of this year working in editing the book and hopefully it’ll be out in the first quarter of next year.

Strangely enough, the working title of the book is The Lost Art of Giving a Shit. I love that title. I didn’t know about The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck before this. Okay. And people were like, you mean it’s a follow up? I was like, it’s not a follow up. Yeah. Um, in the. In the preface of the book, I thought long and hard about calling it the lost start of caring the law start of giving a hoot.

Yeah. The lost start of customer service and none of them resonated in the same way for me. Yeah. And to your point, well, it’s pop culture speak too. Yeah. But your point, so many corporate CEOs, people I’ve met leaders, they’re like, what’s the book called? And I said, it’s the law start of giving a shit. They say the same thing, they’re like, that’s exactly what I need, or that’s exactly what I want my, my employees to do.

Yeah. Um, it all resonates around the first, uh, page of the book, and it’s called The Big Idea in Three Parts. Uh, part one, according to Gallup in 2024, I don’t know if you can Google it, but it, the current number I think is $7.7 trillion in Lost Productivity due to disengaged employees Globally. That’s Trillion with a T.

So it’s, uh, it’s called the, I think it’s the Gallup, uh, employee Engagement Study. Disengaged Employees Lost Productivity. So that’s the first line, right. According to Gallup, $7.7 trillion in lost productivity in 2024 alone due to disengagement employees. Eight, 8.8. Now it’s 8.8. Geez, that’s line one. Line two says, some of you who just read that first fact, don’t give a shit.

Yeah, it’s true. And line three says, some of you’re more upset than I said the word shit, than the first thing I said. We’ve, we’ve had a similar, uh, uh, situation with the podcast, so it’s like, where’s, where are your priorities? Yeah, you, you, you want change and you want people to do better in business and sell more and be better leaders.

But you’re, everybody’s so laissez-faire about it. They’re just so, uh, what, what do you expect from me? What want me to do? I said, I expect you to give a shit. And I ex, so it’s basically a training manual. That’s that attitude. Yeah. And effort. Yeah. You control that. Everything else, the cards fall where they may.

Yeah. You know, you gotta learn, you gotta be trained, you know? Yeah. People, you gotta finesse people, you gotta negotiate, things happen, people get sick. All these other things. But you certainly can control giving a shit. ’cause that’s just enter, that’s just effort. Yep. And attitude. Yeah. And so it’s a training that the byline is a training manual for any employee who serves a customer or any leader who serves that employee.

It’s broken into five simple sections. Either you do or you don’t give a shit. If you don’t figure out why. ’cause you probably need to number three, why to give a shit like all the financial, mental health, holistic, spiritual benefits of actually caring about what you do. Number four is how to give a Shit with the Give a Shit kit.

It’s a series of tools that are designed really honestly to make us better conversationalists, make us more curious about the people we’re dealing with, more curious about our customers, our employees. That leads a bit of leadership. And then the last section is people who do give a shit. So it’s right now about 25 stories, big or small examples of people who have, have in the world shown what it means to give a shit and, and really push it forward.

Well, you certainly live out your premise because I’ll, I’ll tell you this folks, um, walked in, sat down, you know, normally when I am entertaining somebody, yeah, I’m gonna ask them their story and yeah. First thing you did was you said, tell me your story. Yeah. And, um, you know, and, and you said it in a way where it didn’t feel like it was a power play.

No. Right. It like, ’cause because people will do that like, really well it, think about it this way. The person who asked the ques, the person who’s doing the speaking is in less control. Got it. Actually, the question is guiding. Yes. Yeah. So, you know, people who understand that art could take that and be like, did he just flip the script on me?

Like, what just happened? This is, wait a minute, he’s in my home and he’s at, but you did it in such a way that I was like, oh, he really wants to know. Oh yeah. Like, he really, so thank you. Yeah. Um, and, and it tells me that this book isn’t, you know, um, something that you, I. Think that you are or you think you believe and you think it would be good copy for someone to read.

You’re living this out. Yeah. You, you, you’ve been running a test on this premise on thousands of people a year that you are interacting with and training. Yeah. So the research is. Is built into the job and now you’re just kind of reporting on it. Yeah. I look back at the last 20 years of my career and it is, it was the test lab for Yeah.

These different ideas. And I remember writing the book about this mission, about the belief and all that, but it got to that fourth chapter, what am I actually go, what tools am I gonna put on the table? And I kept overthinking it. And it was very, very simple. How to ask great questions, how to truly listen to the answers, how to reciprocate whatever anybody’s giving you.

It’s, it’s, and then it’s the simplest of things, but you as a retail seller know it. It’s, it’s, it’s actually taking notes when people give you more than what p information, it’s paraphrasing back what you’ve heard so that the person feels seen, heard, validated in what they talked about, and then having them repeat it back so that they own it.

Yeah. And, but these, back to corporate culture, everybody’s so obsessed. Everybody’s on their own. Mm-hmm. Everybody’s doing their own thing and like, it’s cool, do your own thing. If you want any portion of that $8.8 trillion. It’s gonna have to start with you as the lead. My, my editor, Emily, shout out to Emily.

She said, who’s this book for? I was like, everybody. She’s like, no, no, no, no, no. Who’s the audience? Who’s the book for? And it was a painful thing for me to admit. I love frontline people. I love the staff. I’m not. Overly overjoyed about having to try to go change a leader’s mind. I, I love changing their minds, but every single time I would work with frontline people, what’s the first thing they’d say to me?

Thank you. Well pass that. They’d be like, these are all great ideas. I love you to death, Frank, but unless my manager makes these changes. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They, they, yeah. So she helped me realize that the book has got to be focused on leaders. So one of the things we’re gonna do at the end of the sections is I’m gonna write to the capital L leaders.

I’m gonna write to the lowercase leaders. I’m gonna say, if you’re a leader and you lead people, here is my, my philosophy or way to help you through this chapter. And then it’s like, if you’re a frontline person and you’re not that person to make decisions, here’s how you can shine so that you cast a shadow in a great way.

I wish that more leaders would look at themselves as the offensive line instead of the quarterback, a running bag, Hey man, put that on a T-shirt, because that’s really, that’s awesome. Yeah. That’s kind of like, throw some blocks, man. Yeah. Like don’t be the, don’t be the. The bottleneck. Well, what’s Don Miller’s thing from, I think it’s Donald Miller from StoryBrand.

He’s like, you’re not the hero. Yeah. You’re the guide. You’re the hero creator. You’re the wizard. Yeah. Yeah. You’re, you’re Gandalf buddy. You ain’t, you ain’t Aragon, or whatever the name is. You got a huge role in the movie though. And everyone’s gonna remember you, but like, you could do it. You could go on.

You could, but it’s Frodo FTO is the hero. Your thing is to make the other people the star. Yes. And that you reap all the benefits of it. That’s the, that’s the secret. Yeah. Is that like, that’s really earning your money as a leader. Yeah. Is everyone else is making a ton of money and you’re just, you’re getting a shekel from all of them.

Right. You’re getting, you’re, you’re getting the benefits of all of that, and you’re also, you’re also getting the benefit of going, Hey, when they started with me, they were here and now they’re here. Yeah. So that’s that. That’s that, uh, fuel tank being filled up. Yep. Um, that’s really what it, what it’s about.

So, what’s the hardest part, and we gotta wrap this back, boy up. I got two questions. Okay. Right. So first question, what’s the hardest part of the writing process? You did allude to the fact that you overcomplicate, I, I know for a fact. That this is the thing that will sabotage me in anything that I write.

Yeah. Because I am so wordy. So many thoughts happening. Have to get it all out. Yeah. I mean, I’ll literally take five pages that I wrote and then I’ll be like, I’ll put it in a chat, GTP, and I’m like, actually make this, please make this readable, presentable. Like maybe make it like, I don’t know, 60% less words, but more powerful.

Right. And they’re like, and then it’s like one page. So, um, I can only imagine that you have all these ideas that you wanna get out. Yeah. And then you gotta gotta, you gotta go Which ones are really the important ones, right. You wanna, you wanna guess how I wrote my book? Oh, you spoke it. Yeah. I used, I used speech to text through Microsoft Word.

Oh. I probably broke my laptop, turned on the microphone, and just started talking. I knew the chapters I had outlines and layouts, but then I just, so did you have like notes that you were reading off of or just kind of riff? I would, I would put whole paragraphs, whole sections together and then start to arrange them.

But there is no way that I would be able to sit in front of a computer and write from, no, I mean that’s like, that’s why I haven’t written three books yet. Yeah, so this is, you just do a text. Tope Dragon makes a software that works really, really good. You talk, it’ll put all of it on paper and if you know your mission, I had outlines and chapters of sections what I wanted, but that’s how I got it out.

The hardest part now is my editors and my team from page two, they see it and they know where it’s at. They know the market though. They know how books sell. They know what books need to have. They know what decision makers who are buying books and using books in corporate training. They know what the, the must haves are and how it needs to be positioned.

Got it. One thing I did. Two things I did really bad in the book. Number one is I kept being self-effacing. I kept being like, now listen, I almost said this phrase like nine times in the book. Now listen, this is just my opinion, okay? Yeah. I’m an expert. Yeah, yeah. You know, not, don’t take my word for it.

Here’s all these different things. And I had a guy that is on the product team of BMW. He read the first draft of it and he came to me. He was like, if I hear you one more time, say this is just my opinion. Yeah. I’m gonna scream. I want you to say to me, this stuff works. Yeah. I’m your guide. Right? And then I saw Don Miller moving to work.

That’s it. Well, I saw Don Miller at um, at the welcome conference for Wil Guera in New York, and he gets up there on stage talking about these things. And his greatest line for me was, your insecurities are serving no one. Right. So stop worrying about that. You need to be confident. The guide stands in their authority.

They know what they know and that was a huge slap in the face. Yeah. I’m, I have imposter syndrome. Yep. 10 times a day. And he was like, that, that insecurity is serving no one. It benefits no one right now. And that’s what this guy, Nick, who’s reading my book, shout out to Nick, he’s like, stop saying that. I want, I want you to stand in your authority every time you’re someone to go in a section like, here’s 20 years of my 20 years.

This is what I’ve seen, and it works. Yeah. That FIG Yeah. I guess I, I fully agree with that because I think if I, if I’m reading a book to get expert knowledge Yeah. I don’t want it to be framed in a matter of humility necessarily. Right, right, right. That was, that was the thing. The other thing I didn’t do enough that my editors are on me right now about is tell my story.

Yeah, I just went into them. I went into, so six chapters on hip hop dancing. Yeah. Well, no, like my, I, I made some changes. The very first line of the book is, if not for the principles in this book, I probably would’ve ended up in prison just like my father. Okay. So my mother and father divorced him as very young.

My dad ended up in prison. He was not a good person. Mm. Pretty much died in prison and. They, they were like, you have a miraculous story to tell. I, my, my mother was a single mom who had a first child at 16. Then, then me at 21, got divorced at 23. Wow. She was on hud, you know, public housing paying, you know, 160 a month in rent and then, you know, worked at, she worked at a dealership and she, she bought a, the only thing she could afford from the dealership was a car, was a service truck for the actual porters, and it was this little Nissan pickup truck.

And like, to, to the whole journey of everything we’ve gone through. Like, you know, I, I just, I didn’t wanna be egotistical. I didn’t mm-hmm. But, but my Emily and the team Jess, like, Hey, you, you need to kind of let people know, and it, and I thought it was okay, tell my story. Here I am, how great it is. They’re like, no, no, no, no, no.

The whole premise is, is. The law started giving a shit. Why are you the person that gives so much of his shit? Yeah. And then it, then it was all tied in. All of a sudden I was like, my dad was a, he was a piece of shit. Right. And I didn’t ever wanna be like him and I didn’t want anybody to ever think I was like him.

Mm-hmm. So I actively So you’re over. Oh my gosh. I played basketball all the time. Yeah. One guy sometime, you know, I, I tip the ball out. Guy pulled me aside in the middle of the game. He is like, you don’t have to tell him you tip the ball out. They didn’t see that. Yeah. I was like, get away from me. I am going to do this.

I’m going to Yeah. The thing, because I believe in these things. Exactly. And yeah, it’s just, that’s so in telling my story, I, it sort of gives the, the audience, here’s the reason why this dude even wrote the book in the first place. Not ’cause he wants some podcast. Yeah. Not ’cause he wants this thing. Yeah.

Uh, many people ask me like, what’s the next book? I was like, I don’t even know. ’cause this one was the one that was in my soul. No, you, you need a podcast. No, you do. There you go. You do, I I will tell you this, and I’m, I’m not stroking you here, but I have sat here with you for an hour and 33 minutes. Really?

Okay. Yeah. And I will tell you, you light a room up. Oh, thanks man. Right. You light up a mic, you light up a room. You’re a great storyteller. So are you. Um, thank you. And, um, that, that might be the next thing for you. Maybe we, maybe we do several episodes together. I’d, it’d be an honor. I wanna leave with this.

Yeah. Right. Um, inspiration. I’m a big, I, I, I, I’ve just absolutely feed on it. Yeah. I, I don’t believe in motivation anymore. I believe in discipline. Okay. But I believe in being inspired to be disciplined. Yeah. I believe that there’s inspiration all around. If you just open your eyes and you look for it, I think that it’s within us.

You just gotta dig for it and find it. Yeah. Um, so I’m curious, uh, if you were gonna leave us with a final thought of inspiration, what would it be? Have gratitude. Gratitude twice every single day and three times on Sunday. They’re, you, you, your, the job you hate is a job that somebody else would love. The house you live in that you don’t think you’re big enough is a mansion for somebody else and somewhere else.

There’s a river in India that is the most, I think it’s the Ganges, whatever, but it is, it’s where all these people bathe and it is filled with caustic chemicals that are almost a foot thick that cover the entire top layer. And people bathe in this every single day. And then I go home and I have running water in my shower, unlimited amounts of it.

So that gratitude takes me back to a place of humility in that way. And so if you can just stop and just have a little bit of gratitude, right? It’s all perspective at that point. You know, and I, I think it’s a term that’s thrown around a lot, but. Just stop for a second, man. My, my hands work. My arms work, you know, fricking conveyor.

Whether it is one, 100 million to one, the odds that you were born. Yeah. Nobody, I mean, it’s crazy. What are the odds that we are here right now? Yeah. In this moment doing this, when looking through that lens of gratitude, you, you stop complaining and you, and all of a sudden you start to get to work and you see everything.

You see opportunities around you like, oh, I could do that thing for that person. Oh, I could do that. I could, I could pick that piece of trash up, I could do those little things. And it just starts to, it’s, it becomes its own motor in that way. Gratitude is the first step to manifesting as well. Love it. Um, because if you are sending gratitude out into the world, you’re setting the right energy out, and then the things that you want to come true have a stronger likelihood of be of coming true.

Because you are vibrating at the right. Frequency, frequency, and, uh, you’re tapping into a higher spirit and you’re moving people in a different way. And everything starts to move in at the sa in the same direction. You know, we talk about like on teams, if everyone’s rolling the boat, right, if everyone’s pulling on the same rope, well, you don’t need to be on a team to do that.

Sometimes you need to do that internally. Um, and we have so much conflict that exists within us, and the first step to break that conflict is to offer gratitude that you even have the opportunity to be conflicted. You’re lucky that you even can be conflicted, right? Like, yeah. I mean, what could be better than that?

So, yeah. Uh, I love, I love that gratitude and I love that when I meet people that kind of think the same way. ’cause sometimes I, I think that I’m, I’m kind of a nut and like, I’m like, I. But it, yeah. It turns out what Dale saying, you’re a rebel. Yeah. You got it on your computer. I mean, he’d also be, he’d also be sitting in here and he’d be like, you’re right.

Yeah, you’re right. Right. Because it like, it, it, the more I think I’m a nut, and then the more I record with people and I interact with people and we have these kind of deep conversations we were talking about before you came here, like, what are we gonna talk about? And it’s like, I don’t know. Yeah. Well, I don’t script this.

We’re gonna talk about you. And then where you go, I go and where I go, you go with and you come back and then I’ll go find you. And we just, we riff and that’s what it is. But it seems to keep going back to the same thing. And that, that energy, uh, it lights me up and I hope it lights up our listeners. Yeah.

And uh, I wanna remind you, sir, you got shit done. Hey, there you go. Cheers. Yeah, brother. Pressure. Now we’re bumping shit. Now we’re bumping, we bumping. What do we do? Turkey? I didn’t even know what happened. Tears. I love it.

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