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Handle the Haters: Diving Into My Success Magazine Article

Episode 128

Voice of Influence Podcast Andrea Joy Wenburg

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How do you handle the haters?  I mean, haters gonna hate, right?  So, we’ve just sort of got to shake it off.  And, while I love that idea of being able to just shake it off, it can be a lot more complicated than that.

I was recently asked by Success Magazine, “How do you handle the haters?” My response is in the March/April 2020 edition of Success Magazine.

In this episode, Rosanne is going to interview me about that article, and we’re going to give a summary of the article and take a real deep dive into the three points that I made. We also use the topic of politics to explore how we could potentially get to a place where we are truly having a respectful dialogue that solves problems.

Take a listen to the episode below!

Mentioned in this episode:

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Transcript

People of influence know that their voice matters, and they work to make it matter more.  I’m Andrea Wenburg, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.

How do you handle the haters?  I mean, haters gonna hate, right? So, we just sort of gotta shake it off.  I love that idea of being able to just shake it off, but it can be a lot more complicated than that.  

I was recently asked by Success Magazine: “How do you handle the haters?”  My response is in their March/April 2020 edition of Success Magazine.

Today, Rosanne is going to interview me about that article, and we’re going to dive a little deeper into the things that I said.  In particular, we’re going to give a summary of the article and take a real deep dive on the three points that I made. I think that you’re going to find them helpful.  At least, I’ve heard that they can be really helpful to folks.

And also, we actually dive into politics a little bit.  Not so much specific politics but how we could potentially get to a place where we are actually having respectful dialogue that solves problems.  And then Rosanne also asked me what words I have for those who might be hiding behind their computer screens and hating on others.

If you’re interested in reading the article in Success Magazine, it is or will eventually be out online.  It is also in the magazine itself, which could be found wherever magazines are sold.

Here is my conversation with Rosanne:

Hi, Voice of Influence listeners!  This is Rosanne Moore, I am the Voice of Influence Communications Specialist, and we’re doing things a little differently today.  I’m going to get a chance to interview Andrea. She had a wonderful opportunity recently to be interviewed with Success Magazine, and we want to talk a little bit about the things that she brought up in that article, which was entitled “Handle the Haters”.

So, Andrea, because Voice of Influence is so focused on positive things, what was it like for you to address that topic?

Andrea:  It was really interesting.  I was kind of excited to get the question because I like being able to kind of toss things up and turn the tables a little bit, like give people a different perspective.  So, the perspective that I wanted to bring to that question was instead of focusing on handling haters, focusing more on how do we handle ourselves. That maybe some of the criticism that we feel when we’re hearing other people and what they’re saying to us is actually inwardly directed; like, we are feeling that ourselves more than they are worried about hating on us.

And I think there are haters, for sure, but to me, that was my perspective and that’s what they asked for.  They asked for, “What’s your story,” and I shared that my perspective on haters is that it was more about my fear of other people and what they might think or what they might reject me for or whatever than it was about actual criticism.

Rosanne Moore:  That’s an interesting perspective because I’ve often noticed that online it’s very difficult to have a discussion because people seem to assume they already know what you’re saying.  Unless it’s instep, lockstep with what they’re saying, they take it as criticism. And so, to hear you say that, to encourage people to look at what’s being triggered in them is an interesting perspective.  Can you say more about that?

Andrea:  Yeah, I mean, I think that that’s very true.  It’s very hard for people to have an actual conversation like a discussion online.  Especially, I think I see it on Facebook and Twitter in particular, where people… it’s sort of like the gloves are off, and we just go at each other.  And a lot of times, it’s sparked from offense; like people feel offended, and so therefore they come back with an even harsher word. It would be interesting to see what would happen if we all just decided not to be offended by each other because we might actually have a conversation.

Rosanne Moore:  That would be nice, right?  I have tried personally to make a practice of – unless there is actual name-calling or, like, things that give clear indication of a negative tone – to try to read any kind of response, no matter what it says, in an objective tone in my head.  Because I think a lot of times you’re right, we come at discussions ready to be offended or assume that the other person is angry instead of that they’re just discussing something.

Andrea:  Right.  I think sometimes that’s really a projection.  We assume that other people are going to respond the way we would.  Sometimes, it has to do with the fact that we’ve experienced this before.  We’ve experienced this kind of criticism before so we’re assuming that’s what they’re doing.  But sometimes, it’s because we are that critical of other people and other perspectives. And so, when we hear somebody else say that, we feel very defensive.  And it’s kind of messy.

Rosanne Moore:  Yeah, that’s good.  I would have go back a little bit to the points that you brought out in the article in Success Magazine.  Your first one was that when you’re speaking publicly, when you’re putting yourself out there to share your message, your voice of influence, that family and friends are not your audience.  And that you shouldn’t target them because if they feel targeted, even though you want to influence them as well, they’re going to feel defensive and shut things down. Can you say more about that?

Andrea:  Okay.  So, the interesting thing about this is that Success Magazine itself their audience is people that are entrepreneurs.  They’re online, they’re trying to speak, they’re trying to write, and that sort of thing.  And so, it’s sort of like talking to people that are doing what I’m doing. And in that context, I think that it’s really important for people who are wanting to do the kinds of things that I’m doing to remember that their friends and family are not their audience.

Because that is true, when people feel targeted… there have been times – and I could point to probably two or three times – where I didn’t mean to target somebody, specifically, but it was close enough to the truth of some situation that actually happened that when I did talk about something or write about something that person felt like they had been targeted. And it almost ruined a relationship.  Thankfully, it didn’t totally, but yeah, it was very scary.

Rosanne Moore:  So, when you say target them, you’re specifically thinking, like, using examples that are too close to home, that kind of thing?

Andrea:  Yeah, either examples or that the message is something that is immediately applicable to somebody that you’re very close to.

Rosanne Moore:  I see.

Andrea:  So, when I was writing, when I was blogging on a regular basis, I was not ahead of the game by any means.  I was writing for that day, and then I would post usually that day. And so, the things that I was thinking about, stirring in my heart, whatever, were things that had been happening in that sort of immediate timeframe.  And then if I would put that out there in that way, right away, it could be perceived by somebody as being about them when I didn’t necessarily mean for it to be or maybe it just looks like it, you know.

And I think there were a lot of times when I first started blogging that I really was concerned about whether or not people that I knew and loved would read what I had to say.  I really wanted them to be my audience. I wanted them to support me, to care about what I had to say, to help me get this blog off the ground, that sort of thing. And until I was able to sort of surrender that, give it up, not try for that anymore, not expect that of my friends… I mean, there came a point where I said to some close friends of mine, I was like, “I would much rather you’d be my friend than my audience.  I need you as my friend. I’d rather you just not read or listen to anything that I say because I want to maintain this friendship.”

And thankfully, a lot of those relationships were able to just sort of evolve, and everybody was able to sort of put that aside and not worry about, you know, being offended by what I talk about or whatever.  You know, like we’re able to still have conversations around it. But that was something that felt very threatening, I think, to me and to my relationships. That was really important in that context.

Rosanne Moore:   So, when you started, your intent was simply to process what was going on for you, but to others, it kind of came across as a passive-aggressive way to correct or to…

Andrea:  Yeah, it could totally appear passive-aggressive.

Rosanne Moore:  Yeah, that’s a good point because that could be very innocently done and cause trouble without realizing it.  And I guess that goes back to the whole kind of thing we teach at Voice of Influence of knowing your audience, and realizing not just what your message is but who your listener is, and how it’s going to impact them as well. 

Andrea:  Absolutely.  I think if I were to take this article and the things I said and apply it to our audience more broadly, I would say that is exactly it; know your audience is the first point.  Is that person that you’re talking or that you’re getting criticism from, are they somebody that you really respect and you want to listen to what they have to say, and that it should impact the way that you think about things?   If that’s the case, then let that be what it is and don’t call them a hater, you know. Or it could be somebody that’s maybe designed to be in your audience. Maybe they’re somebody who is on your team at work, or they are in your audience at a convention or something like this.

If you’ve touched something in them that is kind of wounded and hurt, and then they are being critical of you or hating on you online or in some sort of way even personally…  The more important thing that you and I both know is that we have to stay curious in those situations and really just try to figure out what this touched in them or what was threatened in them when you said something.  Because you do have sort of a responsibility to those people, you do have a responsibility to be curious about to try to understand where they’re coming from no matter what they’re saying because you want to get to the heart of it.

Rosanne Moore:  And you kind of brought that out in the article when you said, “Love people more than you fear them.”  That’s what you were talking about, wasn’t it?

Andrea:  Yeah, definitely, that was part of it.

Rosanne Moore:  Yeah, that you have to continue to be curious rather than defensive if people don’t receive what you’re saying, or they make assumptions about why you’re saying it or what you mean that don’t really fit with what you’re saying.

Andrea:  Right, because they’re offended easily.  And then the third category of people, I think, for knowing your audience would be the people that really might just be haters.  They really are just hiding behind their computers and, you know, feeling really angry at the world. They want their voice to matter, and so they’re going to put it out there even if it does hurt somebody.

There are times when it’s okay to just let those sort of roll off and not stay curious about them.  You can have compassion on people who are hateful because you know that they are hurting. There’s got to be something hurting inside of them.  But that doesn’t mean you have to feel responsible for figuring out what you did wrong, and why they’re offended, and all that kind of stuff.

So, those folks, I would say, it’s okay to let those folks go and just move on.  But are they somebody that’s really in your audience that you feel responsible for?  Stay curious. Are they somebody that you have a lot of respect for and they’re bringing up some sort of criticism that you need to pay attention to?  Pay attention to it. But if it’s somebody that’s really just kind of out on the fringes and hateful, you can’t take responsibility for everybody.

Rosanne Moore:  That’s a good point, right.  You also talked about, “Sometimes you have to sacrifice what you want for what you need, and that ethical influence has a cost.”  What were you referring to there?

Andrea:  I think that the writer of the article tweaked something that I said for the first statement there, “Sacrificing what you want for what you need.”  I am trying to remember what my response actually was to that. But the main thrust of that second point is about understanding that there is a personal cost to putting yourself out there.  If you’re wanting to have any kind of influence whatsoever, that means you’re not hiding under a rock on an island without anybody else around. Then you’re a person, you’re a human being, and there’s some sort of cost that you’re going to incur because of putting yourself out there.

Rosanne Moore:  So, in other words, that while you may sacrifice comfort or safety or whatever… instead of maybe saying what you want for what you need, instead, you’re willing to make sacrifices to do what you believe is most important, what you’re called to do.

Andrea:  Exactly.  That was really more of what I was trying to get at with that point.  And I didn’t have a chance to be able to say, “Oh, that wasn’t quite it,” you know, with the article.

Rosanne Moore:  Right.

Andrea:  And I thought, “Well, it’s not the end of the world, you know.  I still got in the point about it being about coming at a personal cost.”  But it really is about the mission, though. It really is about, “Okay, what am I willing to sacrifice for the mission?”

Rosanne Moore:  And how do you evaluate that?  What kind of things are you willing to sacrifice, and where do you draw a line and say, “No, I’m not willing to do that”?

Andrea:  I think that’s a super important question.  It seems to me that we need to prioritize the things that we’re willing to put on the line for our mission and what we’re not.  So, for example, for me, I am willing to put myself on the line in the sense that other people are definitely going to criticize me.  I’m going to have to get over that in order to continue down this path, in order to continue to have any kind of impact.

Rosanne Moore:  Sure.

Andrea:  So, I’m willing to sacrifice the comfort of feeling like I’m always right.  I’m willing to sacrifice the comfort of feeling like everybody always agrees with me or should agree with me, knowing that that’s not going to happen.  I have to sacrifice that harmony or lack of tension. There’s always going to be some kind of tension. I have to be okay with that feeling. So, there is something there that I sacrifice.

Rosanne Moore:  And what kind of things are you not willing to sacrifice?

Andrea:  Yeah.  And I would say maybe I’d throw in with that last point just that that sometimes I’m willing to sacrifice feeling vulnerable, basically, is essentially the thing, I think, maybe.  Like, I can feel vulnerable or make myself vulnerable to criticism, and that’s what I’m willing to sacrifice. What I’m not willing to sacrifice would be, I’d say, that number one, if it impacts the safety or wellbeing of my family; in particular, my children.  You know, they’re vulnerable. They are vulnerable and I have to protect them.

So, you know, my husband and I have to be in conversation about what we’re willing to say about them or not say about them, or if they were to be put in the line of fire in some way, that would shift how I approach things, for sure.

Rosanne Moore:  Right, right.  That makes sense.

Andrea:  And I’m sure that there are other things, like I wouldn’t want to sacrifice my own voice.  I can sacrifice the idea of, you know, speaking to everything, “Maybe I’m not gonna speak to this thing because this other thing is more important to me.”  So, I’m willing to bite my tongue here so that I can have a bigger voice there. But if I were to say I’m going to not speak the truth of what I actually believe, I’m going to actually lie… you know, being untruthful would be something I’m not willing to do.

Rosanne Moore:  Right.  That makes sense.  Yeah, sometimes you have to keep your powder dry for the battle, where it matters most, but that’s not the same as betraying the core of who you are. 

Andrea:  Great way to put it.

Rosanne Moore:  And it sounds like anybody in your position, anybody who’s going to have or for any of us who want to have a voice of influence, there needs to be a willingness to develop a thick skin and a tender heart at the same time.

Andrea:  That’s a complicated kind of a requirement there.

Rosanne Moore:  Right.  Okay, so, you talked about how do you evaluate what you’re willing to sacrifice and what you’re not willing to sacrifice.  Before we touched on the idea of loving people more than you fear them… when you think about what you’re sacrificing, what you’re not willing to sacrifice, when do you take in feedback from other people?  When is that a sacrifice of control, then when do you draw a line and say, “No, that’s no longer helpful, and I’m not going to do that”?

Andrea:  Hmm.  Can you expand on what you’re saying there?  What kind of example would you be talking about here?

Rosanne Moore:  Well, for instance, if you’ve engaged someone and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, you don’t have to just be open to haters.  When do you decide when there’s feedback that’s valuable for you, and when do you decide, “This is a voice I don’t need to keep listening to”?

Andrea:  Hmm.  That’s a really interesting and complicated question, right?

Rosanne Moore:  Well, let me simplify that.  What’s kind of the grid for you about when you take in feedback and when you don’t?

Andrea:  Well, I think that it has something to do with whether or not the other person is really doing this because they have your best in mind.  If they’re just wanting to argue with you and win you over to their side of the argument, that’s just arguing with somebody. If that person seems to really care about you, and for me, you know, my mom would always tell me, “Andrea, people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” and that is a quote that comes from, I don’t know, Roosevelt or somebody, but it’s definitely a historical kind of… it’s been around for a while.

But the essence of that is that if people know that you have their best interests at heart then they’re more likely to take in what you have to say.  They’re more likely to feel like, “Okay, let me think about what you’re just saying right now.”

Rosanne Moore:   So just because they’re criticizing, they’re not haters.

Andrea:   Right, right.  Oh, yeah, totally.  I think that that is really important with that first point of knowing your audience, so who are you listening to then, you know.  Is it somebody that really cares about you and so you’re willing to take their criticism in? But how you determine whether or not that person is somebody you want to take their criticism or not… I mean, that’s hard.  It’s hard to know. I mean, if they know you, if they care about you, if they’ve demonstrated that they’re for you; I think that that’s something that each of us should think about for ourselves, when do we feel most open to criticism?  When do I feel most open to hearing from somebody else, and then turn the tables and say, “Well, then that’s how I need to be treating other people when I have something to say.”

Rosanne Moore:  That’s an interesting point.  I know I don’t have difficulty taking negative feedback if it’s done from a standpoint of exploration rather than an assumption of negative motives.  f I feel like there’s a mischaracterization of…

Andrea:  Of you?

Rosanne Moore:  Of me or of my motives then even if they’re right about that there’s something that I need to change, it just feels yucky.  It’s a lot harder to receive, and I can usually over time parse out, “All right, this is the part that’s true that I need to look at.”  But I still come away, “That’s not a person I wanna hear from in the future,” because they didn’t come at it from a standpoint of assuming that my intentions were good and that I had missed the mark, you know, or I had a blind spot about something, so that’s a good point.

Andrea:  I think if we’re characterizing people as being from a different side and that other side is evil… I mean, this is what’s going on with politics.  A lot of people that are in politics right now or people that are listening and feeling like they’re a part of a political party… or not even just a political party, but you know, following Trump or not following Trump, whatever, it seems like that is the line right now.  We either follow Trump or you don’t follow Trump. And anybody on one side of the line characterizes the people on the other side of the line as being evil and so they totally write off every single thing that they say.

Rosanne Moore:  Right.

Andrea:  That is not going to get us to consensus of any kind.  So, how do I listen for what is really going on in the other person?  Like, bringing it down outside of politics, bring it down to the actual person themselves.  What does this person in front of me, who’s maybe on the other side of the line, if you’re on one side of the line or the other – some of us, you know, are trying to look at it objectively – but how do I listen for what’s really going on inside that person?  What is being threatened in them that’s causing them to believe something that I don’t believe?

Rosanne Moore:  And not be able to hear…

Andrea:  And not be able to hear from anybody else.  Yes, not be able to hear what I have to say.  It’s not even worth saying it when the other person can’t hear it.  So, how do I get to the heart of that person and find out what’s really going on inside of them and speak to the heart of that person instead of talking politics around the top?  Because if you start at the heart, if you get to the core of a person that’s really struggling with something, or they feel threatened in some way that they’re political party or their side of the spectrum is validating for them, you have to be able to show them that you are for them.  Just because you’re against, you know, maybe their political stances, you can still be for the person.

So, if we could just do that, if we could just bring it down to that personal level and to the heart, I think that we’d have a chance of actually having conversations.  But as soon as we get into inflammatory statements and assuming that, “You know, the other person is x, y, and z, and I am not and so therefore, I cannot listen to anything that they have to say.  I’m gonna write off everything that they have to say,” you’ve lost the conversation. You’ve totally lost any kind of influence you could have over that person or their way that they’re thinking about things.

I would just throw in there because I brought up politics – I try not to, but right now, it’s a big deal – and I think that as long as we’re using buzzwords that we’re hearing from politicians, buzzwords like corruption…  Both sides are using that word and it means something different to them. It looks like something different to them. And when you use buzzwords like that – or buzzwords of fake news or whatever – if you’re using those buzzwords, you are putting yourself in a position to be written off by one side or the other and to not actually get into a real conversation.  So, to take it again, like, throw out the buzzwords. Let’s get down to what is actually going on inside people. I think then we’ve got a chance.

Rosanne Moore:  So, really, we can’t even have an objective discussion about issues until both sides are really willing to look at what’s going on in their own heart that makes it hard for them to hear, it sounds like.

Andrea:  Yeah, there’s so much, right?  There’s so much there, and I think that’s why it’s important for us to have, you know, conversations like this and conversations that are about people and what’s going on inside of them.  The more that we can have those conversations, the more likely we can have conversations about policy and about politics that are actually going to do something, but as long as it’s just about that, no way.  We’re not getting anywhere.

Rosanne Moore:  So, do you have any words for those who do find themselves often in high conflict argument, you know, discussions.  I mean, there are people who seem to spend a lot of time on the internet, or whatever, criticizing others. What would you say to someone who is in that place?

Andrea:  I think that what you’re striving for, what you want, is you want your voice to matter.  You want to be heard, and you want to have influence. If you’re doing that, you’re doing it because you’re trying to have some kind of influence, and I respect that.  I get it. I think that’s important, and that your voice really does matter, and it should matter. The trouble lies in thinking about what the outcome is of what you’re saying.  I think we all have to look at what are we really wanting out of this situation. Do I just want to feel better? Then I may as well just spew hate because that’s going to make me feel superior in the moment.

But if you want actual influence, if you want to actually see something change then you need to do the more complicated and hard work of figuring out who your audience is, what your mission is, what you’re willing to sacrifice for that, and then loving people more than you fear them so that you can come to the conversation caring about that other person.  And come to that conversation in love instead of worrying about whether or not you’re right or wrong, and how superior you feel. As long as that is the goal, as long as you’re elevating yourself to feel superior, it’s going to be really hard for you to have the actual influence that I think that you really do want.

Rosanne Moore:  What I’m hearing you say is to have real genuine influence, you have to lay down your lust for power – for power over, I should say.  Not the power that comes from genuine strength, but the kind of power over that shuts down opposition instead of being able to do the hard work of actually influencing and persuading.

Andrea:  Yes, that feeling inside where you just need to have that power to shut people down, I think that also is tied directly to that need to be right.  Because there’s something really threatened in us when we’re not right when we’re found out that we’re wrong about something or that somebody else doesn’t agree with us on something, and we’re threatened at the core when that happens.  And that’s why we exert more power to try to make it go away. We don’t like that feeling. But if we can sacrifice that, if we’re willing to sacrifice our need to be right, then we might have a shot at having a conversation where we get something accomplished.

Rosanne Moore   That’s a great point, Andrea.  Thank you so much. This has been a really rich podcast.  I hope, listeners, that you’ve gotten a lot out of this. I know I have.  It’s always a good reminder to me to be present in the conversations, not simply to discuss ideas but to remember there’s a real person in front of me that I need to take care of and love well in the midst of a hard conversation.

Andrea:  That’s right, especially if you really want to have influence over them if you want to have influence on them and their opinions.  Otherwise, go for it, just hate on people and make yourself feel better. But that’s not going to change the conversation. It’s not going to get you where you really want to go.

Rosanne Moore:  Well, it goes beyond that, right?  Because it’s not simply hating or not hating.  Even if you’re not being hateful – if you’re trying to discuss an idea but you’re not taking care of the heart of the person in front of you – you could be right, you could be logical, you could be respectful, but they still may not hear any of that.

Andrea:  Absolutely.

Rosanne Moore:  Because something may be triggered in them that you need to take care of first, that may be a barrier first that you have to address before they can even receive what you’re saying in the spirit and what you’re trying to give it.

Andrea:  Roseanne, that’s why you’re Communications Specialist because you’re really good at summarizing what I say, much more succinctly and powerfully so.  But I thank you, thank you for giving me a chance to share these things. It was fun. It was fun to have this conversation with you with our listeners.

Rosanne Moore:  It was fun.  And if you enjoyed today and you want to benefit more from the wonderful services that Andrea offers to companies that have worked with us and working with human dynamics and within their company and building a culture and a climate in a business where people communicate well and serve each other well, get in touch with us at voiceofinfluence.net.

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What to Do When You Feel Ambushed with Retired Navy SEAL Jason Redman

Episode 127

Jason Redman Voice of Influence Podcast Andrea Joy Wenburg

Play here (the red triangle below), on Apple Podcast, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Have you ever felt ambushed or something unexpected comes along and throws you off course so that the rug being pulled out from underneath of your feet?

Today, we have the honor of hearing from Jason Redman. He’s a retired Navy SEAL, a wounded warrior, veterans advocate, New York Times bestselling author, and acclaimed leadership and resilience speaker.

In this episode, we’re talking about what it’s like when we feel ambushed, how to overcome those moments of real crisis in our lives, how to see an ambush coming, the practice that separates elite performers in the way they handle these ambushes and help them overcome, a fact of life that we absolutely have to accept in order to be an overcomer, why it is so important to put yourself in uncomfortable situations, and how a voice of influence can be there for others who are in crisis.

Take a listen to the episode below!

Mentioned in this episode:

 

Transcript

People of influence know that their voice matters, and they work to make it matter more. I’m Andrea Wenburg, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.

Have you ever felt ambushed, or something unexpected comes along and throws you off course so that the rug being pulled out from underneath of your feet?

Today, we have the honor of hearing from Jason Redman. He’s a retired Navy SEAL, a wounded warrior, veteran advocates, and acclaimed leadership and resilience speaker. He’s also a New York Times bestselling author for The Trident, and we’re going to be talking about his new book Overcome.

There are a couple of things you need to know about Jason before we get going because his story is remarkable, and we really don’t talk about it in the actual interview itself. So, I’m going to share with you a little bit from his website to give you an idea of who Jason really is.

On September 13, 2007, while acting as Assault Force Commander on an operation to capture an Al Qaeda High-Value Individual, LT Redman’s Assault Team came under heavy machine gun and small arms fire, and he, along with two other teammates, were wounded in the ensuing firefight. Despite being shot twice in the arm and once in the face – as well as multiple rounds to his helmet, Night Vision Goggles, body armor, and weapon – Jason and his team fought valiantly winning the fight, ensuring everyone came home alive.

So, when he was recovering at Bethesda, he wrote a sign for his door, which actually ended up becoming a statement and symbol of wounded warriors everywhere. This sign gained national recognition and earned Lt. Redman and his family an invitation to meet President George W. Bush in the Oval Office. In fact, that original sign was on the door was signed by President Bush, and now hangs in the Wounded Ward at the National Naval Medical Center Bethesda.

Jason is going to tell you what he wrote on that sign at the end of our interview. As mentioned before, today we’re talking about what it’s like when we feel ambushed and how to overcome those moments of real crisis in our lives, when we feel like the rug is pulled out from under us, specifically, we’re going to talk about how to see an ambush coming.

Jason is going to share a practice that really separates elite performers in a way that they handle these ambushes and help them overcome. We’ll discuss one fact of life that we absolutely have to accept in order to be an overcomer. Why it is so important to put yourself in uncomfortable situations, and how a voice of influence can be there for others who are in crisis?

One more note, Jason has a fantastic TED Talk where he talks more about his actual story. I highly recommend it, and we will definitely make sure that it is located in the show notes so it’s not hard for you to find. And you can find all of this information in the show notes of voiceofinfluence.net.

Here’s our interview with Jason Redman:

Hey there, it’s Andrea! Welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast. I have with me today Jason Redman. And Jason, this is such an honor to have you on our podcast today. You have quite a story, you have quite the message, and I’m excited to have you here with us today.

Jason Redman: Andrea, thank you. Thanks for having me on. Honored to be here.

Andrea: So, Jason is a retired Navy SEAL who utilizes his training and the years of expertise to guide others in leadership and resiliency. And Jason just came out with a new book called Overcome, and it’s all about how to help people survive what Jason calls “life’s ambushes.” So, we’re going to talk today about overcoming, and I’m really, really looking forward to this, Jason, because I think that this is something that we found in our business too, and that’s that people kind of come up to those times when they are ambushed or the times when they are struggling and have a hard time knowing what to do with it. And so why don’t you tell us a little bit about why you wrote Overcome?

Jason Redman: You know, it’s kind of funny, over the years, my story had gotten out there. I mean, I was injured in 2007, I finished my military career, and along that path right about the time I retired in 2013 is when my first book The Trident came out. And, you know, it is an amazing story. It is a story about a young man, me, who had failed at one point and really failed at a point that a lot of people would have given up. As a matter of fact, I know other individuals who have failed in business or have failed professionally, and sometimes we create these lies in our head that, “Oh my God, I made this mistake or I did this wrong, and nobody is going to follow me again because of this.” And I’ll be honest, I bought into some of those lies too.

But for whatever reason, both through some trusted leaders who said, “Hey, we see potential in you so, you know, you need to keep going,” and through fate and fortune and all these other things, I decided to drive forward and stick with it and really turned my career around, redeemed myself. I got myself right back up to my career being on track and getting ready to enter the whole next level of my career when suddenly I found myself severely injured, which started a whole new process of having to deal with adversity and navigating the waters of overcoming once again.

Andrea: Can you share with us even just a snippet of how you got hurt and that sort of thing? I knew, we really don’t have to dwell on that, but for those people who don’t know who you are or haven’t heard, just a little bit of the summary would be great.

Jason Redman: Yeah. In September of 2007 operating in Iraq, I was shot eight times by an enemy machine gun, including a round to the face. So, pretty devastating injuries. It took four years and forty surgeries to put me back together. I mean, I’m very blessed and lucky that I survived. It’s a tribute to my teammates. It’s a tribute to God. It’s a tribute to the doctors and nurses. And in some ways, it’s a tribute to having a strong, overcoming mindset and a will to fight because there were several times in that process where I think if I had just let go and stopped fighting, I probably would not still be here.

And all of those things go into this new book Overcome, and I know right now there’s a lot of people that are listening and that are probably thinking, “Oh my God, there’s no way I can relate to this guy. I can’t imagine what he’s been through. He’s a Navy SEAL, and he’s been shot at.” You know, but here’s the reality – and this is the premise of the book and this is why it’s relatable to anyone – everyone in life will step into a point where you’re ambushed. It might not be actual bullets or bombs going off on a battlefield, but they are the bullets and bombs going off in your life. And they can happen physically through an accident or an illness. They can happen physically to someone we love, maybe one of our kids or our spouse or a boyfriend or girlfriend. They can happen physically through sexual assault. I mean, they can happen personally through relationship damages.

And then, of course, the big one that everybody sees is the professional ones that occur through business when something unexpected comes along and just crushes our business. And all of these things come back to the one focal point that I tell people, it’s that moment when all of us think it is The End. When those The End moments come along, the overcome mindset is that defining point that enables us to say, “Okay, it may be the end, but I’m gonna keep driving forward. I’m gonna keep driving forward. I understand that, you know, it may be the end of whatever happened there, but somewhere out there, there is a new beginning. It may not be the path that I originally set out, it might not even be close to where I thought I was going to go but no matter what, I’m not gonna stay in this incident point or in this point of attack.”

And that’s everything the book is really built around. I’ll be honest, I wrote it because so many people asked me how I did what I did, how did I build that overcome mindset, and I’ll be perfectly honest; I could not answer that question in a step-by-step format before I wrote the book. So this book lays it out. It tells people how to do that.

Andrea: So, you went on a journey then to even be able to kind of look back and say, “Well, what did happen, how did I do this?

Jason Redman: Absolutely. I mean, if anybody’s read my first book, The Trident, there’s a lot of introspection in The Trident, and Overcome was similar. And there are some people who have written me and said, “Wow, I really had to look deeply at myself and come to realize…” So often, you know, we are our own worst enemies and both the lies we tell ourselves and so often people talk about wanting to change, but they take no action steps to actually do it. And I will say that this book talks about the action steps. It talks about having to get uncomfortable. It talks about how we move forward and create that long term change. How we create structure and discipline in our lives to affect the things that we want to affect. Those things are hard and they’re uncomfortable, and sometimes we have to come to grips with we haven’t made all the best decisions.

And here’s one of the biggest things that people struggle with. Oftentimes, the ambushes and the incidents we get into – not always, obviously, there are certain things like accidents and illnesses and things like that that we can never see coming – but oftentimes there is a lot of life ambushes we get into that we have what I call indicators. We saw the signs and we either procrastinated, ignored, put off, delayed, or did what all human beings do, and then suddenly we found ourselves in this situation. And, you know, we all say the same thing, “Oh my God, I never saw this coming.” But when we take several steps back, we start to go, “Wow, I really did. I knew I should have taken care of this. I knew when the doctor told me last year that I needed to take better care of my health and I needed to watch my diet, start working out and then I didn’t and suddenly I’m here in the hospital with a heart attack. The indicators were there.”

Andrea: So, is that the denial that you talk about? Is that the point of denial that people just don’t want to have to face it?

Jason Redman: Absolutely. I don’t know what it is. As human, I’m guilty. We’re all guilty. I mean, your top elite performers are guilty. The difference between the elite performers who move forward the fastest are they move from that level of denial that something’s happened or were confronted with a crisis failure, you know, have to implement some massive change incredibly quickly. They come to acceptance as fast as possible, whereas other people, you know, there’s a little bit of, “I want to ignore it. I don’t want to admit it’s a problem. If I push this off long enough, maybe it’ll fix itself.” Unfortunately, life just doesn’t work that way. I mean, it is a true statement. Most of the time, things don’t get better with time. They only get worse.

Andrea: So, in your perspective, do you think that people can develop that ability to face the problems that they’re confronted with before they get to that point of The End? Can people really change in that way do you think? Have you seen it happen?

Jason Redman: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve gotten to watch it with a lot of different people, specifically wounded warriors. I mean, before I wrote the book, I was running a nonprofit to serve wounded warriors, and we ran a program called the Overcome Academy, specifically because we were having so many veterans and combat veterans who were struggling with this transition out of the military into the civilian world. And almost all of our wounded warriors had had this, literally, real-world ambush that most of them had been in some fact or fashion.

And then the secondary ambush, which was the ending of their military career, unexpectedly, of course. So, even put that on top of whatever injuries and now disabilities they were confronting; so much across the board. It’s a really hard transition for them and so many of them were struggling in the civilian world to figure out their new path. We put together a course on, “Well, how do we analyze this, how do we understand who we are, how do we understand what our new purpose and passion is and then how do we lay out a path to get there?”

And I’ll be honest, that main part of the curriculum – and when I write about this in the book from the Overcome Academy – is really the heart and soul of what this book is. So, I do believe anybody can do it. It’s not easy. I’ll tell you, anytime we have to go through a change any time or go into a crisis, it’s never fun. But if we can be honest with ourselves and, you know, I have given people some step-by-step processes. I know you mentioned recognize where people are in denial, and I created something called the React Methodology.

So, basically, if you’re in a crisis, you follow the React Methodology to quickly; a) come to acceptance, and b) go through the steps that you can evaluate; your resources, assets, identify the right course of action, and then move forward. These are all things that can happen. And then once you do that, if we accept the second part of life which is bad things are always going to happen. You know, it’s just one of the hard facts about being human that, you know, no matter how well we plan, no matter how we try to avoid risk, I mean, just bad things sometimes happen.

And if we already have an acceptance of that – not going around and being… you know, treading on eggshells in life but just accepting, “Hey, sometimes bad things are gonna happen.” – we can be a little more proactive in our preparation to deal with them instead of being totally blindsided for those things that, you know, are coming.

Andrea: It reminds me of a quote from your book; let me see if I can find it real quick. Oh my goodness. I loved this so much. It’s at the beginning. Well, let’s see, it’s on page 143. I’m not sure which chapter that is. It’s on my computer right now. So, it’s hard to flip through it, but you said, “Everything in SEAL training is built on adapting to the unexpected. If you come in thinking that life is fair, SEAL training will beat it out of you. So many that have never been through the BUDS talk,” – I’m not exactly sure – “About how physically grueling it is…” Yeah, go ahead, go ahead, why don’t you just respond?

Jason Redman: No, no, no, no, BUDS is an acronym. It stands for Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL training. So, in the military lingo out there, BUDS is SEAL training.

Andrea: Right, okay. “So, they don’t know how grueling it is or they talk about how physically grueling it is, they are absolutely correct. But those of us that have been through it know that it is 10% physical and 90% mental. And the reason it’s 90% mental is because the SEAL training is designed to screw with your head.” But why, why is it designed to do that? I mean, it seems that what we’re talking about here is that life just can’t be fair, and it’s not going to happen like you plan it to happen.

Jason Redman: And it never will. You know, life never unfolds in this perfect plan. I don’t care what you’re doing, there’s always going to be road bumps. There’s always going to be snags along the way. A good business mentor of mine, you know, he said, “No matter how great you plan, it’s always gonna take longer, it’s gonna cost more money and it’s gonna be much more difficult than you thought it was gonna be.” He said, “It’s just the way it is.” And that is kind of the equivalent of learning to build that mindset. As humans, we seek the easier path. We want that comfortable path.

Andrea: Right.

Jason Redman: But very rarely does it work that way. And so many people who don’t put themselves in situations that are uncomfortable, sometimes really have a hard time dealing with that. So, I encourage people, do things that make you uncomfortable. SEAL training teaches you, it wants to reshape the way you think. We have a tendency to look at certain things that we’re doing and expect a certain outcome based on those circumstances, and SEAL training turns all that on its head. So, a perfect example we used to joke about, you know, so SEAL training is called BUDS. So, we used to call it BUDS’ time, you know, this distortion in the space-time continuum. And if the instructors told you, you had a minute to do something, you would get it done in like 50 seconds but they would fail you until you didn’t make it in a minute.

And then to add insult to injury, they would tell you, “Well, obviously we gave you too much time, so now you only have 45 seconds to do it.” And you would kill yourself and make it in 45 seconds, but of course, you’d fail and then they’d tell you, “Well, now you only have 30 seconds,” and you would play this game for hours. And it was the guys who couldn’t accept the fact that it is designed to be unfair. It is designed to make you fail. It is designed to make you uncomfortable and mess with your head. And if you could just come to accept, “Hey, this is gonna be hard. It’s not gonna be fair, but no matter what I just keep moving forward.” And life sometimes can be that way and that is one of the lessons that I really want to talk about in this book.

We talk about movement is life; when everything’s going wrong, keep moving. So many people when these life ambushes happen whether they’re personal, physical, professional, we have a tendency to stop moving. We have a tendency to hole up in our house, to sit on the couch, and to just shut the world out. And it is probably the worst thing we can do. It starts that downward spiral of rumination. It is incredible how much moving and getting outside and with anything you do in life can make a difference. Being around the right people, positive mindsets, all these things we talk about in the book that you can do to try, and you know, the phrase in the book is to Get Off the X, the point of that incident, the point of that crisis.

Andrea: You interview and talk to and use the examples of a lot of different people who have actually gone through this process, who have at least been able to get off the X. Can you give us an example of somebody who really had a hard time getting out of that moment and moving forward but did it?

Jason Redman: I have several examples and we talked about several of them in the book. One of the examples that we didn’t talk about quite as much, but I’m going to highlight, was a young Air Force gal. And she came into the Air Force, she became a part of the security forces and even became a sniper, and she was a marksman, and she had two separate incidents. She had an incident of sexual trauma, and then she had an incident of a suicide bomber that almost blew up while she was taking care of things. It did not go off, but it really messed with her mind and she just really struggled when she came home.

And going through our course and showing her, “Hey, you have so much potential; you have so much to give back in this world.” And to find out her new purpose, she’s an amazing artist and she started taking her arts and teaching other veterans how to use art and art therapy, and oh my gosh, she is just thriving now. She’s just doing amazing. And for so many people out there, I try and convince them the same thing. So many of the other wounded warriors that I’ve worked with that those moments, the painful points that we have, the traumatic points, the failure points, so often they become our superpower.

If you can learn to get through it and get to the other side, suddenly you realize there’s power in what you’ve been through, and people are hungry to learn from you. If you are someone that has been through sexual trauma, it is such a hard thing to deal with. It’s such a hard thing for people to talk about, but for somebody that’s on the other side, we want to hear from them. How did you do it? How are you so strong? How are you thriving now because we want to know how to navigate those hard waters that we’re having to figure out how to navigate now.

So this is where I tell people that it can truly become a superpower and your ability to communicate to others that this is how you walk that path, it becomes an incredibly empowering thing. And it actually becomes very cathartic for the individual who’s been through it and now is on the other side.

Andrea: It’s a very redemptive perspective.

Jason Redman: Yeah, it worked. Well, it worked for me and it has worked for a lot of people that I’ve worked with. And this is the last thing, and this is something that I’ve been talking about a lot. You mentioned my TED Talk. It is the heart and soul of my TED Talk. You have a choice. You have a choice in how we’re going to deal with it. I just encourage people to choose positivity over negativity. Sometimes that’s hard; I mean, we have these moments that happen in life that just destroy us, that shatter us. And sometimes it’s hard to pick up the pieces and figure out where is the new path ahead. But there is a new path ahead; we just have to figure it out, and we just have to drive forward.

And that’s why I tell people, just keep looking forward, but make that choice. You always have a choice in how you’re going to deal with what happens to you in this life. And it doesn’t have to be choosing depression, choosing the rumination, choosing to stay in that point of incident or point on the X. That’s what I tell people, you got to choose to move forward, and when you make that choice, it is amazing how far you will move and suddenly look back and go, “I can’t believe I’ve made it this far.” And then new beginnings start to develop out of it as you continue to move forward.

Andrea: I mean, that really gets at the heart of what we’re trying to accomplish here at Voice of Influence. We really believe in agency, that a person can make a decision, that their voice matters – what they do and what they say – that it matters and that you can make that decision to move forward. It’s such a powerful line. It’s such a powerful message. Was there a point for you where… maybe you can share with us that pinpoint moment where you really had to make that decision for yourself?

Jason Redman: So, I’ll say it happened three times. And the three life ambushes that I’ve been through that decision point where I made the choice.

Andrea: That would be great.

Jason Redman: So, the very first light ambush I ever went through was a pretty high-level leadership failure. And it was driven by my own ego and arrogance as a young man just making some poor decisions that culminated with a bad decision that was made on a combat mission in Afghanistan in 2005. It is the heart and soul of my book The Trident. It follows this journey, and I viewed myself as a victim when I got myself in trouble instead of looking at, you know, “Hey, you know, maybe I didn’t make all the right decisions. Maybe there’s something I can learn from this.” Instead, I was bitter. I was bitter and I just focused on, “You know, everybody’s out to get me,” and a lot of the blame and all the things a lot of us do.

It all came to this point where I was telling myself these lies that it doesn’t matter what I do, nobody’s ever going to be willing to follow me again because of the mistakes and because of everything that happened. And probably one of the best leaders I know, he offered me this advice. He said, “Jay, people will follow you if you give them a reason to.” He said, “It doesn’t matter how much you mess up. It may take years to earn back their trust but if you are consistently setting the example, people can’t help but follow people that are doing the right thing and that are leaders. It’s just the way the world works.” He said, “Stop doing what you’re doing and start focusing on moving forward and setting the example, and come back and lead.” And it was that moment where I made the choice to stop feeling sorry for myself and looking at myself as a victim and to start driving forward, so that was number one.

Number two was lying in the hospital bed after I’d been injured. And even though I’d already been through some hard things, I will tell you – for anybody out there that’s ever been severely injured and facing both disability and disfigurement or individuals who have suffered life-threatening illness where they don’t know what the outcome is going to be – it’s a very intimidating place to be. To be in the hospital with doctors and nurses rattling off all these things, not able to give you a really good prognosis, really complicated medical injuries, they can’t tell you, “This is exactly how it’s going to turn out.” Instead, they give you a myriad of options and say, “These are all the different options. How do you want to go?” So, I was struggling with all of that.

And on top of all of that, I had these individuals that started a conversation off to my side, and they started talking about what a shame that all these young men, women go off to war. We were in a military medical hospital at Bethesda, so I know it is a very overwhelming place. There’s a lot of young men and women during war who are really battered in these hospital wings, and they had a very negative outlook, and you know, “Hey, they’re never gonna be the same. They’re never gonna be able to get back out in society. They’re never gonna be able to achieve their American dream.” And I remember thinking to myself, “Man, is this my future? Is this what I have left?”

Andrea: They were really hitting you if I remember right the way you were talking about.

Jason Redman: That’s right.

Andrea:   And that is a tough, tough thing to hear.

Jason Redman: That’s right. But I had a choice, and it was in that moment that I chose, “No, I’m not gonna be the victim.” I’ve gone down that path once before, you know, after I’ve made those mistakes as a leader and here’s the interesting thing I try and tell people. If I hadn’t been through that leadership failure, I don’t think it would have prepared me as well for the injuries that I sustained and knowing the path I had to walk. I had to walk this really hard path to build myself back up and through this very dark valley, but I tell people one of the greatest gifts you can have when you’re going through adversity is it will teach you and show you how to do it again in the future. So don’t shy away from it. It’s going to be hard. It’s going to suck, but someday there’ll be future adversity you encounter, and that’s what builds and overcome mindset. That’s what builds your ability to lead through those situations.

When I was lying in the hospital bed, I said, “No, I’ve walked that path once before; I’m not gonna do it again.” And this choice kind of led to a little bit of national notoriety because I wrote out this sign that I told my wife I wanted posted on my door and that nobody’s allowed to come in the room unless they read the sign. And the sign said, “Attention to all who enter here. If you’re coming into this room with sadness or sorrow, don’t bother. The wounds that I received I got in the job I love, doing it for people I love, defending the freedom of the country I deeply love. I’ll make a full recovery, and what’s full? That’s the absolute utmost physically my body has the ability to recover. And then, I’ll push that about 20 % further through sheer mental tenacity. This room you’re about to enter is a room of fun, optimism, and intense rapid re-growth. If you’re not prepared for that, go elsewhere.”

Andrea: It’s fantastic.

Jason Redman: But the great thing about that, by choosing and articulating, so not only did I choose I wasn’t going to be a victim, that I was going to drive forward with this positive mindset, I wrote it down. And now it became like a benchmark for me. It became, “Oh, well this is the bar that I set for myself and I’m gonna follow it.” So for anybody out there that is the power of choice, and you don’t know the impact it’s going to have on other people.

The third one was I got involved in a business lawsuit, and I talked about this in the book. You know, I was a young businessman and a little bit naïve, a little bit immature, and I didn’t do the things that I should have done. We talked about those indicators with ambush it’s like, “Oh my God, I never saw this coming.” Well, I did. I procrastinated. I didn’t do some of the things I should have done. I should’ve had a signed contract and all these different things. And it was a deal that kind of went south and turned into a big he said, she said situation that just evolved to, you know, kind of an ugly argument that turned into a lawsuit.

And taking care of myself over that year while I dealt with that, I wasn’t doing a very good job. And I went to the doctor in the fall of the year that it occurred, and the doctor said, “Hey dude, you know, you might be doing some good things but you’re gonna have a heart attack before forty-five if you don’t make some major changes in your health.” And heart disease runs in my family, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and all those things. So it was a wakeup call and I had to make a choice. I could’ve been in denial like so many people do, “Uhh, I’ll deal with that later, you know, maybe it won’t happen to me. What does this doctor know?” All the things, the lies that people tell me and I had to make a choice again how I was going to start taking care of myself. And I started really focusing on, you know, once again getting myself back in shape despite my injuries and the issues that I had.

So, I had to make a choice. I had to choose the positive path versus the negative path, and all of those things have had a great impact for me. And this is what I try and encourage others. It’s what I talked about in the book, how you can set yourself up for success, how we take care of ourselves so we’re proactively ready for those ambushes. You have that power, you have the power of choice.

Andrea: If you could give advice to somebody who wanted to see somebody else who’s been ambushed. Okay, we’re talking about the bystanders, the people that are on the sidelines who see that somebody else has been ambushed and they’re seeing that they’re getting stuck on the X. What advice can you give to the bystander about how they can encourage or influence or maybe they’re not supposed to at all the person who is in that position?

Jason Redman: Absolutely, give encouragement, give positive encouragement. What I encourage you not to do that I sometimes see is the negative encouragement where they’re like, “Oh well, fine if you want to lay here and die, then do it.” I watch that a lot, which I don’t know if that necessarily helps the situation. I mean, we always want to stay positive. You know, I recently had a friend that went through some dark times and, you know, I would always just, “Hey man, no matter what I’m here for you, I love you.” Because the reality is people can’t move forward until they reach that first step which is acceptance.

I’ve watched this happen several times with individuals that have been through trauma that if they are not ready and you try and drag them off the X of the point of incident, they’ll crawl back onto it. So, instead we just got encourage them. In the book, I talked about the React Methodology, use that with them, you know, “Hey, this is how we recognize. This is how we evaluate our assets so we can bring to bear to help problem. This is how we evaluate our options and outcomes.” You know, get them involved in the process, but at the end of the day, they’ve got to be willing.

So, you know, don’t give up on them. You know, definitely, I mean good friends and family will keep encouraging them. We look for different ways to try and get them off the X. We continue to evaluate what are the assets and they change over time. But hopefully, you know, the most important one is that they’re willing because that’s probably the biggest thing is that they finally; a) accept they’re in a crisis and b) they’re willing and ready to move forward and get off that X.

Andrea: That’s great advice. That’s great advice. So, okay, Jason how can people find your book and find you and just tell us about that real quick.

Jason Redman: Yeah, so Overcome is in all major booksellers. You know, Amazon, Books-A-Million, Barnes and Noble. We actually are getting ready. We’ve had a ton of people asking us for signed copies of the book, so we’re just now launching a signed version along with military challenge coins. We had a military challenge coin specifically made for the book, limited edition. We only ran a thousand coins. So when they’re gone, they’re gone. But that’s all on my website, jasonredman.com. Click on Store and the book will be there, and it’s on eBooks and you can get it, you know, Kindle and iBook. And it’s got a great audiobook, and I got to read the audiobook, so I’ve been getting a lot of great feedback on that.

Andrea: Awesome! You know, you are certainly a voice of influence in the world. I’m really, really glad that you have found a redemptive purpose in the things that you’ve gone through, that you are making a difference with the hardships that you faced the ambushes that you’ve come across and that you’re helping other people to do the same. Thank you so much.  Thank you for being a voice of influence for our listeners.

Jason Redman: Andrea, awesome! I’m blessed and hey good luck to everyone out there. If you find yourself in a life ambush, get off the X. You can do it, overcome.

Andrea: All right. Thank you!

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How Leading with Humility Impacts the Adoption of Change with Travis McNeal of Walmart

Episode 126

Travis McNeal Voice of Influence Podcast Andrea Joy Wenburg

Play here (the red triangle below), on Apple Podcast, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Influence by nature is about affecting change and, if you’re interested in listening to this podcast episode, my guess is that you care about how to make change come to fruition. Luckily, this week’s guest is the perfect person to help you better understand how to do just that.

Travis McNeal is the Director of Change Management and Communications for Walmart’s supply chain.  Travis and I both spoke at a conference, and when I saw his presentation about this case study of change management, I said: “I need to get him on the podcast.”

In this episode, we talk about a specific example of a digital change Walmart needed to make for truck drivers and why it is so quickly adopted, the importance of training and preparing managers for change, how to communicate that to them and finally, how humility really plays a large part in the ultimate success of adoption of a change, and more!

Take a listen to the episode below!

Mentioned in this episode:

 

Transcript

Hey, hey! It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast. Now, influence by nature is really about affecting some kind of change. And if you’re listening to this podcast, my guess is that you do care about that. You care about how to make change actually come to fruition.

Well, today, I’m interviewing Travis McNeal, the Director of Change Management and Communications for Walmart’s supply chain. Travis and I both spoke at a conference, and when I saw his presentation about this case study of change management, I said, “I need to get him on the podcast.”

So, we’re going to talk today about a few different things, specific examples of a digital change that they needed to make for truck drivers, specifically, and why it is so quickly adopted. We’ll also be going to talk about the importance of training and preparing managers for change, and how to communicate that to them, and finally – and perhaps more importantly – we’ll be discussing how humility really plays a large part in the ultimate success of adoption of a change.

If you haven’t already, please subscribe to the Voice of Influence podcast. We’d love to hear from our listeners. So, if you would like to give us some feedback or contact us for any reason, we have a contact form on our website, voiceofinfluence.net. That is also where you will find the show notes for today’s episode.

Now, here’s my interview with Travis McNeal:

 

Andrea: Travis McNeil, it is great to have you here on the Voice of Influence podcast.

Travis McNeal: Thank you. I’m happy to be here.

Andrea: You have a specific role at Walmart; would you tell us just a little bit about your position?

Travis McNeal: Sure. I run the Change Management Center of Expertise in the supply

chain organization. And Walmart is a large company, but the supply chain is what we would call a small part of the business but it still if you were to look at just the supply chain organization, it’s about a hundred and ten thousand associates and managers strong. So, it’s still a pretty large company in and of itself.

Andrea: So what is your specific role in that?

Travis McNeal: Yes. So we’re recently going through a transformation. We’ve been on this transformation journey for about two years now and it’s about a five-year journey and we’re really trying to transform the way in which our supply chain runs. And there’s around 17 programs of work that make up the supply chain strategy, and my responsibility is really twofold.

One is to work with the program leads for each one of those 17 programs of work to help ensure that they’re really thinking about all the elements of change management so that their programs can land successfully and effectively as possible. The other part is really working with the field. So, think of our distribution centers, our truck drivers, and our trucking offices, those folks. When programs are typically rolled out, it’s typically rolled out to the field.

And so the other half of my responsibility is to ensure that the leaders in the field are able to and effectively driving the programs with those who are impacted by those programs. So that would be the leading change piece, whereas on the program side it’s more of the change management piece.

Andrea: So, Travis, how did you kind of get involved in this particular piece of change management at Walmart?

Travis McNeal: I’ve been with Walmart about eight years and originally joined as part of the change management or design team, and there was a need for change management, and I’ve just slowly built up my career with Walmart. I ran the change management training and communications team for we were rolling out a large ERP program for HR, Enterprise Resource Management program and we were rolling that out internationally. I led that team for about four years.

And the thing that I felt about that team, it was great work, but it was pretty far removed from the business. So, working in supply chain, I felt like I wanted to get more involved with the business. And supply chain, they knew they were going on this transformation journey. They had fallen behind in many respects to the supply chain industry, and they needed to really reinvent themselves. That’s where I earned the right to be able to stand up a change management team and a change management practice within the supply chain organization.

Andrea: I mean, I would imagine that change is sort of a constant at Walmart, is that true?

Travis McNeal: Of course. The retail industry is in a severe upheaval right now. You’ve probably seen across, you know, news clippings here and there that several retailers are closing down. Who would have thought, you know, two years ago that Toys R Us wouldn’t be around today. So, the retail industry in itself is just under a constant state of change. And so that’s where my role really is important to really help guide the organization as they decide to go through changes.

Andrea: So when there is so much change going on, do you find that people are kind of nervous sometimes or even maybe defensive? Does anybody hold on tight to their roles and worry? Is there concern that sort of permeates the culture or are you able to kind of navigate that pretty well?

Travis McNeal: It’s a little bit of both. So any time you go through change, you know, regardless, – even through positive changes, you know – there’s this thing change management practitioners called the change curve where there’s always going to be this low point where people go through. Even if you were to get a promotion, there’s always going to come a point and time – you know, whether it’s one month, three months, six months into that new job – where you think, “Did I make the right choice?” You’re kind of learning a new role, you’re learning new people and the same is true when organizations go through large changes that the people experience that sense of loss of control, you might say, and do a little less predictability.

So that’s one of the sources that generates this resistance and people really being uncertain and very uncomfortable with some of these programs that are rolling out. And sometimes there are severe cases where you have people actively trying to thwart the goals of the program.

Andrea: What do you do to help people navigate that loss of control and unpredictability that they feel?

Travis McNeal: Yeah, that’s where the whole change of leadership piece comes into play. So, in an organization of our size, you know, we can’t have a change management person there onsite, you know, be there for each one of our hundred and ten thousand associates. And so you’ll often hear said in the change management world that sponsorship is the most important factor in successful change management, whether you’re using Prosci or whether you’re using John Kotter’s 8 Steps. Whatever, you know, change management methodology you’re using, they’ll often point to sponsorship, and that goes down to the very frontline manager.

So that’s why we have spent a fair amount of time investing in our frontline leadership to ensure that they understand the emotional toll that happens when people go through change, and then they’re included in that as well. We try to help them understand that, “What your associates experience, you’re going to experience that too. And so, before you can help your associates, you really need to come to terms with this loss of control that you might feel. So, in that way you can then in turn help your associates.”

One of the things that we’ve really tried to do is really invest in the training and preparation when we roll out programs in our managers to ensure that they understand the important role that they play in leading change within their own organization. Whether that’s leading a team of four or whether that’s leading a team of four hundred, a lot of the behaviors are going to be the same.

Andrea: So, you help them to kind of come to grips with the fact that this is going to happen, and this is how you’re going to feel. It sounds a bit like, “This is going to be painful, but we are going to be able to get to the other side.” Is there that kind of communication? “But there is this on the other side.” How do you get them to the other side?

Travis McNeal: So, first off, I think a lot of the programs that are rolled out are really good things. Things that should have happened years ago, and so there’s helping them understand, you know, not just what the other side will look like but to help them understand also what if we were to stay the same? What if we weren’t to change? You know, if we were to continue to going down this path, what might be the alternate reality? And so, we kind of try to tie the two together to say, “You know, what we can choose to change, or we can choose to stay the same,” and hear what the outcomes are for both.

We do try to spend a fair amount of time really articulating, not just the business case but just, you know, you’ll hear it say the, “What’s in it for me?”. So we really try to devote a fair amount of time to articulate, you know, what’s going to be in it for the associates and the managers. And a lot of times what you find out is that the majority of the people, regardless of your company, if you can explain it clearly the reason for the change, even if it’s a program that might be less in it for the associate or the employee, if they can see the real reasons for it – even if they don’t like it – they’ll understand it, and they’ll get it.

And there was a recent study done by Gartner that highlighted where they talked with over 400 companies and then had 300 or 50 so programs that they evaluated. That’s one of the top seven things that they learned was that, you know, associates don’t necessarily need to like it, they need to understand it. And that’s more important than actually liking the program.

Andrea: They don’t want to be just blindly led. They want to have a sense of, “OK, I get it”

Travis McNeal: Mh-hmm.

Andrea: Yeah.

Travis McNeal: Again, we find that most people in an organization, they’re smart, they get it. You know if you try to spin it in a way that might be untruthful, they’ll see through it pretty quickly. But if you can just be transparent as much as you can about why this program is in place, again if they don’t like it but they understand it, they’ll be more likely to come through on the other end feeling better about it.

Andrea: OK, so let’s talk a little bit more specifically about the change that has taken place so far. You have actually seen some digital transformation take place and led that transformation with the truck drivers, is that right?

Travis McNeal: Correct.

Andrea: Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Travis McNeal: Sure. So, we have around 8,800 truck drivers. A lot of our truck drivers, they’ve been using what’s called an onboard computer for a few years now. Sometimes the computers work, sometimes they don’t work. It’s not as reliable as it needs to be. And one of the things that we really wanted to have them do was change the way in which they record their time. Now, currently how they’d been managing what their time has been using a paper and pencil. They’re given what we call a trip sheet and they record there.

They’re given a stack of trip sheets at the start of a given day for example, and they may have three or four pieces of paper, each with a different route that they’re supposed to go on. So, the first sheet might be going from A to B, the second sheet would be going from B to C, third would be going from C to D, and D to E, and so forth. And so what they’ve done is they wanted to try to automate so that it’s not paper-pencil, because what you might find is that someone’s got to type that information out there for those drivers and so that’s being done on the back end.

And so they’ve developed a system over the past two years, an internal system, where they really tried to make it easier – just like an app on an iPhone – where a driver could very easily say, “Here’s the trip, here’s how much time it took, here’s what I’ve done, here’s where I’m going next.”

Andrea: They can see what exactly?

Travis McNeal: They can see where they are and where they need to go next. What the requirement is for the drivers is at the end of the day they really just need to review the trip, all the rest of those activities. They used to have to record on paper pencil is now automated because all that data was already there, we just weren’t capturing in the right place for the drivers. And so the drivers at the end of the day just into review all the steps that they completed throughout that day and hit OK. And if there’s anything that needs to be changed or added or removed, it’s as simple as you would deleting an email from your phone, swiping across and that activity goes away, or add it in, you simply hit the plus sign, and add in that activity.

And so that was the change that the drivers were going to go on. So we knew that some of our drivers are very technologically savvy, you might say, others not so much. So we had to design this tool and prepare the organization to the person who was the least technologically able to do that work. That makes sense?

Andrea: Oh yeah, yeah. So that it would be simple. It would be simple to adopt and I assume easy to use.

Travis McNeal: Correct. And so the team here, they did a great job really applying design thinking and really focusing on the user experience where they spent about six months really talking to drivers, taking the technology to the drivers to really help them understand, you know, when, “If this were you to have to complete this, how would it feel for you? What kind of training that you need? What kind of communication that you need?” And the drivers that they use to validate this were you might pick cross-section of the population.

So some drivers who were really good with technology and others who less good with technology to really try to understand, you know, are we capturing the technology in a way that best will suit your needs. And we clearly articulated benefits to them which for them it’s more accurate pay and pay that they can see. So there was a clear “what’s in it for me” because they had visibility to what they were being paid every single day, whereas before, they would hope that all the data they captured was correct. And at the end of the two week period then they’d start to reconcile what they were paid versus their own records.

And so this provides them visibility to what in fact they’re paid, you know, in real time and so there was a “what’s in it for me” for them as well.

Andrea: So beyond making sure that you had something that was really accurate and quality for them, just the fact that you went to the drivers – and a cross-section of drivers – to ask them their opinion, do you feel like that had an impact on the adoption as well knowing that they had a voice in it?

Travis McNeal: Yes, yes. One, because what we were able to do anticipating that drivers when they first see this tool they don’t want to hear from people in corporate office that this tool is good, they want to hear from other drivers. And so knowing that that would be the case, we actually filmed some of the drivers before they were exposed to the tool, and then after they were exposed to the tool and would ask comparison. And we created a video that was part of the rollout package, the communications package so that other drivers, as they’re being introduced to this new tool, they’re hearing other drivers, some of which they know. They know some of those drivers that were on camera and so they were able to say, “Hmm, OK if that driver feels comfortable with it, it can’t be that bad and if they’ve had input into it then I trust that this tool has been designed by drivers for drivers.”

Andrea: That’s a great way to communicate the effectiveness and the fact that this is really for you. That’s great. So where is this change going to take you in the next five years or I guess in the next three years, you said this is a five-year journey and you’re about two years into it. Where else are you going with this or that you can tell us?

Travis McNeal: Sure, sure. So what we just described was simply one small component of one of those 17 work streams. There are many other work streams and programs that are being rolled out. And I would say some of the bigger culture changes that we’re trying to drive is this zero-loss mentality. I’d say over the past, you know, in Walmart’s supply chain history, we’ve become very good firefighters in fixing problems as they arise. What we need to try to get better at doing is finding what are the root causes for those issues and that’s more of, I’d say, the four to five-year culture change journey that we’ve already barked on and we will continue to embark on. Because that’s not a shift in mindset that just happens overnight through a well-done communication, that’s something that just has to be learned and that’s more of the long term play where we can really drive the culture change. And of course, there’s several other automation programs that we’re going about to try to drive out some of the non-value added work where we can. So, that’s part of all of the larger journey.

Andrea: So the zero-loss mentality, is this overarching theme of your journey that you’re trying to embark on?

Travis McNeal: Mh-hmm.

Andrea: So, what exactly do you mean by the zero loss mentality?

Travis McNeal: One of our goals in supply chain is to put as many cases on a trailer as we possibly can. And part of the reason for doing that is, yes it saves us money, but it also is good for the environment, because if we’re putting more cases on a trailer we’re putting less trucks on the road.

Andrea: Sure.

Travis McNeal: And so one of our goals is to try to get, you know, for example throw out a number say 2,500 cases on a trailer if that’s our goal and we’re only hitting maybe 2,000 cases on a trailer, 2,500 cases is perfection. So, anything less than 2,500 cases is a loss. And so how do we identify what that loss is and find the root cause to why that loss occurs. It could be that maybe we didn’t have enough staffing, and so then you ask a question why didn’t we have enough staffing? We have high turnover. Why do we have high turnover? Well, we have managers who maybe don’t have the right skill set to engage our associates. Well, why don’t we have the managers, and so on and so on.

And so that’s really the zero-loss mentality is instead of placing the blame on people, let’s try to find out what are the things that are getting in the way. What sources of friction might exist that prevent our associates and our managers from being able to fulfill the role to be able to drive those perfect operations that we’re striving for.

Andrea: Sure, makes complete sense. OK, you said you said that you are kind of making sure that you’re working with all 17 program leads and there are all these projects going on. How do you keep it straight in your own mind and in the way that you work as the sort of the leader that’s sort of putting making sure that all of this is running smoothly?

Travis McNeal: Sure. So from the moment that the change management practice, you might say, was stood up in the supply chain organization, one of the very first things that was agreed to by the leadership was that the change management is really owned by the program lead. And so what that means is that I’m more of an adviser. And so as an adviser and coach, I don’t know that I necessarily need to keep tabs on all those different programs of work. I get into the details of each one of those programs to help prescribe to those program leads, you know, here are the recommended activities that your program needs to be able to drive adoption because that’s ultimately the goal of change management is you’re trying to drive towards adoption.

There are some new program that’s coming that needs to be adopted within the business. And so I don’t necessarily need to keep control or keep straight all the programs work. Now, I will say just by virtue of my role, I do have a high degree of awareness of each one of these programs work so I can see interdependencies and so on. But my role primarily really tries to advise each one of those program leads about what sort of change management effort is required and what sort of activities and tools we have in our toolkit that might be able to help that program be most effective in driving adoption.

Andrea: What are some of the qualities of program leads that really make them great for their position?

Travis McNeal: Certainly, a strong project management skillset I’ve found has been very effective. But one of the more important characteristics or skills that they’ve had, the more effective ones have had is their ability to influence across functional lines, because a lot of these programs have worked. Yes, we might be impacting drivers but, you know, our human resource organization certainly needs to know about what’s happening because we’re talking about how drivers are paid. Our technology team needs to be involved in some way. Our distribution centers who, in fact, are working with our drivers, they need to be aware.

And so the really good program leads are the ones who are able to not only work across functional lines but be able to understand which functional lines need to be involved and are able to identify who the key stakeholders are and what degree of engagement they need to provide going forward.

Andrea: Well, it has been one of the hardest things for you in the midst of this five-year journey; you’re in the middle of it now. I mean, has it been hard, or do you just come in and you know exactly what to do, you know exactly how to handle things, smooth sailing for you. What is it like for you?

Travis McNeal: Yes. So, as with any transformation, there’s going to be things that work or work really well and there’s going to be things that didn’t land as well as you would like. And that would be true for Walmart supply chain as well. You know, early on in the journey, we certainly rolled out one or two programs in a very short amount of time where the associates and managers just didn’t have the time needed to be able to clearly understand all those things that we described earlier, “Why are we doing this? How is this going to impact me? How is this going to benefit Walmart? How is this going to benefit me?”

So certainly, there are those where we wish we would have done a little bit better. And I’d say that one of the biggest pressures that I think is challenging for going on a journey like this is the need to transform quickly, yet at the same time do it in the right way. And there’s a balance there because there are real commitments that leaders have made, not just in supply chain but in any organization. There are real commitments that they’ve made to the business and to shareholders of what they’re going to deliver.

So, there’s that pressure, yet the pressure to try to do it right for the associates and so that’s been a defined line that I would say there’s a silver bullet just really trying to balance, you know, the speed ensuring the associates and managers are put in a position to succeed.

Andrea: Have you found any sort of shortcuts for figuring out how to balance and make that balance work?

Travis McNeal: Well, one thing that was said to me by a Smart Change Management person early on was sponsors are the ones that drive the speed of deployment. And so what that means is if you have an engaged leadership team and mid-level leadership team and frontline leadership team, you will likely drive change pretty quickly. But you know, that’s in a perfect world when you’re focusing on one program. When you’re talking about an organization has multiple priorities, you know, which one is the most important one? And that’s really, I think, the struggle and the challenge that we find ourselves in; which is the one that we really want to devote our time to?

Again, what I’ve seen is that when leaders are driving the change, you know, going back to sponsorship, there’s a high probability of it being successful. Some of the programs that I’ve been attached to where the program leader has really been engaged and really been able to generate that sponsorship at the senior leader levels and at the mid-levels, they’ve been very effective at getting their program adopted pretty quickly. I mean, we talk about the driver pay. There is a high degree of alignment and drive from sponsorship at all levels of the organization to make that one really successful.

Andrea: When you think about yourself and your own influence, do you have any kind of like, “I really want to be this person for my team,” do you have a sense of what your vision is for your own self and your own leadership?

Travis McNeal: If there’s something that I’ve found that’s helped me the most is it’s really not being dogmatic about the way we approach change management. And what I mean by that is there are many change management consulting firms leaders out there who do change management well, and oftentimes you find that they’re beholden to a specific model or methodology. But not all programs are created equal. There needs to be some degree of flexibility to be able to say, “You know what, I understand why that tool is necessary, but given the time constraints that we have, given the degree of impact that we’re gonna have this specific tool for this specific program isn’t the right one.”

And I’d say that just the humility that’s needed to be able to say, “You know what, you’re absolutely right. This tool is not right.” I think that’s something that I think is played to my advantage in helping to build the change management capabilities here in supply chain. It’s just helping really try to mold your change management tool kit to the program or not be as dogmatic about specific tools or specific methodologies.

Andrea: Yeah, that word humility is so important and not coming in with all the answers and being willing to look at the situation for what it is and take feedback from others and be able to mold it into what you need it to be. That would be super important.

Travis McNeal: Yeah, and along with that humility comes with the ability to listen too. It’s very easy to hear a conversation and think you know the right answer but, you know, being able to really peel back the onion to understand, “What really do they need? What problem are they trying to solve?” before you start prescribing what those recommendations would be.

Andrea: Travis, do you think that you’ve always been pretty good at listening and being humble and that sort of thing? Have you seen it done well? Or how did you come to this point where this is what’s most important to you and you’re leading this team?

Travis McNeal: So, I think I’ve always had a natural inclination towards it, but you certainly realize how more important it is when you don’t take the time to listen, which, you know, there have been times where I have assumed things and prescribed certain recommendations when in fact they weren’t correct. Had I done a better job listening up front and not having a specific recommendation before I really heard what the problem was, then yes, I certainly had to refund earlier time. But I think I certainly have a natural disposition towards it, but you know there are plenty of times where I’ve refund that overtime through, you know, missteps here and there.

Andrea: If you were to give some piece of advice to somebody who would like to see some sort of change happen, maybe they have a specific initiative that they need to spearhead in their company, what advice would you leave with them today for how they can be a voice of influence in the midst of change management?

Travis McNeal: Let’s say, if there’s one thing they could do is clearly align with the sponsor, you know, whoever is the person that has asked for this program, make sure there’s clear alignment between you and them to ensure that you’re solving the problem that they need solved. If there’s that misalignment then I think there’s going to be a lot of wasted time and it’s going to be frustrating because not everyone will agree. But if that sponsor clearly knows where they want to go then it’ll certainly make any discussions that happen thereafter much more easier and productive, I would say, that would be one.

I’ll give you one more thing and the last thing is that once the direction has been set, once the strategy, the program has been set, I think the main thing that we need to focus on, especially in the change management space for those who are change management practitioners, is that focus on adoption. I think it’s so easy and tempting to think about the tools that we’ve got, the change readiness assessments, the change impact assessments; all of these different tools that we have that work but those end up becoming what we strive for not necessarily adoption. You know, I’ve seen a handful of professionals who have lost sight of that at times. You know, when we’re leading a program, what we really should be focusing on is what’s it going to take to get the end user to adopt it as quickly and permanently as possible that to me should always be the focus.

Andrea: Because if they don’t… fill in the blank for me.

Travis McNeal: If they don’t then that program was stood up in place for a reason. And so if they don’t adopt, then you’re clearly not going to achieve that overall objective for that program. There’s a number that’s often thrown around in the change management world which is around 70% to 75% of programs fail to reach their targets. Well, this program could fall into that 70% to 75% bucket where they fail to reach their projected targets. But if you take the time to really focus on adoption then you’ll have a greater chance of achieving being that 25% that meet or exceed what those projections were.

Andrea: Love it! Got to get buy-in, got to get people to actually to use the thing to make the change. It actually takes people to do that. Thank you so much, Travis. Thank you for taking time to be with us today and sharing your experience with Change Management at Wal-Mart and for your voice of influence for our listeners.

Travis McNeal: Thank you for having me. It’s been great!

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Toxic Feedback vs. Transforming Dialogue with Jessica Van Roekel

Episode 125

Play here (the red triangle below), on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

 

Jessica Van Roekel is a writer and speaker who works directly with our clients and client teams to help them find their own voice of influence and develop that.

In this episode, we talk about why it’s important that feedback we get and give is shared in a respectful dialogue instead of a blanket statement of judgment, what she believes is a voice of influence, the importance of choosing a coach or adviser who honors your perspective and inner voice, her experience being a participant in one of the very first Voice of Influence six-month group coaching programs, why that particular program made such a difference for her, and what she loves about helping and working with clients now.

Take a listen to the episode below!

Mentioned in this episode:

Transcript

Hey, hey!  It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.  Today, I am interviewing somebody who is actually on the Voice of Influence team.  Jessica Van Roekel is a writer, a speaker, and she works directly with our clients and client teams to help them find their own voice of influence and develop that.

I’m really excited to introduce you to her today.  You’re going to hear the passion, love, and care that she has in her voice.  And I’m excited for you to hear what she has to say about her own journey because she shares with us her journey, and in the midst of sharing with us about her journey, we talk about why it’s important that feedback that we get and that we give is really of respectful dialogue instead of a blanket statement of judgment.

We also talk about what she believes is a voice of influence and how helping people come to their own conclusions is a big piece of it.  We talk about the importance of choosing a coach or adviser who really honors your perspective and your inner voice. She shares with us her experience from being a participant in one of the very first Voice of Influence six-month group coaching programs and why that particular program and something in that program really made a difference for her.  And then finally, we really talk about what she loves about helping and working with clients now.

Now, if you are interested in any of the things that we talk about today, and you want to dive in more – you want to learn more about Jessica, you want to learn more about how you could work with her, with Voice of Influence to help your people gain what she has gained to grow in their management skills, to grow as a leader and a person who really does have a voice of influence on your team – then we would love to talk to you more about that.  Just go to voiceofinfluence.net, go to the contact form, and you will be emailing me to let me know that you’re interested. I’d be happy to jump on a call with you and find out more about what you need and what your people are looking for, what you’re looking to develop in your team. And we’ll just sort of discuss about how we could potentially help you with that. It’s a very low-pressure conversation, and I really love hearing from listeners.

So, go over to voiceofinfluence.net, hit that contact button, and shoot me an email.  I’d love to hear from you.

All right, this is my interview with Jessica:

Andrea:  All right, Jessica, it is great to have you with me here today on the Voice of Influence podcast.

Jessica Van Roekel:  Thank you so much.  I am thrilled to be here with you.

Andrea:  Okay!  I really have been looking forward to this conversation with you because you are such a light, and you are a joyful person.  You know, I feel like we just really kind of connect, and we have this mutual passion for helping people find their voice and making a difference in the world.  You’re just such a joy to have around, so I really have been looking forward to this.

Jessica Van Roekel:   Thank you, I appreciate those sentiments.  That’s my goal in life is to connect with people and to help them find joy and to see light.  So thank you.

Andrea:  So, Jessica, let’s start with why does helping people find their voice, why does this matter to you personally.  What’s your experience with that?

Jessica Van Roekel:  My experience with helping people find their voice and why that’s important to me stems from the fact that I have always wanted to influence people.  I’ve always wanted to encourage them and to let them know that they’re heard and that they’re accepted. I’ve always tried to be open-minded and receptive of other people.  And I had an incident where a friend of mine – we’d been friends for several years – and she sent me an email stating how I wasn’t those things, and that froze me for a couple of years.

Andrea:  So the feedback that you were not who you thought you were just kind of…

Jessica Van Roekel:  The feedback that I was not who I thought I was just literally locked me.  I would go places and I would be afraid to speak up, or if I did speak up, I would run that conversation over and over in my mind for days after and think that if someone looked away while I was talking meant that what I said was wrong.  And it just sent me into this mental tailspin of really wondering, “Can I influence people? Am I influencing people? Do I even have a right to influence people?” And then at the same time feeling indignant like, “I have a right to my voice; why can’t I use my voice?  How can I use my voice in a way that is influential and why wasn’t it influential with this person?” I dealt with two simultaneous responses; afraid and indignation.

Andrea:  Let me just ask the question first and then you can answer it.  Why do you think that that bothered you so much? Why do you think her feedback specifically bothered you so much?

Jessica Van Roekel:  Because I felt like that’s who I was.  I felt like I was open-minded and grace-filled and light-filled and a good listener and an acceptor of all people, and she was telling me that I wasn’t.

Andrea:  So it was like you couldn’t trust yourself anymore?

Jessica Van Roekel:  It felt like I couldn’t trust myself anymore.  It felt like I couldn’t trust my motives. It felt like I had been misrepresenting myself my entire life.

Andrea:  Wow, so everything’s kind of just like the rug has been pulled out from under you.

Jessica Van Roekel:  Yes, yes, it felt like the rug was pulled out from under me, and I was left just disoriented.  And yet at the same time I knew that I was a good encourager, and I knew that I could influence people.  I didn’t know quite what to do with her response, so I shut down.

Andrea:  So, as you are struggling with this, what were some of the feelings that came up for you?

Jessica Van Roekel:  Doubt, doubt in my own voice, my own ability to affect positive change in people’s lives.  Distrust of other people and myself. An almost Gumby-like personality where I will form myself into the shape for this person, and I will twist myself into the shape for this other person.

  I felt indignation too because I felt like this one incident gave that person so much power over my life; whether I did or did not do, or whether I spoke up for the good of another person to encourage them.  I was afraid to encourage people. I was afraid to speak life into them. I was afraid to bring joy to them. I was afraid to connect with people because if I connected with somebody and I didn’t influence them just right, they would reject me, and I would have that rug pulled out from under my feet and land with a thud and feel broken.

Andrea:  You know, I really want to get to the fact that you did kind of get out of that.  But before we go there, what could have made the feedback something that instead of taking away that voice or making you feel like you shouldn’t speak anymore – making you feel frozen – how could that person have offered feedback in a way that would be more constructive or… yeah, what do you think about that?

Jessica Van Roekel:  I think questions rather than accusations or just blanket statements.  The problem I really believe why that bothered me so very much is the fact that I didn’t even have a chance to explain myself or to have a part of the discussion.  It was as if she had come to this decision, it was made, and I had no say in that decision. We couldn’t even have a conversation, so I couldn’t even ask questions, “Well, what did I do that caused you to come to this?”

So for me to have received a harsh message like that, [it] would have been better if we could have had a dialogue about it where instead of a blanket statement being made, “You are graceless and judgmental, ” this person could have said, “Why did you react this way?  This way made me feel this way.” And then I could have maybe had an opportunity to step back and think, “Oh, I guess I can see where that would have come across that way. Let’s talk about this.” But that didn’t happen. The decision was made. She had come to this decision, and I was not allowed into that conversation.

Andrea:  I find that really, really interesting, Jessica, because really it sounds like a judgment was passed on you.  And rather than there being this dialogue back and forth of, “Help me to grow in this,” and take your perspective and understand where you’re coming from – from both sides – just a blanket judgment was passed which then you felt…  I can see how you would feel like your voice was taken from you in that moment.

Jessica Van Roekel:  Yes, I felt, “Oh, my voice wasn’t allowed into this conversation.  There must be something that I’m doing that caused her to come to this judgment.  I don’t know what it is because we are not able to have a respectful dialogue. So maybe I just should not say anything at all.  Maybe I just need to shut my mouth and become this little church mouse in the corner.” And if you know me, you know that that’s not the type of person I am.  So, it’s really two years of an enforced cage that I put myself in, and I didn’t enjoy it.

Andrea:  Okay, so how did you get out of it?  How did you get out of this cage?  

Jessica Van Roekel:  How did I get out of the cage?  The first step was the indignation overcame the reticence that I had wrapped around myself, and I decided – or I came to the awareness – that I was allowing this one situation, this one person so much power in my life, and they weren’t even in my life anymore.  And I thought, “What am I doing?” So, I just decided, “I’m going to take baby steps.” So, I started writing. I started writing publicly. I started encouraging people again. I started trusting myself again, trusting that if I am on the wrong path I’ll just be shown, and I’ll do a redirection.  And along in that journey then it led me to meeting people like you who specialized in helping people find their voice. So then I signed up for your Voice of Influence Academy.

Andrea:  I love this story so much, and I want to talk about the Voice of Influence Academy eventually, but do you feel like you got there?  Do you feel like you got to where you want to go, or where are you at in this journey now of finding your voice and using it?

Jessica Van Roekel:  I feel like I am so far down the road.  I can talk about that incident now without feeling anger or fear.  I believe that I am making a difference in people’s lives. I hear that I am.  And the ones that don’t want to receive my influence, I don’t let that put me into that box again.  I am aware that when I let fear motivate me, I react, and I don’t have influence. But when I let love motivate me and the care and concern for others motivate me and their hearts and minds and lives, that’s what I’m most influential.

So, for me, I feel like I am much further down this and that I use my voice to influence people in a way that serves them and isn’t self-serving to myself.  I think that that can be a little bit of a rub in the fact that there have been times where I’ve influenced people, thinking, “I know, I’ve got the answer for them.”  That’s rather self-serving, and it’s rather prideful as well. I think it’s a little bit of self-serving because notice that I have the answer for them. I know what they should be doing.  I know the exact thing that’s going to make them feel better or have a different perspective or make better choices. I’m not the one that does that. I’m just a tool used so that they can come to those conclusions on their own.

Andrea:  And that is so important.  All right, so, Jessica, what do you see as a voice of influence now?  At this point in your journey and having gotten to the point where you are actually helping other people develop their own voice of influence, what do you see as a voice of influence now?

Jessica Van Roekel:  A voice of influence now, I see it as letting go of the outcome, not being responsible for the outcome.  I see it as pointing people in a direction that maybe they hadn’t really thought about before and letting them come to the conclusion on their own.  A voice of influence is not about control, a voice of influence is about affecting positive change in someone else’s life. For me, personally, it’s not about, you know, having them circle back around and tell me, “Uh, that statement, that advice you gave me, that’s exactly what I needed to hear.”  I love to hear that – and I mean, I really love to hear that – and I would love it if everybody would just come circle back around to me and say, “Jessica, I love what you had to say, it made this massive difference in my life.” Yeah, who wouldn’t want to hear that, right?

But I’m learning that I don’t need to have that to still have a voice of influence.  That I can be outward focused enough while being sure of my own inner voice that I can just influence people, and then let them take it.  It’s their life. It’s not my life to control. And if they want to come back around and tell me how that piece of advice made all the world of difference in their life, or if me taking some time out of the day to just listen to them helped them regain focus, I would love to hear that.  But I don’t have to hear that to offer my voice of influence to the world.

Andrea:  That’s so important.  That validation is certainly helpful, and I think we need a lot of it when we’re first starting.  But it seems that as we become more clear and more confident of how we interact, and how we use our voice, and our own inner voice, and using that in the world that we need that validation less and less because we’re ready, we’re confident of what we’re offering.  And it doesn’t mean that we’re right all the time, but at least we can recognize that, “Sure, there are gonna be times when I’m wrong, and as long as I’m open to this person, you know, sort of coming to their own conclusion,” as you put it, “then there’s less to own.”

Jessica Van Roekel:  Yes, yes.  And the less that we have to own, the less crushing underneath burdens that are not ours to bear.

Andrea:  And we’re not as tied to that outcome because it doesn’t have a direct effect on how we see ourselves and our value.

Jessica Van Roekel:  Yes, yes.  Now, on the flip side we could be totally callous and be like, “This is my voice, and this is how I’m gonna use it, and you can take it or leave it.”  I don’t think that’s how we need to be either. That’s just as self-serving as the other way of trying to have our fingers in every single outcome. And so there needs to be this merging of being solid and secure, and know our inner voice, and how we’ve chosen to use that interact with other people.  And not in a way that says, “This is who I am, you know, if you don’t like me you just go into that corner and just be over there.” That doesn’t serve anybody either. Just like hovering, “Okay, I gave you this piece of advice and you didn’t take it. Well, why not? You need to do what I said. What I said was the best advice you’re ever gonna receive.”  Both of those don’t serve the greater goal that I think we all have and that is to have genuine authentic influence in someone’s life.

Andrea:  I love that.  You know, something that I’ve been thinking about for a while is the way that coaches in particular – coaches or people who give advice or, you know, want to have some sort of specific influence on somebody else’s life, but I’ve seen this in coaches a lot – where they sort of end up taking away the voice of the other person instead of helping them find their own voice because they know that their way is the way that this person should go.  Whether that be, “This specific model that I use. It’s all about your mind and your mindset. It’s all about your body and the way that you feel things.” You know, each person kind of comes to the coaching or the advice-giving process with a perspective or a world view and their own personal experience.

And a lot of times what we do is we end up projecting our own experience on everybody else, and then assuming that we have the right way of doing things.  I know it always comes down to this. I’ve heard that before, “Well, it always ends up being about mindset.” I’ve heard this from people and I’m like, “But it’s not always just about mindset.”  We’re very integrated, complicated human beings, and we all need to have kind of a holistic approach to the way that we’re looking at things, but especially when we’re talking about how to guide somebody else or help them find their path when they’re looking for a way to do things.  In the end, they have to feel like they’re doing what they feel is what they should do, not just what somebody else has told them to do.

Jessica Van Roekel:  Absolutely, absolutely.  We are such unique individuals, and we can have the same goals, same priorities, or same standards; but how each of us reaches those is going to be unique to who we are, to our voice, to our past experiences, to our current life circumstances, and to our future hopes and dreams.  That all has to be taken into play when someone enters into a coaching experience.

Andrea:  Absolutely.  All right, so let’s dive into a little bit.  You actually do work with clients for Voice of Influence, and you help them to find their voice.  You help them in various ways whether it be through workshops speaking, or one-on-one conversations, group coaching; what do you specifically enjoy about working with clients?

Jessica Van Roekel:  I love walking them through their Fascinate Report.  I love hearing the excitement in their voice.

Andrea:   Let’s make sure that the listener knows what the Fascinate Report is and actually, we’ve talked about this quite a bit on the podcast before, but it’s been a while.  So, just so you know, the Fascinate Report is something that we use at scale with teams because it’s really simple to take, and it’s simple to understand people. It’s remarkably accurate, and it really focuses on one’s unique way of influencing and your voice.  So, as you were saying, you really enjoy walking people through this report.

Jessica Van Roekel:  Yes, I do a one-on-one conversation with each person that has taken this report, and we’ll spend the first few minutes just talking about the results from their report.  And it is so fun to hear them say, “I can’t believe how accurate this,” or “Wow, this describes me to a T. I can’t believe that this quick little evaluation was able to really declare and to describe who I am.”  That is really exciting to me.

And then it’s also really fun to hear them in their own voice then say, “Yeah, I’ve seen this trait happen, you know, a few weeks ago or yesterday.  This is what I’ve done,” and they’ll tell me a story about the fact that they are really creative thinkers. And so they’ll pull out their stories from their own life as an example of how this adjective or this description really fits them.  And then what we get to do is we get to take that report and then help them come up with an anthem, which an anthem is who they are when they’re at their best. What they’re going to bring to the table, it’s their adjective and their noun, and we get to come up with this.

But what I love the most is that in my last set of interviews, I had three people that had the same archetype on the Fascinate Assessment.  In the Fascinate Assessment, you have seven advantages that combine to make forty-nine different archetypes. And what was so unique is that they each came up with their own unique anthem, and I found that to be so fascinating that these three people that came up with the same archetype had their own individual anthem.  That excited me to see them come to that conclusion and say, “Okay, this is what I bring to the table. This is what my voice is in this company.”

Andrea:  That’s super exciting, and I know that people really enjoy talking with you.  So, it’s fun to hear about that. Now, let’s move to the Voice of Influence six-month group coaching program.  You were part of the first group of people or one of the first groups of people, anyway, to go through this group coaching program.  So, let’s talk about that for a minute. There are six subjects that are covered in that program. For the listeners, I just want you to know, these are the six subjects; your Purpose, your Style, your Mission, your Offering, your Strategy, and your Community.  And as we go through the program, you get a sense of all these things for yourself. You sort of define them. You apply them to your life, and then you figure out what you’re going to do about it, what is the actual practical application.

So, Jessica, when it came to you and when you first took this course that now you help lead, what was one of the subjects that really made a difference for you?

Jessica Van Roekel:  Subject to style made a huge difference for me.  That’s the subject that really kind of delved into the Fascinate Assessment, and it’s almost as if that subject… things started to coalesce.  They started to come together. All of these random thoughts that I had about myself and my past interactions with other people and why in some instances, they were successful and why in other instances, they were just a dismal failure.  And I just fell flat on my face, just splat, and other times I was like, “Wow that was amazing!” It was almost like this subject under style, it’s almost like all of a sudden, all those situations… the dots started connecting. It started connecting and that to me was super exciting.

Andrea:  Why does that matter, do you think, for a person when they want to find their voice of influence?

Jessica Van Roekel:  We often take a look at ourselves in the light of, “This is how I see the world,” and the Fascinate Assessment is different and in fact say, “This is how the world sees you.”  And sometimes, we see ourselves through a jaded lens or we see ourselves through our own past experiences, whether positive or negative, and that can cloud the judgment of ourselves.  That at times we don’t rightly render correct judgments about who we are; whether it’s someone that said that aspect of your personality is wrong, or it’s too loud, or too quiet, or we decide that for ourselves based on how we think people have responded to us.

And subject number two is mostly about your style, and how your identity and your voice and all of that works together to see that this is how people see me when I’m at my best really validated a part of my heart that wasn’t so sure was an okay part of my heart or part of myself.  And so for me, it gave me a sense of release. It gave me a sense of freedom that, “Oh, that social thing that I do, that’s okay. You mean, thinking out of the box, that’s a benefit to other people?” For me, it was just really freeing. It was like “Okay, okay, maybe this is gonna work.  Maybe if I start instead of shoving that voice in a closet where it kind of…”

You know how when you’re a kid, and you play this game with your sibling – you’re not really playing a game, you’re fighting with them – and you shove them in the closet, and then they’re trying to get out?  The person inside the closet or the bedroom door, they’re trying to pop that door open, and the other siblings on the other side just pushing that door shut. So, you hear this bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, and it’s almost like that voice, that catalyst that’s in me was on the inside of that door – bang, bang, bang – trying to get out and something – whether it was my own wrong judgment myself or maybe it was other people’s misinterpretation or misunderstanding of me or combination of all of that – was on the other side of that door trying to hold that shut.

And when I went through this subject about style, it was like that door just got busted wide open.  I’m like, “I am setting her free. It is okay. We’ll figure out all this other stuff of why I’m a flop in some situations, but for right now we’re going to teach this voice how to walk.”

Andrea:  Oh gosh, I love that.  You know, I’ve noticed with this particular assessment and working with people on it, that usually people either feel like, “Oh good I get to be released in this who I am,” or it’s, “I feel bad, I’m sort of, like, I’m bragging about myself if I admit that I am this person.”  And what’s interesting to me about this – and I’ve talked about this before on the podcast – is that both of those statements have to do with how we’re judging ourselves and each other. And we’re sort of placing a certain kind of personality, or a way of influence, or that sort of thing…

And we’re sort of placing a certain kind of personality above or below other kinds of personalities and seeing some as being more valuable, seeing others as being more problematic when in truth each one could be super valuable.  And there are things about our personalities that are problematic for everybody. One of the things that we don’t shy away from is admitting that, yes, there are some weaknesses here that you’re going to have to navigate. And the fact that this piece of your voice is a strength is also… you need to understand it can be a strength for good, or it can be a strength for hurting people.

So, to come to an awareness of, “Okay, how can I use this in a strong way that is going to actually benefit other people instead of hurting them, or hurting my cause, or whatever?”  That’s a really powerful moment for people, so it’s fun to hear you talk about your own experience with that.

Jessica Van Roekel:  Yes.  Thank you.  I just still get giddy thinking about it, and I do believe that those times when I went flop, flat on my face, you know, I know what was happening.  Double trouble creates trouble. That’s just what happens.

Andrea:  When your personality becomes so strong, and you’re motivated from more of a fear and you are insecure, or there’s stress that’s pushing you to the limits, it’s pretty hard to not come across with your strength in a negative way.

Jessica Van Roekel:  That’s right.  Every strength or every negative can be flip-flopped.

Andrea:  Yeah, so important for people to understand and see and know how to navigate that.  We’re not bound. We’re not stuck in a closet, we can emerge powerful and strong and yet also loving, and that is a huge piece of being a voice of influence.  So, in that in that six-month group coaching program, you and I were talking about how there’s sort of two different halves to this program. Can you tell the audience about the two different halves, and why that matters?

Jessica Van Roekel:  Okay, so the two different halves, the first half is really a lot of inner reflection.  It’s about diving deep into your mission, what motivates you, your style, your purpose; all of this has to be worked out internally inside first before it can be applied.  So we take the first half of the group coaching program, and we dive deep inside ourselves and really do some reflection and thinking. And then we take that information, and we move into the second half of the group coaching program where we begin to practice.  Like I said earlier, we teach our voice how to walk, and we dive through, and we figure out how we can apply our strengths in a positive way to influence others.

So, there’s strategy, and there’s how we interact with the people that we are working with.  That’s how the group program is split up. It’s inward, and then once we have that inward settled, we then move outward.

Andrea:  Yes.  And I will say that it’s not that you can’t combine the two, but that is sort of the focus.  Because this is a group coaching program, because this is a specific kind of way that we are… you know, a path that we’re guiding people down, we do focus on that inner work first.  So that is a very helpful description. Thank you for that, Jessica.

And one of the things that we focus on is strategic thinking and increasing somebody’s ability to think in terms of, “Where are we, where we’re trying to go, and then how do we get there?”  That’s one of the things that really comes out in that second half as well as, “How do we apply my voice? How does my voice impact my specific community? Whether that be these are the people that I am around and these are the different roles that I play, but these are also the roles that other people play in my life.”

And to be clear on those, so that we don’t get too confused about how we speak to whom because that matters, context matters with our voice.  And we have to understand that, yes, though we can be authentic at any point and time with anybody in any situation, we’re still very complicated, and we have the ability to really think about who we’re speaking with and how to interact with that specific person.  So, it’s important to kind of get a sense of how to apply one’s voice in different situations and different roles and contexts.

So, Jessica, as we’re wrapping up this conversation, I would like to ask you to consider and to share with the audience what is maybe one specific thing or piece of advice that you would have for somebody who really would like to have a voice of influence?

Jessica Van Roekel:  Let me just take a minute to think about that answer.  Okay, my piece of advice for someone who’s looking for a way to develop their voice of influence is to be willing to get uncomfortable to be comfortable.  And what I mean by that is that so often we shy away from doing the inner work, and we just focus on the behavior. But in order for behavior to truly change and to truly make a difference in someone else’s life, we have to know what’s going on on the inside, and that can be uncomfortable.  But uncomfortable doesn’t mean wrong or bad, it just means uncomfortable. We’re just doing some hard work. But the benefits of doing that is going to make the actionable behaviors long-lasting and influential beyond what we can really even imagine. And then secondly… can I give two pieces of advice?

Andrea:  Sure, sure!  That was great, by the way.  I love that.

Jessica Van Roekel:  Have fun.  Have fun. It’s fun to really discover the power of your voice to influence others and not in a smarmy, manipulative kind of way, but in a way that is affecting good change and good benefits for someone else, or your company, or the greater good, or whatever it is that you’re involved in.  Have fun because it’s just so much fun! That’s all. You can cut that part out, but it’s just fun.

Andrea:  No, I love it!  I love it! I don’t know that anybody’s ever said the word smarmy on the podcast before, and it just makes me smile.  That’s hilarious! I love it! So, Jessica, where can people find you? Where can they find your blog and connect with you online, specifically?

Jessica Van Roekel:  My blog is welcomegrace.com.  I couldn’t use my name because most people can’t spell it and/or pronounce it, so, welcomegrace.com.  It’s a place where I encourage others in their walk with the Lord; I am a Christian and have found that all of us have pasts or pieces of our past that want to derail our present and affect our future.  And I come from a stance where, “You know what, yes, your pasts matter. It did happen to you, but it doesn’t have to derail you.” So, I write from a place where our personal histories don’t have to define our present or determine our future.

So, I can be found there, and then I also freelance at crosswalk.com, and ibelieve.com, and then I’m on Facebook and Instagram, Jessica Van Roekel.

Andrea:  And Jessica, we’ll be sure to link to those places in our show notes.   So, you can find our show notes at voiceofinfluence.net. And at voiceofinfluence.net, you can also request information about how you can potentially have a conversation with Jessica.  We have a contact form on our website, and there you can just let us know that you’re interested in connecting with Jessica.

Maybe you’re interested in doing some coaching with Jessica or perhaps even this group coaching program for your company, you know, managers, whatever it might be, and you can message us there at voiceofinfluence.net, connect with us.  We’d be happy to schedule a call and talk with you more about those possibilities.

So, Jessica, thank you so much for being a voice of influence for our listeners today and for our clients.  We just really, really appreciate you!

Jessica Van Roekel:  Thank you so much!  It’s been a pleasure and a blast talking with you!

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How to Discern Your Calling Without Feeling Pressure (Greatest Hits) with Andrea Joy Wenburg

Episode 124

Have you ever looked at someone you admire and felt pressured to be like them, do things the way they do, or feel what they feel?

Where does this pressure come from? Yourself?

How much do you judge yourself based on what you admire about that person?

I want to help you stop the judgments and instead focus on what it is about that person that you resonate with. What is that person awakening in you?

In this episode, I’m going to provide some insights that will help you do this; including why I personally believe that comparing ourselves to others isn’t always a bad thing.

Take a listen to the episode below!

Mentioned in this episode:

 

Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Transcript

Hey, hey!  It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast!

Today, we’re going to be talking about Pressure, the pressure to feel like you ought to be or do something in particular that somebody else is or does or says that you should do.

I want you to imagine someone in your mind who you really admire.  You admire them for the way that they are, for who they are, or for something that they do.  I have a feeling that there’s somebody in your life that you really admire.  So just take a minute and think about them and I’ve got a question for you.

And I’ve got a question for you, first of all, what do you admire about them?  What is it that comes to mind?  You love the way that they do this.  You wish that you could do that.  You see something in their life that looks so attractive that you really wish that it could be something that you had to.

On a scale of 1to 10, how much do you judge yourself based on what you admire in this other person?  So when these things come to mind, these things that you really like about them, how much do you judge yourself based on that?

So one would be “Oh, I really don’t judge myself at all.  I’m not saying that I’m worse or better than them, I just really admire this about them.”  And then on the other side would be a 10 where you completely determine your own value based on how much you are able to do or not do the things that you admire about that person.  So my guess is that you’re somewhere in the middle, most of us are.  Hopefully you’re not too high up at the top like a 10.

But let’s just be honest with ourselves for a minute here.  How much time do you spend comparing yourself and then judging yourself based on other people in your life?  Or maybe not in your life but maybe on a podcast or in a book or online, some place, or somebody that you admire?  How much time do you spend on that?

Now, here’s the thing.  I’ve talked about some of these things that we’re going to talk about today before.  But today, I really would like to focus on taking the pressure off.  There’s so much pressure on each of us that we put on ourselves most of the time, but sometimes it comes from other people and we accept that pressure to be or do something like someone else.  And it can feel like we’re less than other people because we know that we’re not good at this particular thing.

So let’s take an example, because I realize that you may be thinking to yourself “Well, I don’t think that way,” but the truth is maybe you do.  And maybe you don’t need to listen to this episode or maybe you don’t and you should listen to this episode so that you can help others.

But think about that because we each have these people in our lives that we admire.  And I think that’s OK, because there’s a difference between admiring somebody even comparing ourselves with them.  I don’t think comparison is really the enemy because comparison can help us differentiate.  Comparison can help us to understand how we are uniquely different and how they are uniquely different and how we can work together in our differences.

So comparison in and of itself I don’t think is the problem.  What becomes a problem is when we judge ourselves or we judge other people based on that comparison.  So we start to feel bad about ourselves or we start to feel high and mighty about ourselves because we have compared ourselves to someone else.  So that’s something to really think about because comparison isn’t the enemy, judgment is.

OK, so the next piece of this is that you can admire somebody and that can turn into that self condemnation or a race to beat that person or to try to become that person or become elements of that person.  Maybe they have a really clean house and you don’t have a clean house.  And so you feel like crap all the time and you keep trying to pick your house up and you never quite get it like this other person does.

I would definitely be that person who does not clean her house very well.  I try, I try, but it’s not very often super clean or super put together.  So it would be easy for me to look at somebody’s house who is super clean or super put together.

I think, even for me, this is one thing that I noticed about myself is that I admire, really admire people whose houses are so, I think put together would be the way to put it, where they have an intentional reason for all these little things that are in their house and things have a place and they don’t have a lot of clutter and things like this.  I really admire that.  It’s something that I would like to get better off for myself.

But here’s what can happen in situations like this, we could look at that person that we admire and say “Oh man, I don’t even wanna be around that person,” or “I don’t wanna be in their house because it reminds me of how bad I am at that.”  Does that sound familiar to you at all?  Are you trying to avoid somebody because you admire them so much and it’s just feels like this is in your face all the time that you’re not what you wish you could be?  If that’s the case, I’m really sad to hear that because I don’t think it has to be like that.

I think that we can admire somebody and allow it to just be that like “Wow, I just have such an appreciation for you and what you’re able to do.  I have appreciation for this well put-together house,” without putting a lot of pressure on yourself to ever become that.  Maybe you can be inspired by it, maybe you can say “Hi, I wonder if you have any tips for me,” without feeling the pressure to become what they are, to get your house to the point at their houses.

And when I’m talking about pressure, I’m really talking about, I think you know that feeling that “Huh, I just feel like I’m supposed to be like that.  I’m not, so I feel bad about myself and so I don’t want to think about it.  I don’ wanna be around them.  I need to try harder.”  That’s pressure, and I don’t think that’s necessary.

So another way to look at this is to see people that you admire and realize that maybe they actually have tapped into something, they’re good at something that you actually do want to be good at.  I mean, not just want to.  I’m not saying you should be good at it.  I’m saying like you feel awakened when you see them do their thing.  You feel like something inside of you has just awakened, is inspired, is motivated and is saying “Huh I do want to be like that.”

So I could tell you that from my personal experience besides the house thing that through the years when I was growing up and in my young adult life, whenever I would watch a speaker onstage, I would think to myself or an author, I would think to myself “Man, I really wish I could be like that.”  I really admire them and if I did really admire somebody, I’d be feeling like “Oh gosh, why isn’t it not me up there?”  That sort of thing and that could easily turn into pressure.

It could easily turn into “Well, I need to do what they’re doing,” or I feel like such a failure because they’re younger than me and they have more success in this area.  That could easily turn into a pressure.  And that’s something that I think that we really need to turn off.

We need to take that pressure off of ourselves and say “No, I don’t need to judge myself based on my comparison with that person just because they’re younger than me, or just because they have more followers than me or they seem to have a bigger impact than I do for whatever reason.

Instead of judging yourself based on that, could you allow yourself to be awakened to what might be a calling for you?  So for me when I would see these speakers and authors and things, I would think “Oh gosh!  Oh, I really do want that!”  It was like I felt called to it.  Like I felt I really truly wanted it, not so much that I felt like I should be that or that I should have what they have but then I wanted it.

I think that when we talk about comparison as being a bad thing, the danger of that is that we start to turn off all of our abilities to think critically about how we are different and what we should be.  So instead of being honest about the fact that we have a desire, we try to turn it off because we start to feel bad.  We feel this pressure and we start to feel bad and so we turn off the comparison and we kind of know more ourselves to that comparison because we know what it has done to us in the past.

Maybe you have felt a lot of pressure.  I don’t want to feel that pressure, so I’m just going to avoid it or I’m going to _____ it.  I’m going to say, “I don’t care.”  Kids do this all the time, don’t they?  “I don’t care,” or when we’re self-critical, we try to beat people to the punch and say, “I’m an idiot.”  I’ve said that to myself before.  I try to beat people to the punch because I don’t want somebody else say that about me because I feel like I should be something different.

So we do these things that distract us from what’s truly in our hearts what might be an actual calling, a desire to actually move towards something.  So if you’re somebody, who, like me, sees people who are writing books and out there speaking or maybe an entrepreneur or maybe they are just somebody who seems like they have it together for this or that and you feel awakened to a desire inside of you.  That is different than feeling pressured to become what somebody else says.

So instead of turning it off, avoiding it off, or avoiding that person, get down to asking yourself, “What is it that I’m feeling awaken to?  What excites me about this, about where they are and what they’re doing?  What doesn’t?”  This is where you get to compare yourself.  This is where you get to do that comparison.  You’re not saying that they are better or worse than you are.  No, no, we’re not judging here.  What you’re doing is you’re doing some discerning about your own calling.

I went to this talk and this person got up there and he spoke and he just awakened something inside of me.  And for a split second, I felt bad about where I’m at right now but then I remembered that, “No, this isn’t about feeling pressured, this is about finding what I desire, finding out what I really feel called to.”

So let’s ask myself these questions, “Self, what do I feel called to then?  What is so exciting to me about what I’m seeing?  What was awakened inside of me, a desire for what?  What piece of this or what pieces of these just really energized me?  And perhaps what doesn’t?  What something about this that I’m not excited about?”

And that’s OK.  It’s OK to admit that as well, “You know what, I don’t really like that they did this because I would do it differently.”  That doesn’t mean that you’re judging them.  That means that you’re trying to figure out what your voice is, you’re trying to figure out what you are called to and then allow them to be who they are.

So a few months ago, I spoke at a conference in Las Vegas and I just had a few minutes onstage but it was so _____.  I had such a blast because I love the stage.  If you read UNFROZEN, my book, you know I love the stage.  I felt guilty about it for a long time like I shouldn’t love it.  And then I realized over the years I kind of come to terms with the fact that it’s OK for me to love being onstage.

So when I got up there in front of a 150 people or so, I just got up there and owned it.  I felt like I was owning the stage and afterwards the conference organizers had everybody do a little survey.  And so on the survey, they asked different questions like from a scale of 1 to 5, how engaging was this presenter?  From scale of 1 to 5, how much did you learn and that sort of thing.  And I got to take home all of these surveys.

So I went through and on my way home, I calculated all the responses.  And really they calculations were really high.  I actually got some really good responses between 4 and 5 for everything.  But there were a few individual responses, and one in particular, he was so critical.  One person, you could tell who did not like me.  And they didn’t feel like they learned anything because I talked about the same thing that they do.  OK, fair enough.  They did not like the way I was dressed.  We’re talking like they’re giving me a 1 or whatever.

They felt like I was acting onstage which nobody else did but they did.  You know things like these, and I was just like “Oh my goodness, this person is like really, really critical.”  And this is what I think that we do when we are comparing and judging at the same time.  I think that we look at somebody else and say, “I wouldn’t do it like that.”  And so we mark them down in our minds and that instead of saying, “This was effective,” or “This wasn’t effective for me,” or “This wasn’t effective for me but I think it would be effective to these other people.”

So if you’re in that position where you’re looking at somebody and you’re saying, “I really admire them but I really don’t like this and I really do like that.”  Well, you don’t have to put judgment on it.  You can say, “This is really effective for me.  This would be really effective for the audience I want to reach.  This would be really effective but this other thing maybe I didn’t like it and I wouldn’t do it, but maybe it would reach somebody else.”

My tendency is to always be looking for what’s effective and what’s not.  And when I watch other speakers, I’m thinking to myself “Is this perfectly put together, but is this effective?  Is it getting people where they want to go?  What about myself, is what I’m doing effective or not.”  So here’s where I’m coming back to this.  I’m coming back to comparison isn’t bad.  Comparison saying whether or not you are like somebody else and how and whatever, that’s OK as long as you’re not adding judgment to it.

But you can ask yourself what awakens desire in me and what doesn’t.  So you can let that person be that person.  You’re not saying that they should be different by doing this process of comparing and figuring out, discerning what you want to be.  You’re not saying that they should change.  You’re not judging them nor are you judging yourself.  What you’re doing is your discerning your calling and you’re saying, “Well, maybe they are called to do just what they’re doing and that’s totally fine.”  Or maybe they could up in a notch, maybe there’s some way that you can help or that somebody else can help, that’s fine.  That’s totally fine.

What I’m saying is you don’t have to feel bad about comparing yourself to other people, because if someone that you admire awakens something inside of you, something that they do or something that they say and it awakens something inside of you and you’re like “Wow, I really want that!”  This is where you’re following your heart to find you’re calling.  This is doing a little bit deeper in our work to be able to figure out what you’re really called to.

But if you look at somebody and you say, “Wow, they’re doing these amazing things, but I can admire that and not want it or not judge myself based on them on what they’re doing.”  That’s a really healthy place to be.

So when you are listening to this podcast, when you’re listening to Voice of Influence and you hear me talk about things like vision and mission and voice and understanding what your message is and things like this, this may or may not be for you.  Because there are some people in the world, who, maybe like me, long to have a certain message and a certain impact.  We long to find our calling and we’re having a hard time doing it.

When I was having a hard time doing it, I needed to get clear on all the chaos on my head.  I needed to get clear on what I most care about so that I could know how to focus my energy.  Does every single person in the world need to do that?  I don’t think so.  In fact, I think what’s important probably more than anything _____ is to know what you really care about, what standard you’re going to measure everything by.

So here’s the thing.  This is where I was thinking about this earlier, I need clarity around my message and offering.  But somebody like my husband, he needs to partner with somebody who has a message and an offering that he can relate to, that he can support, that he can get behind.

So while he may not feel like he needs a certain message or a certain offering, as long as he can feel supportive of what I’m doing, as long as he can feel like he relates to it, he agrees with it, it’s not just his values; all that sort of things then he can get behind it and help me in whatever way that we decide to move forward.  But we’re focusing in on my particular message and offering for Voice of Influence.

So there are some people in the world who really do feel like they have something they need to say in particular and they want focus, they want to know all these things.  And then there are other people who care.  They have a voice and they use their voice but they do it in a way that is supportive and get behind what other people do.

Last week, I had on the podcast Susie Hageman.  And Susie is one of these people who really cares about human trafficking and this is something that she chose to focused on because it’s a message she can get behind.  And she is not the one that’s starting this nonprofits and writing about it per se, maybe she will someday, I don’t know.  But it’s not necessarily like she is out on the front with the message, but she got behind this message, because she thought like she could and she felt like it resonated with what her values are.

That is exactly what I think we all need.  We all need to know what were our values are so that we know what we want to get behind, whether we want to get behind it or we want to come out with this message or whatever.  This is the kind of thing that I’m talking about when I say, you don’t have to be what you admire.  You can admire someone else, their gifts, their offering, their message, all that sort of thing without feeling the pressure to have one of your own, to be that particular thing that they’re talking about.

So if listening to this podcast ever makes you feel pressure, I sure hope it doesn’t.  But if it does, it’s totally OK to turn it off, because you should surround yourself with things that awaken your passion, your desire, your calling; and help you discern your calling instead of making you feel like “Oh my goodness, if I hear again about you know having a message or this or that and it just keeps bringing me down.”

I completely understand if you didn’t want to do that but I will also challenge you not to take that into the rest of your life.  Don’t take that avoidance or tendency to compare and judge.  Don’t let that come with you.  Leave the judgment.  Put it aside, whatever voices in your head from the past that are telling you should or shouldn’t be this or that, put it aside because you are so important the way that you are, how you have been created, how you had been built.  The experiences that you’ve had have really drawn out things about you that are so important.

These are critical, critical in the world and don’t ever forget that.  Please know that whenever I talk about having a message, whenever I talk about using your voice of influence, I’m not excluding anyone.  And at the same time, I’m not saying that you have to be just like anybody.  You really don’t need to be.

I think that the most important thing of this is that we really need, we desperately need to be free, free from this judgment.  So do what makes you come alive.  And yes, when it comes to passion, I talk about passion in terms of something you’re willing to pour yourself out for.

So it’s not always pretty, it’s not always happy go lucky, but it doesn’t have to be about looking at your fault all the time.  It can be about what makes you come alive.  It can be about what you want to live into, a vision for yourself and your life and your message and your calling that you want to live into that vision.  That’s a whole lot different then and expectation that puts pressure on you.

So have vision, not expectation.  Take the pressure off and go just use your voice.  It will matter more!

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How to Upskill Workers in the Age of Digital Transformation with Shefali Gupta

Episode 123

 

Play here (the red triangle below), on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Shefali Gupta was a key player in DBS Bank’s digital transformation.  Eight years ago, they had a traditional bank, and as she’ll tell us, just recently they acquired the coveted World’s Best Digital Bank designation.

In this episode, Shefali is going to share with us how they helped their people upskill in order to be prepared for the transformation that was bound to come.

One piece of advice Shefali wanted to leave with you that did not make it into our interview is this, “Each of us might be good at something. We each need to take it upon ourselves to teach others and ask to be taught so that we can all become better.”

Mentioned in this episode:

Transcript

Hey, hey!  It’s Andrea and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.  So, as we well know we are in the midst of an incredible digital transformation around the world, and companies everywhere are looking at how they can ensure the safety and security of their customers as well as improve the customer experience.  But one thing that we cannot neglect when thinking about digital transformation is how this is going to impact the workers who are bound to lose their jobs over this change.

According to the World Economic Forum, estimates ranged from 2 million to 2 billion jobs lost over the next decade due to digital transformation.  So what kind of role do companies play in not only going through this transformation, but also in taking care of the workers who have got them to this point so far?

Today we’re going to speak with Shefali Gupta who was a key player in DBS Bank’s digital transformation.  Eight years ago, they had a traditional bank, and as she’ll tell us, just recently they acquired the coveted World’s Best Digital Bank designation.  But you don’t go from zero to hero without getting everybody else onboard.

Shefali is going to share with us how they helped their people upskill in order to be prepared for the transformation that was bound to come.  One piece of advice she wanted to leave with you that did not make it into our interview is this, “Each of us might be good at something.  We each need to take it upon ourselves to teach others and ask to be taught so that we can all become better.”  This is at the core of what took place at DBS Bank.  You can find the full transcript and Shefali’s LinkedIn link in our show notes at voiceofinfluence.net.

Here is my interview with Shefali Gupta:

Today, I have with me Shefali Gupta.  She is a digital and innovation leader.  And in fact, Shefali has been a part of this incredible transformation that DBS Bank has gone through in the past few years, from being just a traditional kind of bank to now being the World’s Best Digital Bank.  This is an actual award that they have won.  Congratulations, Shefali, on this accomplishment!

Shefali Gupta:  Thank you so much, Andrea.  And firstly, thank you for bringing me onto your show.  It’s seems like a great platform, and I’m really happy to talk to you, and many thanks for your wishes.  I think it’s completely teamwork, and I will accept your wishes on behalf of the entire DBS Bank.

Andrea:  Yes.  So, Shefali, what is the World’s Best Digital Bank?  What does that mean?

Shefali Gupta:  Okay, so for DBS, it meant, I would say, three broad things and maybe I could just take a minute to talk about them.  So, how we thought of being digital is number one, I mean, be digital to the core, which means getting new technology, ensuring that everybody is being very experimental in their day-to-day – whether it’s technology or product development – and do a lot of experiments, you know, as scientists will do.  And the third thing is that everybody is understanding – not just the technology folks, but everybody in the bank understands what we are doing, why we’re doing, how it’s going to help, and how can we use technology to improve our product and services and give an amazing experience to our customers.

The second thing we embarked on was looking at it from a customer angle on how we can embed ourselves in the customer journey and become a bank which is joyful.  So this word joyful came up as something, “Let’s make banking joyful.”  And the third aspect was the people aspect, which is how do we get our employees to be future ready and be digitally engaged and be completely part of the journey, so all 24,000 employees being part of our journey.  So this is the way we thought of digital.

Andrea:   So, you’re not just talking about making some changes on a website or even in the processes of how people do banking.  I mean, that in and of itself is a lot, but you’re also talking about how you brought the employees along in on this process.

Shefali Gupta:  Mhmm, absolutely.

Andrea:  So what was one of the things that your employees needed in order to be able to be a part of this process then?  What did that mean for them?

Shefali Gupta:  So, Andrea, that meant three things.  Firstly, they should be aware of the whole purpose, and see their role, and what role they are playing in the entire journey.  So, each employee should be very well aware of all the DBS vision and overall strategy that we are trying to do.  That’s one.

The second thing is every employee – and irrespective whether they are the teller or the cashier in the branch or they’re the back office team or in HR or finance – should be aware about the basic technology changes and the processes that we are looking at to revamp.  That’s the second thing.

And the third is that each of them should also be aware that they need to upskill themselves continuously to be future ready.  And maybe some of the jobs that they are doing today won’t be there, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be without a job because they would then be doing a new job which they have been trained for.  So this continuous learning, you know, process is something that they should be aware about.  So these, I think, would be the three things from an employee perspective.

Andrea:  Having a sense of purpose, knowing where they fit in the whole vision and strategy, and then everyone understanding the technology changes and being aware that they need to upskill themselves because their job might not be there when this whole thing is over, which is so important.

I am really curious about how you helped people to understand this transition because it’s gotta to be really hard for folks who have had the same job for a long time to realize that their job is going to be going away because of this digital transformation.  Was that a difficult thing for people to accept?

Shefali Gupta:  Yes, definitely.  It wasn’t easy, I would say.  And the reason for that is firstly, when you’re talking about 24,000 people, they are all kinds, so they are come from different genres.  So we add one and we have the millennials, the kids in their early 20s who have just joined us as management trainee or graduate associates.  On the other end, we had people who are, like, almost close to retirement and they are in their late 50s or 60s and who have been doing the same thing for maybe thirty, forty years already.   Plus, of course, there’s all sorts of other diverse population within the ordination of different countries.  I mean, men and women also tend to learn differently.  So it’s, like, first dealing with the mix of the employees and understanding what is it that would make each segment, you know, be more successful in upskilling themselves.  That’s one.

The second thing is that not everybody will have the same amount of interest in every topic.  So, we need to have a range of topics of skills that each one could pick and choose that they would like to upskill themselves in.  And so this was the second challenge, like, how do we ensure that we have the people understanding what is it that they should go into – a data kind of topic or they should go into UX design – and helping them get onto that was something that was, I think, the other challenge that we were facing at that point.

Andrea:  How did you help individual people when you had so many to be working with on this?  How did you help individual people make that decision for themselves, or was that something that was decided for them?

Shafali Gupta:  So we did two things.  One is basically, when I of read a lot on this topic, I actually formed a think tank on this thing by connecting with folks in different organizations, institutions, colleges, and I made my own network.  About twenty-five people, we call them Leaders and Learning.  So basically, it’s my own friendly think tank, and we would meet like once a month over a cup of coffee or a drink and discuss some of these things.  I learned a lot by bouncing of thoughts from these people and seeing what worked in other organizations.

And from there, one of the thoughts that came to me [is] that learning has to be self-driven.  So you can take the horse to the water, but you can’t force it to drink.  It’s the same thing.  So you can have the best content and the best course and the best online material, but it’s the people who need to be curious enough and self-driven to be wanting to learn on their bus rides home back or when they’re taking a train and they have an half an hour or when they are at home and they’re watching a lot of Netflix and how do you take one hour?  Okay, let’s do three hours of Netflix and one hour of, you know, learning something new, kind of a thing.

So it’s like making it more self-driven.  And secondly, looking at it from a more curiosity point of view, let’s get the people to become a bit more curious and wanting to learn on their own because they see the benefit in it for themselves.

Andrea:  Okay, so how did they decide what things to pursue, what to learn?

Shefali Gupta:  So what we did was that through various discussions internally as well as externally including with institutes.  We looked at what could be the future skills? And then we identified seven skills, which we thought are definitely something that will help them in the future.  There could be more, I mean, we started off with 25, 30, but because we didn’t want to make it too many a number, we kind of decided to keep it to seven at this point of time.

And of course we have the option to keep juggling around and changing every year, which these seven skills should be.  So we decided on seven skills and within that we got everybody to do a one-on-one on all seven for them to understand what is, for example, one of them is UX design or one of them is a customer journey mapping, or one of them is Agile.  So, they should at least understand on one-on-one.  So, we kept it simple just for them to literally just dip their toes and see what that skill is all about because it’s like, what they don’t know is they don’t know.  So, let them at least understand what it is.

And then after that we asked each of them to pick up any two.  We gave them the empowerment and the choice to pick up any two and then go deeper into them in a more engaged learning, whether it’s classroom or e-learning.  The first bit was us giving them a basket of seven and then leaving them to choose between these seven.

Andrea:  So they picked two, and then they had the opportunity to learn more based on those two.  Did you have certain classes or the e-learning or the workshops that you had for them to take or was this something that you had some options, or did they choose?  How did that work?

Shefali Gupta:  So again, the way we did was that this was really interesting.  Of course we had classroom training for some of the banking products and businesses.  We also have tie up with some of the big e-learning companies across the world so that people have enough material to choose from.

But then we went beyond that by doing two programs, one is what we call Gandalf Scholars.  So basically, we said to our employees that we would give you $1,000 credit in your salary account straight away if you tell us what is it that you want to learn and how then would you do it within a three month period.

So, all they needed to do is pick up a topic.  Like for example, somebody said, “I want to learn about dev ops,” or somebody said, “I want to learn about Agile coaching.”  We would give them the money to decide how they want to use the thousand dollars to upskill themselves externally.  They could get a personal coach for themselves, or they could sign up with a program, either university or anything that works for them.  The only question in that was that, they needed to come back and teach that same skill to at least ten other employees, and they could do that through a lunch and learn session or making a video on it.  But that’s our way in which we kind of ensured that the content is something which is relevant, taught by their own friends or peers in the office.  And that’s how it was one of the really big successes.

Andrea:  Wow!  It sounds like it would be successful.  How did they take it?  How did the people respond?

Shefali Gupta:  Well, they loved it.  We had a waitlist throughout, and we had, like, a lot of people wanting to, you know, sign up.  Because we did it in bursts of like, you know, once a quarter, and we would give it 200 people, then you would pay it for a few months and give out.  That’s how we did it.  And what was the surprise for me over here was that of course they love the learning that they did because they were empowered to choose what topic they want to learn and how they learn it.  That was a lot of empowerment with them.  And they loved that.  But what they actually really adored was the teaching.  I had so many people write to me saying that, “I love coming back and teaching my friends in the office. I didn’t realize that I could teach so well.  And after that I’ve made so many new friends, and I love the way I had to prepare for it, and I’ve learned so much more in the teach back.”

So actually, the teach back went viral, right? Like, they just loved it.  They all wanted to teach and then they kept saying, “Can we do it more times?  Is it just a ten or can I do it for, like, twenty people or can I do one more session?”  And so I think that was something which really inspired us to think deeper about this concept of peer to peer learning and realize that people want to learn with friends, like, who they know well and they are very comfortable sitting side by side and someone is teaching you something.  That’s how they want to learn and what I call peer-to-peer learning.  I think that’s going to be the way learning would be in the future.

Andrea:  Oh, that’s interesting.  Are there plans for that to continue then, or is this just a onetime kind of a situation for DBS Bank?

Shefali Gupta:  Well, of course, we have planned to continue with this.  You’re talking about Gandalf Scholars in particular or just…

Andrea:  Yeah.

Shefali Gupta:  Yeah, of course.  We are continuing that, but we’ve actually taken a step further, Andrea, by introducing another program, which is an idea that came out from here, which is called Back to School.  So this is the new, like, I would say the 2.0 of the first program where what we did was that these people who were like really loving being teachers and then that’s when that gave us the idea.  There are so many subject matter experts in any place or any organization.  Maybe they are not the senior folks, maybe they don’t shine so much because they’re doing some small projects somewhere hidden behind a desk.  But these are the people who really know our topic very well.

So we started this Back to School program, which actually has got mentioned in our current annual report.  And it’s something that I was leading and, you know, conceptualized and executed on this whole program, which is like, let’s create a school atmosphere in the office.  So we took up one entire floor and made classrooms. We had, every forty-five minutes, one session going on on very different topics.  It could be technology, it could be operations, it could be about leadership, it could be on, you know, data analytics.  I mean, a range of topics were being taught by people, subject experts from the company and employees could just pick and choose and go for any sessions.

So, clearly like a bell would ring like your class bell and then you would have people coming to class, you have a teacher who’s somebody from the office and then they learn for forty-five minutes, a really good solid session, and then they can go and attend a completely different class, maybe on profile building or performance management or you know and they could just pick and choose different topics.

They loved it.  I mean, we had like 1500 signups within three hours of opening up for registration.  Then when a class would finish and I will open the door or the facilitator would open the door and there would be like a crowd waiting outside to enter in for the next class.  It was like, people just absolutely love this, you know, and we recorded.

We video recorded many of them and made them into small bite-size YouTube kind of learning, which they could just watch in twenty minutes.  The ones who couldn’t attend a class could watch it on video then.  Then we released it like season one, season two, with like eight or ten classes each where people could actually, you know, refer to them or go back to them and listen in again.

Andrea:  Hmm.  There are so many things that I love about that.  I love how it really gave people that were already in the company an opportunity to share their expertise and to shine, really.  And then everybody else has a chance to learn from them and you were able to use it again by turning it into videos.  I mean, it sounds like a fantastic program.  Was it a one day experience then, this Back to School – did it take place in one day?

Shefali Gupta:  So first time, we did it for two days, two whole days so that people could come and go when they felt like.  I mean, sometimes people are more free in the afternoon.  Sometimes some people in banking get free post 3:00 p.m., right? After the banking cut off as branches are shut down.  So, we did it for two whole days, but the next time when we did it the second time we did it for four days, but we kept half days.   But we did it over four days, I think from Tuesday to Friday.  So it could be like, I think two days is a good number.  One feels short because it was like, you know, many people are not there or they are busy in a meeting and then they just missed the whole thing.  I think between two and three is it seems the right number of days to do this.

Andrea:  It sounds exciting, sounds exciting.  So when it came to leading this digital transformation, it sounds like this getting everybody on board, at least getting understanding, awareness, and then positive feedback or positive experience with it.  It sounds like, you know, bringing in, doing this education, helping them to see that you care about them must have made a tremendous impact on the buy-in of the whole team.

Shefali Gupta:  Yes, absolutely it did.  I mean, it helped, in overall, just collaboration.  I felt that people have become more collaborative because of everybody having the same vision.  Everybody was excited to do something different.  So teams are different units and functions are working together, like technology in business and operations with business.  So everybody is more collaborative for sure.  And the second thing is that everybody feels that they are going through a very exciting phase in their career.  I have had so many of my team members come to me saying, “This is the best year in my career,” kind of a thing.

So, because there’s lots happening and they all feel empowered that they have a chance to make a difference and not just be boring bankers, but actually be in a very exciting phase of their life and here was a chance for them to make a difference.  So, I think these two things, you know, have a collaborativeness and just maybe slight, definitely a more driven self-initiative kind of a excitement that’s built in to the company.  That’s really good.

Andrea:  So when we’re looking at this overall transition from being this more traditional kind of bank to being the World’s Best Digital Bank, could you take us back a little bit to the beginning of this process and why there was a desire or a decision to make this change and how the ball kind of got rolling?  At what point was this?  Why did it start?

Shefali Gupta:  It’s a good question.  There was a definite trigger point – and that came up, I think almost like eight years back.  So we have, you know, like a country level customer satisfaction survey, which is done by the central authorities, like the government and some of the top institutes.  So that kind of survey was done and DBS was like almost at the bottom of customer satisfaction.  That was, I think, a wakeup call.  It was all over the media.

But also we knew from our customers that they weren’t happy and there were a lot of pain points and there were a lot of noise on, “Queues are too long.”  “The processes are not friendly.”  “Staffs are rude.”  I mean, all sorts of negative.

And of course, just like the processes being very slow and everything takes too much time.  So that was how the trigger point was that boom, like, “Okay, we were lowest,” and it was like a wakeup call for us to do something about it.  And at the same time, we actually happened to have a new CEO being appointed to the company who’s extremely dynamic and extremely driven to do something really big.  And actually not just improve where we are going wrong, but to reimagine the entire way of, you know, banking is done and, you know, the position that DBS could be in the name that it could have and become a worldwide known name.  I mean, those were the kind of aspirations that our CEO came in.  So our leadership was very supportive and extremely positive and driven to do this change.  And I think that’s kind of had a good spiral effect across the company.

Andrea:  At what point were you looped in on this process and did you start to collaborate to help figure out how to move forward?

Shefali Gupta:  So I joined DBS from Citibank after being in Citibank for about fourteen years.  I joined DPS and I was in the customer experience and was handling the customer experience for the wealth management part of the business.  And then after two years of doing that, what DBS did was that they set up a separate cell, like a small team, known as the Improvement Team which was back to the CIO and the CEO of the company, which would then be the team which would drive the entire transformation in the company.

So, I was fortunate enough to be asked to join the team.  And I think that was like definitely a turning point in my career because here I got a chance to not do just my work, but actually be being in a position where I could have oversight about the whole company and be able to influence and support them in, you know, as we move forward.

So, from this team, the methodologies, tools, and the training, or even many of these programs were being rolled out from and executed across the organization.  And later on in the last few years, I became the head of strategy and planning for the technology and operations group.  And that’s how it gave me the leeway to be working with teams on upskilling the entire technology future readiness.  And those are things that I was leading once I got into even a bigger role in this particular team.

Andrea:  I’m sure that was exciting, but probably also a bit of a challenge for you personally.  What did you find to be the biggest challenge for you personally?

Shefali Gupta:  I think there were two things.  One is, I think, the containers, very high speed of learning that was needed; like there was no stopping, right?  Like every day there was something new that was happening.  So, in some sense, you always had to keep evolving yourself and stretching yourself and learning new things.  So, it’s not easy when you’ve come from doing very regular kind of jobs where you know what you have to do when you come in the morning and your day is like a set day.  Here, every day was different.  And I was thrown into new topics, new projects, new tasks like, “Okay, go help with the workforce strategy,” or “Go lead this particular thing.”

So first, I mean I think it was continuous learning, which was a personal challenge.  But after some time I started really enjoying that.  And you know, being able to take a topic and upskill myself first and then go and see how I could, you know, add value to others.

The second challenge for me, which actually became very positive towards the end, is that it’s a very matrix sort of… You are like a center cell in a huge organization.  And it’s not that everybody is reporting into you, but you still have to influence them and get them to do what you want them to do and for them to trust you.  And especially in countries where English might not be even the first language like China or Taiwan or maybe people who haven’t dealt with and who were completely new to me and I was new to them as well.

So just being able to work in a collaborative way and getting them to trust you and looking at the bigger picture and not worrying that, “Will I get the credit for it,” or “How will it help me?”  But just looking at it, “Okay, this is the right thing to do and we should do it.”  So, that’s what is really, you know, I think one of the challenges, initially I faced.  But then once I started to make the connect and get people to trust me, I really started enjoying working with very different teams and helping and supporting them in every way I could without worrying about whether it’s going to benefit them or me or, you know, who gets the brownie points.  You kind of have to stop thinking too much about that.

And that’s what has led me to now like really think of now that I’m in North America, I want to really continue doing that.  Like, just working in teams, helping them solve the problems or execute on some of their programs or just helping them think through and learn from, you know, my experiences.

Andrea:  So how did you gain their trust and be able to have influence in that situation?

Shefali Gupta:  So, I think part of the ways to gain trust was using my experience and my knowledge and skills to make a genuine value add to the work they’re doing and they saw the value of it.  That was first.

And the second thing is that what I mentioned earlier, not having expectations on what is it that I would get if I were to help them or gain their trust, but actually just doing it because it’s the right thing for the customer and for the organization.  So they saw me being like that I’m thinking not just on my personal agenda but overall the organization agenda and definitely the customer agenda.

Andrea:  So they could see that you are for the customer but also for them individually, I’m sure, because everything that you ended up bringing into play with the Gandalf Scholars and all of the upskilling that you made room for in the future that had to have a huge impact then for them to be able to feel like you were for them.

Shefali Gupta:  Yeah, absolutely.

Andrea:  Now you’d mentioned that there were some things that didn’t go so well.  What did you learn from this process?

Shefali Gupta:  Okay, I mean for me personally, the two things that I learned from here is firstly, no job is small or too big, I would think.  Anything that’s given to me, there were sometimes like even the smallest of things that I would be doing, like “Okay, we have this visitor who has come from some other country and they want to understand what we’re doing and …to us.”  So, sometimes I would say that, you know what, it’s a lot of time but then afterwards you start realizing that everything adds up, right?  Every small thing makes a difference.  It’s what you make out of a particular task or assignment and how much you can add value by doing it completely differently.  That’s my learning.

If some work is given to me or a task is given to me, there’s one way would be is, “Okay, just go on and do it as you were told to do it.”  The second way would be that: can you completely reimagine it and do it in a way which is very different and just in a much larger scale or looking at it as a much bigger picture.  So that was my first learning.

The second learning would be just be very open to people of different personalities, different age groups and, you know, different backgrounds because from every human being, there’s something that you can learn from them.

So the older folks or people who’ve been there for 30, 40 years who had a very specific way of thinking but there was so much I learned about, you know, the real way of doing control compliance, the eye for detail that they had that was really very impactful.

And from the youngsters, I work with a lot of twenty something people.  So, I have like, literally my daughter is 19 and I think half the team reporting to me was slightly above my daughter’s age.  There was so much I would learn from them, the freshness of ideas or the ability to question everything.  And just the energy which goes behind the thinking and how they work together and collaborate, so I think that was the second thing, just be open to younger, senior, junior.  It doesn’t matter.  Just try and learn what you can what that person has to bring on the table.

Andrea:  Wow, what an amazing transformation it sounds like took place not just in the company but also in you.

Shefali Gupta:  Absolutely.  Yeah.  I feel so too.

Andrea:  Hmm.  So when you think about somebody who wants to be a Voice of Influence® in their own company, what kind of advice would you give them to help navigate changes or personal challenges, especially when it comes to leading change?

Shefali Gupta:  So, I mean, I would say, three things here.  My advice would be firstly, think of a bigger purpose, a higher purpose that you are doing.  So when I was asked to look at, you know, upskilling of the employees, so one way I could have looked at it, “Okay, I’m training a bunch of people.”  The other way will look at it is that, “Okay, I’m going to ensure that these eight thousand people would have jobs even ten years from now or twenty years.”  So they would be employable or their employability is going up and hence I’m contributing to the overall sustainability of them, their families, and you know, the people around them in their communities.

So my first advice would be to whatever you’re doing, look for a higher purpose.  What is it that you would like to do that you could bring in and that you could make a bigger difference in your circle of influence or the world around you.

The second thing that I would say is that when you are doing something, it could be it in your personal life, at home or in the office, just try and always think through, “Is there a better way to do this?”  So this continuous improvement thing is something which is, you know, _____, because once you do that, you will see others also start thinking like that, that look at continuous improvement.  There’s something that, “Okay, is there something or better way to do this?”

So keep trying to pivot and improve whatever you’ve been doing, so how you have Apple go from whatever from different to 9.0, 10, and 11 or whatever.  The same way, it’s like you have to say that, “Okay, I’m gonna have a new release of new way of doing something every time.”  So that’s the kind of culture in organization you bring in then you will have people thinking on their feet all the time saying, “Okay, why should we do it the same way?  Let’s look at it differently.”

The third thing, I mean patience.  I think not all change comes overnight and that’s why we have all these problems.  Like Rome wasn’t built in a day; it does take time.  People take time to change.  So when you try and go on to a change management or a transformation journey, any organization, give it a time.  I mean, it will take time.  It’s not going to be in one year or six months.  It is a multi year journey and keep that in your mind.

Andrea:  Hmm.  Wow, well, thank you so much for sharing your voice of influence with our listeners today, Shefali.   I really appreciate it.  If somebody is interested in connecting with you or asking you a question about what you did with the work at DBS Bank, where should they find you?

Shefali Gupta:  I think LinkedIn would be a good place.  That’s something that I’m quick in my responses there. And now that I’m based in the US, like, if any of the folks want to catch up or just chat or meet up, I’m happy to be connected over there.

Andrea:  All right, well, we’ll make sure to link to your LinkedIn page in our show notes on voiceofinfluence.net.  And I thank you again so much for being here with us today.

Shefali Gupta:  Thank you, Andrea.  It was a pleasure, and I’m really happy that, you know, you’re doing this podcast and hope you much success and hope we remain friends forever.

Andrea:  Oh, thank you!

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Using YouTube to Build Influence in 2020 with Nate Woodbury

Episode 122

Nate Woodbury helps speakers and coaches leverage YouTube to grow a massive following that brings in seven figures of revenue.  He is a master of efficiency whose brain is wired to see things with a results focus and he loves sharing the secrets and strategies that he uses to get YouTube results.

In this episode, Nate discusses how he got started with YouTube, why YouTube videos get so many more views than webpages, the importance of doing keyword research before recording anything, which keywords you should be focusing on, the keyword research tool that’s completely changed his business, why authenticity is more important than video or audio quality, how YouTube isn’t a quick-fix marketing strategy, his four-month strategy for growing your YouTube video views, how thumbnails are critical in click-through rates, why your thumbnail shouldn’t have the title of video on it, and more!

Mentioned in this episode:

Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Nate Woodbury Voice of Influence Podcast Andrea Joy Wenburg

 

Transcript

Hey, hey! It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast. Today, I have with me Nate Woodbury here, and he helps speakers and coaches leverage YouTube to grow a massive following that brings in seven figures of revenue. He is a master of efficiency. His brain is wired to see things with a results focus, and he loves sharing the secrets and strategies that he uses to get YouTube results. So, today’s going to be really interesting.

Andrea: Nate, it’s so good to have you here on the Voice of Influence podcast.

Nate Woodbury: Yeah, happy to be here. And I like the name – influence is a big part of what I do. I love that.

Andrea: Yes, I can tell. And so, Nate, how did you get started in YouTube? Like, what’s your YouTube kind of origin story?

Nate Woodbury: Yeah, so going back about six or seven years is when I made the transition from a web design service that I used to have. As a part of website design, I also did search engine optimization and to get my clients’ websites to rank on Google, I would create this SEO page, I called them. And we’d do a whole bunch of things from link-building, and articles, and infographics that we linked on Pinterest.

Well, one thing that we put on there was a YouTube video, a how-to video, and it worked. It got these pages ranked on the top of Google, but then I noticed something. I noticed that the video itself over on YouTube was getting fifty times more views and traffic than the entire SEO page that was ranking number one on Google. And that was eye-opening for me because it was a lot of work doing what we were doing. So, I started to make a shift and just focus only on the YouTube part. You could create one piece of content and get fifty times more traffic so that’s where it began.

Andrea: Wow, that’s awesome! Okay, why is that? Why is it that people are experiencing so much more traffic through YouTube?

Nate Woodbury: Well, when people are searching online, they’re searching for something, not necessarily a company or a specific website. If they have a question – you know, how to get rid of strep throat without antibiotics or how to invest in real estate with no money – they kind of want the answer to that question, and YouTube has become a great search engine for that type of content.

So, you can create a video that answers people’s specific questions, and that’s what people are wanting to find. And you know, comparing that to website SEO, you’re trying to make your website big and relevant and compete out there. But YouTube is already big in relevance. You just create the right type of content, and YouTube gets the traffic.

Andrea: Okay, so when it comes to you helping other people to start this – let’s say that they’ve got it figured out, they want to do it – what’s the first step?

Nate Woodbury:  The first step is keyword research, and that sounds intimidating. It sounds overwhelming, but here’s to simplify it. Right now, all around the world, there are people that are searching for you; that they have questions, and you have the answers. And when you do keyword research, you can find those questions. So that’s all it is. You’re trying to find the specific questions that people are asking, and now you know what to make videos about.

And I can give you an example. My friend, Katie Gutierrez, she’s an interior designer in Miami, and one of her areas of expertise is living room design. And if she were to come up in her mind with a few video ideas, “Okay, I want to make a few videos around living room design,” she could be creative and come up with some videos that would be helpful, and we’d give them catchy titles. But instead we did keyword research together first before she started filming. We found a list of twenty really specific questions people are asking about living room design, such as how to design a living room with high ceilings, how to design a living room with large windows, or – one that I really liked – how to design a living room with a corner fireplace.

And we found twenty of these type questions. And so one, it gives her a lot more variety, a lot more ideas of videos that she could film, but it also matches the video with people that are actually searching. And so this works really well on YouTube. One other point that’s really important that I want to bring up that’s different from traditional SEO research and in marketing is I go after phrases that have low search volume intentionally. I ignore the ones that have large search volume. The reason being is the large search volume phrases have high competition.

But I think the phrase how to design a living room with a corner fireplace, I believe that has thirty searches per month on average. That’s wonderful because those thirty people are going to watch the video all the way to the end. The YouTube algorithm sees that and thinks, “Wow, this is a high performing video. Let’s find more people like these thirty that we can promote this video to.” And so YouTube starts to become my promotion engine.

Andrea: Okay, that’s very interesting. So you’re saying that it’s more important to get people to watch through the whole thing and if that higher percentage is going to make a difference in how YouTube then ends up pushing it out to more people.

Nate Woodbury: Exactly.

Andrea: Wow! Cool!

Nate Woodbury: Yeah. And if you can go after a phrase that no one else is going after then you rank instantly, and you’ll start getting traffic instantly even if it’s a person a day.

Andrea: Wow!

Nate Woodbury: Now, just one person a day, at least you’re getting that instantly as opposed to posting a video and not getting any views sort of relevant, you know.

Andrea: Sure. That makes a lot of sense. All right, so people do a keyword search, they try to figure this out, but then I’m assuming that there are some technical things that people get intimidated by. I mean, certainly has been that way for me. So, when it comes to the quality of video on YouTube, how important is that quality of video and audio?

Nate Woodbury: All right. So, quality is important, but what’s more important than quality is just authenticity, and that’s a buzzword today, that’s a buzzword. So let me kind of explain that. I can go out and spend a huge amount of money on camera equipment, on lighting and sound, on a studio, and that’s not going to guarantee a single thing, right? It’s not going to guarantee that my videos are going to go anywhere or anything. But as an example on the other end of the spectrum, I can pull out my phone, and I can just be walking down the street and just talk and just have a conversation, and that type of video is more likely to actually succeed if it’s really me and I’m just sharing advice, or I’m sharing a story and I’m really connecting with people.

So, another note on the authenticity side is you don’t need to show up as an actor. You don’t need to show up and talk in a professional voice like you’re a news anchor or like you’re giving a stage presentation. It’s just talking and having a conversation to one person. Like you’re having a conversation with one person at a time because that’s typically all that’s watching your video at a time is just one person. So, you look right into the lens of the camera and you talk to them; that will get your results.

And so if there’s specific things that you want to do to make your videos more professional or whatnot, I actually recommend against making it look like a company or corporate. Like, you don’t need to worry about putting text or graphics on the screen because a lot of times, unless you really know what you’re doing, it looks cheesy anyway.

Andrea: Sure.

Nate Woodbury: So just start simple. You’ve got an amazing camera in your pocket, and face a window so you got the light coming in on your face so you’re well lit. And you know, if you’re holding the camera, if it’s close to you, the audio is going to be pretty good. So that’s where I say start.

Andrea: Yeah. Awesome! All right, so if somebody wants to have some sort of influence, they’re wanting to have a message that gets out there and that sort of thing, they kind of have an idea of their expertise, they’ve done the keyword search… Now, you have a resource about keyword searching, is that right?

Nate Woodbury: Uh-huh.

Andrea: Let’s go ahead and tell them about that now because I don’t want to forget that one.

Nate Woodbury: Sure. Yeah, and to preface this tool, because it’s so amazing… I discovered [it] a year ago, September. Prior to that, I was using multiple tools, a couple of softwares that I paid for, the Google AdWords Keyword tool. So, I’d use one to get some data, use another one to filter it down, and use another one to improve it and expand. And it took me forever to do, and it took me like a year to train one of my assistants to be able to do it for me. Okay, so fast forward to September of 2018, and I was at a conference and the company, SEMrush, they were an exhibitor, and I’d use them before. They’ve been around a long time. I used their software back in the day when I had my SEO company.

Well, they smiled when I told them my process and what I was doing, and he pulled out the iPad and showed me this Keyword Magic Tool. And so that’s the tool that I used with Katie, the interior designer. So, if we typed in living room design and then there’s a button that says questions, so after you hit search then you hit questions, and then all the questions that… you know, the twenty that we filled narrowed it down to about living room design, just all appeared right there. So that tool basically took all the mini-steps that I was doing and just put it into one simple tool. It’s awesome!

Andrea: Wow. That’s awesome! Okay, and we’ll link to it in the show notes, how people can find it, but if you want to tell us again at the end, that’d be awesome.

Nate Woodbury: Sure.

Andrea: Do people in, like, a corporate space, people who are wanting to be a thought leader, that sort of thing… have you seen people like that who not are necessarily coaches, but maybe want to be known for their expertise; are they using YouTube?

Nate Woodbury: Well, that’s a good question. I mean, in the world of YouTube, I’m kind of a part of two different worlds. There’s the entrepreneur world, and then there’s the YouTuber world and the YouTuber world, most of the people there started YouTube as a hobby. They had another career, but as their YouTube channel grew, they actually started to make money from ad revenue. They got approached for sponsorships. They got started to be invited to speak, and then they thought, “Okay, I guess I’m a business owner. I guess I’m going to be self-employed.” And so they quit their job, and they put on the hat of entrepreneur, and that’s most of the people that are in the Youtuber category.

The world that I come from is more on the entrepreneurial side. We have our product or service and I’ve really honed in on working with coaches and speakers, those who have some type of skill set or expertise that’s what they sell through courses, or through speaking, or events, or whatnot. And I’ve helped those people leverage YouTube because really just using that keyword research process. They can find the questions that people are asking them and help them really build a large following. So does that help?

Andrea: Yeah. That’s interesting. I think I could see it being beneficial for somebody, like, in a job if they’re considering other options perhaps or if they are wanting to speak alongside what they’re doing, that sort of thing. I can see that being beneficial too, especially if you’re wanting to, I don’t know, even be able to showcase some of your expertise so that people might want you to come speak and that sort of thing.

Nate Woodbury: Well, a lot of people will do that for a hobby. You know, let’s say that somebody got a model airplane hobby, and they put it out there. Well, eventually, I’ve seen channels like that really take off to where people are funding projects, “Ooh, I want to see you make this type of an airplane or see if this will fly.” And you know, they contribute to stuff like that. The other thing that I want to mention is YouTube is a long term strategy. It’s not quick-fix marketing, and it’s great to start now rather than later.

Even if you’re not quite sure where you want to go, you think, “You know what, I really want to step into that space,” then just get started and practice and get used to being in front of the camera. Start with one episode per week, and over time you’ll see which video… you know, over let’s say three months, you’ve posted a dozen videos. You’ll be able to look back and see, “Well this one got a lot more views, likes, and comments than the others. Maybe I’ll just make a few more like that one.” And you’ll learn the ropes along the way.

Andrea: So, in podcasting… I sort of learned it this way, that you’re supposed to start with maybe your intro video and three others – excuse me, podcast episodes – so that you have a few in the bank when people start listening to you, and then you build from there. Do you do the same thing with YouTube? Do you start with a few, or do you start with one?

Nate Woodbury: Well, yeah. I mean, it makes sense if you’re launching one video, and people come to your channel, and they see that that’s your only video. I mean, I can understand the logic behind that. And I did that as well when I launched my podcast. But at the same time, content is so searchable, and my strategy is so much focused on search that I guess it’s not as emphasized. I guess the reason that it is emphasized in the podcast world is because you’re really trying to do something in the first month or two, I believe, to get picked up by iTunes as “New and Notable” or something like that. Is that right?

Andrea: Yeah, yeah. But there’s nothing like that, there’s no equivalent to that on YouTube.

Nate Woodbury: Well, I have my own formula that I figured out that’s a four-month strategy if you’d like me to share that.

Andrea: Sure, if you want to share that. We’d love to hear it.

Nate Woodbury: Okay, so this is a formula that… it’s really aggressive, and the result is that you will get a spike. So what I mean by a spike is over the four months, it’s not really exciting, you’re having gradual growth, just incremental increases of views. But then right on the four-month mark, you just have a surge of views and subscribers. So we’re talking, let’s say you’re averaging – across your channel – you’re averaging a hundred views a day, and then all of a sudden you have 10,000 views in a day and 10,000 views the next day. And then when it settles back down, you’re at a brand new baseline. Maybe your average increased up to like 600 views a day. So it’s like a six times increase.

Okay, so here’s the four ingredients. One, you’ve got to do keyword research before filming, like we talked about. And I have a video on my YouTube channel called My Leaf Strategies. So if you ever want to know that strategy in more detail, my channel is Nate Woodbury, Leaf Strategy, you’ll find that video, and that will help you how to do the keyword research before filming. And the second ingredient is you want your episodes to be ten to twelve minutes in length, and that’s an average.  You can go a little bit less than that. I’d say, you know, I recommend at least seven minutes. You can go longer than that.

My best performing video of all times is actually a twenty-minute episode. So the ten to twelve minutes is the average. The third ingredient is you want your average view duration to be 45% or higher. So, if you have a ten-minute video but people on average are only watching one minute of it, that just gives you some indications, “Okay, what do we need to do to get people to watch more?” And oftentimes there’s just some simple things you can say at the beginning to let people know why they should stay to the end.

A lot of times I’ve provided consulting to people where I watched the video – I’ve got one video in my mind – and her content was so good, and in fact, it got better and better throughout the video. And I’m just like, this is a really valuable video, but people are leaving after forty-five seconds or a minute, you know, and so if she would’ve just said, “Okay, I’m gonna give you a quick answer to my question at the beginning, then I’m going to give you the back story of why it’s important, and then I’ll share with you some strategies of how you can really implement it.” That’s the long version. The quick step here is you got to have 45% average duration or longer. And then the fourth ingredient is you’ve got to launch five episodes per week.

Andrea: Oh wow!

Nate Woodbury: So that sounds aggressive, doesn’t it?

Andrea: Yeah, yeah.

Nate Woodbury: That’s the formula. So, you do my leaf strategy – ten to twelve minutes per episode, average reiteration of 45% higher, and you’ll launch five episodes per week – at that four-month mark, you’ll have a spike. Because that’s such a high amount of work, you can get pretty discouraged two or three months in because you’re looking at your channel, thinking, “Man, I’m working really hard, and this last episode only got seven views. What’s going on here, Nate? Come on, I need a spike like you’re telling me.” But we get to that four-month mark in, and every time, when you have these four ingredients, I’ve always seen a spike.

Andrea: Wow. That’s really cool. That’s a lot of videos, for sure. And so do you have people put, like… I oftentimes will see words on the front of the video to kind of like get people’s attention maybe, I don’t know. Do you do that, or do you have people do that?

Nate Woodbury: Well, thumbnail design is extremely important.

Andrea: Yeah, thumbnail design, that’s what I’m thinking, yeah.

Nate Woodbury: Right. So custom thumbnail is critical in getting your video to perform, and once you start getting enough traffic on your videos that you can get significant stats, you can do what’s called AB testing. So, you might design an original thumbnail that you think, “Okay, I believe that this is going to create curiosity here.” And then you’ll be able to track the click-through rate and say it’s 4.87 percent click-through rate. And then, with AB testing you can design a second version and it will compare the two, and oftentimes we’re looking for an improvement, right? So, “Oh, this one bumped it up to a 7.21 click-through rate,” and so you’ll keep the alternate version. Thumbnail design is a huge… it’s critical in success on YouTube.

Andrea: And then do you use the same title that somebody would search for? You know, like the title at the bottom? Is that the same thing that you put on the thumbnail? Because I often see it’s different.

Nate Woodbury: You want it to be different because you’ll always see the title of the video with the thumbnail.

Andrea: Okay. Yeah.

Nate Woodbury: The title will always be there.

Andrea: So it’s redundant.

Nate Woodbury: Exactly. You don’t have to have texts. I often do. I’ve found that the default rule is fewer words, the better on the thumbnail, and you want to create curiosity instead of, like, telling statements. So, if I were to make a video on how to get rid of strep throat without antibiotics – that’s the title of the video – instead of saying, you know, strep throat remedy, you know, that could be some text I could put on the thumbnail.

But what I think would perform better is “secret formula” or something like this actually works – you know, put a question mark like, “This actually works?” – and I have a face that’s like, “What?” Because they’ll see the title, and then maybe I’m holding up something that… you know, one of the ingredients is garlic so maybe I’m holding up a bowl of garlic, and I’m looking at it like, “This really works?” You know, something like that would actually create… I found that to create a lot more clicks, because there’s more curiosity. They’re like, “Is that remedy in my kitchen now?”

Andrea: Yeah, yeah, that’s cool. Okay, so I think that’s one of the big challenges with marketing, in general, is how do you create that kind of intrigue that gets people to actually take a bite, to click, to try it out.

Nate Woodbury: Yeah. The cool thing is you can just start. I use Photoshop, but there’s a free tool called Canva, and Canva has YouTube thumbnail templates.

Andrea: I love Canva.

Nate Woodbury: Yeah. It’s really simple. You can just go in there, and it will automatically set up the dimensions for you, and it has some stock images and color and fonts. You can just create a thumbnail, and start, and then, you know, you’ll learn to make improvements.

Andrea: Yeah, awesome. Well, Nate, this has been so helpful. You know, you’re working with influencers all the time, so when you think about the importance of having an impact in the world of, you know, maybe your own influence that you’re wanting to have, what kind of tip or piece of advice would you like to give the influencer that is listening now?

Nate Woodbury: Well, the first thought that comes to my mind, I’m thinking of a message that my client and friend Paul Jenkins got from a lady in India. Paul had made a parenting video. I don’t remember the title of it, but he often makes videos such as How to Get Your Kids to Listen Without Yelling – you know, just great parenting topics. And the lady in India said, “I was having problems with my son. I watched your video, and I tried it, and it worked. Thank you so much.” And that just… that really impacted him, especially because, you know, we’re in Utah, and on the other side of the planet in India, somebody had watched his video, and he was able to help a mother with her son. And that’s influence. That’s influence right there.

And so my advice is you have experience, and therefore that gives you expertise. You have advice that you can share, and so simply by making a video that answer somebody’s questions and provides them that help or value, you’re giving that for free on YouTube, you are an influencer now.

Andrea: Hmm. That’s cool. All right, so, Nate, you’ve already shared with us a couple of places where people can get in touch with you and find you, but would you kind of recap that for us? And also maybe tell us a little bit about what you do to help people with their YouTube channels.

Nate Woodbury: Well, sure. So I do full production. I help with channel strategy, the topic strategy, then we’ll do the filming, have a full filming production, and editing, and launch, and thumbnail design. So, we basically do it for you. It’s expensive, okay? So it’s not a service that I really offer to the masses, but I currently have thirteen clients, and that’s what I do. Best places to find me are on YouTube at Nate Woodbury, or I do have a podcast as well, it’s Influence School.

The other thing that I just really want to emphasize is that this really works. It’s not theory. And so maybe this is bragging, but I want to share some numbers behind my largest channel, the Kris Krohn channel. He teaches real estate investing. We started that channel at zero, you know, brand new, and it’s now almost… we’re like 5,000 subscribers away from a half a million, so 500,000 subscribers. And what results that’s getting for us is about $600,000 per month in sales revenue. That channel is generating so many leads that $600,000 a month in sales. And that’s the potential.

In the world of YouTube, 500,000 is kind of small, especially for the amount of income that we’re generating. I just really want to share that just to show the opportunity on YouTube is really, really massive. I’m glad that I could be here to answer some questions and put you guys in that direction.

Andrea: Awesome! All right. Thank you so much, Nate. We appreciate you and your voice of influence in the world helping others find theirs and use it.

Nate Woodbury: Yeah, you’re welcome.

Andrea: All right. Well, we’ll talk to you soon.

Nate Woodbury: Alright. Bye, bye.

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How to Lead a 30,000 Foot-View Team Check-In

Episode 121

This week is a very special week as we’re transitioning from one decade to the next so I’m doing a special solo episode to wrap up the year and decade.

This is a time of year where a lot of companies have strategy sessions or days to review what they’ve accomplished and where they’re headed in the next year. Now, I absolutely love doing these strategy sessions with my clients, but there’s one thing I’ve noticed these companies rarely do and I would like to see that changed.

In this episode, I’m explaining why it’s crucial for companies to do periodic check-ins during the year to get a 30,000-foot view of where your company is at that time, the four main benefits of doing these check-ins, how to know when it’s time to do a check-in, and the five questions you can ask during the check-in to help your team get back into a strategic flow.

Mentioned in this episode:

Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Voice of Influence Podcast Andrea Joy Wenburg

 

Transcript

Hey, hey! It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast. It has been a long time since we have sat down just you and me. We’ve had a lot of interviews over the past few months, and it’s good to be back. Today is a pretty special day; this week is a very special week. We are transitioning from one decade to the next. This is the time of year that companies and teams take a step back and a lot of times will do a strategy day, or they’ll take a good hard look at what they’ve accomplished and where they’re headed. This is something that I love doing with clients.

But one of the things that is missing when people do strategy days is the follow-up. Strategy day or workshop, whatever kind of change you’re trying to encourage within your team, whatever kind of initiative you’re setting forth – every once in a while after that, you still need to take a step back away from all of the grind of the day to take that 30k foot view and say, “Where are we?” So that’s what we’re going to talk about today. We’re going to talk about what I called the 30k Foot Check-in.

So, this team check-in is an opportunity for you to help your team to think more strategically again and to get back into the flow of why they’re doing what they’re doing and how you’re going to move forward. It’s a simple, simple meeting. So we’re not talking about the in-depth strategy day where you’re nailing out or hammering out a 90-day plan with all kinds of projects and things like that. Instead of that, we’re talking about a very quick check-in, maybe thirty to forty-five minutes. This is how you know that it’s time for your 30k Foot Team Check-in.

If your team is feeling disjointed or you’re sensing a lot of friction amongst the people that are on the team, this is a good time to take a step back and check in, and say, “How are we doing?” If you have recently had a workshop or a strategy day, you have been making some sort of change. You don’t want to neglect the fact that people get really annoyed if you start a project and then don’t finish it, if you start an initiative and don’t carry it through. So, if you have a workshop and there isn’t any follow-up that is built into the workshop then you definitely want to build it in for yourself. So how can you come back to the changes that you were trying to make, the conversation that you were trying to have? Well, this is one way to do it.

Another time that you might want to have a 30k Foot meeting is when a team is getting really lost in the weeds. They might be making minimal progress on their projects but the overall needle is not turning like you wanted it to. Then it’s time to take a step back and check in with the team.

There are lots of benefits of doing this, but we’re going to talk about four. The first one is that you’re giving your team a voice. By having a time to be able to step back and check in, you’re giving them the opportunity to say what is on their minds, to make a difference in the overall picture. And this is incredibly important when it comes to engagement and retention. People want to believe that their voice matters, that what they do and say matters. They want to have agency.

And when they do, when they can have agency within a dialogue – a respectful dialogue – on your team, they are going to be more likely to continue to collaborate and come to consensus on things more easily. So you want to be able to give them a voice.

But number two, there’s also the benefit of collecting actionable insights from people that you might not have already heard. So although you already have an idea of what’s going well and what’s not going well, this is a chance for them to share, and you’re going to end up finding out things that you didn’t even realize could be changed. Sometimes the smallest little things that can make the biggest difference that other people are seeing. This is a great opportunity for people to share that.

A third benefit would be that you get to develop rapport in the team and perhaps even come to consensus. Consensus isn’t always possible or necessary, but what you can come to consensus on is this idea that you are going to trust each other. So, even if you don’t have a meeting for every little thing to make sure that there is consensus on every little thing – which is, of course, impossible – if you could live under this consensus that you trust each other, and so you don’t need to have your hands in everything then that’s going to help people. And it’s going to mean a lot to them that they’re going to feel like they’re on the same team. They’re seeing the game plan. They are part of creating the game plan. It means a lot.

A fourth benefit would be to help your team think more strategically. So, a lot of us are born with personalities that are focused on the details. We like to get in there, get our hands in it, get it done, but every once in awhile, we all need to be able to step back and think more strategically which allows us to have a greater impact with what we’re doing as a team. So make adjustments where we need to make adjustments.

So, this is an opportunity for you to help teach your team how to think strategically. And if you build this into a regular rhythm in your team, you’re going to find that people are going to start thinking like this, and it is going to make a difference in how they respond to changes that need to take place, and how they respond to each other in the kind of dialogue and collaboration that they’re able to accomplish.

All right, so how do we set this meeting up? This is kind of a meeting that I would recommend that if… If you’re doing it as a follow-up to a strategy day or a workshop, I’d recommend doing it every month after that for a few months so that you have a chance to really nail the thing down – you really get it going. If not, if it’s something that’s not possible or if that’s just too much, every quarter or every half year is a great time to be able to sit down and just have this quick meeting that would be a check-in to help them to be able to see things from a bigger perspective.

So what are the questions? Here are five questions that you can use at this meeting. Question number one, what do we have to celebrate? Celebration is something that can often be neglected, especially depending on the personalities in your group. Sometimes, it just feels like we’re never quite there, and so there’s nothing to really celebrate because as soon as we make it over one hump there’s another one to shoot for. But it’s important in meetings like these to have the opportunity to sit back and say, “What do we have to celebrate? What did we really accomplish?” Sometimes, it could be an actual accomplishments or an award that sort of thing, or a goal that’s been met, or it could simply be bringing somebody else onto the team that’s been a good team member.

Question number two is what are we doing well that gets us there? So you have things to celebrate. What is it that you’ve done? What systems have you put in place? What’s the culture like that has made it that you can get to this point? What is the character of the people on a team that’s getting you there? These are important things to acknowledge.

Question number three, what challenges lie ahead? Now, it can be really tempting for some people to want to complain in a meeting like this. It is important that they understand that this is actually not an opportunity for them to complain. We’re not looking back so much as we’re looking forward when it comes to the challenges.

So, instead of looking back at the challenges that you’ve had… unless you’ve been able to accomplish something, like let’s say you’ve gotten over that challenge, you really tackled that challenge – that’s great. But if it’s something that is a complaint about somebody else, and it’s something that’s going to be a concern in the future then instead of looking back and hashing out these old arguments or old problems, instead look forward and say, “What is coming that could be a potential challenge for us?” When people start to look ahead then they can start to think about how they’re going to navigate that challenge instead of complaining about it and feeling like a victim.

So, the fourth question, in follow up to that, would be what adjustments can we make to meet these challenges?

And then finally question number five, who will do what by when? Now, we’re not really talking about project management here. But if something has come up that needs to be addressed, if there is a challenge that is coming up ahead, and you’re ready to meet that challenge with some sort of adjustment that you’re going to make, what is that adjustment? How are you going to make it? Who’s in charge? Who’s going to get the ball rolling? Do you need to have another meeting? Does somebody need to go talk to somebody? Is there some sort of document that needs to be created? Some small thing is what we’re talking about here, not that detailed 90-day plan that you might execute after a strategy day, but some small thing that you know to help you to move forward.

So these five questions are very simple, but they do take you out of the weeds. They help you bring the team out of the weeds so that instead of thinking about their day-to-day frustrations, their day-to-day tasks and activities, they’re looking at the bigger picture about why it matters. Why they matter. The mission and vision and values, you can always bring those kinds of things up on a meeting like this. How are we headed in that direction? It’s a great thing to be able to come together underneath of that and say, “Where are we, and how can we move forward with more intentionality?”

And if you come to one of these meetings and you realize that it’s time to start a new initiative, it is time for us to take a deeper dive, and you want to lead some sort of strategic planning day, shoot me an email, contact me on our contact form on voiceofinfluence.net. I would love to be able to sit down and give you some thoughts about best practices for strategy days.

Again, that’s voiceofinfluence.net. Your voice matters; now let’s make it matter more!

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How to Create a Stigma- Free Workplace with Mettie Spiess

Episode 120

Mettie Spiess is a global workplace mental health expert who is a Nationally Certified Health Coach and the Founder of A World Without Suicide.

Twenty industries across seven countries have successfully utilized her process to proactively support employee mental well-being, reduce turnover, and increase team productivity. In fact, in 2016, the National Alliance on Mental Illness awarded Mettie the Education Advancement Award for her work to end the stigma associated with mental illness.

In this episode, Mettie discusses the devastating personal reasons behind why she started her company, the signs that your light is starting to dim, how she’s handled the complex emotions that come with being a suicide loss survivor, how to know when it’s time to seek the help of others and how to go about doing that, her advice for starting a conversation with someone in your life that might be struggling, why companies should open up mental health conversations even if they might be afraid of potential liability issues, why just opening the conversation within your company isn’t enough, how to find the balance between supporting yourself and supporting others, and more!

Mentioned in this episode:

Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Mettie Spiess Voice of Influence Podcast Andrea Joy Wenburg

 

Transcript

Hey, hey! It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast. Today, we have with us Mettie Spiess who is a global workplace mental health expert. She is a Nationally Certified Health Coach and the founder of A World Without Suicide. Twenty industries across seven countries have successfully utilized her process to proactively support employee mental well-being, reduce turnover, and increase team productivity. And in fact, in 2016, the National Alliance on Mental Illness awarded Mettie the Education Advancement Award for her work to end the stigma associated with mental illness.

Andrea: I’m really, really glad to have Mettie on the line with us today. Welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast, Mettie.

Mettie Spiess: Thank you, Andrea. I am thrilled to be here.

Andrea: So this is a big topic. This is a deep topic, one that is possibly triggering for some people. Can you set us up with kind of why you, in particular, have decided to tackle this with your company?

Mettie Spiess: Sure. Great question. So, why I started A World Without Suicide and really speaking globally on this topic is a very personal reason that aligned with my initial professional goals. But to give a brief overview, growing up, I absolutely idolized my two older brothers, Eddie and Ronnie. To paint a little bit of a picture, Ronnie was my rebellious, cool, older brother. Eddie was the life of the party, the comedian. And when I was ten, we lost Ronnie to suicide, and it just broke my heart. And suicidal grief is so unique, and especially at that age, there was lots of confusion and anger and just heartbreak.

But Ed and I were able to lean on each other, and as we got older, we got very close, and fast forward to 2014, Ed was a new dad. He had been working in the restaurant industry for several years. He just sort of fell into that industry working double shifts. He was on call 24/7, and his job really didn’t fulfill him, and he started having panic attacks. And little by little, that spark that he always had in him disappeared. And looking back now, I can vividly remember moments of noticing that light inside of him just simply burn out.

But it didn’t alarm me because at the time I was working full time for a large corporation in Corporate America, and I saw people all the time like Ed who were burning out, who were in the rat race, who were in jobs that they didn’t like or didn’t fulfill them. So, it just sort of seemed justifiable or “normal.” And Ed’s light burned out completely, and we lost him to suicide in 2014.

Andrea: Oh, I’m so sorry.

Mettie Spiess: Thank you. Thank you, I appreciate that, and you know, losing one brother was heartbreaking enough, but losing two to me was unacceptable, and that’s when I pivoted from broad corporate health promotion to focus on mental wellbeing and suicide prevention.

Andrea: Hmm, wow. Okay, so first of all, obviously this is so personal for you, and what a testament to, gosh, your love for your brothers, your tenacity to come back at this and tackle it instead of… I don’t know what instead of, but I’m grateful that you’re doing this work.

Mettie Spiess: Thank you. Thank you.

Andrea: When you think about your brother Eddie and the lights starting to dim, what kinds of things did you notice or do you encourage people to really look for in others whose light might be starting to dim or even themselves?

Mettie Spiess: Hmm, great question. So, being aware to changes in behavior, so whether it’s being exhausted – so having chronic sleep deprivation, things like appearance change, weight gain, or dramatic weight loss. If there’s somebody or if you personally are someone that’s usually well put together, but recently you just haven’t felt like you can get out of bed and put your face on and really go out there, or you’re having things like anxiety or is something moving past stress to really that panic mode or feeling like drowning. I think it’s important that we look in ourselves, and we look at those around us and not justify it as, “Oh well, everybody’s tired. Everybody works too much,” but really looking at it as, “Well, you don’t have to,” right? I mean, there’s a balance that can be achieved, but what is from normal stress to being a potential issue?

Andrea: Yes. Okay, so there’s probably people around us who are feeling that way, sometimes we might be feeling that way. And like you said, you’ve kind of saw the lights start to dim, if you will, again, with your brother, but you weren’t totally alarmed because you saw it as something kind of normal, which is so sad. How do you kind of grapple with the fact that this happened with you and your brothers? I mean, I’m asking this in order to encourage others that maybe have been in your position. How do you handle that kind of, I don’t know, the weight of knowing that it was your brother, you know?

Mettie Spiess: Being a suicide loss survivor, as I mentioned before, it’s so complex, and there’s often a lot of guilt. And I know I felt a lot of guilt of not being more proactive, not being educated on all of the warning signs to know that, wow, you know, there was more than one and how to start that conversation if I was concerned. So, a part of it was getting very educated in diving deep into how can I be aware to prevent this, moving forward, and teach others.

I really resonate with Christine Kane… said a very famous quote years ago of “Sometimes when you’re in a dark place, you think you’ve been buried, but you’ve actually been planted.” And I think that’s such a beautiful way to look at it, that regardless, even if it’s not a suicide loss, it’s a loss of a major relationship in any way, or it’s a loss of a job that some of the strongest voices and influence and movements have come from people’s struggle and loss. But that said, of course, having self-care and seeking support when we need it so we can influence the world in the way we were meant to.

Andrea: So how does one know when they need it, when they need support, and where do they go for support?

Mettie Spiess: So, obviously it, I think, varies by person. But if that stress going across the line of being chronic, or you’re having a hard time getting out of bed, or that stress is now moving into panic attack zone, leaning on people in your personal and professional life that you can count on for support. But if you feel like it’s in the mental illness – whether it’s depression, anxiety, any of that under the umbrella – talking to even your primary care physician and talking about what might be the next best step.

If it’s having suicidal thoughts, I recommend individuals reaching out immediately to the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. There’s a hope text line available in the U.S. that not everyone knows about. And this is helpful because it immediately connects individuals to a certified counselor versus having a waitlist to see someone. And that is available by texting 741741. I believe it’s text the word CONNECT to 741741.

Andrea: Okay, so when you’re talking to somebody – you know, let’s bring this into a conversation into a relationship at work, at home – and there’s some sort of warning sign that kind of pops up, there is often times I’ve noticed just with my background and things that people often don’t want to go there with somebody that’s really struggling. They often don’t want to feel that pain, or they often want to make somebody feel better so that they feel better. And it’s not always possible to make everybody feel better, we all know that. But at the same time, we still want that. We still are trying to make other people feel better. How do you suggest that people approach a conversation or even find the courage within themselves to have that conversation with somebody who’s really struggling?

Mettie Spiess: You are right. Andrea, you nailed it. There is quite a bit of uncomfortableness around starting these types of conversations, particularly in the workplace. When I start to train managers in our training, I have had countless times managers tell me that they have major concerns about someone on their team, but they would rather say nothing than say the wrong thing and be held liable, you know, to cross the confidentiality line. I have a whole digital module and portion of our training that we talk about the specific do’s and don’ts for discussing in the workplace.

But if we’re talking about even a family relationship or a coworker relationship, it’s completely appropriate to just open up the conversation by saying, “Hey, you really haven’t quite been yourself lately. Are you okay?” Just opening it up. Now, the “are you okay” question can be ambiguous, and people might automatically say, just out of pure habit. “Oh, I’m fine. Yup, I’m okay, don’t worry about it. Everything’s good.”

But if in your gut you have a feeling that “No, they’re really not… of everything I’ve been seeing, they’re just really not okay.” Digging a little deeper and you could even say something like, let’s say if it’s in the workplace and you don’t want to pry, you could say, “Okay, well, just know I was worried, you haven’t seemed yourself. So just know if there’s ever anything you do want to talk about, I’m here for you.” Or “We have an employee assistance program. Their flyers are in the break room. I encourage you to reach out if you’re ever in need,” as an example.

Andrea: I think that idea of just opening up the conversation is in and of itself so important – so, so, so important – and yet again, it’s so scary for people to do, including, I’m guessing not just for individuals but also for companies. So you go in and actually, you kind of open up the conversation for companies. Why should a company want to go there when they know that it could open up a can of worms? You know, I’ve seen that sort of thing happened before, but yet it’s so… I know it’s so important, but how does a company really get the courage really to do this? How do they know it’s important for them?

Mettie Spiess: The main times companies reach out to us and realize that this is a costly… so not even talking about the importance of this for their people, but realizing that it’s a costly dollars and cents issue is when they see significant healthcare claims going up for substance abuse treatments, for mental health-related leave of absence. Unfortunately, several companies – last year was about 60% of our companies or our clients – reached out after an employee suicide; many had multiple. And we see so many companies out there have employee suicides on site.

I mean, if you Google it, you will be surprised how many major brands and small companies alike. This is occurring literally in the workplace. The other side of the coin is by not addressing it – by not teaching leaders and employees about stigma-free language, about appropriate responses to individuals who disclose substance abuse or mental health-related issues – if they say something that is a discrimination type response, that is also a costly issue. So, I think what’s interesting is that some companies view by not discussing it they’re protecting themselves when actually it’s the exact opposite.

Andrea: Hmm, wow. Yeah, that’s really, really interesting and important and terrifying, really, that it takes seeing how bad things are to really make a change, and yet that’s just most of the world. I mean, we all do that as individuals. We wait until there’s a crisis of our own before we’re ready to really grapple with the things that are hard to grapple with.

Mettie Spiess: So true. That is so true, as you mentioned, from a personal and from a business perspective.

Andrea: Right. Let’s see. So, when it comes to having these conversations and you realize that somebody is struggling, or you realize that you’ve got the struggle within your company, I’m assuming it’s programs like yours that can come in and address this, open up the conversation. How does this go from being sort of just one conversation or just you coming to speak to actually making a difference or a change throughout the organization?

Mettie Spiess: That’s such a great question because you’re right, topics that are this critical, it’s not a onetime event, right? There’s an ongoing conversation, ongoing support resources that are needed. So, opening up the conversation in a way that is best practice, but that also helps break the stigma, so it’s comfortable and you can remove those common fears that we talked about in our experience is very helpful for companies to open up that conversation.

But to have support available for employees to go to, whether that is through their employees’ assistance program, whether that’s promoting mental health-related or substance abuse related support, nonprofit groups within their organization. We have an eight module digital leadership course that has an employee track that talks about not only supporting personal mental wellbeing but supporting a coworker or family member in crisis, how to use stigma-free language in the workplace. We really covered the gamut to have ongoing development and support in this area.

Andrea: Yeah. Just to continue to think about it, to continue to have it in front of your people seems to be just a vital piece of it.

Mettie Spiess: Absolutely, absolutely.

Andrea: When it comes to individuals – and let’s go back to kind of the person who is wanting to be a support that might be struggling themselves but wanting to be a support to others – how do you balance those two things? I can imagine that you’ve been through your own dark times as well… I mean, we all have. How do you balance being a support to other people and taking care of yourself?

Mettie Spiess: Andrea, I’m sure you can agree with me, it’s a balancing act when you’re in any sort of caretaker role, or in an industry like healthcare or education where you’re consistently giving and supporting others. From what I have found, being very self-aware of knowing when you’re giving too much and backing up to make sure that you are constantly refueling your tank. Pastor Wayne Cordeiro, one of my favorite quotes that he says is that “The path to success and the path to a nervous breakdown is the same. The only difference is whether or not you take care of your wellbeing.” And I truly think that is the case.

So, whatever self-care and stress relief means to you, whether it’s exercise, whether it’s art, whether it’s talking to people that can help build you up and can empathize where you’re going through. There isn’t one set formula, but knowing that what you’re putting out, putting back into yourself as well, so you stay well.

Andrea: We’ve just hit so many really deep kinds of things. When it comes to influence and wanting to have an impact on other people, I think that these kinds of people tend to be, and we’re talking, you know, ethical influence, the people that listen to this podcast tend to be more empathetic. They tend to be perhaps sensitive where they are very aware of other people and what they need, or they care at least, at very minimum, even if it’s not part of their sort of DNA to be super empathetic, they care. And so they are able to kind of make that happen for themselves to really kind of take perspective and whatever.

For those kinds of people, I think it’s easy to get discouraged. It’s easy to feel like the ideal is what you’re striving for, and you never quite hit it, and you never will. That’s one of the very harsh realities of being an idealist. But how do you suggest people sort of grapple with that as a person who wants to have a voice of influence knowing that they’re never going to quite get there? You know, there’s always something that’s left to be had that didn’t quite make it. What kind of advice would you have for them?

Mettie Spiess: Well, Andrea, what you said about whether it’s a perfectionist or someone that is trying to absolutely change the world and they might not ever get to the place where they think is the best place of influence, they might not. So, sharing that, being realistic I think is helpful. But I think that… and I can empathize with that type of person, is that then we tend to downplay the impact and the influence we do make.

And it can be one supportive person in one conversation that can be the difference between a tragedy and triumph. And letting someone, as an example, who’s struggling know that they’re not alone and encouraging them to seek support can put them on a path to wellness and potentially saved their life. And that’s just one person, but what’s bigger than that? I mean, that impact and influence at the end of the day is incredible to have that potential of influencing and supporting someone’s life.

Our organization is a World Without Suicide. Do I hope at some point we can create a world that is free from suicide, of course. But I can’t let that goal in purpose override the day-to-day conversations or trainings that I’m facilitating because that is where that influence is at the time.

Andrea: Hmm. It’s sort of shooting for the stars but hitting the moon – we wouldn’t even hit the moon if we didn’t try.

Mettie Spiess: So true.

Andrea: Yeah, I think that that is super important for us to remember and to hold as almost sacred in our hearts that it’s okay to not have it turn out perfectly, that it is not going to be perfect. That your influence, your impact in the world is not going to be the ideal thing that you would want it to be, and yet strive for it, and yet go for it, and yet… you know, being able to grapple with that tension I think is one of the pieces of this calling of being a voice of influence.

Mettie Spiess: Without question, I completely agree with you. Progress, not perfection.

Andrea: All right. Mettie, if companies are wanting to have a program that would support mental health, I would highly recommend yours. Can you tell us about where they can find you?

Mettie Spiess: Yes, thank you. If you visit stigmafreeworkplace.com, you will find information on our certified best practice training. There’s also a resource in there called the Stigma-FREE Workplace Blueprint that organizations can download and get best practice strategies to support mental wellbeing to start the conversation about mental health safely in their organization. I’m on LinkedIn as well, and I love to highlight the companies that we’re working with who are really committed to supporting employee mental health as a health and safety priority. So looking there is a great place to go for inspiration as well.

Andrea: Mettie, thank you so much for being a voice of influence for the world. The circumstances through which you have begun your company and message are tragic, and yet you are finding a redemptive purpose in the middle of it. And I am grateful for that and for your courage to do so.

Mettie Spiess: Thank you so much, Andrea. I am a huge fan of your podcast and everything that you’re doing out there to influence the world. So, I appreciate being a part of this.

Andrea: Thank you so much.

Mettie Spiess: Thank you.

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Be the Best Organization For the World with Jeff Henderson

Episode 119

Jeff Henderson is an entrepreneur, speaker, pastor, author, and business leader. Since 2003, he has helped lead three of the North Point Ministries churches in the Atlanta, Georgia area. Prior to serving as a pastor, Jeff worked in marketing with Atlanta Braves, Callaway Gardens, Chick-fil-A where he helped lead the company’s sports and beverage marketing efforts.

Jeff was also named by Forbes magazine as one of the 20 Speakers You Shouldn’t Miss The Opportunity To See.

In this episode, Jeff discusses how purpose and profits go hand-in-hand, why it’s okay if your current vision outpaces your current resources, the main area where non-profits shouldn’t be penny-pinchers, the importance of having clarity around what your organization wants to be known for and how his book can help with that clarity, the four “presenter voices” and how they can help us carry our vision forward, why you need to understand the presenter environment you’re in as well, the value of talking with your customers instead of at them, how being humbled helps with your voice of influence, and more!

Mentioned in this episode:

Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Jeff Henderson Voice of Influence Podcast Andrea Joy Wenburg

 

Transcript

Hey, hey!  It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.  We’re so glad to have you here today.  Today, I have with me Jeff Henderson.  Jeff is an entrepreneur, a speaker, pastor, and a business leader.  Since 2003, he has helped lead three of North Point Ministries’s churches in the Atlanta, Georgia area.  Jeff was recently named by Forbes magazine as one of the “20 Speakers That You Shouldn’t Miss.”  So this is going to be a good one, you know already.  Prior to serving as pastor, Jeff worked in marketing with the Atlanta Braves, Callaway Gardens, and Chick-fil-A where he lead the company’s sports and beverage marketing efforts.  So, Jeff has founded several organizations, and I’m excited to talk to him today about his book as well.  He is the author of Know What You’re FOR.

Andrea:  So, Jeff, it is really good to have you on the Voice of Influence podcast.

Jeff Henderson:  Andrea, I’m so honored to be here, and I really love your podcasts and your initiative because we’re talking about our voice of influence today.  We’re going to talk about how we can increase our voices of influence in our lives and our businesses and organizations.  So thanks for having me.

Andrea:  Yeah.  Okay, so you have done a number of different things.  Your experience is broad and deep, and it spans both nonprofit and for-profit.  Do you have any particular things that you have learned from both that maybe nonprofit can learn from profit, that profit can learn from nonprofit?  Is there anything in particular?

Jeff Henderson:  Absolutely.  I think it’s a really exciting time because.. I think it’s interesting, Andrea, how we have terminology for these two worlds.  Over here, it’s the “We’re FOR profit,”; over here, “We’re NOT for profit,” as if profit is this evil thing.  And I know, you know, there’s taxation reasons why we do that.  But why I think it’s an exciting time to be a leader both in nonprofit and for-profit is that I don’t think that profit and purpose – let’s use the word purpose for nonprofit – I don’t think profit and purpose have to be mutually exclusive.  That if you have profit that means you’re off purpose, and if you have purpose, you can’t have profit.

And so what I’m discovering is that thriving organizations understand that purpose fuels profit and profit fuels purpose.  And when you can actually bake purpose into each purchase, with every purchase you have more purpose.  And what we’re seeing – and research is actually playing this out – consumers want to do business… consumers or participants want to participate in organizations that are doing good for the world.  And what that means for us – and this is why I think with your emphasis of voice of influence – doing good is good for business, doing good is good for organizations.

And so what that means is, if you can have more influence, then you can grow your organization.  And I think growing, healthy organizations help the world improve.  And so what I’ve learned is that if for-profit leaders – let’s say business leaders – if they can learn how to really be more focused on “What is our purpose?”, and then if nonprofit leaders can learn some of the strategies about how to articulate what their organization is about, then if you can have both purpose and profit, then you grow.

And even with nonprofit leaders… I talk to nonprofit leaders and say, “Here’s the tension you woke up with this morning; your vision far outpaces your current resources.”  And everybody says yes.  But here’s the good news… and that may seem challenging – and it is challenging – but here’s the good news, if your future vision outpaces your current resources, you’re on the right track, because it means that you have a clear and compelling vision.  But your strategy, your goal, should be to shrink the gap.  And there are some things about shrinking the gap that we could learn from the business world.  So to your question, yes, there’s a lot of things that both sides can learn.

Andrea:  Okay.  So, let’s start with the nonprofit side of things.  There is that tension that you talked about waking up with, your vision far exceeds your resources, and yet I think there’s also that tension of, “But we should be penny-pinching,” or “We should be really resourceful.”  And then how does the idea of being resourceful… or not just resourceful but almost the penny-pinching kind of thing, kind of get in the way of perhaps making profit in order to be able to sustain the nonprofit?

Jeff Henderson:  Fantastic question.  So, I think in the nonprofit world, here’s one of the things that… you know, our mantra is “We keep overhead low,” as if overhead is the problem because I believe talent matters.  And if you’ve got a talented team and you pay them more, you will get greater results.  I think that has been proven out throughout history.  Research will tell you that the better leaders you have, the better results you’re going to have.

If we want to penny-pinch and kind of have a poverty mindset with our nonprofit world, then we’re going to get those results, and I just firmly believe that.  Now, I also believe, Andrea, that great ideas don’t necessarily come with a lot of money.  Innovation and creativity usually happens with constraints, not abundance.  So large organizations who have all kinds of resources, they wake up one day, and they see smaller organizations that are out-creating them and out-innovating them because those smaller organizations have constraints.

So, I think we should be frugal.  I think we should spend money wisely.  But I also believe we should hire great people and pay them accordingly.  Now, it doesn’t mean that the nonprofit world is going to be the same pay rate as the for-profit world, I totally understand that.  But the reason a lot of nonprofits struggle is because they don’t raise money to hire great people.  And it’s just a proven fact… I mean, everything rises and falls with leadership.  John Maxwell has taught us that, and the better leaders you have on the team, the better the team is going to be.

So, yes, we should be frugal and, yes, we should be wise with our money, but if we have a vision worth funding, then we should go ask for the money, and we should go for it.  And one of the best fundraising questions to ask for nonprofit leaders is simply, “Will you help me?”  So you cast your vision, you ask, you know, for the resources, and then you just say, “Will you help me?”  And then what you have to do, Andrea, you have to be quiet and let that awkward space, whether it’s a coffee shop or a room of the few people or a lot of people, you just have to let that awkward silence fill the room, and then they get to respond back.

And typically you’re going to get, “Yes, I’ll help you,” or “No, I won’t,” or “I’ll pray about it,” which means, “No, I won’t.”  But, yes, I think to your question, yes, we should be absolutely frugal.  But a poverty mindset when it relates to nonprofit world, it really bothers me because I just feel like if they’ve got a compelling vision, let’s go fund it.  Let’s go for it.  We don’t need to be doing stupid stuff, but we don’t need to sacrifice what could be because, “Well, you know what, we can’t really afford it.”  We should go for it if it’s worth it.

Andrea:  Hmm.  You know, it’s interesting.  I’ve seen this play out before in nonprofits – and even sometimes businesses, but mostly nonprofits – where the person who is sort of leading the charge might be feeling like… I don’t know, bringing their own ideas about how much things cost and how much things should cost to the big picture.  Have you seen that and that go awry?

Jeff Henderson:  Yes.  I think if I’m the sole person making decisions like this, I think I need to get a team approach.  I think a board and the directors and all that.  We need to be wise stewards.  We need to be as debt free and all that.  I’m totally on board with that.  But I see great organizations that have a great mission that just continue to have a gap between their future vision and their current resources.  And I don’t think it has to be that way.

I’ll give you a marketing example. You could put flyers on a laundromat that says, “Come to our bake sale,” or you could spend more money on a Facebook live strategy or a social media strategy, pay a little bit of that and have greater results.  You might pay a little bit more, but the results outpaced the results that you would get with flyers at the laundromat.  And so my concern is, is we’re so focused sometimes on costs that we don’t see the potential ROI that is not being returned to us on what could be.  And again, I’m not suggesting that we frivolously spend money, but I do believe investing in your people is incredibly important.

Andrea:  Hmm.  Yeah.  I mean, if your people are overextended, then how can they give the best to the nonprofit too?  Okay, so looking at the profit side of things then, and maybe this is part of being known for what you’re for or however you put that exactly – Know What You’re For – how can they learn more about how to really dial in on their purpose and why it matters?  What if they’re having a hard time?  They say that, you know, they kind of have an idea, but they’re not totally clear on that.  How do they go and get clearer?

Jeff Henderson:  So if there’s confusion among the leader or the leaders, if there’s confusion in the office space, there will be confusion in the marketplace.  So, if we’re not sure as a team, then the people we’re trying to serve or the customers we’re trying to reach or serve – the same with nonprofit, the people we’re trying to serve – if we’re not quite sure what we’re doing as an organization, then there will be mixed signals and a lack of clarity, and that lack of clarity slows things down dramatically.

And so basically the whole book, Andrea is built on two questions.  “What do you want to be known for?” is the first question.  And I ask leaders to do a vision inventory.  To just walk around and ask the team, “Hey, what do you think we want to be known for?”  “What do you want our organization to be known for?”  And just write down notes, just listen.  It’s kind of, you know, just an anecdotal survey, but just listen, and if you hear some differing answers, then you’ve got an issue.  If you see a consistent answer, that’s great because you’ve got focus.

But the second question is “What are you known for,” and that’s the customer’s question to answer.  And that’s their reflection on whether or not they are experiencing the vision of what we want to be known for.  And if they’re not, what that means is there’s a gap between those two questions of “What do you want to be known for?” and “What are you known for?”  The first question is ours to answer; the second question is the customer’s to answer.  And so it’s fairly simple, but it’s a lot of hard work.  It’s a lot of hard work to try to get that statement in a rallying cry.  This is your organization’s rallying cry.  And so if there’s confusion about this, then your organization will bog down in a lack of purpose.

Andrea:  Okay, so I know that you’ve done this before.  You’ve done this before with your organizations.  Do you have an example?

Jeff Henderson:  Sure.  So, I’m a lead pastor in Atlanta in a church called Gwinnett Church.  We have a couple of locations, and that’s what we did.  We asked the question, “What do we want to be known for?” and “What are we known for?”  When we started, we weren’t known for anything because we weren’t… I mean, we didn’t have a place to meet.  So we asked it globally.  I said, you know, “What is the church known for?”

And in this meeting, it was just a few of us, someone said, “Well, you know, many people are more familiar with what the church is against rather than what the church is for.  We should be known for what we’re for.”  And I thought, “Wow, that’s true.”  And so I said, “What do we want to be known for?”  “Well, we wanna be known for being for people, for Gwinnett kids, and for Gwinnett families, and for Gwinnett students because God’s for them.”  And so that really became a rallying cry for us and it was just “For Gwinnett”.

And when we bought the property of the church where we’re at, I just put a sign out there and it didn’t say, “Gwinnett church is coming soon,” it just said, “#For Gwinnett.”  That’s it.  And I got feedback from people saying, “Hey, how are they gonna know that’s a church?”  And I said, “Exactly, they’re not.  They’re gonna have to go ask somebody.”  And then we gave everybody T-shirts that says “For Gwinnett.”  And we said, “Hey, when people ask you, ‘What is that sign up there, what is that being built?’, you need to just tell them our vision statement of, ‘Many people are more familiar with what the church is against.  We want to be known for what we’re for.’”

And, Andrea, in those early days, that really began to gain traction with us.  But my point, larger point on that rather than just the church point, is the clarity that that communicated, and the fact that people could communicate that in grocery store aisles, ballparks, and restaurants… that’s really important.  Because what we were trying to do is to create more vision carriers that can carry that language and carry our vision, because the more vision carriers you have, the more vision casters you have.

And so whether you’re a business, nonprofit, you have an idea, you’re a solo entrepreneur, you’re a podcaster like yourself – what you’re doing with the voice of influence – you’re trying to gain more vision carriers because you have an important message to get out.  And so one of the reasons I wrote the book is to try to help organizations clarify how to get to those statements and how to break through the clutter.  So, this isn’t something I, you know, came up with for a couple of weeks, and said, “I’m gonna write a book on this.”  This is something I’ve been living and seeing for a number of years now.

Andrea:  Hmm.  All right, so once you kind of have the vision or you kind of have a vision in place, I know that you have to disseminate it.  You have to get it out there to everybody and help them to kind of latch onto it and that sort of thing.  I think you talk in your book about the four presenter voices?

Jeff Henderson:  Right.

Andrea:  So, can you tell us about those and how those help you and how we can kind of understand those to help us carry our vision forward?

Jeff Henderson:  Absolutely.  One of the ways that you can be for the customer, or your team, or your larger community is to be for you.  What I mean by that is that you and I need to grow.  We need to continue to progress.  We need to remain inspired and part of our roles is to communicate.  And the better you communicate, the better you lead.  And it really… it kind of comes down to that.  And eventually, leadership comes with a microphone, either literally or figuratively.  At some point, you’re standing up in front of a group of people, or you’re in a coffee shop across from somebody, and you’re trying to share, “Here’s the problem I see,” or “Here’s the opportunity I see and here’s where we’re going.”

And what I’ve discovered in coaching… I’ve coached communicators for over 20 years now, and it’s kind of a hobby of mine.  I enjoy it.  I used to play golf.  It wasn’t good for my spiritual life, so I gave that up.  And as a hobby, I just love coaching people too as they communicate, whether it’s a business person, an entrepreneur, pastor, or nonprofit, whatever.  And over these 20 years, I’ve discovered there are four presenter voices.  There may be more, Andrea, I don’t know, and it goes with my book Know What You’re FOR.  So there you go.

Andrea:  There you go.

Jeff Henderson: There’s the voice of the teacher, the voice of the motivator, the voice of the storyteller, and the voice of the visionary.  So storyteller, visionary, motivator, and teacher; and each one of these voices has a strength, and each one of these voices has a weakness.  And when you understand your strength and avoid the weakness, it helps you present better.

I’ll give you an example.  Let’s take the voice of the teacher.  So, the voice of the teacher, the strength is content.  So, if you have the voice of a teacher, what that means is one of your tensions is, “I don’t have enough time to get through all my content because I’ve got great content.”  That’s great.  That’s awesome.  The weakness of the teacher is the first five minutes of a talk.  It’s the connection because a lot of the teachers assume that everyone is just as interested in this topic as they are.

So, they zoom through the first five minutes and just go right to their content, and they haven’t connected with anyone.  They haven’t connected with the crowd, because what you want them to do in the first five minutes is to go, “Oh, I’m so glad I came here,” or “I’m so glad I’m here.  I’m gonna listen to this.  I’ve always wondered about that.”  So I tell teachers the most… if you’re giving a presentation, if you have the voice of the teacher, the most important part of your talk is the first five minutes, and you have to give me a reason to keep listening.  And if you can do that then you lean into the strength of the fact that you’ve got great content.

So each one of these has a weakness, each one of these has a strength.  The good news about the book, what I’ve done is I’ve given you a free survey.  All you got to do is you take it.  It’s a twenty question survey.  At the end of it, it says you’re a motivator or you’re a storyteller.  And there might be many of us that have maybe a predominant voice and maybe a kind of a secondary voice, that’s true.  And I think intuitively, we probably know which one of these we lean into.  It’s just helpful to understand that the voice, the strength of the voice, and the weakness of the voice so that you can really become a better communicator by avoiding the weakness and leveraging the strength.

Andrea:  Hmm, very interesting.  So how often do you see people integrating these different voices well once they kind of understand that they need to?

Jeff Henderson:  Well, the other thing we have to figure out is there aren’t just four presenter voices, there are also presenter environments.  So, for example, there’s a teaching environment, there’s a motivating environment, there’s a storytelling environment, and there’s a visionary environment.  An example of that would be today. So as you and I talked [about] before we started recording, I’m at a hotel, I’m speaking in a conference.  The environment that I’m in is a motivating environment.  We want to motivate you to build your business.  Well, that’s a great one for me because I have the voice of a motivator.  So, here I am as a motivator in a motivating environment.  That’s great.

Let’s say I’m going to a university, and I’m going to teach on marketing.  Now, I’m a motivator voice in a teaching environment.  Knowing that that’s the case, I’ve got to make sure that my content is really good and really strong.  Not that it doesn’t need to be in a motivating environment, but if you’re there to motivate people, that’s a natural strength of a motivator.  Because interestingly enough, when it comes to the motivator, their strength and weakness is the exact opposite of a teacher.  They easily can connect with the crowd in the first five minutes, but their weakness is in the middle part of the talk with the content.

And you can tell if a motivator has done their work or not by about the ten minute mark of their talk.  And I can tell if he or she has really worked on it because you can tell that they’ve naturally got the gift of connecting with the crowd and that’s great.  But then if they haven’t done their work, that starts to get a little unclear in the middle.  And what they’re doing is, is they’re leaning on their natural gift in the first ten minutes, and they’re now in the tension part of their talk because they’re not as good at content.

So, you got to understand your voice, but you also have to understand, “What environment am I going into?”  And if it’s a teaching environment with someone like me who has a motivating voice, I got to make sure that my content after the ten minute mark is just as strong as the beginning.

Andrea:  Context is so everything, isn’t it?

Jeff Henderson:  It is, it is.  Yeah, for example, before this talk I’m doing, I had to ask the question, “What is the win?  Who’s coming to this?  Who are they?  When they walk away, what do you want them to feel?  What do you want them to have?”  All of that is really important work you’ve got to do up front.

Andrea:  Yeah.  Okay, so what if you’re wanting to motivate customers? If you’re wanting to sort of intrigue them, whether it’s nonprofit or profit – I mean, your customer in a nonprofit would probably be somebody that would accept the message or participate or donate – how do you use this with them?

Jeff Henderson:  I’ll give you a great example, and that’s a great question.  I think where marketing is shifting and messaging is shifting is we feel the natural inclination to talk about how great our organization is and “Look at what we’re doing,” and “Look at our products,” and all of that.  And I’m not saying you shouldn’t do that, but what I’m saying is we need to shift spotlight more onto the customers and the people that we’re trying to engage with, and to say, “Hey, our organization is for you and we want to talk more about you than we do about ourselves.”

An example of this would be… it’s as if you could use a sports analogy, and let’s just pick on the business world for example.   If we’re in a stadium, the business is on the field trying to score touchdown, and the customers are in the stands trying to cheer them on, “Hey, look at you.  Look how great you are.  You’re better than your competitors.”  What I’m seeing, what I’m really pleading with organizations and churches is they need to flip the script.  They need to put the customers on the field and cheer them on in their lives and say, “Our business is here for you.”  And an example of that would be, where this isn’t working, is in social media.

In social media, many businesses and nonprofits do this as well, it’s all about what’s happening inside the four walls of the organization, if you will, or “Look how great our products are,” or “We’re cheaper than our competitors.”  And you know, the consumer is so sophisticated now.  It doesn’t surprise us that they think they’re better than their competition.  That’s not new information to us, but can you start talking about me and my life and what we’re doing and what’s going on in our lives.

So, I say that to say, when we start talking with our customers, we need to make sure that we are talking with them, not at them.  And most of marketing is talking at people, and we need to talk with them.  And an example that would be I was sharing this at a large nonprofit in Charlotte, and someone raised her hand and said, “Hey, I think I know what you’re talking about.  So, I’m a big Starbucks fan, and I posted a picture of a Starbucks mug, and I just tagged them.  And then they commented on back on my Instagram and said, ‘Thank you for loving Starbucks, we love you too,’” or whatever.  And she said, “I took a screenshot of that and sent it to all my friends and said, ‘Wow, Starbucks talked to me today.’”  And I said, “Okay, let me ask you a question.  What other Starbucks Instagram posts have you taken a screenshot on and sent to your friends?”  And she said, “Oh, I’ve never done that.”  And I said, “Exactly.”  The more remarkable you are in talking with your customers instead of at your customers, that’s where this is going.

And the organizations that can shift the focus toward “with” instead of “at,” they’re going to gain greater traction because people are experiencing that and they’re going, “Wow, they actually noticed me.  They’re actually for me, I’m going to be for them.”  So that’s a real simple but powerful example, I think of where this is all changing.

Andrea:  So good.  It’s so true too.  Okay, we’re kind of wrapping up now.  So, if you could really just sort of give one of your best tips for somebody who wants to have a voice of influence, what would you say to them?

Jeff Henderson:  Be humble or be humbled.  It’s a principle throughout the pages of history, be humble.  But here’s the deal, Andrea, humility is this really odd thing in the sense of… “You know what one of the best qualities about me, Andrea, is I’m a really humble person.”  Okay, you’ve already admitted that you’re not at that point, right?  So, I think we have to understand humility is one of these things that it’s not so much something that we attain to, it’s something that we practice.

So, every day, I’m going to practice humility because at heart, I’m a prideful person, so what I need to do today is I need to practice humility.  The reason I think from a voice of influence that’s important, a mentor of mine said that “God resists the proud and so do we.”  And I think that is so true, people want to follow humble leaders.  And when you have humility, genuine humility, along the way will come influence.  It’s remarkable how that works.

And I’ll give you an example.  When I was working in marketing at Chick-fil-A, one of the markets I worked for was the Denver market in Denver, Colorado.  And we were opening our first Denver free-standing unit in Chick-fil-A.  So, I was flying out for the grand opening and Bubba Cathy is the son of Truett Cathy, the founder and vice president of the company, and he was flying with me.  So, we walked up to the Delta counter – this is, you know, way before 9/11 and all that, so security wasn’t as tight as it is now as we walk up. And they typed my name, and then they see Bubba Cathy and they say, “Oh, the Cathy family, they spent a lot of money with Delta with Chick-fil-A.”  So, they said, “Mr. Cathy, we are so grateful for your family.  We’ve gone ahead and upgraded you to first class for your flight to Denver.”

So, Bubba looks at the flight attendant and says, “Hey, thank you so much for doing that, but could you do me another favor?”  And she said, “Yes sir.”  He said, “Could you give my first class ticket to Jeff instead of me?”  And I’d never flown first class before, so my ticket is in literally the back of the plane, right?  So, Bubba gets my back-of-the-plane ticket, I get his first class ticket.  Andrea, I’d never been up there before as I told you.  They give you these hot little towels for your hands.  It’s amazing.

And now here’s my point.  Would it have been wrong if Bubba had taken the first class seat?  Not at all, that would not have been wrong at all, but I would not have been talking about it twenty-two years later.  And here I am twenty-two years later, and there’s a principle in the scriptures that says, “If you will humble yourself, you will be exalted.”  So, Bubba, in that moment, humbled himself, and here I am twenty-two years later talking about this.  The reason I think that’s important, Andrea, is that I think it ties directly into what you’re doing is influence.  And one of the ways that we can influence people is to let them go first, to serve them, to be humble.  And when you are humble and practice humility, people are influenced by that and you have more credibility with them.

So, I would say, and I teach my kids this, you got one of two choices.  You can be humble or life will humble you.  Be humble or be humbled – your choice, and life will do a fantastic job of humbling you if you don’t go first.  So, let’s go first.  But when you go first, you will get influence.

Andrea:  Hmm, very good.  Awesome!  Okay, so Jeff, if anybody wants to connect with you, how can they do so or find your book?

Jeff Henderson:  I would love for them to just search for Barnes & Noble or Amazon, Know What You’re For.  And I would love for them to get the book and – my friend Bob Goff did this, but I thought it was a great idea – so I put my cell phone number in the back of the book, so people are texting me every single day, and I absolutely love it, and they’re telling me what they learned or they have a question about.  So, if you’ll get the book, buy the book, and then text me after you read it, I promise you – I’m 100% so far – I will text you right back.

Andrea:  That’s fantastic.  All right, thank you so much for being with us here today, Jeff, and for being a voice of influence for our listeners.

Jeff Henderson:  So honored.