Blaze Your Own Trail - S2:E14- Management Mess to Leadership Success With Scott Miller

Episode Date: July 11, 2020

Scott Miller is a 25-year associate of FranklinCovey and serves as the executive vice president of thought leadership. Scott hosts multiple podcasts including FranklinCovey’s On Leadership and Great Life, Great Career.  Additionally, Scott is the author of the multi-week Amazon #1 New Release: Management Mess to Leadership Success: 30 Challenges to Become the Leader You Would Follow. Scott authors a weekly leadership column for Inc.com and is a frequent contributor for Thrive Global.  Previously Scott worked for the Disney Development Company, having grown up in Central Florida, and currently lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with his wife and three sons. In this episode we discuss: Scott's upbringing  His High School days His first formal Job His journey with Franklin Covey to date His book And more! Connect with Scott: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottmillerj1/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scottmillerj1/?epa=SEARCH_BOX Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottmillerj1/ Book: https://managementmess.com/?fbclid=IwAR0fo9aIb3ZnQkAfq3kezwu4vWQSC-srG0RGKWBhFDtuiib9wYEuIP-eqZU Be sure to follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanjmendoza/  Check out our Facebook Community here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/blazeyourowntrailmastermind/ Be sure to Subscribe, Rate & Review on Itunes!! Thanks for listening!  Installing strategic sales systems & processes will stop the constant revenue rollercoaster you might be facing which is attainable through our 6 Week Blazing Business Revenue Coaching ProgramBook a discovery call with Jordan now to learn more! Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everyone. I hope you enjoy this episode with Scott Miller. Such a great guy. I've been with the Franklin Covey Company for 25 years working in various roles. I'm so excited to be sharing his story with you all. And I can't wait to talk to you after the episode. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. My name is Jordan Mendoza. I'm your host. And I've got a very special guest with me today. His name is Scott Miller. And I'm going to give him just a second to give you some comments. context on who he is and what he does, and then we'll get the show on the road. Jordan, thank you for the platforms. So let's see. I'm talking to you today from Salt Lake City,

Utah, where I live with my wife, Stephanie, and our three boys, six, eight, and ten. Don't do that, by the way. Don't have three boys in five years. That's a lot of work. But I currently in my 25th year with the Franklin Covey Company, right, with the world's most, I think, well-known and prestigious leadership development firm. I served eight years as the chief marketing officer, the last two as the executive vice president of thought leadership. Like you, I host what is now the world's largest subscribed to podcast dedicated to leadership each week on Tuesday is called On Leadership with Scott Miller. Up until just recently, I was hosting a weekly radio program on IHeart Radio. I've authored several books. I've read a column for Inc. Magazine,

and I'm offering more books in the future. I'm a keynote speaker. And then before that, I've just been in the leadership development industry for nearly 30 years, spent four years with the Disney company in Orlando, Florida, where I'm from. Prior to that, it's been a few years in real estate and four or five years working for different presidential campaigns, state governor, U.S. Senate campaigns. So I've had some fairly broad experience and now focused mainly on just talking about how to be a better leader and how to kind of build a career you want in your life. That's awesome. Well, hey, congrats on the kids. My wife and I have four. What? Two boys, two guys. Two guys.

girls. A three-year-old and a 15-year-old boy, eight and 11, and we have one due on June 30th. So, you know, you know, you told me not to do the three kids that close together, but we kind of won up to you and we went, we went for five. We got a starting five coming up. So a little excited about that. You have your fifth kid coming up? It's one. Fifth one on the way. So wow, congratulations. Yeah, we have three boys, two girls. So I don't know if we're crazy or if we're, I don't know what's going on here. Crazy. Crazy. So I love the fact that, you know, you're so involved in leadership because that's, you know,

one of the my most favorite parts of my role is I teach a six-month leadership program. And it's predicated on MBTI. So we start out with Myers-Briggs to give people that introspective look and self-awareness. And then we take them on a journey. So, you know, I'm pretty confident that you weren't born, you know, and you just, you know, came out of the womb and said, hey, I want to get into this. leadership stuff. So what I'm really interested in and what I love about my show is we get to take a rewind and really find out about Scott as a human. So I would love to really give the audience some

context. So where were you born and raised? And how were you when you were a kid? Yeah. So it's kind of a therapy session. I like this. So I'm 51 years old. It's going to be 52. lived in Salt Lake City for 25 years, or at least Utah, also did a stint in Chicago and London with the company. Born and raised in Central Florida in Orlando, actually a suburb of Orlando from an upper middle class family. My brother and I were the only two children. My father was a full-time, you know, salaried guy at Lockheed Martin. My mother was a stay-at-home mom, raised in a very stable family, no highs, no lows, mainly because the result of, I think, the highs and and my parents' life before that.

Great life in the 70s and 80s. Went to public school. Went to Rollins College, a private college in Central Florida, and was working through college full time for like eight years. It took me a long time to work through college. Got my first real formal job at the Disney Company. And that was instrumental. That was instrumental to my quality level,

to really understanding how to work in a corporate culture. and so Disney really was the formative building of my kind of corporate skills. They invited me to leave known as Get Out because I was not the right fit, although I had a great time there and we're good friends with those who I worked with. And then I picked up with the Disney Company and moved to Utah, which of course was the opposite of Florida. Four seasons, no humidity, no crime, no neon, no billboards. It's a great ride coming out to Franklin Covey.

I am the product of a lot of people that believed in me more than I believed in myself. I can track back that eight or ten transition figures in my career, whether they were neighbors or someone at the local farmer's market or someone at a bakery, someone at a restaurant, someone at Disney. And also I've always had a philosophy, Jordan, of friending up. I've always, really since my teens, friend with people who were older, wiser, more educated, more experience, more cultured, more well-traveled,

wealthier, more successful than me. And friending up has always been the pivot, really point in me moving up in my career, not avoiding mistakes, but I highly recommend it. It sounds opportunistic, but it's really, I think, strategic. And it works both ways. People are, you know, friending up to me, right? Believe it or not, mom. That's awesome. So thinking back to that first stint, right, you know, you finish up college, you're working for Disney. Can you think back to one influential person? And that's probably hard to pick out one, but just one that made such an impact that when you made that next move to Utah,

it was foundational in really creating momentum for you going forward. Well, there were several. And you've asked me to pick one. I mean, I can just name some names, you know, Deb Claskins, Larry Rosen, Bill Fisher, Charles Adams, Don Colorn. I mean, these people at the Disney Company, right? These are vice presidents, executive vice presidents, senior vice presidents. Deb Claskins was the first.

I was working as a waiter in a restaurant in Orlando, going to college. And Deb Claskins was the like fundraising director for a local foundation for a museum. She left the museum. I think she was terminated. And she got picked up at the Disney company. And several like months into her role, she asked me if I wanted to be an intern. And I thought so, but, you know, I was a hometown boy, and so Disney was a hometown company. Wasn't that interested in it.

And I went to my public relations professor. It's Frank Stansberry, who ironically worked for the Coca-Cola company. The Coca-Cola company sponsors the American Experience Pavilion at Epcot. So Frank Stansberry, who was my PR professor at Rollins College, worked for Coca-Cola and managed the relationship between Coke and Disney for the American experience. at Epcot. That was his job. He was like the ambassador, the best job in the world. And I asked him, I said, should I do this? And he said, oh, hell to the yes, you should do this. So Disney hired me on as an intern, and they hired me on Jordan at $17.75 an hour. This is back 29 years ago. I thought I had, you know, mood to Dubai and was making bank, right? And I turned it into a full-time job. I turned

in a part-time temporary internship into a four-year career. So it was Deb Klaskins, that was a transition figure. She reached out to me, believed in me more than I believe to myself, gave me an opportunity. It was rocky. We didn't always get along, but I'm grateful to her for being a pivot point in my career. That's awesome. So you had that career there, moved to Utah. So what was this new role in Utah? And what would you say is, you know, your first 30 days, right? Because this is a big culture shift. You're going from Orlando to Salt Lake City.

I mean, you want to talk about cultures. This is a culture shift of culture shifts. Thank you. It was insanely rocky. I mean, you know, I was a Catholic single boy from Orlando moving to Provo, Utah. Do the math, right? It's like being Jewish and moving to Vatican City. Great for two weeks, but not for 25 years.

years. So, you know, for those who don't understand, Provo, Utah is a lovely place. And the dominant faith is those of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known colloquially as the Mormons, lovely people, very different from when I was raised in. And so it was very rocky. I mean, there was, you know, there was tears on my part and on others trying to assimilate into the culture, the culture of the company, the culture of the state, you know, restaurants and movie theaters were barely open on Sundays, right? I mean, this was a very, it was a very interesting state. Alcohol very, very strictly controlled, which isn't a big part of my life, right? But I mean, you know, like an occasional beer. So it was a tough transition. I had to learn how to

assimilate into the company culture. They were not going to assimilate to me. It wasn't going to happen. And I'll tell you, it has been rocky. It's been great, 99% great and 1% you know, tough. Sometimes that balance changed. But I really had to understand how to get work done with and through other people, how to understand how to thrive in a culture enormously different than my first 26 years of upbringing. I think there was a lot of forgiveness on my part and a lot of forgiveness on, quote, their part. And, you know, there were some times where I thought of leaving. And I'm sure there's some times where they thought of leaving me. But overall, we had fundamentally the same values, the same character, same work ethic. It was an upstart company, the Covey Leadership

Center, of course, founded by Stephen R. Covey, the author of the book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective people. That book has sold 40 million copies. So I'm immensely grateful for my patience and writing it out and all those leaders and colleagues patience with me as I understood what it was like to work in Utah. There used to be a joke and the people would say, oh, Scott, you're so funny. And that was sort of Latter-day Saints speak for, Scott, we don't talk that way here. Right. And I can show you 15 stories like that where I kind of had to read the tea leaves and they had to realize, realize what does it like to have someone from outside, you know, kind of come in. Of course, now Utah is like California, right, in terms of, you know, diversity and, you know, the mayor of Salt Lake up under a few

weeks ago was a lesbian lady, right? It's actually a very now sort of much more modern, progressive state. So it's been a great ride. Thank you for letting me reminisce. Absolutely. And you said a couple words that I want to really make sure the audience gets. And you said, you know, vision and values, right? And to me, those are two deal breakers, right? If I don't align with the values of the vision of an organization, for me, it's hard to stay there. So what were some of those, you know, key visions initially and values that you saw that said, you know what, as much as I want to leave, let me try to ride this out and see what happens from here. Yeah, I'll bastardize this quote, but I've heard something like, you know, show me your five friends and I'll show you

who you are, right? Is who you associate with has a, in, in, disputable impact on who you are, your character, your values, your work ethic, cutting corners, cooking the books, making the right decisions, right? So I liked the people. This was a very, very ethical organization. This was an organization where they did not make decisions that were illegal or unethical. So that really appealed to me. It also appealed to me that I could build a career inside one organization. You know, the average lifespan of any one person in a company now is under three years. It's headed down towards 18 months. 18 months is a career for Gen Xers and Gen Wives and Millennials. And so my father worked for 34 years at Lockheed Martin. So in my mind, I think I had the sense of loyalty that was

important. I don't think it's disloyal if you leave. I think it's loyal if you stay. That was my own opinion. So for me, I could see a long-term career in one organization. And Jordan, I've been here for just shy of 25 years. I've had nine separate, distinct careers inside this one company. Highly unusual, right? For someone of maybe perhaps your generation who's younger than me, and it will be unheard of unless you're in the military or the post office, you know, 10 years from now. So I could see that. I also was very, for being an exceptionally creative person, which I was and I am, I'm a fairly linear thinker. So I had plotted out for myself a 40-year timeline. I thought, you know what, I want to be in Congress when I'm 60. I don't any longer for all the obvious reasons.

But I thought, you know what? I wanted to run for Congress when I was 60. I felt like, well, to do that, I probably should be a CEO and a C-O and an EVP and an SVP and a VP and a director and a manager and on down. I probably need to have public sector, private sector experience, international and domestic, supply chain, sales, marketing, operation, finance. So I had to actually plot it out. And literally like two or three-year increments, the job I needed, the experience I needed, the title I needed, and the compensation I needed. And I did that back in my early 20s. I plotted it out from like age 21 to age 60. And I tapped really closely. Now, I was interviewing Carly Fiorina, the former, you know, CEO of HP a few months ago on my podcast. We've since become friends.

And she doesn't like that idea. She thinks it's too linear and too restrictive. But it really worked well for me to have a vision for, okay, so I'm going to be in this sales role for three years. I'm going to kill it every quarter so I can be promoted to a sales manager and then a sales vice president, right? And so that worked really well for me. And this organization allowed me to check off like literally nine of those steps along that sort of 13 step way. I don't think I'll become a CEO. I'm a C. I was a CMO. And that was good enough for me. I think now I'll write and speak and coach and do other things that my voice has now kind of, you know, brought together in my audience. I don't think I'll run for public office. I think my job now is raising three.

boys, but to your question, Franklin Covey allowed me to check off, like I said, you know, nine of those 13 tick marks in one company, and I'm super grateful to them. And they're grateful to me because I've made a lot of money for the organization and helped a lot of people in the process along the way. That's awesome. Yeah. Long answer. I apologize. Yeah, no, that's, that's perfect. No, it's good to give people some context. And, and yeah, for me, you know, I'm, I just turned 39 and I've been with my company 13 years. Wow. And, you know, again, like you said, it's unheard of now, right? You, you see people's jobs changing very rapidly, you know, I mean, if you're on LinkedIn, I mean, you see the updates and you feel like you're congratulating

people all the time, right? All the time. And it used to be where if someone came into you with a resume 10 years ago and had six jobs on it, you like, they're like, they were nuclear, right? Like, I mean, now it's not just the norm. It's kind of expected because like, what's wrong with you that you stayed there for six years. You know, you must be complacent. You must not have motivation to earn more. You must not be able to assimilate into new cultures because all you know is the way we did it.

And I think that's the new norm. I think it's a special career if you can link up with an organization, like a Franklin Covey. That's large enough to create multiple careers in one culture, but small enough to where you can feel like a small fish in a big sea and have friendships and feel like you're not a cog in the wheel. Like you actually can, you know, make an impact.

I've always felt at Franklin Covey that I was making an impact. The CEO knew about me, right? The board knew of me. And I think that's a sweet spot. It's kind of that 500 to 2,000 company organization where they might be global. So there's a chance to go to the Shanghai office. It's a chance to go to the Denver office. It was a chance to move from operations over to product development.

And for me, it's been an amazing sweet spot. I could not work again for a company that probably had more than four or five thousand people. Because I don't know that I would feel like I had a purpose that I was impacting something that made me proud. Yeah, no, that resonates with me a lot. You know, I'm with the company about 1,100 people. And I was in operations. I was on site, leasing, assistant property manager. and then I moved into training, which now, as you know, training, learning and development,

it's all evolved. It's a lot of it's virtual and there's coaching. And you meet everybody, right? That's right. Yeah. You get to meet everybody and you get to wear a lot of different hats. And I think, to your point, I think that's what's kept me around is because the role has evolved and I feel like I've been able to add value, right? Because when you feel like you're kind of stagnant or you're to that point, it makes you think a lot more about, you know, what else is out there. You know, to your point, 30 years now in this leadership development industry, I am convinced the number one role of a leader is to recruit and retain talent. And I think as to all those of you out there listening who are leaders,

I think your number one job is to make sure that people, the best possible people, palpably more talented people than you are, come to the company. And your job is to keep them, grow them, nurture them, cut through the red tape, build a career for them, paint a vision for them, give them feedback on their blind spot so that they want to stay because they're so loyal to you and the firm. And you can keep people a lot longer if they find their voice and value inside of your firm. Absolutely. So thinking back to these nine careers in one, you know, what has been your favorite hat? to wear if you had to pick one. And I'm going to force you to pick one. I know you've worn. I know you've worn a lot. I know they all have been a little bit different. But what's the most, most favorite hat

that you've had to wear? I'm very clear on it. I was going to say chief marketing officer because of the budget, the influence. And, you know, I could make decisions on things that you saw out in the world for Franklin Covey. But my favorite role was as the general manager of a sales region in Chicago, probably about 50 employees all in, about, you know, 25 sales staff, like commission salespeople and 25 consultants and, you know, client service staff. And the reason was my favorite was because I had the chance to massively impact people's lives that were working with me. I once had a leader tell me, Scott, your job as a sales leader isn't just to make your second quarter EBITDA or your third quarter margin or your fourth quarter revenues. Those are important things. But 20 years from now,

they'll remember if you made your second quarter EBITDA back in 2014. But what they will remember is how you grew their career, how you grew their skills, their confidence, how you lessened their fears, how you grew their income, their 401Ks, their Christmas club savings accounts, their college savings accounts. Now you can't, you don't get the right to do that if you miss your third quarter EBITDA. So you have to meet your goals. But if you meet your financial goals, it gives you enormous influence over people to build them and change their lives, change their, their spouse's security, change, you know, their life insurance and all of that. So for me, I look back, my favorite time, by the way, dude, it was intense pressure, right? I took the job on September of 2011 or 2001 when the terrorist tax.

I took the revenue from 17 million down to 11 million in the first year, from 17 down to 11, back in 2001, built it back up. But I look back and I'm proud of the role that I played in 60 plus people's lives, people who are now who back then were making 80 grand. Now they're making 280 grand, right? Not all because of me, but partially because of me that built their 401Ks from 80 grand up to 500. thousand dollars we're able to retire so that's never lost on me i had to hit my financial numbers in order to keep my job and keeping my job meant i could change people's lives whether they realized it or not i realized what's i look back now and say you know what i had a small part of that yeah no and listen that's impactful when when you can see people's life changing for the better

and realize that you had an impact on it i mean that that that should make you feel good absolutely All right. So let's talk a little bit more. So you've made it to Salt Lake. So, and then you've been in Salt Lake for, for that, you know, you've had nine different careers. Yeah. So tell, give the audience some context and a little bit of insights into each of those roles that you've had and leading us back to today. And then I also want to talk about your book as well as your podcast as well. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So I joined the Franklin Covey Company in 1996 as a frontline salesperson, as a commissioned salesperson, carrying a bag. And my job was to prospect out to universities, community colleges, school districts, selling leadership development,

training, productivity training, executing on strategy, did that for about three years with a goal, right? I mean, your goal was $70,000 this month. And you had to start it from scratch every month, you know, training school boards, training university professors, training college students and such. So I did that for three or four years. I then was transferred over to the London office where I did some things kind of like that. I hired a sales team in. I helped to manage our clients and build the brand. Came back as the sales director of the education division.

So now I had 17 people under me that were salespeople, many of which were my former peers, or had worked in the company longer than me, or in many cases were even more talented than me, which was very rocky because promoting people that are the best salesperson, rarely equates to them becoming a great sales leader. The competencies are not, you know, the same. It was rough for me. I learned a lot. I was humbled. After that, as a year and as a sales leader in education, I took a stint in our Chicago office that had been in turmoil for two years, spent six years in the Chicago office as the managing director and the general manager, hiring and firing and running a big sales team and, you know, a big process in tough economic times, groomed my successor there

after six years, came back to the headquarters in Salt Lake City, about 13 years ago. As a general manager of a certain business channel, about a $40 million business channel, I then became the vice president of business development for the company globally. I then became the executive vice president and the chief marketing officer, which was, you know, a fairly big deal because now I was a named executive officer in a public company. This is a fiduciary responsibility that, you know, you're accountable to the board. and to the SEC for your ethics and your decisions and, you know, you can sign checks.

You mean, I mean, legally, I can bind to the company for a billion dollars. I mean, if I sign something, it's a, I take it very seriously. Did that for about eight years. I was the first and only ever chief marketing officer and helped to, you know, build a new brand for the company. And then about two years ago, I stepped away on my own. I imagine, if you notice, I always step out of my own job. I'm very good at recognizing when is the boot coming.

Am I wearing out my welcome? Is it time for me to move on? Do they need fresh talent? I think it's the one thing I've done very well is I don't overstay my welcome on my job. I see the writing on the wall and a year before there is any uncomfortable conversations with the CEO. You know, Scott, we've been thinking, how are you enjoying your new job? That's always a precursor for it's time for you to move on. We need somebody else coming in, right?

And I've watched other colleagues overstay their welcome two or three years in roles and be allowed to stay because upsetting them wasn't as important as new blood. So I disrupted myself. I moved out of the chief marketing officer role. I am now the executive vice president of thought leadership. The CEO and I created a new role for me. And I'm doing all these things that you mentioned. My job is to really run public relations for the firm, run our reputation management, books, articles, podcast, keynotes for about a day. dozen different authors and thought leaders. And I joined them about a year ago when I was privileged

to write or co-write two books, host this podcast, the radio program. And now my role is taking a very different level. I've gone from, you know, 45 people down to a team of about seven. And I think at some point, I will probably not be a leader of people anymore. I've done that for 25 years now. I'd like to actually go out and just speak and write and think and coach. And that's kind of the realm I'm moving in. Normal times I'm on the road keynoting audiences 70 to 7,000,

three days a week, right, around the world. Hopefully that will come back because I do enjoy that. And I'm in my coming in my 25th year. Not sure I'll make it to 26, but I hope to always be associated with the firm in some capacity as an advisor or consultant.

But 25 years is a good run. So thanks letting me recreate that, Jordan. No, no, absolutely. All right. So give the audience some context What's the name of the book? And, you know, how much, you know, thought and energy went into before even any ink was on a piece of paper, how much thought and energy went into saying, you know what? I think this is something that I want to do.

Yeah, I'll try to make it tight, but I think it's a relatable story. So I mentioned I host this podcast now called On Leadership with Scott Miller. And like your podcast, we interview bestselling authors and CEOs and celebrities all the time about their journeys. and I was interviewing Stephen M. R. Covey, that is Dr. Covey's oldest son. Dr. Covey passed eight years ago. Stephen M.R. Covey wrote a book called The Speed of Trust. It's a phenomenal book. Sold 2 million copies. If you want to build a high trust culture in your organization, if you want to become a high trusted leader, Stephen M.R. Covey teaches 13 behaviors in this book. It's extraordinary book. I'm interviewing Stephen M.R. Covey on the podcast, and I said, Stephen, did you ever feel like you had to write a book? under the wing of Dr. Stephen R. Covey.

The man has sold 50 million books across all of his titles. And Stephen M. R. Covey, who used to be the CEO of our company, now he's a thought leader and author, said, you know, I never did because I didn't have anything to say. And then he said, and then one day I decided I did have something to say, and I wrote the book, The Speed of Trust. And it was in that interview on the set, Jordan, kind of like right now, I was listening to him and a light bulb went off, and I thought, you know what? I've never thought I had anything to say.

And you know what? I now think I do. So I went home and I, and a lot of things have been percolating behind the scenes, right? I started to write some LinkedIn articles. I had been offered a column in ink magazine, ink, inc.com. And some things started to, I was writing more and more. And so I decided to write a book. And the book is called Management Mess to Leadership Success.

management mess to leadership success, 30 challenges to become the leader you would follow. I decided that in this fairly conservative button-up corporate culture, I had actually thrived as a little bit of a bull in a China shop, right? Leadership does not come naturally to me. I'm fairly outspoken. I'm somewhat impulsive. I'm fairly impetuous. I say things that kind of get me in trouble. I sometimes confuse being reckless with being fearless. I think I'm being fearless, but I'm really being reckless. And I thought, you know what? I'm going to write a book for all the Scott Millers out there, hardworking, well-intended, good character, but generally just kind of screw it up, right?

Two steps forward, one step back. So to a lot of risk and to some backlash, I wrote this book where I kind of confessed all my mistakes in a hilarious, raw, real, relatable way. I felt like the world needed a leadership book that wasn't written from a Fortune 50 CEO that I can't relate to who made $18 million last year, or $80 million, right? And so I wrote a book around 30 challenges that everybody faces, you know, leading difficult

conversations, delivering results, celebrating wins, leading through change, carrying your own weather, demonstrating humility, thinking abundantly, writing wrongs, listening, declaring your intent, making and keeping commitments. I looked at, in my 30 years, ironically, there were 30 things that I think every leader faces, whether you're a first time front line leader or you're in the CEO, you're an entrepreneur, whether you're 70 or whether you're 17. And I basically shared a story of generally how I'd screwed it up. Short chapters, easy read.

This book is not War and Peace. This book is not good to great by Jim Collins. It's a very practical, breezy, easy read. and it took off, 25,000 copies sold in the first six months, right? It just took off. Here I am by myself on 100 podcasts and TV and radio, interview, and speaking, because I think it was so relatable. I think people found this book to say, oh my gosh, I am Scott, or I work for Scott, or I fear I might become Scott. How do I avoid that? So thank you for letting me pitch it. I'm now going to write it's been so popular jordan it's now in its second printing you can find out all the

bookstores of amazon i signed all 15 000 copies of the second printing and now i am going to in the next you know half decade write seven more books in the mess to success series i just finished marketing mess to brand success i'm writing job mess to career success i'll be writing communication mess, parenting mess, sales mess. I've got a whole series of them that I think will be very well received, at least I hope they are. I love that. And I love the spin.

I love the reverse engineering, right? And taking it not from, you know, like you said, it's not somebody that's making an 80 million a year possibly, but it's somebody that has lived it that has gone in it, right? And you're giving people real life situations. And that resonates. You know, that's what resonates. I'm saying, here is a pothole.

You're three foot away. Read my story and walk around it, right? That's kind of how practical it is. Thank you for that. Yeah, that's awesome. So let's hear a little bit more about the show. You know, where can everybody find your podcast? And just give people a little bit of a deeper dive into some of the things that you get into with your guests.

Yeah, it's very similar to yours, right? So we started this podcast two years ago. it's called On Leadership with Franklin Covey. You can find it anywhere, right? I mean, on every podcast platform, go to Franklin Covey.com. What is unique about it, it is built a video interview that's also consumed in audio. So if you actually want to watch me interviewing someone, they usually last about 35, 40 minutes. It's also a weekly newsletter.

So it comes out in email. Every Tuesday, if you subscribe, of course, it's complimentary. You can download a leadership tool from Franklin Covey's tool chest. I also read a blog attached each week. And we interview guests like Seth Godin and Dan Pink, Doris Kearns Goodwin, the presidential historian, General St. Louisville-Christel. I interviewed Elizabeth Smart last week, you know, the kidnapped victim from Salt Lake. We've interviewed experts on leadership, creativity, writing, listening, speaking, Donald Miller, Nancy Duarte. We are in our 100th episode.

And I think it's quite engaging. I hope, you know, I've learned to be a better host. I'm sure as you've grown in yours as well. What's interesting is you can watch it in video. Sometimes we have, I interviewed Laird Hamilton last week, right? Guy Kawasaki, you know, so sometimes they're in the studio if they're in Salt Lake. Kim Scott wrote the book Radical Cander, an amazing interview. So some of them are corporate titans.

I interviewed Nick Vuvichek last week, the gentleman from Australia who has no arms and no legs. He's 37 years old. And we're at a book called Limitless and Life with No Limits. I mean, if you want to check out of your anxiety and clear, COVID-19, listen to Scott Miller's interview with Nick Vuvichick. It will change your life. He once asked himself, if only I had an arm, imagine what I could do with an arm. And it doesn't mean to shame you. It just means to inspire you. For those of us out there that have two arms and two legs, you know, if this man can do what he's done with no arms and no legs.

So we hope to do that. We hope to inspire, not shame, and to tell people how to be a better communicator. We have sessions on parenting. I interviewed Julie Morganstern. She had a book called Time to Parent. The amazing interview on the insights around parenting. So thank you for that. You can find it anywhere. Google Scott Miller on Leadership Subscribe. And we're delighted it's now become the world's largest distributed and subscribed to podcast in the leadership space. And only 100 episodes. Awesome. Awesome. Until Jordan kicks our butt in a few months. That would be amazing. All right. You're on your way, man.

Hey, I'm hustling, my friend. That's what you have to do, right? Yep. I just posted today on LinkedIn, I said that, you know, action creates momentum. Momentum creates consistency and consistency creates results, right? Totally. So you've got to start somewhere. And every, every CEO, every author, every celebrity is at home right now, just like you and I, managing their kids and doing their Zoom calls. And every one of them would love to be on a podcast. So, you know, shoot to the stars, right? Don't start at my level, Jordan. Go higher than me. there we go my friend well you know it's been amazing chatting with you and and one thing that

i really want to give the audience some context and some value on as you know there's going to be people that are listening that may have a lot of information right they've been working whether that's they're an entrepreneur and they're in the corporate world and they may be just like you you know sitting down with somebody and they say you know what i think i could write a book so what are the top three tips you would give someone that's saying today, you know what, I'm inspired by this conversation. I'm inspired by this interview with Scott. And yeah, I do think I have value to bring to the table. So what are the top three tips to getting started and writing their first book? I think one is figuring out your

process. I'm a very visual communicator and learner. So what I do is I take, you know, post-it notes and put them all up over a wall. Kind of what's my, what's my story? What do I have to share? and I break it down in a small task. If I got a story on the water fountain, I write water fountain and I put it up in pink. If I have a story on a trade show, I write, you know, L.A. trade show and put it up in yellow. So I just start putting thoughts up on a wall and I start moving them around. So these are about, you know, my early journey or these are about leadership or these are about marketing.

But I think the key is to find what is your organization strategy. How do you get it out of your head? Some people journal, some people dictate, some people brainstorm whiteboard, mind map. Find a process that can get it out of your head. I think most of us are more visual than we acknowledge we are. I find it enormously valued to start putting it up on a wall. The second thing I would interview some other authors and know what was their process. Did they get an agent?

How did they get a publisher? Did they self-published? Did they go through Amazon? Do they go through a bigger publisher, right? So one is kind of understand the process and journey of other people, and might they help you? I think the third is to be able to articulate your, this will sound cliche, it's Jordan, your value proposition. You need to be able to be very clear on why does this book matter to somebody else. Who is that person?

To quote Seth Godin, what's the smallest viable market? Who is the first person who is going to buy Jordan's book? It's his mom. Who is the second person? It's his aunt. who's the third person, his neighbor. Okay, beyond that, then who's the fourth person who doesn't know Jordan? Why are they going to buy the book?

What is that look like? What is their need that you're filling? And I'll tell you, books now are 100% promoted through author social media. If you don't have, you know, Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter, you're not going to sell books. You're not going to promote books. Social media is the way every author is now selling books. I don't care how big or how new you are.

You have to build your social media in a way that people feel compelled to follow and check in with you based on what it is your saying. What insight do you have to share that makes their life better? I love that. I love that. Well, hey, audience, you just got some good context. If you're thinking about writing a book, now you've got a little bit of frameworks. I appreciate you sharing that with everybody, Scott. And then lastly, I know we connected on LinkedIn.

And I know you just had mentioned that as a platform to be able to share things, whether that's books or podcasts. So how much have you really noticed that platform changing and shifting to being a bigger force as it relates to social media? Do you mean LinkedIn in particular? Yeah, LinkedIn in particular. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I have opinions about it. I posted a picture of my family a few months ago on LinkedIn.

And I had someone that was connected to me say, kind of, I'm not like an open letter. I don't know why people are posting things on their family on LinkedIn. This is meant to be a professional network. And I unconnected from her. And I thought, I don't know who you are, but my family is central to my life. When you hire me as an employee, as an advisor, as a consultant, as an author, you're getting the whole kit and caboodle. And so I post videos of my family all the time on LinkedIn. My kids fighting because I want people to know, even as a CMO,

even as a best-selling author, right? Even as a guy who's had some level of success, my kids are running around in their underwears, stab each other with swords, right? My wife's trying to make meals and homeschool and, you know, our life's crazy. I got bills I can't pay. I got a crazy storm going on here.

And so I want people on LinkedIn to see the real me. And I want to see the real them and connect and bond and commiserate and cross. and celebrate, right? And so I think LinkedIn has become a great platform for listening, for sharing, validating, supporting, helping, post whatever you want on LinkedIn. You don't offend me. In fact, the more things that's who you are as a person, the more I get interested and want to follow you more. Yeah, no, and that's a fantastic message. And listen, I've gotten some negative feedback as well. I did a TikTok video with my family and I posted it on LinkedIn, right?

Good for you, man. You know, 13,000 people viewed it, but there's always going to be one knucklehead that comes on and says, yeah, why are you posting this on here? You cannot know what? My dear friend Taylor Swift, who I've never met or don't know at all, right? What does she say? Hater's going to hate. I got blogs dedicated to my foahawk.

I got websites dedicated to my clothes and to my stutter and to my eyeglasses. Hater's going to hate, right? you, every time you post a TikTok video, I'm going to like it, share it, forward it, and comment. Keep it going, brother. I love LinkedIn's a good place. And we'll quote Taylor Swift one more time. Just shake it off, right? Shake it off.

Just shake them off. You know what it means when you start getting haters? People are paying attention. That's right. People are paying attention. I think it was Colin Powell. I think it was Colin Powell that said, if you're not pissing people off, you're not getting anything done.

And I don't think your goal should be. to piss people off. I think your goal should be to get stuff done, hopefully in a way that doesn't piss people off. But if it does, keep looking forward. As Seth Godin says, ship it. Just get some stuff done, right? Get your voice out there. Yeah. And I always love to just kill them with kindness. I just say, hey, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. And guess what happens? My engagement just went up. It does. I had some guy. I had some guy trashing me on LinkedIn or Facebook. a few months ago and called me a hack and a pose and a fraud. And I invited him when he's in Salt Lake, come over for a pizza and a beer. I never heard from him again. There you go. We solve the problem

right there. Just respond to them in a nice way and then they'll disappear. It's so true. What do you do with that? What do you do when someone doesn't take the bait, right? They don't know what to do with it. Jordan, it's been my pleasure. Thank you for hosting me today. It's my honor, man. Good luck with your fit. I appreciate. Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you so much for coming on. I will make sure that all of the ways to connect you, we'd be down in the show notes, my friend. It's been a blast. And I'll be sure to share your show in all of ours.

Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to that episode with Scott Miller. Wow, what a powerhouse. He's got so much energy. He's definitely accomplished a lot, but I know he is not going to stop here. So make sure you connect with him. You'll be able to find all of this info down in the show notes.

Listen, if you're not subscribed yet to the show, please subscribe. That's going to help us rank higher and be able to reach an impact more people around the world. And if you're an iTunes subscriber, make sure that you rate and review the show. If you're not subscribed yet again, please subscribe. And I can't wait to chat with you on the next episode.