EntreLeadership - #159: Dr. Jackie Freiberg—Be the CEO of Your Future

Episode Date: August 8, 2016

As a leader, it’s your job to bring out the best in others. But how do you become a person of positive influence? This week’s guest, best-selling author and leadership expert Dr. Jackie Freiberg, lays out some practical, easy-to-implement ideas to get you started on the journey. If you want to become a better leader, build a brand you can be proud of, and live a life of significance, begin with this episode. entreleadership.com/podcast Team Communication Field Guide Infusionsoft's Guide to Repeat Sales Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. Now here is your host, Ken Coleman. We are broadcasting from the Music City, and this is the podcast of leaders, by leaders, for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Here's what's coming up. We're going to get into Ken's electronic mailback. Got a fun email from an NFL player who's a listener.

This is going to encourage you. And we've also got Jackie Freiberg as our feature conversation. Be a person of impact. Twelve Strategies to be the CEO of your future is the focus of our conversation, a book from Jackie Freiberg, who's a bestselling author. And then I'm going to give you a little nugget, just a five-minute lesson on how you can be better spoken. How do you become a well-spoken person? I did this recently for some local business guys, and Eric's producer said, let's get this out there. So that's going to be fun.

And then we've got more free stuff coming your way. So let's get right to it. Ken's Electronic Mail. You've got mail. All right, this email is from Josh Gordy, and he says, Hey, guys, big fan of the Entree Leadership Podcasts, want to share my story with you. I have to track back to 2010. I was an undrafted free agent out of Central Michigan University

and was given an opportunity with the Jacksonville Jaguars. I was released after the third game of the preseason, one game left to make the final roster, even though I felt I should and could play in the NFL, the Jaguars thought otherwise. Three weeks later, I'm back home in Washington County, Georgia, wondering what was next. I continued to work out with hopes of getting a call.

But for the first time in a decade or so, I was out of football, and it was very discouraging. Fast forward to week one of the 2010 NFL season. I was in Atlanta visiting some friends when I received a call from the Green Bay Packers offering me a workout. At the time, all I had was a duffel bag with two pair of boxers, two pair of gym shorts, and two t-shirts. I went into the workouts with the mindset that I wouldn't be flying back to Georgia.

At worst, they'd send me on the practice squad for 10 weeks. First day of practice came, and I pushed myself so hard that I caught a lower body cramp. But the coaches noticed and were impressed. They activated me around week 11 from the practice squad to the active roster where I remained during that epic season where Green Bay went on to win the Super Bowl. Now I've been in NFL six years and as a free agent looking to be somewhere for my seventh.

This is what is about. This comes on the heels of this idea that we shared in the episode from two weeks ago. It was certainly a theme running throughout the immigrant mindset that Brian Bafini shared. And we appreciate the email, Josh, but we really appreciate the story. Because when you're a Division I athlete, as Josh was, most of them are only thinking about one thing, and that's going the next level. And so Josh turned his rejection into redirection. When he got a second chance, he made the most of it.

Listen, do you understand the percentages of college football players that actually make it in the end? NFL. So six seasons, and we're hoping for a seventh, Josh, rooting you on here from the Music City. Maybe we should call the Titans, Eric. I don't know anybody over there. I need to know somebody over there, but I don't know anybody over there. But nonetheless, the story here, the takeaway to encourage you all, sometimes, even when you're turning that rejection into redirection, it may be two, three, four, five, six nose. That's the hard part. We don't know how many knows you're going to get. We don't know how much rejection you're going to face. Boy, oh boy, I love the second chance stories. The fifth chance stories. The 10th chance

stories. Eric's a big musician. You know this. How many big time bands that are now legendary, Hall of Fame bands, played for decades. Nobody knew who they were. He's saying tons. So there it is. Stay the course. Keep on going. Don't quit. When you get your opportunity, give everything you got, and you'll figure it out that you're now in the right place. So good stuff. Thanks for the email, Josh Gordy, and hey, we would love to hear from you. We're getting lots of emails. We love these stories.

We want to share them. We want to brag on you, and we want to encourage the audience. This, after all, is a community. So we want to cheer each other on, spur each other on. You can do that. You can share your story by emailing us. Podcast at Entreleadership.com. Podcast at Entreleadership.com.

All right, folks, last week, Chad Kirby from you. InfusionSoft, who helps us power this podcast. He explained the value of their tool this month. If you haven't heard about it, it is a tool that will help you automate, repeat sales. You're going to learn the basics of customer retention, new methods to inspire loyalty, and three ways to do it in less time. That is what it's about. How do you make mailbox money in less time? That's essentially what this tool is doing for you. And again, Chad talked to you about it. It really is good stuff. Here's how you get it. You go to infusionsoft.com. slash repeat sales.

That may be the greatest forward slash kind of follow-up, you know, for a business person. They love that. Repeat sales, that'll make you happy. Infusionsoft.com slash repeat sales, or we'll have a link to it in the show notes at Entreeleadership.com in this podcast episode. Our feature conversation this episode is with Jackie Freiberg. She and her husband, Kevin Freiberg, been friends for over a decade. Got to meet them when I work with John Maxwell.

We did a lot of work with them. They are bestselling authors. Husband and wife duo. You don't see this a lot. Very successful. They're all over the country. They've spent a lot of time with Southwest and some other A-list brands. It really got to know Herb Kelloggher, the legendary CEO of Southwest Airlines, very, very well.

They know him very well. And they do good work. And so she's got a book that I thought for this audience, based on the survey. Because we took a survey and we listened. The number two topic by just a couple decimal points. as I recall, was personal growth. And so with a theme of communication and your desire to grow personally, this book's a little book and it's an easy read. By the way, you can read in about 45 minutes. It's just easy, easy, easy, but super, super practical. It's called Be a Person of Impact, 12 strategies

to be the CEO of your future. So let's get right to it. Here's my conversation with Jackie Fryberg. Well, Jackie, it's a thrill to be with you and I'm so excited about this book. It jumped literally off the website when I was looking at you and Kevin's website, be a person of impact, 12 strategies to be the CEO of your future. And this is huge for our audience. And the idea of being a person of impact, I think, is attractive to all of us when we soak on that phrase. But we're going to get really specific on that. But before we dive into some of the specifics that you give us, I want to know because you've written so many different books. Leadership is a passion, personal growth is a passion for you and your husband, Kevin.

But why did you choose impact? Why this particular topic? I think it's been resonating for years, actually. We've had the good fortune, the blessing to really talk about, write about work with, interview. Really, really great leaders, leaders who take that as that journey of leadership as a privilege, not as a right, as sort of a gift. And what we've discovered is those leaders that are really good at what they do really are interested in understanding the impact that they have on people because once we understand our impact on people, then we can either enhance our impact, adjust our impact, or, you know, literally do a reboot or a reinvention of ourselves so that we can have a more positive impact on people, because that's

really what leaders are there to do is have a positive impact on people. I think this would be fun. I'm a father of three. And so if I'm explaining impact on my 10, 8, and 7 year old, if I was going to sit them down and say, hey, I want Ms. Jackie to explain to you what impact really means. And you were going to just not dumb it down, but so simplify it for them. I think this is a fun exercise for us to think about this. So how would you, putting you on the spot, how would you define impact to a 10, 8, and 7 year old? I think impact is how we land on people, how we bump into people. So I would say to your 10-year-old, your 5-year-old, listen, when mommy or daddy are having a great day, they bump into you and they leak happiness out onto you.

When mommy and daddy are having a bad day, we bump into you, we land on you, and sometimes we leak some unpleasant things on you. We might be grumpy, we might not be as kind as we normally are. That's impact. thing about impact is typically we will land on our children, our friends, our community, our employees, our colleagues in three different ways. We can land on them positively, which is a good thing. Everyone wants us to land on them, bump into them positively. Second, we could land on them negatively. That's not pleasant. That's toxic. That's, you know, leaky behavior. And then

third, we can land on people in a questionable way. And when we have a questionable impact on people, I think that's the worst kind of impact. I'll never forget working on a master's thesis, and the chair of that thesis committee was consistently inconsistent in his interaction with me, how he landed on me. It was horrible to have to walk into his office and wonder how he would show up at that meeting. And so that was a questionable impact. When people are questionable, we walk away and we make assumptions about why they landed on us, bumped into us or interacted with us in that way. And then most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time, those assumptions are inaccurate.

They're very, very real in our own mind, but they might not be accurate for why someone landed on us questionably. That's impact, in a nutshell. That's so good. I'm so glad we did that and had you kind of just break that down in its simple form because something that matters to our audience very much is their personal brand and it should matter to all of us. Branding is a word that's thrown around all the time and we usually think of it in terms of companies.

But the reality is each of us when we, using your words, land on people, bump into people, all of those interactions are in some form or fashion shaping our brand. So this is huge. I want you to set us up for this on how our impact. really does affect our brand. Oh, that's a great question. Impact is our brand. So if we have a positive impact on people, we generally would have a positive brand. If we have a negative impact on people, our brand is going to be, you know, negative. If we have a questionable impact on people, we're going to have a questionable brand. Brand is not just a PR advertising slogan for a

company, as you just mentioned, Ken. Brand is really, it's a, it's a, promise of a pending experience. So when you are expected to get on the phone with me, based upon my experience, my history with Ken, there's a promise of a pending experience. I kind of know what to expect. I know you. And all of us carry that with us. So the question becomes, what have you done in your approach to landing on people, bumping into people, leading people, to build the brand that you are in fact proud of. And again, I go back to listen, none of us have fully arrived. This thing called leadership, this thing called brand building, this thing called impact,

they all interconnect. And if we think we've figured it out and we've arrived, that's just when that's the beginning of our demise, so to speak. You have never, ever, ever fully arrived. Leadership is an ongoing lifelong journey. journey of leading, understanding our impact, adjusting our impact, refreshing our impact, and then perhaps pivoting or slightly adjusting. All right.

So I mentioned this, folks, that there's 12 strategies in this book, be a person of impact. So I'm going to pull out a few because we can't go through all of them and be fair to your time, folks. But there are some that just pop out to me. And I love the first one, self-evaluate weekly. Now, this is just, if we left it at that, that's just great advice, just to self-evaluate. on a weekly basis. But there are three words that you challenge the audience with, the reader with, and I want you to just kind of teach on these. No, grow, and draw. So audience, write these down.

As she's talking about this, you have a place to write here because this is huge. No, grow, and draw. How does those three words come alive in the self-evaluation? Thank you for doing your homework. I appreciate that. Well, leadership and impact is really a journey of self-awareness. And that's what knowing is. If you are not self-aware, then you're living, interacting, behaving, landing, bumping into people with blinders on. And let's face it, every single one of us, if we're gut-wrenchingly honest with ourselves, operate with some blinders. And it's truly the people around us who love us unconditionally and want to give us feedback, not to judge us, not to criticize us, not as a weapon. against us, but feedback as a gift to us to help us better know what our impact is on others.

And our impact, my impact on you can might be really different than my impact on Eric, for instance, or my impact on you could be really different than my impact on your wife. We all have different chemistries and we all have different fits with each other. We all have different personalities. and what we have to do as leaders, as entrepreneurs of small businesses, is we have to realize that we have to be almost an analyst of people to try and understand who they are and how is it that I can land on them, lead them, inspire them, mentor, coach them,

in a way that can literally have a positive impact on them. And that's different for all people. So we have to know who we are by lifting off the blinders. That's a journey of self-awareness. And I can go back to that. But grow then is once you understand where some of your blind spots are, where you're landing on someone with a negative impact or a questionable impact, growing means you then engage upon a journey of improvement of change.

And then I think the most powerful form of self-evaluation is draw. The only way you can draw the best out of others, which all good, great, gifted leaders do, is by first knowing who you are, growing yourself, and then you earn the right and the respect of others so that you can draw them into that space of self-awareness, having a more positive impact, and becoming a leader themselves. So that's the journey of knowing yourself, growing yourself,

and then drawing the best out of others. So we create a collective of leadership. Because today leadership isn't about one person having all the answers. Today, leadership is about being a social architect of your business, of your environment, of your family to get the best ideas from everyone, lock arms, and affect positive change in your lives. I want to talk about the correlation for individuals and essentially for every leader, this idea of the relationship between growing and drawing. When leaders are transparent and they are open about, hey, these are my blind spots,

and I'm going to work with my team and I'm going to grow and then the team sees that growth. Does that, from your experience and observation and research, does that give the leader much greater ability to draw out of others when people see, hey, this person is transparent and working on their own blind spots, I'm going to trust them in sharing with me, hey, this is where I can best grow. Is there a correlation there? There absolutely is a correlation, but that's one variable and I think a formula. of what it takes to draw the best out of others.

I think transparency is critical. One of the things that we wrote about in Be a Person of Impact, we actually call it POI, but we wrote about the fact that, you know, great leaders are people who will self-evaluate on a weekly or even a bimonthly basis. And so what that means is you figure out who you are by knowing, and then you embark on that journey of growing. But you have to engage in some sort of self-evaluation. And we cite a couple of examples of,

a gentleman who is a VP of 4Square. And he says, look, in my job, I absolutely have to be creative. And in order to be creative and to eliminate some of the frivolous distractions, the urgent but unimportant things in my day and in my week, I will literally do a weekly self-evaluation on my creativity output. So he evaluates himself on a scale of one to five. But he doesn't just evaluate himself and just reflect on it personally. He posts. sit for his entire team to see. And that's holding yourself accountable and that speaks to exactly what you just mentioned, Ken, and that's transparency. So as people can then shoot back and say, hey, you know what, you're selling yourself short on this week. I saw you do X, Y, Z or hey, you know what,

I think you were a little bit, you know, aggressive in your five on this week. So I think transparency is part of it. I think trust. So those two T words go hand in hand. I think the one thing that every leader, every person of positive, influential, enhancing impact will have is trust of their people, the trust from their people. And trust is, in my mind, a really interesting word because a lot of people throw it around like everybody knows what it means. And if you survey, you know, 100 people in a room, everyone's going to come up with a variety of different characteristics, a variety of different words to define trust. And so I did some research, and there's lots of models on trust, but there were some professors from the Utah State University, maybe. They actually did a

longitudinal study, and they came up with three primary drivers of trust, and I love them, and then I added the fourth, and the fourth is impact, which we've just kind of unpacked. The three primary drivers that they identify as really critical to trust and earning trust. Number one, ability. So as a leader, as a person of positive impact, you have to show and prove on a daily basis that you have the ability to do what you are called to do. And that doesn't mean that you've arrived. It means that you're a lifelong learner.

So you're always trying to up your game and enhance your skills. So ability is critical. Number two is absolutely integrity. When you say trust, everyone says your word is your word, you follow through. So integrity is critical to you. And then number three, which is my very favorite of their three drivers, it's this word that not a lot of people use these days, but it's so powerful. The word is benevolence. And I love benevolence because it so speaks to the heart of trust.

When someone is benevolent to us, when someone is literally interested in caring at a truly authentic level, it draws the best out of us. They care because it's the right thing to do. They're not benevolent or caring because it's the transactional thing to do. Benevolence is transformational. It's pay it forward. It's say it forward. It's pray it forward. Not because you're told to.

Because you want to. So ability, integrity, benevolence, and impact drive trust. If you want to be a leader who can draw the best out of your people, you have got to be constantly working on your ability, your integrity, your benevolence, and your impact. That is really, really good, folks. Okay, and I wanted to mention this real quick, and we're going to keep diving into the book. What I love about this book, POI, be a person of impact, 12 strategies to be the CEO of Your Future. They've put it in 12-week forms. So I'm not going through all 12 strategies, but keep in mind for you, the reader, folks, I love this. This is like a challenge

to just hit each of these strategies once a week. Really good accountability. Let's jump to week four. I love this. This certainly connected to me. Become a connoisseur. Okay, we get it, but what does that mean specifically? And why is this so important when it comes to impact?

That speaks absolutely to ability, because connoisseurs are not just knowledgeable. Connoisseurs are people who are actually at the tipping point of a game, right? They are the people who have studied what history is, where current state is, and where ultimately they need to or want to go, want to take their passion, right? A connoisseur is passionate about, you know, fine wines. A connoisseur is passionate about, you know, biblical, you know, history. A connoisseur is, right, you pick your passion.

And so they are knowledgeable and then they don't just take what's out there. They take what's out there to the next level. And that's what I think people have really positive impact are constantly on a journey to do. They're going, look, is good, good enough? Or what can I do to perhaps borrow from outside my industry? I mean, there's a really great community bank called UMQA. And a lot of people know of it because it's been written about. We've written about it.

And the cool thing about UMQA is, is they say, although we are in a financial services category, we do not want to compete against other community banks. or other financial institutions. What we want to do is we want to compete against retail because we know retail kind of gets service or the good retailers do. And so what do they do? They create monthly mission trips

and they just take this, you know, a variety, a diversity of people from the bank and they pop them in a van and they say we're going to go to a variety of different either hospitality, restaurant, retail establishments. And the deal is to go on a mission to find a best practice that you can bring back to the bank. That's how you build.

You know, if you want to create a service experience for people in your small business, in your middle-sized business, in your large business, don't borrow from inside your industry so that you can become a follower of the leaders. Borrow from outside your industry so you can become the connoisseur in your industry by bringing breast practices in from a variety of different industries. and then you become the tipping point.

I like that. And this was a quote that you highlighted in the book. And I think it's huge from Eric Hoffer. In time of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exist. I don't know if that quote is any more relevant than 2016 with the digital explosion.

Certainly, as we sit here today and have a conversation, the world is changing rapidly right beneath our feet. and this idea of being a connoisseur and this, really the great message I took away from this was to never stop learning. Yes, exactly. In times of drastic change, it's the learners who inherit the future for the learn ed. Those who think, hey, I've arrived, I've got it, I've figured it out, I got my degree.

You know what we say when people say, hey, you've got a doctoral degree? I look at people and say, you know what that means? If I leaned on that degree, how many, it was maybe 25, almost 30 years ago that I earned that doctoral degree? You know what that tells people? I used to know something. If I haven't continued that journey, I'm done.

That's right. Oh, that's so good. Okay, we're going to jump to the next one, which is communicate well. I'm passionate about this. And again, Jackie, this happens to be in a listener survey. One of the top things that our audience cares about. They want to be better communicators. And we could go so many different directions on this.

You're a very gifted keynote speaker. I've had the privilege of sitting in all-day meetings with you, just a wonderful thinker. And you and Kevin have done so much research on great. leaders, I think of Herb Kelleher as one that you grew to know very, very well. And one of the things you highlight in this particular chapter that I want to focus our conversation on is not technique, but just simple. Great leaders, they just, they simplify their communication so that there's just great clarity. True, false? What would you say to that statement? Absolutely true. Communication, leadership, some of these concepts with as many people as we have out there writing about

speaking about them, talking about them. Sometimes these concepts get hyper-complicated, and they shouldn't. I was listening to a radio show, coincidentally. I think it was morning drive or something, and the host of the show said, listen, we want people to call in and share some of, you know, the most impactful, not to overuse that word this morning, sayings that have, you know, literally impacted your life and have become deeply rooted in you.

And one woman called in, and she said, I'll tell you what mine is. She said, say what you mean, mean what you say, but never say it mean. I mean, if you think about children, you started with that, Ken. Look, with children, we have to say what we mean. We have to not say it mean. Because if we're mean about coaching them or disciplining them, you know what? They check out on us or they freak out on us. So say what you mean, mean what you say, but don't say it mean.

And then the mean what you say component is critical as we get older. Because if you think about the way people communicate these days, we lean on bad habits or insecurity or lack of confidence. And oftentimes leaders, managers, supervisors, husbands, wives, friends will hint and hope. So if I need something from my husband, it's, you know, my birthday and I'm hoping that he might plan this surprise. and so I hint at it, and I hope that he'll get my hints. And most of the time, it goes right over his head. Or a manager will say to an employee who's not on time often,

look, maybe it was a tough morning, you know, kind of what went on. I really was busy this morning myself. But they don't necessarily say, look, it's important for you to be here on time because I'm kind of counting on you. It's a hint and hope strategy, and we wonder why people don't change. So say what you mean, mean what you say. don't say it mean is a critical communicate-well strategy. And it's simple. It really is. Now, I want to move forward. The next one is manage your mind. And this is huge because, my goodness, we can't talk,

we can't learn, we can't actually impact people if we're not healthy, you know, if we're not able to put something positive into their life as you use this analogy. I love this idea of bumping into people. There's a story you share that I think it's a great analogy to kind of teach us here. page 73, the book you talk about your 80-pound golden retriever Romeo, which by the way, great name for a dog. And so you talk about Romeo coming out of the water, and everybody listening right now knows exactly what happens when the dog comes out of the water. Instantly kind of braces and shakes all of the water off that he possibly can in a very violent fashion, and it's very, very effective. And you use that as an analogy to help us understand we're going to have to shake off the mess, the junk, the negative that just is a part of everyday life. It just is a reality. So with that being the

analogy, what advice would you give our listeners? They want to be people of impact, but sometimes they're just stuck in the crud themselves. How do they practically shake that off? Because it's a wonderful analogy, but how do they actually do it? What would you suggest that kind of encapsulates this idea of Romeo shaking the water off? That's such a good question. I wish I had the silver bullet. I don't have the silver bullet. I don't have the silver bullet, but I have perhaps something that I could share that could help. Managing our mind is something that I think is really, really important because Martin Seligman, who is probably the king of positive psychology, he started with learned optimism and has written

a number of books. You could just, you know, Google him and learn a lot about what he's done. But what Seligman says is he says, look, optimism is a learned behavior and pessimism is a learned behavior. And we really positioned the chapter that you're referring to as an opportunity to realize that you can unlearn negativity or pessimism and you can learn more optimism. If pessimism is controlling our mind, it will take us out. It really will. And I share an example of how, you know, the San Francisco Giants were in a funk and a funk and we finally got them to say, funk, no, funk, no, this isn't how we're going to play the game and they ended up turning their season around. And I'm not saying that it was just

because of a saying, but what's happening is when we let negativity root in our minds, it then affects the way that we interpret everything around us and then it will affect the way that we behave. It will take us out. So the shake-off analogy is, you know, maybe just literally stand up and shake off the negativity. That's a fun analogy. But in the bigger scheme of things, look, If you're pessimistic, you tend to take everything that happens to you personally. You tend to think that it's permanent in your life, and you tend to think that it's pervasive. So if a bad thing happens, it gets in you, and then all of a sudden you go, I'm responsible, personal. Then all of a sudden you say, oh, you know, this is never going to go away.

And then all of a sudden you let that negativity leak out into every other situation, so it becomes pervasive. And what optimists, that's a pessimistic perspective. What optimists will say is they'll say, uh-uh, it's not personal. Yeah, maybe I could have done something else, but it's just not, it wasn't necessarily just me. Number two, it's not permanent. That's an N of one. That's one example in my life that, you know, was negative. And then number three, it's contextual.

It's not pervasive in my life. So let me step through this. Let me step out of this. Let me figure out what I can. control so that I can shake it off and affect some positive versus just letting the negative take root. So that's really what managing your mind is all about because your mind will control your words, your mind will control your behaviors, your mind will control your attitude, and your mind

will ultimately then begin to control your performance. All right. I want to pause the conversation for a moment and just talk about something I think is deeply personal to everybody, and that is this idea that we all want to match. matter. We all want to live a life of significance. And yet we constantly, I think, are reminded of people who have done great things. They have a legacy. They're talked about. They're well known. And for the person who's listening right now, and I think there's somebody out there, maybe many, many, many who are struggling with this idea of, hey, I don't even think I am a person of impact. I don't

even know how to impact anybody. I want to make an impact. And I think it can become overwhelming I mean, if we make impact this big, huge thing that's tied to fame, fortune, and so on. And so one of the things that you, in chapter, it's week eight, page 81, you source a quote from Steve Jobs, which is great. And he said, people want happier and better lives. Don't just push products in rich lives. And here's where I want to steer you to challenge and encourage our audience. Just this idea of beginning to start the impact process, to be a person of impact. It starts sometimes not with thinking about hundreds and thousands and millions,

but what about the person that's just right in front of us today, that maybe we've never even seen and keeping our eyes open for just a small opportunity. It may seem small, may seem insignificant, but is quite significant. I just want you to encourage us on this idea of how do we just baby step into just impacting one person? Ooh, there's so much to say about that. Do we have another hour? Yes, we'll just go. We'll make it bonus time. You know, I'm grateful that you want to end on a question like that because the quote that I love that

Steve Jobs offers is don't just push products, but really try and enrich lives. And we've really owned that to say, let's not pitch people. Let's enrich people. I don't want to pitch people on my books. I don't want to pitch people on, you know, a speech. I want to enrich people in the writing. that we offer in the presentations, in the radio interviews that we do. So what I've learned in my journey of being in this business is, I don't want to do this for me. I want to do this so that I can have an opportunity to say just one thing that might enrich, might touch the hearts, the minds, the souls, the spirits of all people. And so I think what we have to do is we have to go into every interaction with an other orientation. It's not about me.

It's about them. And the approach that I've been taking is I say, you know, there's nothing better than learning about people's story. And every single person has a story. But oftentimes their story isn't their, you know, their social persona. You know, all of a sudden you go to a luncheon meeting or you go to some sort of group. And the question is always, so what do you do? And I just read something the other day and the response to, so what do you do is whatever it takes.

And I've really owned that lately I just want to go into every conversation with if someone says what do you do? Whatever it takes to get to know you, whatever it takes to understand your story, whatever it takes to be there. It's just about giving presents. One of my favorite brands is Lulu Lemon.

And it's not because it's a cool brand to wear. It's because it's a cool brand in terms of what they are trying to do for their community of customers. When you go into a store, there's always a big board that you can put a goal on. You can actually become a part of a running community, a yoga community, a walking community, any kind of community that they have posted on the board because they're trying to connect people. They had a social media campaign over the holidays last season that said, hashtag give presents. And it was give your time, your presence, don't give stuff to people.

If you want to have a positive impact on people, give presence, give interest. Be interested and be interesting. That is a great word. Unfortunately, folks, we've got to wrap it up here, but, Jackie, this has been fun talking about this very important topic. For folks that want to connect with you and Kevin and what you're doing real quick, tell them where they can connect. Freiburgs.com, F-R-E-I-B-E-R-G-S dot com. All right. Hey, this was great fun, Jackie.

Thanks for spending time with us. We're all better for it, and we really, really appreciate it. My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Ken. Great to reconnect. Folks, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Jackie. Something that really hit me between the eyes really was that last question. I asked that as much for me as I did for you.

And it's a great reminder. But I really want to encourage you all. Because, again, back to our listener survey, we know that personal growth is a huge, huge issue for you. And as I said in the question, every one of us on the planet desires to be significant. We just want to matter. Simply put. And when we have conversations like this about impact,

I think we naturally allow impact to turn into numbers. And if you're not careful, you're going to grade your impact. You're going to judge your impact based on numbers. And while numbers certainly reveal impact, it's not everything. It is not the total definition and the final definition of impact as it relates to your life. Quick example.

If I look at Dave Ramsey, look at the man's impact. We're talking millions and millions of families forever changed financially, relationally, spiritually. All because the man decided to share a story. God has blessed him and given him a huge platform. Now, he has blessed many others as well as me with his platform, right? And I'm blessed. I'm blessed to talk to thousands upon thousands upon thousands of you.

every week. But if I'm not careful, I can get caught up in that too. There's the negative in that you think, well, my impact is really great because of the size of the platform. The other negative is, you say, well, Dave and Ken, they're in front of lots of people, and I'm not, so I'm not making an impact. Well, that's not true. And the impact that matters most to me resides in my home, not the millions of people that get to hear my voice from time to time. And so here's what I want to encourage you with. Make sure that you're really looking at what does impact really look like. What does it mean to you?

Number one. Number two, don't get hung up in the numbers. Don't get lost in the numbers and compare your impact to others based on numbers. Because the reality is, I think of elementary school teachers, single moms, volunteers, as the great impactors of our society. Just for a moment, let your mind race go back to some great biographies. One of the reason I love reading biographies is almost every biography I've ever read. You can go back to trajectory change in that great person's life based on an interaction they had with somebody that you've never heard of.

That's mind-boggling. So impact is not to be graded wholly upon numbers, but traditionally. trajectory change. So here's the deal. I want to encourage those if you think, oh, I'm not making an impact. Yes, you are. Could be one person on your team. One person that you meet randomly on the street this week that you can have an impact on by simply changing the trajectory of their day. You may never meet this person again in your life. But impact needs to be completely based on how you're bumping into people and what you leave, what residue is left on them when you bump into them. Using Jackie's analogy, that was so convicting to me because I so desire, like more than you people can possibly imagine. My greatest high is when I can positively impact people. But man,

sometimes I can just be a jerk. And I shudder when I think of the negative residue that I have left on people, that I will leave on people in the future, because I am a man who is full of weaknesses. But I think if we walk away from this teaching today and what this conversation is really that, hey, what positive impact can I make on a day-to-day basis right in front of me? Don't get so focused on the big numbers.

I think that'll encourage you. I hope it does encourages me. Thanks to Jackie Freiberg. Again, one more time, the book is, POI, be a person of impact, 12 strategies to be the CEO of your future. Really easy read, super practical, and that's laid out in a 12-week challenge. So you can just take one of these a week, one of these strategies a week, and just apply them to your life.

I think it'll make you better. Staying on the theme of communication this month, our free tool to help you from Andre leadership this month is our team communication field guide, how to keep your team engaged and productive. So this is, again, us taking the Ramsey Solutions Playbook, we open it up and give it away. Just a few of the things in this tool. how to handle difficult discussions. We're going to give you five do's and don'ts. We're going to give you nine hacks for highly productive meetings.

And this is wild. Data shows us that the estimated cost of unnecessary meetings each year in America is $37 billion. So this is legit. And we give you so much more. We're going to help you with weekly reports. Key results areas. These are things that we use maniacally. I mean, they're great guidelines.

for clear communication with everybody, leadership to team member. So it's really good stuff. All you've got to do is text the word communication to 33-444. Communication, text that word to 33-44-4. Or again, if you don't want to do it that way, you can certainly go to the link for this tool in our show notes of this episode at entreleadership.com. So a couple months ago, I got a very interesting request from an Entree Leadership podcast listener and CEO of a very successful company that happens to be.

located in Middle Tennessee, reached out to me and said, Ken, I think you're very well-spoken, and I would like to be more well-spoken. And I've got a couple of guys that are interested in this as well, and we think that you would be great to help us figure this process out. How do we get better at just basic communication? Speaking, the actual art of putting words together in a sentence. And I said, well, that's interesting. I'm humbled. I'm honored. Sounds like a challenge. Never taught on that. But let me dive into this. Is this not something that I set out to do early on?

I don't remember a time of my life where I said, well, I want to be the best spoken person in the room. I just never did that. So anyway, we spent a half of a Saturday together in a coffee shop in downtown Franklin, one of my favorite towns in all the world. And there were so many things that we delivered that day. But I'm going to share one thing with you that I shared with these guys. And we know that we've got a lot of personal growth junkies out there. Let me tell you why this is important.

Your first impression really does matter. Like that's not a lost art. That still matters. And the way you look and the way you talk are two big pieces of that. So I started off with this. How do you improve what you say? How do you improve what you say? So I told the guys, simply put, you have to improve your vocabulary.

So what do you do? There's two parts to this. And you can write these down. Number one, you need to increase the words you know and then diversify the words you use. Increase the words you know and then diversify the words you use frequently. Now, I'll move very fast through the first one. Increase the words you know.

Again, so many ways to do that. There's words of the day. You can peruse through a dictionary, what have you. I'm going to give you a couple things you need to do specifically. that will help you begin to do this by osmosis, all right? But simply put, you need to increase the words you know. So really begin to think about, you know, increasing the words you know by reading and watching. Okay?

Reading and watching. That's classic books, older biographies, biographies in general, because what happens with biographies is you usually get a lot of personal letters, things of that nature that people would write hundreds of years ago, 50 years ago, and simply put language, vernacular changes. And yet, it still applies. So if you want to increase the words you know, you've got to go to places and read words that you're not coming into contact with on a daily basis, maybe in 2016. So that's reading classics. By the way, a little quick thing here, You want to double up your personal productivity.

Start reading the classics to your children at nighttime. Two things are happening. You are increasing your vocabulary, and they are increasing their vocabulary. And you get the benefit of spending time with your kids, reading a story, and they get sleepy. So, Stacey and I have done this. Folks, I went out and got last of the Mohicans, the kids' version. I mean, this is not, you know, what is this is the? the SpongeBob, it's not that stuff.

We're going deep in the Coleman household, so that'll help you. And then watch. I said, read and watch. How do you increase the words you know? Read and watch. Watch is speeches. MLK. Go to YouTube.

I mean, my goodness, you could spend days on YouTube. Get some Martin Luther King stuff. The Kennedys. You can find Churchill stuff all over the place on the web. Watch and listen. Listen to speeches, interviews of well-spoken individuals. of well-spoken individuals. Go back to some period movies.

Some movies made a long time ago. And again, same idea of the classic books. Old shows. And if you really want to nerd out on this deal, get on the BBC. Go see some older British shows, some current British shows. Great vocabulary.

These are simple ways that by osmosis, you're beginning to increase the words you know. And then finally diversify the words you use. What do I mean here? I'm calling myself out here. And I'm kind of on the spot here, Eric, because we got tens and tens of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands, millions of people over the course of a year that listen to me maybe on a routine basis.

And I tend to use a lot of the same words. That can just happen because you get in a rhythm. But what I mean when I say diversify the words you use frequently, so if you use a word like fantastic too much, which I may do, that means I'm going to go with, spectacular, tremendous, terrific. Simple example here. I'm not going to go on and on about this, but think about the words that you use all the time and then start to find some synonyms. And when you diversify the words that you use a lot, all of a sudden, you've expanded your vocabulary, and here's the deal. Don't try to go overboard with it. It's the equivalent of name-dropping.

If you try to be too cute with this and drop the 50-cent word, everybody in the room's rolling their eyes at you. This needs to be something that's natural, not something that's forced, but simple stuff. And if you use good words, words that people don't hear a lot, that's why I'm putting the emphasis on diversify the words you use. Because when you use words that aren't used a lot, do you know what happens in the room? It's a light bulb. People snap their head. I haven't heard that word in a while.

Oh, that was a good phrase. Words and phrases used well make you stand out. So a couple quick tips there. That's how you can improve what you say. and Eric's going to have me deliver some of this throughout the month here, some other things that I gave him. But that was the very beginning. That's how you can become better spoken very quickly. Big news.

Entree leadership one day, which is the event that we travel around the country with, I get the honor of hosting that Dave, Chris Hogan, Christy Wright, all speak at this event. And we're taking this thing to the live stream. Now, usually, as I said, we're all around the country in about five cities each season. But this year we're doing something very, very different. On October 19th in Kansas City, Missouri, at Church of the Resurrection, that'll be the venue. Dave Ramsey, Chris Ogun, Christy Wright, live streaming. Now we have a limited time that you can get a single viewer pass for this live stream. The regular price is going to be $29.

But Eric, the producer, has become a man of the people. He is following my shining example, and he is a man of the people now. I can say that with great pride. And so he went to Daniel Tarty, twisted some arms, and he was able to get $5 off for you podcast listeners. Good work, sir. Good work. So, regular streaming price is $29. You can get it.

$24. If you use the promo code, EL, as in Entree Leadership, EL podcast. That's all one word, EL podcast, when you go to checkout. It'll be $24. So it's one word. The promo code is EL Podcast. And if you're anywhere near Kansas City, come on out. It's going to be big fun.

That's a $59 ticket for a great one-day live event. Are you kidding me? That'll yield a whole lot of $59. So love to see you there. If you want to learn more about the event, go to ontreleadership.com slash e1D, Entreleadership.com slash E1D. And again, promo code, EL podcast. Hey, folks, that's going to do it.

I want to thank Jackie Fryberg for her time. And on behalf of our producer, Eric, Anthony and the entire Entree leadership team. Thank you for listening. We'll talk again very soon.