EntreLeadership - #170: Dr. John Townsend—Fighting Entitlement at Work and at Home

Episode Date: October 24, 2016

If the attitude of entitlement is a disease, this week’s featured guest has the cure. Psychologist, leadership expert and best-selling author Dr. John Townsend joins us to share steps for leading those with an I-deserve-special-treatment mindset, whether it’s found in your team members, customers, kids . . . or even yourself! These are practical tools for a life of success. entreleadership.com/podcast Create Core Values Tool Infusionsoft's Free Email Templates Summit Event 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. We appreciate you all so much. Going to be a great conversation today. Dr. John Townsend is our featured guest, and this guy is more than just a best-selling author. This guy has taken his psychology career and has moved into business consultant, leadership coach, and so much more.

He's written 27 books, selling 8 million copies, including The Boundary Series, leadership beyond reason, and handling difficult people. Now, the book we're going to focus on today is The Entitlement Cure, Finding Success in Doing Hard Things the right way. I really, really think this is such an important conversation, very holistic here in that this is going to help us personally, is going to help us professionally, right? We've got to lead people, and we have to raise children, many of us, and then we have to lead ourselves, and all of us can fall into entitlement very quickly. It's a ledge that I think we all tiptoe along at any given part of the day. We'll unpack that idea and so much more. Also, we have a Entree leadership tool, to create core values. And I'm going to share one of my favorite core values from Ramsey Solutions.

And of course, InfusionSoft provides another free tool in October. I'll tell you more about that. Well, many of you know who Dr. Henry Cloud is. Well, he and John Townsend, Dr. John Townsend, our guest today, wrote the book Boundaries. And of course, I've known about Dr. John Townsend for a long time, but for whatever reason, I've never had the opportunity to interview him. So I was very excited when he agreed to hang out with us. And after our conversation with Dr. John Townsend, I will tell you how you can win one of the free five copies that we're going to give away. But let's get right to it. Here's my conversation with Dr. John Townsend talking about his book, The Entitlement Cure. Well, John, I'm excited about this topic. When I saw the book title,

I thought to myself, this is something as certainly as a parent that I want to jump into, and it really is such a great read, The Entitlement Cure. We're going to dive into that in several pieces of the book that really jumped out to me. But I want to start by how to having you as a psychologist, as somebody who obviously wrote a book on this subject, I'd like for you to paint a portrait of what you would define entitlement as. What does entitlement look like to you? What's that holistic view? Well, as I researched it, I looked at the business world, the marketplace, as well as parenting and family, because, you know, really, Ken, it's all over the world, families as well as businesses. I came down to two discrete and very clear descriptions that come

together with entitlement. Number one, well, they're both attitudes for one thing, but the first is an attitude that I'm not responsible for my impact on you. I can say or do whatever I want. I can be late to meetings. I can be a clock watcher. I cannot be a team player. And if it affects the team, if it affects the company, no big deal. I'm not responsible for how it impacts. That's the big one. The second one is that I deserve special treatment. I have a right to special treatment. I don't need to work my way up. I don't need to start at the bottom. I don't need to see what the rules are. I don't need to get into the back of the line because for some reason I've skipped that. And Ken, when you put those two together in the business setting between how I affect the team and impact the team

and between somebody who needs to go up like everybody else, it's like putting kerosene in a match together. Yeah, it really is. I want to ask you, what's the contributor to this? Because I think, I think is this a human condition or are there external impacts for developing a sense of entitlement? Well, I think it comes from several sources. One has to do with the fact that unfortunately we're all just sort of into ourselves. We're selfish people. I always tell people, you know, one way you can tell if somebody's entitled is when you're at a party with them and they say, hey, let's stop talking about me now. Let's talk about what you think about me. See? So part one. One is, you know, it's just kind of in our DNA.

Right. But there's a second one, which is the parenting dynamic. You know, a lot of people have been parented in ways that they didn't experience consequences or realistic consequences and learn how to fail and, you know, learn the lessons of life. And that creates entitlement with the helicopter parent dynamic. And the third one is our culture, Ken. Our culture is sort of like, you know, racked with you can do it right now, you can have it all. It's all about you.

I mean, there are multiple factors. Yeah, with that being said, in 2016, let's take the last two decades. Are we in a unique period of time where this is exclusive to our particular culture, or is this cyclical? Is this something that has existed in other cultures? What are your thoughts on that? Well, I would say it's kind of a human condition, but the thing that I think that makes it unique on a differentiated level is the web. Because entitled information about how you deserve everything and do nothing is sort of out there instantly and globally by anybody. And so I think the virus spreads faster.

you will. Now, I want to dive in so much here in the book, folks, that you really, really need to run and get the book if you haven't gotten it. But you lead off with a simple statement. The disease has a cure. So if entitlement is a disease, you certainly say there is a cure. And I want you to talk about the hard way, because you just come right out and say, this is the solution. And you define the hard way in the book, page 26, if you're taking notes, folks, book notes. the habit of doing what is best rather than what is comfortable to achieve a worthwhile outcome. That's your definition of the hard way, and you say that is the antidote. Why? The antidote is because we were designed the way that we operate in life, the way that business

operates, the way the marketplace operates, is that when you do difficult things, you succeed. One of the things I do as a leadership and business expert is I study the mega successful people. I study the people who are running great companies and their trend lines are great. Their KPIs are great. They're doing really well. And when I study those guys, because everybody wants to know what those guys are doing, those gals and guys are doing.

Because the interesting thing is, if you can figure that out, then that's the secret sauce to tell everybody else about. And every one of these people, these mega successful people that I study and work with and consult with, they do hard things. They wake up in the morning and they do difficult things. They make difficult choices,

because of the right thing to do. They have hard conversations with customers who are angry at them or are disappointed. They don't kick the can down the road. They work with people and they're patient with people and they're disciplined in their lives. And people that aren't that wait to have life come to them and people that sort of want to do it the quick way, they're not very successful. So it's just a matter of life. You just mentioned in your answer there this idea of working with the customer.

And when I was reading that definition, it popped into my mind. You know, again, I'm going to hit this again, folks, because it sets up the the question. John defines the hard way is the habit of doing what is best rather than what is comfortable. So when we look at organizations, it's very, I think it's transferable that companies can get a little entitled as well. And so when you deal with customers and all of a sudden, you've got a situation and you've got rules, you've got traditions, right? This is the way we do it. And the customer's really making me a little bit uncomfortable. And maybe I'm not going to do what is best because I want to stay within my guidelines, the decisions that have been laid out before me.

Is this a problem? Can we as companies become entitled? Unfortunately, the companies can go with the individuals go. You know, one of the people I studied when I was beginning to work with businesses and leaders was Peter Drucker, you know, who's kind of the Moses of Management. He had a great, he had a great statement, Ken. He said, he said, culture will eat strategy for breakfast. That's right. And he's right. You know, the greatest product, greatest systems, great service. But if your culture is not working, things come down on the trend line. And entitlement basically is a cultural issue. So yes, a company can begin to kind of like get over at skis. You know, Jim Collins is somebody else that I really like his work. He talks

about hubris in his books and how hubris is a form of pride, the Greek work for pride, sorry, the Latin word for pride, and that also leads to entitlement. So yeah, absolutely. And I'm telling it, it will take you down. So what's the mirror that leaders who are listening in here? here. What do they need to be doing to, one, assess, is our company in any way acting entitled? Then secondly, how do we fight that within a corporate culture? Yeah, that's really what the book's about is I've got somewhere between, I believe it's a nine or ten steps of how to cure that, and it can be cured on a corporate level or an entrepreneurial level as well as a personal level. But let me just give you some of the big idea. One of them is to look at what happens when you

or your company fails. Now, the hard way people, the people I think are the antidote, when they fail, you know, you lose an account, you've got a cash flow problem, there's a market shift or whatever. The first thing you do is you think, and this is very important question, is to think to yourself, what did I do to contribute to this? Could I have done something differently? Was I sleep at the wheel? Did I not read the research?

Did I go off skiing and not watch my people enough? Or did I make my people? Did I micromanage my people too much? As opposed to, oh, man, I'm just so screwed up. You know, the economy's bad and it wasn't my fault. Look at all. And this customer is not realistic. So the very first thing that really healthy and successful people do when there's something

falling apart is to say, what was my part here? The most healthy thing you can do. Second thing is that you work with your people on being able to work in teams, not as divas. You know, the silo practitioners kind of never going to succeed at a big level. You've got to have people that collaborate and give and take and people that work together and play together, but there are people that can support each other, listen to each other, argue the right way. People that stay in silos tend to move into a very entitled role because you're sort of

in your own little fiefdom, your own little empire. So help your people be in teams, work in teams, talking teams, and look at failure as an opportunity. I want to stay here because you have an entire chapter entitled Helping Others Who Are Stuck in Entitlement. We have a lot of leaders, John, that are listening in here. And I love, page 73, you're talking about rehab because you compare this process. of helping entitled individuals. You say it's like physical therapy. And I want you to unpack that because I think that for leaders, they need to realize that this is doable. This is a process. And I love

the analogy of physical therapy because this is something I think exhaust leaders when they think about, oh my gosh, how am I going to confront and help somebody who's entitled. Yeah. I did use that analogy because whenever I hurt my knee or my rotator cuff, that physical therapy is just feels like an awful person in me, but then if I do what they say and I'm screaming and yell and I come out and, hey, I'm healthy. I can work out again. So it's a good thing. Number one, you've got to have the skill of healthy confrontation, Ken. You've got to be able go to your people and say, as I'm coaching my, one of my directs or I'm working with my team is to say, you know, we're not going to be an entitled company. And I also notice in me, myself as the leader,

that I sometimes have what I call in the book, pocket entitlement. I have pockets of entitlement for me, and I'm working on those. I'm taking the beam out of my eye. And let's say you're coaching your direct and you say, Sam, you know, the other day when we had a problem with the Smith account, you know, the first thing you did was sort of point your fingers. And we're not going to do that anymore. I want to be a kind of leader that points my fingers at me first,

and I want to see it more in you. Secondly, is to have people be able to do hard work and have a work ethic. Unfortunately, Ken, in our country and sometimes in our world, the work ethic's going away to a clock working work ethic. Sort of like, how many vacations can I have? Or it's my comp package. How soon can I get out of here? And when you see that, you sit down with your person and say, you know, this is about

the mission and about the company. And what I'm concerned about, I love your competencies. I love what you do. You've got, you're a great SME. You know what you're doing. But we're not going to have a what's in it for me. We want to take care of you. You want to give you a fair package, better than fair.

We've got to have you all in. You have to have these healthy confrontations because people by nature will move into self-sufficiency. Now, as we continue to look at this process, right, like physical therapy, of helping those on our team that are entitled, you give a really clear warning, and I think it's important to hit on. You say, check out your why. So what you're doing here is you're saying, okay, before you confront, make sure you know

your why, why are you really, why are we as leaders confronting those who are entitled, and you give us three that we've got to be careful of. And I want you to review those, but I'll set these. up for you. The first one is, are we confronting them to reduce the stress in our life because of their behavior? They create stress for us, thus we want to stop it. Two, just to vent, my goodness, you just, they're a twerp and you want to verbally smack them, right? You know, I don't think I have heard the word twerp for 20 years. It's a great word, isn't it? It's a phenomenal word. I love it. Yeah, yeah, it's a great word. You know, Dave Ramsey uses it a lot. I must give him credit because

he brought it back to irrelevance for me. It's a great word. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's Right. By the way, folks, this is why you listen to this podcast to pick up words like twirp. And then the third one is, the why, is it to get them to see how they have affected you, right? You're just looking for maybe some empathy so that they'll stop doing what they're doing. All three of those are not good whys. So then, John, why, what should be our why as to confronting and hopefully powering through and helping them get through entitlement? In the marketplace and in leadership, it's always two things.

because it's good for them and it's good for the company. I'm going to say that again. It's always. It's a win-win, Ken. It's good for them and it's good for the company. Susie, I'm talking to you about your attitude because there's a little bit of a diva thing going on here. And it doesn't work with us because then people don't want to collaborate. And I understand that sometimes you feel like you don't get the respect you need.

I want to make you sure you get the respect you need. But I've really got to have more of a teamwork ethic from you and less of a, it's all about me, I think. and this thing about being being a clock watcher and doing things shortcut way. We're not going to do that. But you know what, Susie also, I'm concerned about you in your career. And you know, you're an ambitious person. You want to get to the top. And I want to help you get the top.

And I always tell people, let's play the video. My partner, Henry Cloud, always talks about this. It's a great statement. Play the video, play the movie. Susie, I see in 10 years you're not being anywhere and going laterally and not going upward. So I want to help you with this and I don't want to help the business with this. And keep this conversation going.

what's the holistic approach so that that person gets a clear mental picture from you as to where this thing is headed and what it might look like? And then a two-partner here, what does the leader need to prepare themselves for as they enter into this process of really taking this on? Yeah, it always starts with clarity is once you've talked somebody and said, you know, the attitude's a problem, really want to have you have the team ethos, I want you to be all in for the team and this sort of thing. You tell them what you saw, because you're, you know, You know, when you're having these conversations, Ken, there's always three things. It's a performance issue, which is very metric, you know.

Late to me, it's not getting reporting. It's not getting phone calls done, not getting deals done. So that's easy to measure. You know, Sam, your performance is down. Second one is attitude. It seems like there's a lot of griping here, not that we're a perfect company, but I think there's a lot of griping here. Or there's sort of like, I'm going to stay in my office or I'm going to be defensive.

And that's harder to measure, but you just measure that by saying, I've seen it three times in the last two months. You've got to give them facts and figures, and you've got to give them examples. And the third is relationships is it seems like you're really causing a lot of wake in our relationships where people either feel like it's hard to work with you or you alienate people. Performance, attitude, relationships. You talk to them about what you're seeing. Give them examples. And the understanding of what you think is about going on.

It just seems to me that sometimes when you come in, it's hard for you to receive negative reality or it's hard for you to kind of like get out of the you into the we. so they have the underlying dynamic as well as the behavior. Then you say, here's what I need. I need you to, instead of being at 80%, I need to be at 90%. I need to see that when you come in, you're asking people how they're doing and not waiting for them to come to you. I'm very specific when I work with companies on what is expected, because really to say to somebody, well, get your act together, what?

I mean, that's so vague. How do I do that? But I need to see you reaching out to people more. I need you being early to meetings. I need for you to be participating in brainstorming. I need to receive helpful criticism in a positive way. And I'm going to be monitoring that for like 90 days. I always tell them 90 days because it's hard to change behavior.

It's hard to change habits where people have it, where people have it. And so I'll be checking and I'll be checking on this to you once, twice a week to see how it's going. I'll be talking to our team. And then in 90 days, if everything's great, man, we're good. We're back to normal. And then they have a path. They deserve a specific clear path to change.

All right, let's flip this. What do we as the leader or the person who is doing the confronting? So this could be a parent as well. So you're confronting and you're taking on this charge to help the entitled one. What can we expect? And what does it take to be prepared, have the right perspective to stay the course? Probably the number one thing is the ability to be connected emotionally to the person while you're delivering difficult reality.

You know, that's an art that the best leaders can do, where they're steady, they're looking at the person face-to-face, they're on their team, they're for them, they want them to win, they want them to succeed. But at the same time, they're saying, this is a problem, and we're going to deal with this problem head on because it's for you and for the company's best. Because our tendency as leaders is to do one of the other. It's to be all fun and, you know, throw balloons around and, you know, pop the cork and all this. And then when things go south, then you turn into nightmare leader and you get mad and you're you're going to you. you get very serious, you get very cold. Neither one of those is a good leader. You're very direct, but at the same time, you're very warm with the person. If you learn that, you always win. All right, folks, I get very personal in these interviews. I tell you what I'm learning from these

books and things of that nature, and I've got to tell you, and I'll tell you this, John, Chapter 8, change I deserve to I am responsible. If you were to cut that chapter out and just drop it all over the United States from planes, it would be, one of the most valuable things that you could ever do. And I really do think it is so valuable to the parent, to each of us individually, because we all fight this stuff. There's so many times in life, John, we all get into the I deserve moments. And when we get this perspective that you outline in this chapter, I think it is so helpful. So just a broad question to start here, what does that look like? give us some examples of how we can start saying, I am responsible where maybe we're thinking

and want to say, I deserve. Well, you know, one of the things I do with business and leaders is I studied neuroscience, Ken, because there's so much information about how the brain works and how it affects anything from mission to vision to strategy to profit to revenues. It's a big, big deal. And our words are huge in changing how our companies work and how we work. And so one of those is just to begin to retrain yourself out of one phrase into another phrase. Like when my wife and I were raised in their kids in the early days, we just heard this stuff about, well, I deserve a cell phone.

Why do you deserve a cell phone? Well, because everybody else has one. Well, interesting logic. Or I deserve a car at 16. Oh, same logic, right? Right. And I got kind of concerned about it. So I had the big daddy family meeting and I said, where's a term we're not going to use here in the Townsend family anymore?

And it's I deserve. We're done with that. And we're going to start using the words, I'm responsible. And so you bring it to my attention. I'll bring it to your attention because we all kind of do it. And it changed everything. It really helped our kids to think my life is kind of my problem. I'm not waiting for somebody.

And here's why I say this, not only in parenting, but in business, Ken. I deserve is the most disempowering phrase you can say. It robs you of your power. And I'm responsible is the most empowering. I'll give you three examples. I deserve a great marriage. Oh, okay. Well, so I'll sit on my butt and wait for somebody to love me because I'm special.

Well, you're never going to get anybody, you know, because you're waiting for somebody external to you, external to you, the government or God or the church, or your neighbors, or your spouse or the person you're dating. You're waiting for them to recognize your specialness and it'll never happen. So you have no power. Versus, I'm responsible to do what it takes to have a good marriage. I'm going to get my act together. I'm going to pick up my socks in the morning. I'm going to tell somebody I love them, and I'm going to kiss them with the cheek,

and I'm going to listen to them. That's very different. That's powerful. You can do something about that. Second one, I deserve financial freedom. I want to wait for somebody to make sure that I've got enough in the pot to retire. Well, I've been a Dave Ramsey friend and fan for long enough to know that that puppy doesn't work. As opposed to I'm responsible to do what it takes to stop drinking four lattes a day

and put those $7 in the kitty like Dave talks about, I'm responsible to do that to have a good future. That's empowering. Thirdly, I deserve a great job. Well, what does that mean? Well, somebody owes me a job. And I'll just sit here and I'll be disempowered and wait for somebody outside of me again

where I have no choice or control to provide a good job for me. Versus, I'm responsible to do what it takes to have a good job. I'm responsible to have a skill or a talent. I'm responsible to get training, to become competent. I'm responsible to learn how to need a job. network and have coffees and do headhunters and have meetings. I'm responsible to interview well. I'm responsible to keep the boss understanding that I'm bringing value. There's power in that. So it's just hugely different. It's a way to looking at how you use your words.

By the way, John, I don't know that I'm ever going to see you on a political campaign, but that would be a great plank in today's world. We are responsible. We don't deserve. That is really good stuff. And that is a huge thing that's driving our economic engine in a lot of ways. And with small business owners, who are the backbone of the economy, they're facing that, right? I deserve $20 an hour. Well, no, you don't. You might want it, but I don't know if you deserve it. That's right. Now, this is an important distinction because we don't want to throw the deserve word out like it's evil, because you actually outline in this chapter, there is a right way to deserve, and I think this is an important distinction now that we've kind of set this thing up.

What is a right way to deserve? Let's look at a healthy deserve, if you will. Sure. There are some healthy deserves. For example, a comp package is something somebody does deserve because it's work for hire. Somebody comes to me and wants to work for me, and the comp package is there. It's something we negotiate, and they do deserve it because they work for it. There's a transactional level to this. But the people who want something for nothing, that's when you got to draw the line. That's right. So when you wrote this book, were you surprised by anything as you begin to put this together and ask that question because entitlement is a word that everybody throws around. But when you think about a corporate setting and some of the extenuating factors,

is there anything that surprised you in writing this book? Yeah, honestly, it was how easy it is to change all this. Like you, I've been seeing it in all the media and this sort of thing for years. And I thought, I'm just going to be writing about this tsunami that's going to happen. And I'm just going to be just saying, well, it's really bad. Have a nice life. Can't do anything. and it was so not the truth, that these skills in the book, if you apply them in your business to yourself and in your family, you really can't turn it around. And the reason I say that is because, very simple, life works better when you do it the hard way. The entitled way sooner or later fails. Life just works better.

The way I look at it is there's these physics of life can. It'd be like there's this river, and in the river are the physics of responsibility and love, and concern and truthfulness and honesty and all those things. Those are the physics that make that river run, let's say, south. And then people that are entitled aren't working that way. They're into them and doing shortcuts and making it all about them and nothing but video games all day. Well, they're in a little canoe going north

because they're not living according to the laws of physics the way the universe is created. Well, sooner or later, that little canoe should capsize unless there's somebody enabling them or rescuing them, which is a bad thing. But if a person says, you know, I'm not going to fight this river, love and responsibility and a good work ethic and rolling your sleeves up and doing difficult things and perseverance, I'm going to turn my ship around and go that way.

They should work. So life works better, and that's why I began to realize, gosh, this is easier than I thought. Yeah. And you bring up a good point here because I talk a lot about parenting through these questions to our guests because I think it's so important. And you mentioned at the top, you know, that this is, This is a huge part in the cure, is the parental role. But is it with this hard way, I mean, what you just said, I think is you're making the case for the importance of struggle in our kids' lives.

And as a parent, and I know it, I have one child with the learning disability. And it's debilitating for him at times. And we want to come in and mitigate all of that. And there's got to be a fine line between where we help versus, hey, this is your struggle. You've got to learn to get through that. Is that right? Oh, my gosh. That's your book.

I mean, that's where it all happens is no matter whether somebody like your kid who's suffering with an L.D. Or somebody who's working with an who's intellectual challenge or somebody who has a physical challenge, there's always this sweet spot, always, always, always, where you find out this person can do this much for themselves and then they need external help. And I've found two things that you can always tell. Number one is their attitude. There's some people that come in life and say, well, I'm a victim. and everybody's got to like solve my problems. And I don't care if they're a genius and they're the next Steve jobs or

they're somebody with great disabilities, they'll never make it because that attitude will kill you. So do they say, I want to do the very best I can do. Whatever my limitations or whatever my ceiling is, I want to go to that level. They're going to make it. Number two is they've got to have somebody that when they get to that point of maybe your child kind of says, I can't read this stuff, or I don't understand what they're saying or the teacher's saying,

do I need to get something audible instead of something that I'm looking at because text is hard or however it goes. They get to that point where they're uncomfortable and they get to the point of I can't. And that I can't is not anything manipulative like, well, I don't want to. I really can't.

I've done everything I can. I'm sweating. I'm trying hard. That's when they do need someone to come along and say, okay, I'll take it the rest of the way. And that's how they win. That's great. That's really, really good.

And transferable, by the way, for coaches that are listening in, for your teams, that's transferable to leaders, as well. All right, John, before I let you go, I love the final chapter, take a meaningful risk every week. Again, this chapter is just chalk full of goodness. And you actually introduce a phrase that I want to really work on in my life. I want to implement this, and that's this lifestyle of cliff diving. So, what does it look like to take a meaningful risk every week? And then what's the payoff? Why do you

stole us to do this? Well, when they do the research, I study lifetime research as well as neuroscience, and you look at what they call the longitudinal studies, like those people, and they've measured them for 50 years, or they've measured people at the end of life in their 80s and 90s, they found out something about a thing called regret. And let me pose this to you, Ken. It's kind of a dunk here. What do you think people regretted more at the end of their life?

When they look back over the seasons and the years and the decades and kind of evaluated, okay, this journey, do you think they regretted more of the things they did do or the things they didn't do? Didn't do by a long shot. By something like 85%. It wasn't all the bad choices I made with some of them, but mainly it was, I didn't take a risk. I didn't ask that gal out because I thought she was like way above my pay grade, you know,

or I didn't try for that new job because I thought, well, I just hate to fail. It feels so crummy inside, so I'll keep it safe. and I realized that people shouldn't have to live like that. People should live their lives as if it ended right now, maybe I'm 23 or maybe I'm 83, but if it ended right now and the bus hit me, I would go, it's been a good ride. I've squeezed all the juice out of that limba that I can squeeze out of life. And so that's where I came up with the meaningful risk concept because that's the only way to have that sort of life is that you've got to train yourself to get out of your fear.

Fear will stop you from growing your career, from making that next move, from going scale to find a new opportunities, to find new products, to reading the market. Nobody's ever saying you've got to go like Vegas odds. I don't mean Vegas risk where you're just throwing the crap dice. But I mean well thought out through advisors around you. You've got to take a risk in little things and big things every week from a new sport you want to try or a new hobby you want to try at home or take your spouse out dancing or do something different with your kids.

But push yourself a little bit every week and the juices flow and you feel alive and you're a little bit scary as you dive off the cliff, and you come away, and most of the time, it's going to come out okay. Now, I want to put you on the spot because you're the psychologist. You can handle this, but I love the word meaningful that you have put in front of the risk. You just said that. Obviously, we're not talking about going to Vegas and putting $200,000 on black. You know, we're talking about a meaningful risk. So let me ask you this, if there's an area in our life, because you assert in the book that it's our only hope, risk is our only hope for being better in anything.

So let's say there's an area maybe where we're stuck, maybe we're not growing, and picking a risk that allows us to prepare to learn from that risk that will help us in everyday life. Is that what we're looking for? Yeah, let me give an example because it's kind of like if you can flesh it out. Be vulnerable with somebody this week. That's a risk, especially for entrepreneurs and business people. We're taught and trained to be Superman or superwoman, have the big S on our chest and have it all together. but we know the research says that's not who wins, who's going to follow somebody like that, they can't identify with them.

Be vulnerable this week. Go to somebody and say, you know, the Smith account kind of went south and that was me. I was asleep at the wheel, or I've been checked out, or I really didn't handle the strategy here well. You'll be amazed at the people that go, oh my gosh, this person knows what they're doing. Thank you. Now, the crazy sick people will say, oh, there's leverage I can use against you, but who wants, you know, who wants toxic people anyway? So be vulnerable.

Second thing is to try something that you're not good at. Now, maybe that means that you're really good at sales, but you're awful at IT. Learn something about IT. Take a risk about IT. You'll never be the next IT guru because it takes too much time. But figure something out about IT. Conversely, if you're good at IT, learn something about sales. Do something, use a muscle that is just kind of undeveloped.

Thirdly, tell the truth sometimes. Oh, there's an option. You know, sit down with somebody and say, you know, I have a, I, been kind of avoiding this because it's difficult and we're friends, but I need to tell you something about how it is that you come across to people. If you can be vulnerable, if you can do things you don't do well, and if you can be direct and honest, things will change. He is Dr. John Townsend, New York Times bestselling author of Boundaries, and he has this book is, it's so good, folks. It's entitled The Entitlement Cure, Finding Success in Doing Hard Things the Right Way. Well, Doc, I got to tell you,

I'm better for it. I could go and another hour, but unfortunately, we can't do that to you. But I know I speak on behalf of our audience when I say we appreciate you, and we're better for this. Thank you very much, Ken. Well, folks, so much there. I mean, literally so much there. And I want to go back to just share something with you that I hope will encourage your heart. I'm going to be very transparent, going to be very vulnerable. In fact, John said, hey, be vulnerable somebody this week. So I'm to be vulnerable with you folks in a desire to help you. But again, chapter 8, the book that I said, I think is the best chapter of change I deserve to I am responsible. I think this is so huge.

And I know from the data, I know from the emails we get that you folks, you listeners are hard chargers. You want to matter. You know you matter. You're driving at a life of significance. You're doing great work. But here's the deal with hard drivers, people who are hungry for more, who want to get the most out of life, who want to leave themselves spent, if you will, on the field of life when it's all said and done, we can slip really quickly into I deserve and an unhealthy I deserve. What I mean by that is, is obviously we dress that with John. A healthy I deserve is, hey, if you work hard, you do well, you deserve your compensation that's been agreed to and all that stuff, and you deserve that when you do good work.

But what I'm talking about is when the next hasn't happening fast enough for you. And I always struggle with this. and I'm loving everything that I do. I mean, what an incredible opportunity, an incredible platform I have. But here's the reality. I'm hungry. I want more. Unashamed to say that.

And sometimes when it doesn't happen, when whatever it is that you want so badly to happen that you're working so hard towards, you're putting in the licks at the plate, right? You're doing what it takes behind the scenes. You're being humble. You're being hungry. You're being smart. You're an ideal team player. Whatever it is.

And you aspire. You have ambition. for something, and it's not happening quickly enough. It's not happening fast enough. What happens is if we're not careful, we slip into I deserve. You're doing everything right, but it doesn't mean that you deserve it. It doesn't mean that. It may turn into that as a reward for your work. But be very careful. That was a takeaway for me. We've got to be careful when we want something so badly that we don't slip into a selfish I deserve and we say I am responsible to keep a great attitude. I am responsible to maintain my role as a team player, an ideal team player.

I am responsible to keep getting up like I would tell my kids to do every day and persevering with patience and putting my best effort. A little phrase that I get with the Coleman kiddos every day. It drove them nuts for about three or four months, Eric, but now, they finish the sentence. I look at them all and I say, do your best and they chime back to me and forget the rest. So that's my takeaway. If I do my best and forget the rest, I'm going to stay in a I am responsible frame of mind and that will empower me to persevere with patience. But if I slip into I deserve, I get very selfish. And that weakens me. It weakens. It weakens my resolve. I think the same is for you. So if you're in a period right now, you maybe get a little

bad attitude, getting a little selfish inside your head, things aren't happening to you fast enough, or for you fast enough, rather, make sure that you're in an I am responsible mindset, not a I deserve mindset. Really good stuff. Again, the book is entitled The Entitlement Cure, Finding Success and Doing Hard Things the Right Way. I'm going to tell you something for leaders. I think this is a must for leading people, but leading yourself, because we can all slip into entitlement really, really quickly because we just happen to be selfish people. So hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. Really, really looking forward to your feedback. I'd love to know. How did this hit you? We'd love to know this. It's great information for Eric and I as we continue to shape future episodes.

Podcast at entreleadership.com. We'd love to hear from you. Podcast at entreleadership.com. Well, folks, I can tell you something right now. Your pockets are full of gold. If you really paid attention to that conversation, you are winning. And so we want to make sure that you get a chance to win one of the five copies of the book that we're going to give away. We're thankful to Dr. John Townsend for this. And so you can go to this week's show notes. It's episode 170 at entreleadership.com slash podcast. Entreleadership.com slash podcast.

And there will be a form there that will explain everything you need to do to enter to win. And hopefully you win the free book. speaking of free stuff that takes you no effort at all but really helps you win and by the way i have been using these templates it's always fun eric by the way when when the host gets to use the resources do you know what i mean like sometimes you give away stuff that you don't actually get to get to have and these uh these email templates they're just so stinking practical and i just a word to the wise here even if you're not selling all the time because these are 10 emails you need to close a sale that's what this resource is.

You can take this stuff and edit it. I mean, they're doing all the hard work for you. So, you know, use it. 10 emails you need to close a sale. Who doesn't want that? What's wrong with you? Take them up on this offer. Infusionsoft.com slash free email templates.

Or you can just click on the Infusionsoft links in the show notes. Of course, I told you it's episode 170, entreleadership.com slash podcast. I'm telling you you need to use this resource. It's free. Go. And the goodness continues. Our Entree leadership team has got to give away this month on how to create core values, another incredible resource that's absolutely free. Now, core values is something that I think many times people miss the mark.

Organizations try. Their heart is good, but they just kind of throw some things on some letterhead, maybe on the wall somewhere, but they don't come alive. So this is such a great resource because it's not just about how to create core values, but I mean, how do you make them come alive? And Dave Ramsey and the leadership team here at Ramsey Solutions have done an amazing job. You know, how do you create them? How do you communicate them so that they actually become a part of the fabric?

Right? Just cut a company right down the middle. Pull them apart. Pull out all their wiring. pull out all the threading. And when core values are one of the threads that you see, you've got a sustainable company. You've got a company that's probably winning and winning big because it's a part of everything they do. It's interwoven.

That's what we're going after for here. As leaders, core values only have power when they are a part of the culture. And so this tool will help you begin this process. sustain this process and win with this process. You've got a cheat sheet that helps you kind of figure out, hey, what does it look like for our organization? And these become guiding principles. Now, I've got to tell you, I'm looking at the list here, and these core values are plastered everywhere. They're on the stairwell. They're in the conference room where our company almost 600 strong meets every Monday and Wednesday morning. They're everywhere. And more importantly,

they're on the tongues of our leaders. Like, they just come out all the time. They're in normal conversation. That's what you want. So Eric, the producer said, hey, would you pick one that you kind of like, that you really resonate with? Of course, I love them all. But the one that I love, and this is Dave's mentality, and I love this about Dave,

shoot sacred cows. It's kind of alarming. But it's really good. And if you don't know the little inside baseball, I like to give you this kind of stuff for every once in a while. Dave's a big gun guy. I mean, loves guns. Big Second Amendment guy. So am I. I'm just not like into collecting guns and all that stuff. I love to shoot them. You know, it's very exciting. But Dave, you know, this is the mentality here. Shoot sacred cows. And the byline or the tagline, if you will, under that core value makes it come alive.

We stick by our principles. We challenge tradition. So if you've never heard this idea of sacred cows, you know, like, What's the idea here? If you've not, you know, heard this before. A sacred cow is a tradition. Something you've been doing forever. And it becomes a sacred cow. It's just this big thing that moves slowly, turns its neck slowly. It's always chewing something. You know what I mean? It's just a cow. It's just there. And nobody knows why the cow is there. It's just been there forever. That's the idea of the sacred cow. That's my version. And so when we say shoot the sacred cow, we're asking the question, is this tradition, this thing that we've been doing forever? Well, does it match up with our guiding principles?

And when it doesn't, we don't keep feeding the cow. We don't create a separate little corner of the company for the cow to hang out and chew his cud and moo and stink and just stand there. No, we shoot it in the head. We shoot the cow. And then here's this again, this is me. Okay, here's what's great about our organization. You don't just shoot the cow. You got to drag the cow out and you got to get rid of it.

You got to burn it. Or else if you shoot the cow and you drag it out back, guess what happens? It rots. It stinks. It reminds people. People can see it. I think when you shoot the sacred cow, man,

I'm telling you, make it a spectacle. Shoot the thing, drag it out, create a bonfire, burn it, it's gone. And then sweep up the ashes, throw the ashes away. There is no evidence of said sacred cow anymore around here. So there you go. It occurs to me that might be a little graphic for some of you,

but I think it teaches well. So there you go. My favorite core value. Shoot sacred cows. Drag them out. Burn them. Sweep up the ashes. So hey, you want to take us up on this tool? EL values. EL values. That's one word. El values. Text that to 33444. 3344. Or of course, you can get the link in our show notes. Just go to entreleadership.com slash podcast and the link will be there for you to get this amazing resource. Hey, our summit event, the Entry Leadership Summit, I think quickly becoming the premier business event in America. May 21 through 24, 2017 in sunny Orlando, Florida. The lineup is ridiculous.

Robert Hershevik from Shark Tank, Simon Seneca. You've heard multiple times on this podcast. Lou Holtz, the legendary former Notre Dame coach, will be with us as well. Dr. John Maxwell, Pat Lynchione, Christy Wright, Chris Hogan, and. Dave Ramsey, it's jam-packed. We're going to have nearly 2,000 business owners and leaders. These are all-star men and women, all in one room. I mean, the energy is palpable.

The price is going to go up by 300 bucks this Friday. So we're releasing on a Monday. So you look at your calendar. October the 28th is what you're looking for. Because after October the 28th, the price increases $300. So get your seat before the prices go up. Entreleadership.com slash summit. Entreleadership.com slash summit or click on the link below this episode at ontraeleadership.com

slash podcast. Hey, I'm super grateful for Dr. John Townsend hanging out with this. Really, really spoke to me personally. I'm sure he challenged and lifted you as well. And I want to say a special thank you to all of you that attended the online streaming Entree Leadership One Day event. Boy, it was so much fun. and we loved interacting with you.

We have an amazing tribe, and we don't ever want to tire of saying, thank you. We get just as much energy and goodness from you as hopefully we are giving back to you. So thank you so much. We want you to subscribe to this podcast.

It helps us, review it on iTunes, and send us your feedback. Always welcome, podcast at entreleadership.com. On behalf of Eric, the producer, and the entire Entree Leadership team, thank you for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.