EntreLeadership - #303: 4 Steps to Kill Gossip with Stephen Mansfield

Episode Date: January 28, 2019

While chitchatting about the latest office rumor or griping about a coworker’s incompetence may feel harmless, New York Times best-selling author and leadership expert Stephen Mansfield says it’s anything but. In fact, gossip breeds distrust and can quickly spiral out of control, robbing your organization of morale, productivity and creativity. Join us as Stephen shares four things that every leader must do to shut down gossip for good.   entreleadership.com/podcast Stephen Mansfield's website Free resource: No Gossip Implementation Guide  Learn more about EntreLeadership Master Series   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I hate gossip. And I got to tell you, man, I fight it. We will not have it. I will fire your butt for this. Helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Andre Leadership. Now, here's your host, Ken Coleman. Coming to you from the Music City, this is the broadcast of leaders, by leaders, four leaders.

Thank you so much for joining the Conradict. conversation. Our feature conversation is our good friend Stephen Mansfield. He has been a guest on episode 135 and 218. He joins us to talk about gossip. Gossip is a massive issue. It's everywhere. And most offices, I've got some pockets of it. Some are rife with it. It's everywhere. It can be defeated and you can lead through it. How do you do that? We're going to take that issue on in-depth this episode because gossip is an enemy point blank. So we're going to talk about that. We've got a great implementing no gossip guide from our entree leadership team. So how do you take what you're going to hear from Stephen and then apply it to the workplace? That resource is going to help you.

And then how about some real Main Street testimony on gossip? We've got some master series attendees who share their stories as business owners on how gossip was affecting their office and then what did to do about it. So you're going to hear from that group of people as well. And that's the kind of stuff, by the way, that will really be, I think, a beautiful tie to this entire episode. It gives you some real testimonies from some men and women who are leading like you are, who have defeated this insidious enemy called Gossip. So let's get right to it. Here's our good friend, Stephen Mansfield. All right, well, this is a great treat many times we've had Stephen Mansfield on the program. I'm trying to think four or five times since I've been here, and we're so excited to having back. He is a part-time

Nashvilleian. It's good to have you in studio. First time to have you in this studio. Yes, it is. You were in the old small studio. This is more befitting of a man your size. Thank you very much for accommodating me. Exactly. All right, so you were recently with us. I'm thinking a couple months ago, spoke to our entire team. And we wanted to have you back to talk specifically about gossip. It is one of the core values at Ramsey Solutions. You know this well. You're very close friends with Dave. And that is a no gossip policy. That is clearly stated, no gossip policy as a value. It's a very oddly worded value, but it underscores the importance of what Dave thinks about this idea of gossip. And so you have, with your vast experience and all the different type of leadership

positions you've held, all the different types of leaders that you've consulted, companies as well, Just curious, before we dive into this and some of the stuff you shared when you talked to our team, gossip, why does Dave and why should leaders have such a strong stance against gossip? Because it absolutely destroys the noble culture that leadership is meant to build. I believe leadership is mainly about building a culture and a culture of nobility and success and empowerment and vision and all that kind, even a little bit of healing, even though we're not churches for the most part. And I am 100% convinced that gossip destroys that. So if you can be harmed by the very people who are supposed to be your team members and

igniting your destiny and partnering with you to accomplish great things, then you're never going to fully give your heart, you're never going to be all out, you're never going to give your whole. That's why gossip is destructive. And Dave's been around enough, experienced enough, seen enough, been in enough churches, led enough organizations that he's seen the damage of it. All right. So gossip is everywhere.

Yeah. It's absolutely everywhere. Yeah. So we're going to talk about how little work. can do some unbelievably powerful things in a moment. It's a great illustrative, never heard it before. But I want to further set some context. In your professional opinion, with your experience,

do you believe that you can truly have an organization that is largely free of, let's at least say, a rampant or constant gossip? Yes, but you have to be intentional about it. You have to identify what gossip is. You have to tell people what kind of culture you're wanting to build. You have to ban it, and you have to confront it. If you don't do those things, then gossip will seep in.

Gossip, in a sense, is what the insecure do. It's what fallen human beings do. You know, if I feel, let's say I feel competitive with you in your role here at this friend. And somebody mentions you at a restaurant. And I go, well, Ken Coleman, you know, we all know about him. I don't have to finish the dang sentence.

That's right. And folks will go away going, well, I guess I need to think less of Kim. I need to be careful. I guess he is what I heard or that rumor. Well, now we've just totally destroyed your reputation. limited your effectiveness. My point is that unless you just absolutely declare war on it, it will prevail. Okay. So I tease this enough. Let's get to this. Barnacles. It won't go away. I grew up on the coast of Virginia. And so I spent many, many summer day,

certainly weekends through the warm season in Virginia Beach and even sometimes going down to the outer banks of North Carolina. And I've been around a lot of water vessels. So when you mentioned this idea of a barnacle in our staff meeting. I thought, oh, I know exactly what a barnacle is. They're kind of ugly and gross. I've seen ships come out of the water and they're all over the place. Here's what's amazing. We're talking about gossip here. You said that barnacles can slow down nuclear-powered ships by as much as 40 percent. That's true. That's the U.S. Navy. I'm no expert on nautical things. But how is that possible? Well, they attach to everything they can get to. They can get inside engines.

They can be added weight on the hull. With smaller vessels, they can crack the hull. They just add weight. They diminish the, I don't know the proper term in nautical matters, but the aerodynamics, like a plane's made in an aerodynamic way. If you built a brick house on the top of a plane, it wouldn't fly as well. Maybe it wouldn't fly at all. So barnacles are the brick house attached to the hull of a ship, and they can reduce,

even though, of course, nuclear-powered ships are unbelievably powerful because they reduce that ability to move through the water, the aerodic. dynamics, whatever that's called in nautical matters, it dramatically destroys it. I think gossip does the same thing to us. Well, you use this as a beautiful illustration. You begin to build this case for this is what a negative comment or gossip can do. It kind of leads to one. And that's what barnacles do. It's like they just expand, they're breeding constantly. And so they just kind of grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, and if the Navy spends $500 million a year to scrape these barnacles off the ships, then that means there is an operational cost. Let's just be real here.

There's an operational cost. There's an efficiency cost. There's a, you've got to be, to your point, intentional to scrape the barnacles and get up. So how does a leader who's never before thought, hmm, that's probably true of my organization as well? Yeah. How do they begin to scrape the metaphorical barnacles off? You have to deal with individuals first and show them what gossip is doing to them and the barnacles are being attached to their lives. And then I see companies do everything, from having skits to encouraging podcasts to having

teaching sessions to passing books around to make sure they understand the damage it can do to a leadership culture. I mean, we're sitting in an office building here. And if I go from office to office and at every office I go to, somebody gossips, it's not just what I hear that I might have a bad attitude in my earlier illustration of you or somebody else. It's what happens to me. I get tainted.

Things attached to me. I become more cynical. I become more burdened. I become dimmer of vision. So they're like barnacles attaching to me. And as we've been playing around with, barnacles reproduce very rapidly. So it doesn't take much of an embedding of bitterness of cynicism, of loss of vision. You know, if I hear 10 bits of gossip, and of course this is a great place to work, I'm just using this as an example. If I walk through these offices and I hear 10 people gossip about other people in the company or Dave, well, I leave here burdened, less visionary, less motivated, less creative, less interested in the team. Let's say you and I work together. I'm hearing some gossip and I'm like, well, I'm just be a little bit cautious, a little bit suspicious, hold off because I've heard he's done terrible things to other people. Probably not even true.

But my point is that I leave now, in a labor sense, I'm a worse worker. I'm less productive. Now, if you have a whole culture built on that, things go badly. And by the way, when this happens at a leadership level, at the C-suite level, this is when you start having stupid decisions, you start having firings, you start having these expensive lawsuits because gossip prevails. And I've actually sat in court and watched people go, you know what? I don't know what I was thinking.

I just heard some gossip, but they're now going to pay a $200 million bill for something stupid they did because they were embittered by gossip. And that's at every level, at a spiritual level, at a financial level, at a productivity level, at a human happiness level, gossip is our enemy. We've been talking about it from a leadership perspective. How do leaders address it, remove it, guard against it? You've touched on that. But let's talk about people that are listening right now who they're not the ultimate leader.

So maybe they're not a C-sweater. They're a leader. Or maybe they're just, hey, I'm part of the team. And I walk up on this. Or I'm just minding my business having a conversation, right? And then it goes from a healthy, productive conversation to, oh, by the way, did you hear about? And now all of a sudden, you are a victim. It's a drive-by gossip, right?

You're there. I'm just curious. What is the healthy, even though you may not be in a leadership position to deal with it, what is the right leadership, healthy professional decision when you get kind of pulled into something like that. If you've ever been in a conversation where everybody's crabbing and finally somebody says, well, you know, he really is a good guy, though, and it changes the whole culture. That's what's got to happen.

I walk up on a gossip session. People are griping about somebody. And I say simply, well, I'll tell you what, I'm going to choose to believe the best until I have some facts to the contrary. You guys have a good day. Or I'm going to say, you know, I know Bob, and that doesn't sound like him, let me take this to him. Let's straighten this out.

You get to the heart of it. You lance that boil. You don't just let it hang in the air. Cowardly leaders, though. See, the problem with gossip, it kind of makes us feel good about ourselves. Like I say, if I'm being competitive with you and somebody gossip's about you, go, well, I really am better than Ken Coleman. You know, I guess if I have that need, and most people do.

So the point is you've got to lance that boil right there. You can't let that grow. You can't let that hang in the air. So good leaders, without being harsh, show people what they're doing. I'll tell you what, I'm going to believe the best. I'll tell you what, if with your permission, I'm going to bring this up to him, and we'll get this straightened out. I'll come back to you tomorrow.

Now, I'm not threatening him, but I sort of letting him know, We are going to let that happen here. We're going to deal with facts. And I think this is a good guy. And by the way, I'll do the same for you. So when we get that cleaned up, the guy who did the gossiping now says, hey, there's a better way to go and I'll be supported by these guys. And the guy who's gossiped about isn't harmed.

And the culture around me, the leader changes. So I believe in lovingly confronting it, going with some solutions, getting some answers, and modeling a different spirit. Now, we've been talking about this very important issue from a reactive standpoint, which is important. But let's talk proactive. because you really did do a wonderful job in front of our team given us, okay, now this is human nature.

And so we've had to talk reactively right now. But now I want to talk about that, okay, we can also set the tone and kind of remove gossip by elevating the conversation to where we begin to as leaders model the way. And that's very, very enticing for people. They go, oh, and even every time I hear this leader speaking, it's affirming.

You talked about it, setting people free life-giving. I'll give you a quote from one of your dear friends, Dave Foster passed away many years ago. Watch your mouth. Don't say it if it isn't helpful, hopeful, or promotes healing. Right. Break that down. Yeah, exactly.

Well, one of the questions you ought to ask yourself is, do you have the ability to praise other people? And if not, why not? Dave Foster, dear friend of mine, he would say, oh, Ken Coleman, gosh, he inspires me. What a great guy. Now, he might actually have known that you have some failures or, you know, got angry one day and kicked the car or whatever. But that's not what's going to come up.

Ken's awesome, man. He changed me. He recommended a book that changed my life. So the first is, can you speak positively people? Can you praise them? Can you tap into the higher purpose of people and their higher nobility? And then second of all, you have to ask yourself, and I've had to do this because I'm good with words.

I have a sharp tongue. I have to be careful. I've had to learn over the years. The second thing you have to ask yourself is what is the purpose of what you're saying? I often had to stop and say, why am I taking this guy's head off verbally to three other friends? Why am I doing that? And I usually find it's some insecurity, some wound, some disappointment in my own life.

So when I deal with that stuff, I no longer am feeling empowered or emboldened by talking nasty about people, as I say in the South. So a lot of it has to do with looking at your own motivation for something. Once you realize that gossip is damaging and destructive, then ask yourself why you do it. Solutions I offered at the beginning, well, we're all flawed and we're all fallen. I mean, that's fine as a cultural analysis. But for Stephen Mansfield, I got to stop and go, what is my pain or insecurity that I have three times today talk nasty about people who think I love them. What's going on with me?

And usually I'm feeling small or I'm feeling like a failure today or, you know, I don't know, I've just sustained some disappointing news and I'm feeling sinfully empowered by talking bad about Ken Coleman. And once I realize that, I go, oh, yuck, let's get rid of that garbage. And also I, because I have the illustration of the barnacles in my head, I'm fearing it reproducing. I'm fearing it reproducing. I'm fearing bitterness and darkness and anger and competition and those things reproducing in my soul. So I try to use Dave's guidelines. What's healing? What's ennobling?

What can I say to Ken or about Ken that's going to make him live better, be empowered, be inspired, go home with a greater sense of himself? And by the way, enjoy being in my presence. Because we might sit there and tee with people who are gossips. We don't admire them or want to be around them very much. That's exactly right. So this is a good example. So when we begin to think this way, then speak this way, then what happens is, is people begin

and notice a difference. Because this is not, would you say, normal modes of communication in an American office place? We don't see this as a whole, right? But where I see it, it's magnetic. It is, it is, it just radiates. It just radiates. I mean, I know people who will actually take less money and live in a difficult place so they can be part of that culture because they're so tired of it otherwise, tired of the opposite otherwise. And so I'm really convinced that if you think about your life, you think about yourself, you think about your leadership in terms of what kind of culture you have going on around you and how people are in a sense feeding on your life, then you will change some things. Now, that doesn't mean you can't have smack talking fun.

I'm an ex-joc. You know, before you walked in the studio, I was talking smack with the tech guys. I mean, you know, I enjoy all that guy stuff, all that locker room stuff. But it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be hurting people. It doesn't have to be picking on people. You and I can sit here and laugh and tease each other and never nip into each other at all. Well, that's, so I'm not talking about not having fun. But I am talking about asking yourself why you have a need to hurt someone. Right. Why is it you're so small that you feel empowered by speaking ill of someone? And by the way, if you intend to be a leader, if you intend to empower others,

if you intend to inspire others, this is the opposite of that. And I mean, they might laugh and tee in the room, but when they walk out and they go, I wouldn't follow Mansfield to the men's room. That's right. If he's gossiping and sticking knives in people's back. Before we move on, I want to get your opinion on something. You know, you and I both have had the privilege of interviewing people. We love asking questions in our personal life.

It just occurred to me. I was sitting here thinking, listening to you, and one of the things we've got to do, beyond being reactive, fixing it once it's happening, being proactive, setting a different standard and tracking it others. I just want to know what you think that leaders ought to do in an interview setting. They're interviewing somebody. I recently did a talk at Andre Master's series about the intentional interview. So I basically was teaching my process for how I prepare for like a Condolees interview and then how I conduct it. But one of the stats I quoted in that talk was that the greatest amount of bad hires actually happened because of a poor interview. Yes. Right? So, we all understand that. That's not a shocking piece of information.

But I'm just curious, what would you tell leaders maybe that they need to be looking for and maybe asking specifically in an interview setting to find out if a person has a bent towards the negative? Because the reason I'm putting you on the spot, A, you can handle it. Yeah. I've never thought of this myself. So we're going to have some fun with this. Yeah. And here's why I'm asking. I believe that most people are putting their best foot forward.

They're putting their best face on. So we're getting a little bit of acting in an interview. No question. Even people that are high integrity. No question. It's like the first date. Well, that's what you want them to do. Otherwise, they show up in their PJs, but their hair all mess up.

Right. But I still believe that a question is a scalpel. Right. And I wrote that in my first book, it's a scalpel. Yes. I believe that. So what would we be asking to get a sense for if somebody, ah, boy, they may be a person that the, as soon as they get comfortable,

they're in here four weeks and all of a sudden they're just, they're a barnacle. What you want to know on that score and a bunch of others is how in touch are they with their own evil tendencies and how are they coaching themselves out of it? So if I'm interviewing you for example, that's good. Follow me? If I'm interviewing you, all of us have flaws. All of us have a dark side. That's right.

All of us have negative tendencies. The difference between Ken Coleman, the noble gentleman, the fine leader, the great interviewer, etc. And Ken Coleman, the guy nobody wants to work with, is how in touch are you with your own evil tendencies and how are you working against them? So I ask questions like this. What's the moment in leadership that you're most ashamed of and how have you corrected it? You see what I mean? I'm not trying to embarrass you. No, no, no, no.

I want to know that you, yeah, I told the – I'm making this up now, of course. None of this is true of you. I told a nasty sex joke or I said something anti-Semitic. or I gossiped about somebody. Just, I want to know what did you do. Take us back to a dark hole. And then I want to hear what I'm really listening for it because I assume everybody's got dark side.

What did you do to get yourself out of it? Yes. You know what I mean? Yes. I mean, I've had people say to me in interviews, I was raised in an unbelievably racist home. And when I got out in the world and I began to realize that,

I did these four or five things. I kind of like joined a black church. I mean, you're just in the opposite direction. So that's what I want to know is, In your case, if I'm interviewing you, I know that Ken Coleman's got flaws because he's human being walking in the room. It's not because of our relationship. I'm just saying, in theory, everybody I know is got flaws. Do you know it?

Do you confront it? What do you do to be proactive against it? And let me add another thing. Go ahead, sure. I want to see, I want to watch your countenance. I want to read you as you take us back to this dark. Because if you take us to a dark place and it ain't so dark, I'm questioning that. Because here's my point.

If I'm telling you times where I'm stuck my gum under a table is not the answer on the one. If I'm telling you where I've been intense and impatient and gotten on somebody because I think that they dropped the ball and they were incompetent. And I just was very unhappy and way too intense. As I recount that story, anybody with some decent perceptive abilities are going to be able to see, do I, as I recount the story, do I feel, is there a sense of regret about it? Right. So I'm just adding that to what you just said. Because everything you said, those steps are good. But I also want to see, does it make it just a little bit uncut?

Because it ought to. Yeah. I believe in grace, you and I do and forgiveness. But even when we revisit, we ought to go, oh, gosh, I wish I could. I'd have taken that back. And what do you do with that discomfort? If you dissolve in tears, you might be an emotional gushy person who doesn't ever have rational thought about your flaws.

Well, in combating gossip, our topic, I want to know that you can look at something that's wrong with you and have engaged in a process to fix it. Right. So, yeah. It would not be a disaster, but go, hey, I feel bad about that. I've watched people get angry. Yeah. I've been on the other side of a one way, mirror situation, window situation where I'm watching

and they don't know during an interview. Oh. Which some companies do. And they'd say, there are people over there watching it where you're never going to meet them. Right. I've watched them get angry. I've watched them say, how dare you?

When they, all they did was say, what have you done that you're ashamed of in leadership that you liked? Guy blows up. Right. I've watched people walk out of interviews. Yeah. I've watched them say, well, I've really never done anything bad. Really?

30 years in leadership, you didn't know anything bad. I did something bad yesterday probably. I just have to think about it. So all of that is part of it. But on the issue of gossip, the main issue is, do you know how to address it? We've all gossiped. We all went through, you know, elementary school and high school

and wrote notes and said things and picked on the weak kid or whatever. The question is, have you engaged in a reconstruction project with your life since then? And if that's happening, then they may be part of a noble culture. What do you think about the, and I'm trying to give some practical stuff here. This is really good. What do you think about asking about their previous job they didn't like?

Oh, yeah. Getting them to talk about that. Because before you know it, now they've let their guard down completely. And I guess I'm looking for how quickly and how violently almost, you know, someone can go to criticism. Because that's what leads to gossip. Well, I actually encourage interviewers to lead them into criticism. Yes, that's what I'm saying. Yes.

Again, I'll use you as an example because you're safe with me. So you've worked, let's say, some previous jobs. And I say, tell me about those. leader you liked the least, least respected. Now, I'm actually inviting them in a sense to gossip, but if they've confronted their own gossip tendencies, they're going to do this nobly. I can tell you about leaders, you know, a good man, but he had some tendencies, and here's what they were, and they just destroyed lives.

And I didn't feel like I could stay in that culture. And you go, wow, healthy, mature, responsible, moral approach. That's a great example. But I actually take them there. Tell me about the leader you respected least, you know. You can ask about what your relationship with your mother and your father and your brother and which sibling do you hate or whatever, you know, that's, that's so dark that I, you know, not wanting to do surgery. But I do want to know, tell me about the leader that you've worked

with or a person you've worked with in your life, you at least respect. And that's usually when if they're going to venture into, because you've asked this question, they assume you're budding up to them, they're going to come with it. And I like watching them struggle even in the conversation. You bring up somebody I have a hard time with, even at my age and years of experience, you'll watch me struggle a little bit to say, well, can I really think probably They've recovered themselves, but at that time that I was with them. Yes. And if I just let fly at that moment, you know, I haven't really dealt with it.

Right. Boy, that's so true. It's a good way to read people. Really practical stuff there on gossip. Great stuff from Stephen Mansfield. Big thanks to Stephen Mansfield for hanging out with us. What an important message that is, and I hope you take it to heart. But more than just take it to heart.

How do you begin to make some leadership decisions? Because this is a thing that can really trip up a lot of people. I think leaders across the board would say, hey, gossip. is bad. They would also say, I don't want gossip in my office. But now we see the hands begin to drop a little bit, lack of confidence when we say, what are we going to do about it? And so the team has made this a lot easier. It's our no gossip guide. It's a tool that's going to help you implement this no gossip policy. How? Through seven steps, a seven step process. So you know what the steps are, you know when they need to be implemented, and you know how they need to be implemented. And at the

end of it, you have an opportunity to have a zero tolerance gossip policy. The link is in this episode's show notes. Entreeleadership.com, your resource for all things podcast. All right, I told you at the top of the program, we wanted to give you some Main Street testimony from people who are walking in the same shoes that you're walking in. How about Bill and Zan Spansellor? They are Entree Leadership Master Series attendees. They also are business owners. And they're going to share from their story, how gossip impacted their business, and then the decisions they made to remove it. Listen in. I'm Bill Sponseller.

And I'm Zan S-Spanseller. And we own the S-Con Group, electrical contracting company in Bay City, Michigan. We earlier this year had to make a really, really tough decision. We had to let someone go from our company who was a big part of the company. And it was a really, really difficult thing to do. But we recognized that through this, there had just been a real issue with gossip to the point that it was hard to go to work every day. It was really challenging. The atmosphere was heavy, and you could tell that people were struggling.

We just knew we had to do something about it. Our choice at the time then was to take what we felt was the source and to release her. As Anne said, we struggled with that decision just because, we knew that it was going to leave a hole. She handled a lot of the finances. It actually felt a little crippling. She was for a lot of part of this beloved member of our team and probably even felt a little betrayal from this

because we really brought her in, made her such a part. And so that was part of it as well, is the betrayal that we felt in how she was handling situations, sharing information that wasn't hers to share. that was very, very difficult. That started to become an issue, a big issue. But we felt after some time and a lot of prayer that that was the right decision to make. Personality-wise, she made people laugh.

People enjoyed, you know, at times being around her. And so our fear was, was people going to be frustrated or mad, you know, that we let her go. So, I mean, that was another part of the struggle with, you know, with the, you know, with rest of the team. What's the rest of the team? How are they going to react to this move? After we let her go, immediately, we got some feedback. But from one individual particular, they had known each other for a very long time, he was fairly protective. And we thought, oh, man, this is the next one. This is where it's going to come down. He called within a few minutes. She had called him. You know, he wasn't at work. And literally my cell phone was ringing with

in less than 10 minutes of her walking out the door, he just said, good move. It is something that needed to happen. Good job. It was a tough decision. It was a decision that needed to be made, and you guys, that's going to make a difference for you guys as leaders because you took that step. In that change, brought about other changes in how we handled the business and how we looked at it. We knew there were some changes that we needed to make. We just weren't exactly. sure how to do it. We have a fantastic team.

Our team really cares, and we knew that they needed the leadership there to really rally, you know, this group and really bring them together. And that was a driving force that Zan was seeing. And I think one of the first things that she said, you know, needs to end immediately is the gossip. It just drives morale, everything out of the business. And so that was one of the first things that Zan just said, done, it is done in this business. It will not happen.

It was a, the cloud lifted off the business. And the morale turned around immediately. And that's when people kind of came forward. And, you know, I think like say, recognized the leadership and we're very happy, you know, that we made that. Yeah. So for all of you business leaders who thought you couldn't do it or you're afraid. of what might happen or you're afraid of what you can do to help make up the difference or not sure that you can make up the difference. Seriously, we thought, how can we find another minute in

the day to do somebody else's job? And we really, really stressed over that, but it was worth it and we can do it. The weight and the cloud that has cleared, the team members that stepped up, it's huge. It's just huge. It just, it's worth it. It was worth doing it. It was scary. It was hard. It was painful. And yet... We never missed a beat. We picked up the ball and we ran with it. And really, team members all joined in. You know, we made the list of things that needed to be done, things that she was, this individual was doing, made the list and everybody picked up the ball and we're running it to the goal line. It's doable. We have never missed a beat from that decision. We really came down to being transparent. This is where we're at. This is what we've done.

Here we're moving forward. This is what we're going to do. And we spelled it out as clear as possible as we understood at the time. And it happened. And you're right. We never missed a beat. And it was worth doing to get control, to own our business. We now have control. We know we can do it. No matter what, no matter who's on the team, if they're gone, we know we can pick it up. We know we can do it. I'll never make that compromise again. Never. I want to say a special thanks to Bill and Zan. These are not professional speakers and writers. These are real men and women who are leading. And it's not always easy to share your story on a national podcast with an audience as large. So we appreciate them very, very much. All right. We told you that Bill and Zan came from our Entree Leadership Master series. And this is an amazing event. We talk a lot about our two big events, the summit event, which is kind of like the Super Bowl of leadership events. And then I've likened Entree Master Series to training camp. Every NFL team, before they start the journey to the Super Bowl, they start out in training camp. And I think Entree Master Series is a required training camp for every leader out there. We all want to get to the Super Bowl. We want to win big. But it doesn't happen until the team comes together in August and runs sprints and people are throwing up in buckets.

You get the idea here. I mean, it's nuts and bolts. Now, here's the good news about Entree Master Series. No one will throw up from physical activity. You might throw up because you're sick of your leadership and you want to get it out of your system. Well, that's fine. I'm sure we can find you a bucket if that is necessary. But it really is a fantastic event. And by the way, big changes. So here are the dates. Here's what you need to know. November 3 through 7 of 2019. We're going downtown Nashville, one of the hottest cities in America right now. This is very exciting. men and women going to be together at the Renaissance Hotel. Fantastic location again, right in the heart of downtown Nashville. And it's going to be our biggest crowd ever. It's going to sell out.

Dave Ramsey, Chris Hogan, Don Miller, and yours truly going to be teaching from the stage. It is training camp. We're going to walk you through the playbook of Entree leadership. How did Dave Ramsey go from a card table in his living room to nearly 900 team members? By the time we have the event, we'll be pushing a thousand and the largest independently owned syndicated program in the radio industry and he's the day-to-day CEO how does all that happen we're going to give away the playbook it's no nonsense all day long you're learning it's like drinking from a fire hydrant so when i think about it you might need the trash can but it's all good because people are coming every year and it's always selling out now here's some really exciting news beyond experience

beyond moving the location, we're offering a special half-day session that is taught by Dave Ramsey and only Dave Ramsey on the very important topic of family business. We know from our tribe, we know from you the audience when you come to this event and those of you that are listening on the program, how many of you are leading or working in family-owned businesses? Well, this is a family-owned business. So Dave is so passionate about this topic. We're really excited to offer this. Now, this is an additional price. except for, before I tell you where to go to learn all the details, we're going to give away 15 of these special half-day family business sessions with Dave Ramsey.

We're giving away 15 of them to you, the podcast list, because I am a man of the people, and this is what I demand. And so they have given me what I ask for you. So it's the first 15 of you to respond, and then you get the spot. So there it is. It's going to go fast. As soon as you're hearing this, you better be heading to entreleadership.com. You better be calling this. You better be emailing us. We've got a link for all the information on how to register for Entre Master Series and this special half-day session. This is unbelievable this event. And I'm telling you, if you've wondered about it, kick the tires, go to the website, call our team, ask them anything and everything. And if you're in a family business, you need to jump on this special session. So there it is. There's the exciting news for Entree Master Series.

November 3 through 7, 2019, downtown Nashville, all the details by clicking on the link in the show notes. Hope to see you there. Well, that's going to do it on behalf of our entire Entree leadership team. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon. Hey, folks, I want to make you aware that we have other great podcasts from Ramsey Solutions. Here's a sample of Christy Wright's Business Boutique podcast. Hey, I'm Christy Wright, and I help women all over the country take their ideas and passions and

and turn them into profitable businesses. If you have an idea in your head or a dream in your heart, and you've ever wondered if you could make money doing it, I'm here to help. Join us on the Business Boutique podcast where we are equipping women to make money doing what they love. If you'd like to hear full episodes, just search Business Boutique in iTunes or go to businessboutique.com.