EntreLeadership - #82: Sebastian Bailey—Achieve More by Thinking Differently

Episode Date: October 20, 2014

Join host Ken Coleman for a fascinating conversation with Sebastian Bailey, co-author of Mind Gym. The best-selling author shows you how to transform your personal and professional life by changing the way you think. Plus, we’re including bonus quizzes on optimism (https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/1611/26335/9h/dramsey.download.akamai.com/23572/daveramsey.com/media/hope/entre/pdf/podcast/optimist.pdf) and procrastination (https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/1611/26335/9h/dramsey.download.akamai.com/23572/daveramsey.com/media/hope/entre/pdf/podcast/stop_procrastinating.pdf) from the book that you can take later. But that’s just the start. Stick around because we’re also featuring: A new contest announcement. We’re giving away two tickets, including airfare and lodging, to the EntreLeadership Summit. Our podcast listeners are the first to hear about this giveaway (https://www.entreleadership.com/summitgiveaway) and special new event. An exclusive listen to a recent talk by Dave at our company staff meeting on taking on the impossible and winning. How to win a copy of Mind Gym of your own. Answers to questions from our mailbag. http://www.entreleadership.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charismatic, passionate, as integrity, humble, servant, faithful, inspiring, persevering, positive, flexible, driven. This is who we are that call ourselves leaders. Helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. Now, here is your host, Ken Cole. Coming to you from the Music City, this is the podcast of leaders, by leaders, and four leaders. I'm Ken Coleman.

Honored to be your host. As always, connect with us on Twitter at Entree Leadership, and I'm there at Ken Coleman. You can email us anytime about anything. Podcast at Entreeleadership.com. Coming up in this edition of the podcast, our feature conversation is with Sebastian Bailey. This guy is fascinating.

And he's the author of a new book called Mind Jim. Achieve more by thinking differently. And this is unbelievable. We're giving away another 50 copies after the conversation. I'll tell you the details and how you can qualify. Joining me in studio today, it's always fun when I get the executives. I call them suits. When the suits come down from their tower and hang out with me in the studio,

and that voice is none other than Daniel Tarty, the grand pooh-bah. I'm glad to be here. Of all things on training. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming, buddy. You're too generous with the accolades. We've got to talk about that later. Okay, well, it's a big deal to have a suit. Come join me from your office and your power room and things you're doing to help leaders across the fruited plane.

If they only knew. If these guys walked in my office, they'd be like, this is the office this guy's talking about. Well, we're excited. I had, you know, here's in truth, I asked Daniel to come and he made room in his busy schedule. Daniel, we've got a special treat. And Daniel, he used his high security clearance to make this happen. And I want to set this up. What's your about to hear. Every Monday morning, we have a company-wide staff meeting. And Daniel, what are we up to? 440-ish employees right now. Exactly. And we take a good hour, sometimes an hour and a half, and it is all about communication. And it really is phenomenal. I've been here four months, and it still amazes me. A week ago, Dave goes into a story at the very end of the staff meeting. And Dave told a story, and it blew our minds. And so, Dan,

says, we have to get this in the podcast. So here it is, Dave Ramsey telling a story that I think will absolutely help you. Listen to this. It occurs to me that sometimes in our personal lives, our relationships, our spiritual walk, our physical condition, sometimes in our professional lives, our ideas, our creativity, our view of the marketplace, our, the way we look at a business model, that our past or something that was taught. taught to us that was toxic and wrong, shapes our mind. Our past or something that was awesome and positive also shapes our mind.

My parents were serial entrepreneurs. A lot of downsides to that. We were buying Cadillacs or having them towed. And so, you know, it was all come or go, you know. And so one thing they told us every day. And I don't know why it's stuck with me, but they told us every day that you can do and be anything, if you'll just do it.

If you'll put out the effort, if you'll pay the price to win, you can do anything. Horatio Alger is not dead. In America today, you can get up, leave the cave, kill something, and drag it home, and we can do anything. We specialize around here in basically taking on the impossible in industries that say you can't do something

and we go and do it. Or taking something that they didn't even know, existed and it didn't exist and we form it with God's help and cause an entire industry to evolve. And we've done that in multiple things around here. And so we've not been stuck, but sometimes we get stuck. And the way you train a circus elephant, if you understand that for the rest of your life, you can challenge yourself when you get stuck. because what they do is when a baby elephant is brought into the circus,

it's still wild and untrained, of course, and they drive a big metal iron steak deep into the dirt. And they put a big chain on that. And they put that big chain around that baby elephant's ankle. And that little elephant has an elephant hissy fit. And he's trying to get away, and he's pulling, and he's tugging, and he's jerking, and he's pulling, he's jerkin, and he's doing everything he can to get loose.

And he can't get loose, and so finally he gives up. Fast forward 20 years later, we can visit that baby elephant as an adult elephant. And you know how they restrain adult elephants? They drive a small stake in the ground, put a tiny little rope on the steak, and tie it around his ankle, tight enough that he can feel the pressure on his ankle. and that massive unbelievably powerful elephant who at any moment could just walk away could just shake his leg a little bit and pull that little steak out without any trouble at all chooses to not move because inside of his brain there's a baby elephant that couldn't get away and because of his past because of the way he was taught wrong he now believes that he can't get away. The only thing holding him there

is his belief in mythology. He believes a lie. And that's the only thing holding him there. So it's important to know how circus elephants are trained. Because sometimes the only thing holding me back

is I believe a lie. So Daniel, you were sitting there, as I told the story, and you texted me. me and said, we got to get this. What were you thinking when you heard that personally? I mean, I just asked myself the question, what are the limiting beliefs that I have that are based on a partial truth, an element of truth, but a lot of lie that prevent me from reaching my full potential, that prevent me from making my maximum contribution as a leader, as a husband, as a, as a friend.

And, man, I mean, stuff just starts going through your head. Gosh, why do I believe that? And who told me that. Who told me I couldn't do that? Or who told me that I should always be like that? And if you start asking that question, what am I believing that's not true about myself and my own story? The answers to that question start to take you places that you probably haven't gone before. And for me, it was a good exercise. So I thought we should grab it. Yeah. Well, and your instincts were absolutely right on. And let me just say this. The reason we played that is very simply, folks, wherever you're listening to this right now, even pause the podcast, ask yourself honestly. Where in my life is a false belief holding me back? That's a question I think

we all need to ask. Phenomenal stuff. I mean, I'll never look at elephants to save again. I'll tell you that. You know, because it truly is amazing. It's such a powerful animal, completely stymied by a little steak and a little rope that it could snap into. So good stuff there. And you know, that leads us to an event that Daniel, you're very passionate about. We debuted here. You gave me their permission to kind of say, hey, we've got Entree Leadership Summit coming up. And this is an event that you have thought carefully about. Your leadership team has thought carefully about. Tell us about the details. And then I want to hear a little bit of why are we doing this event. Yeah, the why is the most powerful part. And it ties right into

what we just heard Dave talk about. If you're an elephant with a rope around your foot, and you believe that rope is enslaving you to a life that you're not called to lead, and you're around a bunch of other elephants who are breaking free of those limiting beliefs, you go, well, I could do that too. And the thing about getting to a live event with other business owners coming alongside you and encouraging you

and saying, I have the same fear. I have the same problem. But you're winning. And I'm winning over here, but maybe not where you are. And so we start to collaborate and we start to learn from each other. And you combine that community of small business owners

who care about, growing themselves with excellence in the marketplace. And you couple all of that with fantastic teaching from Dave. And get this, man. I never dreamed we would have this lineup, but not only Dave Ramsey, Patrick Lynchione, the foremost authority on team culture, consults with major Fortune 500 companies, John Maxwell, the grandfather of all things leadership. And then we've got Henry Cloud to be boundaries for leaders, our own Christy Wright and Chris Hogan.

and Rabbi Daniel Lapin, sound financial principles and practicality. This guy's great. So let's give folks the details real quick because we've got a special offer you're giving away. Is that correct? Yeah, so we're actually not, we haven't officially launched this yet. That's right. This is only podcast people. And this event is in May in San Diego, California at the Omni La Costa Resort.

And I guess we've announced it. But before we even launch it and make it available on sale on our website, we're going give away two tickets. I love this. It's a $3,000 ticket. It's a premium event. It's not for everybody, but for the right people who want to come and who are serious about taking their personal game to the next level, taking their business to the next level, May 11th through the 14th in 2015 in San Diego. That's where it's going to be going down. All right, so check this out, okay, folks, because the podcast audience, the only people who have heard the tease about this event, gets a head start on this. You ready? Entrateleadership.com. Ontrade leadership.com. Ontrade leadership,

com slash summit giveaway slash summit giveaway Entreleadership.com slash summit giveaway and that's where you sign up to win the tickets. Now, how many we're doing we're doing? Two free VIP tickets, airfare for two and lodging. The whole thing. This is unbelievable.

All right. So one of you folks will win the two free tickets. That's how that's going to work. And so we want you to go check it out, Entreleadership.com slash summit giveaway. Daniel Tarty, myself, will all be there. it is going to be an unbelievable event. So get in on this early because we are expecting it'll sell out.

I really want our listeners to hear. We didn't just go out and see, okay, who could we get? They would kind of bolster our lineup. Every person that's coming to this event has a book that Dave has made our leadership team read. This is our stuff. People go, well, where do you get your information from and where do you get all your teaching and how do you train your team? We go find other great books and great authors, and we read it together.

It's important to underscore that these guys, and in many ways are extended family because of how much of a direct impact they have on our culture and thereby really what Entree leadership is all about. Yeah, I love it. It's going to be great. I can't wait to go. Honestly, it's going to be a fantastic time. So again, one more time, enter to win,

Entreeleadership.com slash summit giveaway. Well, our feature conversation for this podcast is new to me, but I get so many books into me and I really do try to review them all. And when I saw the title of the book, Mind Jim, achieve more by thinking differently. It absolutely sucked me in. Sebastian Bailey is the co-author. He wrote the book

with Octavius Black. It's an international bestseller. It is an easy read, but it is, I'm talking about Daniel peeling the onion. It's going to pull back layer by layer about how we think, why we think the way we do, and I think it's a very practical message. So let's get right to it. And again, I want to tease us when we come back. I'm going to tell you how you can win one of the 50 free books we're going to give So let's get right to it. My conversation with Sebastian Bailey on Mind Jim, Achieving More by Thinking Differently. Sebastian, I want to start by talking about Mind Jim Inc. Because before the book, Mind Jim, achieved more by thinking differently came out.

This is a very successful program that has been adopted all around the world, specifically more than 50% of the companies in the S&P 100 have adopted your program. So tell us a bit about Mind Jim Inc. and why it exists? So we started 14 years ago on a kitchen table in London, you can probably tell by my accent at the time. I'm British. I'm a psychologist by background and training, and my business partner was a communication

specialist. And what we noticed was that organizations were time to develop their people. I mean, the pressure was kind of increasingly intense. And in terms of some development programs, they wanted short, sharp experiences that We're really practical. And actually, that's what individuals wanted as well. It felt, you know, I think that the pressure has actually only got more significant over the last 14 years. So what we did is we've developed a whole suite of what we call 90-minute workouts.

And these are run in organisations for groups of around 20 people face-to-face or alternatively on an online platform. But they're all instructor-led, really interactive. And they're designed to help people get better at doing things like, give feedback more effectively, manage others, manage their own time. We have now done this for well over a million people, 2,000 participants a year, and we've run it in over 40 countries and in 15 languages all around the world.

And we work with organizations like MetLife and Microsoft and BuzzFeed, and so we have a whole range of organizations that come to us. This book, Sebastian, is equal parts, fascinating and inspiring. And I really enjoy. enjoyed it. And folks, I want you to really dive in here because I'm going to highlight my favorite chapters because I'm the host and that's what I get to do. But it's just really, really fun. But I want to talk about the first chapter where you entitle it, flip to switch on automatic thinking. And I think this is huge because so many of us, Sebastian, we just

react to life. And if we're not careful, we can live an entire life on autopilot. So how do we begin the process of flipping that switch, as you say? Yeah, and I think this isn't exactly the right starting point, 10, because pressure is so intense for many of us, the fact that we're operating in increasingly complex worlds, we've got information overload, we've got demands for attention, I know many of your listeners are running businesses, it gets really quite complex, and so we do end up getting stuck in old routines and old patterns of mind. now sometimes these and our brain's actually designed to do this our brain is designed to try and reduce the amount of what psychologists call cognitive loads you know the less we have to think about things in many respects are better the problem is is that because of these habits that we get into we get into the habits that we get into with we get into with loved ones we start to make the wrong sorts of just done about connecting with other people with other people and so forth so we can get into autopilot about conflict and the conflicts that we get into with loved ones or all the people that we work with with stress and so forth so we so we can get into What we focus on Achieve More by thinking differently is two things. The first one is helping people to recognize where they might be getting into autopilot. And we tend to get into autopilot when we had a really, really familiar. There was some interesting research actually on physicians,

and the amount of knowledge that physicians happen was that as physicians graduated, they tend to know an awful lot. It was almost when their knowledge was at its highest. But interestingly, as they then started to practice, rather than getting greater knowledge and deeper understanding of what they were doing, the knowledge actually started to drop off. I thought that was here was a familiarity trap. We'd get so familiar with the situation. Our autopilot would trigger, and we would think a lot less about the situation that was confronting us.

So familiarity trips us into autopilot. So just pressure. The more pressure that we're under, the more we tend to make snap decisions. and also just keeping a single view or single perspectives. To get out of it, there are a number of different things we can do. The first is really looking for things that are new. So when you are going about your daily life, what can be engaged in ways that the thing that then drives greater insights and better innovation or those sorts of things.

I love that you said curiosity is really the killer to that autopilot, automatic thinking. And I think you're so right. just the ability to step back if we can and ask simple questions. Like why, how, you know. Is there a particular formula that works for you that you have found maybe through research or through personal discovery? What's a good question that kind of helps fight that automatic thinking? I think a classic one is a really good one is just what's new and different here.

That's the first thing. It's like what's new and different. Another one is actually spotting when you are being, what sometimes describes as being absolutist. So using phrases like always, never. You know, it's like, for example, when you say to people, why are you doing that way? And the answer is, it's because I've always done it that way. That's the way we've always done it around here. You know that people, that's a sort of a real indicator that someone's on autopilot. You know, they're not really thinking through what the right sort of situations are, what the right answers might be to a particular situation.

All right, folks, just a little nugget for those of you listening, wherever you are. I want to pull something out here. Just try for a week deleting the words always and never from your vocabulary and maybe just challenge the people around. I just want to see what happens there because I think that's a wonderful challenge there from Sebastian. I want to move to chapter four, Sebastian, start a new chapter. I think there's so many men and women that are listening in right now that they know they need to start a new chapter, whether that be personally or professionally, relationally, spiritual, whatever it is. they know they need to start a new chapter.

Talk to us about how they can begin to do that by changing a way they think to start a new chapter. Great. So what the evidence suggests, Ken, you know, again, everything Mind Jim does, we do it based in the psychology, and then what we've done is, having done the research, we try to make this as accessible as possible.

What the research suggests is the fact that there are sort of four stages that we tend to go through when we're going about deciding whether or not we want to start the new chapter, do something significant. And the first stage is actually kind of maintaining what we're doing right now, maintaining status quote, doing what you're doing. A second stage then is where we start to contemplate. We start to dream about what we want, what could be. So to many of your listeners who are thinking about starting a business, they're probably

in a sort of contemplating dreaming phase. I wonder what it would be like if I started my own business. I wonder what would be like if I changed what I was doing, so it was something completely different. A third stage is preparing. And that's when we start to make some of these things a little bit more real. We're no longer, you know, listening in our car and thinking about what could be. And instead what we're doing is saying,

okay, if I'm actually going to start this business, something you start to think about putting this business plan together. Now, there's a really, really big step. And then the next stage, which is experimenting. And that's actually making the call doing it. almost going beyond the point of no return. And the name that people use for this is the Rubicon. It's called Crossing the Rubicon.

And it's cool this because of camped, he was a Roman general, camped on the banks, deciding whether or not he wanted to. The rule was that if you took your armies over this river, over this were actually invading Rome, and then the other senators and the other armies would. And so, and Caesar, what he did is he camped on the banks of the Rubicon for really in time, kind of making the decision about whether or not he wanted. to really go for that sort of bid for power and make a stand about the fact he wanted to become

the ruler. So that's the river going. Now, what happens is that when we're at sort of a point of no return, when we're thinking about whether or not we want to make that decision, often we have these things called catastrophic fantasies. And I remember when we started, mine gym, I remember absolutely having these things. You know, I just had a mortgage. I was dating someone, and I thought this might lead to having a young family.

And the sort of starting a new business, I think, am I going to be less destitute? You know, if all this goes wrong, the bank I'm going to default on my mortgage payments, my parents won't take me back in, and I'm going to be, like, living on the streets. And that's a classic catastrophic fantasy that often people have. And, of course, it is, it is a fantasy. That's absolutely not the worst-case scenario. So there are certain things that we can do to help us think about how we make that shit. Another really good technique to decide whether or not you should do it is imagine what you would advise someone else in your situation.

Being we tend not to be very good at giving ourselves advice, and actually we tend to be better at giving other people objective advice. And so a really simple technique is to imagine what you advise someone else in your situation. I love that. I want to move to Chapter 6, where it's entitled Get in the Right Relationship Mindset, and very early. really on in the chapter. You really help us understand what our relationship mindset is. You cite a pioneer psychologist, rather, John Bolby. And this is really good, Sebastian, because, you know, as leaders sometimes, we're so focused on, you know, principles and systems, and those things really, really matter. But what matters most, in my opinion, is people. They are our greatest value and

asset, and we've got to understand how our relationship mindset is affecting how people see us, how people interact with us, how we're leading, and so forth and so on. Talk about the importance of understanding that. It's, as you say, when you think about organizations, without people, that pretty much nothing but some empty buildings and maybe some patents. That's right. That's right. So people are absolutely in the talent that you have, are absolutely at the heart of any organization and what you do. What we talk about in the right relationship mindset, the whole idea about how people see themselves and how people see others. And actually, there are a different kind of mindset that have either a positive or negative

impact on individuals and the people. This is sort of, I'm okay, you're okay. The people with an I'm okay mindset tend to be ones who are positive and respectful and well-connected to others. And people with, a I'm not okay mindset tend to worry about themselves they can end up feeling like a victim quite frequently and then that starts to translate

into the way in which day they describe themselves to others in the way they behave they can be something of an energy drain actually but there are certain things that we can do to move into an I'm okay mindset. First thing is we can explicitly acknowledge our part in making good things

happen. You know write down 20 things you've done well in the last month for example example and just enjoy that. Enjoy that you have achieved and that you have some things. Focus on solutions. So rather than, you know, this is the issue and let's just dwell on the issue, let's actually think about what wherever you want to get to. And then if we're going to get that, how are you going to do it? Many of these things are really small changes. But they are small changes that have a really big impact. There's one really simple technique as well, which is really powerful, and which is called three good things. And that's at the end of every day.

and what were the three things that you are thankful for over the course of that. On those three things, you actually get reminded of all the positive things that happen on people. There's mindset about the way in which we connect with others, and what's nice about that technique is also a really strong evidence-based. Yeah, and I believe, Sebastian, that one tip right there, this idea of being grateful and then applying it to every area of our lives, I believe has the ability to completely change our trajectory on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, and it really is practical. I want to move forward to, I believe, Sebastian, a topic that gets overlooked a lot by a lot of different leaders.

I'm reading a book right now by Ed Catmull, who's kind of the head of Pixar, and Pixar's done quite well with creativity. And the book is entitled Creativity, Inc. And essentially, the book is a playbook of how they create content. And you address this idea of overcoming creative blocks in Chapter 15. And I think this is massively important. And so I want you to kind of set the table for us on this chapter and how people who feel themselves constantly blocked on creativity, whether it be personally, organizationally,

how do we begin to reset that? Between the book, and as you say, the first one that we go into is actually these created blocks. And I think these created blocks exist in so many areas of our life. It's not just when we are generating ideas for a business. for example, but actually the way in which we interact with people, the way we connect with people, and again, families, communities, organizations. The first, the first blog, first filter through which we see the world is the one of sort of, I know the problem, and therefore we just don't think very hard.

And actually, there's an example. A donkey's tied to a rope. How can the donkey get to the hay if he does not bite through or undo the rope? Without biting through the rope? boy, I need some time on that one. I'm guessing that it's tied to his neck. Can he actually mention it? It's interesting that you say,

I'm trying to think it through, if he can't bite through or undo the rope, because actually that part of that question. Is that misdirection? It's misdirection, exactly. It's misdirection. And so the answer is the fact that it just walks over to it because at no point have we been told

that the rope is tied to anything else than the donkey. That's good. Yeah, but we make a... assumption that the rope is actually, you know, sort of is tied to something, a stake in the ground. That's right. That's the picture that we build in our mind's eye. Let me give you another, this is a good one to another example.

Can you say silk for me? Silk. And again? Silk. And again? Silk. And then what do cows drink? Milk?

No, they don't. They drink water. Let me tell you something. That is so elementary school and I wiped out right in front of everybody. by my, you know, nine-year-old daughter, but it's a really, really nice example. That's brilliant. Of these habits of mind that we get into. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. And what's happened there is that actually we've been primed, you know, the fact that silk sounds so like milk, you've actually been primed to come out with an answer. And it's that priming that gets us into these habits of mind, and it's these habits of mind that we also get into in our relationships in the way in which we generate our ideas. So that first one is, the first filter is sort of I know the problem, and the second one is, I know the solution. It's really familiar to me. A third filter is, I live in the real world. And actually, there's a really, really simple answer. So what happens here is that we, you know, when you're coming up with problems, you start to answer about this is what it is. So that creativity gets stifled because we're so grounded in our current surroundings. you know, what's asking what could it be.

Mm-hmm. I love that. Say that again, because I think that's a tremendous shift. Right. So instead of asking what is, you ask what could it be. The example that we sometimes use here is if you imagine a triangle,

a square and a circle, you know, on a sheet of paper, you know, if you can ask people what is that and they say a triangle of square and if you then say what could it be, they change. Start to come up with, well, it could be a clown's face.

You know, the Death Star and the Millennium falcon and a Thai fighter. And they start to come up with all these very, very different ways of looking at the world because they're no longer grounded in their reality about what is, and instead they're asking themselves, what could it? It's useful again when you're thinking about any kind of innovation on your product development or an offer that you want to take to market. And when you're brainstorming, you're coming up with different ideas.

Ask what a filter. I think this is also really important, is the I am an expert. They know the answer and they just want to come up with the answer straight away. Instead of exploring a situation a little bit more, people with like a really, really high level of expertise, they don't want to demonstrate any vulnerability, and so they don't say, I don't know. They feel sometimes, I don't know,

can be an extraordinarily powerful statement that helps you explore. Wow. So good. He is Sebastian Bailey, PhD, and co-author of Mind Jim, achieve more by thinking differently, just absolutely scintillating reading. I really enjoyed it. And Sebastian, I really appreciate your work and spending time with our Entree leadership audience.

Thank you very much. Ken's great pleasure. He is Sebastian Bailey, the book again. Mind Jim, achieve more by thinking differently. This is fun. I feel like Santa Claus, Tarty. I'm asking these publishers now to give us 50 books to give away to these fine folks,

and they're saying yes. So you people out there, I'm going to keep asking because I am a man of the people, Tarty. I am a populist, and I want to make the people happy. Here's how we do it. You ready? You just have to tweet this simple phrase. You're ready?

Here it is. The at-ontre leadership podcast makes me think. The at-ontre leadership podcast makes me think you tweet that. And last podcast, Eric, I gave the books away to the first 50. Well, that was kind of, I wanted to see who are gazelle passionate listeners. People who are listening to the podcast as soon as it uploads. who are on Twitter while they're listening. But I don't want to discriminate because some of you are very, very, very, very busy and you can't get to it right away.

We're going to give it, just hit it out there until the next podcast. I also want to mention that we have, from Sebastian and Octavius, free. We have a What's Your Excus and Are You an attentive optimist PDF? This is really cool stuff. So all you've got to do is go to Entreleadership.com slash podcast. Entreleadership.com slash podcast. We've got these two articles in PDF form at entreleadership.com forward slash podcast. What's your excuse?

And are you an attentive optimist? So we want to make sure that you go take advantage of this free content. I know I am. So let's now get to one of my favorite segments on the podcast. Coming mine as well. It's time for Ken's Electronic Mail. Ken's Electronic Mail. You've got mail.

All right. First email. It's pretty slick. You liked that. pretty good. First email from Joe. I'm not going to say Joe's last name because this is a raw email and very honest and I don't want to embarrass Joe, but Joe, you know who you are. He emails me, he says, Ken, I'm 29 years old and I'm a business professional and I'm looking for work. On the subject of sales, how would you approach selling yourself to an employer with a felony record?

I've thought of many competitive advantages for my experience, but how do I persuade someone to hire me with this burden? First of all, Joe, credit to you for sending the email. Secondly, a big, big question. I'm going to do my best to add value to you. So I would start by saying in your situation, you are a convicted felon. And we are in a society where that puts an awful black stain on you. Yet I believe in redemption.

I believe in grace and I believe in mercy. And yet you've got to face reality. The reality is you are going to be judged. And I'm hoping that you are not the same person that you are not the same person that you used to be. If in fact you are not the same person you used to be, then you must, you absolutely must prove to potential employers that you're not the same person and go way beyond their wildest expectations of you proving it. So here's what I would say. You got to own it. When you get the interview, you don't make one excuse. You completely own the truth no matter how

embarrassing it is because I think it'll be shocking to most potential employers that you will own the most humiliating parts of your past. Secondly, you make the case as to why you will add value and you can do the position. Third, say, but I realize that you've got this enormous elephant hanging out in your head right now because you're looking at me as a convicted felon, of which I am. And so here's what I want to do. I am asking for you to truly consider. me. And if you think there's a chance, I want to work in this position for free. You let them determine how long it takes. But I think you've got to be that bold, Daniel Tarty, to say, what can I do to ease your concern over my past so that I can have a shot at a future?

I think the frustrating thing, if you're Joe, I mean, I love that he's being transparent and vulnerable by putting himself out here in front of everybody on this. The thing you got to know, Joe, is your entry point is going to be different than your entry point would be had this not been a part of your past. That's right. Going from A to Z is not one step for you. So there are things you could do like work for free. There are things you could do probably without employment where you're volunteering. You could probably start a blog and start putting incredible content out there about your area of expertise.

And there are things that you can do to present yourself and showcase the value that you have to contribute prior to just getting. the opportunity to work at an employment firm of sorts. So it's going to be a longer road, but I think it's a road still worth traveling, and I wish you the best. Yes, sir. Thank you, Joe, for your email. Second email, we'll only get to one more here. I'm going to let Tardy go first on this one. It's from Justin. He says, I have recently been promoted from a manager position to that of a director. The one thing I'm wrestling with is the change in mindset required to move from hands-on operational task focused to one of simply directing and overseeing the operations. The reason I want Daniel to lead on this, this is certainly part of your past journey.

Big, big question here. And the short answer is it's not easy because there is a definite mental shift when you can touch something and move the needle, when you can make a phone call and cause a sale to occur and cause money to come in the door. and you can show up at the meeting and then go back and execute on what everybody talked about. You start to earn your stripes based on what you can do. And as you grow and as you get promoted, you start to get paid less for what you can do and more for what you know. You know, I'm going to add one simple thing to this because your question, Justin, was,

how do I get comfortable with this new role? And I would ask yourself one big question. When I was in the manager role and I reported to somebody like me, how did I want that role? to interact with me. And it's a different mindset, and your power depends on your ability to make other people feel powerful. That's right. Not to get things done.

I would encourage you with Warren Buffett said, you have to create your own scorecard for success. I don't have a specific job description anymore. I'm leading a team. And so my responsibility is to empower them. But I still need more tangible something I can measure myself at the end of the day and go, did I do what the leaders should have done today? These are my five things.

Did I ask the right questions instead of having all the answers? Did I listen for the best answers from the team instead of talking the whole time? Did I think about our biggest problems and opportunities? And that can feel weird, especially if you're a doer, just to spend time thinking can feel like you're not working. It can feel lazy, but someone's got to do it. Someone's got to think and look up and go, are we even on the right road? And then communicate the plan, communicate what winning looks like, communicate the vision for success for the the team. Because if you're not doing it, they're making assumptions and they're probably wrong.

And then observe the impact. Step back and go, did it work? Was the hypothesis right? Did the experiment work? The new campaign, the new employee we brought on, whatever the thing is, was it working? Does it keep us aligned with the vision and where we're supposed to go? After a couple of years of doing it, it'll feel as natural as putting on your clothes in the morning. But it's a big shift from where you've been. So do your best and be yourself and be authentic. And don't be afraid to say, I don't know. You're not in leadership because you know all the answers. You're in leadership because you're going to help solve problems. And you can still say, I don't know, and find other people who do know and get the result you need. Well, we want to thank Justin and Joe for your emails.

And hey, folks, we can't answer every one of them, but we want to help you as much as possible. If you'd like to submit an email to be used on our podcast, very simple, podcast at entreleadership.com, send it to us. Eric, our producer, does get them. And we see them. We've got a big old full that I go through, and it's fantastic reading. All right, folks, I want to mention all things Entre Leadership, like All Access, our amazing online coaching resource, our Entree Leadership One Day, the Entree Leadership Master Series, and everything else we provide for you to help you grow you, your team, and your profits is available, Entreeleadership.com.

And don't forget, if you want to win the two free VIP tickets, Airfare for Two, and lodging to the Entree Leadership Summit,com, slash summit giveaway on behalf of Daniel Tarty. Daniel, thanks for hanging out with me today. Thank you for having me. It's always fun to get the suit. It's very exciting, Eric, when I get to perform at front of the boss. Someone's going to meet me out at an event and they'll be like, where's your suit? I'm going to go, well, I don't wear one.

He has no integrity. No, he's just a big shot. I like to call him the suit. But anyway, hey, on behalf of Daniel Tarty, our producer, Eric Anthony and the entire entree leadership team, thank you for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.