EntreLeadership - #96: Tom Ziglar—The Keys to Top Performance

Episode Date: April 27, 2015

How do you know if you and your team members are doing an awesome job? Tom Ziglar, son of the legendary Zig Ziglar, shares his company's performance formula so you can easily find out. Plus, he's a Ziglar, so you know you're going to be inspired! http://www.entreleadership.com/podcast 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 Coleman. We are coming to you from the Music City, and this is the podcast of leaders, by leaders, and four leaders. We are honored that you're hanging out with us today.

If you're new to the Entree podcast, we hope you stay a while. Here's what's coming to you on our episode today. Our feature conversation is with Tom Ziegler. If you don't know who Tom Ziegler is, you should. He is the son of the legendary Zig Zig. But he's not trying to fill his dad's shoes. He's just continuing to move forward on the path that his father so ably cut that has helped millions of people. So that's going to be fun.

You will enjoy that conversation. The electronic mailbag, Ken's electronic mail, that's always fun. We love when we hear from you, and so we'll share one of the emails from our listeners. And then we're going to check in with two fellow podcasters who happen to be coming to our Entree Leadership Summit. That will be great fun as well. But hey, let's get right to our business tip of the week. Well, it's always fun to have Clayton Mask from Infusion Soft on the line here. Always has some great information for us.

Clay, how you doing today, man? I'm doing great, Ken. Great to be with you. So, hey, let's get right to it. We love hearing from you. And the question for this episode is, what is multisystem chaos? What is it and what does that look like? Yeah.

You know, what it is is a bunch of disjointed systems that don't talk to each other that are really common when people are trying to run a business. You know, they've got all their customer and prospect information in contact management and email and Excel and QuickBooks and a shopping cart. sometimes, all sorts of stuff. It makes it really difficult to properly follow up with prospects and customers. So multi-system chaos is these disjointed systems that don't talk to each other and create a real problem that prevents small businesses from growing. And, of course, InfusionSoft exists to address these type of problems.

Explain why you guys believe so much in the people that are listening to this podcast. Well, we love entrepreneurs. We love business owners, their creativity, their desire to make things happen. and our whole purpose is to help them succeed. Love it. Well, folks, you can learn more about Clayt and their amazing company and how they can help you grow your business. Just go to infusionsoft.com slash entree. That's infusionsoft.com slash entree. Clayt, always fun to talk to you, man. Can't wait to talk soon. Thanks so much.

Very privileged to have gotten to know Tom Ziegler. As a 17-year-old, I read my first Zig Ziegler book and became a ZigZieg-Zgler fan. And just for the record, because it's just so wonderful if you've never heard, my favorite Zig Ziglar quote before I'll share it with you. It has become an anthem of my life. So while we're talking Zigler, I've got to give you this bonus. You could tweet this and you'll get a bunch of retweets. But Zig once famously said that if you help everybody else in life get what they want,

then you get what you want. Now that's not an exact quote, but I'm paraphrasing. If you spend your life helping other people get what they want, you'll get what you want. They made a movie on this concept many years ago with Kevin Spacey, one of my favorite actors, pay it forward. just a beautiful thought here as we spend time talking with Tom Ziegler. Tom has become a friend, as I mentioned. He actually contributed to my book one question, and he was in Nashville recently, and so producer Eric and I got all excited and said, Tom, will you come by and hang out with us? And so a couple things I want you to know as we get you into the conversation. He's going to talk

about the true performance pledge. This is a Ziegler staple, and we're going to give you the PDF so that you can use that however you please. So I'll tell you how to get it. that when we're done with the conversation and we're going to give away 50 books. You know, we love to give you books. The book is born to win. It's a compilation of Zig's best writings and teachings. So that's all coming to you after the interview, which starts right now. Tom, great to have you in studio. It's a special treat folks when the guests that we have on this podcast get to be with us. They're busy people. They're all over the world, all over the country. And Tom is in town for an event in Nashville. And we'll talk a little bit more about his national tour later.

I want to start off with what I think is something that's very, very exciting. You have created this Ziegler Performance Formula, and we were talking a little bit about it. So I want to take our time and break this down. So let's start with what is that actual formula. Okay. You know, Ken, whenever I'm in front of a group, usually business owners or leaders, one of the questions that comes up is, how do I know if I've done a good job? You know, when I'm driving home at the end of a hard day, do I know in my heart that I do a good job? Or a team member walks in front of me, can I look at them and then instantly go, hey, they're doing a good job.

So what we did is we created this concept of a performance formula, and it's real simple, A times E times S equals P. Attitude times effort times skill equals performance. And there's math that goes along with it that makes it even cooler. And so when you talk about performance, because here's the thing, at Ziegler, we're in the training business, but nobody buys training. What they buy is the results of training, which is improved performance, right? That's right. Right. Well, guess what?

Every business is in the performance business. They're in the transportation business. They help people get from where they are to where they want to go. So when you understand the impact of attitude, effort, and skill, it changes everything. That's amazing. How did you come up with this? So here's the thing is I'm going to go kind of like a role play. I love it.

Just imagine, okay, that it's true. your first day on the job, right? You know, your very first job ever, you walk in and you're kind of scared and you're kind of nervous, right? And you don't know what to do. You don't have any skills. They haven't given you any work to do. Well, your attitude is a level one, right? And your efforts are one and your skills are one. So one times one times one equals one. Your performance is a one, but you get lucky because you've got the best boss in the world. And they say, kid, man, we've been waiting our whole life for you. You know, your resume was perfect. We checked out all your credentials. You met our whole team. You did all the

the personality profiles. You know what, Ken, you might run this place someday. So immediately your attitude is going to go to a two, just because the boss interacted with you. So there's a two times one times one. Your performance has doubled. So that's how attitude has that role. Well, the second day you come, you know, I come in and you're there.

And I've got the greatest boss in the world. So I get there a little early. And you say to me, Tom, man, your first day was fantastic. You met the whole team. But today you're going to do some effort. effort, you're going to put you to work. And so you give me a simple task to do. Tom, I want you to call 50 of our customers. We sent them out a product two weeks ago. All you've got to do is check to see if it's there, right? And so I go and do this work. I start making the calls and you tell me when I

leave, Tom, you say, just make sure that you leave a voicemail with enthusiasm. And when you talk to them, let them know you're glad to talk to them. So I go and do the work, right? So my work level goes to a two. attitude is two effort is two skill is still one two times two times one equals four my performance has doubled again yeah the third day i come to work i come in and you say tom man that was fantastic one of our customers even called back and said you left an incredible voice message for him i mean all you said was hey did you get the product but the tone was so perfect you know tom you're going to go far here you can run this place someday today we're going to do some training we're going to work on your I want you to call our top 25 customers and ask them a series of questions.

Here's a script, Tom. Go memorize this script. Internalize it. We'll roll play it. Before you get going, we'll make sure that you got it. So I go and I learn that. I've been trained. So my attitudes are two, my efforts a two, and now my skills gone to a two.

So my output is two times two times two. That equals eight. So you see my performance is doubled again. The problem is this is where the world finishes. is where everybody stops because if you think about it, my attitude was dependent upon you, my boss. My effort was dependent upon the amount of work you gave me. I didn't get done early and say, Hey, Ken, do you got some more? And my skill was totally dependent on what you trained me. I didn't go Google on how to leave a great voicemail message. I didn't go learn on my own how to, you know,

interact with the customer. I was like a pinball and a pinball machine. And so so many people out there wonder, they say, how come the top 5% in any industry outperform and, you know, out-earned the others in their industry by three, four, five, six, seven times to one. Have you ever wondered that? Oh, sure. You know, and so here, this is what it is. It works like this. I know if I'm a top performer, there's another level, and that's the three level.

You see, my attitude, when I own my own attitude, when I realize that no circumstance, the weather, the traffic, you know, the environment, what's going on, none of that controls my attitude. I control it all. It's all up to me. then my attitude goes to a three and my effort hey you know what you're going to give me work to do but I'm going to seek out more work I'm going to figure out if I'm going to call the east coast in the morning the west coast in the afternoon I'm going to be diligent about planning my day and preparing how the work is going to unfold

I'm going to learn from the best in my organization I'm going to make sure that my effort is a three because hustle is my middle name and skill man this company's great it provides great training but I'm going to go the extra mile I'm going to learn how to take it to that next level I'm going to to go get training on my own. Three times three times three is 27. And you see in the area of top performance and the performance formula, people who own their effort, they own their attitude and they own their skill, the world is theirs. It's absolutely right. They can control it. Yeah, there's so much application here, Tom, not just as an individual performer, but for leaders as well. Because this simple formula really hammers home the idea of hiring well. You know, hiring people who naturally,

have a good attitude. I mean, we just know that. There's a fact. Some people just are more inclined to be positive. Some work at it intentionally. And then we have hustlers. You know these people. They're just a hustler.

It doesn't matter where you put them in life, they're going to hustle. So if you can find people that have a positive attitude and are hustlers, oh my gosh, Tom, you could teach them any skill. Absolutely. And it's interesting that the corporate world and the small business world, they make the same mistake. They bring somebody on. and they start with the skill.

Right. Right. Yeah. And then they move back to the effort. That's right. And then finally they address the attitude. And the attitude is the linchpin of everything. Boy, that's right.

And let me ask you this, being kind of a nerd, when you have a mathematical equation and you turn one of the integers to a negative, what happens to the product of the equation? I have no idea. You just exposed me as not a good math guy. But it was a good question, and now you're going to tell us the answer. Yes. It goes negative. So if somebody has a negative answer. attitude. Let's just use the formula. Okay. That's right. If it's negative two on attitude and then two on

effort and two on skill, it's negative two times two times two. That's negative eight. That's right. So here's what's crazy. All the studies show that if you have a negative person on your team, it's cheaper. In fact, you'll make more profit, more revenue as a company. If you send that person home with the instructions, you're going to pay them while they're there. The instructions, not to talk to anybody at the company or any customers or prospects. So why don't we all do that? Yeah. I mean, we should, right?

Let's take the negative people and send them home because they cost us more in revenue. That's right. And in profit than if they're here. And that's the visualization of this performance formula is, can I look at myself in the mirror? Because, hey, that's where I got to start. Is my attitude a three? Do I own my attitude? Does nobody else determining my attitude but me?

Do I own my effort? And do I own my skill? And when I do that, then I can be a top performer. Okay, so here's another wrinkle to this as I'm listening to you, and you break this down. This is so good. Tom, this is the reality that some days we human beings have bad days. You know, it could be no fault of our own, meaning that external things that we don't control could be a sickness in the family, just a leak in your house. Any number of things that we don't control can start our day off negatively or make us focus on external things that

can affect our attitude. And so what I love about this formula, you were talking to me before we started recording that at any point in your day or in your week or in your month or your year, you can look at this equation and determine, are you doing your best? And so I want you to speak to us because there are ties where you know, Tom, as I just laid out, we just have a bad attitude, not about the work, but just we're down. We're discouraged. This is a wonderful barometer, isn't it? Absolutely. And the reality is, all of us, because we're human, we're going to have a bad day every now and then. And so my father, Zig Ziglar, maybe the most optimistic person who ever walked the earth. He had bad moments. Oh, sure. Right? Because we all do. We're human, whether it was

grief or something. But you know what? Because he was constantly filling his mind with the right information. In other words, he was putting deposits into the bank account of motivation and inspiration. He had friends that he would call. He had books that he would read. He had audio programs that he would listen to to take his attitude from where it was to where he knew it needed to be. And he had a responsibility beyond himself because he knew that if he exhibited the right attitude, effort and skill, that people would want some of that. And when you're contagious, that's in a right, and contagious in a positive way, that's when you can change the world.

That's why his legacy continues to live on and have such an impact. And so to people who are having a bad day, I think the first thing you do is go, whoops, time out, I'm having a bad day. I'm going to take a break. I'm going to take a walk. I'm going to go sit in the car. I'm going to put the headphones on. I'm going to get some Zig.

I'm going to get some Dave. I'm going to get something that's going to lift me up. I'm going to call a friend. I'm going to text somebody I love and tell them I love and appreciate them. And as soon as you reach out with gratitude to other people, it starts to lift your attitude. But here's the first thing you've got to decide. You've got to decide you have control over your own attitude. And when you do that, when you make that decision, the rest,

follows. Boy, that's so good. Because you mentioned your dad, of course, I've got to ask, we have a lot of moms and dads, Tom, listening into this. So yes, they're businessmen and women, they're leaders, but they're also moms and dads. And I don't want to miss this nugget. Could you take us back to maybe how he would parent this principle as well? Because he had his own bad days, right? But what about as a youngster? And our parents that are listening, they know when our kids get down or they get discouraged or they get angry, how would he parent you on those? Well, I'll give you two stories that I witnessed firsthand. The first one is this.

Okay, so for your parents out there, I know, and as a parent and my daughter's 20 now, but when she was growing up, we all have this experience, right? So I'm 11, 12, 13 years old, and I like to sleep, right? Oh, sure. 13, 14. Don't we like to sleep? Absolutely. So Sunday morning rolls around.

Dad comes in. Time to get up, son, time to go to church. And, of course, I do whatever young teenager does. Dad, do I have to go to church? And he looks at me and he goes, son, no. No, you get to go to church. And you see, Dad, no matter what it was, he got to do it, right? It wasn't a have to.

It was a get-to. And when you start looking at that perspective, wait a second, I get to go to church. There's people who don't get to go to church. They live in places where that's not available. There are people who don't have jobs. I get to go to work. There are people who don't have cars. I get to go drive that old car because there's people who don't have that when you flip that.

The other one is, I remember checking into the airport in Phoenix. and I was 16 or 17, and dad talked about this on stage, but I got to witness him. We walk in, the weather's bad, and the agent says, Mr. Ziegler, the flight's delayed four hours. He looks at the guy and says, fantastic. And the guy kind of looked back, and he said, what do you mean fantastic? He goes, well, you know, there's only three reasons why it could be delayed. The weather's bad, the equipment's bad, or the flight crew is not here, you know, or there's something wrong. And if any three of those reasons are going on, I don't want.

want to be up there in the air. I want to be right here on the ground. That's good. Fantastic. Well, here's the thing. In life, we know that things are going to go astray sometimes. If you travel a lot, why not prepare your response in advance before it comes up? It saves all the hassle of the emotions and everything else. And the guy goes, well, why do you think it's fantastic? And dad says, well, look, I've got a 40,000 square foot office right out there with cafes and air conditioning and all the amenities right here. This is great. I've got, work to do right here in my briefcase. You see, Dad had planned in advance for the side trips that life throws us sometimes. So whatever business you're in, whatever career are trying to do,

think about those disappointing pieces of information you get. And instead of going, oh, no, not again, go fantastic and go straight to the pre-planned option that you have in place. For Dad, it was just he had his work with him. And just the, but I love what you just shared that because he prepared his mind and he prepared his heart as well. He had some work to do because the man was productive. But really, I think for the person listening to this, they're like, I'm just not wired the way Zig was. Zigg was just that way. Well, I'm sure he was positive by nature, but the fact is you just kept saying the word over and over.

I heard three times preparation is the cause. He prepared mentally and emotionally for those moments. Absolutely. Dad had a great quote. He said, you are what you are and where you are because of what's gone into your mind. and you can change what you are and where you are by changing what goes into your mind. Well, being simpler, I changed it this way. I said, what you feed your mind determines your appetite.

In other words, what goes in is going to determine what you desire. So I shared that quote in an event one time when this lady stands up at the back, and she goes, that's just like NASCAR. And I'm like, how in the world is that like NASCAR? Yeah, fill me in, ma'am. How is what you feed your mind determines your appetite like NASCAR? car and she says it's simple when you're going around the track 185 190 miles an hour your eyes have to look where the car needs to go at that speed if you look at the wall you hit the wall in that in that life

that's absolutely brilliant and so here's the here's the takeaway don't try to not do stuff like don't eat that don't sin don't get upset instead focused on what you are going to do hey i love eating salad man i i love having this preparation and when bad news comes I like the idea that I'm the best in the company in handling it because it doesn't rock me because I have a process in place already predetermined. Boy, that's good. All right, so here's a takeaway for me, and I always like to do this for our audience because I'm listening to this and I'm going, this is me. My number one, my number one irritant is when plans go awry and I've got to wait because I have the patience of a squirrel on a really bad dosage of narcotic. I'm just making this up.

I mean, just imagine. I just hate to wait. I have no patience at all. It's embarrassing. But I've got to look at the next delay as an opportunity for me to handle it in a way that makes the person, like maybe it's a flight attendant, or maybe it's someone at the counter or a salesperson who sold me something. This is an opportunity for me to bless them by making a tough situation for them easier. That's why I take away. Now, that's just for Ken.

So I really want you to lock in on this moment. Tom just shared some gold with us there. We've got to determine ahead of time how we're going to act and think about the positive side of, hey, when this happens, I'm going to do this so I can bless somebody. That's huge. That is huge. Let me tell you a goal I have for this year. I'm on airplanes a lot. So I set a goal to have the best travel year ever.

I love that. Okay. And so what I do, now this is kind of fun, okay? So I got this idea from a lady who went through one of our classes. And so now when I get on an airplane, I have a gift. for every person on the flight crew. Oh, man. What it is, it's a little book of big quotes.

It's a little pocket-sized thing. You know, it's less than a dollar, and it's got all the dads, all the Zig Ziglar's quotes in it. But this is what's cool is I put a Starbucks card in each one of them. Oh, wow. So every time I get on the plane, I ask the first flight attendant, I say, hey, can you help me with my goal? And, of course, they think I'm crazy. Oh, yeah. Oh, a problem child passenger.

And they go, okay, what's your goal? and I say, I'm trying to have the best travel year ever. And I figure if you're happy, I'm happy. They're like, yeah, well, I'm pretty happy. And I say, do you like Starbucks? And then, of course, the big smile comes open, right? And then I hand them this little book of big quotes with the Starbucks card in there, and I say, I appreciate what you do.

When something goes wrong, you get the credit. When something goes right, you don't get any of the credit. You guys are awesome. I appreciate everything you do. Here's one for you, and here's one for you. I give it to the two flight attendants, and I have two for the pilots, and then I work my way back. I give the speech again in the back of the plane.

You have no idea how the atmosphere of that whole plane changes in a heartbeat. Oh, sure. I got a two-page handwritten note from the captain on one of the flights. I've been upgrade – I'm not doing this for upgrades, but I've been upgraded twice after taking my seat. Oh, I can only mention it. I get free food that's, like, ridiculous, and I'm gluten-free, so I can't eat any of it. So I share it with everybody. But I'm not doing it for that.

Oh, come on. You're doing it for the bag of peanuts. You want the extra bag of peanuts. They come and they will spend 10 or 15 minutes at my chair talking about, really, you appreciate me? And I'm like, yeah, I appreciate you. Oh, I can only imagine. And so here's a thing, right? If we're going to work on our attitude, effort, and skill, why not take it one step further into the realm of significance while we try to impact somebody else's attitude by showing gratitude for them and appreciation?

So I'm having the best travel you I've ever had. I'll bet. It's unbelievable. Well, this leads to you and your company, Tom, showing appreciation for the men and women who are really the heartbeat of our economy. Small business men and women, leaders, business leaders, and you're going to give away something. This is really cool. We love to give away stuff, and this is very exciting. We have two giveaways for you.

The first one, I'm holding my hand what is a great, it's in poster form with the Ziegler companies, but I'm holding what amounts to be a flyer, and we're going to give this away as a PDF, okay? I'll tell you about that a little bit later, but it's called the true performance pledge. And this speaks to a couple things. Obviously, Tom wants to add value to you, folks. But secondly, this is that preparation. This is making a pledge and beginning to be intentional about how you're going to live. Give us a summary. We're going to have time to cover each of the pledges.

There's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight statements, if you will, that you're pledging. Give us a summary, Tom. The bottom line is this, is after I will speak on the performance formula to a large group. The question always comes up. Okay, I love that. How do I raise that standard in my own organization? You know, I've got three employees. I've got 30 employees. How do I get my whole team to buy into attitude, effort, and skill? And so what this pledge does first and foremost is it gets, it raises standard. All the team members sign off on the pledge. You know, I'm going to have this kind of attitude. I'm going to exhibit this kind of effort. I'm going to work with integrity.

And then at the very end, we have a tie down, which is real simple. You see, because as a leader who travels all the time, I can't be in the home office managing attitude because I'm not there. So we need our culture to raise up and we need our team members to hold each other accountable. I love the Ramsey policy, the no gossip policy. I mean, that's legendary. And really it works because everybody around it makes sure that it works, right? And so in our attitude policy, as far as the true performance pledge is this, is if somebody's having a bad day and they start venting a little bit, we give people an easy out. So a team member can say, say, Ken, I understand that's very important to you.

Why don't we schedule a private meeting around that? And that's code. And all that code simply says is, hey, wait a second. You need to check your attitude. We go back in the room. We'll have a private meeting. People need a chance to vent, but they got a vent with somebody who can handle that, which is their supervisor, their manager or somebody like that.

So the performance pledge got borne out of that. How do we raise the standard? How do we make this part of our culture? And how do we equip and empower our team members to take it to the next level? Wow, this is so great. Well, folks, he is Tom Ziegler. He is our friend and he is your friend, as you could imagine. We will tell you more about the details.

So stay with us here. When we let Tom go, we'll tell you more about the details, how you can download this free PDF and enter to win the free book. Let's talk about it. The book we're giving away is Zig's last book, Born to Win. What does that book mean to you, Tom? Born to Win. Well, I tell you, Dad and I worked on that together. we consolidated all of his best philosophy, all of his best information in one book.

It's based on the quote, you are born to win, but in order to be the winner you were born to be, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and then only then can you expect to win. And we talked about planning in this call. So the book was written for two kinds of people. The first is the people who are brand new to Ziegler, and they're trying to get all the information in one place. The other are the longtime fans. They've read the materials. They've listened.

all the information in one place. So I think in your audience, if they're either New Time Ziegler people or Old Times Ziegler people, it's perfect. So it's just such a great book. It's life-changing. I had an impact in writing the last chapter, which is about 15% of the book. So I guarantee you, Ken, that 85% of the book is awesome. Yeah, I like that. But what a great privilege and honor to write that with your dad. Hey, before we let you go, this is really fun. We get to hang with you today, but we'll also be hanging with you at the summit event. This is our first time event. My goodness, we've got Dave and his friends John Maxwell, Rabbi Lappin, Dr. Henry Cloud, Pat Lynchione, and it's going to be fun. You're coming to hang out. And I find that to be very cool, because you have been exposed to so much personal

growth information just by virtue of being close to your father and now leading the Ziegler companies. Why are you coming? Why are you really there? Well, there's a couple of reasons. The biggest reason is dad was a lifelong student, lifelong learner. He spent three hours a day studying. I have a very specific written down goal this year, and that's to attend two personal development growth seminars where I am just a student, where I am just there learning and getting information and all the people who are going to be on the program. I've read their books, listening to their information, friends with several of them. So it's going to be fun for me. I mean, when you go to a place and you get to present, that's great.

But you don't have the same, you know, openness to just learning something that if you can just go there and soak it up like a sponge. So that's the main thing. And because I know that I will be a better person after being there, it's a great investment of time for me. And it's, you know, whatever you get out of it is going to multiply later on because dad said this. He said, when you learn something new, what it does is it multiplies. everything you already know. Creativity is that power that you get when you learn new information. Unless you're learning new information, your creativity tends to slide off. And so I'm dedicated to being creative. And by learning new information, that's how my creativity goes up.

Folks, how do you not get fired up listening to guys like Tom Ziegler? You know, I've been a sponge today. I know our audience has as well, Tom. We are all much better for it. And what a thrill to have you hang out with us here at our headquarters in the studio. We really appreciate you, Tom. Thank you. It's been an honor and a privilege to be here. It feels like home. All right, I want to thank Tom Ziegler for his time and sharing his heart with us. I told you about the two giveaways. Let's first talk about the true performance pledge, which Tom unpacked for us and how they use it. This is a very simple download for you in PDF form. We want you to go to ontreleadership.com slash podcast.

Entreeleadership.com slash podcast. And you can download the PDF on that page. And now for our 50 book giveaway, if you're new to our podcast, here's all we ask you to do. We want you to send a tweet on Twitter. And of course, you need to mention at Entree Leadership. And then, whatever you want to say, just conclude it or somewhere in the tweet, use

this hashtag, Conversation That Matters. And we love to hear from you. We love your real comments, something you took away. Anything you want to tweet, just tweet it to at-Entree Leadership. Use the hashtag, conversation that matters. And then Eric, the producer, has some type of very cool, new-fangled process. And by the way, there's a word we don't say enough, Eric, fangled. New-fangled.

Sounds like my grandfather. It's really fun. But he will pick 50 of you, lucky listeners, to receive a copy of the Ziegler book, Born to Win. One of the things we love to do is put out the word for questions, comments, suggestions, anything on your head and heart as a result of this podcast. And we want you to email us. And it's very, very simple. The email address is podcast at entreleadership.com. That's podcast at entreleadership.com.

And we have a stack of emails that we get, and we haven't had a Ken's electronic mail in a while. So I thought it was time to bring it back. Electronic mail. You've got mail. All right, this email is from John Mark Dudulo. I hope I'm saying that, right? That's D-A-D-U-L-O. I think that's D-A-D-U-L-O.

What do you think, Eric? You think that I'm hooked on phonics? All right, he thinks that's pretty good. John Mark Dudulo emails us and get right to his question. He says, to what extent does being transparent hurt your leadership? Or does it? Well, first, John, thanks for the question. and, you know, listen, transparency in my mind is never bad.

I don't think it ever hurts your leadership unless you take transparency to an absurd level, and that's not what we're talking about. Let me illustrate. If you are authentic and you're honest and you are direct, I think that is the definition of good transparency. Your leadership team, the people you lead and serve, should never be under. clear about what you're thinking. They just shouldn't. Clarity is huge. So I think it's the common sense test. Transparency in the form of awkwardness, right? You're saying something that

you just shouldn't say. It's TMI. Too much information. Whether that be absurd or whether it be offensive or insensitive. I think that's where transparency is too much. Meaning you don't need to share every thought in your head. But when we talk about transparency and leadership being a good thing, it's because you're authentic, it's because you're honest, and it's because you're direct. Clarity is the definition of transparency. If you're transparent, you should have a very clear communication. So thanks for the question, John Mark. Hope that helped you. And folks, again, we'd love to hear from you. We'd love to read your email on the air. You can do that by sending us an email to podcast at entreleadership.com. Folks, we have several influencers, movers, and shakers that are coming

to attend Entree Leadership Summit. And we introduce you to Jeremy Cowart in a recent podcast. Today I want to introduce you to two podcasters. Hey, these are guys that are doing what we're doing. And so this is a big world. And we're all for being the best in what we do. But my goodness, I like a big tent philosophy when it comes to personal development. And so we're really excited to have Omar Zinnom and Dave Kirby attend the Entry Leadership Summit.

These guys are podcasters. And so first, Omar, a host that. the $100 MBA show. Now, this is a daily 10-minute business lesson. Really cool stuff. And I'll tell you more about how to find it, but first, I got on the phone with Omar recently, and I asked him very simply,

why would you spend money and time to come to the Entry Leadership Summit? This is what he said. Well, I am really excited about it because, you know, Dave Ramsey is bringing speakers and leadership team. And there's only something to learn when you have these great experts in a room. You're going to have like-minded people attending.

I'm always a very a very disservant person I like to talk about what they're doing and I like to pass that on to my community and my audience so I'm really excited about you know what is in store I mean that's a look at that we guys have

exciting Dave is always you know, impressing us with everything he provides in his content so I'm looking forward to just being around great people and getting around great information

all right that was Omar Zennam and then Dave Kirby got on the line with me and we love what Dave is doing on the one simple thing podcast. And Dave's coming as well, and I said, Dave, again, why are you excited about coming to Summit? This is what he said. You know, when I saw the list of speakers that are going to be at the summit, I was just blown away. It's like, wait a minute. You mean I get to be in the same room with Daily Cloud, all these, Christy Wright and Chris Hogan and all these people that are

going to be at this summit. And I get to, it's like I get to sit at their feet and learn from these incredible people, and not just to be there and learn from them, but to be there and kind of more of an intimate setting where I can really... Well, I want to thank Omar and Dave for hanging out with us on the phone and really looking forward to meeting these guys in person. And for whatever it's worth, I recommend you give both of these podcasts a list. I think they'd be stellar additions to your podcast subscriptions. All you have to do is search the $100 MBA on iTunes, and then one simple thing on iTunes,

and that will get you to both of these podcasts. And if you want to learn more about the Entree Leadership Summit, just go to Entreeleadership.com slash Summit. We'd love to see you there. It is going to be big, big fun. Well, I want to thank Tom Ziegler for hanging out with us today. I know you appreciated that conversation as well. Clayton Mask is a great partner with us from InfusionSoft, and we love what Clay is adding to this podcast.

Omar and Dave, great podcasts. They're going to be out at the Entree Leadership Summit. Thanks, guys, for hanging out with us as well. Well, on behalf of Eric the producer and the entire team at Andre Leadership, thank you all so very much for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.