EntreLeadership - Acknowledge This Isn't Easy... and Keep Moving Forward

Episode Date: April 2, 2020

Tune in to hear Daniel Tardy and Luke LeFevre respond to some business owners' fears around Coronavirus.   Get access to the EntreLeadership Weekly Report Tool, FREE, for you and your team for 3 months: Text TEAMHEALTH to 33444 or visit entreleadership.com/weekly-report   Follow us on social media to stay plugged in to everything we’re doing to help the small business owner win: LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Twitter YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, this is Alex. I think we all know that times are a little bit wild and crazy right now. And I think one of the things that makes it so crazy is that everything is changing so fast. But here's the deal. The last thing you want to do as a leader is keep your eyes glued to CNN and Fox News. I just don't think that's good for your sanity. So we wanted to make sure that we were providing you with the most up-to-date information with regard to how we are handling this whole situation at Ramsey Solutions, but also how we see small business owners around the country winning and leading in this time. So every day, we're committed to bring you action-oriented, practical, positive content that can help you move your business forward. So here's today's bonus episode with Daniel Tarty and a member of our operating board, Luke Lefevre. Hey, guys, Daniel Tarty and Ramsey Solutions Entree leadership team. And I'm here with a good buddy of mine and another board member here at Ramsey Solutions, Luke Lefevre. Luke is our chief creative officer and an incredible leader here at Ramsey Solutions. And it's good to have you here with us today, Luke. Thanks for having me.

Thanks for being here. So we've kind of been in a battle together. Yeah. Of course, we've been through a lot of battles together. And Luke and I process a lot of things. When we're going through stuff, he's one of my go-to guys of like, man, I'm just in my head or I'm really stuck or I'm really frustrated. And, you know, I got to tell you, the first impulse I have as a leader when there's a battle, and I know that I've got a team who's looking at me, I'm not really proud of this, but it's just my impulse. And that is to act like I'm not scared and to act like I've got a plan even when I don't, because I don't want the team to think that I don't know what I'm doing, I guess, or that if they feel like their leader doesn't know where we're going, that they're going to

just run away and hide and we won't get anything done, you know? I mean, I make up these things in my head that aren't, you know, they're not real, but that's kind of where I go. When you kind of come up against a battle, like, what's your first impulse? What do you, what do you respond? It depends on the battle. I usually go with pretty vulnerable honesty, which is sometimes good and sometimes bad. So, like, I try to just really acknowledge it, but then eventually you do just have to decide what you're going to do. But yeah, fear is a, you're, a thing that is just always around and tough, tough choices,

but then eventually just decide. Trying to get to where, it's never, like you can't pretend it's easy. You can't pretend. Like we're on a podcast here. Like, oh yeah, we got it. People are listening to us. It's like, no, this is real life.

There's real people. Real families that the decisions that I make and that you make and the people listening to this make, their life's going to be different because of the decisions that I make. It's very high stakes. Yeah. And it's chaotic.

So we can't pretend not to be afraid. So I don't, my approach oftentimes is, if it's with a person, I try not to dance around it when there's a thing. As much as it sucks, like eventually I just got to,

you got to go for it. You got to decide what you're going to do, and then you just got to do it, even if you're afraid. So talk to that leader who's hearing this right now, and by the time this goes to air, has maybe for three weeks, been getting out of bed at 4 a.m. and grind until midnight, trying to keep their dream alive,

trying to hold on to the jobs of these team members that they've been serving and this business they've been building. And maybe has had to let some key people go. They've lost customers. They're talking to their spouse, night and they're just scared out of their mind. And they're starting, maybe the adrenaline got them through the first few weeks and now they're just really hitting the wall and they're really not sure if they can keep going.

What would you say to that person? I would say for me, that's how I've felt the last two weeks. And last week specifically, I mean, it's just like the crap is hitting the ceiling here in our country and the world and it's like, what do we do? what decisions do we make, what fights do we battle. And I just got, it was like Wednesday of last week. I get up early and I have to, I got to get my mind right first before I can just dive in. And so for me, I read a book that is focused on larger things, a spiritual book.

I read the Bible a lot or things from a Christian. perspective, and I read that first. That's where I got to start. I got to ground myself in how my connection to God is, because I want to know what he's thinking before anybody else comes in and tells me what I need to think, and because you're going to have team members that are mad at you for closing down or not closing down or all this stuff. You're going to have all these things, but, God, what do you want me to do today? And I start reading. And then I start writing, and I just write what I'm actually feeling. Like, I'm afraid, or I don't know what to do today, or so-and-so is upset, or I'm conflicted here.

If you don't acknowledge that stuff in your life and you just get up and go, you're going to just be reacting to everything versus a grounding in everything. I've got to have some grounding wire for me, and that, if you don't have that, if you don't have that, And you just wake up and you stare at your phone and you're automatically getting sucked into CNN and Fox and everything that is in theory trying to help. And then you get the email. I want you to say more about this. Yeah. Yeah, it sounds like you're saying that in leadership, if you're coming to all of these fires and the storm from a place of anxiety, you're actually compromising your ability to get through the storm. And without this lifeline, this anchoring that you're talking about, your only default is going to be to anxiety. You know, I know for me, I really value that morning routine as well. You know, I've got kind of my ideal week that's fairly balanced with like starting my day off and kind of having my morning time where I get into the Bible and I read something positive. And then I get into the day and I got my fitness routine. And it works pretty well when everything's semi-stable.

Nothing's ever really stable in leadership. It's always up and down. But I've noticed in the last few days just with how intense. and how high the volume is of all these, the needs from the team. I mean, there's lots of questions and approved this, and I'm grinding through email in my inbox until late at night. And the impulse I have when I first get out of bed in the morning is still like, okay, get into the morning routine.

But what I find myself doing is actually going and check an email. Because I just, I'm worried that something's on fire in that 30 minutes. You know, how do you still justify spending that 30 minutes when something maybe is on fire to not get to it until you're ready emotionally spiritually mentally that's been challenging for it oh it's me too me too um i just want to have that perspective every day and um that that habit in the morning of of getting up getting some quiet blocking out the inputs that are telling me how to feel or what to do i just want to block those out for the bit. I love that. So we've talked about anchoring your morning and getting your day started right.

Let's talk about how we take that into the day. And I've noticed that in leadership, we all have a tendency to under stress either hyperreact or hypereact. In other words, we get too aggressive and intense and we're making impulse quick, reckless decisions. Or we get so overwhelmed that we kind of stick our head in the sand and we become aloof and detached and withdrawal. And you and I know neither of those is really healthy, but we all have a tendency towards one of those extremes just based on how we're wired. How do we kind of stay in that healthy middle place where we show up for our team? You know, we're not panicked, but we're also very decisive. And we have a backbone. And we move forward with courage, but but not over the top where everybody's feeling like we're too intense

to be able to connect with them. My propensity is if, like I don't know, people are familiar with the ennegram and I'm a nine. So that is the peacemaker. And that's what it's called. And so I like to call it a peacemaker, not the peacekeeper. Like, I'm okay if there's conflict. I don't love it. But I want to make peace with all the different things that are going on.

So my propensity is to, if I'm not careful, to be the one who runs away and goes and puts his head in the sand. Like that would be, if I just gave into every impulse, I would just be that person. go off to the mountain and run away and live by myself, you know, that kind of thing. But that's not what I'm, that's not what I think God wants me to do and not what I'm called to do. So finding the balance of that, I personally have to move towards action. I have to force myself to act. So today, with everybody separate, we, yesterday were like, should we have our daily stand-up with the creative team? There's 130 people on the creative team.

Should we try to do that through Zoom? Oh man, that's going to be hard. Like, it's going to be, it's not like live, and I love live events and like talking to people and stuff like that. Well, this is going to be different. And it was like, yep, we should do it. Yep. And then we got there. Let's make an agenda, and we got it.

And we had 130 people this morning in their houses, you know, meeting up. And it was like, hey, let's do shoutouts. This is going to be weird. And it went great. People were shouting out the good things that their teammates had done this week. and I was more nervous about doing it digitally than in real life. But I was like, we got to do it. We got to stay connected.

I got to push send. I got to do the things. And so another thing that I've tried recently to do is just to not let the overwhelming feelings get me to just run away to the mountain. Starting the day with action, I'm like, okay, I do that morning thing where I'll read and I'll start there. But oftentimes I can just get stuck in my head and, okay, I'm feeling all these things and I'll stick there. Just looping. So, yeah. So I'm like, okay, I need to move to action.

So I'm going to go for a walk around the block. I'm going to walk around the block two times just to act, just to do something. That's good. Because when we get paralyzed, do something. If you can take an action where you eliminate some of the friction, you know, I grew up doing sales a lot. And there's this thing in sales where you get call reluctance. You get in a rut and you're like, I just don't want to call anyone. And it's weird because even if you know you're a good salesperson and you called people yesterday,

you just go, I'm just paralyzed. And I figured out this hack that's similar to this where if I didn't want to call a prospect and I was feeling the kind of the reluctance of getting rejected, I would call a friend. Yeah. I would call my wife. I'd call my dad. Just have a conversation to break it. That way the phone is not the problem.

And then I got a little momentum, got my mouth moving, and now I can call the prospect. It's easy to call. Right. But it's like, how can you jolt out of that? that paralysis. It's like getting the motor going, especially if everybody's at home right now, and you're kind of in this, normally, we're telling, normally I'm saying to people, slow down, slow down, stop, get some solitude, and now it's a little bit like, all right, force yourself to act, make a call, get the conversation going, you know. Talk about in solitude and, you know,

solitude and isolation are different, right? Yeah. Solitude is recharging our souls, but isolation can really be the enemy right now. I know for me, starting Monday morning, it was a dead sprint all the way through. And I looked up and it was suddenly Wednesday at lunchtime. And you and I happened to both be here. And my incredible assistant

said, hey, I'll run and grab you guys at Burger. And there was just this little moment of calm. And we sat and had really kind of a heart to heart. Like, how are you feeling? Yeah. How are you doing? And it was so good for me to just kind of like have a place to get out. Like, this is what I'm worried. about. And this is what I'm not sure about how we're, you know, we're making a lot of quick

decisions right now that, you know, I'm on board, but I'm not sure if I even agree with how we got to all this stuff because it's moving so quick and we haven't had the time to all agree. We just got to go. And this has been tough for me. And you shared things that have been tough for you. And, man, that was just such a recharge in the middle of my week. And I know for these business leaders, so many of them, they may not have that even baked into their regular rituals, the importance of reaching out and asking for help and talking to people. How do the leaders that are isolated and scared right now, how do they find the right people to even just connect with and check in?

Yeah. I don't know what each person's story is, but I think there's a person that you know you can just, ah, man, it sucked laying off eight people last week. I don't know what to do, you know? Think of that person. Like, just take a second right now. There's a few people in my life like that that I can just be totally honest with.

And it's not like the comments I'm making are being judged or even that we have to do anything with it. Like I might just get up and be like, oh, I'm not going to do any of that stuff I just said, you know. And I might not even believe it or whatever, but someone you can just be like, I called my brother-in-law on the way home last night, and he runs a small business,

and it's an events business. It's sound and video and lighting for events. There's nothing right now. There's nothing. And so he was texting me, and I texted him, and I just said, seriously, period, how are you doing? And he was like,

I'm okay. And I was just like, I need to call him. So we just got on the phone. He's one of those for me that I can just be, he gets it and I can just be completely honest with him. And just being able to break this bubble that happens in some form. And so how do you find those kind of people? I think we, if you don't have someone that immediately comes to mind,

start looking. It could be someone that, church. It could be someone who you sort of, you know, when you're with people and you're like, I like that person. Hmm. Like reach out to them this week. Hey, I got to be honest, this has been really hard couple weeks. Can we just, can we just, even if it's through Zoom or teams or whatever the thing is or FaceTime, can we just get together and have a drink? I don't care what we talk about, but this sucks. And can we, you know, do it? it. This is really good. And I want you to unpack this in a second, just a little more. Yesterday

morning, I felt so overwhelmed because not only is all this stuff going on with work, we got some personal things that are happening with health issues of some people that I'm really close with in my family. We got some news from our friends that was really sad and devastating. And I just felt oppressed. And I got to work, and I'm in the parking lot. And I was feeling it building my body, like anxiety. And I facetined my wife. Yeah. And she said, what's going on? And I said, I don't feel okay right now. Yeah. And for about 10 or 15 minutes, we talked. And I said, I don't want to go in there. I mean, it was pointing at the building. I don't want to go in. I really just, I just want to come home and get back and back. Yeah, yeah. And she said, how are you feeling? I said, I'm feeling sad. I'm feeling

angry. And why are you feeling that way? And after that phone call with my wife, she didn't have any new solutions. She have any new master strategies for how Ramsey and Entree leadership or whatever, going to get through all this stuff. But I came in, and I got after it. And then last night, she said, how was the rest of your day? I said, it was great. Great. And she said, what happened? I said, what happened is I just got it out with someone that loves me. Exactly. And it just, it wasn't about getting the answers. It was about knowing I wasn't alone. And so as leaders, you know, Luke, many leaders feel like we got to be tough and to talk about our feelings and to say, I feel angry, I feel scared, I feel sad, It feels weird.

I feel fear. It feels really weird. But talk about the value of doing that. With someone that's safe enough to do it. You don't do that broadcast to your whole team, but the value of connecting with another leader on that. I think it releases a valve. Like it's like if you're just performing for people all the time, then you're a performer. You're not a real human.

So I think it releases a valve just to say what you're actually thinking. And that's where the journaling for me over the years has become so important. It's the same principle, though. If I can just get it out, what is actually going on, and then you move on. The key is to be okay feeling all the things you're going through, the anxiety, the fear, the anger, all those things. Because I think they're actually a gift.

So if you're feeling afraid, which there's lots of reasons to be right now, Like it's okay. Acknowledge that fear and then be like, okay, is the fear telling me to do something? Like there's been things like this over the years that I have anxiety or I'm afraid of something and I'm trying to decide whether it's anxiety or fear. And sometimes it's fear because, oh, I haven't prepared or I haven't done something that I need to do to get ready for the thing or whatever it is. But if I can acknowledge it with somebody else,

then it sort of releases that valve and I can see clearer. So you're saying that's a gift. But what about when you don't do that? You know, like when you kind of suppress that feeling. That's where I feel like it moves towards anxiety. Which isn't good. I think that's toxic. And for leaders like that, can you talk about like the chain reaction of that for our teams?

Yeah, it freezes you. If you know something's going on, your team is feeling it already. Like, I think. If there's a big something going on, I don't know, a team member issue, a world issue like it's going on right now, people are humans and they can feel things. They're listening to the news too. They're watching all the stuff. They're knowing that problem team member.

But if you're not acknowledging it, then you're not leading. Yeah. Like they can tell them. audio and video or not matching up. Yeah, acknowledge the thing. And then be like, either we're going to acknowledge it, and I'm not sure exactly what to do yet, but today I'm going to spend some time figuring this out.

I'm going to talk to some of you about it, and then we'll go from there. But that's where you just have to decide. Like, you can have all of these feelings, and they're not bad. I think they are gifts to lead to wisdom. That fear, you know, there's that phrase, fear leads to wisdom.

And if you stay there, if you just stay, frozen because of the feelings, that's not the answer. You got to eventually do something. And like you said, you had all those things, but then you just showed up. And by the end, you got the motor running and you got going. So the acting on it, bringing motion and action helps to an extent. But, yeah. Well, Luke, this has been hugely encouraging for me and I know for our audience. We've got leaders out there that, you know, right now are generally in three different categories. There's leaders and companies that are actually scaling up to this new demand. As crazy as that is, there's companies that are trying to hire and grow quickly because of this disruption. There's a lot

of companies that are just adapting. And the way they work looks different, but they're making it, but it's tough. And then there's companies that are going to have to probably rebuild and relaunch. And it's really sad. And they're making some of the hardest decisions of their life right now. But across those categories, we all have new problems and new challenges. What would you say as some final words of encouragement to any leader who's trying to figure out how to lead right now in these times of chaos? I think it's a, I don't want to just put some hollow words out there or the first thing that comes to my mind, you know, but it really does come down to don't give up. Like if you just show up, just show up.

up again tomorrow. Like really, this will pass, show up again tomorrow, look at your options, make the best decision right now to get you where you think you want to be a year from now. Like, you started this thing, you built this thing, you made this thing, this business. I think we are all put on this earth to create, and you created something. and there's a reason you created it, there's a reason you started it, there's a reason 5, 10, 15, 100 people decided to come and work for you.

That was put in there before Corona, before team member issues, before not knowing what to do, before all this stuff that you didn't know you're going to have to deal with, that was there. That drive to create something was there before any of this.

And it's still there. and there's going to be ups and downs and overs and sideways. But don't give up on that thing that is inside of you that says, I started this because I was drawn to this thing before anybody told me it was a bad idea. So don't give up on that and figure out ways to continue and show up tomorrow and make the best next choice for you, your family, and your business.

And give something people to eventually come back and work for you again. Yeah. Well, Luke, this has been fantastic. And as a theme, my big takeaway is, as leaders, while you're being a lifeline to your customers, while you're being a lifeline to your community, make sure that you've got access to your own lifeline.

Yeah. Community, spiritually. Yeah. And at Entree leadership and this podcast during this time, our goal is to also be a lifeline for you. We're going to keep pushing out things that hopefully encourage your heart and give you the boldness of mind to go forward. board and together we're going to get through to the other side.