EntreLeadership - The Keys to Growing as a Leader This Year with Patrick Lencioni

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

It can be so easy to jump headfirst into a new year. You have new goals, new plans and new gym memberships. But is there a step before all of this new activity? Should we take a moment to pause and reflect on the previous year in order to become the leaders we want to be? In this episode of The EntreLeadership Podcast, we sit down with Patrick Lencioni, one of the founders of The Table Group and a pioneer of the organizational health movement. Patrick tells us why it is so important to reflect on the previous year and avoid repeating the same mistakes in the next one. Then in our second segment, George Kamel interviews Dr. John Delony on some tactical strategies for reflection this holiday season.   The EntreLeadership Podcast Patrick Lencioni's website The Motive by Patrick Lencioni The Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni At The Table with Patrick Lencioni podcast Learn more about EntreLeadership Summit Atomic Habits by James Clear Questions for Humans Conversation Cards by Dr. John Delony I Don't Want to Talk About It by Terrence Real Poetry by Steve Connell Take the Leadership Growth Assessment Schedule a call with Tim, our producer   Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: EntreLeadership Summit | EntreLeadership Master Series   Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: Elite | Advisory Groups | Executive Coaching | Workshops | Weekly Report Tool   Learn more about the offers from our EntreLeadership Partners: BELAY | Gravy | Hite Digital | NetSuite Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happy New Year to all of our Entree leadership listeners out there. I know it can be so easy to dive into the new year headfirst, ready to tackle your goals and accomplish the vision you have for 2022. But it's just as important to take a moment, pause, and look back at the year that was and the leader that you were in order to become the leader you need to be. From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership podcast, where we help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits.

I'm your host, George Camel, And today's episode is all about reflecting and taking inventory of the past year as we begin 2022, which connects to our business driver of Personal. Our first guest today is Patrick Lynchione. He's the president and one of the founders of the table group. He's also the author of 11 books which have sold over 6 million copies, and he happens to be one of our speakers at this year's Entree Leadership Summit event. Pat spends his time speaking and writing about leadership, teamwork, and organizational health,

as well as consulting with executives and their teams. I'm going to sit down with Pat to talk about what he does to reflect and take inventory at the start of the year so he can become the leader his team needs him to be, and he's going to show us how we can do the same. In our second conversation, I talk with Ramsey personality, Dr. John Deloney about the intentional practices he does for himself and with his family in order to become the husband, father, friend, and leader he wants to be. Up first, my conversation with Patrick Lynchione. Pat, it's so great to have you back on the Entree Leadership Podcast. I would be on every day if you let me.

I love this. Be careful what you wish for, Pat. They would have you every day. Your audience is just some of the hungriest, most just, I love the audience. I love what you guys do. We were talking about this before we started, so it is a pleasure for me, and it's really fun. Yeah. A lot of mutual respect here.

Ramsey loves Pat, and Pat loves Ramsey, and it's a good relationship. So we're thankful to have you back on. Happy New Year to you. and I want to kick it off talking about the new year. And more importantly, kind of reflecting on the year that was, because a lot of people are listening to this and they're running and gunning. They're just heading straight into the new year, going hard. But I want to take a moment to talk with you about taking inventory at the beginning of the year.

What do you do, Pat, as the new year rolls around to reflect and take inventory? Well, I'm going to tell you the truth, George. I try to do it all the time. But it's really important to do it at the beginning of the year. But I will say that probably I sometimes let that slip, but we shouldn't. And I really need to stop right then. But I began thinking about this back in December, you know. And it's really important if we haven't done it already to stop right now before we get any further into the year and say, what happened last year, what's going to happen this year?

And then to do it again in February, March, and April and May, because I think we've got to constantly make adjustments. But this is a good time to say, have I really thought things through? So it's not a once a year thing. It's a regular thing, but the New Year is a great time to kind of be that catalyst. Yes, yes. And so this is a good time to stop and take stock. But we need to do that every evening. We need to do it every month.

We need to be constantly – because the thing about it is is the needs of our business, of our customers, of our employees, of our family doesn't always correspond with the calendar. You know, it might be June when people have to restart everything. But this is a good time of year. And some people might be in the middle of that restart. Some people might just, we're actually coming off of a major transition right now. So as we enter the new year, this is feeling like a big launch to us. As opposed to sometimes it's a good time to go, maybe this year we need to do that.

So sometimes the calendar doesn't correspond to the business needs, but this is a great time and to ask the right questions. It does seem like a lot of businesses are going, well, we'll do that next year. Let's focus on that in Q1. and they kind of push it all to the start of the new year as if their life is going to be drastically different and things are going to be in a much better place. And then you wake up January 1st and you're the same leader, you're the same person, business is the same as usual. How do you avoid that where you have big plans and then you kind of go business as usual? You know, I had a friend,

a guy named Craig who in my first job out of college and we worked in a management consulting firm called Bain. When we'd go in on the weekends, which was pretty much every weekend to work, we'd get dressed casual. And he had these sneakers and he had something written. on the side of it, which said, do it now. I was like, what's that all about? He goes, hey, it's so easy to postpone things. And I've really since that time, over the last 30 years, thought, whenever you can do something now, do that. And I don't like it when people say, well, we'll wait till later. I did a podcast recently where I talked about, like, you know, in the Bible, Jesus says, convert now. Don't delay. And it's so easy to go, I'm going to wait till the new year to do that.

Or I'm going to start dieting after the holidays. Or I'm going to stop watching. watching the news so much, but after the election is over. And it's like, when we do that, we're just pushing things off. And so if we're in a business, I think take action when it's necessary. But January is a good time to say, if I've been postponing anything, no more. So even though I don't think we should wait till now, if we haven't done it, you know, what's that Chinese proverb? The best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago, and the second best time is right now.

So here we are. We're on this podcast. It's the beginning of the year. Let's talk about what we should do right now. Do it now. Did you get the sneakers? Did you get a pair for yourself? No, because he just wrote them on there, but I should write a pair to write that. He just physically wrote it. I thought they were like custom edition. No, he wrote it in big letters, which I thought was odd, but it was that important to him.

He puts on his shoes and it says, just do it now. That's awesome. So what are some of those practices that leaders can do to take inventory, to take stock? I mean, is it a journal where you're kind of just reflecting and writing down a stream of consciousness? What could that look like? Well, that's going to depend on the person, I think, and on their personality and how they do things. Although it's good to do things that are not always in your comfort zone, too. So I think prayer for me has got to be involved in that because ultimately I'm like, gosh, I want to do what God wants me to do. And then get away from the business.

Step away. Because you can't do this so many times we say, I want to plan things, but I'll just do it during my commute. So whether you have to drive away a half hour and sit in a cabin for a few days or do an off-site, this is a really. really good time to do an offsite. But an offsite that's not with a PowerPoint presentation and a spreadsheet, but one where you step back from the business, take a big, deep breath, and say, let's wonder a little bit. Let's ponder what's going on around us.

You know, like race car drivers say, you've got to slow down to go fast. This is a good time to slow down. You know, the other thing is, rather than just think about what happened last year, stop and celebrate that. Because the end of the year comes fast. know we have our Christmas parties at end of year and all that kind of stuff, but I think as we begin the new year, stop and be thankful for the hard things and for the good things in the past year. And so if we breathe a little bit, be thankful for what happened, acknowledge the hard things

and be thankful for those two, we're probably going to be able to do some good planning. But if we try to rush through it and we try to keep our schedule the way it is, it's probably not going to work. So those are some things. Yeah. And it definitely changes your posture. Does it change? change a leader's posture when they take that time to reflect? And I go, oh my gosh, can you believe that was this year? We did that thing. And look at what we accomplished. And man, I'm just so grateful for the blessings that we had, what we were able to do as a team. It definitely creates a different posture going into that new year. Absolutely. And I think, especially for your listeners,

entree leadership people, last year was a really hard year in the world. Little did we know that 2021 might suck worse than 2020. But I'm guessing that Entree leadership people, because I know them, I've met a lot of them. Probably it was a great year for their business. In an unexpected way, but your listeners are the kind of people that go, okay, if this is hard, what are we going to do to make something good happen out of it? What's happening in the world where we can better serve our customers, make our organization better?

So even though we can look back and say, what a tough year that was, we can also say, man, thank God that we were able to pivot and adjust and see the good things. And that's where Thanksgiving for the hard things and the good stuff is so important. And so I'm guessing Entree leadership people, my guess is they're going to say, hey, our business actually improved last year as hard as it was. Yeah, they're an incredible crowd, very resilient. And we talked about that with Marcus Buckingham on the podcast a while back. But it has been incredible to hear their stories as I meet them at events like you have,

to hear how they've persevered. And in spite of it being difficult, they've done really, really well because of their leadership. I actually think one of the hardest things about going on in the world today is that great companies are going to get a lot better and the mediocre ones are going to get crushed. You know, like we're in a war for talent right now like never before. I mean, where there's just a shortage of workers. The good employees are going to find the good companies.

This is actually a great time to hire because you shouldn't think about going out and finding people just to have bodies. go find the best employees, the ones that are still employed, and tell them about how wonderful your company is, I think what's going to happen right now is that the best people are going to migrate to the best companies and the mediocre ones are going to be left behind.

And entree leadership people are probably going to come out of this really strong and differentiate themselves. So as we enter into this new year, and you're looking at yourself going, okay, I know I'm not the leader I need to be to lead my team to what we need to do, How do you assess yourself as a leader as you start a new year? How do you have that kind of self-awareness? Well, I think there's some fundamental questions we have to answer first,

and that is, you know, I wrote a book called The Motive, and it's, am I still leading for the right reason? You know, there's this binary thing. Am I leading because I know this is a great responsibility to my employees first and to my customers to this organization, or am I leading for what I get out of it? And even great people, wonderful people, slide. And I've had moments where I was leading because I wanted to do fun things and I wanted to make my life more comfortable.

And I wanted to just pick and choose what I worked on. That's not good as a leader. So it's a good time to say what percentage of my leadership motive is based on taking responsibility for the goodness of others versus finding benefits just for myself? And maybe we're 80-20, maybe we're 50-50. Get it as close to 95-5 as we can. So this is a good time to do that. The other thing I think we need to do is really go through your people and look at them individually. Because when we say what's the fruits of our labor, the first thing is the people we're leading,

the impact we're having on them and their lives is first. And so go through and do an audit of the people that work for you and say, are they getting better? Am I giving them what they need? Am I giving them the challenging stuff that they need? So I think when we audit ourselves as leaders, what we ought to do is audit the impact we're having, on our people. And if you have 100 people, sit down and go through those 100 people. That's one of the great things to do at an offsite is let's review all of our employees and ask ourselves, are we helping them be better? So rather than looking at myself, I want to look

at the impact I'm having on them. Yeah. So when you look in that mirror, what you're really looking for is how's the team doing? Because that's a reflection of my leadership. Yes. Yes. Very interesting. And it's really important to be brutally honest with yourself and go to the people and say, hey, I don't think I did very good for you last year. And I'm really sorry for that, but I honestly don't think I paid enough attention to what you were doing, that I gave you enough credit for all the wonderful things you worked on, or even corrected you when I thought you were struggling.

I think I needed to be better. And this year I want to be. Be so vulnerable and so honest, no good employee is going to respond to any of that poorly. They're going to say, okay, that's okay. Yeah, I think the team really appreciates that level of vulnerability from the leader, and they go, oh my gosh, it's a real person. That's amazing that they even noticed that and took the time to let me know. So I do think that means a lot.

So if you do have the wrong motive, we talked to, you mentioned your book, The Motive. How do you figure out if that motive is off? Let's say you're going, all right, if I'm going to be really honest with myself, it's probably 70-30. I've got the wrong motive here. How do you course correct? You know, what you have to do is you have to really look hard at, you know, how are you showing up every day?

Like, do I walk into the office or do I log on or do I, enter into that meeting, thinking about the responsibility I have, or do I think about, and you know what I'm going to tell you, George, here's the first one you should watch, people should watch out for it. Audit yourself for your own fun. I mean, as much as one of the great temptations of leaders is money or power and all that other kind of stuff, many people realize those are dangerous, okay? But I think one of the biggest dangers that people have is, am I doing this just because I like to wake up and do whatever I feel like? The single greatest, gosh, I don't think I've ever written about this.

I'm going to have to do a podcast about this. We just gave you a new book idea. I want credit. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I'll dedicate the book to you. This is to George. But I think the single greatest temptation that people have, they don't see as temptation,

is walking into the office and saying, I get to scratch whatever itch I want to scratch today. But the truth of the matter is, I shouldn't plan my day based on what I feel like doing. I should plan my day based on what's needed from me. Now, people would say, well, that's terrible then. But no, that doesn't mean you're going to be mopping the floors every day. You still have a role to play that corresponds to your gifts,

but you don't get to pick the micro things you get to work on based on what sounds fun that day. I know that I've done that before in my career, George. I've come to work for months at a time. You know, things were going pretty well at the office. I'm like, what kind of fun thing do I get to work on? And that leads to bad things. because people are watching me and thinking, well, what he's working on must be the most important.

It's like, no, I'm just scratching an itch today. And so I think one of the things we have to do is say, how much are we letting our own personal curiosities drive what we do at work? Now, hopefully the work we do is in line with some of our personal curiosities, but that's on a more global level. On a day-to-day basis, we've got to do what's needed. That's really good. And George, I just thought of something, too.

one of the things I think we need to do as leaders at the beginning of the year is we had to ask ourselves, am I really using my gifts? Not because it's fun, but because God intends us and our organization needs us to use our gifts. So we have to know, like, this is what I'm awesome at, and I need to be doing that. And here's what I'm not awesome at. And I need to be, sometimes I have to do a little bit of that, but I need to be finding people who are better than me and allowing them to do what they're great at. So I think this is a great time to take inventory about what am I great at?

What am I not great at? And how do I surround myself with people who compliment me? Yeah, if you're not using the way that you're wired intentionally to serve your team, your business, your community, you're doing everyone a disservice at that point. Yeah. So I realize the things I said there, if I were listening to this, I'd be like, well, I'm a little confused, Pat. So you're saying don't come to work and just work on what you think is fun. That's on a day-to-day level.

but in terms of your role, put yourself in a position to use the skills that you have that you are awesome at and make that your role. And then within that role, choose whatever is necessary that day. So it's like, yes, do what God intended you to do, which generally is something you enjoy, but every day you're going to have to do what the organization needs you to do within the context of that.

Yeah, there's this middle ground, and that's where you want to be. Yeah. I want to talk about another book. book of yours that we love here at Ramsey. The entire team has read it. We love it. The ideal team player. And when I think about becoming the leader your team needs you to be, I think of that concept. So what are some of the questions that we can ask ourselves to determine what area we need to work on when it comes to the ideal team player? Well, you know, I have to say this. Dave and the Ramsey team adopted that book right away. And we have had, I think of all of our

books, I can't believe how many CEOs we've said that, hey, we hire for Humble, Hungry, Smart. And but you guys did it first. And we love that. We really appreciated that. And so many other companies are doing that too. And so I just want to say I really appreciate the fact that you guys saw the value in that before so many others do. And I think it's so simple, but it's so powerful. I'm not a terribly deep guy.

I look at simple things. I think if we just do that, we can make that work. So, so I'm sorry, I just wanted to tell you that. The question about the ideal team player was what? Yeah. So what questions should the leader be asking? to figure out what area they might need to work on as they self-assess. Oh, well, here's where I love to do.

Some people might be like good at all three. I mean, in fact, hopefully everybody's pretty darn good at all three. But everybody's got a third. So do this exercise on your own, but do it with your team too. Because this can kind of change it a little bit. Just sit down one day with your team and say, hey, we all want to be humble, hungry, smart. We know what that means. Humble is not ego.

Hungry, it means you're not a slacker. Smart is interpersonally smart that you understand people. What's your third? It's okay if you're great at all of them, but one of them is going to be a bigger challenge than the others. So we're not trying to say to people, what are you bad at and we're going to ding you for that? Let's all, and I will tell you this,

mine has changed over the years. And I've seen this happen in organizations where people will go, well, five years ago is this, but now I think hunger is kind of on the lower end for me. Have that conversation with yourself and with your team and then say, hey, for this year, let's all commit to getting better at our third. Because think about it, if everybody on a team within a company, you could do this at a whole company, if it's a small company, or on a leadership team, if everybody just said,

I want to get better at my third, everything would change. And then if they turned to everybody around them into a coach and said, hey, everybody, mine is smart. You guys know that sometimes I don't exercise a lot of emotional intelligence. I want you to catch me when I do that and tell me that. because this is the year I really want to get a lot better at my third. So I think that's a great thing to do at the beginning of the year and say this year, which of those three things are you going to work on the most?

Find that third place and make some progress in that area. And turn your peers into your coaches so they can go, hey, you know, you wanted to get a little hungrier. I know you're checking out a little early. Is that, are you giving in to that temptation? And people will go, oh my gosh, I am. Thank you for pointing that out to me. If they're a good teammate, one of the greatest forms of love you can do is remind people about how to get better. Yeah.

And it won't come across as a weapon if you do it with the right heart and the right spirit. Absolutely. Absolutely. Have you found a certain area, especially for leaders and business owners that they tend to struggle with? Well, here's one. If you're like an owner, a business owner and you've done well in your career, I had the founder of a company do this once. and he was so honest, I loved it. He said, you guys, I founded the company 20 years ago.

Most of his executives has only been there five years because they had grown a lot. He goes, sometimes I'm not as hungry as I used to be. Because I've done quite well. I'm in a different place in my life, but I realize you guys are still really hungry, and I don't want to let you down. So if you think I'm coasting a little bit, I want you to know that that's not right for you, and I want you to tell me. What a great thing that they could say, hey, boss, you've made a lot of money,

or you've done really well, or you've accomplished a lot in your career. But the rest of us are still early, and we want to make sure that we're still doing well. And so what a great thing. So I think hunger can wane a little bit. I think that's the main one. I think that's the main one.

And when you start the business, you are like fired up, but over time, you're saying there can be different seasons where you might shift and you might have a lot more hunger or a lot less hunger, and you've got to be very aware of where you're at.

As the team is assessing themselves through the ideal team player framework, how do you know when it's time to let someone go? When you've given them all of the opportunities you can as a leader and it's not working out? Yeah, it's a great question. And we all wish we had some quantitative way to go, hey, there's the number.

It's time to go so we could take it off of our backs. And it's a judgment call, but here's the thing I've learned. This is one of the most important things I think I've learned in leadership or the simplest things. And Alan Malawi was the guy who did this the best, the guy who turned the Ford Motor Company around in like the early 2000s. What we have to do when we want to figure out whether it's time to let somebody go is we have to commit as leaders to constantly calling them out when we see them doing the thing that they're not supposed to do. So let's just say it's like if a person isn't hungry.

If I want to know what to do about that, it's not an intellectual decision. It's more of a behavior one. I need to say, I will tell you every time I see you failing in that area. Because if we do that, now, by the way, I'm going to tell you something, I'm not good at this because I'm a wolf. as a leader, and I don't like to do this, which is not good. So what I do is I'll go tell that person, like when I see them mess up with it, you're not working hard enough, you said you wanted to be hungrier, so this is what I need you to do. And then they do it again, a week later. And I go right to my wife and I tell her. And then I go, the next time I go right to my staff members,

which is terrible, because I don't like to have to confront people. But if we confront people, if we are just so consistent about staying on top of that, the third time you confront them, they're going to go, oh my gosh, there's nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. This is not going to go away. And they're going to do one of three things. They're going to improve their behavior. They're going to go, I need to get better at this. I need to demonstrate more hunger. That's beautiful. That's the number one thing. Second, and it's the next best thing, they're going to go, I don't want to work that hard. I don't want to be that hungry in my life. I'm going to leave because it's never going to be fun for me here if they're constantly reminded me. That's actually a good second best because they can leave. It's dignified.

they make their own decision. You don't have to pay a lot of severance. It's not messy. The third, which happens, I don't know, 5% of the time is that they're going to say, I'm not going to leave and I'm not going to get better. That's their problem. And then you've got to get HR involved in all that stuff. But when we don't confront people and we don't consistently stay on top of them, we actually make it likely that we're going to have to do the HR thing. And they're going to be surprised and what you told me that one time. No, but I told you and you never did it. Just keep saying it. Alan Malawi used to go to people and say, hey, you need to change your behavior here.

But if you don't want to, that's okay. And they say, really? He goes, yeah, you don't have to work here. We could still be friends. And he wasn't mean about it. He was like, we could still be friends. You could have good life. But if you're going to work here, you need to know I'm going to require this of you.

And every time I see you not do it, I'm going to call it out. That's actually a form of love and it dignifies people. So if you want to know, should I get rid of this person, just keep reminding them. And after a few times, if you really do it, they're going to opt in or out. And if they decide they're not going to do either, then you've got to say, it's time to take them out myself. Yeah. Dave Ramsey is so good at that.

He'll regularly remind us in staff meeting that we're free to leave. This is not a cult. We can still be friends. But if your heart's not in it, if you are not that ideal team player here for the right reasons, doing the work, then it's your time to go. So some great reminders there in a great framework. You know what's funny, though?

People will accuse a company like that of being a cult. And of course, Jim Collins used to say, you should have a cult-like culture, not one that doesn't let people leave, but that says we believe in a few things, and if you don't meet that, then it's best for you to move on. And so I think people like criticize companies with strong cultures

by accusing them of being a cult, when it's like, no, no, no, but cult is in the word culture. What it just means is there's something that we have in common that without that it doesn't make sense. Yeah. So it's actually a good thing. Beautifully said. So, Pat, before you leave us, you've got your finger on the pulse.

You're very hip, very, very hip. I am so hip. My kids remind me that all the day. I'm so cool. So I got to know, what has been grinding your gears lately when it comes to leadership? You know, probably the most is that, and I'm in California still. I mean, they haven't kicked me out yet. But I think leadership, like in the Silicon Valley in particular, but it's true in many industries,

but especially in really high-profile industries. we've almost begun to accept that leaders are self-focused and they're ego-driven and they're not principle. It's this idea of, you know, I think servant leadership, there's only one kind of leadership and that's servant leadership. And the ones that do it because they want to be famous or they want to be cool or they want to lord it over people or they want to tell people how to live their lives, that bothers the crap out of me. And we shouldn't be showing these kind of people as examples to young people of real leadership. Because I don't think a lot of these high-tech leaders are leaders at all. I think they want to be kings and despots. And I love the fact that the best leaders are not famous.

And, you know, Southwest Airlines is a great company. I mean, everybody's got their warts, but they have less than most. I love that company, you know. And most people don't even know who Gary Kelly is. If you walked in your office, you wouldn't know. He doesn't need to be on TV. He doesn't want to be on TV. He wants to run a great company because he loves their employees

and he loves their customers, and he does great for their shareholders. And that's how it ought to be. So I think what grinds me is these people that are actually kind of usually ego-driven, and they want to be cool, and people think that's okay. And a lot of kids are coming out of college thinking that's what it means to be a leader, and it's the opposite. So that probably grinds me a lot. It also grinds me that there's not more courage among leaders.

I think this is a time the world is changing, and it's time for leaders to stand up and say, you know, I got to tell you what I don't think is good. Even if it costs me a few customers, I've got to stand up for that. Our employees want us to do that. The world needs us to do that. So more courage, I think would be great. Humility and courage. Both great traits and a leader.

Yeah, that's right. Well, as we wrap here, Pat, you've been speaking on stages, working with your team, consulting. What is the leadership advice you found yourself giving the most? Lately, what I've been talking to people about is knowing your wounds and healing yourself as a person. what I've come to realize in life is that sometimes we have these wounds that we don't even know our wounds and we're acting out of those. And so we think we're leading from a place of our strength or our features, if you like in a product when it's actually a defect. And so I encourage leaders really get to know who you are and what your wounds and try to heal them not only for yourself, which is a beautiful thing, but so that you're leading from a place of healthiness and strength, not from one where you're misinterpreting, your defects as skills.

So really get to know yourself. Make this a year where you really double down on understanding who you are underneath and getting healthy. Well, Pat, this has been an amazing conversation about helping leaders become the leaders they need to be, helping their teams become the teams they need to be. And I'm just so excited to see the impact it has as these incredible entree leaders attack this year. So thanks so much for being on the podcast. Excited to see you at Entree Leadership Summit this year. Thanks, George.

God bless. And to everybody out there at Onreux, Entree leadership, keep going. I can't wait to see you. Thanks so much. Huge thanks to Pat for an awesome conversation. You can see why we are big fans of his here at Ramsey Solutions. He gave us some great questions to ask ourselves as we reflect on the past year. The ones that stuck out to me were really digging into your motive as a leader

and digging into that third place slot on the ideal team player framework. If you want to hear more from Pat, he'll be speaking alongside other world-class speakers at Entree Leadership Summit 2020, happening May 22nd through the 25th in Orlando, Florida. If you want to learn more about Summit, just click the link in the show notes. Pat gave us a lot to think about so that we can become better leaders.

But what about your personal and family life? We'll have a conversation about that right after this. All right, our second conversation is with Ramsey personality, Dr. John Deloney. We're going to talk with John about how he reflects and takes inventory of his personal life at the beginning of the year. Here's our conversation. John, happy new year to you. Happy New Year, man.

Thanks for being on the podcast again. Thanks for having me back. Every time I'm back, I'm always surprised whenever you call. Then we have you back. Yeah, man. But we're thankful for you, and I'm excited to talk about reflection. As we head into the new year, it's easy to just go head first, dive head first into the new year. But I know you are very intentional about reflecting, about taking inventory on the year as you head into a new one.

So describe what you've done to do this. that. First I want to back out and say, I think we need to all applaud the fact that our culture gives a once a year mulligan for everybody. We get to the end of a year and it's like, I gained it 80 pounds. I want to redo. And everyone's like, cool, New Year, right? I love, love resolution, like New Year's resolutions. I know some people hate that. I'll even save up stuff in my life if I need to change. Like, I probably should stop XYZ. I'm going to wait until, because I should like to do it all the same time. I know it's a bad way to live, but I love it. So I think the first thing for me is like, man, you've got to be hyper-intentional about what went well this year.

Like an honest reflection, like demand evidence. What went well this year? Let's look at my calendar. Let's look at my bank account. Let's look at my kids, my wife. Like, let's be truly reflective of what happened last year. And then what do I want to be different next year? Right?

With those few things I can control, what do we want that to look like? So this isn't just how you feel about the year. No, who cares how you feel about the year. But you're talking about, like, the facts of the matter. Yes, yeah. What actually happened? How did my business do? How did I perform as a leader, as a husband, as a dad, all the areas of life?

I mean, you can't really give it a score necessarily. What are the metrics for that? A friend of mine, he's an extraordinary business professor and researchers. He's named Dr. Rick Lytle. He came and spoke to a group I was with years ago, and he said something that was just stuck with me. He said, we do strategic planning once a year. We review budgets quarterly at our businesses. We do performance evals.

and the most important system that we're part of is our families, we never stop and take inventory. We just keep it rolling and rolling and rolling. And then we pass that dysfunction to our kids. We pass it to their kids. And so his family's got core values, got family values. If they have disagreement in the family, they go back to the – and I took all of that, and I love it.

And so once a year, my wife and I have a strategic plan, and we look at our budget. And I said, I don't care what you think or what you feel. That's partly accurate and partly not. First, I'm going to look at the numbers, right? Like, how much money do we make this year? Did we meet our financial goals? How many times did we make our budget or not make our budget?

So there's some really tangible things. And then I want to get into how did that feel? Like, okay, cool, you made six figures this year. And now you and your wife don't like each other. Like, so congratulations, you lost everything, right? So there's a feelings component and a data component. But, dude, you can do everything. Like, look at your air conditioning bill.

You can look at your water bill. You can look at how much you paid off on your mortgage. You can look at all these metrics. How many miles did you go? How many trips did you'll go on together? How many times did you drive your kid to school? You just say, I'm going to go in an hour late and drive my kids to school. You can look at the data on those things if you want to be intentional.

That's the key, man. You've got to be intentional. Yeah. So what are those practices that you do to kind of self-evaluate? What do I need to keep doing that I think is good? What do I need to start doing that I'm not doing now? And sometimes more importantly, what do I need to stop doing? Yeah.

So a friend of mine, Dr. J.P. Conway, he's awesome. He gave me a framework that's one I'm using this year, what I love, for resolution. and a way just to look back at what happened last year and a way to look forward this year. And ultimately it was under, here's a couple different headings. One, it was identity, body mind, money, relationships, time, and talents. And I want to ask myself, like, who was I last year?

Was I a real busy guy? Was I short? Was I exhausted? Was I fill in the blank? And then who do I want to be this year? And what did I do to take care of my body last year? Did I go see a doctor finally? I did finally George I saw a doctor first time like a decade it was awesome and it was amazing it was

incredible like a normal medical doctor this person's got a normal medical doctor degree they're out there they're incredible though man did a bunch of genetic tests I got a lot of insight about my body and he gave me some tools and he had a hard conversation with me said I can tell by your blood you're running too hard wow and he's like you've gotten used to living a stressful life and you got to stop because you're going to pay the price your kids are going to pay the price and he had a hard conversation but he's just looking into data right so it was awesome I still haven't gone to the dentist yet. I've got to suck it up and good.

Oh, boy, come on. But I know. But you look at your body and your mind. Did I go to counseling this year? What did I read this year? Did I exercise regularly? Like, man, I kind of went on gummy candy binge at the end of this year, dude. Like, I was traveling a lot.

I started getting tired. I was in an airport all the time. And I had that one bag, dude, I never went back. So, like, you can look at your body and mind. What's the state of my relationships? I realized a few weeks ago, like, man, one of my main challenges here, I got lonely. Like, I just quit talking to my friends all the time.

And I'm here preaching. about loneliness on my show, I quit hanging out with people. You know, I just got tired. And so, like, taking honest inventory of relationships, money, time, where do I waste time, what do I use time? And you look backwards and you look forward, man. One of the reasons I think leaders especially don't reflect on the year is because it can be hard to look in that mirror and see all the things you didn't do that you said you were going to do, the things that you wanted to accomplish and just didn't make it. How do you deal with the tension there of feeling like you failed?

We take tasks and we make them our identity, man. That's the problem. I didn't budget well last year. I'm just saying, let's say that out a lot. I didn't budget well last year. That becomes a story we tell ourselves that we're a failure. Like, no, I sucked at budgeting last year. I'm going to solve that this year.

You know what I mean? If you get out of this identity thing, then it's just a matter of I tried to dunk. I couldn't dunk. Then I got some things I got to do to dunk, right? We over internalize it, over-dramatize it, and we make these, big identity statements. Now, if you lie to your spouse over and over and over about your financial situation or how work's going or where you were after work or whatever, over time, you've look in the mirror and say, I continue to lie. And I don't want to be that person anymore.

I'm going to change this identity. I'm going to be a person who never doesn't tell the truth, right? So over time, a repeated behavior becomes your identity, right? You are, which you repeatedly do. But I think when it comes to those failures, we look back and say, if my business failed, then I am a failure. That's the story we tell ourselves. Or if I didn't make this six-figure goal, I failed. And we've got to divorce ourselves from that identity. When it comes to taking stock and taking inventory,

you don't just do this personally. You actually bring your wife into this process. Whole family. What does that look like? So this year I started early. I did it last year. I started two months earlier. This year I went early.

So I started my new year stuff on December 1. And my thinking was if I start treating my body right, my mind right. I start thinking about my money for 2020, like 2022, what's that going to look like a month early. Then I can get through Christmas and not fall off the rails. I can get through New Year's and not fall off the rails. And I can wake up, you know, January 1 and be in the gym. You know what I mean? Not be January 1, be like, you know, that sugar hangover and you're like, what day is it? Like, it's ready to rock and roll. So I started early. I did mine. And then in a couple of days. So we've already got a scheduled. My parents are going to be in town. My wife and I will go.

and we call it our strategic planning day. She has another word that's much more familial. Less nerdy? Yeah, it's not like, you're not running a corporation here, you idiot. That's kind of her response. But we call our strategic planning day, and we will go, sometimes we go away, but this year we're going to just make multiple coffee shops and we'll end up at a really fancy dinner that night,

but we spend all day together. And at this particular place, we're going to talk about money, and then we get in a car and we drive somewhere across town, and we go to another place, and we talk about our marriage, how are we doing, talk about our kids, and we are really intentional when we end with a celebration and it's a really great time together.

In the past, man, we've cried together. We get excited about it. We look at the math and see how much money we could pay off. We get fired up about stuff. We get things are hard. One year we had to cut a short. It got hard. And we're like, we need to stop this for today

and then come back. And then we will leave with a series of what I call them, Covenants. And then me and my wife and my kids will sit down and this year we're redoing the Deloni family covenants, which is awesome, which is, the Dolonis are. And the one that we have now, we did a, it's like, she got an, like, one of those,

what do you call them, like, you paint on them? What do you call those things? Like an easel? Not an easel, but that's the thing that the, oh, that it sits on, like a canvas? Oh, my gosh, millennials, man, that was awesome. We're good. You're good. You get a canvas, but we painted, like, here's the Dolony family values. We treat each other with dignity and respect. We say yes, we have adventures. We are hospitable. And so when one of us gets out of line, we point back and say, hey, well, this is who we are, the same as you would in your business, right? These are our business values. We have the same things in our home, and we just re-up them every year, man.

And it's a great time together. Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned that kind of the mission and core values that we all have as a business, but we don't do that as people. Why? Why do we not do it? It's madness. Yes. Who am I?

Yeah. James Clear talks about that, and, man, I've just, of all the things I took away from atomic habits, that's the number one. This idea that, dude, most people shoot out of the gate. with their resolutions, and they're like, I'm going to lose 50 pounds, I'm going to run a marathon, I'm going to read 50 books or whatever. Dude, if you just throw out a bunch of goals, you're just going to end up flexing and trying to white knuckle your way through the year.

And willpower is a dreadful driver for human behavior. It's terrible. It's finite. It runs out. It's just dumb. Change your identity first and then backfill those things. So this year, I'm going to be a guy who, like, I'm going to be a guy who takes care of my body. And then when it comes to working out, those are just reverse engineering my identity, right?

I'm going to be a great engaged husband. What does that mean? It means I've got to put my phone away, right? And so the goals stem from my identity, who I want to be. And so our repeated behaviors become our identities. But the way out of that is, I'm going to change my identity, and then I'm going to change my repeated behaviors. And you'll get to your, you know, you'll get to your, I want to save $100,000 or I want to run a marathon. You'll get to that stuff, but it starts with this identity, a place you can point back to you, like a tent boat.

Yeah, that's a powerful shift. Yeah. Mindset-wise to get to. It changes your whole perspective on goals. So let's reverse this. Like, who do you want to be in 2022? A guy who reads. Yeah?

Yeah. How many books do you read this year? Maybe four? Not including yours? Not including mine. Okay. Not including yours either. Well, mine doesn't count.

Yeah. It's too short. But I always have a list of like 50 books I'm going to read. What prohibits you from reading? Procrastination, okay. There's a new show on Netflix, John. Everyone's talking about it.

Okay. So if you started with, in 2022, George Campbell's a guy who reads, and then I'm going to look at my calendar, and then I'm going to look at my Netflix account. Like, great, you start pulling things away. I'd love to see that, not just, I'm going to read five books. Because you'll cram five books in the week before Christmas. It'd be like, I read my five books as shit.

You know what I'm saying? I did the spark notes. Exactly. Yeah, you start cheating yourself. And, hey, here's the thing. When you chase wins, we may have talked about this on this podcast, when you chase wins as a fruit, like, Dude, I'm a Houston Astros fan.

I know what it's like to chase wins. You'll do whatever it takes, even banging on trash cans and cheating, right? If you say, I'm going to do things right every day, I'm going to commit to a process. Wins take care of themselves, man. You know what I mean? They happen. I'm going to be a guy who reads. And every day I'm going to read one chapter.

That's just, I'm going to read one page. One page. I'm a guy who reads. Eventually you're going to read five pages because you're going to get into something, and then you're going to read 10, and then you're going to keep reading and then one day the Netflix you'd make I'll finish this book and then all of a sudden dude I ran 10 books this year right because I'm a guy who reads it's just a subtle shift but it's big yeah you had a post you recently around new years and talking about the things that we need to be

focusing on to really kick the new year off right walk us through what those things are because I think it's really important to refocus because you have a list of a thousand things you want to do and the resolutions are stacking up what are the kind of central things we need to look at it's back in December because I was like dude I'm starting mine December 1 It goes back to those things we talked about earlier, which is identity. Who are you going to be this year? Like, write that down in stone. Who are you going to be?

I even wrote mine down. You want to hear what they are? Yeah. I'm going to be a funny, joyful guy. The last seven years I've just been so focused on trauma research and dealing with trauma. Like, dude, I used to be the funny guy. I used to be a fun guy to be around. And I feel like now I'm like, dun, dun, done.

And so I'm bringing that guy back, man. I want to be a funny and joyful guy. I want to be more peaceful and more patient. And so if I start my day with, I'm a peaceful, patient guy, then I can backfill the behaviors that are going to get me there, right? You're going to drive your car differently to work. Which means I got to get up five minutes earlier, which means I've got to take a shower that's four minutes and not 34 minutes, right?

So I can have time to get to work. All those things reverse engineer with, I want to be a peaceful guy. And so, yeah, if I show up to work after driving 98 miles an hour and I'm one minute late, and I'm running in, like, I'm not a peaceful guy. I'm a third rail. I have adventures. I say yes. I get invited to some cool stuff, and I'm always like,

No, I need to go to bed. Dude, life's too short. I'm going to say yes this year. I'm invested in a world-class husband and father. I'm going to reverse engineer my life. That stuff comes first. This year, man, it's on the road. It got wild.

I'm going to reverse engineer that. I'm a hospitable neighbor. People are less anxious after being in my presence. And so I want people to hang out with Deloni. They leave and they're like, oh, my gosh, that was a lot, right? It's like they got electrocuted. I want to reverse that this year. I want people to leave, and they're a little more calm.

And they breathe a little more still, right? So those are my identity statements. And then the rest of the frames, like we talked about, body and mind, relationships, time, and money, and talents. And those are just a way I'm going to frame every one of my goals this year going to come under one of those areas. That's a great filter to kind of go, is this the right thing? Yeah, yeah. Am I doing the right thing here for the right reason? What's the status of my marriage, status of my, do I have a couple of guy friends I can call and go hang out with on a regular basis?

How is my relationship with my kids, young kids, old kids? I don't care. My boss, do I connect with them? How much, like, what are my financial goals? Where am I wasting time? We waste so much time, man. Oh, yeah. We waste so much time.

One of the ways we waste time, and I'm guilty of this, is through screens. And on the Dr. John Deloney show, you're telling people all the time, hey, you've got to get off the screens, you've got to connect. And they go, okay, John, I did it. Now we're sitting at the couch staring at each other. I'm staring at my four daughters in the face. Huge win. Way to go, idiot.

Yeah. And so we just released a new product recently called Questions for Humans from you. And it's these card decks that just have conversation starters. and I thought it would be fun to wrap this episode with you randomly choosing one. Okay, before you do this, can I tell you? So this looks like it's a funny little game, and it is. It's a lot of fun, dude.

It's serious. We've got ones for friends, like for just you and your buddies are hanging out at the bar. Men, women, it doesn't matter. We've got one for couples, and there's not one question about politics or COVID or any of that nonsense. You can have human conversations.

And the one for parents and kids, but it's also grandparents and kids. I had my head, like we're all sitting around at Christmas. We're all sitting around at somebody's birthday. And dude, if Granddad brings up COVID one more time, like this is a way to circumvent all that. But dude, the people who have reached out have been bonkered. We sold out.

Like it's the first run, second round. They kept selling out so fast. People say, dude, I needed to talk to my wife. And I didn't, I didn't know how to get into that conversation. And now it can be like, no, the card, man. It's just like, what do you think about this, right? And so you can do with your employees, with your staff, whatever, dude. It's awesome, man.

Well, I'm excited. I chose the friendship deck. Is it safe to assume that we're friends? Absolutely not. Okay. We are not friends. We are absolutely co-workers only. For the sake of this podcast, I am going to make one for coworkers, and I'm going to put one, make one for coworkers.

And I'm going to put one, make one for coworkers that you don't really like, but you're forced to interact with. That's a great thing. It's going to be a best-seller deck. All right. thinker who's made a big impact on you. Caviot, you can't say Dave Ramsey or Jesus or something like, who's one, speaker, author, or thinker? I'm going to let you go first on this one because I feel like you have it in your mind.

I mean, you came up with this question, so I feel like you've thought about this. Yeah. Speaker, author, author, or thinker. Author would be Terrence Reel who wrote the book. I don't want to talk about it. That was a shape-shifter for me, a book on male depression. It was extraordinary. that was excellent

R-E-A-L everyone should read that speaker is a poet named Stephen Connell and he was a performance poet and he did an event that was a shape shape

it was one of those moments I can look back to and say everything was different after that event and I spent some time with him in a workshop and he changed the way I communicate and talk

to others but more importantly he changed the way I talk to myself and so that is he's not somebody that a lot of people know he's a really gifted thinker and poet, but, man, that was one of those moments that I look back and go, everything

changed after that. What about you? That's good. You know, I would say Dave Ramsey, but that feels a little too close to home. Right on the nose, dude. Definitely Dave's had a huge impact on me as a speaker, author, thinker. And this one also feels close to home, but Pat Lanchone is one of my favorite people to hear speak, to read his books, his heart just comes forth so effortlessly.

and I kind of envy how authentic and genuine he can be in any given moment while still being brilliant while still being himself. And so that's someone who, any time I read a book or watch him speak, I just leave feeling a little calmer, a little more centered and going, oh, that's why. That's the thing I have to do. And the thing about Pat behind closed doors is he's incredible. Yeah.

Right? Like he's that guy on stage as he is off. And, you know, sometimes that's not the way that works. You've been around a lot of folks. Well, I'll share the story as we wrap because I think it's great. when I hosted Entree Leadership Summit, and, you know, the speaker crosses the host on stage, and it's a quick, like, high five or handshake.

And Pat, while crossing, stopped. He stopped walking. He stopped me. He leaned in my ear, and he just said, I love you. I love your spirit. And he carried on. And it was just one of those magic moments where you go,

that just happened. He just took the time. He never cares. He takes the time to pause and let you feel seen. And so that's something I love about that. I thought he whispered in your ear, oh, God, I forgot my mind. My notes, can you help me out?

And then you went and wrote him a quick speech and then... I would do that for Pat. Put it on the prompter. Hold on, you've got to pull a card. Oh, okay. All right, here we go. What's a phrase you'd like to have etched on your tombstone? That's a good one.

I still got to let you go first. No, you pulled the card. That's a phrase. So we've joked about this because all of the Ramsey personalities, they have, you know, when they sign something like a book, they have a little signature, maybe a little Bible verse and like a little, like, quote. Yeah. You know, and so I like to, I love humor. I love to be a little snarky, and we're all about personal growth here.

And so you have like, you'd write, like, be of much joy. And Ken says press on, and Dave says transform. And so mine was just be better because it encapsulated all of it. It's humorous, it's personal growth with a little dose of joy. So on your tombstone, just going to say, here lies, what's your middle name? George Peter. George Peter Camel. Be better.

That's my encouragement to everyone As I head to the grave How about you? Mine's going to be, I was You get it? I was Well, I was thinking if we were buried next to each other Yours would say be better

I would say I was Why are we buried next to each other? Why is your wife not buried? We become great friends. My wife's not, she's going to be buried Yeah, whatever She'll choose a different graveyard on purpose Absolutely.

She has spent her lifetime with me I think she's good on eternity. Wow. I'm a lot, George. Well, I always enjoy talking with you, and I appreciate you being on the podcast. It'll probably happen again very soon, but happy New Year to you. And also with you. Very excited about your new book this year.

I know it's going to impact a lot of people. I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be fun. Thanks for being on. Thank you, man. Thanks so much, John. Always a blast hanging out with that guy. As Pat talked about in today's episode, you need to self-assess on where you're at as a leader. To make that process easier for you, our team here at Entree Leadership has put together

the Leadership Growth Assessment, which will help you measure your efforts. effectiveness to influence and lead. To take this quick free assessment, just click the link in the show notes. Hope you enjoyed today's episode of the show. If you did, please leave us a review and subscribe so you don't miss the next one. And we want to hear what you think about this show, what you like, what you don't like, and what we could do better. Give us your feedback by clicking the link in the show notes to schedule a call with Tim, our producer. If you want to keep up with us on social media, you can follow us at Entree Leadership. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, edited by Jacob Harrison and Bob Borquez and mixed and mastered by Will Rudder.

I'm your host, George Camel, and on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team, thanks for listening. Until next time, keep learning and keep leading. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network, like The Ramsey Show. We want you to take control of your life and money once and for all. I'm Dave Ramsey, and along with my co-hosts on The Ramsey Show, We'll give you straight talk on everything from budgets to career to relationships. Join us as callers from all walks of life. Learn how to get out of debt and start building for the future and how you can too.

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