EntreLeadership - The Leadership Habits That Sabotage Your Success with Dr. Marshall Goldsmith

Episode Date: September 5, 2022

Join us as our host, George Kamel, talks to Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. As an executive leadership coach with nearly 40 years of hands-on experience, he’s been recognized as the world’s most influential leadership thinker. Marshall is also a bestselling author and pioneered 360-degree feedback as a leadership development tool. He shares some habits that hold leaders back and gives insight on how to combat them so you can lead your teams well and achieve success. Later in the episode, George chats with Daniel Ramsey—the executive vice president of EntreLeadership. Daniel walks through some lessons he learned on his own leadership journey. You’ll learn: • The biggest problems for successful leaders  • The two ways leaders self-sabotage  • The worst mistake successful people make  • The biggest barrier to leadership success Sign up for The EntreLeadership Podcast takeaways—a weekly email where you’ll get three tangible takeaways and a tactical action step related to each episode: https://bit.ly/podcast-takeaways Support our sponsors: • Hite Digital: https://bit.ly/HiteDigital • Kyro Digital: https://bit.ly/KyroDigital • NetSuite: https://bit.ly/NetSuiteEntre • Trainual: https://bit.ly/TrainualEntre Links mentioned in the episode: • The EntreLeadership Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheEntreLeadershipPodcast • What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Dr. Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter: https://amzn.to/3wxzkNj • The Earned Life by Dr. Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter: https://amzn.to/3PJLfhK • Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin: https://amzn.to/3AMEzuU • Our recent episode with Jocko Willink: https://apple.co/3dXueDj • Sign up for your 30-day free trial of EntreLeadership Elite: https://bit.ly/3QQ0E1l Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: • EntreLeadership Master Series: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipMasterSeries • EntreLeadership Summit: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipSummit Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: • Elite: https://bit.ly/3tI2fN8 • Advisory Groups: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipAdvisoryGroups • Executive Coaching: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipExecutiveCoaching • Workshops: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipWorkshops Listen to all the Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download the Ramsey Network app: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's episode, why what got you here won't get you there. And then how to break through your own leadership lid so that you can become the best leader you can be. Welcome to the Entree Leadership podcast from the Ramsey Network, where we help you learn the proven principles for winning as a business leader. I'm your host, George Camel, and each week here on the podcast, I sit down with some of the best leadership minds out there to help you grow yourself, your team, and your profits. And we've got one of the best leadership minds with us today, and he is Dr. Kempel. Marshall Goldsmith. As an executive leadership coach with nearly 40 years of hands-on experience,

he's been recognized as the world's most influential leadership thinker. That's pretty incredible. He's also a best-selling author who pioneered 360-degree feedback as a leadership development tool, and it's a tool that our team uses with executive coaching clients. Now, here at Entree Leadership, we believe that you have to own your personal growth and keep getting better every single day. So I'm excited to have Dr. Marshall Goldsmith with us today to share some habits that hold leaders back and share how to combat those so that we can lead our teams well and achieve success. So let's get right to it. Here's our conversation. Marshall, it's so great to have you back on the podcast. How you been? Doing great. Thank you so much for inviting me. So I got to ask,

40 years of experience in executive leadership coaching, are you tired? Ah, I'm having a great time. I travel all around the world still. I have a new home in Dubai. Really? Yeah, I've got to live in a small building called the Burj Khalifa, which is, you know, an amazing place. And so I'm working all around the world still. Wow. It keeps you young. That's for sure. Yeah. My new book just came out, New York Times bestseller. So life is good. Man, you just keep cranking them out. Cranking them out. And that comes from a lot of wisdom in the trenches, helping leaders solve problems. So thank you for your work over the years. We're big fans of yours here at Ramsey. You know that. We've been, you've been a friend to this organization for a long time. And I specifically want you to talk to

about how to get to where they're not yet. So what got you here won't get you there. That was one of your best-selling books. And a lot of leaders out there, they're trying to figure out as they strive for success and they're trying to break through the leadership lid. We got here because we're scrappy entrepreneurs and we kind of broke a bunch of rules.

And now the old ways aren't working. Right. Is that a common theme you find when you're working with leaders? Very common theme. And you mentioned you're working with some great people. I have the highest respect for entrepreneurs. I've had a guaranteed base salary myself for zero for the last 45 years. So I kind of have a feeling for what that's like.

I have got a lot of respect for the people that you work with. I know you do a great job. First thing is for entrepreneurs specifically, some great lessons of life. We're here on earth to make a positive difference, not to be right. And it's hard for an entrepreneur who knows the business to let go. And some of the key points in my book that really apply to entrepreneurs, one of them is winning too much. One of the biggest problems of successful people is winning too much. Now, what does that mean?

If it's important, we want to win and meaningful, we want to win. And trivial, we want to win and not worth it. We want to win. Anyway, winners love to win, and the people you're coaching are winners. They just need to learn to quit winning sometimes. And when they manage other people, they need to learn to let them win. They need to learn to let them win. Case study I always use is you want to go to dinner at restaurant X.

your husband and wife or partner wants to go to dinner at restaurant why he had a heated argument you go to restaurant why it was not your choice and the food taste awful the service is terrible option a critique the food point out our partner was wrong oh you know this mistake could have been avoided if you just listen to me option b shut up eat the stupid food try to enjoy and have a nice night what would i do what should i do what should i do what should i do shut up and the second thing for the entrepreneurs is what would i do what should i do shut up and the second thing for the entrepreneurs is is adding too much value. It's very hard when you're an expert on the topics, your business, you know it, not to always add value. So let's imagine you are that person who's a founder, you know what you're doing. I'm a young, smart person. I come to you with an idea. You think it's a great idea. Rather than just saying great idea, there are tendencies to say, that's a nice idea, why don't you add this to it?

Well, the problem is, Mr. Boss, the idea may go up 5%, but my commitment just went down 50%. It's not, it's no longer my idea. now is your idea. It's very hard for smart, successful people not to constantly add value. And one of my good CEO clients taught me a good technique he used for this. Before you speak, just breathe. Is it worth it? Is it really worth me saying this? And ask yourself, is my comment going to improve their commitment. Now, if the answer is no, do I need to say it? Now, sometimes you do anyway, but not always. So what's at the root of that? Is that pride?

Oh, it's for so many of us. You went to school for years. You take test after test after test after test. We have to do proof how smart you are over and over, win, over and over and over, be right, over and over and over and sell things over and over and over. It's hard to stop. It's a habit. It's a learned behavior. And over time, you go, well, I'm the boss.

I've got to have all the ideas that make all the decisions, make my mark. And as part of that, you kind of want the credit. I assume at a deep level, you want to feel like you matter to this. Yeah, and what happens is you may know more than them, but you've got to say, ultimately, you've got to scale the business. And if you're going to scale the business, you know, you've got to make it about them. One of the great leaders that I've ever met named Alan Malali, one of the greatest corporate leaders in the world in the last 30 years, he said, for that great individual achiever, it's all about me. For the great leader, it's about them. Well, the people who you work with are great individual achievers.

and that's okay as long as you're a great individual achiever. On the other hand, if you're going to be a leader, it's got to be about them. And maybe it's not 100% what you would want to do, Mr. Boss, entrepreneur, founder, yet they're committed to it.

They got their heart behind it. And they're better off doing something they believe in and doing it 100% than something you believe in and doing it 50%. Yeah. When you empower your team, and they're bought in and they're all in, that makes all the difference.

And when you sidetracking go, hey, that's great, but let's do it my way, they lose all the steam. That's it's it. You've got to give your team that opportunity, even if it means it's not going to go exactly how you wanted it to or thought it would. Well, the other thing, it slows things down. Because after a while, if you keep doing this, it's a hub and spoke. Everybody's got to come to you for every answer. You've got the bottleneck. You're the bottleneck, right.

And we talk about leadership lid, of course, John Maxwell. And that's all part of it. The leader is the lid. That's it. So you've got to empower your team and break through that. So we've all heard of the term self-sabotage. And we're talking about the habits that hold leaders back from getting them to where they want to go. Right.

On top of pride and not being able to let go, self-sabotage is something that has come up a lot. What's a real-life example of someone you've worked with who maybe sabotage their own success? Oh, we all do this all the time. And I'm just going to give you one classic example. Oh, two. I mean two examples. One is I behave this way. successful, therefore must be successful because I behave this way.

Err, er, er, wrong. Everybody at coach is not just successful. They are obscenely successful because they do many, many things, right? And some things that are real dumb. They're successful because of it in spite of. I've never met anybody so wonderful. We had nothing on the in spite of list. We all got stuff on that in spite of list.

And the other self-sabotaging behavior is we stereotype ourselves. We say, that's just the way I am. That's just the way I am. Guess as long as we say, that's just the way I am, huh? You're probably, that's just the way you're going to stay. And like, I can't listen. I've never been able to listen. I can't listen.

Why not? I said, you got something stuck in your ears? Well, as long as you say, that's just the way I am, two bad things happen. One, you're unlikely to change. And two, even if you do try to change, you won't seem authentic or real. So what I tell people is never put yourself in a stereotypical box. Unless you have an incurable genetic defect, you can change. Well, a big part of changing, and you're a pioneer in this space of 360-degree feedback and behavioral change,

a big part of that is being willing to listen to others and take that feedback, and that can be really hard for leaders to take any level of criticism, especially from their team members. How do you do that the right way? I get people's two things. One, ask for input. Part of my coaching is they have no choice. They have to ask everybody for input all the time. They listen and we practice something called Feed Forward.

They ask for ideas. They listen and say thank you. They don't judge, critique, or argue. And this business of asking is easy in theory. It's difficult in practice. You had a wife or partner at home yourself. Yes. My wife works here, actually.

Oh, your wife does. Well, this is good. We'll do a little survey. Uh-oh. Do you believe customer satisfaction is important? Yes or no. Yes. Should we ask our customers how we can be better in serving our customers?

Yes. And listen to our good customers. Yes. Have you been asking that fine wife, what can I do to be a better partner here? No. No. Oh, called out on the podcast. You see, it's hard.

Well, you just turn into a marriage coach on top of leadership coach. There's probably a lot of crossover, too. Well, it's hard. Why don't we ask that question? Deep down inside, we're afraid of the answer. Because we know hard works on the other side. Exactly. And looking in the mirror and going, I've got to deal with that guy.

Well, in your case, your spouse may say, you know, dear, there's absolutely no room for improvement. But we wouldn't want to. I wish. That's very kind. We wouldn't want to bet on that, would we? No. No. Oh, my gosh. goodness, that's strong. So you've got to swallow your pride and be willing to take the feedback.

And as the team member, you know, I feel it's hard to go to a leader and share honest feedback because it's your leader. Well, this is a good point. I don't encourage leaders to ask for face-to-face feedback. All of my clients get confidential feedback. So it's anonymous. All anonymous. I ask them to ask for a face-to-face feed-forward. Now, I love feed-forward. I'm glad you brought this up. In feed forward, you say, for example, every one of my clients, let's say you got feedback that's confidential decision to be a better listener. Then after that, everything is feed forward. You don't say give me more feedback. You say, I'm not going to ask you for feedback about the past. I'm going to ask you for ideas for the future. Give me ideas to help me be a better

listener in the future. Now, even your direct reports will be very hesitant to give you feedback. On the other hand, feed forward is anybody can do that. You can do this with strangers. I've done this with thousands of people around the world, hundreds of thousands of people, and they love it. It's a very positive, upbeat way to learn without making people embarrassed. And this is not sugar-coding your feedback. That's not what this is. You're saying, we're not going to go, well, you did this in the past, and that's why I'm angry. And it becomes you get on the defense.

Exactly. But it's disarming when you go, hey. In the future. Marshall, this is how I think I could communicate better in the future. Tell me if I'm wrong. Yeah, exactly. And also, you ask for ideas. give me ideas to help me do a better job of community came with you in the future.

I love that. That's a game changer right there. That's the only takeaway you get from this podcast. So I've heard you say this. Smart people know what to do. They need to know what to stop. That's a big part of growth for yourself and for your team, your profits, everything. How do we determine what we need to stop doing so that we can be successful?

Well, you know, Peter Drucker taught me that. He said, of all the years you ever met, half don't need to learn what to do. they need to learn what to stop. And we spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don't teach them what to stop. Well, there's a great book called What Got You Here, Won't You There? It gives 20 things classically that leaders need to stop, and almost all of those apply to entrepreneurs. So it's a good checklist.

Really think, ask people, you know, what do you want to quit doing? What are these bad habits? And some of them winning too much, adding too much value, being right, saying no but, however, arguing unnecessarily. just classic issues. And a good place to start is asking people moving forward, not feedback. What do you want me to do more of? Maybe what less of. That's powerful.

So your past book you mentioned, What Got You Here Won't Get You There. It's about success. And you've got this new book called The Earned Life, which is about fulfillment. What is the relationship on connection between the two? Well, my clients are all very successful. One of the teach you next is seldom taught.

Never place your values. a human being based on results. Never place your human values a human based on the results you achieve. For a couple of reasons. One, you don't have total control over the results. You didn't invent COVID, for example. And two, what happens after you achieve the results? One of my good clients is Albert Berla, Albert is CEO Pfizer.

And a few months ago, I said, Albert, how's it going? He said, really great, you know, came over this vaccine thing for COVID. That was nice. And then we, you know, making a lot of money and employee engagement is high. and CEO of the year and company pride. Great. Stock price high. I said, what's your problem?

He said, I have a huge problem next year. If he places his value as a human being, he has to beat last year, he can ride it off. Michael Phelps, great Olympic champion, 25 medals. What do you think about doing after winning number 25? Killing himself. He placed his value as a person based on these results. It's not a good idea.

achievement is important for achievement and happiness is important for happiness they're not the same thing and one of the guys over COVID my new book was inspired because i spent 600 hours over covid with these 60 amazing people and it's not a secret who they were palgasol the basketball player was there and Curtis martin the football star and we had president world bank and you know he had the Rockefeller foundation CEOs all kinds of amazing amazing people every week they talked about their lives for two years. And it was really interesting. We practiced feed forward. They'd always say, here's my biggest challenge. Please help me. Say thank you. That's it. One of the guys named Safi Bacall, and Safi said I learned something from Curtis Martin, the football star, who's really a happy guy and

having a great life. He said, he taught me that happiness and achievement are independent variables. You can achieve a lot and be happy, and you can achieve a lot and be miserable. You can achieve nothing and be happy and achieve nothing and be miserable. And he said, I used to believe I'll be happy when I achieve these things. And then I said, Safi, it's glad he had this realization. You already have a PhD in physics from Stanford. You've written a New York Times bestselling book. You've started four businesses. You're worth tens of millions of dollars, and you've consulted to presidents. If that is not enough achievement to make you happy, you really think a little more is going to matter? You're already a 99.999 on achievement now. You think going to a 99.999 is going to make

difference. Not really. Wow. I think entrepreneurs are just so competitive, even against themselves. They always have to one up and do a little better. So at what point do we go, this is enough, and I can be content? How do you get to that point? Here's a point. I'm not saying the entrepreneurs should not try to achieve goals. That's not a bad thing at all. The key, though, is don't assume that this is connected to peace of mind, happiness, contentment. It isn't. It isn't. It isn't. There's a term called the hungry ghost, always eating, but you're never full. You're never going to get there. If your value as a human being is they have to do more than last year, you're never going to get there.

Also, look at National Football League players, disasters. Disasters. Five years later, huge number of bankrupt. They could use your all's help. Huge number are bankrupt. They're depressed, a divorced, just bad, real bad. Why? Their whole definition is comparing themselves back to the person who won the Super Bowl.

and they can't let it go. So looking back at the peak of their success career-wise and going, that was the best version of me. And yeah, I can't beat that next year. Well, you've got to start over with life. You've got to start over with life. And in the book, my new book, During Life, I talk about our aspirations, our ambitions, and our actions.

Our aspirations are a higher purpose. Why am I here? Why am I working so hard? And our aspirations don't have a finish line or a target. our ambitions are what am I trying to achieve, and that does have a finish line or a target, and then our actions are what am I doing now? Very important to align the three. So you are achieving, your achievement is connected to your sense of meaning or higher aspiration,

and you're enjoying the process of life. You're not so busy achieving that you forget to enjoy life. You know, it's interesting. Most of people listening to us right now, some people are stuck, most of the history of the world, people were stuck on the action phase. They just live day-to-day lives. Our ancestors were poor people. They didn't have any choice.

They did what was in front of them, and they just made it through the day. And most human beings today are still like that. Some people are lost in their heads. They may be professors, priests, or whatever. They abstract theories. They don't really achieve anything, but they're living up in their head. Everyone listen to us right now, these are achievers. And if they're not careful, they become addicted to achievement.

And if they're not careful, they're so addicted to achievement that they can forget to enjoy life and forget why they're doing this in the first place. Yeah. And so it's very important. to align these three things so that you really, also you need to enjoy what you're doing. And let me give you an example. There's a famous study on marshmallows that I talk about in the book. And in the research, you take this kid.

You give the kid one marshmallow. It's a kid, you get one. But if you wait, aha, two, two marshmallows. Oh, good. Now, allegedly, they've been this research and the kids that eat one and all become hopeless drug addicts and the kids that eat two get PhDs from Stanford or something like that. But the message is delayed gratification is good. Almost any self-help book delayed gratification is good.

What they didn't do in the research, though, is take the kid the day too and say, you know, kid, wait a little bit more. Three, wait some more, four, five, ten, a hundred, a thousand. And where does the story end? An old man sitting in the room waiting to die, surrounded by millions of uneaten marshmallows. Wow. Sometimes you got to eat the marshmallow.

That's a powerful visual. And the final story is Jack Welch, of course, famous COG. Almost died. almost died and my friend asking what did you think about life he said why am i drinking the cheap wine every night you got love drinking wine has his incredible wine collection every night he's drinking cheap wine he didn't want to waste the good stuff oh you know what he was waiting for it to appreciate in value oh my goodness he said i'm jack welch i'm rich what am i doing every night cheap wine oh my goodness that's a great reminder no more cheap wine for me so as we wrap here what

What advice do you find yourself giving the most to the leaders your coaching, especially in this environment and economy and everything we face? My biggest advice has nothing to do with coaching or leadership or this environment or anything. It's just about life. And it's great for entrepreneurs. Number one, take a deep breath. Imagine you're 95 years old and you're on that deathbed, just getting ready to die. Right before you take that last breath, you're giving a beautiful gift.

The ability to go back in time and talk to the person who's listening to me now. The ability to help person be a better leader. Much more important, have a better life. What advice would that wise old person facing death have for the you that is listening to me right now? Well, whatever you're thinking now, do that. In terms of a performance appraisal, that's the only one that matters. That old person says you did the right thing. You did the right thing.

You made a mistake. You made a mistake. Some friends of mine interviewed old folks who were dying to ask the question. What advice would you have? Personal side, three themes. Theme number one, three words. Be happy now. Not next week, not next month, not next year.

Don't get lost and I'll be happy when I get the money, status achievement, BMW. You can try to do all that stuff and it's great. Don't forget to be happy now. Time fast is fast. Learning point number two, friends and family. Never get so busy climbing that ladder of success that you forget the people that love you. and sometimes entrepreneurs make that mistake. They get so busy climbing that letter,

they forget the people who love them. And when you're 95, they're the only ones that care. And also, the entrepreneurs are good at this one. You've got a dream, go for it. Just go for it. And the business advice is much different. Number one, life is short, have fun, enjoy what you're doing. Number two, do whatever you can do to help people.

And the main reason to help people has nothing to do with money or status or getting ahead. The main reason to help people is much deeper. the 95-year-old you will be proud of you because you did and disappointed if you don't. And if you don't think that's true, interview any CEO is retired, ask what are you proud of? None of them ever told me how big their office was. And the final advice is the same, go for it. And the world's changing, your business changing, do what you think is right.

May not win, at least you tried. And finally, we almost never regret the risk we take and fail. We regret the risk we fail to take. And finally, it's been my honor to talk with you. You know, my mission on this call is real simple. I have the highest respect for people listening to us. These people work hard. They're achievers.

They're doing their best. And my goal is real simple. Let's say a few people listening to this podcast to have a little better life. It's a good podcast. Wow. Beautiful, beautiful words. Thank you so much, Marshall, for your levity, your heart, your wisdom, your 40 years of helping leaders. Have a better life on top of being successful.

And all of those things that we talked about. It was an honor to have you today. Thank you so much. Big thanks to Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. What an absolute legend in the leadership space. So if you guys want to get a copy of his new book, The Earned Life, or his other bestseller, What Got You Here Won't Get You There.

We've got links for you in the show notes. So up next, we're going to talk about the mindset to avoid so that you can break through your leadership lid and become the best leader you can be. We'll have a conversation about that right after this. All right, coming up, I sit down with Daniel Ramsey, our EVP of Entree Leadership. We're going to chat about some of the lessons that he's learned on his own personal journey to grow as a leader.

Here's our conversation. Daniel, welcome back to the podcast. Man, so good to be here, George. By popular demand. Fan favorite. I think my schedule's more available than most others. That's not true. Well, we're talking about this concept of what got you here won't get you there.

And you've seen a lot of things. You've been on the team now for eight years. Obviously, you grew up seeing this business happen with your dad, Dave, and, you've seen. And you've probably found out early on your own leadership lid as you stepped into leadership many years ago. What were the things that you found were holding you back, holding the team back, and holding the business back? Man, that statement of what got us here won't get us there, I feel like I used to weaponize that statement to try to influence people upstream. You're trying to break things. That's right.

And I felt like the one that was pointing the finger and saying, hey, you're the old dinosaur that needs to change or whatever. honestly, over the last several years, especially being in leadership, I realize that I'm the problem. I'm the one that needs to reinvent myself. I'm the one that needs to change. I'm the one that's, that's, I'm going back to my old bag of tricks, expecting them to work the same way they worked in previous years or seasons or teams. Now, some things do. You know, principles, just basic leadership. A lot of stuff we teach don't tree leadership is, doesn't matter what industry you're in or whatever. It's going to work. But when it comes to the ideas, when it comes to being fresh with how we go to market with something or a strategy, man, I have learned and I've been really humbled that my ideas aren't as good as I used to think they were.

And so I've had to rely way more and more on the team, and I've had to look for opportunities and spend more time asking questions and seeking out ideas and opportunities from around our team and the market and researching online. And so I definitely have been the lid the vast majority of the time. The first step is self-awareness, and you got that down. And, you know, Dave started this place on a card table in his living room famously with one team member himself and obviously scaled it over time. And it's a great example of what got us here, won't get us there, because over time, the process has changed.

And he talks to our team about this and staff meeting all the time. Hey, our mission, our values, our principles, those will not change. they've been the same for as long as we've been around. But the way we do things has to change over time. So have you found yourself kind of stumbling? Maybe as you've entered this new role in entree leadership, are there any mistakes that you look back and go, man, wish I did that differently?

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of mistakes I can look back on and I have regrets or I realize I really screwed it up. One of the things I've been learning recently is how often that I can look back in a season or a time where I made a decision, I was decisive, and I held onto that decision too long, meaning the environment changed, the team changed, things changed, and I held fast to a decision I had made that had probably expired. And more recently, I've been challenging myself to think, hey, what are decisions I should revisit and maybe make a new decision? I've been trying to give myself the freedom to change and make new decisions along the way and not being stuck in a

decision that I've made in the past. And so I look back at different seasons of business that I've been in on various teams. And I'm like, I made some big decisions where I didn't necessarily think through all the consequences. And when those consequences came up, I chose to stay the course versus making a new decision. Is there some like sunk cost fallacy in there where you're kind of going, oh, I got to stick to my guns. This is going to make me look bad with the team and for the business. We're going to stick it out. Absolutely. Figure it out later. Absolutely. That's hard to do to kind of swallow your bride and own it and do it in a way where you're communicating that to the team

about your failure. Have you done that? It is horrible. George, like, there's nothing worse than stand up in front of the team saying you're wrong and you're going to change direction. Like, oh, it's the worst. Mostly that makes the team lose trust in you. Have you found that to be the case? No, not at all. Yeah, it blows me away. Whenever I get up in front of the team and I own a mistake or I own something that went wrong, if I take ownership of it like Jocko talks about,

take extreme ownership of it, when I take ownership of a situation that didn't go right, and then I talk about a path forward, I always get, the team trusts you more. They come to me and they believe in me more. They appreciate me more. They feel freedom to make their own mistakes and learn from and grow from it.

They don't hide their mistakes. They actually learn from them and grow from them. And so, no, communicating and being open and honest is so important. And you can't just sit it up there and apologize. You actually have to apologize and then take action to be different and change and grow. If you just stand up and apologize over and over, then people don't believe it because they don't actually see the change. It's kind of a boy who cried wolf. Exactly.

Leader who cried wolf. That's a great book title. Someone can take that. The opposite of an entree leader. Yes. So part of communicating and building that healthy team is feedback. And I talked with Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. We're both big fans of his.

and he talks about feed forward, which is not, hey, you did this wrong. It's, hey, looking towards the future, here's how I think we could do better. What do you think? And it's a very interesting, positive way to give feedback that it's not sugar-coding anything, but instead of looking back at the past, we're looking towards the future. When you talk about what guy you here won't get you there, how do you do that with your team at Entree leadership? man we as humans have egos you know i have an ego the people i work with have an ego and that's okay i'm not saying having a big ego's having a big ego is bad for sure but we just have to recognize that we're all emotional creatures and we're sensitive and so one thing i've learned recently from actually i have my own executive coach what i've what he's been teaching me recently is when you are correcting someone when you are uh challenging them to do something different or give them feedback it is a very nuanced way that you use your language around something. And so instead of saying, hey, we're going to fix something

or we're going to talk about this broken thing, hey, George, the way you did it is terrible. It's broken. Hey, your project is off the rails. That language immediately throws your defenses up. And you're not going to hear the feedback I actually have for you. So instead of saying broken, fix, reset, instead say, hey, George, I'm going to build on your knowledge.

The foundation you've set, let's build on it, let's grow from it, let's move forward in a better place. So you really set that up earlier exactly what I would say, is using more of forward-thinking vocabulary and words around it to not shame the past. But, hey, you're subtly acknowledging that it wasn't as good as it could have been, and you're talking about the future. And not only does that put my defenses down, my guard down, but it also changes the way I interact with you as a leader when I know, oh, Daniel actually wants to help me grow.

Yeah. He's not here to tell me what I did wrong. It shows that I actually believe in you and I hope I have like, I see a future for you as a team member that's improved and better than today. Versus if I don't believe in you, then I'm just going to write you up and reprimand you and call it a day. Not the way to do it. No. For sure. No.

So we have a core value around here of shoot sacred cows. And I think that plays into this, what got you here won't get you there in a big way. How do you know when it's time to shoot the cow? When people make statements like, oh, we can't do that, and you ask why? Hey, why can't we do that? Why can't we try that? And they don't have an explanation for it? Or they say, hey, this is how we've always done it.

That's a trigger sentence. That's when I kind of like start to tilt my head a little bit. And I keep asking why, why? Is there a principal reason why we haven't done this? Is this violate our core values? Is this, have we done it before and it didn't work? if so, should we revisit, have things changed that we can reconsider? So, no, I always look for a reason in why we don't do something.

Something in me, my personality, I don't like to be told no. And so when I am told no, I have to explore it to actually see if it is a real no or not. I think that's in the Ramsey DNA at this point. Oh, definitely, definitely. So as we wrap here, what have you found to be the best way to evaluate if the blocker that you're hitting is a challenge to overcome? or if it's a lid that needs to be broken through. How do you kind of look at problems when you're going?

We're not where we want to be in our business. We've got to get over here. What is your first step in evaluating? You know, as a believer, I try to go to God with prayer and asking him for direction and for guidance. Oftentimes for me, it's hard to explain, but oftentimes I really feel like he guides me in decisions. And I don't hear his audible voice,

but I definitely see signs and nudges and things that I'm more aware and I'm more looking for, hey, is this the right course of action or is it not? And so sometimes a path is blocked and you shouldn't go that path. And other times it is an obstacle that we need to push through and we need to find a way around it and we are called to lean into it. And those are the best opportunities. They're frustrating, they're hard, but they're what make you better. And, you know, Jocko's all about that of looking at the same.

situation as an opportunity to grow. And so sometimes it's an opportunity to grow. Sometimes it's something you overcome. Other times, you know, I really feel like the Lord's precedent on me that we shouldn't go that direction. We should look for something totally different and not try that. Yeah. And if nothing else, you know, turning your focus towards your faith is turning it away from your own motives and opinions and feelings in the moment. And so it disconnects you in a healthy way. Absolutely. Yeah. All those things cloud my judgment. And so, So that's why I have to seek out the Lord and I seek out my team's advice and their input. And I ask my wife oftentimes if she has knowledge of the situation or I ask close friends.

I try to seek counsel. Those people provide insight and perspective. And I use my own discernment to see if it's good perspective, if it makes sense. But I have to let my own feelings, thoughts, emotions get out of the way. Proverbs says that in the multitude of counsel there is safety. And so I try to seek that. If I rely on my own, quote-unquote, knowledge or wisdom, I'm probably going to screw it up if we're being honest.

Yeah. Well, Daniel, I've loved seeing you grow over the years. We've been here about the same amount of time on the team. And the level of maturity and wisdom and discernment has just made you such a healthy leader that I know the entire Entree leadership team looks up to and respects it deeply. So thanks so much for sharing your wisdom today. Man, thank you, George. That means a lot.

Appreciate it. Thanks so much, Daniel. Always love having you and your wisdom on the podcast. So we talked a lot about personal growth today. And if you want to become a better leader and grow your business, you really should check out Entre Leadership Elite. It's our system that helps you create a strategic plan, build a healthy culture, and scale your business the Ramsey way.

So if you find yourself putting out fires all day long, not knowing how your team is really doing, stressing out about your never-ending to-do list, then this is absolutely for you. And right now, you can sign up for a free 30-day trial of Entree Leadership Elite. Just use the link in the show notes. If you enjoyed today's episode of the show, do us a quick favor, follow or subscribe, wherever you listen, and leave us a review. Or even better, share this episode with your team, with your friends, or on social media. All of that helps us impact more people and more leaders like you. Be sure to follow us at Entree Leadership wherever you hang out on social media.

This episode was produced by Tim Hull, edited by Jacob Harrison, 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.