High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 448: Leading Imperfectly with James Robilotta, Certified Speaking Professional, Author, and Impro Comedian

Episode Date: August 8, 2021

James Robilotta is a author, professional speaker, personal coach, and entrepreneur that's trained in stand-up and improv comedy. He has been speaking professionally to willing and unwilling audiences for years and have found that quality humor — not your slapstick, dad-joke humor — is the secret to hosting powerful conversations and making a real impact. He works with colleges, corporations, associations, and individuals with a focus on authentic leadership. He focuses on something other authors and speakers won’t touch: imperfection. In 2015, he published his first book, Leading Imperfectly: The value of being authentic for leaders, professionals, and human beings. The concepts of authentic leadership and leading imperfectly are the driving forces behind conversations about giving/receiving feedback, rapport building, engagement, increased productivity, retention, promoting memorability, life balance, and more. In this episode, James and Cindra discuss: How to lead imperfectly The values of authentic leadership Where love fits in the workplace And strategies to provide feedback that sticks HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: https://www.cindrakamphoff.com/429-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ FB COMMUNITY FOR THE HPM PODCAST: https://www.facebook.com/groups/highperformancemindsetcommunity FOLLOW CINDRA ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cindrakamphoff/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/mentally_strong TO FIND MORE ABOUT JAMES AND HIS WORK: https://jamestrobo.com/ Love the show? Rate and review the show for Cindra to mention you on the next episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/high-performance-mindset-learn-from-world-class-leaders/id1034819901

Hey, my name is Cindra Campoff and I'm a small-town Minnesota gal, Minnesota nice as we like to say it, who followed her big dreams. I spent the last four years working as a mental coach for the Minnesota Vikings, working one-on-one with the players. I wrote a best-selling book about the mindset of the world's best and I'm a keynote speaker and national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. And I am obsessed with speaker and national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. And I am obsessed with showing you exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best. So you can accomplish all your goals and dreams.

So I'm over here following my big dreams. And I'm here to inspire you and practically show you how to do the same. And you know, when I'm not working, you'll find me playing Miss Pac-Man. Yes, the 1980s game Miss Pac-Man. So take your notepad out, buckle up, and let's go. This is the high performance mindset. Bill George said, the role of leaders is not to get other people to follow them, but to empower others to lead. Brene Brown once said, Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who you think we're supposed to be and embracing who we are. And James Robilotta, who I interviewed today for the podcast said,

Great leaders ask questions before giving advice. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. Thank you so much for joining me here today. If you know that mindset is essential to your success, then you are in the right place because each week we explore various topics and new topics to help us be the best that we can be. And today I interview James Robilotta about leading imperfectly for episode 448. James is an author, a professional speaker, a personal coach, and an entrepreneur that is trained in stand-up and improv comedy. He has been speaking professionally to willing and unwilling audiences for years and has found the quality of humor, not the slapstick dad joke humor, is the secret to hosting powerful conversations and making a real impact.

He works with colleges, corporations, associations, and individuals with a focus on authentic leadership. And he touches something that other authors and speakers won't touch, which is this topic of imperfection. In 2015, he published his first book, Leading Imperfectly, The Value of Being Authentic for Leaders, Professionals, and Human Beings. And the concepts of authentic leadership and leading imperfectly are really the driving force behind conversations about giving and receiving

feedback, rapport building, engagement, increased productivity, life balance, and much more. In this episode, James and I talk about how to lead imperfectly, the value of authentic leadership, and the impact when you show up as an authentic leader, where love fits into the workplace, and strategies to provide feedback that sticks. If you'd like to see the full show notes and the full transcript of this interview, you can head over to cindracampoff.com slash 448 for episode 448. We go live with each of these interviews on our Facebook page. So you can head over to Facebook and search High Performance Mindset Community. We'd love for you to join us there when we're live on these interviews and ask us any questions. That way we can help you even more. And lastly, if you haven't already,

we'd love for you to leave us a rating and review just to help us reach more and more people each and every week. If you are listening on an iPhone, for example, and you're listening to this episode on the iPhone, all you have to do is scroll up and you can leave us a rating and review there. Without further ado, let's bring on James.

To be joined by James Robilotta. James, thank you so much for joining me here on the High Performance Mindset Podcast. How's your day going? Zyndra, it is an honor to be here, my friend. My day is going quite well, thank you. My little one has a fever, but we're going to figure it out. And James and I just were at the same event where he was the opening keynote. I was the closing keynote. And I talked to him at NSA, the National Speakers Association in influence in Las Vegas a few weeks ago. And I said, I got to get James on the podcast. So thank you so much for joining me.

I'm so excited to talk about your topic and leading authentically. I'm pumped to be here. Excited to learn from you. Learn from you. We're going to learn from me. I'm going to learn from you too. So James, just get us started and tell us a little bit about your passion and what you're doing right now.

Yeah, for sure. So my passion is authenticity, vulnerability. I believe that we as humans can't learn things from people who are perfect. We can only learn things from people who are imperfect. And so how are we opening ourselves up to others, opening ourselves up to change, and also opening ourselves up to change and also opening ourselves up to difference is really what I am passionate about. I think leaders sometimes get stuck in certain mindsets of, I have to be a certain way, or they meant to hire someone. They probably didn't mean to hire me. They probably meant to hire someone more like this. And so let me be more like that, but then they lead

inauthentically. And I think that hurts their teams and hurts everything. And so that's what I talk to you. I talk to individuals about why they are enough right now to lead the teams they have the opportunities to. Yeah. Why they are enough right now to lead the teams they have the opportunities to. I think that there's a lot of self-doubt that can come with leadership. And I think that's a really powerful message. just like saying that you are enough just the way that you are with all of your imperfections. Preach. Yeah, let's go. So what, tell us a little bit about your background and like, how did you get to speaking on this topic of leading imperfectly? Yeah, for sure. So, so it's funny, I went to college, I got a Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology.

And then in my junior year, I realized I was putting too many jokes in my scientific papers. My teachers were like, this may not be for you, James. I don't know if this is it. And I was like, you know what? I think you're right. But I had developed a passion for leadership as a student leader. And so I wound up getting a master's in counseling from Clemson University, go Tigers, and worked in the field of leadership development, predominantly colleges and universities for a while. And then during one of my first professional jobs, I had a reverse role model. You can't help where you learn stuff from, but I had a reverse role model, someone who I believe led very inauthentically. And you can tell that because this individual wasn't particularly approachable. Whenever this individual was called out or questioned, it was never their fault. It was

always somebody else's fault. They passed a lot of the blame. And also they made themselves look great sometimes at the expense of making others look worse, just to prove a point or to teach a lesson. And I feel like they really missed an opportunity to connect because they were too worried about image. And so that is when I was like, I don't like that. I think I like the opposite of that. And so that's when I learned about authentic leadership.

I actually thought that I created authentic leadership. And then I did a really quick Google search and realized somebody wrote a book called Authentic Leadership. It's a whole theory and that's fine. It was validating and humbling. But yeah, but that's how I really became very passionate about authentic leadership and why I think it's a tool that pretty much every leader needs to have in their belt. So tell us what it means to you to lead imperfectly. If you, you know, I'm thinking about this reverse role model that you learned from, and you just told us about all the things that we shouldn't do. But what does it mean to lead imperfectly to you? I think it means leading through your stories, through your slips, through your struggles,

and also yes, through your strengths, right? I'm not telling you, you got to tell everybody what you did wrong. You're also allowed to tell people what you do well. But it's not being afraid of telling that story. I think you have probably worked alongside plenty of individuals or heard people say the phrase of like, I do things wrong all the time, or I mess up all the time. And just merely saying that isn't necessarily authentic or vulnerable. It's the story behind that, that is therefore

vulnerable. And so I think we need to go one step further instead of just being like, I mess up all the time. It doesn't really necessarily, it doesn't, I can't see myself in that. Relatability is super powerful, right? Because when we see ourselves in someone else, we believe that we can. And so in, we see ourselves in each other's stories. And so that is why I think it's leaders jobs to tell stories. So we shouldn't just say I messed up. We should kind of give the story behind the mistake and what other people can learn or tell us a bit more about what we should kind of give the story behind the mistake and what other people can learn or tell us a bit more about what we should do as leaders. Yeah, exactly. It's kind of like also

when it's a lot of times when somebody just like drops a quote that somebody else said, and they're just like, well, we all need to be the change we need to see. We wish to see in the world. Right. And then they just like leave it there. Like it was their own mic drop moment. And like, first off, first off, shout out to Mahatma Gandhi, but also like you need to, therefore you need to then bring in your story as to why that matters to you and how it connects to you and what others can learn from it. Right. I think it's in those, in that same exact vein that we need to give people something to hold on to, give people that moment of like, oh, okay, well, if my supervisor or my leader or my friend or my colleague has also done something where they had created a ripple effect that they didn't intend to,

that means that this is a place where I can do that and I won't immediately get fired. So that means this is a place where I can try, I can innovate, I can fail, and I can also win and I'm going to be good. I think the importance of like developing psychological safety in the workplace, right? That if, you know, failure is okay and you're not going to be punished if you fail and mistakes are great learning opportunities. But if your leader can share, okay, this is what I learned, it gives you permission that, okay, you don't have to be perfect either. Yeah, I completely agree, Sandra. That was beautifully put.

So when you think about the value of leading imperfectly and just like being authentic, what do you see the value is, you know, for let's say leaders or the workplace or just us as humans in general? Yeah, I think there's a value in a lot of different directions. I think ultimately, like I said, leaders ask questions, leaders tell stories. And I think, you know, stories lead to connection, connection leads to trust and trust leads to loyalty. So if we're going to think about this idea of wanting to build better teams, loyalty is what we're all after, right? I mean, we don't, we can look at the retention rate at a lot of companies and the turnover and how expensive all that stuff is to a company, to a team.

It's no bueno. And so if there's a way to create more loyalty of like, oh, this is a leader that I want to show up for in and out. There's a leader that pushes me, but also sees me. There's a lot of benefit to that moment and creating that moment. There's also a huge benefit, I think, as you were talking about, outside of leadership as well, right? And when I think about it in parenting, when I think about it in friendships, when I think about it in just general life connections, sometimes with strangers, when we connect with somebody else, it is frequently through story. It's also frequently through something that we all love, right? I think it's funny

because small talk is something that a lot of us hate because it sounds a lot like, oh my God, this elevator is so slow. I know, right? I know, right? I know, right? Right? Like, and so, so small talk is often started from a negative place, right? Like this is dumb. This is, it's hot, it's cold. It's, it's annoying. It's whatever. But you know, my best friends are my best friends, not because we all hate the same stuff, but because we all love the same stuff. And so when we share something we like, or when we share a story about ourselves, it gives people the opportunity to connect. I think it's really important, like, you know, you know, in parenting and I'm, I'm a new parent, and so I'm learning this. But in putting ourselves out there as parents and sharing some of those stories as well, as opposed to trying to just be seen like, well, that's the rule because, or that's, you know, these power moves that sometimes people make to try to be seen as an alpha are really creating separation and not connection.

And so I think that's where it plays a role in a few aspects of life. And I think it's so powerful that you're speaking on this topic of authenticity and vulnerability as a male. You know, so, yeah, you just said something about or that made me think a lot about ego, right? And the things that kind of hold us back from being authentic and showing our authenticity as a leader. And I'm curious, like, what do you think holds people back from really stepping into being

an authentic leader? I think it's a lot of fear, as you were talking about, right? I think fear is the correct word, because I think there's a few things. One is a fear of being seen as less than, right? I think, I think fear is the correct word because I think there's a few things. One is a fear of being seen as less than, right? Like if I share a story about a time where I messed up or I struggled, I'm opening myself up to criticism. I'm opening myself up to like, well, how'd this guy get hired or promoted? Right. And that moment is sometimes scary. I think also, I think also a lot of times people are taught to not have a gray area between those that you lead and yourself. And oftentimes if we're more authentic and we're sharing stories,

it makes things a little bit more gray. Right. Like it kind of drifts away from like a stereotypical boss or a stereotypical coach to like kind of drifting towards friendship a little bit. Yeah. I think there's a stop at great leadership before you get all the way over to friendship on the other side. Um, and so, uh, so yeah, I know, I think that's, that's how I, I think I would talk about it. And, and, you know, you mentioned men as well. And, and Sandra, we men are a fascinating species. I know I'm married to one who's actually a really good authentic leader. Uh, but yeah, he is fascinating, but men, men are interesting because I think we more so than women frequently have a fear of being seen as less than, um, and less than. And so the way that that comes out is we talk louder, we cut people off, we get defensive more quickly.

I think men in general, in the moment, are frequently more interested in being cool than being great. That's what hurts us. Yeah. So, you know, I, and I, I think that fear is the thing that also stands in our way of being an authentic leader and showing vulnerability and like, you know, embracing what you're saying, leading imperfectly. And I'm curious about, you know, what maybe advice you'd give to people who are listening and they they're thinking, yeah, you know, I'm scared to show my authentic self because of what people might think or, you know, that maybe I'll be criticized

or feel less than. Yeah. Cindy, can I take a quick sidestep that's related to what you just said? And I think I want to offer a question back to you and then I'll rant on it for a second, but just cause I'm passionate, but I think a question we frequently need to ask ourselves is who gets to be authentic because not everybody gets to be authentic as frequently in this world. Again, you talked about men, men are able to be authentic more often than not because of because of privilege because of societal expectations and history whereas women are often not always able to be as authentic right a woman can't be too funny they can't be too emotional they can't be too assertive they can't write like all these garbage qualities that women are told like you need to keep it with inside the lines here.

Right. Don't get too hysterical or dramatic, please. Thank you. Right. That's sexist. And also, we also do that for individuals that are of difference to us when we look at people of color and we and we tell them, well, just show up authentically, just be who you are. But if you can change your hairstyle a little bit, but if you could just talk a little bit differently, if you could just show up a little bit differently, if you could just this a little bit differently, that would make the rest of us feel a little more comfortable. And I think you'd get a little further in life, right? That's racist. And so when we think about

this idea of wanting to appease whoever is in power and having to change ourselves for whoever is in power a little bit to make that individual feel more comfortable so that we may get a little further, we need to step back and be like, are we letting the people around us actually show up authentically? Or are we telling them to show up authentically based on what makes us feel comfortable? Yeah, that's really powerful. As you were telling that story, or when you just were saying that, I was thinking about a story in my own life where I was working with a pro team, a sports team, and was told, hey, tune down that bubbliness. You're a little too bubbly for this space, you know, and dress this way and do this and do this, right? And it was hard for me to be authentic in that space because I didn't feel like I was

accepted for who I am. And I had to pay really close attention to the way that I spoke about things or, you know, I couldn't, I couldn't say, you know, I had to, you know, be really, really careful. And it was, it felt like I was tight a lot, you know? So I hear what you're saying. I really think that's a powerful question. Like who gets to be authentic? Yeah. This is where, I mean, again, a lot of people have different thoughts about whether privilege exists or whatnot but that's the thing about privilege is it enables me not to have to think about it right like i'm making a choice to think about it but as someone sure a white straight male

who is raised with more than enough right like i don't have to think about it um and that's what privilege is um and so uh so yeah so it's it's powerful. And going back to your initial question that I steamrolled and took a different direction. You know, I was going to come back to it anyway. But before you answer that question, James, I was just thinking about a really powerful statement is that when you are in power in an organization, just thinking about what you can do to help people feel like they can be an authentic leader and how are you creating the space for people to do that, right? Regardless of their gender or their race or all of these other inequalities. Yeah. Everybody who you work with, everybody who you exist with,

whether it's just on this planet, we all want to feel seen, heard, and respected. And I think it's a leader's job to create a space where the individuals who are around them feel seen, heard, and respected. And a lot of times what that means is not guessing or assuming, it's asking and listening. But that's hard because sometimes the truth creeps in and the truth doesn't taste very good and we're nervous about that. So instead we make assumptions to protect ourselves from potential truths that go against our assumptions. Yeah, there we go. My head is in a knot. So, okay, for those, so given this context, you know, my question was, what advice would

you give people that maybe are scared of showing who they really are? Yeah, it is, uh, the world that we live in has convinced us that vulnerability equals weakness, but if vulnerability is such a weakness syndrome, then why is it so damn hard? Right? Like it's easier to not ask for help than it is to ask for help. It's easier to avoid and compartmentalize than it is to own and confront. Vulnerability takes courage. And the thing is, is that a lot of times when we think about vulnerability, we think about it as like, okay, I'm going to walk into my meeting next week and I'm just going to tell

everybody what's going on and what my insecurities are. Here's everything. Here's where I'm a terrible person, right? Like, is that vulnerability? Technically, yes. But that's not what we're necessarily talking about here. Like, vulnerability for the sake of vulnerability is something Brene Brown talks about is not healthy, right? Vulnerability for the sake of sharing something, sharing something that you then hope the people in front of you will help you with. That's not yet the time to be vulnerable, right? We have to, she frequently talks about leading from our scars, not our wounds, right? And I agree with that to a certain extent. I think we can let people in a little bit earlier because sometimes those scars take a real long time to heal. And sometimes letting people in when it's a little more fresh, I think is powerful. But at the same time, we have had to, we have had to be doing some work on it. But vulnerability is not just here my deepest, darkest fears and insecurities. Vulnerability is also, here's an embarrassing story about me.

Here's a random food quirk. Here's something I love about my family. Here's something that brings me joy that you did not know about that would potentially surprise you in a positive way, right? Like, oh, I never knew you were into badminton, right? Like just even those like little moments are moments of vulnerability or moments of authenticity or moments of our story that people can grab onto and see themselves in us. So I think people are scared about it and understandably, because we've been telling people that vulnerability is divulging your deepest, darkest fears, but there are many levels of vulnerability that are probably more appropriate at work

and also just as effective. I like the idea of like leading with your scars, not your wounds. And I'm thinking about like, how do we do that as leaders? And what advice would you give for us when you think about sharing the, hey, you know, I have a Ms. Pac-Man machine in my kitchen. I actually do. That is incredible. Or, right, you know, I guess what I'm really hearing you say is being thoughtful with our vulnerability and not just sharing, blah, this is all about who we are. Yeah, exactly. And I think not everybody deserves your story, right? And so it's also recognizing that there is a time and a place to share our stories. And frequently there is somebody that we can kind of like see ourselves in, or we can, I don't know, there's just like a little switch in the back of our head is like, this is a good person. I think

I can trust them and let them in a little bit more. And I think if I do that, it'll actually help them. So let me tell this individual a story about a time when I, again, slip struggled, whatever. I think using our stories, that's why it's a tool in the belt, right? Now I'm at that, hey, here's a cool moment to potentially interject something that's a little more personal to hammer home a point that I think is going to make this individual know that they're okay, know that they are enough, know that they just need to keep going. Awesome. You know, James, I know that one of your keynotes is labeled or titled Love and Leadership,

The Secret to Managing and Retaining Talent. And I really wanted to ask you some questions about that because I think showing love in the workplace and in leadership actually takes a vulnerability and authenticity. But there are so many times where we, I think this happens in sport and where I work in sport, but also like in corporate America, like, you know, of course, I don't love the people that I coach. Of course, I don't love, you know, the people I work with, you know, because we equate love to romantic love. Tell us about the power of love in leadership. Yeah. And I agree with you. I think we frequently, when we're like love,

we're like, hold up, hang on a second. Oh dude, we got weird. We got, we have policies here. Okay. That's not going to work. But I think you also, you and I also both know that there are very different kinds of love. And so when we talk about love and leadership, we don't have to call it love, but we got to call it something. Maybe we call it commitment, right. Or something like that. And that's what I tell people right from the jump is that like, listen, for some of you, that's a little weird that we're talking about love right now. You can just take out love and put in commitment and all the points are still going to be the same for the rest of the talk. Right. But at the end of the day, commitment is patience plus persistence. And so when we think about this idea, leaders have to be patient with those that they work with because growth is a

process and leaders also need to be persistent with those that they work with because growth is a process. And leaders also need to be persistent with those that they work with because growth is a process. And so that moment is critical, but it takes that initial investment, the initial commitment to that individual to actually show up for them, to actually advocate for them, to actually advocate for them, to actually be curious about them and those kinds of things. I think a lot of lazy leaders aren't curious about the people

that they have the opportunity to lead. They just plug and play whoever it is and keep doing the same thing they've always been doing. But we know that love, especially going back to it, love is, if we're going to look at like Gary Chapman's five love languages, we all feel love in a different way. Or we appreciate being loved or feel seen being loved in different ways, right? Some of it's words of affirmation.

Some of it's gifts. Some of it's time. Some of it's, well, we can't do physical touch in the workplace. So take that one out. Actually, Gary Chapman wrote a book. I think it's called The Five. I think it's like the appreciation languages for leaders or something like that. Right.

And so, but it's the same idea, but you have to get to know other individuals about how they like to feel appreciated or actually they actually do feel appreciation because otherwise we're always going to take the lazy route and just appreciate people the way we like to be appreciated and assume it's fine. Yeah. Kind of what we're talking about here. I'm thinking about also this perspective of caring and love and commitment, you know, to the people that you lead and actually how that connects to performance as well, right? If I know my boss really cares about me or my coach cares about me as a person, I'm going to give everything for him or her. Or I think about my son who's going to be in ninth grade this year, kind of scary. But, you know, last year he had a really hard time in the pandemic in terms of you know just I don't feel felt like his teachers were they didn't show the love and caring it was just more

like um do this assignment you know maybe that was COVID related and all the things that were teachers were going through but it's like where where is the caring for you as a human? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think that's a perfect example. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, the way that we show up for each other is, is powerful and you can feel when someone is showing up for you out of love versus out of spite or out of resentment or out of, this is just what I'm supposed to do. It feels very different. I think people are strongly motivated by the two poles. One is the haters, right? The people who are like, you're never going to be able to do that. You're never going to do that. And then people are like, oh yeah, don't believe me, just watch. Right? And then the other side of it is they're motivated by

people who believe in them, who see them, who know their potential. I don't know one leader that should ever strive to be the former, right? The person that's got to show is I'd be like, ah, you're all going to suck and you're never going to move any decibel places. Good luck while you're here, right? Like that's not a strategy. And if it is, I hope they get fired. But still, love is a strategy. Commitment is a strategy. And so how are you going to do it? It takes a little more time because it has to be a little

more individualistic, but I think it's time that's worth it. So for those people who are listening that want to show more love as a leader, right? And the various ways that we lead, I'm thinking at work, maybe in sport, maybe at home, even leading yourself, what advice would you give for those people who want to just, you know, have more, show more love in leadership? Yeah, sure. You know, I recommend doing is sitting someone across the table from you, staring deep into their eyes and just saying, I love you. And then not blinking for six minutes.

I think that's really, you know, tried and true practice. Awkward. Yeah, for sure. What are some ways, what are some ways to do it? First off, can I, can I share with you one of my definitions of love? Yes, please. Amazing. So here's one of my definitions of love. Cinder, do you remember those old school like Tylenol capsules?

They were like long and they were clear and they had all the little tiny balls in them. You remember those old school pill capsules? So I think love is that capsule. Okay. But what we actually feel about that individual are all the little tiny balls inside. For example, for example, you know, whenever I get off the phone with my parents, I say, okay, I love you. Goodbye. Because it would take far too long for me to be like, okay, thank you for believing me. Thanks for laughing at my jokes. Thanks for pushing me when I didn't believe in myself. Thank you so much for paying for my college. Thanks so much for doing this. Hey, thanks for this. Hey, thanks for that.

Hey, thanks for this. Okay. And then like, I'm still talking while I'm in the car and driving away for all the things that I'm grateful for. Instead, we find this way to encapsulate all of that with a beautiful word of love and it's quick and easy and painless, right? This is why whenever I officiate weddings, I tell people that they're going to write their own vows because I need them to talk about all of those little tiny balls because for the rest of their life, they're just going to say, I love you bye, right? But this is the moment to actually break down why do you love that individual? So when it comes to loving those and showing those love around us, whether they are co-workers, those that we lead, parents, kids, whoever, friends, I think it's about breaking down and opening up that capsule every once in a while and talking

about, hey, here's what I appreciate about you. Or, hey, you know, I really, I love the, I love the ideas that you shared in those meetings. You were really sharp today. Thank you. Right? Like those kinds of moments are for, are super valuable, are super sticky. And so where are the moments where you can actually break down a little bit of what you appreciate about that individual and show them that. In your feedback conversations and our annual reviews,

it's frequently like, yay, doing great at this. Yay, doing great at this, whatever. You already know what you're good at. Let's talk about what you're not doing good at. But instead, spending a little more time on like, hey, you did this for us and it really made this easier or made this more efficient or it made this growth happen or, or it brought the team together, right? Like those kinds of moments of like, I see you, I see the value that you're adding to others around you and to myself. And I really appreciate it, right? Like those kinds of moments, I think are powerful. Also it's loving somebody as the human being that they are. So it's not just like, Hey, thanks. Thanks. Thanks for moving some decimal places for us, or thanks for covering this up or thanks for whatever,

whatever. It's also, uh, how your kid's doing, you know, they started T-ball this year. Hey, you know, I know you love mountain biking. Have you done any cool trails recently? Right? Like those kinds of things where you bring in like, Hey, how's life outside of work doing? You doing okay. And I'm not like talking about things where you bring in like, Hey, how's life outside of work doing? You doing okay. And I'm not like talking about sitting somebody down and be like, how's your marriage, right? Like it's not that, but it's just like, Hey, you're a whole ass human. So what other things are you interested in? And let me carry, let me see me. Let me follow up about some of those things as well, because I know they matter to you. And when you do things that matter to you outside of work, you bring a better energy in work. And so I need to care about

that too. Yeah, that's awesome. And I also think like it's specific to the person, right? Even the feedback that you gave right there, it was specific. It wasn't general. It wasn't like good job. It was, you know, really appreciating something specific about them as a human, not about the task. And then I like what you just said about like asking them about their life because they do bring their whole person. We bring our whole person to everything that we do. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not like you walked into work and all of a sudden you're not a parent, right? You didn't walk into work and you're not a best friend. You didn't walk into work and you're not a sibling. You're not a whatever. It's coming everywhere and you're going to bring energy in both places. So. Yeah. You know, I know one of your other keynotes

that you talk a lot about, James, is like giving feedback that sticks. I think you just gave an example of feedback that sticks, but I'm thinking about what holds people back from giving feedback. It might be, they don't want to be authentic, you know, or vulnerable. I mean, I think it connects with everything that we've, we've just talked about, but what does that mean to you to give feedback that sticks? Yeah, I think it almost combines our last two sections of what we were talking about, where I think great feedback is not just come in here, sit down, you did this wrong, you did this wrong, it fix it by next quarter, right? Like that's not, that's not what feedback is. But sometimes, especially in feedback

conversations, we really want things to be black and white. And so we try to keep it as clean as possible. But I think those are almost the more important conversations to get a little gray. And therefore, I think it means that if someone did something, if you're providing feedback to somebody, and you've done that in the past, then I would say, hey, you know, it's so interesting. You know, I noticed that this is an area of growth for you. That's crazy, because that's actually something that I really struggled with my first few years here. For example, here's a time where I did something that had a ripple effect that I didn't realize it was going to have. Um, or maybe I didn't get something in on time or I

didn't get whatever it is. Um, or, Hey, I didn't think this mattered as much. So I didn't put my heart into it. And then I made a lot more work for some other folks And I didn't recognize that. So I've been there. I get it. It sucks. And but here's why we need to do a little bit better in the future. And here's some ways that I did. Now, here's some things that I tried or ways that I tried to wrap my brain around it. So I could show up more for those around me and for the team that I was on. But it's starting again with story, starting again with a little vulnerability, right? Here's a time where I messed up. And then it's like, so how can we bring it in? I think also a big thing that I love to talk about is curiosity.

And I think in feedback, curiosity is a really powerful trait to have because a lot of times we bring people in, we sit them down, we tell them what they did wrong and how they messed up, excuse me. And instead, we should start with a question, right? I think great letter, great leaders ask questions before they give advice. And so, so with that being said, it's asking the question of like, Hey, what did, what did you see the, the goals of this project being, or, you know, how did you interpret the task that was given to you or, you know, et cetera, kind of asking some of those follow-up questions to learn, of this project being? Or how did you interpret the task that was given to you?

Or kind of asking some of those follow-up questions to learn where did they come at it mentally, right? Was it something that they just flippantly didn't care about? Or did they genuinely think they were doing a good job based on the directions they were given? But the directions they were given, turns out, weren't actually going to set them up for success. And so they were doomed from the start. Asking some of those questions are really powerful up top to understand like, were we on the same

page from the beginning or do we need to kind of shift our communication styles to get there in the future? So that's kind of what I would say in a longer answer. Yeah, I think that's a great advice. I really like what you said about great leaders ask questions before giving advice. And so they understand what's going on with the person. Again, thinking about the whole person. How do you think what we talked about love? How do you think that plays a role in providing feedback that sticks? I think it's a matter of caring, right?

Like, I mean, we both know what active listening is, right? And you can, you know, a good eye contact eye contact leaning in paraphrasing what they just said square your shoulders things like that but but cinderella and I also both know that you can fake active listening right but if you make the decision to care if you make the decision to care you naturally do all the steps to active listening you naturally lean in you naturally square up eye contact, you show up for that moment, you are present. And so leaders need to make the decision to care. The issue is, is that once you make the decision to care, you are also making the decision to take up a little bit more time out of each of your months to care. That's the problem with caring is that it takes time,

right? Like it just does. It has to take time, but that's what investing in somebody else looks like. Investment is time, right? Yes. You can invest resources. You can invest whatever, but at the end of the day, one of the best things that you can invest somebody in is time. And so that's why authentic leadership is hard because it takes a little bit more time, especially up top, but it creates way more efficiency in the backend. Cause once you build a team that trusts each other, you're more efficient, but how you, but it takes a minute to get to that trust, but that's the time that I think is worthy of an investment. And so, yeah, when it comes to giving feedback and whatnot,

I think that's what it comes down to is making the decision to care. And if you make the decision to care, you're naturally going to want to learn a little bit more. You're going to want to hear a little bit more of the story. And then you're naturally going to give more personalized, thoughtful feedback, as opposed to like, well, just be better. Otherwise, you know, stuff's gonna happen. Right? Like, so I think, I think that's what it looks like is making the decision to care. Yeah, that's powerful. And I think sometimes we maybe haven't taken care of our own self to care for others, right? And we're, I'm just thinking about the last year and a half we've all gone through COVID

and the mental health impact of that or the impact of that on our mental health, right? And I really appreciate what you just said about taking time to invest in others and making a decision to care about them as humans, as people. Yeah. I think we also, I mean,

this is advice that I love to pass on to others because it's stuff that I need to hear myself, right? Like it's also making the decision and the choice to care about yourself as well. What does that look like? And that's something I'm not good at working on, but still, like, I think it also falls in this conversation and we'd be remiss if we didn't mention it. Yeah, that's good. So James, as we think about leading imperfectly, I think one thing that gets in the way of people leading

imperfectly or leading with love, things that we've talked about is this idea of like, what if I fail? Right. And I'm curious when you think about the definition of failure, like what does that mean to you? And can you tell us about a time that you failed since we're talking about leading imperfectly? I certainly can. What are my thoughts on failure? My thoughts on failure is that it's beautiful. Don't get me wrong. It sucks in the moment, right? It's hard. It's, it's terrible. Wish, wish, wish we could have gotten another outcome. Um, but, uh, failure is better than quitting any day. Um, and so, uh, failure, uh, failure implies that we're going to try again.

Failure implies that, uh, you know, there there's potentially another way to do something and we just got to regroup and get back out there versus quitting is stopping, right? It's taking away all momentum. And so I think that's a big thing. I'm a huge proponent of failure. I'm a huge proponent of taking a beat and being like, okay, what just happened? Why didn't we do what we thought we were going to do there?

Or what was it? Did I jump into quickly? Did I not prepare enough? Did I, was it just a lot harder than anyone ever anticipated? And it just kind of was what it was. And now we know for next time, right? Like there's so many internal and external factors that go into failure.

And I think taking a step back afterwards and assessing what went wrong, right? Watch the tapes, get your Peyton Manning on and get out there. Now get back out there, I think is critical. Some times that I have failed. Well, at my senior prom, i dislocated my right knee dancing to shania twain's man i feel like a woman that was a pretty epic failure um but uh we got dragged

over to the side of the dance floor somebody gave me some chicken parmesan so i cried into some chicken parmesan and uh but then but then c like all good failures, I got back out there at the end of the night. You know what I mean? Asked my date for a slow dance and she said, yes. And she just kind of pivoted me around on my one good leg, but whatever a yes is a yes. Um, so, um, that's a, that's a memorable moment. I think, um, you know, during,, during quarantine, to bring it a little bit closer, during quarantine, I think there was this moment, you know, as professional speakers,

where we're like, okay, so our business is over? Everything's over? Great. Everything's over. Okay, nice. Right? Yeah. My wife and I took two very different approaches, neither one wrong. But we went to completely different directions. Once our calendar was wiped clear. My wife turned to wine and puzzles. And she crushed it. She crushed it. I had a great time, but she was just like, I don't know what's happening. Wine and puzzles.

I think she rewatched boy meets world from the beginning. You know what I mean? And just like relied on the wisdom of Professor Feeney to get her through. And so and it worked. It worked. She wound up crushing, crushing her business. You know, but she just needed to take a minute and just be like, this sucks. I'm going to Mopi Town and I'll figure it out in a few weeks. And that she did. And it was incredible to watch, you know, when she sprung back into life, the way she absolutely crushed the year. I was that person on your news

feed on social media that was immediately like, this is an opportunity. When in the history of time have we been given the gift of more time? This is it, y'all. What are you going to do? What manuscript are you going to write? What are you going to launch? What are you going to write like? And I was that guy.

And so there's a whole bunch of stuff that I started trying. And some things were quick and easy and just kind of like a fun thing to do. And then some other things were like I, for some of the clients that I work with, I was like, okay, well, what is something that they may need right now? And I was like, oh, if I could create a video series for them around that and customize it to each organization, then that could be really incredible. And I think they're really going to want it. I think it's what they need right now. And so then I poured over writing the curriculum of 12 videos,

um, wow, over 12 videos and I, and, uh, and, uh, and also handouts and all these things and created the videos, recorded them and then approached the clients and not one of them wanted it. Oh no. I literally, I gave it away for free to one of them that I just liked the most. I was like, here you go. And they're like, this is great. We don't want to pay for it, but this is great. Right. Because we don't have the money for it. Or we think what's most important for us is this, not what you think is most important for us. Don't get me wrong. We see why you thought that and it is helpful. So if you just want to give it to us, we'll certainly use it,

but we're not going to pay the money that you think it's worth because that's not where we're currently investing our resources. Right. And so that was a giant failure and a ton of time invested. And I had a couple of other individuals that I'd brought in to help me with some stuff. And I needed to ask more questions in the beginning, but I didn't. And so that's the most recent example, I would say. Thank you, James. Thanks for your vulnerability and sharing with us two times that you failed. And I think of, you know, especially the last one. We call that a twofer in Minnesota, right? Twofer.

Exactly. I think especially this last one, it's a really good learning opportunity for people who are just listening, right? That we might be so gung-ho on what we think somebody needs and we haven't taken a step back to ask them what they need. And there's so many, you know, ways we had to pivot and adjust our business during COVID. It's exciting that keynote speaking in person is now coming back.

Let's go. Let's go. Well, James, we could talk for a million years. I know we could. Here's some things that I loved about our conversation. We talked about, you question about who gets to be authentic. I think that's really incredible for us to think about. And that vulnerability is not weakness. Vulnerability really is about leading with our scars, not our wounds. So love that. And then when we were talking about love, loving them as humans and taking time to care about who they are as a person, which does take

time and investment. And then you said, you know, great leaders give or ask questions before they give advice. And at the end, we talked about failure and you said it's the opportunity to try again, to try a new way of doing things. So James, so fun to talk to you. You are a funny guy. I can tell you're like improv. I got to take some lessons from you. But tell us how people can reach out to you, Lauren, learn more about your speaking, your coaching and leading your book, Leading Imperfectly. How can people reach out to you and learn more about what you do? Yeah. First off, Ascinda, this is great. You're an exceptional question asker, and it's just been fun sitting to spend time with you. And I love hearing your insights on

some of these topics as well. So thank you. I'm James T. Robo, R-O-B-O, James T. Robo, all over the internet, on all social media. I've been posting a lot of meaningful content on Instagram recently, but also on Twitter and some of those other places. I'm jamestrobo.com. Now that's where you can learn about what I speak about and why it matters to me and kind of my approach. And so, yeah. And also on LinkedIn, just, just my name, James Robilotta, and that's where I'm at. And my book's available on Amazon. It's called leading imperfectly. It's got my face on it. Y'all. It's got my face. It's horrible. I love it.

But yeah, it's all about that. The idea that we as humans can't learn things from people who are perfect. We can only learn from people who are imperfect. So it's been a blast being here, Cinder. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you, James. Thanks again for coming on and spending your valuable time with us.

Heck yeah. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Sindhra for show notes and to join my exclusive community for high performers

where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindhra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.