Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Claude Silver On: Using Heart Leadership to Create Emotional Optimism EP 101

Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up next on the Passion Struck Podcast. There's so many people in this world that want to be right, especially in the workplace. I'm right, you're wrong. I'm more senior than you, so I'm right. You're not there yet. All of this stuff. And that's just fictitious. It's not about being right.

Starting point is 00:00:16 It's about being better in this world. It's about us finding right together, right? Which is why you and the two of us talking is exactly what we want to do because neither one of us are right. We're both right. We're creating a space that is just wants humanity to be better. There is no competition. Welcome visionaries, creators, innovators, entrepreneurs, leaders and growth seekers of all types to the passion Struck podcast. Hi, I'm John Miles, a peak performance coach, multi industry CEO, Navy veteran and entrepreneur on a mission to make Passion Co-Viral for millions worldwide. And each week I do so by sharing with you an inspirational

Starting point is 00:00:59 message and interviewing high achievers from all walks of life who unlock their secrets and lessons to becoming PassionStruck. The purpose of our show is to serve you the listener by giving you tips, tasks, and activities you can use to achieve peak performance and for too a passion-driven life you have always wanted to have. Now let's become Passion passion struck. Welcome back to the Passion struck podcast, one of the most popular health and education podcasts in the world. Thank you to each and every one of you. Comes back every week to listen

Starting point is 00:01:36 and learn how to live better, be better and impact the world. I wanted to let the audience know that I will be participating in the 4x4x48 challenge on March 4th and 5th in support of nonprofits for trailblazers and helping veterans overcome post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. If you're not familiar with this challenge, it was created by retired Navy SEAL David Goggins, where you run four miles every four hours for 48 hours. We will have links in the show notes where you can go if you'd like to help support us on this mission of helping veterans.

Starting point is 00:02:15 I also wanted to acknowledge our fan of the week Chris who writes from the United States. And Chris says, many useful practical steps. Both the interviews and the solo episodes bring so much usable and applicable knowledge that it's worth revisiting and re-listening. Whether you are stuck or not in your life, make sure to add this podcast to your library. Thank you Chris for your overwhelming support. And I would greatly appreciate that if you like today's episode, that you leave us a five-star rating on either iTunes or Spotify. This will go a long way to support our mission to bring hope and positivity to millions around the world. Today's guest Claude Silver is an amazing one.

Starting point is 00:02:59 Claude is the chief part officer of VaynerX, a global creative and media agency, which was founded and led by Gary Vaynerchuk, whom she has worked directly for for many years. Claude is also the host of the emotional optimism podcast. She oversees anything and everything that has to do with people at Dana-Ax, including but not limited to talent management and fully experience and retention, learning and development, coaching, culture, internal communications and recruitment. In today's discussion, we go into her role as the Chief Heart Officer and how it is different from typical Chief People Officer or Human Resource officer roles that you find in most companies.

Starting point is 00:03:46 Would it means to have strong parted leadership? Why misery attracts misery, but simultaneously the right kind of company can help heal misery? Would it means to have emotional optimism and the role it plays in someone having a powerful and purposeful life? How pretence is impacting emotional optimism for favorite things about working with Gary B. And so much more. Thank you for choosing the Passion Struck Podcast and choosing me to be your host and guide

Starting point is 00:04:18 on your journey to living life passion struck. Now, let the journey begin. We will be right back to the Passion Struck Podcast. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp Online Therapy. And we often discuss mental health on the Passion Struck Podcast and dealing with the stigma of seeking it. Is there something interfering with your happiness and preventing you from achieving your goals? For me, depression and anxiety significantly impacted my life

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Starting point is 00:05:56 codes and URLs can be difficult to remember so we'll put them in the show notes for the episode. Please consider supporting those who support this show, make it possible and free for our listeners. Now back to PassionStruck. So excited to welcome Claude Silver to the PassionStruck podcast. How are you doing today, Claude? I'm great, John.

Starting point is 00:06:18 Long time no see. Happy to be here. Thank you. Well, thank you so much. And I thought a great starting point would be we both come from pretty large companies. During my career and Fortune 51s, we always had a position that was the head of HR, it was typically called the CHRO. You have got a very unique title, the chief heart officer, and I was hoping you could talk about that.

Starting point is 00:06:46 And the symbolism of that role and how it differs from a typical human resources officer. Yeah, you're absolutely right. CHRO and chief people officers really, the common denominator out there. And I had already been at VaynerMedia for 16 months when Gary and I created this role. And I was ready for a career pivot. And when I told him I was no longer interested in working and advertising, which I had for several, several years, he said, what do you want to do?

Starting point is 00:07:17 And I said, I only care about the heartbeat of this place. I care about the people. To me, those are one and the same, heartbeat, people. And then we created this role. I mean, he's great at branding, but really, the heart is about the vibe, the culture, all of the people that go into the culture every single day and make it what it is. You know, so that's not to say that a CHRO isn't spending time in the culture. My one and only job, and the only job description I have, still is to touch every single employee and infuse the agency with empathy. So right there and then my job description

Starting point is 00:07:54 is extremely different from the CHROs. I oversee that, which is normally called HR. We call it people and experience, but I have a really incredible smart team to do the normal HR operational bits. But when it comes to people, I want to know what's going on with them. We want to really, really create career defining moments here for people. And we want them to stay with us forever, whether or not it's at VaynerMedia or one of the other companies inside of the VaynerX umbrella. But the heart is where it happens, meaning we all come to work after already,

Starting point is 00:08:39 you know, we all get on screen, I should say, after already taking the dogs out, going to the gym, maybe arguing with our spouse, maybe putting the kids into school, whatever that is. And then we come into work with our hearts, the same heart that just went through those first two or three hours in the morning. And taking care of that is an honor for me. And taking care of and working for 1300 hearts, 1300 humans is the only thing I want to do.

Starting point is 00:09:08 That's really what a chief heart officer does. Well, thank you for that explanation. And I remember my time back at Lowe's home improvement and I took over this department and at the time we had the lowest engagement score in the entire company. Out of 350,000 employees, I inherited the worst one. And what I found out as I started examining the group that the issue was completely cultural. They didn't understand how their jobs impacted, the customers impacted the shareholders, made a difference to the company at all and

Starting point is 00:09:47 until you kind of created that you know, I would refer to it as a passion start culture where each and every one of them understood how they impacted the company in a positive way and that their role mattered. It created this huge divide. And once I started implementing that 18 months later, we were ranked second highest in the company. So I think what you're onto is a huge thing. So I happen to read an article that you posted on LinkedIn almost a year ago and I loved a quote from it because it says misery attracts misery but simultaneously

Starting point is 00:10:29 the right kind of company can help misery and I wanted you to talk about that maybe through the lens of there are many reports about how many people are disengaged at work today. Can you use that quote as a way to talk about how you can turn that around if you're in a company? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for pulling that up. So you've got love and fear. You've got misery and cynicism and you've got happiness and possibility. You know, these are, they talk about the chasm. They couldn't be more opposite. Misery, cynicism, gossip is always going to be loud, and it's going to find other loud voices.

Starting point is 00:11:13 However, it's not any more powerful than love, than possibility, than safety, then exuding warmth, compassion, generosity. These are the things on this side, what I just mentioned, these things can overpower in the most wonderful way, misery. And so we need to be making possibility, opportunity, positivity louder. And that's one of the things we talk a lot about

Starting point is 00:11:45 and I believe act on at Vayner, which is literally teaching these soft skills to people as well as the hard skills, really wanting people to develop self-awareness and understand how to regulate their emotions. It's just like amazing if you can understand if a human being, myself, can understand why I might be in misery. In a situation or circumstance, then, and I have enough self awareness, then I could probably figure out how to get myself out of there.

Starting point is 00:12:16 No one, I don't believe anyone wants to wake up and be miserable. And I don't believe people want to go to work and be miserable and be full of cynicism. That's just not good for who we are. So the more the culture can surround that misery with with the positivity, with the collaboration, the curiosity, God forbid the love, the more we will extinguish the misery. So, do you think that's what really this human to human connection that you're doing through heart leadership is all about? Yeah, I mean, it's all about connection and it's all about kindness and treating people as not only do you want to be treated, but you think they want to be treated. Right. Someone told me about there's the golden rule and then someone told me about the platinum rule, which was funny.

Starting point is 00:13:15 Doing to others as you think they want you to do to them. The thing is, in the absence of anything that we've just talked about, there will be suffering because this is not my way, this is the world, human beings are meant to connect. We are meant to be in belonging with one another. And that's from the dollar time. We're meant to be in community and we're meant to be in cultures and sub-cultures

Starting point is 00:13:43 and figuring out the next cultures. So that is what I think helps foster these human centric heart centric, whatever you want to call it cultures. than they are today, that the not only does the HR team, but my managers, my bosses, my leaders want me to be the best me I can possibly be. That's for me, that's what it's about. And I think the more we can pour that water into the system, the quicker we will solve the great retention and this, you know, people bailing out of work and people being, you know, with so many mental health, emotional health issues right now, not only in the workplace, just in general. What is the solve? I think the solve is connection. Really? Yeah. Yeah. And an interesting segue, my son who's 23 currently works for Publisus, his company was just acquired by them a few months ago, and I know you have a history of working for them as well.

Starting point is 00:14:57 If you were talking to a 22 or 23 year old right now, just entering the workforce about the workforce of the future, what would you tell them are the things they should concentrate on learning as hard skills? Well, I'm going to consider relationship building a hard skill. I think it's really important and I don't mean networking. I mean, let's go a level deeper so that you get to know people in your company or people in your vertical, whatever that is, and you start to build relationships because the world

Starting point is 00:15:31 does really run on relationships and people. Skills really are commoditized, meaning we can go ahead and find 500 data analysts, but can we find 500 data analysts with the EQ that we're looking for, you know, that have the heart, that have the leadership qualities, those types of things. So I think relationship skills are incredibly important to go to go after I think find and figure out what your strengths are and triple down on those. And if your strength is building people up, if your strength is creative copywriting, if you're whatever that is, and maybe you need to find a mentor or coach to help you like figure out what that is, double triple quadruple down on that. That's what I will do. That's what I would say, because I think in school, we're told two messages. One, focus on your strengths. Two, you better develop those weaknesses. And there comes a time, I believe, in life where you've got the two roads, you know, there's the fork in the road. And you want to double down on your strengths.

Starting point is 00:16:38 I'm never going to be graded out to bra. I spent way too time trying to be graded out to bra. And I believe I wasted time doing that. So focus on your strengths, build relationships for sure, do what you can to be a value, to take weight off of your manager or your boss's plate. But really, weight, just do it. Understand what the story is that you're trying to tell in a deck. Understand whatever it is you're trying to do. Ask questions of course, but then do it. Give it

Starting point is 00:17:14 you're all. And know that if you don't hit it out of the park this time, you'll hit it out of the park next time. You're not meant to hit home runs all day long. Or else there would be, you could never learn anything. You'd already be at the best of your game. And at 22, 23, you're just not, you're just not there yet. You haven't learned those critical thinking skills and the strategic thinking skills and the ability to say,

Starting point is 00:17:39 you know what, before I fire back that email, I'm gonna just take a beat, figure out what I want to say, in a way that lifts the conversation, those types of things. So, you know, what I mentioned to you were really all things people would consider soft skills, that I consider them high skills and high performing skills. Yeah, well, it brings me to a good story. I'll just tell you, I'll keep it short, but when I was at lows, I was considered to be part of the high potential quadrant. And they brought in the viewer might be unfamiliar with the name of this company, but you won't be Corn Fairy, which is an international

Starting point is 00:18:23 search firm, but they diversified into providing consulting services. And so they brought a team in of clinical psychologists to evaluate a number of us who were at this level. And I went through this multi-day evaluation. And in the readout, the clinical psychologist said to me, you've had a meteoric career, no doubt about it. But she looks straight at me and she goes, what got you here is not gonna get you where you want to go.

Starting point is 00:18:54 And my advice echoing what you said is she was absolutely talking about emotional intelligence and that is, I was moving from being a vice president to a senior VP to a sea level relationships understanding politics understanding dynamics and how to read people we're going to become so important because you can't thank yourself out of every situation. So I think what you said and that advice, which for me, took a couple of years to absorb, because I initially reacted like, what the heck is she talking about?

Starting point is 00:19:32 But so that leads to a question I'd be interested in your input on. There's been a lot of talk over the years about emotional intelligence. But now more people are talking about AQ or adaptability. What do you think as we're in this all digital future we're in is more important going forward? I'm going to continue to say emotional intelligence.

Starting point is 00:20:04 I think if we skip over that, we skip over an enormous opportunity to understand ourselves and for self-awareness. Adapting is, yes, we need to do that. I think every single person has to adapt to something or some 100 things in their lifetime. single person has to adapt to something or some 100 things in their lifetime. And we're all experiencing a new paradigm shift right now. However, I think without the emotional components, you would only have half of what you need in the adaptable age. I really do think, you know, we went from, we went from an era where work was physical. Right, you know, you put wheels on tires, you did the horseshoes, whatever.

Starting point is 00:20:55 And then we went into the information age. And I really think we're going into this other new age of heart, of intuition, of emotional optimism, of adaptability. But these are all very human skills. These are human skills. They're not skills that we can get from just our brains. These are like, internal, you know, someone just told me the other day that we actually have three braids. We have this brain in our head. We have a brain in our heart. We have a brain in our gut. And that's probably where we're headed to understanding why we

Starting point is 00:21:36 make decisions the way we do. Why we would consider adapting. You know, I mean adaptor fail, right? That's what that's what we've been told. But I think you need to understand yourself a little bit better before you just jump into that water. Yeah, and I think a great example of that would be Tim Cook because at the time he left compact to join Apple, almost every advisor who he spoke to said, don't do it. But he said it was a time where instead of trusting, in some senses, his mind, he went with his intuition

Starting point is 00:22:13 and his gut feeling about what he thought was a better path for him. And interestingly enough, as I've read more about him, yes, he uses analytics and those sorts of things for a lot of the decisions, but the biggest decisions that he makes, he says he always comes back to a gut feeling of intuition around it and what he thinks

Starting point is 00:22:36 is the best way to go. So I think you're right there about, you've got to tie them together. Yeah, I appreciate what he also says about empathy and that the world has turned towards, it's all about how many likes you get and how many hearts you get and whatever, but don't let that fool you.

Starting point is 00:22:57 And that's not what it's about. It's about empathy, it's about feeling, it's about connecting with one another. And when people say, leave that out of your career, don't let them, don't let them fool you. You need that. Absolutely. Well, I think that is a great segue going from talking

Starting point is 00:23:17 a little bit about your professional job to let's get into what you have on your website as your purpose now and your legacy, which is wanting to really give the world emotional optimism. And for someone who's unfamiliar with that word, because I have to tell you before I started listening to your podcast and learning more about you. And her podcast is called emotional optimism. It's a great podcast, so please check it out. What does it mean and what led you to that being your calling? Well, it's a great question. Thank you, Joan. And I happen to have a sweatshirt on just because I was cold today. So for me, emotional optimism is actually the opposite of another buzz word called toxic positivity.

Starting point is 00:24:08 Toxic positivity is, you know what, you had a terrible morning, but it's all good. It's going to get better. Toxic positivity is, yes, we just had to let 20 people go, but don't worry, you're safe. Like toxic positivity is devoid of reality, I think. Emotional optimism for me is the reason that I put the word emotional first is because of what I said earlier, which is we all, every single one of us, unless we are robotic, have emotions

Starting point is 00:24:42 that are going through our bodies and our minds 25 times a day, much more than that, right? And emotions are data. They're literally signposts for us to say, mayday, mayday, I'm getting triggered up here, mayday, mayday, I'm getting angry over here. I feel happy over here. The emotional part is when I say emotional optimism, it's not to negate or to shove your emotions away or to pretend that that never happened. It's to identify what your emotions are telling you as data, as information.

Starting point is 00:25:19 And then also be able to see the hope, the positivity, the possibility. Because it's one thing to be able to say, yeah, I'm really hopeful, I'm a glass full type of girl, which I am. But I also wanna tell you that I am, you know, I have a dear, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear friend that is suffering with terminal cancer right now.

Starting point is 00:25:44 And that gives me a lot of emotions and I'm really upset about that. dear, dear, dear, dear friend that is suffering with terminal cancer right now. And that gives me a lot of emotions. And I'm really upset about that. And I still have a lot of hope. And I'm still going to get up tomorrow morning. And I'm still going to take a crack at life. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to forget him. And forget how I feel when I think about him.

Starting point is 00:26:03 So the reason that it came to me, and that's a question that actually no one's really, really asked me, is, first and foremost, I'm an emotional person. My parents used to tell me, I think too much with my heart, they'd say, Claw, you think too much with your heart. Why don't you start thinking with your head? And I used to think, wow, there's something wrong with me. Like, I don't know how to think with my head. I don't know what

Starting point is 00:26:28 they're talking about. Like, maybe there's this missing chip in my brain. It wasn't a great feeling to have, you know? But I couldn't help the fact that I felt deeply about things as a real empath. And I saw Shaman, believe it or not, he was also a psychotherapist, but he went as Shaman. I was looking at him and he looked like Gandalf. He had an Austrian accent like Freud or young, with a long beard. And he looked at me and I thought, wow, that's it,

Starting point is 00:27:04 that sums it up. He said, you're the only person I've ever met that can be inside of a coffin and still see the light. And it was so profound and what I meant, what he meant, what I feel like he meant by the coffin is I can hold a lot of emotion for people. I can hold space for people. And I also know that I don't have to have the answers that it's not about me. And then I can be a passenger and ride shotgun with people in their journey. And to me, you put all that together and I think that's really what an emotional optimist is all about. It's the ability to feel your feelings. You know that you have the ability to change them or adapt with them and move forward.

Starting point is 00:27:52 Well, I think that's a beautiful answer. And I'm going to kind of take this a couple steps further down this path because I think it's a really unique topic for listeners of the podcast to explore even more. I believe today one of the biggest things that is impacting people are the pre-tenses that surround their lives. And I think a lot of people are living in falsehood instead of doing the self-reflection and basically ownership of the problems that they create in their lives. And so my question to you would be, how is pretence impacting emotional optimism for people? I mean, you and I didn't grow up with social media, but imagine if we had and look at what's

Starting point is 00:28:50 going on right now with the teens and social media and feel especially, you know, there's been reports on Instagram and negative self-image with young women. The idea that you should be anything other than yourself, that's a big no-no. And you and I probably grew up with that in our own ways. Maybe you wanted to be Joe Neymeth or maybe I wanted to be, I don't know, Chris Everett. But we didn't have the the pressures of social media and that and and literally that being kind of frustrated at us 24 7 365. And I believe that social media in in if you're if you are not able to stand on your own right now you're going to look outside of yourself to how should I feel how how should I look, how skinny should I be,

Starting point is 00:29:45 who should I date, what kind of ring should they get me, whatever. And right then and there, you leave yourself. And when you leave yourself, you leave, you also leave yourself open. I think to experience a lot of pain, embarrassment, shame. So it's a really deep, deep question because I think that in order to

Starting point is 00:30:08 experience emotional optimism, what you want to do is get to the other side of that journey. Know that, okay, I just spent five years really hating on myself because I wanted to be like, I don't know, that 22 year old or that model or whatever. And I beat myself up. And now I've spent enough time getting to know myself. I know my triggers, I know my ticks. I know what I want a little bit more. And I'm going to go for it knowing that I have the ability to regulate my emotions, that I have the ability to either digest crappy emotions and have them sink me for the rest of the day, or have the ability to take these difficult feelings, take the information from them, and move through.

Starting point is 00:30:57 So deep talk there. No, it is. And I want to continue on it because I think you're really onto something here. So I guess the purpose of this show is to appeal to humanity and our listeners in a way that makes them want to live better, be better, and ultimately positively impact the world. And so I think this whole thing that you're talking about with emotional optimism plays directly into this.

Starting point is 00:31:29 And so what I wanted to ask is how does emotional optimism help someone create a purpose-driven life? Great, that's a really, really great question. You know, there's so many people in this world that wanna be right, especially in the workplace. I'm right, you're wrong. I'm more senior than you so I'm right. You're not there yet, all this stuff.

Starting point is 00:32:00 And that's just fictitious. It's not about being right. It's about being better in this world. It's about us finding right together, right? Which is why you and the two of us talking is exactly what we want to do because neither one of us are right. We're both right. We're creating a space that is just wants humanity to be better. There is no competition. And I think that if you have, if you take the premise of what I just said, and your brave with your emotions, meaning what do I mean by brave with your emotions, you're vulnerable, you're a human, you allow yourself to fail, you allow yourself to succeed, you know that you're worthy of all the gifts that this world has for you. Just as he's worthy and she's worthy and everything. And you still go for it. You still get out there.

Starting point is 00:32:53 You still tell your story. You still try to put people together, bring harmony to the world. All of the stuff that we're talking about. But it's not a race, it's not about who's on, like who gets to win. And I think that, you know, when you, even when you think about and you work for Fortune 50 companies and I did advertising for Fortune 50 companies, when you even think about like putting things

Starting point is 00:33:21 into categorization like that, Fortune 50, SVP, VP, director, like all of those constructs. I don't know if they are useful to us anymore. I believe that they create a feeling of other. I'm not a VP, oh, I'm just a director, oh, I'm not, you know, and there's this feeling of us and them or honor off the island. And that is not going to get you or I any closer

Starting point is 00:33:52 to bringing this evolution and revolution of humanity to together. So how do we change the mindset, understanding that? Again, we all come from our backgrounds that we come from. We were all raised one way, the other way, whatever, but you as an adult get to chart your path and you get to take what you want in your backpack and leave the rest. So how do we empower people to know that and to help them make wise choices that have nothing to do with us, wise choices just because we want peace in the world. That's really the question for me.

Starting point is 00:34:37 How do we get, how do we do that? And then I think we do that by having these conversations and then taking actual steps forward in sharing and help and just being those mentors to people. Well, there's so much commonality in what you were trying to do and I loved everything you just said with what I created the passion struck brand to be. I think too many people, I use the word subsisting, are subsisting in life. They're focused on self. They're letting ego drive their actions

Starting point is 00:35:16 and everything is self-centered. And where I think we as a world need to get to is the other side of that which I call the fourth level orchestrators and the fifth level creative amplifiers and when you reach that level you're doing it from the view of societal impact instead of selfish impact. And I'm very hopeful that if there are people out in the world like you and others that we can start creating this dynamic change, that we certainly need not here we certainly need not here only in America but across the planet. Yeah, here here. I'm with you a thousand percent. So how if you're like looking at emotional optimism and you're needing to take the first step, how do you cultivate it? Like what is some advice you would give to someone if they're like,

Starting point is 00:36:25 you cultivate it. Like what is some advice you would give to someone if they're like, you know, I completely agree with with what Claude is saying, but I don't know. How do I take that first step? Yeah. So I think I believe that the first step is a step towards self-awareness and understanding who you are and why you tick and and and why you're, why you're you know you get so mad when you get cut off in a conversation or something like that right. So understanding who you are, understanding how to become more accountable for who you are those are the first steps. I then think what Susan David calls emotional agility is really incredibly important. And emotional agility is the ability to use your emotions as signposts. That's what she calls them.

Starting point is 00:37:11 Literally signposts. And know that you have every right to feel your feelings. You're going to feel your feelings. You're going to have your feelings and use them as data. And so once you have the self-awareness and then start to understand your emotions as data. And so once you have the self-awareness and then start to understand your emotions as data, not who you are, not I'm not I'm sad today because it's gray out, but I'm feeling a little bit sad today because it's gray out and it's too cold to play. Those are two

Starting point is 00:37:39 different things. One is the emotion owns me. I am sad. The other one is the knowledge, but it doesn't own me. I feel sad, very different. And then I think, right then, and there, those two things, that then gives you the choice to take your emotions with you and let them devour you or to use your emotions as information and really understand where they came from and move forward into this world of hope, possibility, open doors, having agency, feeling like you can set a goal and get there. You know, Those are things that encompass optimism. But for me, I think the emotional part comes first

Starting point is 00:38:29 because otherwise it's just optimism for optimism and sake and I don't know if that's heavy enough. I don't know if that goes deep enough until the ground. I think we need ownership here. And we deserve ownership. Well, thank you for that great answer. And I just got finished reading the Ardall, the subtle art of not giving a hoot by Mark Manson.

Starting point is 00:38:55 It's something I put to the side honestly for about 18 months because I really wanted to just like the book. I just didn't like the name of it at all. So it took me a while to get into it, but he's got a couple premises in there that I think speak to what you just talked about. And one of those is,

Starting point is 00:39:17 his pathway in the book to finding happiness is you've got to get rid of the noise and focus on the things that are most important because that's truly at the end of the day what's going to bring you happiness. But it's not success doesn't come on its own. It's through the negative events that happen in life and the lessons you learn from them that you reach more of a positive state. So I think a lot of that goes into what you were just saying with how a person needs to change. You know, there's so many people who've said

Starting point is 00:39:54 you can't achieve success without pain. And it is so true because unless you experience that failure and grow from it, you're not gonna achieve that success that comes from multiple failures. So yeah, sorry to interrupt you. You won't even know what success, because you have nothing else to compare it to. Right? If you hit home, if you hit home runs all day, and then next year you get up and you can, day and then next year you get up and you can barely even hit a ground ball, then you're going to know what success is.

Starting point is 00:40:29 You're going to say, yeah, I want to get back to where I was when I was hitting home runs all day. But if all you do is hit home runs, how do you know where's the next, what's the next plane to get to? Just more money? Where else do you, where's the growth in that? Yeah, well, that doesn't bring you happiness. I can tell you that.

Starting point is 00:40:50 Well, I think that is all a great backdrop. And I wanted to come back to the Hartfield company because I think it's great to give an overview of what your personal branding is now, because I think it ties directly into your role. I have a lot of entrepreneurs, small business owners, executives who listen to this podcast. If they were leading a company,

Starting point is 00:41:17 how do they build a heartfelt culture? I love the question. The first thing is get to know your people. And that means listen. That means make time for your teams, even if they're not your teams, and make time for the people that work for you, work with you, work for the logo, and become accessible and available. Trust them. Trusting is really like, whoa, trusting first in a workplace, who does that? Like, why don't we trust? Why do we expect John to come in and prove value for it?

Starting point is 00:42:02 We just hired John. Of course, we want to be with John. We trust John as the human we hire. Now why do you have to go prove value within your first 30 days? Get to know your people, ask them questions, listen, what motivates them? Is John gonna be here?

Starting point is 00:42:19 Is he a lifer? Is he gonna be or is he the minute he has his first child? Is he gonna move to the suburbs and then say, you know what come three o'clock five days a week I need to cut out and coach soccer. And that's cool too, but find it's also like transparently, like sharing of yourself too. Otherwise, I believe that the, and I believe this is a dinosaur now, but we're leading from that ivory tower, thinking you know what goes on on the floor, and you haven't touched the floor in 20 years, that's not leadership. That's to me, that's just years, that's not leadership. That's to me, that's just ruling out of a textbook, leading out of a textbook without touching the very fiber of the culture. So I can go on and on, I mean, creating safety, how do you do that? Okay, you listen. You're there with the people.

Starting point is 00:43:23 You make sure that they can get in touch with you, even if you can't text back, you know, and I know I don't mean like I'm not talking about like Genente with 150,000,000 people, I'm talking realistically. We got to get to know them. They got to get to know you are just like them. And your blood is red too. Yeah, and I'll give you a great story. And I'll divide into two different camps. Another story about lows. I don't know why I'm picking that one so much. Because like I've got to go to lows later on today. So really, really get me there.

Starting point is 00:44:08 One of my peers was a gentleman by the name of Steve Salaji. And at that point, he was running all of the distribution centers and put this in the context that was probably 28,000 employees. And he eventually became the head of supply chain, which is probably one of the top three or four positions in the company. But I used to get to go with him on visits to distribution centers, and I call this concept speaking with your feet. And it was amazing because if you're not used

Starting point is 00:44:36 to a distribution center, like these Fortune 500 retailers have, they were a million and a half to 2000 square feet large. And we would walk into one, and he might not have been there for nine months. And yet, he could walk up to about 70% of the people in the distribution center and not only knew their name, he knew about their kids, he knew about their hobbies, he knew about this, and performance around his organization improved so drastically during the time he was there, reduced in cycle time and other things. And he instilled his leaders, the regional distribution, directors or VPs to do the same. And so I think that's a great example of speaking with your feet. And you've got to be out there on the floor living the life that your people are living to truly understand.

Starting point is 00:45:33 And I'll give you the reverse of that is in the same company I had a new boss come in. She spent the first three to four weeks in her office with the door closed, only coming out to eat or use the bathroom, then she would come back in. And I remember meeting her for the first time, and right outside her door, I had a thousand employees, at least. And as we were nearing the end of the conversation, I said to her, would you like to go out and meet your people?

Starting point is 00:46:05 And she goes, no, that's your job. My job is to influence to the side and above. It's your job to lead your people. And I'm like, and so, you know, in short tenure, but to me, I'm giving the audience the two extremes because there is so much difference between a leader who leads with their feet by being with their people and one who doesn't. So I think that's a great way to think about it. I love that that paradox there and you gave me goosebumps because I can remember bosses like the second one that you experienced and what the feeling I got every day knowing that I don't think that person

Starting point is 00:46:57 cared if I was there or anyone was there as long as we were bringing in the cash. Yeah exactly. Yeah. Well, I'm going to jump to a couple discussion points about Gary Vee. I don't think the audience would would love me too much if we didn't at least touch on it. So one of Gary's famous saying is about the Yes virus. And I kind of attack it a little bit different way. I think what he's saying is we say yes to too many things. And heaven, we all had that pure who says yes to everything and then doesn't deliver on anything and then blames it on everyone else. But I think there's another camp that says we should be saying no to more things. But I believe one of the biggest issues people face

Starting point is 00:47:47 to more things, but I believe one of the biggest issues people face is saying yes to life altering opportunities. And I think it gets into not doing that self-awareness work, not doing that internal work to when something like you get the opportunity, would you like to join VaynerX and being a publicist at the time, a publicist, you could have said no. How, what is your thought on this whole continuum? Well, I'm one that's lived many pivots in my life, many career pivots. And I also think that I learned, I think I learned a lot, the hard way, by not having a lot of options in my life, not giving myself a lot of options. As I graduated from college, I just did what was next. I'm sorry, as I graduated from high school, I just did what was next, which was went to college, then I wasn't prepared for it. I wasn't ready. It was not a good use of my time for those first two years. I got in the bad shit. She's my language, just bad trouble.

Starting point is 00:48:52 And that's because I, A, just, I followed the herd even though I knew in my gut I wasn't ready and I didn't listen to my gut. However, once I did listen to my gut, I was on the 10 year plan, I graduated college when I was 28, and in between those times, I learned so much about life.

Starting point is 00:49:14 And I learned about myself, and what made me ache, and what made me joyful, and all of those things. And what I really wanted to do, and it was very, very clear to me that I wanted to be up service, extremely clear to me. And I don't know how I ended up in marketing and advertising,

Starting point is 00:49:36 but it was San Francisco in 1998, and there you go. One thing led to another, and my big background in psychology and human behavior opened doors to become a strategist and then you know I dabbled in project management dabbled in account direction and then next thing I know I'm living in London and you know I just I kept on saying yes to opportunities because I hadn't had the opportunities in my earlier years. And as I got older, I realized that time does go pretty quickly. And by the time I was 45, I thought, okay, well, I'm on the back nine over here. So what am I going to do with this back nine? And I want to do what it is. I'm put on this earth to do, which is to work with and for people and to be of service.

Starting point is 00:50:28 And then I pivoted my career when I told Garrett I didn't want to do advertising anymore. So to end that was, you know, more backstory than anything. But it's like when someone says to me, cloud, recruiters keep on hitting me up on LinkedIn. And I say to them, listen, I would never say no to a conversation. You just don't know what's going to happen. So I'm in the camp of yes and, I mean, yes and person, which is yes and context, context, context.

Starting point is 00:51:01 Tell me, tell me more, tell me more, tell me more. I think when Gary says sometimes you know when we say yes to so many things that that means we're in every meeting and we don't need to be in every meeting. And then we've lost our entire day because we felt we couldn't delegate or we couldn't trust the person on our team to go to that meeting, so we had to be there. You know, that's where he's coming from, too. And he's got a real point there, because that's not how you become more efficient. And get a half an hour back in your work day, just for you, or you get to leave work, and go to the gym or whatever. So, a long-winded way of saying, I'm in the yes and camp. Okay, well, I think the yes

Starting point is 00:51:48 and camp is all about intentionality because what too many people do today is they focus on what appears to be urgent, which is so easy with social media and everyone's opinion about everything that we lose track of what's important. And I think that's an easy way to think about your yeses and noes. Is it him? Stephen Covey had a great way of looking at it. Is it urgent and impactful? Then do it.

Starting point is 00:52:13 If it seems urgent, but is not impactful, then you don't do it. Harder said than done. But yeah, but point, but good point. I mean, obviously he, yeah, he knows a thing or two about. He's got something there. Well, well, Gary V is such a powerhouse. And he is so well known and adored by his fans for telling it like it is, that

Starting point is 00:52:40 has to make for an interesting work environment. Can you speak to it? I mean, it's by far the best work environment I've ever been in, because there is no pretense, because it's just there. Because what you see is what you get, and he does tell you like it is, and he's extremely thoughtful, extremely, I'm been to say kind, you know, it's even in the times in which he's telling you something that he's adamant about, they're still, they're still a goodness there.

Starting point is 00:53:17 If that makes sense. So I, you know, I never had a boss in a mentor like him. And, you know, he's a wonderful friend as well. Gary is all about speed. In order to get to speed, you must create safety first. You must create a feeling, an actual true feeling of safety on your floors. And we talked about this already, how do you get there? You've got to get to know your people.

Starting point is 00:53:48 And you've got to know what makes them tick and that they're getting married and they're going to a rumba. And so let's go ahead and make sure that they've got a bottle of champagne waiting for them when they get there. Or that they are getting, you know, whatever it is. You've got to know your people.

Starting point is 00:54:04 And that's how you create safety first. And then you've got to scale that. You have to lean on your senior management, senior leadership to scale that. And so, you know, fortunately, he's trusted me to do that. And my job is to do that and to get other people to scale that exact same thing. And you know, it's funny, like Gary Vee and Gary Vaynerchuk are the same, but the Gary Vee you see is actually louder than the Gary Vaynerchuk. You know, Gary Vee, that's a brand. Gary Vaynerchuk is very chill Gary Vaynerchuk is very chill and very direct. Well, I thank you for that look-in of what the company is like. And I think that's a great way to think about him in those two different perspectives.

Starting point is 00:54:59 I have been, it's been very comforting for me to see him evolve over the years as I've listened to him, because he becomes very vulnerable in talking about some things. And one of those was the way he was leading some of the hires he made, and it was interesting to see him speak about how he thought that some of those things were on him as much as they were on the person because he set them up for either success or not success. And so I thought that that was a great thing for people to hear as well is that you had a leader like that who looks at the problems they created and takes responsibility for it.

Starting point is 00:55:48 Yeah, accountability is, I would say, his first tenant. Okay. So, Claude, I wanted to allow you to give the audience a chance to understand how to connect with you. So I'll let you do that now. All right, thanks John. Yes, please hit me up on my website, clodsilver.com. LinkedIn, I get back to everyone that writes me Instagram, my podcast, and I'd love to hear from you. Okay, I'll make sure that is all in the notes. I would really recommend people

Starting point is 00:56:28 listen to some of your short podcasts because I think they're really to the point. I love the one on journaling. If you're looking for a way to start journaling, she gives three great points. I want to listen to the one you just released today. I think it was with Mike Merge. That seemed like a great topic. Yeah. As well. So I closed the podcast by doing a quick rapid round, just the first kind of thing that comes to your mind. So I'll ask you three or four questions. Is there a mantra or motto that you use more than anything to influence your life. Yes. People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Starting point is 00:57:13 Maya Angelou. Okay, that's great. You are selected by NASA to be one of the first astronauts to go on Mars, and you can select one law or rule, what would it be? It would definitely be equality of humankind, equality across humans, whenever we find up there. And so I guess it's, I think is that the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the

Starting point is 00:57:48 the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the

Starting point is 00:57:54 the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the

Starting point is 00:58:02 the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the I just finished Brandy Carlisle's autobiography called Broken Horses, which I would definitely recommend, especially if you are a Americana lover of that kind of music, which is great. I read Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind, a very, very long time ago, and it was life changing for me, so I'm going to suggest that. Okay. I will put both of those and the other you mentioned earlier in the show and to the show

Starting point is 00:58:26 notes. So the listeners have those resources. Okay, so the last question, this is always one of my most favorite ones to hear people's response on, is if you could meet someone you have never met living or dead, who would that be? I'm gonna say the Dalai Lama, because peace, kindness, compassion is what he is all about. And what I believe, you and I have just spent an hour talking about, and what I believe I'm about. So I would definitely wanna meet the Dalai Lama. I would want to meet Amy Schumer because I think she's hilarious and gets it. And you know, I probably would want to meet Harriet

Starting point is 00:59:17 Tubman. Okay, well those are three great answers. Yeah, so yeah. Thank you. Well, Claude, you are an absolute delight. And I know the audience is going to get so much tremendous value from your wisdom. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you, John. Great to see you. Great to see you too. What a fantastic episode that was with Claude Silver.

Starting point is 00:59:40 And we shared so much wisdom around emotional optimism and what it's like to work with Gary V. How you get heartfelt leadership and so much more. And during today's discussion, she mentioned a number of books, and I wanna tell you that in addition to the show notes where we'll place those books, you can also go to passionstruck.com slash books

Starting point is 01:00:02 where you can see a listing of all the shows recommended books both from me and from the guests that we have on the show. www.slamestruck.com slash books where you can see a listing of all the shows recommended books both from me and from the guests that we have on the show. These all have links on them that have affiliate codes and all the proceeds from buying any of those books that goes to keeping the lights on here and helping us provide free content globally. And if there's a person like Claude that you would like to see me interview for a topic you want to hear me do on my solo episodes, you can reach out to me on Instagram at John

Starting point is 01:00:29 Armiles or on LinkedIn at John Miles. And if you're new to the podcast or you want to share this with a friend or family member, we now have starter packs. These are collections of your favorite episodes which we categorize by topic to make it so much easier for you to go to one place and learn about everything that we do here on the show. If you're interested in checking that out, go to passionstrap.com slash starter packs to get started. And if you'd prefer to watch instead of listen to these episodes,

Starting point is 01:01:01 you can go to our YouTube channel at John R. Miles, which has over 225 different videos ranging from long-form content like today's episode. Videos we call mindset moments, which are two to eight minutes in length and give you a great short dose of inspiration. Now go out there and live life passion struck. Thank you so much for joining us. The purpose of our show is to make passion go viral. And we do that by sharing with you the knowledge and skills

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Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Claude Silver On: Using Heart Leadership to Create Emotional Optimism EP 101

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