The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Everyone Is Afraid: A Fable of Fear, Friendship, and Flourishing by Ron Macklin

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

Everyone Is Afraid: A Fable of Fear, Friendship, and Flourishing by Ron Macklin https://amzn.to/3sDdo4m Macklinconnection.com In an age where exterior accomplishments and societal validation measure success, one man dares to ask the unspoken question: What if everyone is afraid? Ron discovers the universality of fear and embarks on a journey through his memories, life lessons, and an unexpected encounter with Dr. Jerko. Inspired by the true stories of his challenges and a room full of top executives, this captivating fable unravels the intricate tapestry of fear woven into the fabric of every human soul. Join Alex, Sheri, Teddy, Bhavani, Desiree, Evi, Peter, and a cast of relatable characters as their narratives intertwine, revealing the stories we keep hidden, the shields we construct, and the truths we often deny. Based on vulnerable conversations and decades of personal experience, this poignant tale is not just about fear but the profound moments of realization, understanding, and connection that come when we confront it. Amidst the trials, regrets, and hidden moments each character faces, readers will find reflections of their own lives and the shared human experience of fear. Ron’s story is an invitation – to drop the shields, embrace the learning, and discover that beneath our individual stories, we are united in our fears and our courage. Embark on this transformative journey and find solace in the realization that while everyone may be afraid, we are never alone in our fear. Dive into this tale of discovery and come out with a renewed understanding of the human spirit. Show Notes About The Guest(s): Ron Macklin is an author and leadership expert who has spent over 20 years studying and implementing effective team-building strategies. He is the creator of the Macklin Connection Method and the founder of Macklin Connection, a company that helps organizations build strong and successful teams. Ron has a degree in engineering and has led teams that set world records and won numerous awards for customer satisfaction. His new book, "Everyone is Afraid: A Fable of Fear, Friendship, and Flourishing," explores the power of vulnerability and connection in building successful teams. Summary: Ron Macklin joins Chris Voss on The Chris Voss Show to discuss his new book, "Everyone is Afraid: A Fable of Fear, Friendship, and Flourishing." Ron shares insights from his 20-year journey in building and leading teams, emphasizing the importance of vulnerability and connection in creating successful organizations. He explains how fear can hold individuals and teams back and offers strategies for overcoming fear and building authentic relationships. Ron also discusses the power of self-directed teams and the role of culture in shaping organizational success. Key Takeaways: Building authentic relationships requires vulnerability and open communication. Fear can prevent individuals and teams from reaching their full potential. Self-directed teams can be more innovative and resilient than hierarchical organizations. Dignity and respect are essential for creating a positive work culture. Recognizing and challenging the stories we tell ourselves can lead to personal and professional growth. Quotes: "The more powerful people I met in the world, successful and capable, they talked about their fears." - Ron Macklin "When we can notice that we're afraid, there's nothing wrong with being afraid." - Ron Macklin "Teams that are self-directed and have open communication outperform hierarchical teams." - Ron Macklin "People come to work every day to do a good job and make a difference." - Ron Macklin "Building authentic relationships requires dropping our shields and embracing vulnerability." - Ron Macklin Biography Ron realized early in his engineering career that he had a passion for building and leading teams. And he realized that to succeed,

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. I'm Oaks Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. Thechrisvossshow.com. There you go. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. We certainly appreciate you guys coming by.

Thanks for being here and being part of the show. We are the number one distributor, according to the latest leading polls. I know, I'm just making up shit at this point. Number one distributor in positivity, imagination, knowledge, power, thoughtfulness, inspiration. Did I already say inspiration? We are the number one distributor of all those things and not by any sort of metric we just self-declared ourselves that or at least that's when i came up with it 4 a.m in the morning when i'm like yeah that sounds

funny do that on the show and then it wasn't but anyway guys welcome to the show we certainly appreciate you guys being here uh a way to participate in the chris faust show glow for 15 years we've been bringing the smartest most most brilliant people, the billionaires, the CEOs, the White House advisors, the Pulitzer Prize winners, all of these great authors, minds, people that will inspire you, give you that Chris Foss Show Glow, as I mentioned before,

take you to the next level. And that's what we do all the time here. But before we get to our next guest, who will be doing that for us today, we want to admonish you, encourage you, maybe threaten you. Refer the show to your family, friends, or audience. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress Chris Voss. YouTube.com, Fortress Chris Voss.

LinkedIn.com, Fortress Chris Voss. Chris Voss won on the tickety-tockety. And as always, the new place where you can chat with the show, chrisfossfacebook.com. You can go to the big 5,500 Facebook crew that we have over there, and you can can chat with the show chrisfossfacebook.com you can go to the big 5500 facebook crew that we have over there and you can actually chat with us we got one of those message things running there everyone's so annoyed by it it's the new thing on facebook uh so you can check that as well subscribe the linkedin newsletter and the 130 000 linkedin group as well uh today

we have an amazing author on the show he we uh we talking to him about his new book called Everyone is Afraid, A Fable of Fear, Friendship, and Flourishing. Ron Macklin joins us on the show today. He'll be talking to us about his new book that just came out October 5th, 2023, and all of his insights, his learning that went into it, et cetera. Ron realized early in his engineering career that he had a passion for building and leading teams and he realized that to succeed he needed to build a deep network of support he needed to learn why people connect and how they create results together this realization led him on a 20-year journey that culminated in the creation of the seven-step Macklin Connection method and the launch of Macklin Connection. Ron earned a degree in

engineering from Kansas State University and quickly grew into leadership positions in his career. Ron grew to lead teams that set nine world records, count them, and won dozens of customer satisfaction awards. At Siemens, for example, Ron led a support division with 350 employees that worked over 5 million hours. That was just the first week. Without a lot of time entry, it was voted the best place to work in Houston. Damn, by the Houston Business Journal.

Twice, Ron has created a growth culture responsible for increasing profits by $20 million and has led seven different groups from worst to best in class. His new book just came out. It's the number one release and number two bestseller on Amazon. In an age where success is measured by exterior accomplishments and social validation, one man dares ask the unspoken question, what if everyone is afraid? And he joins us here today. Welcome to the show, Ron.

How are you? I'm doing great, Chris. Thank you for inviting me to the show. Thanks for coming. It's great to have you. Give us your dot coms. Where are all the places you want people to find you on the interwebages in the sky thanks you can always find me on linkedin ron macklin and then you can also macklinconnection.com on my website and we also have a mighty networks page which is

imaginacommunity.mn.co a lot of imagining going on in there. Yes. A lot of imagination. There you go. So give us a 30,000 overview. What's inside this book? Everyone is Afraid, A Fable of Fear, Friendship, and Flourishing. So the book starts, it's a fable. And the reason I chose fable is because I love stories. And what I love about stories is I learn something and I don't know I learn it. It kind of sneaks in.

Right. And then like two weeks later I go, oh, there's a it now I can hold it right so the story is about a group of people who basically were hanging out together in college and that's 10 years later and they've all gone their own ways and they're all really focused on doing everything in life to get their get ahead to take care of families do all that stuff but they have all these fears and nobody talks about them and these fears that they don't ever talk about are tricking them into doing things that really doesn't serve them to progress their careers or build relationships with their family or to build a family or to do all those things and this is a chance for them to

well have a significant event that happens where everybody gets to get together and look at themselves. A little bit at a time, a little bit at a time. So there's all these characters that have fears, but what they have this story is, is they're the only ones that have the fears versus that everybody has these fears. Yeah. And that's the whole purpose of the book is and what i noticed was the more powerful people i met in the world successful capable they talked about their fears they sat down and have a conversation they go well this scared me and that scared me and this scared me and people who are like stuck they don't talk about their fears right and uh you can read in the book but I had a quick conversation,

uh, went to a presentation with a guy named Bowen White, Dr. Bowen White. And he was talking about fear. And I was like 31 at the time and really not confident at all in what I was doing. And I was in a room with a bunch of executives,

like 50 and 60 year olds. And he started talking about fear. And I was like going, Oh God, he's going to point at me. He's going to point at me. And I i'm gonna be giving up right there on the spot you're having some fear yeah and she has these questions how many of you think how many of you are afraid and you think there's something wrong with you that you're afraid and i was just kind

of slowly raising my hand and then he said look around and everyone in the room had to set their hand up. Wow. And so it's a space where when we can notice that we're afraid, there's nothing wrong with being afraid, right? And we can talk about it. We can take away the power. And that's what this book does. It brings forth the opportunity for people to look at their fears, build connections with other people.

There you go. And one of the most important things about life, not only stories like you're talking about, but also, you know, realizing we're not alone, that there are other people that are having maybe the same struggles we are. And that if we can work together with other people, maybe who resolved it, you know, like, and this is why we have people on the right books and stuff. They've, uh, they've learned how to resolve what their issues are. And now they're helping it share with other people. So what are some of these fears? Are they like the fears that I have, fears of spiders and snakes and clowns? Clowns maybe. Snakes and spiders, not so much. But it's a simple fear that we're not good enough.

We're not fast enough. We're not strong enough. We're not good-looking enough, or we're too strong enough we're not uh good looking enough or we're too good looking or we're um you know all those fears inside of us of our own inadequacies and we try to hide them right that's why i love facebook you can go to facebook and look around everybody's hiding their fears by look at how good my life is that's true and all you see you don't see people you see their shields to protect their fears. And I love going around and looking at that and going like, if you could get a real good, a real open, honest, authentic conversation, you could really build a relationship with just about anybody in the world.

So you can use what you can analyze with about their fears to build a relationship and help them resolve those issues or manipulate them like a narcissist we don't yeah well somebody will probably try when we've shared our fears in a way we become vulnerable ah right and at the same time when we're vulnerable allows the other person to be vulnerable because you know well yeah this is he's kind of like me or you know she's kind of like me has the same kind of fears now we have the open conversation and those conversations build a connection that you can trust going forward and that's the power of what the Macklin method is to be able to build those kind of relationships because

when we go through life together life is pretty good but if we have a story that we have to do it on our own and like our culture helps that i mean i grew up with clint eastwood my parents grew up with john wayne all these movie stars that you know they could do everything on their own they didn't need help from anybody and yet they all we all need help yeah we do better when we thrive together yeah plus they had a lot of help they had screenwriters and directors and producers boys and grips and yeah they all that stuff right yeah you build them i can't do john wayne i can do it on a good day um watch it now in our pilgrim that doesn't sound like john wayne at all um so uh you you go through your i imagine part of this is uh rooted in your journey tell us about your journey and your hero's

journey through your life and we'll catch you here thanks so um i i grew up in wichita kansas um my first career was a football player so i played through high school through college uh playing at kansas state and what i learned there was like how to lead a team like how to be on the field as a team as a leader and be in the field and then when i went out into the world i loved that part of it i mean i could just go play football without the pads and all the injuries and the headaches and of course you'd have cheerleaders and all the other stuff too. But when you got out in the field, you could lead teams and produce something that was greater than what you

could do on your own. So I fell into the project management of the domain. I went into, I was working in nuclear plants and coal fired power plants, big, big power plants. What is it? The 1.1 gigawatts,

right? We were working at 1.4 gigawatt plants. Yeah. And so we had a lot of fun taking apart, put them together. And that's how we started to set records because we were having fun doing it. And we found the faster we went, the more fun we had because you spent less time doing things over again.

Right. So people having good time doing what they're doing. And that's when I started to embrace on the target. Like, how do we bring a team together of people where there's not like one person telling everybody what to do, but it's like everybody adds in, everybody puts something in,

everybody gets to contribute. Everybody gets to add on to what other people got. Now you have a chance that you can really do something greater than anybody or anyone could do. Wow. And that became my, like my passion. Like, so I, as I went around and took on different groups and I really looked for like or anyone could do. Wow. And that became my passion.

So as I went around and took on different groups, I really looked for what are the worst groups out there, ones that are struggling in terrible shape financially, or people are quitting, or whatever that is. You're talking about Twitter, I guess, or the new X. Well, no doubt about that. And how do you make it to where it's a fun place to go? You fire Elon Musk?

Wait, you're just talking about teams in general. It's amazing how much team building, team leadership, and all that stuff makes a difference. Is this why a lot of organizational hierarchies aren't effective as much anymore because they either have bad teams or good teams? The reason that hierarchical organizations are limited is they're depending upon the knowledge of the one person at the top. Ah. Right?

And I don't care who the greatest person is, two really good people will beat them. And if you have a fundamental, you say, I've got 30 people working together that are open, trusting, vulnerable, connected, having fun, having humor, laughing, carrying on, they will outperform any hierarchy team. Wow. Like there's a whole book out. There's a couple of books that are written on it, but Reinventing Organizations by Frederick Lelow has like really been documenting what's happening. The self-led teams are what I call the fifth business revolution. It's happening right now and teams that are wanting to create and in a world where robots

can do all the labor, the team that can create will win. There you go. And being able to create, have a learning organization is really important. That was always important to me, having, trying to have an organization that could, that could learn from the fifth discipline series,

Peter singe. I think it was. So you have something you've developed called the Macklin connection. What makes that thing different? Well, I suppose. So the, the,

the Macklin connection method, which like the first parts of the method are really focusing on yourself. Like, so how do I build a connection over there? It's like, what is my stand? What will I do? What won't I do? What might I do? And when you really look at what you do and you can just look at yourself and figure out

what you do because you're doing it now, then you can choose whether you want to do that. Once you really figure out exactly what you will do, won't do, and might do Then you can choose whether you want to do that. Once you really figure out exactly what you will do, won't do, and might do, you can go ahead and talk to somebody else and have a space. So that's step one. What is your stand? And be your stand. Step two, right, is to go out and say, where can I be of offer of help? Not like I'll do this for you. What tidbit of knowledge, what little thing could you offer to somebody? What kind of question could you ask? What kind of mechanics could you bring forth in a way that people go, oh, that's pretty good.

That's pretty good. Where'd you get that? All those kinds of questions. Because I hold it like myself. I go through three stages in my day every day. One, I'm a plus self, which means I got to figure it out. I got to figure it out, man. You don't, I don't need help.

Right. Zero self. I got to figure it out. And of course, unless Chris Voss shows up, then I'm going to listen to Chris. Cause Chris has got, got the game, man. Right. I don't know, but our guests do, but I know. Yeah.

It's your show, man. So now then you go into the minus self, which is somebody who goes, I don't have it figured out. I'm curious. I got to figure it out. Right? And so when you make an offer to somebody who's a plus self, are they going to listen? Do they care? No.

You're looking to help them out in a way that they start to get curious. They're open to help. And at that space, then you can say, okay, step three, where can we connect? How can we go forward? There's other steps later, but those are the first three steps on how to build a relationship with somebody that's based on trust and vulnerability. So therefore you can, like the relationship will last, will last, it'll last until you're gone. Do we seem to have lost the art of building authentic relationships? Are we struggling with it now?

I was, I didn't hear what you're saying before because i was looking at my phone you know what i mean is that uh is that one of the struggles we're having um i see like was uh when i was a young child and i hung out with my grandparents uh farmers out in the world they had much more authentic connections with people than what I see we have today. Their lives depended upon the neighborhood to survive. And today we've lost that interdependence. At least we've lost the story of the interdependence. And so it's much more challenging because people aren't as committed to learning the skills of building a relationship. Yeah. And building authentic relationships seems to be

almost like a premium now. If you can do it, if you can talk to people, if you can look them in the eye, if you can be loyal, trustworthy, some of the things you need to have a healthy relationship, it's almost like an ultra premium, really.

Because people don't know what to do with it they're just kind of like whoa if you want to have if you want to live a good i don't mean like a super rich life i mean you want to live a life that you have like dignity and fun and connection with people so that you can share what's going on with you it it's a requirement there you go That sounds overrated. I don't want that. I'm going to go with misery and unhappiness for 200, Alex. Don't do that, people.

So this building authentic relationships, how does this transform into professional connections and building teams and leading? Many ways. Let's start with just a couple. We have a meeting, a group meeting, and there's 10 people in the room. And in the room, there's somebody there who is called the manager or the leader. And then you've got 10 other people there. Maybe one wants to be a manager someday, so they're going to contribute.

And then one person who's like going like, I don't know. What he said to me last time, I'm not going to say anything. And somebody else is going to say in the corner, like, well, I'll only speak when spoken to because last time I did, it didn't go so well for me. And now you have this group of 10, right, in a space where one person saying something a couple people following it and everybody else turtling and i mean turtling as in pulling back in because because they don't feel it's safe right now let's go forward and say everybody in there right has had a vulnerable conversation has talked about fears and everybody has dignity because they feel respected by others they feel open with others now somebody says something in the same room, same people. Somebody says something, somebody else adds something to it. And then somebody

else goes, well, if we took that and that and added this to it, it would be different. And then somebody else says, well, how about this? Now we're building on top of each other's thoughts where before we had all of our thoughts just staying as stories in our heads and nobody got a chance to build on. And now there's a trust. There's an openness. People get done. Everybody feels that they contributed. When I go to work, when I show up in a project or in a job or anything,

I don't want to waste my time. I want to contribute to somebody. I want to contribute to others. I want to make a difference in the world. When everybody feels that they're doing that creation goes way up wow yeah being creative is is the ultimate in business if you're not if your teams aren't being creative and innovating and coming up with all the new newest like this things you know you're going to be behind your competitors because they are

well they are or um it's not just mean, there's a competition part of it. There's a profitability standpoint. That's why I have profit groups that doubled their profit, like 20 million increases years on end. Wow. Now, it wasn't just that. We were also voted the best place to work in Houston, Texas at the same time. And that, or the way you get voted in on that is people vote on people who work for you vote on whether it's a good place to work or not. They do it completely Miranda or completely anonymous in a space.

So now people loved what they were doing and we were making more money and all at the same time. There you go. And, and we had several people who didn't want to be there anymore. And so we helped them figure out a better place to go. There you go. And we had several people who didn't want to be there anymore. And so we helped them figure out a better place to go. There you go. There's the door, ladies and gentlemen. Kelly phones in the show.

Yes, Facebook and social media in general is full of fake place, full of mass. Love this conversation. Thank you, Kelly. We certainly appreciate it. One thing you talk about in the book that ties into that is um the book is an invitation the story fable that you tell in the book to drop the shields embrace learning and discover that beneath our individual stories we're united in our fears and our courage um talk to us a little bit about dropping the shields

kelly you alluded a little bit to that so So, um, a shield, like in the military sense, it's something to protect you from what's coming at you from the enemy. And a shield that we have is like a story shield, like a story in my head. Like I won't, I'll make only those accomplishments out there that I think are good. That's the only ones I'm going to put up. I'm not going to put up like people go, Ron, you're number two bestseller. You should just say bestseller. Why would I just say bestseller?

Why wouldn't I say number two bestseller? They go, well, unless you're number one, don't put it out there. Just put bestseller. I'm going like, no, I'm number two. That's who I am. Right? That's where it's at. If I get to be number one, I'll be number one.

Now, I'm putting my shield down because i could easily hide behind bestseller nobody would know the difference but that's my shield to protect me what that does when i put my shield up i don't get to put my thoughts into the world because i'm hiding behind my shield and when i'm working with somebody else and they've got their shield up i'm not getting their thinking i'm not getting their openness there's no trust right there's no dignity in that now if you want to have a really fun powerful organization where everybody laughs a lot and invents and creates put your shields down there you go and so how does that how does once we drop our shields with each other how do we take that into the embracing of

the learning and uh our stories so then you can look at your story so have you ever done this where you go well when you said something and you go well it was really brilliant when it was in my head yeah that's pretty much every show yeah right okay every joke i write in the show when you put it into the world you get to find out what it is you really have in your head ah madness wait what yeah right because you go put it out there well inside my head it was beautiful it was wonderful it was amazing it was funny and i put it out in the world you go that wasn't quite what i thought it was it depends how much personality gives it to me though and. And then somebody else goes, I like that idea. Let's add this to it.

Ah. So it's the co-generative, what's the word I'm looking for? The collaboration. Collaboration. Working together on stuff. And when two people both have something to put into it, how committed are they to it succeeding? Mm-hmm. both have something to put into it how committed are they to it succeeding now if somebody says um

ron do this okay i'll do it it failed what you told me to do it that way i did it the way you told me to do it you know neck down buddy i don't use my head neck down now you have a whole organization of people who are just doing things because you told them to do it and they're committed to getting it done so so right where if you go you have input into it you actually have something at risk in the process now everybody's bought in everybody's committed into this process now you have this a live organization because people are have a vested interest in it as opposed to just taking orders. Or worse yet, and that is, I'm here to, what are you working on? 530?

To get my paycheck. Get my paycheck of the week. I'm just trying to get a nine to five. Nine to five. I'm here, man. I'm just punching the clock, doing the minimum I have to do to make it survive. And people want, and some people say, well, the younger generation wants to contribute more. I've seen everybody I've ever worked with wants to contribute to other people.

Yeah. No matter what age they are. It's where we get dignity. We're social animals. You talk a lot about dignity. Do you think a lot of people struggle to find dignity in work nowadays? Or, you know, what I see a lot, I don't know if it's tied into it, but what I see a lot is people just don't care so much about their work anymore. You know, even when I didn't, did work for other people, I cared about the work. Because to me, it was about the work. Uh,

cause to me it was representative of me. It was also practice. I was like, I'm practicing for being a CEO and running my company someday. And if I can't do this good, I don't think I'll work that good on my thing. So I'm going to master this and be good at what I do. Cause I'm,

I'm practicing warming up. Um, but now it seems like, you know, I mean, I see a lot of people that they just don't give a shit they phone it in and but they're but they always want to be an entrepreneur i want to be an entrepreneur and i'm like well if you work hard at this as you do an entrepreneur you're

never going to make this entrepreneur so i don't know is is dignity the the thing more people need to find in their work or is it because they don't have the team building? Dignity is a, it's a very powerful emotion, very powerful situation, but it's kind of weird because we do things that can create our dignity, but we get it from other people. When I do something right, then people who go, that was good, man. You're like, you're dignified or I love that. That's dignity, right? So if you just, if you just do it, you're really well, but nobody says anything. You don't really know, right?

You're kind of in a limbo space so that you can actually offer somebody to say, man, that was really good. That means you're invulnerable because you met, they may be better than you at this. Right? I mean, you're going like, you're better at this than I am. You need to do this more and let me follow in oh wait i'm better at this over here self-led teams you never know who's going to be the leader you never know who's going to be in charge and that gives us a space for everybody to go

well i only want to lead when i can make a difference for the team i don't want to be a leader i don't be a leader because i'm going like i'm a leader right i get the paycheck right and all that no i get to lead because this is my gift this is my space and people give you dignity because they go man you were good at that that was amazing now that's a fun place to go to work yeah it's kind of interesting too self-ordained leaders i mean i guess the cream will rise to the top right and the cream will rise to the top yes but? And the cream will rise to the top, yes, but does it cream, it's not like one person rises, no, it's like each person at the right moment will rise to the top. Oh, there you go. Right? So then, like, everybody gets to be a chance to be a leader

and everybody gets a chance to be a follower. And which skill becomes more important? Following. Great self-led teams are really a group of powerful followers and they want to follow and they want to lead but only when only when it's their turn and i want to be a leader i want to lead there you go uh so uh it's pretty interesting what would you call this style of of organizational structure like uh so many people call you know things you know top down or wide um trying to think so there's a there's a hierarchical which you gotta get on top or gal on top right and then the word comes down right and you got grassroots where you got

everybody coming up from the bottom right this is what is someone called self-directed or self-led but really it's, it's a team approach where there's somebody who's a visionary. Now this doesn't tell them how to do it. It just says, we're going to go do this. They have a visionary, somebody who will shape where we're going to go, how we're going to get there, not how we're going to get there, where we're going to end up. And then everybody else gets to figure out how to get there.

What's the best way, how to create it. And in that moment, you're always looking for who has the gifts like we give example uh i was working in a project in um a business unit in houston texas and we had about 180 resources technician resources that were out in the field like they traveled all the time and we had an accountant right who like we were gonna like eliminate his position and move it to the headquarters right but this guy knew everybody's name knew their kid's name knew everything about all those people now this is an accountant we're going to make a human resource manager like there's no reason to say that this was even possible except for he cared. He was able to follow. He loved to lead and help people live a good life. And he shifted over to

a new position. Still doing it today. This has been 14 years ago. I think he's in his 70s now. And he loves the job. Now that creates a space that everybody that works for him in that world loves working for him. Wow. So that makes it a space where now you've got to look for those jobs. Now, what do you call that organization? Some people call it TEAL, self-directed.

There are different names for them. What it really comes down to is a team that's self-directed. There you go. One visionary or maybe two visionaries and the rest of it self-directed that sounds a whole lot more awesome i like i like the chance that they build their own things what is uh what is a a thing you talk about with recognizing the stories in our head what is that about so there's, thank you. Even though I'm talking, you're filling in the gaps in between my words.

You're always talking in your own head. In fact, the way language works is, I didn't make this up, this is out there in the world. When I speak, those vibrations hit your eardrum, and then it goes through a bunch of mechanical, electrical, and chemical stuff, and then you make up a story and that story that's in your head that's all you even though i said words what you have in your head is yours so we look at like what are those stories we have in our head and we make them there like we're closed systems so everything that's in our head all the stories stories, we put them there. Now, there's a bias. We talked about this

already. There's a bias in that story. Fear. So we're always looking at where's the danger, where's the threat, and it comes from our amygdala over time. We've evolved to where we don't have to outrun tigers and lions

and all the other stuff in the world, but we still have that part of our brain to where we have that fear where if uh if something moves over here in the corner of my eye i'm going to look at it i don't know what it is it might be a threat could be could be danger for me so we look at the stories that are in our head we take responsibility that we created them right and then we go do i like that story or not? Huh. And sometimes our stories are probably full of it. Sometimes maybe they're not, I suppose. And only when we know that it's a story that we have in our head can we say, I like that story or I do not like that story. Ah.

So if you don't like the stories, what do you do? Several things. You can't erase the story. I've tried that many times with much pain. What about you do? Several things. You can't erase the story. I've tried that many times with much pain. What about shock therapy? Yeah, with much pain and everything else. I go, I'm going to forget that story. And every time I thought about it, it became more vivid.

Ah, that's true. You reinforce it in your head. I keep reinforcing the story, reinforcing the story. So then I go, okay, so what's my new story? And I told that new story what I liked. And then over time, the other one faded. Ah, so telling yourself better stories, maybe. Tell yourself better stories.

And build a vulnerable network around you that's authentic, right? And then you can share your stories out loud because it's one thing to have a story in your head. It's something else to put it into the world and let it go back into your ear. And then it sits in a different spot in your brain and now you begin to change your self-story and your story's faster there you go i'm gonna write a book about a memoir of my life i'm just gonna lie about everything in it and then i'm just gonna put out in the world and then believe it and then uh will that work no i don't think so but you can try it i'll be be at least one person who buys a book.

Did someone do that with The Art of the Deal? I don't know. I don't remember. I bought that shit one in 1986. And then in 1989, I went, this guy's full of shit. So let's see. So the story in your head is really important. The story in your head is really important. The story in your head is really important.

I like how I slid that one right through there. And what we tell ourselves, what about a team? Does teams have stories? Do teams have stories they keep in their heads? They do. We normally label that culture, right? So we have a story and we share the stories with each other enough that become part of what we do. And that becomes our culture, which means it will probably succeed without like one person leaves. It will continue on because it's a culture, commonly held story. because you can change the world with a powerful culture and it can be exceptionally hard to overcome because it's so embedded inside of the people.

If you don't acknowledge that the culture is there, you're never going to be able to change it. And that probably helps the teams that are created the way you're talking about because if somebody does leave, then the team doesn't fall apart or the leadership that was in the team doesn't fall apart or the leadership that was in the team doesn't fall apart because it can self-lead itself, right? It can continue

as long as it's allowed to continue to self-lead itself. There you go. Right, but somebody comes in and says, no, look, it's my way or the highway. We're going to do it this way now. Now, 20 to 40% of the team will probably leave within the first year

because they're going like, I don't want to live that kind of life anymore. You can go the other way, but it's much more resilient because everybody comes to work every day to do a good job. It almost seems like it's a very kind of intrapreneur, I-N-T-R-preneur sort of mindset inside of an organization where you can have people that can act like entrepreneurs inside of a company. Is that a good analogy? No, I think it's a great analogy. We're all in that world of entrepreneur, right? Whether we're in our own company that we started and formed or in a,

and I've been in a part of a 450,000 person organization, which is a pretty good sized company. Yeah. But in that group, we were able to create all kinds of new thinking and new spaces and live, and live a good life. There you go. I,

you know, that was one of my things when I first, before I hit my first big company and I wrote about it, my book was being able to be an entrepreneur in a company. And it made me feel so much more fulfilled being able to create wherever I wanted to, being able to feel like I could contribute. And I had value. And I think that's what a lot of people are missing. You know, maybe you talked about the dignity.

And I imagine having a value and being respected plays into the word dignity I suppose what what I I always remind myself and remind as many people as I can money is normally the fifth reason somebody leaves a company yeah right it's it's not about the money it's about do I get to contribute do they respect me do they trust my trust my ideas? Can I make a difference? Those are the questions people are asking whether they want to come to work or not. And if they can't see a way to get away from that, they'll stay, turtle up. Turtle up. Explain what turtling up is. I like that term. Yeah, well, I mean, I've watched it, right? You just pull everything back in,

right? And you wait for the commotion to go along, and then you slowly slink off to the side. Wow. Wow. So you don't stick your neck out, don't take any risks. You don't contribute. You just collect your paycheck. Don't contribute. Collect your paycheck.

And do your thing. Do the minimum. Do the minimum so you don't have any reason to get fired. Don't steal. Don't do all that stuff. So you don't get fired, but you're not really adding to the company. Do the minimum so you don't have any reason to get fired. Don't steal. Don't do all that stuff so you don't get fired, but you're not really adding to the company. That's true.

I see a lot of turtling business and stuff then. I've got to remember that. I've never heard that term used for that. But, yeah, that does explain a lot everywhere I go now. I'm going to go, yeah, some turtling. So these are really interesting things. So tell us about some of the things that you offer through your consulting service. I can see a lot of stuff that you have here on your website that you offer people.

Tell us about some of the ways you help coach people, consult with them, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, our fundamental offer is it's an 18-week workshop. And that sounds really long, but it's only about two, three hours a week. And the reason it's designed over that period of time is you got to go out and practice it, right? It's not like you're going to go do it for a weekend. It's not a weekend retreat, get away, come back and everybody's great.

And five days later, you don't remember what you did. This is every week for 18 weeks, you're going to have some sort of new learning, a new place to go out and practice your experiments. And we bring either a business together. We've had several big companies that have come through with us where they hire, they'll,

they'll put in like 20 to 30 people at a time and they'll go through this. And when they get to the end, what they notice is the peace, like how much peace people have with each other. The yelling goes away. The retention goes up. Even during the pandemic, we had major restaurants that their retention went from around 50% to almost 95%. Holy crap.

In the restaurant business. Because when they came to work, they go, this place is different. I want to be here. Now, what that means is people are listening to each other. They're trusting each other. When somebody comes in to say something to them, they don't immediately go to, well, you're a jerk, and I don't want you around.

Sounds like my office. They go to, okay, you may be upset. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Can you explain what's going on? And then it's the listening back and forth to where now people start to trust their supervisors or managers, their other employees. And that's what happened when you go through that. Now that's our fundamental offer. We also have a coaching offer where we can come in and coach key employees. So we're normally only coaching

supervisors, managers, all the way up to CEOs. And it's kind of in joint with people going through the program. So the goal is we're not just executive coaches and we're not just like the grassroots bottom training. We're every level in between. And what that does is it creates a social pressure. So the CEO is learning something and the middle management is learning something and the baseline learning something and everybody's trying to keep

up with the other guy or the gal. And what that does is it begins to take the culture and create their own. It's not our culture. They're not taking our culture. They're creating their own culture. Which is probably important because it will keep living on after you guys aren't training

them anymore. And we, we go as far as to license our program to them. So if they're a 450 to 5,000 person organization, they can learn to train on their own. And the fun part is the people who are leading these programs, they always get the most learning. Being responsible for somebody else's learning is where you learn the most.

So we turn that role over to them in their business to do that. So they can really shape their culture as they want using our methodology. And so we have the coaches up here and we have the, the workshop for middle to lower. And then we have what we call an arena. And what the arena is, it's a, it's a once a week zoom call where we come together and work a real

situation so people bring a real situation and we work it pretty simple but it's a place for it's you know no judging no authenticity nobody telling anybody what to do it's a place just to practice the methodology and to build connection with each other. There you go. You guys have a program called the Four Cornerstones of CEO Success. All right? No. Four Cornerstones. No, I'm sorry. I'm on the wrong website here.

I'm looking at the wrong website. My bad. Scratch that. So how do people onboard with you? How do they get to know you better and what you're doing? Uh, you can always find us on our website. You can find us on LinkedIn. Um, most of our business comes from somebody who's gone through the program is recommending

us to somebody else. And, um, if you want to kind of get an idea of what the flavor is like, grab the book, read through the book, everything that we do in the methodology, um, everything we do in coaching, it's hidden in the book, everything that we do in the methodology, everything we do in coaching, it's hidden in the book. It's like for me, it's a book full of Easter eggs. So there's all kinds of things to find to pull out as you go through that. There you go. So give us the.com so people know where they can onboard with you

and final pitch out as we go out. Yeah, MacklinConnection.com. It's our website for businesses to show up. If you want to just learn more about what we're doing, go to the imaginalcommunity.mn.co. And that's a place where you can read more articles, meet more people, sign up for different stuff with us. There you go.

Well, it's been super insightful to have you on, man. And so deep. And wow, who knew there were better ways to build teams where they can lead on their own instead of having somebody just boss around every day. And I think too many people think of the approach of that this way. And there is a much better way through what you got there in the book. Thank you for coming on the show, Ron. Chris, thank you for inviting me. And thank you for your show.

There you go. Thank you. And thanks, Ron, for tuning in as well well order the book wherever fine books are sold everyone is afraid a fable of fear friendship and flourishing available october 5th 2023 by ron macklin uh thanks for joining up we uh refer the show to your family friends relatives. Go to goodreads.com, 4Chest, Chris Foss, linkedin.com, 4Chest, Chris Foss, youtube.com, 4Chest, Chris Foss, and Chris Foss1

on the tickety-tockety. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time. That should have us out.