The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Lead It Like Lasso by Marnie Stockman

Episode Date: April 17, 2024

Lead It Like Lasso by Marnie Stockman https://amzn.to/3W4yCEG Leaditlikelasso.com When Ted Lasso was hired as the new gaffer (coach) for AFC Richmond, the team, the town, and the entire country made it no secret that they thought he was just a clueless “wanker.” But it was clear, even early on, that Ted knew a thing or two about being a good leader. It's not about the wins and losses but about helping others become the best versions of themselves. Much like Ted Lasso the show, Lead It Like Lasso takes an entirely different approach to leadership. The foreword alone will shock you. The lessons outlined are not just for business leaders. Rule #1 - Leadership is Life! These tools can be applied in the board room, the locker room and the living room. You might want to have a pencil (or your own whiteboard) on hand to work through the activities: Define your core values and learn how culture impacts your ability to level up Create a clear vision and purpose for your life to reach your goals Build your own personal operating system and communication guide Adopt effective communication strategies to build your network Envision your legacy and outline a plan to make it happen This not your grandmother’s leadership book. Heck it isn’t even Ted’s grandmother’s leadership book. This book feels like having your own personal Ted Lasso breaking down leadership lessons in a way that will make you smile - inspiring action you can take right away. The authors offer leadership lessons from their own successful startup, the lives of the team at AFC Richmond, and top leaders of industry. Level up and lead your life like Lasso. Believe.

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. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com.

The Chris Voss Show. There you go, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the show. We certainly appreciate you guys coming by. As always, the Chris Voss Show is the family that loves you but doesn't judge you, at least not as harshly as most of your other family members, because you're the one they always make sit at the Thanksgiving children's table. And, you know, it's personal.

I would take it personal. But you know how to get on the good side of your family or friend, the Chris Voss Show. Go to Goodreads.com for Chris Voss, LinkedIn.oss, LinkedIn.com, 4Chest, Chris Voss, YouTube.com, 4Chest, Chris Voss, and I don't know, all the crazy places on the internet.

And we guarantee on the Chris Voss Show that they will invite you to the adult table this holiday season or not. I don't know. I don't think we can make those decrees. I have an attorney yelling in my ear. Anyway, guys, we have amazing authors on the show.

Their latest hot new book came out October 27th, 2023. It's called Lead It Like Lasso, leadership book for life, your life as well. We have Marnie Stockman on the show with us today and Nick Coniglio on the show with us today. Did I get that last name right, Nick? You nailed it, Chris.

Nailed it. That's a score one for me. There you go. So we're going to have both of them on the show with us today. Did I get that last name right, Nick? You nailed it, Chris. Nailed it. That's a score one for me after all the times I failed. There you go. So we're going to have both of them on the book. We'll be talking to them about them on the show. Marnie started her career in leadership with the toughest customers and employees of all,

high school math students. Wow. Her passion for education and using data and humor to help others grow and succeed took her from the classroom to senior director of customer success of a leading education tech company. And now to co-founder and former CEO of Lifecycle Insights, a VCIO customer success platform for MSP. She'll have to explain what all that means.

Nick is a seasoned technology veteran with over three days of experience in the ever-evolving world of IT. I know what that is. No, I don't. Born with an essential passion for problem solving and give for unraveling the mysteries behind technology's hiccups, including the mic problem I had earlier, Nick embarked in his tech odyssey in the early 1990s as a mainframe programmer, and he's done numerous hats. Welcome to the show, Nick and Marnie.

How are you? Great. Thanks for having us. Thanks for for coming we really appreciate it all right thanks good great show folks i'm just kidding give us dot coms where do people want to find you on the interwebs yeah lead it like lasso.com and we own all of the socials insta twitter linkedin facebook tiktok on lead It Like Lasso. So easy. We keep it simple. There you go.

There should be a song for this, I think. Isn't there like a, what's the song? Do it like a Jagger? Move like Jagger. Oh, yeah. Move like Jagger. We should be like, lead it like Lasso. Take that.

They actually referenced that song in the show, so that's funny. Really? Yeah, yeah. You know, I just came across this AI thing, and I'll have to pull up what it is, but you can literally use it. It's Sono or something. Here, let me pull it up. But you might be able to use this, but our audience will like it too as well. There's something I just found the other day that's really a hot new thing on twitter and stuff and and it's called suno at app suno

suno s-u-n-o dot a-i and you can literally tell it to make songs and lingos for you or ling whatever you know what i mean and so we went in and we told it to make a song for the chris voss show podcast and how cool it is and it like made up all these lyrics and and it wrote the song and then you can choose what sort of genre you want to have like metal or blues or i suppose rap or you know whatever sort of musical thing is so we had to make a bunch of metallica styled the chris voss show podcast Enter Sandman, Chris Voss. Yeah, it was like really heavy stuff. So if you guys want to do that with your lead at Like Lasso,

I think a song should accompany this book. I think that needs to happen. I think it's perfect. I love it. So getting back to the book, give us a 30,000 overview of what's inside the book. And I'll give both of you guys a stab at it. Yeah. We said it's a leadership book for life, your life. So as opposed to strictly being

a business leadership book, we focus on personal leadership. So Ted Lasso, the character was all about, it's not about the wins and losses, but helping everybody become the best version of themselves. And so we really focused on how to take a look at yourself and work on yourself, as opposed to, you know, they always say in business, work on your business instead of in your business. And so we kind of took that approach with a leadership framework. And I'll let Nick talk about like the relatability of Ted Lasso and more on that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that was what we tried. I mean, we watched the show Ted Lasso, and if you scour socials,

and we didn't know this at the time, but there are millions of just diehard Ted Lasso fans. And I think what they talk about most is how they feel after watching the show. And I think a lot of that is the character development, right? And how they grew over time. And we kind of married the leadership framework that we had built over the years.

Marty and I have worked together for more than 10 years now. And we built an operating framework that was based on a leadership style. And when we wrote the book, we're like, hey, you know, relatively, I mean, we're relative nobodies, right? I mean, people have never, we're like, Hey, you know, relatively, I mean, we're relative nobodies, right? I mean, people have never, we're not Chris Voss. People have never heard of him. No one's heard of me. That's not true.

Yeah. But, but we wanted to, to leave the reader, you know, in a different way when they, then when they typically read a leadership book, right, which is very theoretical and classroom oriented. We wanted to make them feel good and relate to it. And we use the show Ted Lasso as a reference, and people have really grasped onto that. There you go. And then let's just flesh out for anybody who hasn't seen the show because they lived under a rock or something,

who this Ted Lasso show and person is about. Yeah, so he was an American football coach who went to England to coach European football, which we all know is soccer. And what we find out at the very beginning, but he does not know, is that Rebecca Welton, the owner, is trying to get back at her husband, who is now her ex-husband. And so she hired him to sabotage the team and have it crash and burn and so that this first season is especially is watching the conflict of that because even though there's two full internets of what ted

doesn't know about soccer he does know a thing or two about coaching. Oh, yeah. And it's it's I think the other thing to add is his infectious optimism and focus on team dynamics. Right. If it basically fosters a transformative change, you know, with the players and the teams and it kind of makes everybody feel good. It's not it's not a show about soccer, which I think has stopped a lot of people watching the show. It's really a show about relationships, you I think has stopped a lot of people watching the show. It's really a show about relationships, personal growth, and the power of positivity. I need to watch it now. You guys have sold me on it. Excellent.

We also work for Apple TV on this side. Oh. No, we don't. We don't. We do not. I'll watch it. I think we have an actress, a movie star for a movie on Friday that I've got to watch a movie tonight. But I'll get to this Lasso thing.

It's the, what's the movie that she's in? Anyway, but she's going to be on Friday. And so I got to go spend, I think, an hour or two watching the latest movie. And it's going with Al Pacino. And who's the guy from, anyway. So I got to watch the movie so I know what the hell's going on. But after that, I'll watch the Lasso stuff. So when you watch Lasso and invite those actors to come on the podcast let us be in the green room we'd love to meet them all there

you go there you go i'd love to get i'd love to get some of the actors from that on is it still running it is not so that is part of the parallel of the book and our lives is it we grew our business from zero dollars actually from sixteen thousand000 bootstrapping to an eight-figure exit in the same three years that Ted Lasso aired. That is awesome. You know how hard that is to do? Yes, we do. I was talking to the audience, I guess, really.

I know I should have framed that. Like, hey, audience, do you know how hard that is to do? We started our first two companies with $2,000 and $4,000, built them into multi-level marketing or multi-level multi-million dollar companies i went to the gym this morning so i'm hemorrhaging a little bit on the brain bleed leg day or upper body no it was upper body arm day i tore myself up so after this podcast i'll probably be napping and sitting in the fetal position going everything hurts so there go. That's why the brain isn't working. So tell us a little bit. People like to know about the authors as well.

Give us both. Take whichever turn you want. Give us both your kind of histories, kind of your upbringing, your journeys a little bit. What got you to this point where you're writing the book? As you said in the intro, I started out as a high school math teacher, which I always say means I sold pre-calculus to 16 year olds so I can sell, right? Like you had lots of stories in your book about how you sold early on and I did the same, but when you're pitching pre-calculus, it's the tough gigs. I left from there and then did administration in the school district. And we

worked with a particular tech software platform. And one day I was sitting in a meeting and the trainer had an issue with the platform. And she pinged somebody. It was the first time I ever saw a direct message on a screen. And the person popped back and said, give me a sec. I'll solve it. And a sec later, it was solved. And that person was Nick Coniglio. So I ended up working for that company where he ran customer

support. He did a lot more than that too. And I ran customer success. And then we got acquired and acquired and acquired. And I'll stop there and let Nick tell his background and then he can say what happened in the midst of acquisitions. Thanks. Yeah, I was a technologist. I was a computer science major, and it suited me perfectly. One of my first jobs out of school, I was programming mainframe computers. I interacted with five people every day, drank 15 Coca-Colas, which was perfect for me because I was shy. I was introverted.

I think I went to high school. I had some classes where I said maybe three words the entire school year. At some point, I realized that in order to grow and really achieve the things I wanted to achieve, I had to make a change. I went into consulting and that's where I kind of learned the ins and outs of communicating and translating between business and technology. And I found a knack, fortunately for me, working for small companies, you know, single digit employee number that we kind of grew, grew, grew and scaled and ultimately sold, learned a lot during that time. And then the third time that happened was the ed tech company that

that Marnie had had mentioned. And after we were acquired and acquired and acquired, working for the Rupert Manions of the world, if I can interject that, that's the bad guy in Ted Lasso, the guy you don't want to work for. Yeah, But they really started, you know, we felt a clash, right? Their core values that what they stated publicly was all about building raving fans with their customer base. And Marnie and I were responsible for those fans. She managed customer success and part of my responsibility was customer support. And we realized that the latest company that acquired us was dumping all this money into sales and cutting back the staff on the people that the account managers, the success managers, the support team that were supporting these customers. And it was resulting

in exactly the opposite of what their stated message was. Lack of success. Yes. So we had to come up with a way to fix it with limited resources. And we developed an operating framework, a business operating framework that was successful within this company. But we decided that we thought we can do this outside this company on our own. And that's kind of how we got into starting our business, which is a bit different because many people start a business kind of with a product fit in mind. They have a business idea. We didn't at all. We started with an operating framework. We said, these are going to be our core values. This is how we're going to approach this. But we had no idea what we were going to do. You know, that's so important.

You know, I had read a lot of books preparing to be a CEO. I started a few small companies when I was young, but then I never got into college, so I knew I had to develop my own MBA type thing. And so I studied a lot of Harvard Business Review, and one of the big books that have impact on me was usually Tom peter's stuff although about half his stuff reverse engineered and made me bankrupt the other part made me rich but sometimes you know these these folks that are wonderful like tom peter's they they reverse engineer how someone was successful and they and then they get the magic wrong but the big thing that had

impact me was peter singe's book the fifth discipline my audience is like god he's gonna go into it again but the fifth discipline taught me about building culture and over harvard business for you and tom peters and other great authors i learned that culture is so important and injecting that in the moment you start your company and having that that, like what you guys talked about, how you wanted to make sure that you manage culture and the vision and all the stuff that went into a business first so you can lay that foundation and build something on it. That's so important.

Yeah. Yeah. And more than absolutely. And we live with culture. But it's also, I think one of the things that frustrated me just as my career evolved is, especially in technology, I would work with so many people who would focus just on their technical skills and ignore kind of their professional and character skills. And that was so frustrating because all the folks I worked with that excelled really focused on both the metaconscious efforts, grow their character skills. And it just said it felt like such a waste of talent.

And, and so in addition to the culture, I think it's really important to talk about character skills. And that's, that's what we try to outline in the book. I would agree. Yeah. Sorry.

It's so funny how you, I'll ask so many leaders, what is your leadership style i don't know yeah and a lot a lot of people have on the show that advise you know leaders i'll ask do you do you do you get the same answers i do like they don't know they they have an operating system they usually just don't know what it is they're flying on a subconscious they know their toolbox they just don't know their toolbox, which is interesting because they haven't been intentional about it. It's just kind of, I guess, developed by default. Yeah. And it's interesting that there are tons of assessments out there to determine leadership

style, et cetera. And everybody's got their favorite. And it really doesn't matter which one you do, as long as you focus a goal on working to improve the places where you have weaknesses. So in the book, we actually created an assessment of the five main characters from the show and define their leadership styles. We've got the visionary transformer, the positivity guru, the optimistic achiever, et cetera. And people have told us we love getting tagged on Facebook posts. Oh my gosh, I'm a Sam Obasanya or Roy Kent, he's my spirit animal. So it's a lot of fun to have people think about which character they would be. And in the show, part of the secret sauce is the assistant

coach and coach Ted Lasso give books to each of the players to help them become the best version of themselves. And in the book, we say, these are the books we would give the players if they were aiming to be a leader in business or life. I like that, how you have that alliance with those characters, because then anybody who's watched the show can put them together. And I think it makes it easier for them to understand maybe because they can see it play as it was played out through the media. And we parallel it with real life leaders as well.

But for them, as Nick was saying earlier, the show is so relatable. I mean, you watch the show, you want to be better. You want the world to be better. It's really inspiring, which is why there's so many millions of followers of the show. So for folks to be able to see themselves in those characters, we hope gives them not just the wish to be better, but some actions to improve their skills,

their character skills, like Nick said. There you go. You know, my employees have a TV show that they use to lie who I remind them of. It's usually from The Office. It's Michael Scott, Stephen Carrell. I was going to say, is it going to be The Office or Parks and Rec?

I'll dodge and cover. I would love to be the officer of Parks and Rec? I'll dodge and cover. I would love to be the character from Parks and Rec. Who's the guy, the tough guy? I know. I don't know his name, but I know we're talking about the same one. I love that dude. That or they think I'm Kevin Malone from the office, one of those two. Maybe both.

It's a mixture. But jokes aside, I think. So I noticed something on the website. There's a pop-up of the real Ted Lasso. Tell us about that interaction. Is he part of the book? On Monday, we're having a webinar with Lee Elias, who is, so part of Ted Lasso's thing, as I mentioned at the beginning, is he left the United States and went to London and coached

for three years. So Lee went to London, coached hockey for three years in a world he didn't know, right? And was extremely successful through team building skills. And he is a team building coach and strategist. And so he feels like everyone was tagging him and commenting to him after the show. Oh my gosh, you are Ted Lasso. He has quite a following on social media because of his team building. So he's not related to the show other than he just feels it in his heart like although so many others do. There you go. That's gotta be a pretty good show and a pretty good gig for him to back up off the show. And did you interview him for the book at all? Is he in the

book or are you just doing this post interview? So we met him right after the book released. We were on social media and I found one of his books and we reached out to him and said, and just exchanged backgrounds. And we both thought, oh my goodness, there are a lot of similarities. So Nick and I looked at his book and he looked at our book. And it's frankly a good thing neither one of us knew the other before we read the books because we might have thought the other one was copying our style our tone and strategies oh yeah then you have to sue them not a very dead lasso thing to do my my my my people who think of me as a tv show think of the guy any show from dateline pretty

much i don't know what that's about but i'm sure the judge will get to it later so in the book give us a few strategies that you guys are some of your favorite strategies for what people should do to you know get their leadership down for their lives yeah i, I mean, I think so, unlike a lot of leadership books, and we talked about this a little bit earlier, but we start off, instead of starting off with vision and purpose as part of the, as kind of the foundation of the framework, we absolutely start off with core values. And to us, it goes back to the whole authenticity thing, right? You know, I struggled a lot early in my career with imposter syndrome, right? I happened to be in a position where I kept getting promoted and promoted and promoted and being put in leadership position. And I really felt like a fraud. And I think part of the reason for that, I know part of the reason

for it was I didn't take the time to do the introspection to figure out what my guiding principles are, right? And that seems straightforward and easy, you know, I know who I am, but time after time, we would run across people who really don't know how or really haven't put much thought into what their core values are, and we help them do that. And I think that's just the first part. And I think just in general, I'll let Marnie talk about some of the other activities that we have. But one of the other things about our book that we should have mentioned up front is we don't just outline our framework. we provide activities for people to actually execute on it, right? So whether it's identifying your core values, how to establish a vision, and then

goals that can be tracked and aligned to that vision. You know, we have the whole notion of, we feel it's very important as you define your vision and you set goals that you should have guide rails. So we talk about different strategies around projecting where you're going to be in the future and exercises to really put those guide rails in place. So if you get knocked off course, right, and you know, who doesn't, right? When either personally or in business, you get so involved with the day toto-day. Sometimes you lose where you ultimately want to go. But we provide activities that help you keep on track and execute the framework. And some of those are a lot more simplistic than you would think. Like you mentioned, you don't always have to do the Harvard MBA to learn a lesson. I mean,

we put Mad Libs to a whole new level with a very fill in the blank. Let's do some brainstorming. One of my favorite activities is at the end, we basically have you Mad Libs your retirement speech. So you could say, I'm Chris Voss. And here, you know, at age whatever, this is my retirement.

And these are all of the things I've done. And those are the guardrails that Nick is talking about. If you can really define for yourself where you'll be in the future, it helps you make those decisions along the way. So there are serious outcomes that get delivered from the activities, but they are thoughtful and easy and fun to do because you're really thinking about introspectively, what are your core values? You know,

there you go. So it's like a workbook where you've got the learning in the workbook to help you really cement those activities. Exactly. I, you know, I read a lot of books and you know, there's always books like mine that are just like,

Hey, you should do this and then have fun with that. Hope you do them. Good luck. Good luck. Even Peter Singe in the learning learning organization i think the fifth discipline he had to put out a workbook on the second one so he did i it's really good i i have both the accompanying books on my shelf so yes in fact he owes me a couple checks at this pace you know i was going to tell you the one way that I found to overcome imposter syndrome.

You know what it is? No, I wish you were, you were telling me 25 years ago, Chris. I don't know why I'm setting this up this hard. It's totalitarian egotism and narcissism. Oh yes, those do. They will crush some imposter syndrome for the win. That's why I never had imposter syndrome. We already know your core values now, so that's great. I'm full of shit up to my ear. That's not what your book said your core values were, but that's okay. I had a PR agent write that maybe. But no, my audience is sitting around going, yeah, that's true. He's not fooling anybody. Any other tips and tricks that are in the book? I thought it was interesting you talk about vision. Vision is so important for leaders.

And then there's a lot of other things that I'm seeing on your website. You talk about empathy, compassion, loyalty, fun, teamwork, achievement, growth, honesty, and a few other things. What the hell are these things about? I just totalitarian leadership is my style. Empathy thing. You mentioned, yeah, empathy, which Ted Lasso was very empathetic in the way he dealt with all the characters. And it's really acknowledging taking everybody from where they are to where they want to be in an understanding way. So that is the soccer field we have on our website with some core values as folks can select of their own.

But you mentioned one, which is fun. And while we took business seriously, obviously, like we aimed at the beginning, we said, we're going to grow a business in three to five years to sell for 10 to 15 million. That was our goal. But we also didn't take ourselves too seriously. So our company was called Lifecycle Insights, and we bought the domain Lifecycle Insights dot sucks. And we had our partners write one star scathing reviews about what they hated about us. And they would say things like, I have to pay so many taxes because I'm making so much money with your software, you know, like really mocked us the whole way. And it's not what it,

when we say fun was one of the, you know of our strategies, it was not that we had ping pong tables in our office because we all worked from home and only one of us had a ping pong table. But we would do, we didn't take ourselves too seriously and our messaging was really light and fun. Maybe you should have a ping pong coach come out for this. No, I'm just kidding. Here's a few quotes I think that are from the book that I'm reading on your website. Here's one that's a favorite. I'm not sure why. A vision is a beacon that leads individuals or organizations towards a higher aspiration.

I love that quote. It could be that you wrote Beacons of Leadership. Is that what it is? Uh-oh, we're getting sued now. Shameless plug in there. It's my show, so I know pay myself for that this is an interesting one though leadership isn't a title it's a way of life i can't remember if i talked about this in my book but i used to have a picture that sat on the edge of my desk when we really were starting to hit scale and it was a picture i think of a

wolf and i still have it in storage i guess I don't love it that much. It's not on my desk anymore, but there's no room. But basically it said something to the effect that you have to earn your title every day. Just because you get a title doesn't mean that it's yours. And I think a lot of people, they fall in that trap when they get a title of manager or CEO or whatever it is. They're like, I must be that. That's part of the totalitarian egotism. And they don't realize they have to earn it every day.

They have to go out. They have to work their team. They have to earn their position every single day. Even with me being an entrepreneur where I could just be an egotist and no one could fire me, you still had to have that if you wanted to get the most highest performance out of your team. But not just that. You don't have to have the title to be a leader. So in the company, when Nick and I worked together, it was the first acquisition that we went through together. And it was tough, right? Emotionally, it was not easy for folks.

And Nick, you want to tell them what we did with Performance Pete, the mascot? There's a mascot the mascot it was i wasn't going to go there but you know it was it was a six foot steel sculpture sculpture right that that we ended up kidnapping we were we were going through the hard we were going through a difficult time we were about to be acquired. A six-foot performance sculpture. Was this from Viagra or what? It's a testing platform for students. We kidnapped it and we posted pictures all throughout Orlando of where is performance Pete? But really what we were trying to do is we were trying to make everybody in the company realize that, you know, really what we were trying to do, right,

is we were trying to make everybody in the company realize that, you know what, okay, we've just been acquired for the third time or the second time or what have you, right? It's okay. We're the same company, right? And I think, you know, while Marty and I were not the CEO or co-founder of that particular business, I think we really stepped up and demonstrated,

you know what, it's up to everybody in the organization to make sure that everybody is feeling good about where we're at. And I think that's to Marnie's point. Everybody's a leader. And the feedback that we get, I have one story just about our book. And you don't normally think of students as leaders, The feedback that we get, I have one story just about our book.

And you don't normally think of students as leaders, right? Typically, they're so young and you're graduating college looking for jobs. And we have one guy that's a friend of my son's who read our book. And he kept on having issues with the interview process, trying to get his first job out of college. And he kept getting stuck with the question of, all right, talk about a time when you've demonstrated leadership, right? And you're, you know, you're just like, okay, I was treasurer for my fraternity or, you know, so I was captain of my baseball team.

And he just never really was able to nail that answer. But after he read the book, he actually, the next time he got asked that question, he talked about modeling out his own personal leadership journey and what he did in terms of setting goals, creating a vision, identifying who he was as a person. And the feedback that he provided as part of that process was how well that was received. It just, it bangs home the point that, you know, everybody is a leader. I don't care if you're a parent, if you're a student, if you're, you know, a clerk at a bank,

you know, you lead your own journey. And by that alone it indicates that that you're a leader it really does i you know that that's the thing that i want to espouse to a lot of people because a lot of people are like you know they work inside of a company and they're like i'm not the boss so i just i can just kind of slum it here no you have the ability to lead in lots of different places i mean i've been running companies i guess and being a boss and having that sort of leadership personality so much that I get that everywhere I go. Like people kind of, they kind of stand up a little bit and they kind of notice me a little bit more. Maybe it comes across in my voice and my delivery, but maybe it's that I carry on myself like a totalitarian asshole all the time. That's just the theme of the show, a callback. But, you know,

I was on a coffee date Saturday, and I was wandering around the place getting us refills, and some guy came in to the coffee place, and I don't know, I just come across as that guy. And I've had this happen a lot where I remember.

And he goes, he goes, do you own this place? And I go, and I actually have a standard answer for it. I go, no, I just look like the kind of guy who owns a lot where i remember and he he goes he goes do you own this place and i go and i actually have a standard answer for it i go no i just look like the kind of guy who owns a lot of things walked off because i i do but you know people get that from you it's it's really weird how people can sense if you're a leadership type of person or if you're a totalitarian monster like i am and narcissistic and in fact you guys are giving me an idea for a mascot for my company in the future. Eight foot? We're going to put, in sticking with the totalitarian authoritarian regime sort of

leadership style that I have, we're going to call him Mussolini Max. Nice. They'll love it. Yeah. All my employees are going to have to do that high-stepping thing. I don't know what that means. Don't do that, folks, please. He wasn't a good person.

Don't do that. Maybe we'll just make a mockery of him, and that will be the funny thing about it. You know, you guys talk about that in the book everywhere all the time, leadership, you know, thinking about it. You know, I was watching, i think it was the ceo of hp go talk about going through his day and what it was like to march through his day with him and it was amazing how much time he spent not behind a desk not not not i don't know standing behind a podium barking at people like a mussolini but he was actually going around and it was meeting with

his team meeting with frontline employees and sometimes it was just a little bit of wandering through the frontline. Like I'd go down to the lobby and just kind of meet his, you know, whatever employees are there, talk to them, answer questions and just kind of, just kind of be there for them. And he would use that to get a lot of, you know, we all get stuck sometimes when you're in the

ivory tower, you know, if you live in the White House, et cetera, et cetera, you get stuck behind this. It's hard to get information on what's happening on the ground. And you create this bubble. People talk about it with presidents. And as a CEO, sometimes you get that. You get a bunch of yes men around you. You're the greatest with the best ideas, Chris. And you're like, yeah, I am.

There's the Mussolini. But, you know, seeing him wander through his corporation and just, you know, meeting people, meeting vendors, talking to them. And like every day, this is like his thing, was just going around and surveying and talking and answering questions and being human, being empathetic. A lot of things you guys talk about in the book. It just really made me really it made me

really rethink leadership because i always thought of leadership as you know the mussolini style i know i keep going back to that but seriously i i always thought of getting on getting my little box everywhere i go my little soapbox and giving the big speeches and the you know always shoving vision up people's ass and you know trying, trying to, you know, Hey, you know, and always the big rah, rah sort of thing. And I had, I had one of the, he was, he was the head of the ship during COVID who it was one of the first attacks on the, on, on one of our ships during COVID. It was a Navy captain who oversaw the, I think it was the Theodore Roosevelt. If you remember that.

And he, the chain of command wasn't going up to the Pentagon fast enough as COVID was ravaging the ship. And so he wrote a letter directly to COVID, and the president got involved at that time, an orange-haired guy, you may have heard of him. And I think he's bankrupt or something. But anyway, he got viscerated because he was making COVID seem as bad as it was that they were trying to hide. It was a Navy Captain Brent Crozier and his book, Surf All You Can.

He was on the show. And what was interesting to me was how he wasn't the rah-rah sort of leader. He was the, his leadership was very stoic and very quiet and very mild. And he really made me rethink the rah-rah sort of leadership things. And if you remember, the story was when he was removed as captain of the ship because he'd spoke out and broke protocol. He was trying to save his sailors. The whole ship cheered him as he left. And even when I asked him, I go, what is it like to be eviscerated by the president of the United States on Twitter and be run through the thing?

We've had a few people on the show who've gone through that experience. I'm like, what is that like? And it's your commander in chief as well. So it's just not the president of the most powerful. Yeah. And just the most nonchalant careless just there was no emotion at all he's like man everyone's entitled their opinion yeah i was like the whole world would be a better place if everyone could take feedback like that

and so it really it really made me think less about how you don't need to be that leader who's the rah-rah cheerleader, you know, barking orders, barking vision, you know, blasting people in their face all the time, trying to get control, sending out PR things. You know, some of the things you espouse in the book and the lasso thing of, you know, listening, empathy, all these different facets that kind of turn you out as a better leader. Yeah, no doubt and i mean i was gonna say jim collins book good to great the difference between a level four and a level five leader is humility and force of will right so i think the humility shows the the not the rah-rah dick i doubt that's what you were going to say. No, I was just going to add, right? We were talking earlier about you have to earn your respect. You earn your title of leader every day. And what you talked about, Chris,

is the difference between the traditional old-style command-and-control leadership, who speak, compared to the more modern leadership who listens, right? It's the old style of, hey, all I'm concerned about is outcomes versus the new style, which is, all right, I'm very concerned about the growth and development of my team. And to us, it's the difference. Although you're technically a leader because you have the title, what we're talking about is the difference between a manager, right? Somebody who's very task-oriented and barks out orders versus a leader, somebody who inspires. And I think your story and anecdote is very much aligned with the exact messages that we try to get across in our book. There you go.

Servant leadership, they call it a lot nowadays. Yep. And, you know, between the things that we're talking about, compassion, empathy, loyalty, fun, teamwork, achievement, honesty, growth, and a partridge in a pear tree. These are all things that, you know, we've kind of learned over the decades in age that they bring out the best in human, in the human condition, in the human ability,

and they bring out the best in human in the human condition in the human ability and in they bring out the best in human beings and so many people you know i wish i'd pull the stack because we quote it so often on the show but most people leave a job because they're sick of the poor leadership oh absolutely and it really comes down to that mean, and there's so many companies I've seen that have failed. And really, the person who's responsible for it is the CEO at the top. And you're like, you've really ruined everything. And it's you. But sadly, a lot of times they lay off so many people and they put their employees through the thing first. And usually after they lay off and fire enough people, the board starts going, maybe it's the CEO. Maybe it's them. Like, yeah, you should have started there first. And usually after they lay off and fire enough people, the board starts going,

maybe it's the CEO. Maybe it's them. Yeah, you should have started there first. So final thoughts as we go out on the book, any tease outs maybe we didn't talk about or any topics we want to cover? Are you guys doing coaching or advising or consulting? I noticed there's some different things on the website on resources. So we are currently building a masterclass. So folks that are interested in learning more about their own personal leadership, they should follow us at leaditlikelasso.com. I did want to say one thing you had mentioned, when you're the leader that is the Nick said command and control type of leader, folks don't often believe that they can challenge you. And so the entire growth of the company is limited by your own limitations. And so in Ted Lasso, there's a group called the Diamond Dogs, and it's the other folks that he

trusts in. And to have someone that you trust and are vulnerable enough or a team that you trust are vulnerable enough to give you honest feedback to help push you to the best version of you, I think is really critical for any human, not just someone with a leadership title. Maybe you should have a Diamond Dogs mascot. There you go. That way they can kidnap and pull around Atlanta. This is why you got to pay the extra $5 more than most people for these ideas. Brilliant.

They're only worth $5. The Diamond Dogs mascot. Yeah, I should have a mascot because the mascot, you know, could walk around and, I don't know, he can entertain people and keep them motivated and I'll just sit in my office and scheme things where I'll just have a cat. Evil plans of Mussolini Max coming to you. I don't know what that means. But thank you guys for coming on the show.

Give us your dot coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs? Yep. LeadItLikeLasso.com and then all the socials at Lead It Like Lasso. And, of course, we're both on LinkedIn with relatively recognizable names. There you go. And I got both of your is in there. Everybody's in?

Yes. Everybody's in. You know what you could do? You could take the mustache that's on the cover of the book and you just wear it everywhere. I don't know, a branding symbol or something? We do have I Mustache You a Question ideas. Yeah, there you go. If you guys come back on the show, we're going to make you wear the mustache.

Okay, deal. Both of you. I'll wear one too. Wait, I already have one. Does a goatee count? I'll work on it. I hope so. See, there's pills you can take that can fix, too. Wait, I already have one. Does a goatee count? I'll work on it. I hope so. See, there's pills you can take that can fix that.

I'll just grab my cardboard one that's in the kitchen. Get some testosterone, start shooting that up. You'll have hair in no time. So there you go. Thank you both for coming to the show. We really appreciate it. It's been a lot of fun. Thanks for having me.

We appreciate you, Chris. Thanks. There you go, folks. And order wherever fine books are sold. Stay away from those alleyway bookstores because you might need a tetanus shot or you might get mugged so there you go stay go to the good ones you can find on amazon and lead it to i'm sorry let's recut that the book is entitled lead it like lasso a leadership book for life your life out october 27th 2023 thanks for tuning in go to goodreads.com fortresschrisfoss linkedin.com, 4chesschrisfast,

all those crazy places on the show or on the internet. And refer to the show to your family, friends, and relatives or else. I don't know what that means. I'm just kidding. Take care.

Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time.