The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 083: Molly Fletcher – Learn To Negotiate From The Female Jerry Maguire

Episode Date: December 24, 2015

Episode 083: Molly Fletcher – Learn To Negotiate From The Female Jerry Maguire Molly Fletcher leads an incredible life.  She has had success in multiple life categories.  The stories she shared during this conversation were inspirational… From how she was able to live rent free for 9 years… To becoming the “Female Jerry Maguire” as a sports agent. We are extremely fortunate to have Molly share her message with us, the loyal listeners of The Learning Leader Show.  Molly Fletcher is a trailblazer in every sense of the word. She is a rare talent of business wisdom, relationship brilliance and unwavering optimism. As a CEO, she shares her unconventional and unique techniques that made her one of the first female sports agents in the high stakes, big ego world of professional sports and now a successful entrepreneur. As president of client representation for sports and entertainment agency CSE, Molly spent two decades as one of the world’s only female sports agents. She was hailed as the “female Jerry Maguire” by CNN as she recruited and represented hundreds of sport’s biggest names, including Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz, PGA TOUR golfer Matt Kuchar, broadcaster Erin Andrews, and basketball championship coaches Tom Izzo and Doc Rivers. As she successfully negotiated over $500 million in contracts and built lasting relationships, she also observed and adopted the traits of those at the top of their game. Episode 083: Molly Fletcher – Learn To Negotiate From The Female Jerry Maguire Subscribe on iTunes  or Stitcher Radio The Learning Leader Show “It’s really uncomfortable to be fearful.” Some Questions I Ask: What are some common characteristics of people who have sustained excellence? How did you become known as the female Jerry Maguire? Why did you want to be a sports agent? How did playing a high level tennis help prepare you for life? How were you able to live rent free for 9 years? What does it mean to “Ask With Confidence?” How can we improve our implementation and execution skills?   In This Episode, You Will Learn: The importance of being resilient and understanding that adversity should be viewed as an opportunity Strategic negotiation tactics to use in all areas of life Confidence – How to develop it Setting stretch goals that push you outside of your comfort zone The importance of writing – why we should all do it daily Being an evolving curious leader How being labeled the female Jerry Maguire helped her career  “Life is a series of marathons and boxing matches.” Continue Learning: Go To Molly’s website: MollyFletcher.com Read: "A Winner's Guide To Negotiating"    Follow Molly on Twitter: @MollyFletcher You may also like these episodes: Episode 001: How To Become A Master Connector With Jayson Gaignard From MasterMind Talks Episode 034: Jimmy Hatch – Shot While Searching For Bowe Bergdahl And Sky Diving With Gabby Giffords Episode 004: How Todd Wagner (and Mark Cuban) Sold Broadcast.com To Yahoo! For $5.7 Billion Episode 010: Shane Snow – How To Accelerate Success Using Smart Cuts Did you enjoy the podcast? This was a jam packed episode full of great content.  Molly Fletcher is a leader who is constantly learning in order to help us all live a better life. Who do you know that needs to hear this?  Send them to The Learning Leader Show! Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell   Bio From MollyFletcher.com Molly Fletcher is a trailblazer in every sense of the word. She is a rare talent of business wisdom, relationship brilliance and unwavering optimism. As a CEO, she shares her unconventional and unique techniques that made her one of the first female sports agents in the high stakes, big ego world of professional sports and now a successful entrepreneur. As president of client representation for sports and entertainment agency CSE, Molly spent two decades as one of the world’s only female sports agents. She was hailed as the “female Jerry Maguire” by CNN as she recruited and represented hundreds of sport’s biggest names, including Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz, PGA TOUR golfer Matt Kuchar, broadcaster Erin Andrews, and basketball championship coaches Tom Izzo and Doc Rivers. As she successfully negotiated over $500 million in contracts and built lasting relationships, she also observed and adopted the traits of those at the top of their game. Molly is the author of three books: A Winner’s Guide to Negotiating; The Business of Being the Best; and The 5 Best Tools to Find Your Dream Career. She’s also the founder of The Betterment Institute, a series of online coaching courses for corporations and individuals. Molly has been recognized by Michigan State University with the Outstanding Alumni award and numerous other awards. She currently serves as a National Trustee member for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, after serving on the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta board and as a member of Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO).

One thing is to set goals, you know, set big, audacious, crazy goals, but then set realistic goals as it relates to sort of the rungs and the ladder to get you there. And a lot of times when we take time to set goals, when we take time to get really clear, and then we create a roadmap to get there. So I believe in setting, you know, long-term goals and then short-term goals. And then I believe in getting really, really clear on how that looks like in order to get there, right? In other words, I think you've got to back it all the way down into each and every day and say, okay, if I'm going to do that, then what are the things that I need to do each and every day to get me there? Are leaders born or are they made?

Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made through determined, focused work on learning the art and science behind the makeup of other successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success. You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. And welcome to the Learning Leaders Show. I am Ryan Hawk thrilled with this episode. It's a real treat. I've been trying to speak with Molly for quite some time. Our featured leader is Molly Fletcher. She spent two decades as one of the world's only female sports agents. She was hailed as the female Jerry McGuire by CNN as she recruited and represented hundreds of sports biggest names, including Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz, PGA tour golfer Matt Coocher, broad. Robcaster Aaron Andrews and basketball championship coaches Tom Izzo and Doc Rivers. During her career, she successfully negotiated over $500 million in contracts. Incredible stories. She's lived just in a remarkable life and is currently coaching, teaching, and helping others through writing books and giving keynotes today.

And her TED Talk is a great one. I urge you to check it out. During our really cool conversation tonight, we talked about a number of topics. A few of them were. How was she nicknamed the female Jerry McGuire? Why did CNN tap her with that name? How did she earn that through her hard work? And then some of the common characteristics of sustained excellence.

And for her, it's work ethic resiliency. And she told a story about her parents and how they raised her. And they did a fantastic job of building up that resiliency in her and her siblings. And then how was she able to live rent free in Atlanta for the first nine years that she moved there? The story that she tells, I promise you, you'll find entertaining and helpful as well as inspiring. I know I did. Ladies and gentlemen, this one, again, is a great one with Molly Fletcher. All right, Molly, excited to get this one rolling with you.

And I got a quick question to get a start. And that's around sustained excellence. And that's, you know, you've been fortunate to spend a great deal of time around these types of individuals, people who have sustained, sustained excellence over time. And I'm curious. And you're obviously one of those people as well. And your story is fantastic, which we're going to get to here. But I'm curious, what are some of the common characteristics that those people who sustain excellence over a long period of time all seem to share? Right, right?

It's a great question. It's great to be with you. You know, I think they're incredibly resilient, right? So in other words, they recover from adversity fast because all the best of the best in the world, whether it's in sports or business, they're going to have adversity. We're all going to have adversity. I've had adversity. And ensuring that we recover quickly to me is incredibly important. You know, I think in addition to resilience, they're lifelong learners.

So they're consistently curious. They're always eager to sort of identify the gaps in their own lives and themselves and figure out how they can get better. And they're not afraid to evolve, right? They're not afraid to change, to embrace change, and to continue to grow and evolve. You look at, you know, some of the best organizations in our world. And certainly individuals, they've had to evolve and they're not afraid to change and grow and be curious and certainly sustain that resilience all along the way. Are there a few people that pop into your mind initially when you think of those who have sustained it over time?

Well, I mean, you look at guys in the league that have had great success for a long time. I mean, you look at tour players like a, you know, Tiger and Anika. You look at Nadal, Federer. You look at John Smoltz, a guy that I worked with for a long time, who had a – a long career in the big leagues, certainly didn't come up for a cup of coffee in one year of success. He stayed there a long time. You look at Tom Izzo,

a guy that I worked with for a long time, head coach at Michigan State, Coach K, right, guys like Doc Rivers. These are folks that had success, but when we think about Hall of Famers, when we think about the folks of the best of the best, to your point,

they're the ones that stay there for a while. You don't see guys in the Hall of Fame that had one incredible year, right? You see guys in the Hall of Fame that had several incredible years. And so it's the conversation I've seen my guys have in the locker room with their players. When they get to the final four, it's incredible, right? I mean, we're approaching college football season right now in sort of the playoffs here with four teams.

And everybody's excited to be there, but the best coaches are reminding their guys, look, nobody's going to remember these four teams. They're going to remember the one that won at all. So how do we sustain what we built throughout the season into these final playoff games? You know, interesting, you mentioned John Smoltz, I know you've worked with, and I've been fortunate to see him at the Lake Tahoe NBC Celebrity Golf Tournament in July the last couple of years. And there's a lot of guys who go out there, and it's a really fun time. But the one thing I've noticed from him is he has this intense focus about that celebrity tournament. He wants to win.

He's not going out there. I mean, he's having fun. but more so than the majority of people out there, I've noticed just his focus and the way he approaches his golf game, and he's very good. He's a great golfer is really impressive. It shows you how he could go from becoming a starter to moving to being a closer and how his Hall of Fame career has evolved in that regard.

Absolutely. No, John, he's evolved into an incredible golfer. I think he's a negative two. And, you know, I think when he plays Tiger, Tiger gave him years ago when they would play, more often, Tiger'd give him a couple shots aside. That was it. Really? So, yeah, I mean, John is, he is. He's very competitive and he's particularly competitive on the golf course because I think secretly Smolzi would love to be out there on the tour

one day, which would be fun to see. I mean, you know, there's no question he could stand over a put on a Sunday and drain it. You know, he could embrace that pressure for sure. But he's absolutely one of the most competitive people I've ever met. Yeah, it's really cool. So let's dive into you now, Molly, in your story. And so I was, you know, very excited. I was referred to you actually by a couple different friends from completely different areas of my life, which is really interesting. It doesn't happen all that often. Normally someone will say, hey, you should reach out to so-and-so. But, but to have people come to say, Molly Fletcher, I saw her speak, and she's incredible. Her books are great. She's got an inspiring story that the things she's actually accomplished. And so you're hailed

as the female Jerry McGuire by CNN, a pretty big title. And I'd love to dive in deeper to why you were given that nickname and really what you're doing up to this point as well. Right. Yeah, I mean, I did an interview with CNN and sort of that was how they kind of labeled me and it's just sort of stock right, probably like many, many kids when they're little and they get a nickname and it just sticks. You know, I don't read a lot into it, but I think at the core it's kind of a connection point for people, right? I mean, I think when people say it, they kind of go, okay, I get it. I understand what her world was and what she'd did. So it's been fun. But, you know, now I spend most of my time. We've built a, you know, a small and wonderful company where, you know, really my intent and goal is to wake up every day and help everybody else in the world, be, you know, be fearless, right? To dream and live and grow in sort of a

fearless way. And so I do that by, you know, I speak. We write books. I write books. We have an e-learning platform that we license an individual sign up for and use, which has been amazing and fun. I'm still in the sports space in a significant way, right? I do lots of team builds and keynotes to athletic departments and to student athletes all over the country, which I love. So, you know, I pinch myself every day, right? I mean, I feel like the platform that sports and my relationships provided was an opportunity to recognize the power and the connection between sports in business and the ability to take the things that I learned as an agent and the experiences and take those and relate them back to business people to allow them to sort of capture

the mindset, right? Like we talked about of a smaltzer and is or a doc rivers or these guys and gals that have sustained excellence, how do we take that and transfer that into the business world? And that's how I spend my days now and I can certainly say that I absolutely love what I get to wake up and do every day. I feel very blessed. So why did you initially, you spent a couple decades being a sports agent and having immense success, why did you initially want to get into that field, especially at the time when there was virtually no females doing it?

Right. So I was a student athlete at Michigan State. I played tennis. And what I realized is that I loved building relationships and I loved connecting. I loved at the core and I still do taking raw connections, raw relationships and creating and building them into ideally, authentic connections. And so the representation space really provided that platform. So I came into a small agency in 1996 where we had a half a dozen athletes and coaches that we worked with. And the agent brought me in and gave me an opportunity to manage the marketing deals for the guys and gals that we worked with. And he said, hey, I just need you to go find deals for him and help them go to appearances and endorsements. And after, you know, a couple months of doing that, I sort of went, gosh, you know, we've got a nice, you know, stable of five or six good guys, the way you

make money in this business is by negotiating contracts more so than doing the endorsement deals. And I felt like we had a nice platform and I felt like we could grow it. And so I put a business plan together to go out and recruit athletes and coaches to go out and sign more guys and bring them into the agency so that we could support them. So fast forward, right, skip to the next scene. I spent 15 years and signed about 300 guys and gals and brought them in to go. negotiated their contracts, handled their endorsements or appearances, et cetera. And throughout that process, out of a pure passion for truly giving back and capturing some of these experiences to share

with others who I didn't candidly have time to meet with, I thought, well, I'm going to write a book so I can hand that book out because I can't meet with everybody and I feel bad. So I started writing books and then people started asking me to speak. And I started speaking and went, gosh, you know what, I really like this. And at the core, it was the same thing. It is the same thing. It's walking onto a stage with a thousand people staring at you, a completely raw relationship, and turning it into an authentic connection. And so it's the same thing in many ways as what I did as an agent. And, you know, I can honestly say I loved them both, but I do love the world that I'm in a little bit more now.

Is that why you made the transition? You know, I believe in listening to the market and listening to your heart. And for me, I listen to the market. And what happened candidly was the phone kept ringing for speaking engagements. and I kept saying yes and I kept saying yes and finally I found myself in a spot where I thought, geez, I got to make a decision here. What do I want to do? And where do I feel like I want to leave a legacy and where do I think I can make the most impact? And I found that, you know, in a month you'd talk to 10,000 people. And, you know, in a month as an agent, you'd talk to, I don't know, 50 or 100. And I felt like I could

make a bigger impact and leave a bigger legacy, both for myself and most importantly help the people that I've had an opportunity to be around through my speaking in this way. So it was a really natural and organic shift. You know, people sort of think that I think sometimes people wonder, gosh, did you have this massive game plan, right? And this incredible business plan to make this transition. And the truth is I didn't. I mean, it just sort of happened very organically.

And then as I got into that, I've continued to grow it and evolve it. And it's been an incredible journey. It is incredible. And another part of your story that I found, I was fascinated by. I was watching your TED Talk, one of your speeches that's online for everyone to see. And it's, you know, you talked about what you did initially when you were done playing tennis at Michigan State and how you wanted to move to Atlanta. I'd love to hear.

And I think that the question that could maybe the jumping off point here is you were able to not pay rent for nine years. And I'd love for you to retell this story for the listeners who haven't heard it because the way you worked this out to me, I think, is an inspiration. inspiring story. There's some humor mixed in. I mean, it's really, it's a really neat story. So I'd love to hear how your first nine years out of college you were able to live rent-free. Well, you're sweet to say that. You know, it was, I mean, I graduated from Michigan State and had about 2,000 bucks, and I wanted to pursue a career in the sports space. And so I, you know,

sort of figured, gosh, there's not a lot of opportunities in East Lansing where I grew up. Great family, great parents. But I felt like I needed to go somewhere where there was. was a little bit more of a thriving sports marketing department, sports, you know, management business. And so literally, I will never forget. I was with two friends at my parents' house and we pulled out a map of the U.S. And we started looking at different cities that we would maybe move to. And we sort of threw some, you know, some research, et cetera. We sort of threw a dart at Atlanta and said, let's go to Atlanta. There's Super Bowl's coming. The Olympics is coming. You know, it's a bigger market, certainly, than we were in. And so I saved $2,000 that summer so I could moved to Atlanta and I got my little Honda cord and drove to Atlanta and got down to Atlanta

and a girlfriend, one of the friends that I had been with had already gotten down there for an internship with the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games. So she was ahead of me and had found a great job. And so I said, hey, can I live with you for a little bit? So I lived with her for a couple weeks while I got down to Atlanta. And when I got down to Atlanta, I called a couple folks that my college tennis coach had hooked me up with. And she said, you know, call these folks. I know you don't want to be a teaching pro, but just call them and maybe they'll, you know, give you some advice. And, you know, I say this in the TED Talk, right? And on my website, but I talk about how when you ask for advice, you get a job and when you ask for a job, you get advice. So I start calling these folks.

One guy was really only saying, there's this amazing apartment complex, great location. He said, you want to go over there because they have a tennis court. And I think the pro there that teaches tennis at the apartment complex is moving out. He goes, you should go check it out. So he said, you know, tennis in Atlanta is a huge deal. People teach tennis for a little bit off their rent. And I thought, well, go, you know, that'd be kind of great for me, right? Because, you know, I had heard and through my research, realized that you don't make a lot of money, obviously, in your first job. And certainly in a space that a lot of people want to be in. So you don't get paid a lot to be in sports marketing out of the gates in any market typically.

So long story short, I walk into this apartment complex and the manager was there. and she was awesome, but she said, look, we have a pro. He's amazing. Well, she hadn't been told yet that he was leaving. So I left her my little business card that was horrible, right? I'd probably, you know, it was like this homemade, you know, bootleg business card. But I left it with her and I said, hey, if anything changes, let me know. So she said, great. So I leave and I go across the street to this pizza place, this great little spot. And I thought, God, I bet those guys sell pizza to that apartment complex. And maybe there's a way that they could hook me up with free pizzas and I could give those pizzas to the residents at the tennis clinic.

And so I go into the owner of the pizza place and we have a conversation and he agrees. He says, look, yeah, I'll give you 15 or 20 free pizzas a month and you can give them to the folks at the tennis clinic. And I said, if you give me a coupon, I'll put that coupon in the newsletter that the residents get, you know, at the

beginning of the month, which I had seen when I was in there. So then I go back to my friends' apartment. I call my buddies at Wilson's sporting goods and beg him to send me a bunch of Wilson stuff, tennis rackets, you know, water bottles, t-shirts. So he agrees to send that down to me. And I ask him to FedEx it because I'm trying to get this deal and I don't want anybody to get out in front of me.

So, you know, I always had this philosophy and did too as an agent, you know, to sort of act like you have the business before you have the business. You know, act like that that relationship is sort of farther along than maybe it is, particularly in a business development platform, because then you can demonstrate what the relationship will be like. I mean, it's, it's sort of analogous to, you know, people don't walk onto a, you know, into a car dealership and just buy a car. They want to drive it. And I think it's true, you know, and we don't just get married. We date. So it's the same kind of thing. So then I print these little tips I'd written for a little local magazine in Lansing and I thought we could put these tips in the newsletter. And so the next day,

my box comes in from Wilson. I go back over to the property, hoping, right, that she had heard, you know, that this deal had sort of gone away with this current pro. And when I walked in, she just lit up. And she said, oh, my God, I'm so glad you're back. I couldn't find your card. She said, it's just incredible. But the pro that's been here for six years, he's amazing. We love him, but he's leaving. And we need a pro. And this is incredible timing. You know, and it was classic. And I said, oh, my gosh, well, this is great. Well, you know, and so I said, well, how did it work? And she said, well, you know, what we did was he would teach tennis every Tuesday night to anybody that came to the clinic. And he'd usually get a good turnout. And for that, we gave him 500 box

office rent and the rents 850 and I said okay and then I proceeded to tell her about the peros pizza deal and the you know the Wilson stuff and the tennis tips and you know work to connect a little bit more and then I said look you know what if what you know with the 850 500 you know 350 thing and and I said because what he would do was just write a check for 350 at the beginning of the month she said well look I said why don't we just you know all that you know 85500 why don't we just wave it. You know what I mean? Like just comp it. I'll move in. We'll get this thing going. And you know, I don't think she could believe that I

asked that question. But she sort of thought about some of the stuff that we had, you know, that I was sort of offering up. And I think saw some energy and some commitment and, you know, a little bit of that, like you have the business before you have the business. And so she went back and called her manager and I got the green light, right? So I literally lived in this little one-bedroom apartment complex for nine years. I mean, it was incredible. It was awesome and never paid any rent, which was such a blessing because, you know, it was one hour a week, I mean, a couple hours a week or something, an hour and a half on Tuesday

nights. And it gave me an opportunity to do something that I really wanted to do where I really wasn't making a lot of money. And had I had all those expenses, it may have been tough to really make it work and stay patient because it took me a couple years to get inside of the agency that I worked in as an agent. So I had to bob and weave through some sort of random, you know, low-paying jobs of answering the phones at Super Bowls to a myriad of other sort of internships to continue to try to network and build relationships in space. I love the story because it shows that you were determined to make it happen on and you were creative in the way that you did it. And in your book, A Winner's Guide to Negotiating Chapter 3 is asking with confidence. And that made me think

of that story. And I love the story because I think it could inspire others to not just sit there and wait or feel like there's some sort of entitlement. You're a college athlete, you know, you played at a Big Ten school. You got these credentials and you go down there and you have your confidence, but you're not expecting or feel like entitled like people owe you anything. You're going to go out there and get it. Right. Well, right. And I think that when we are fearless, right, when we go for it, right? I mean, and there's sort of, there's fear that we need, right? I mean, we need to be afraid of a snake if it, but there's fear that we don't need. And unfortunately,

I think the world is full of moments in life when we, when we allow sort of that fear, that irrational fear to bubble up and, and consume us. And I think when we do that too, it sort of zaps our creativity. And so when we're fearless, I think we also become more creative and when we can be creative in our approach to building relationships, I think, you know, sort of the sky's the limit. Where does that come from within you? Is that something from your family? Have you always been that way? Or have you developed this skill over time?

Well, you know, no. I mean, I think it's a little bit of both, right? I mean, I think we all get better and evolve. But I will certainly say that I think my parents gave both my brothers and I a belief system that anything's possible, right? that it's going to be hard and nothing's going to be easy along the way, but anything is possible if you just go for it. And, you know, they allowed us to fail. I'm a huge fan. We have three daughters that are now 12 and 11, but, you know, I think we live in a world where oftentimes people want to try to sort of catch their kids before they fall. And, you know, my parents let us fail. I mean,

but they were right there. You know, I remember losing a tennis minch that I should have won. And it felt horrible. And it was just demoralizing. I was the only one out of six girls that lost a match. But I learned so much from that. And I think my parents allowed all that to take place and allowed us to learn and grow. But they also allowed us to feel pain. And I think all those things bubble up and allow you to really go for it when you leave home. I mean, we'd be in the car to drive up north and northern Michigan.

And my dad would say, who wants ice cream? you know, and all my brothers and I, we'd all go, yeah, yeah, yeah, he goes, yeah, what do you want? What do you want? He would tell us, we'd all get so excited, right? You can start to taste it, you know, and he'd drive right by the ice cream shop and go, yeah, guess what? We're not getting it today. I mean, like stuff that is crazy, right?

What was he teaching you in that moment? Well, I mean, I would, I think, you know, I tell that story, and he's like, you shouldn't tell that story. But, you know, I think it's learning to be uncomfortable. And, you know, when you're uncomfortable, in some ways, I think you grow. And so I think I wouldn't say that he had a grand plan in that moment. But what I would say, though, is that all those little things like that, that those

were opportunities to be uncomfortable. Those were opportunities to not get exactly what you want and sort of evolve through those moments. Now, I'm not, you know, I don't do that with my own kids. But I think that part of change, part of evolving, part of growth is being uncomfortable. I mean, it's really uncomfortable. to be fearful. It's really uncomfortable to, you know, put yourself in spots that you're not particularly familiar with. But inside of all those moments, I think we grow. So probably in sort of a

convoluted crazy way, it taught me that being uncomfortable is okay and that life is full of moments when we're going to be uncomfortable. My first job when I got to Atlanta, I answered the phones at the Super Bowl, and I worked for a woman that was very difficult. And, I didn't like it. And I would leave at night and I would call my parents and tell them how much I hated it and how I didn't want to do that. I just didn't like it. My dad would say, well, come home. Just come home. And but I knew how to kind of grind it because of, I think, the way they parented us. And I knew that anything you start, you have to finish. And so I really believed in, you know, my mom raised us in a way that if you start something, you finish it. If you come to it, you finish it, period. No matter what kind of along the way, obviously, with the exception of ethical things, et cetera, but she taught us to finish things that we started. So in my mindset, I had to finish it because I'd taken the job. And then over that six-month period, it evolved into creating tremendous relationships that in turn eventually evolved into really

everything that's happened since then. So, you know, it would have been easy to pack up and leave. But I think because of the way we were raised and the way that I was raised, I felt like I had to finish what I started. Yeah. And the comfort zone is something we talk about a lot here. And I think it's really important to actively seek out ways to be a little bit uncomfortable. And that's on a daily process, I believe. Are there some tactical things you could share with me and the listeners that would be helpful to say, here's a few things you could do or try to implement that would make you uncomfortable? Boy, that is an awesome question. I mean, I think one thing is to set goals, you know, set big, audacious, crazy goals,

but then set realistic goals as it relates to sort of the rungs and the ladder to get you there. And a lot of times when we take time to set goals, when we take time to get really clear, and then we create a roadmap to get there. So I believe in setting, you know, long-term goals and then short-term goals. And then I believe in getting really, really clear on how that looks like in order to get there, right? In other words, I think you've got to back it all the way down into each and every day and say, okay, if I'm going to do that, then what are the things that I need to do each and every day to get me there? And a lot of times when we write those down and we look at them, it's overwhelming and it's uncomfortable. It's easy not to have goals. Less than 1% of the population writes and then follows through on goals.

So I think tactically one thing to do is to write down where you want to go and lean into the, those uncomfortable moments that come up for you when you try to get there. Because you're going to fail and you're going to need to recover quickly as we do that. I fail, we recover. So tactically, I would say, you know, that's important. You know, I think we want to put ourselves in situations where, you know, I believe the best are afraid of mediocrisy. I mean, they literally are afraid to be just like everybody else.

They truly sort of fear it, right? in a healthy, awesome way. And a lot of this stuff I'm going to talk about in my next book. But I would say tactically, it's not running. When we feel fear, I think we want to trade those moments, those times in which we're fearful of something. Maybe it's a conversation that we have to have. Maybe it's a meeting that we need to have.

And we want to trade that for curiosity, for vulnerability, certainly for bravery. Fear is a real emotion that we're going to feel. So leaning in and being uncomfortable is going to, you can't make that go away and we don't want it to go away. But what we want to try to do, I believe, is replace those feelings and those moments with things like curiosity, with things like bravery. And if we're pushing ourselves, I believe every day we're going to be, we're going to be scared. There's going to be moments when we're fearful and recognize what those are and then replace them with bravery, replace them with curiosity, and with vulnerability.

Really interesting. Another aspect and part of this that I think is tough, and I struggle with this, I know a lot of people do, is I think people who are listening to this podcast typically are achievers, are people who are going to do the big things because they take the time to listen and invest in themselves to learn and to get better. Another thing those types of people do is we go to see great public speakers like Molly Fletcher, and we go to conferences and workshops. and we take good notes and we listen and we're engaged and we develop relationships.

However, we then go home or we go back to our job and we got, you know, a hundred different things going on in 80 different directions. And we don't do a good job of implementing and executing on what we've learned at a great workshop or a great keynote speaker. I'm wondering from your perspective, what are ways we can get better at that? What are ways that we can implement and execute better on the great. things we learn from whether it's a podcast, a speech that you give or a TED talk. Yeah, no, that is such a, and I couldn't agree with you more right. I mean, I believe as a speaker, you know, I can, I can create change. My goal is to truly connect with each and every person in the audience. And if the room's small enough, sometimes I really literally try to look at each and

every person in the eyes every single time. And you can create some change in a one-hour keynote with people to create real change, you've got to stay in it to your point. What I would encourage people to do is take that content, take the motivation that you feel, take the energy that you have in that moment and write down three things that you're going to do differently, starting tomorrow, starting that afternoon. And then I would put those things on a sticky note or put them in a little private box that you have on your desk and write those things down on there that you are going to do differently, that are going to allow you to behave differently. And peek at that every day as part of what I believe we all need to have, which is an early morning ritual ritual

routine. I believe every morning you've got to wake up and have some kind of ritual to start your day. You know, you look at some of the most successful people in the world, and they will tell you that they start and end their day the same way. So you make reading those notes that are things that you want to be intentional about changing. You make reading those notes a part of your early morning ritual routine. And maybe you have something that you look at at night before you go to bed too. But I think you've got to take the content that you learned, put it inside of your own authentic self and say, okay, now what does this mean I want to do differently and how I want to behave differently this afternoon or tomorrow? What's your morning routine?

Yeah, wow, great question. So, you know, I wake up before, I, we have three kids, like I said, I wake up before everybody and, you know, my coffee's ready to go, right? And I get a cup of coffee, which is really important to me. And a big glass of water, lemon water as well. And I try to drink that lemon water before I drink my coffee. I also try to think about three things that I'm grateful for before I start the day. There's so much study around, gosh, when we think about the things that we're grateful for that, you know, we're happier. I try to do that as well.

And it's like four minutes. I mean, this doesn't take very long. And then I get into my email and kind of get going, right? Yeah. But it's not super complicated, but that's what the morning looks like for me. Have you heard of the five-minute journal? It's a, it's, it really takes five minutes in the morning and at night. And it really, I thought you, based on the way you're describing the mornings and nights, it sounds like you kind of follow this already without even using the journal. But the five minute journal, basically, you list three things you're grateful for. You list three things that would make today great. So basically three small goals for the day. And then daily affirmations, you know, so, you know, I am strong or whatever you want to write. I am. I am. And then there are affirmations. And at the end of the day, you spend another five minutes and you say three amazing things that happened. today and you write those down and they probably should match up with your morning goals and then

you also answer the question how could I have made today better and so it's five minutes in the morning five minutes at night I've been fortunate to meet the guy um you j who created this one of the co-creators of it and talk to him about it and it's it's amazing the psychology that goes into you know showing the gratitude the positive affirmations both in the morning and right before you go to bed it'll it'll have a bigger impact on for people who aren't currently using It'll have a bigger impact on your life than you think. But it's about consistently doing it every single day, not just every once in a while, but like you said, part of your morning routine.

I think that's one of the biggest things, Molly, I've learned from people that I speak with on this podcast is that the really big time achievers and sustained excellence over time, they do have those types of really early, typically morning routines and then something to do at night as well. And it's all always around gratitude. and setting small goals that are not easy to attain, but they're not massive stretches. So they're realistic goals, and then they achieve those on a daily basis. And you'd be shocked at what happens over the course of even 30 days when you do that if you haven't previously done it.

That's awesome. So where would people find that? Five MinuteJournal.com. You could Google it right there. And if you haven't, you kind of do a lot of it anyway. That's why I thought maybe you already knew about it. But it's pretty cool to see that's been good. Yeah, yeah, so it's a really good thing.

So, Molly, this has been great. I got one more questions for you that's around the whole purpose behind the show. And, you know, it's called The Learning Leader Show for a specific reason. It's the fact that I love the art and science of leadership. And I love the leaders who are very curious, who are constantly striving to learn and to improve. And obviously, you fit that mold perfectly. And that's why I wanted you to come on the show. but when you first saw that phrase in the initial email I sent over to you, I'm curious,

what was the first thing that popped into your mind when you saw learning leader? A leader that's learning, a leader that wants to learn, that wants to evolve, that wants to grow. That's what came up for me. You know, somebody that's curious, somebody that's eager to evolve. And I think a bit of humility, too, right? I think that the best leaders in the world are not complacent. They know that there's more there. They know that they can continue to learn.

So I loved it. I think it's a very cool tagline name. Great. Well, again, thanks so much for being here, Molly. Where can everybody go to find you online? I appreciate it. Mollyfletcher.com. We kept it simple.

If you go there, you can get, we've got a bunch of free resources for folks and all kinds of good stuff, videos and free resources. So please don't hesitate to jump on there. Perfect. Again, thanks so much, Molly. appreciate it. And I'm definitely looking forward to continuing our dialogue as we both progress. Fantastic. Thanks so much for having me, Ryan. Thanks, Molly. Thank you.

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