The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 362: Chris McChesney - How To Achieve Your Wildly Important Goals

Episode Date: April 26, 2020

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Text LEARNERS to 44222 Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Episode #362: Chris McChesney - How to Achieve Your Wildly Important Goals Chris McChesney is a Wall Street Journal #1 Best-Selling Author – The 4 Disciplines of Execution. In his current role of Global Practice Leader of Execution for FranklinCovey, Chris is one of the primary developers of The 4 Disciplines of Execution. For more than a decade, he has led FranklinCovey's design and development of these principles, as well as the consulting organization that has become the fastest growing area of the company. Notes: Sustaining excellence = They execute on the strategy that's been launched... They have amazing drive High expectations - They expect a lot of everyone and do it in a positive way They "radiate love." Warmth... Strategy to execution -- It's an art and a science "Execution doesn't like complexity..." Great leaders develop pattern recognition over time. An experienced quarterback has more repetitions and the game "slows down" which creates a situation he recognizes Three components to any strategy to execution process: Lower the blood pressure -- "Stroke of the pen." Take life support measurements Break through What is a 'stroke of the pen' action as a mid level manager? Modify the portfolio, work within the limited budget, figure out incentives, hiring decisions, combining territories "Sometimes in life our challenges are really hidden opportunities." Chris did an unpaid internship.  He warned that with Stephen Covey by continuing to show up and add value to the lives of the people at the company. Advice: "Work outside of your job description but within your influence." "Don't fall in love with a solution, fall in love with a problem." "I have never gotten a job from a standard interview process... I've gotten seduced by a problem... And then worked to solve it." This is how Chris created a company within a company. He identified that execution was a problem, and worked to solve it. Useful feedback Chris received earlier in his career from a mentor: "Chris, when you come to headquarters, people like you, but you aren't fun to work with." The power of honest, specific, feedback.  Paul Walker (President) - "It's never about him. He's always interested in understanding what's going on around him and with others." Pat Lencioni - Not everyone should be a leader... "I don't like the term 'servant leadership.' It makes it sound like there's any other way." The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Focus on the Wildly Important -- Exceptional execution starts with narrowing the focus— clearly identifying what must be done, or nothing else you achieve really matters much. Act on the Lead Measures -- Twenty percent of activities produce eighty percent of results. The highest predictors of goal achievement are the 80/20 activities that are identified and codified into individual actions and tracked fanatically. Keep a Compelling Scoreboard -- People and teams play differently when they are keeping score, and the right kind of scoreboards motivate the players to win. Create a Cadence of Accountability -- Great performers thrive in a culture of accountability that is frequent, positive, and self-directed. Each team engages in a simple weekly process that highlights successes, analyzes failures, and course-corrects as necessary, creating the ultimate performance-management system. "As legendary Harvard marketing professor Theodore Levitt put it, "People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole." "People who try to push many goals at once usually wind up doing a mediocre job on all of them. You can ignore the principle of focus, but it won't ignore you." "If you ignore the urgent, it can kill you today. It's also true, however, that if you ignore the important, it can kill you tomorrow" "Managing a company by looking at financial data (lag measures) is the equivalent of "driving a car by looking in the rearview mirror." Optimization - Consistency is wildly important. Lock down elements of the process. Anchor the process at two points. Rule - "If we can meet the lead measure for 14 weeks, we're calling it a habit."

And when you see leaders who forget themselves, like, stop worrying what they think of you. They're not thinking about you. They're not thinking about you unless you're thinking about you. And if you just stop thinking about you and think about the problem, run to the fire, and think about how you clear the path for other people to run to the fire, liking you as a very natural byproduct that comes at the end after they yell at you a lot. HR people say it again and again, getting employees. to use any learning tools a battle.

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Brixie and Meyer. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 4-4-222 in order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world. Receive mindful Monday updates when I'm reading, writing, watching, thinking about. Also give you more details about my book. Welcome to management, text learners to 4422. Now on to tonight's featured leader to the great Chris Machesney, the global practice leader of execution for Franklin Covey and one of the primary developers

of the four disciplines of execution. He's co-author of the number one Wall Street Journal bestselling book, The Four Disciplines of Execution, Achieving Your wildly Important Goals. A few of the topics we discussed. Career advice. How to develop pattern recognition and why you should fall in love with problems, not solutions.

And then the space between strategy and execution and why so many struggle making that transition. And then why leadership is not for everyone and how. to know if it's for you. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Chris Machesney. All right, let's bring him in. Chris Machesney. It's so great to have you here, Chris. I was telling you prior to when we were recording that

I have implemented the four disciplines of execution at multiple roles and multiple companies over the year. So it is certainly a joy for me to get the opportunity to finally speak with you here on the Learning Leader Show. Welcome. Thanks so much, Ryan. That's so great to hear. I'm delighted to be on.

And I love your track, record with this. Oh, thank you. I'm curious, Chris, because in your profession and what you've studied and what you've written about and the people you've spent time around, you have got to witness people and leaders who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time a lot. And I'm curious from your perspective, what have you found to be some of the commonalities among leaders who sustain excellence? That is an awesome. question and it's one I think about a lot. I get to follow a lot of leaders when they launch strategy and then they then they want me to lay down some execution principles. So I've got this

interesting purview on some super exceptional leaders and the ones that really started to stand out to me in addition to having that drive, that relentless pursuit of excellence. Maybe that's table stakes for this conversation. There were two attributes. And it didn't show up right away. The first attributes was they really expected a lot of everybody around them, but in a positive way. Like even if you were consulting, they would look at you like, you know, you're going to do great things, like exceptional things. Like they just sort of believe in you. It wasn't a punitive expectation, but it still gave you knots in your stomach, right? And then, so that was the first vibe that they seemed to all have, like they just believe.

the people around them can do crazy, amazing things. And then the second vibe is they seem to, and it's going to sound corny, they seem to just, they seem to just radiate love or warmth or something. And it seems to be those two expectations in love. And the more I thought about that, the more I thought, well, that probably goes for every great parent I've ever heard about as well. So that's my real shorthand answer to people that have not just achieved things themselves, but with others.

No, I think it makes a lot of sense. I think I started envisioning the leaders who have impacted me the most and why they've done it. And that makes a lot of sense. Are there initial one or two examples that you think of in your lifetime that come to mind of those people who they've expected a lot in a positive manner and they radiated love? You know, the people that I was with when it clicked were the people that run that really unusual grocery store in the Northeast Wegmans. and they're big 40X users.

And it's privately owned, and they've got to be richer than minus, right? But on Christmas Eve, they're out at a van. They can be, you know, Vail, Colorado, you know, on their own mountain, right? But they're in a van delivering gifts, you know, going store to store in the cold and, you know, in upstate New York. And yet I've been there at some of their executive reviews. And one leader after the other is just reporting on these amazing results

and it's surreal. I keep wishing there were cameras, and they hate it when I talk about them. So they're not into blowing their own horn, but they rate from the very beginning, those two vibes were so clear. And then I started seeing it in others, but they were a pretty dramatic example of it,

and the results speak for themselves. This may be selfishly, Chris, but I think people might be interested to go inside the room, and I don't know how much you're allowed to share because I published my first book recently a few months ago, And now what's starting to happen in addition to the podcast is where a company will say, hey, will you be a part of our strategy sessions or quarterly business reviews or our leadership meetings? And so that's not something I've done in the past.

And maybe a book that resonates with people helps. And I would imagine 4DX or the four disciplines of execution helps. What is it like? What is your role when you're brought into, you don't have to speak about Wegman's if they don't want to or somebody like that. But what's it like being an outsider? brought in and how do you view your role to add value to a meeting like that? I assume they brought you in because they're four DX fans and they implement it. But what does that feel like?

What does it look like? Take us inside there. Yeah. So let's, first of all, it runs the gamut. Everything from an organization where they just might want me to do a keynote and just talk about general principles all the way to a 12-year relationship with Marriott International where I was in with David Marriott and the senior. all the senior leaders for the western half of the United States last week.

And we meet with them on a pretty regular basis. Here's one of the things. So let me give you my focal point and then I think how they use us. And it's not just me, but there's a group at Franklin Covey, you know, Stephen Covey's organization that I've been with for 30 years. But as far as my purview on this, I keep reminding myself, My backyard, their backyard. My backyard is a finite set of execution principles that I have 18 years and 3,000 reps playing with.

And that's my backyard. And I can be kind of a lion in my backyard. And then there's their backyard. And their backyard is hospitality or retail or technology or something else. And I'm a lamb in their backyard. I ask questions, but I don't pretend to be an expert. It's really, and this is something when I bring consultants on, I tell them, look, you've got to be really clear when you're in somebody else's wheelhouse. They've forgotten more than you are ever going to know.

You don't get to have opinions about a lot of things you think you know something about. So I think as long as I've been able to do that, Ryan, they continue to, you know, utilize me in the areas where they think I might know something. and I might have an opinion. And then the relationships tend to come, but it's always on this point of human adoption around a strategy. That's always the area where they kind of want my input. So they have a strategy and they bring you in to help you, help them execute on the strategy they've created.

Yeah, exactly. Gotcha. And it's normally, it's the human rub. It's the level of buy in. And normally, it's not. up front. Most of these groups have already had some friction or they're not talking to us in the first place. And that's not uncommon. It's, it's, that human side of execution is brutal for just about everybody. I believe, I think I saw you in a speech talk about, and you've written about

this too in the book, but Ram Sharon. That's how you pronounce the last name, correct? So Ram, and you, he wrote a book called an execution, correct? And one of the questions was, what do leaders struggle with more strategy or execution. And when you ask that to a crowd, typically they'll say it, if they're honest, most places, they struggle with execution. 99% will to get, without looking at the person next to them, we'll just go execution. Right. Yet what they're taught in school is strategy, or we hear about putting together your

strategic plan. Yet the strategy certainly is important. and obviously culture is important, but the execution of the strategy is your specialty. So can you share a little bit about that dynamic of taking somebody's strategy and then, whether it's Wegmans or Marriott or somebody else, and then saying, this is how we're actually going to execute on that strategy. Yeah, thank you. This is a, you know, like any new field, any new field, I guess most new fields always

start the first feeling like an art, and then they move into something that feels more like a science. And I think execution is a classic example of that, because, you know, people want to talk about the strategy and what you're doing and how you're doing. And then in terms of, you know, how you get that organization to dance with you, hey, that's probably more of an art and we have different styles and, you know, table stakes, right? That's something you ought to be able to do. Until you look around or you ask executives, and they're all dying on this hill. And so when you, oh, and I got to tell you, right, I love that you're a quarterback because I have this visual in my mind. Can I go with, can I go out of this little?

Yes, yeah, you can't tease it and not go and not tell us. Okay, all right, so I got this visual. This might have been you. I don't know. But I got this visual of this, this hot shot high school quarterback who's a blue chipper and this university lands. I mean, they're so pumped to get it. and they had a press conference, and this kid, he thinks everybody on campus loves him. What he doesn't know is the defensive coordinator and the defensive players have heard

just about enough about this kid. And he's in his first practice, and he's lining up under center thinking about how, what a great moment this is, and I was going to tell his kids, and he looks at the defense and he sees something he's never seen before. And 11 players are shifting and moving and stunting, and he forgot the play. And the ball snapped, and he's on his back. And the moral of the story is execution does not like complexity. I like the analogy.

Can you see it? Right? You've been there. So I've been there. I don't know how much you know about my story, but that. I googled you before. I was seeing pictures on the internet. Okay, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so I vividly remember. So I went to Centerville High School and played my first two years in college at Miami University here, competing, by the way, side by side with Ben Rothersberger. we went there at the same position. So anyway, I do remember those first snaps, though, Chris, and thinking, I have no idea what's happening here. And certainly for getting the plays, as a quarterback, too, forgetting the snap count has happened.

And that's really embarrassing. So you're just hoping that you guess right. Yeah, I mean, I'm with you. So this visual, yeah. You know, the other 99.9% of the population is never in your shoes, but we all fantasize about it, right? But then you go, but project four years in the future. And it's a senior, right?

And he was everything he said, they said he was going to be. And the defensive players might not like him anymore than they liked him as a freshman, but he lines up under center. They're doing all the same stuff. They're stunting and they're moving around. And what he's thinking is, okay, they're trying to show me man on man.

They're clearly in a Tampa 2. Not that I know what a tampa 2 is. I just know they say stuff like that. And he's thinking, that flat's going to be open. in about two seconds, and I'm just going to drop it to the halfback, and I'm going to get 15 yards. And so I like this analogy because the complexity didn't go down. It was the same level of complexity as a freshman that was present in this quarterback

was a veteran, senior, all-American. What changed was what we call pattern recognition. Or a lot of people call pattern recognition, right? He's not seeing 11 independent body. moving around, he sees linebacker shifting. He sees a cornerback moving from one coverage to another. It all slowed down because he was able to dissect and recognize patterns. And we do the same thing all the time without realizing it. So back to your question about execution, there's three components to any strategy from an execution lens. Right? Because if you just put all the

elements of a strategy together, it looks like the 11 players dancing on the other side of the field. Like stunning and blitzing. It looks like, you know, I've got KPI's and I've got projects and I've got corporate initiatives and I've got crises of the moment. And it's just too much. And leaders really have to deal with a great deal of complexity. So what we say is, look, break it into three parts to start with. And this sort of preludes four disciplines of execution. So even before you get to four disciplines. The first thing we want to do for a leader is lower the blood pressure. Okay. And so we say all of the elements of your strategy that can be accomplished with management authority, we nickname that stroke of the pen. It could be allocation of resources,

could be a change in compensation, a restructure, a media body, all your chest moves. Put all those in one bucket. Because when we'll get to that in a minute, those are going to require a certain treatment. Now, take all of the existing life support measurements that you use vital signs for your operation, customer churn, new accounts, you know, cost per transaction, all of those, and put those in another bucket. We're going to call life support and try and get just about everything in that between those two buckets and then carve out a little bit of space in the middle, and we're going to call that breakthrough. And that, that column I want empty, and then you can pull from the other two columns and put something in the break, but that's

something that you can't, it started as a stroke of the pen, but you can't get it done as this, you can't buy that result. Like, yeah, we bought the new customer acquisition software or customer client, you know, you know, portal, but it's not giving us the result. But it's not giving us the result we need, or there's some KPI and I can see it dropping every day. I can't change that. And whenever you're stalling on either side, nine out of ten times, it's because there's a human barricade. And it goes in the middle, and the middle requires a different treatment. And that's where we use four disciplines of execution. That was a super long answer. But that's, but when we, so that's the very first thing, the very first lens we want executives to look at.

with any strategies to break it into those three components, stroke of the pen, life support, and breakthroughs, and just lower the noise. And then we start talking about the different treatments and we do a great deal in the breakthrough category. So let's think of a specific person here, Chris, that we can relate to. So we can zoom in a bit. So I'm thinking of somebody who works at a big successful company. They are in between an individual contributor. and the CEO. So we can define that as a mid-level manager. The title doesn't really matter, but they're a leader of 18, but they're not the ultimate leader within the company as the CEO. Okay. So that person, in my case, when I've used four disciplines, I was a sales leader with a team.

And so putting in metrics and understanding the while. That was my experience utilizing this as well, is I ran a consulting slash sales organization. So I have that same. So for those three parts of stroke, stroking the pen and life support and the breakthrough column. What would be an example, maybe a story or something? Let's go into that person. So can we stay in sales for a minute? Yeah, that's cool. That's cool.

That's where, I mean, not everybody's in sales, but I understand that. But that's where I was. It's one of the easier ones for most people to imagine. Okay. So in terms of stroke of the pen as a sales manager, right? I've got a little bit of authority in my region. There's a mix of products. and we are going to modify the portfolio this year. Okay, marketing is giving us some choices as well.

They've got a variety of campaigns. We're going to go to more of a live event sort of showcase campaign. I like that. I got a limited budget. I got to pick just a few of these. Also, corporate's given me an opportunity to run some incentives with my sales managers or with my reps, my area reps. And I'm going to double down on that as well. It's going to cost me a little bit myself. bunch, but I'm going to do it. Okay. I've also got a hiring decision I've got to make. And I'm thinking about combining two territories, but I'm nervous. Right. And I, so I've got, these are, these are decisions because what we start to learn is some leaders are really good in one of these columns and they might struggle in another. Right. So I might be talking to somebody, like, like, this is not my, oh, these type of, these type of bets make me nervous. I'm checking

with other people, you know, or I'm a bull. I'm like, really, really. aggressive over here. Who knows, right? But that's, I organize things that way. Then I go over to life support, right? And I know I've got a couple that I'm looking at. I got a close ratio metric, but I'm suspicious about it because I don't like my denominator. I'm not sure all the things we're calling leads are really, any of this sounded familiar, right? Are really leads, right? And then I got, I got new, I got qualified prospects. And I've got, I've got, how much of the business is coming from existing clients versus new clients. And, and, and, cost of new client, you know, acquisition of new client cost. And if all that stuff starts to overlap,

okay, now on top of all of this, let me tell you what's really going on, if I can make it up, is that we're sort of pivoting as an organization. And a bunch of competitors have entered the space that we've always owned and they're offering some cheap solutions that aren't as good, but they're taking market share right now. And the only way we can hold ground is we've got to start acting more like a trusted business advisor, but my salespeople can't seem to make the shift. They keep going to product benefits, and there's these great issues.

They won't even talk to their customers about. And we've got great products lining up for them. And I can't stroke of the pen that one. I can't buy it. Crap, I would. I'd spend it. If I could get my salespeople to move off a solution and play trust me out,

I'd spend any amount of money I had, right? So that's showing up in the middle. And I don't even know how to define it. I have to think. I know what it is, but I have to think about it. And what I say is, I want 15% of revenue to come from an account where we're offering advisory services. If we're doing that, we've kept our first foot out of the grave. Right.

So now I got life support. I got chess moves, but I got to keep those out of the frame. Because I know that getting that advisory services business is the game changer. And at the end of the day, if I don't do that, it's my first foot in the gray. That's my strategic play. So just I hope that was helpful. And I hope people could file making it up as I go along. But I know salespeople, I mean, I'm watching you face.

You're whinsing. You're having post-traumatic. stressed. We've been there. Well, we're still all in sales every day. Right. Everybody should really. We're all in sale. I mean, even if you don't have a quota, you're still in sales. You're self-selling ideas, trying to build coalitions. I get ideas moving. So, Chris, there's two parts of how I want to move forward, man. I appreciate you. I appreciate you doing that and zooming in. I want to introduce the four disciplines and we're going to go into each one of them. Before that, I'm just curious about you. And so I'm curious,

how did you, because there are going to be people listening who have not read your book or heard of you yet, they're going to say, who's this guy? And why is he? People reading the book are saying, who's this guy? Well, they're saying like, why is he, how did he become the execution guy? Why is he the person along with Ram Sharon, who has has a famous name in some parts of the world? Why, Chris? So where does this come from that, whether it's from your upbringing or your background or your history, I'm curious to learn more about you. That's really nice, Ryan. I, I, I'll tell you this. A lot of people know Sean Covey, he's one of the authors. Sean had a lot to do with the original construct of the model with another gentleman named Jim Stuart who passed away. We all dedicated the book to Jim. Jim Huling, the third author listed on the book, and myself are very close. He's kind of my mentor.

Jim is the embodiment of these principles. Like, you just talk to Jim, and he, you know, he, he, he, he, he, exudes what I'm trying to say, yeah, just clarity and discipline and, you know, clear thinking. And I'm the electron. I'm the hyperactive kid that's buzzing around them. The Dallas Morning News did an article on me, and I unwittingly told them that I had to take Ritalin as a kid. And so the headline read, Riddlein Kid helps organizations focus. But they got a great response on that article.

But that got me, that article got me thinking that, you know, sometimes in life, our challenges really are hidden. opportunities. I had so much frustration, Ryan, with this issue that I think I was drawn to the topic. And it was a natural point of passion, not because I was good at these disciplines, but because I needed them. So 30 years ago, yeah, this month, wow, 30 years ago this month, I stowed away in Stephen Covey's organization as an unpaid intern who didn't need an internship. And it was a there was literally an episode of Seinfeld where Kramer starts going to work for a company that never hired it. And this was several years before Kramer did it. I did it. I got called and chewed out in HR four months after I had stowed away in this organization. And they were afraid they were going

to get sued. They kept, kid, you can't do this. What do you mean? You just kept showing up? I just kept showing up. I told somebody I needed an internship and they said, okay. What made you go there? Why'd you go there? They wouldn't interview me. So you just said, I'm going to keep showing up. I was Stephen Covey. I love Stephen Havitt. I love the same reason you're doing this podcast. I love this feel. I was a good, but, but you couldn't buy an interview with these people.

Yeah. And so four months later, I had, during the four months, by the way, they had fired their publicist. I had taken over as Stephen Covey's publicist calling all the contacts in New York. Really? Yeah. It was this weird alignment. How did you have the guts to keep showing?

How old were you, by the way, at this time? 23. 23. how do you have kind of the guts and wherewithal and and the the I guess the not caring about making money mindset like how did all this? I had another job. Okay. Okay. My wife and I had only been married a few months. She was working. I was working. And then this was my high and I was going to school and this was my hobby. And so I would show up and I knew this, I knew that I had a little bit of time to make a mark before they busted me. And the way I even got in the door was

eluding that I worked for a newspaper that I didn't work for. I said I'm writing an article on fast-growing companies in the area for the Daily Herald. And I did. I wrote an article and I sent it to the Daily Herald, but it sounded like I worked for the Daily Herald. And they did publish it. So I was really out out of limb here. And but they were like, I think there were some people that were so amused by it. They were like, all right, give him six bucks an hour. Let's see what he can do. And that's literally what they did. They gave me six bucks an hour. They didn't have the heart fire me. I'd killed myself for four months. And, um, and I got to watch, I got to watch how Stephen Covey and the Seven Habits book was just peaking. Like, like, it hit, it hit number one in the New York

times the week after they had fired their publicist. So that's why. And I was just in that office and they were like, well, he's from New York. Let him call Good Morning America. That literally that happened. And, um, they'd gotten a real publicist on board after a while. And, but. that opportunity was just a gift. And then I, there were just, it was a growing company and I just got to move into different positions. And so for 30 years, I got to be mentored by wonderful experts and thought leaders that were attracted to Stephen Covey's work.

And in 2003, myself and a number of people started on this, fell in love with the problem of execution and have been on it for, geez, closing in on 20 years, 18 years right now. For the person listening who may be earlier in their career, who they admire someone or some idea or some company, what advice do you give to them based on your life experiences? I've got daughters, son-in-laws, and sons. You have seven children, correct? Yeah. We did with kids what we tell people not to do with goals. We were always just one more.

Five daughters, five daughters, two sons, correct? The last one was cute. What do you say? One more? So we, what a great mindset. I don't know if there's a book in this or not. Okay. But Stephen Covey said something and my hero.

And it has resonated with me my whole life when it comes to careers. He said, work outside your job description, but within your circle of influence, right? So there's something, there's your job, and this really fits four disciplines doctrine because the four disciplines doctrine is always about hold on to the day job and then give a special treatment to that 20%. So if you don't think your job presents an opportunity, I'll make you a promise right now. You're a manager, your leader. And if not him, his or her leader, right, he or she has some problems they can't get to. And you can help them. they would love to clone themselves.

And you start, now I went so far as to work for a company that didn't hire me. So you could go out on a limb a little bit and start working on a problem that your leaders have and they don't have bandwidth to go after it. You start collecting research. You become a geek, right? Make a, you know, make a podcast on that topic. Invite speakers. They'll show up.

Like, throw yourself. Lose yourself in. There's another great expression. I'll put over the top of this, don't fall in love with a solution, fall in love with a problem. Matter of fact, I said it a second ago, right? And if you, maybe not, maybe it's not within your job description, but you'd be surprised what's within your circle of influence. And when they see that you're, you've got your head not just into my career and my benefits

and how come nobody's showing me a career path around here. I hate that person. I'm sorry. I have an allergic reaction to that. It's one of the biggest complaints in all of the EOS survey. employee opinion surveys that come out is there's I mean I've been in those leadership positions and seeing it happen you've seen it obviously Chris where one of the number one complaints at literally every company every single one of them is I don't know if I see a career path

I know like someone's supposed to give that to you this is not college they're not going to lay out your prerequisites for you yeah what do you say to that person that's saying that they're thinking like well no you don't understand Chris that's how it is at my company like someone else got picked or I didn't do it what do you say to that person you I love that They says, you're right there, Ryan. Someone else is always going to get picked. I've never said this publicly, and I'm about to confess something. Let's pause.

Okay. I believe I've been in 12, like, professional interview scenarios. Okay. I was hired zero times. Really? I have never, I think I've had nine or ten different jobs in my life. None of them from an interview process. I think I'm 0 for 12 in interviews.

I think they think, yeah, it was kind of funny, but there's no way we're trusting him. He's crazy. They won't, they won't, I don't know, I'm self-conscious about it a little bit. So it's weird that I'm saying this. But my point is this, like, I can't buy my way through an interview. It's funny, people will, I can sell stuff,

but apparently not myself. But, but, but I've had wonderful opportunities from not consciously doing, when I'm advocating, but maybe subconsciously just getting seduced by a challenge, by a problem. And oh, here's my big one, Ryan. Wow, I almost get angry talking about this. Be ready to put a lot of work in a stuff no one's paying you for. Ryan, how long do you have to work on this podcast before you made a dime?

A few years. A few years. Well, not only not be a dime, but, Lost money. Lost money. Folks, please, if you don't have the capacity to work without reward, then you have to be very, very lucky and very, very fortunate. And most of us are not. How have you gotten these jobs? You've gotten a lot of jobs or you've gotten promoted or you've, you know, you've done work. I couldn't see him. I couldn't see him coming. What do you mean? In other words, there were, there was no Machiavellian strategy behind me.

any of this. You just chase the problem. Yep. Get really good at the problem. And then one day there's an opportunity and someone's talking to someone else and someone's trying to do something. And they need a person and you talk to somebody or you invent a job or, I mean, when we built the practice, the execution practice, sometimes you'll hear the term intrepenter. Right. My partner and I literally birthed a company inside a company with no fun. I mean, like one call to the CEO that said, please, please don't stop us. And he was all on board and got very excited about it. But we literally grew this thing inside of a small P&L. Mark Josie was basically funding me to take on this project. And we dragged Jim Stewart from across the country and we just skunk works

this thing. And four years later, we get a phone call and they said, hey, we want you to do this across the whole world. You guys are producing results. This is fantastic. I didn't see that coming. At no point was that the end game. Just fall in love with a problem, folks. Trust yourself and great things will happen. And what you'll find is there aren't very many people doing what you're doing if you'll be willing to do that. I remember talking to Carly Fiorena and she said she wants from being kind of a receptionist to see the first woman CEO of a Fortune 50 company. and I said, what do you think, what do you think it was? And she said, run towards the fire.

Everyone else is running away. Obviously, that's a metaphor, but she said, run towards the fire. You're giving me goosebumps. By the way, we're doing this video. I'll put this on YouTube so people can watch too, but run towards the fire so that when everyone else is running away from those problems or they say, let somebody else handle that. Who do you think remembers

the people that you're going to be the one remembered if you're raising your hand for not the easy cake project. They may get a big spotlight, but for the one who solves a tough problem. And so that's why I love your mindset. I got never got opened up to an interview process. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a great point. It's a really great point. I love this talk, Chris, because I think it can apply to anybody. Amen. Any leader, any person looking that just the mindset of how you approach your work. And I've said this a lot. I know. Go ahead. Go ahead. I was just going to say, think about where the young professional is coming from. They're coming from an environment that the ideas we're talking about now are so foreign.

They won't occur to people. Like everything in the academic universe, thankfully, is laid out in a progression with prerequisites. And if you work hard and there's a, oh, there's a, oh, there's a high degree of fairness and fairness is just, is just, boy, don't you dare test me on something that wasn't in the pre-review materials. And we're just, we're brainwashed into thinking there's no ambiguity and there's a lot of fairness. And then you get put into a world where fair has no value. You grow all day long that something's not fair and no one cares. That's not a commodity. And ambiguity is everyone, nobody's got an answer for anything. And you have to go, you have to switch from one environment to another. And I think it's okay if your expectations

are calibrated. If you're patient with yourself and you recognize, okay, we just went, you know, from running on land to swimming in the ocean. It's a different game. I was saying, I love it. I was saying, Chris, my wife mentors a lot of people and Marines. Miranda is one of the smartest people I know, very lucky. And that's one of the first pieces, especially with people who are younger earlier in their career. It's just be proactive. Be proactive. Go look to try and solve problems and make other people's lives easier that you work with.

And if you just create a habit of that, create a mindset shift towards doing that on a regular basis, you'll be amazed. The job you will create for yourself wherever you are. will evolve and you could actually create a better job for yourself wherever you are and others will be so attracted to want to work with a person like that. If your mindset is always about being proactive and not just well nobody told me to do that or they didn't say that or they didn't say I had to do that well that person that that's the average or even the good the great or the excellent they don't think that way. I get can I put you one more yeah yeah I'm kind of afraid that

I'm painting myself as a poster child for this and the truth is you know Three years ago, I found myself in a situation where I was very blessed, but I was playing the victim. And I was caught in that victim mindset that a lot of leaders get caught in where they don't feel they've been given enough budget. And we've built this thing. And the organization doesn't really appreciate what I'm doing. And they're not helping. And boy, if we just had what we needed, oh, what I could do. And I could paint this story for you that, you know, the hearing.

Zero struggle. And the new president of our company, gentleman named Paul Walker, we're getting personal here, right? He had the best, oh, wow, this is really personal. He had the best, the best mentoring. Are you going to get yourself in trouble? Oh, I hope not.

Okay, go ahead. I'm going there. Okay, go for it. Paul said to me one day, we're on a call. This is the president of our company, not the CEO. And he said, can I give you some hard feedback? And I said, yeah, because I got in really, I got in really victimy on him. And he said, when you come to headquarters, folks, they like you personally, but they're not crazy to work with you, Chris.

You always show up already having figured out the solution. You're not listening. You're selling the whole time, you know, you're always laughing and everything's fun, but you're not fun to work with. and I said okay like wow thank you and that was a hard pit like that hurt and it was he saying it you know it's true I'm like I can see like myself from above and I'm just thinking oh I'm such a joke like they gave me this did you know it was true did you have the awareness totally you knew it was true but you still needed to hear it from somebody else it was a paradigm ship because I thought my job was to have the next answer okay instead of

recognizing, hey, you know what, there's other bright people in this company. And then along with that, I started to realize, you know what, they're just people. And in my heart, these are people that like me. And if I, if I recognize they've got assets, they've got resources, they don't want to make bad bets with their money. They want to make good bets. If I understand their needs, and I start moving my organization in directions that meet their needs, they'll fund me all I need. I'm the problem. I got that mindset, that victim mentality, I'm it. And just like magic, all of a sudden, things just started working their way out. And I found myself in a great situation. I've got more support than I've ever had.

I'm doing the stuff that I like doing. My original partner is back on my team again, doing all the stuff I'm not good at. And I honestly think that if I just, if I, that one thing, I just needed to say, Chris, this is you. You're doing this. And it flipped. With all my heart, I believe that, Ryan. Wow. I think it illustrates the value of having intelligent leaders who are willing and have the guts to give you critical feedback.

We all, there is not a person. Paul's one of the best leaders. He's eight years younger than I am. Yeah. And he is. just really clear and cared enough about me. I mean, I got a reputation for having a temper. It was risky for him to do that.

Wow. Wow. And being eight years younger, I didn't know, realize that part of it too, which can be hard. And I get that question a lot, actually. Hey, I got promoted. This is an email. I got promoted.

And more than half the people on my team are older than me. How in the world am I going to do this? What do you say to that person? I have done to you. As soon as you said that, I think about Paul Walker. And let me tell you what this guy's MO is. It's never about Paul. I heard Simon Sinek talking about this, and boy, it cut me right to the center.

Because I can get here, but it's not my default position. Paul is always interested in understanding what's really going on. People like Paul, but he never seems too worried about whether you like him. He will say things. that are really, like I just mentioned, he will say hard things, but he doesn't say him in a hard way. And he's about the solution. And when you see leaders who forget themselves, like stop worrying what they think of you. They're not thinking about you.

They're not thinking about you unless you're thinking about you. And if you just stop thinking about you and think about the problem, run to the fire, and think about how you clear the path for other people to run to the fire, liking you as a very natural byproduct that comes at the end after they yell at you a lot. That's a good point. You know, an old story, my dad, I was getting ready to go to some speech or some, it doesn't matter, a conference. And I said, hey, what do you think of these pants? Do these look good? And he said, they don't care about your pants. They care about their pants. And I said, that's right. I'm not going to worry about this. You know, let me just wear some plain black pants. You know, I love that you remember that.

Yeah. I'll never forget. That was. a lifetime of wisdom. Yeah, they don't care about your pants. They care about their pants. I was like, oh, yeah, good point. That's good point. And I just said, I'm just going with the black ones on, no big deal. And Simon Sinek, when I listened to him last week, and I've not, I've not followed him. But I've had him on a few times. He's good. He's really good. He's good. He's good. He's good. But he said he can tell within the first few minutes, whether a speaker, whether a consultant is focused on contribution or their, or self-consciousness. I don't those are the exact words that he used.

No, I know. You mean, yeah. But he, am I serving this audience? Am I serving here versus am I thinking about myself? Like, well, how can I be a servant to the people that I'm supposed to be serving? I think that's what it's all about.

And I remember I asked them why lead? Leading is a lot harder than following or just being a, just, just wondering. And he said, if you care to see others succeed, that's why you lead. And so it even rhymed. It really stuck with you. Yeah, I got one for you. Go ahead. Patrick.

have you ever had Patrick on a few times he's incredible yeah yeah that dude is that dude is a hero like he's so good on stage I don't even want to be that good have you seen him have you seen him in a big I have I have he's crazy he's just you think you're in his living room like I don't even know what that is but I got to tell you this he makes it look too easy though and I've told him that I said you just make it look too easy amen and it never is and that's when you know somebody's really good at their job when they make it look so like oh I could do that that that would be simple No, it's not. He just makes it look so easy because he's really good.

Anyway, go ahead. So he's at Global Leadership Summit last year. I got to speak there once and I'd been back every time as a participant, right? I just don't go with anybody. I just go by myself, like 300,000 leaders, like from all over the world, dial into this thing. I watched you your video prior. It's actually on my other computer screen. Oh, that's nice.

And I, and I, you had to be nervous real quick. We're going to get back to Lynchoney. terrified. He was the last, Lencione was the speaker that year. Oh, okay. In 2016, he ended day one. I started day two. I could not, I only had 35 minutes and I could not get my presentation into 35 minutes. It was like playing Jenga. Every time I took a piece out, it collapsed. I wasn't nervous. It was the most terrified I had ever been in my career. I was being given a chance of a lifetime and I was blowing it. You can't tell. It was in, no, it came together. I know. It was an. I just say, like I couldn't tell.

It came together at about 10 o'clock the night before I could see how to do it. Yeah. And but oh my gosh. And then what you, that place, there's just amazing energy in that room. Like, it was great. But so, so I got to tell you this. So, Lindsay this year, I saw him in 16 and then he was back again in 19, 2019. And he, and it's a leadership conference.

And he gets up and he says, I know that we always talk about how everyone can be a leader. And he says, everyone shouldn't be a leader. He says, and I know everyone can have influence. And he said, everyone shouldn't have influence. And he said, he says, I don't like the term servant leadership. And he says, because it makes it sound like there's another acceptable form. And then he starts listing all of the things that good leaders have to do. And you don't want that job.

If it's not, if it's really not about contribution, you really, don't want that job. And it was just, it wasn't entirely new, but I had never thought of it that way. It was really well done. Taking the complex and making it simple is one of the greatest acts of intelligence that exist. And it's so hard. It's so hard. Yet that's when you know someone really has a grasp on the material and they're thoughtful and intelligent as they take the complex and make it simple because there are many people who take the simple and make it complex to sound smarter but pat's one of those guys that i think takes the simple and or takes the complex and makes it very simple uh chris we're getting so off track but i do want to spend a at least a brief

my fault my fault but i love this though because you're a great interviewer this is literally fun for me i'm being a little selfish sorry no no it's fun for me too so i'm gonna i'm gonna give a we're gonna touch on the four disciplines of execution i think it's if this is something you want to implement, we can do a round two where we go deep dive, or we could even set up, we could set up within a learning leader academy, like set up a separate call or something like that. We can figure something out. But I'm going to introduce each one.

And then I'll have you dive into each one about just kind of a snippet of what it means. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'll do all four first and then I'll circle back to one so that you can, you can dive in. And I have a follow up question on maybe a couple of them based on some, some friends of mine who I told them I was talking to that they're implementing your stuff right now. Yeah, they're implementing it right now. And so they have like, oh, I'd love to talk, Chris. So, okay, anyway, here they are. The book's called The Four Disciplines of Execution. It's really just a process. So number one, focusing on the wildly important goals. Number two, act on lead measures.

Number three, keep a compelling scorecard. Number four, create a cadence of accountability. I'm actually looking right now, Chris, at one of these I put together for a sales team I led many years ago. And then one of my reps that he put together from that team. And it's really incredible. But anyway, let's start at number one. Focus on the wildly important goals. Why is this number one? And what does this mean?

Yeah. That exercise we were doing before with the three columns is a way to do that in a complex environment. I got tons of stroke at the pen. I got a lot of day job. that's going to eat up 80%. The most valuable currency that I have is the energy I can steal from the day job. And what am I going to spend that currency on? That is how you focus on the wildly important.

And it's think of focus in two ways, right? Narrowing the focus, right? Everything else on the outside, narrowing the focus. But then think about the way a camera focuses. Think about that clarity. And so we give a very simple formula. for these. And it's X to Y by when, from X to Y by when, or said differently, starting line, finish line, deadline. And our favorite example is in 1961 when NASA changed from the concept,

very hard to execute on a concept, and they weren't doing a good job, the concept of lead the world in space exploration, which sounds like a target, but it's not until you hear target to John F. Kennedy's, we're going to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade and return them safely home. When you go from concept to target, by the way, discipline one is the one that we find most people wanting to sort of skip, they think they've got it, and it causes the most problems when it's not done properly. It's the most misunderstood, in my opinion, of all the disciplines. And it, And it really, that target has to be taken down to each team. You want to break that target down as small as you can.

We're working on the second edition of four disciplines. We're putting a lot more muscle behind that idea in round two. Perfect. Love the Kennedy example because he gets it done in one line. Okay, two is act on lead measures. The golden rule of execution is identifying the lead measures. So these are some of the day-to-day actions. Share briefly why these are so important and maybe an example.

Yeah, we were describing this to a group of leaders. And somebody, they couldn't help themselves. They just said out loud, oh, you're just talking about leverage. And literally in that moment, I was like, okay, we can write the book now. We didn't know what the second principle was. Lead measures have two characteristics. And I'll use a simple example, but let me tell you the characteristics first. They're predictive.

of the lag measure. Now, the lag measure is, in this case, is synonymous with the wildly important goal. Because we framed the wildly important goal as X to Y by when, taking those targets down to the team level, at the team level, the lead measure is predictive. If it moves, the goal moves, and equally important and often overlooked, influenceable by the team. Go back to your sales. example. It doesn't matter that proposals drive new accounts. Proposals are not a good lead measure

if my team can't get them. Yeah, I get proposals get me new accounts. I can't get, you know, I only got two out of 20 salespeople that can actually go out and get proposals because they're focused. It's got to be something I can influence. Now, what they can do is they can get referral leads from existing clients. That one they can get their hands. So it's, it's pred, and the classic example is diet and exercise or lead measures for weight, which is lag. We don't do weight loss.

We do diet and exercise. But in business and in life, we seem to be, or seem to be, we totally drift towards lag data, even though we cannot influence it like the lever. Number three, keep a compelling scorecard. A lead and a lag. measure represents a bet. I'm going to run X number of miles a week in order to lose, you know, one pound a week, something like that. It's a bet. To leaders, that feels real. The people that actually work for a living, that's just an interesting conversation until it goes

live. Once the starting gun goes off and scoreboards sort of represent, And it just went live. It's on. You know, I love the notion, game on. That it, like, I don't even know, you know what the game is. I heard somebody tell, game on. Like, that's an, there's an entire daily different gear in the human brain. And it's not until you get to discipline three that people go game on.

And, okay, how are we doing on the lead? How are we doing on the left? It was just a conversation before this. And it doesn't look like the data that we're used to seeing. It doesn't look like spreadsheets. it actually looks like the scoreboards you see in sporting events down and distance lead score lag shots on goal lead score lag right uh you know it hits lead runs lag you can see they give you both the networks show you that in the corner of your screen because they want to

grab your attention in a sales environment what does this look like let's just create right yeah let's do one okay can we can we hold this for just a second yes Okay, so let's do it wrong first and then right if that's okay. Yeah. All right, so we'll go back to kind of what I was hitting at before. I want new accounts. Too much of our business is coming from existing accounts. We're getting lazy.

We've got to get some new accounts. And we know that first appointments drive new accounts. And we know that our top two producers are great at getting to first appointments. And so you'll hear this expression, hey, if you want to do what the best, you want to get what the best get, do what the best do. not so fast. This is a bit of a trap sometimes. You got people looking at those two best performers going, I don't know how she does it. I've followed her around. I've gone on passes or they come to her. I can't bottle that. And so if 80% or 90% of your sales force feels that first appointments are, yeah, they're predictive, I can't argue with that, but I can't influence them. That is not a winnable game.

That's what we're after with this whole thing, a high stakes winnable game. And if I can't see it, and so maybe we say, okay, okay, I need something more controllable. Hey, I'll tell you what, folks, let's try the lead measure of cold calling. All right. So that's like a really long lever. And we're out there cold calling every day. Well, guess what? That's very influenceable.

That's controllable. And we're moving the lever and the pole's bending. The rock's not moving. I don't know which level of hell cold calling is, but it's one of them. I've done it for years. as hard. Now, there are scenarios where cold calling will move the rock, but there's a lot more where it won't. And so we just tried two examples. I tried one where it was predictive but not influenceable. That didn't work. I tried another one where it was influenceable, but it wasn't

predictive. Yep. Welcome to sales. Yes. You might not have been using those words, but you'd never stop talking about it. Correct. That's about the time we get a phone call and people go, this lead measure stuff is hard. All right. So, time out. When that happens. It doesn't always happen, but if you find that you're, you're striking out on your leads, it's usually because your lag is too big. You've got too big of a wig and you've got to break it down. So new accounts is just a little bit too big of a rock for this particular team. Not for another team, but for this team it is. Right? So rather than beat up the team, let's make it a winnable game. Now, what was that other thing? First appointments. Not as hard as new accounts.

but not something they can control. What if we made first appointments, the wig? Go one more. Give me a rock about half that size. Now give me another lever. Now I got different levers for that one. Okay, we're going to do promotional events, number of participants in event. We're going to do referral leads.

We're going to do like all the sudden opportunity. Now all of a sudden they'll move. And then here's the key. Let them pick. Give them a bunch of options. and even if you hate their answer, let them run their play here. Not on how you spend your money, not on your core work processes, not on your products. They don't get to vote on any of that stuff.

But on a breakthrough strategy, give the team all your best thinking and then let them pick. It's really important that they believe it's a winnable game. Okay. Is this work? I'm right at the heart of the beast right now. Yeah, I know. I know. And we didn't know to talk about this when we wrote the first book, but we've seen people struggle since.

Yeah. I mean, if it were easy, then everybody would do it and they wouldn't need the book. They wouldn't need to talk to you. Okay. Four is create a cadence of accountability. You mentioned some of the feedback you got and that's somebody holding you accountable, I think. So how does this go into execution? All right.

So if discipline two is force against leverage, discipline three is the whole. putting it all in action. Discipline four, and everybody's probably heard this adage before, is force against leverage. That lever's not doing you any good until you pull on it. So what force against leverage does is it refocuses you every single week, right? The distractions are the enemy. The day job wants to undo anything you say is a focus. All you've got to do is say, I'm going to focus on this. And in the next 48 hours, hours, six things will try and knock you off that focus. So discipline four is this cadence of refocusing through commitments. And this throws people at first. This one's not as intuitive. It's diet and

exercise. And what people tend to get hung up on is they think, okay, well, diet and exercise are the lead measures. And weight loss is the lag. It's the simplest exercise people of this process people can think of. I don't get what the commitment is. I diet and I exercise. That's what I do. No, no, no, not so fast. It's rained all week, and it's going to rain all week next week. I'm going to get that membership to the clubhouse, and I'm going to run indoors. That's a commitment I'm going to make. I need an accountability partner on my diet.

I'm going to buy that Nutra something diet plan. I'm going to do something, one or two things every week to hedge the bet that I'll do the lead measures. And you just continue to put force against leverage. And it's extraordinary how that strengthens the bet and brings everybody back to the scoreboard. And it's five yards in a cloud of dust. But here's the piece it took us a long time to see with discipline four. That commitment happens in a little meeting. And we like to get these as small as possible, small team meetings.

where you got a scoreboard. All of us are trying to do something. We might individually have our own scoreboards or we might all be on one scoreboard. But this seems to be the key piece in discipline for. It has to feel like a high stakes game. It can't feel like, oh, guys, I know everyone's so busy. I hate to pull you offline for this,

but, you know, we all agreed. No, no. Like the good ones, and we saw it. We saw this. We didn't figure it out. The good ones are like, if you miss a commitment, next week, would you call me if you can't get that done? High stakes game.

Very important part. I'm glad you mentioned that. I got a question for one of my friends, Charlie McMan, who's actually been on this podcast, and he's implemented, he leads a church. Oh, yeah, we get a fair amount of play there.

Volunteers, leading volunteer organizations seem to go to this methodology. So one of his question to me when I told him we were going to be talking was about optimization. And I thought this is a good question. And I wanted to ask a form because I think it not only would help him, but to help everybody. What are some of the obstacles to reaching optimization? Meaning, is there a story or an example you can think of about playing with lead and lag measures to finally get to optimization? You can think of where this question came from, someone who's been very successful to build something that was basically less than 50. people to now more than 5,000 on a weekend over the past 20 years, which is, it's an incredible story.

But I'm curious for that specific part, what do you think about that? Yeah, this is actually, we characterize wildly important goals into two categories. We call this is not in the book, this version. We call perform and transform. Perform are those where we're working on something, but we're trying to optimize it. transform is where we've got to pivot and we've got to go after something new. So in that perform area, optimization seems to be very tightly wed to consistency.

All right. And it's much more a byproduct of consistency than greatness. We know what works. Do we follow it? Do we do it? And what lead measures, allow you to do is to lock down elements of a process. Now, there might be 14 steps in the way that they welcome new people to church. But they don't get to track 14. They get to track two.

And so what you're doing is you're anchoring the process at two points. There's a handoff where, you know, the greeters really work with the, you know, the age appropriate ministers. I'm making this up, right? And how we make that handoff, we're going to measure that. And we're going to measure something else. And then if I can, this is a little rule that we made up and it seems to work. If we can meet a particular lead measure, achieve it for 14 weeks in a row without a slip up. You slip up, you start over. At 14 weeks, we're calling it a habit. And we're saying you're getting that one for free. You don't need to put a spot. spotlight on that. You don't need to measure it. Go chase something else with that. 20% of the energy

you can steal. And so optimizers, if they look at, they think and process, and they start anchoring and locking the most important parts of the process. In manufacturing, they understand us. There was a manufacturer that showed us how to use lead measures on process metrics in order to, in order to drive outcomes. Fascinating, man. We could go on forever. It makes sense. It did. It did. Yeah. I mean, I really, Chris, appreciate your investment of time here today. And I think we're certainly going to have. I'm a sucker for this. At least around to.

I know, I know. So I want to be mindful of that and respectful. So I really appreciate it, man. This has been, uh, absolutely. Where would you send my listeners to learn more about you online? Oh, that's great. Okay. So the Franklin Covey website has all of the goodies.

Or you can go to Chris McChesney. at 4DX.com. If somebody wants to get in touch with me directly or, you know, is interested in working directly with me or with Franklin Covey, either one. Or hit me on LinkedIn. If you've got a question, I like talking to people on LinkedIn. I'll do that. Okay.

Cool. Well, thank you once again for being here. You're an awesome host, Ryan. You really got me forgetting that I was on a talk show or a podcast. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I certainly want to continue our dialogue as we both progress because we're always learning, growing, iterating, getting better. And I know your wisdom is much needed for all of us to hear.

So thank you so much for being here, man. Love what you're doing, Ryan. Thank you so much, brother. All right. Thanks. Thanks. Wow. What an energetic, thoughtful, kind, and giving leader.

I thoroughly enjoyed that conversation with Chris. I hope you did as well. A few notable quotes that stood. out to me work outside your job description but within your influence and don't fall in love with a solution fall in love with a problem be the person who's proactively out there looking for areas that need improvement run towards them and be the person to lead that effort if you care to make something happen within your career that is the mindset to take and Chris is a living example of that.

Then sometimes in life, our challenges are really hidden opportunities. Fascinating part of the conversation. So think about the moments or aspects of your life that feel like challenges and how your mind could rethink those into becoming opportunities. We all have these. What are they for you? shifting your mind will make a dramatic impact just as when Paul gave that feedback to Chris that people liked him but didn't necessarily like working with him and it also shared to me

why that's so critical to have people in your life to give you honest direct specific feedback and we all need those types of people I again I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did if so, I would love it. If you would tell a friend or two, perhaps one that has never listened to the Learning Leader Show. This one with Chris Mchesney will really help you execute on your strategy.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Talk with you next week. Can't wait. Thank you, man. That's the first time that I can remember doing one of these

where I forgot that we were doing four disciplines. Like I totally like, you brought it back up. I'm like, oh crap, we haven't done that yet. Like you got me so into the, topics that that was I don't know what your magic is but I can see why you've been doing this for five years that was that was really fun Ryan thank you I appreciate it I appreciate you uh being willing

to go off because I didn't I have a bunch of notes and it's almost all on four disciplines but I also after seeing your videos and watching you I thought this guy there's there's more to him than just because you know when you read a book you see written words you don't get to necessarily feel the personality and I know it wasn't just you um it was team so you so you don't fully feel it, but then I was watching, I said, no, this, there's a lot more to Chris that I want to get into. And I'm really glad we got there because some of that life slash career advice, that's good for all of us, man. I'm like, we all need that. And that was really good stuff, really useful and not just fluffy, like feel good, but no, no, like, you're going to have to put in some more. You got to go towards the hard things. And that's not always fun to hear. And it's definitely not always fun to do, but we need to hear it. So I appreciate you saying that.

Thanks, Ryan. I think you and I share a love of character and leadership. Yeah. And it's, it's, you know, I can tell you're, you've been bounced these ideas around a long time. Would you do me a favor? Would you send me the link for this? Of course. Because Nick, who, who, you know, manages me, you'll get people and they'll, they always want to say, hey, send us a good podcast. And I'd love, I'd love to use this one just because it's not the standard 40x podcast. Perfect. I'll make sure once we get it all. I add an intro and an outro and all that with my editor. We'll put that together and then I'll shoot it off to you as soon as it's ready to roll. Anytime on any topic, it would be my pleasure. Thank you, Ryan.

I promise. I'll be following up with you because there'll be more talks to be had. There's a lot there. I love it. Okay. You own that. All right. Anytime. Thanks, Chris. Okay.