The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 426: McKeel Hagerty - Life & Leadership Without Boundaries

Episode Date: July 4, 2021

Text LEARNERS to 44222 for more Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12  https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 McKeel Hagerty is the CEO of Hagerty. Hagerty is an American automotive lifestyle and membership company and the world's largest provider of specialty insurance for classic vehicles. He is the former Chair of Young President's Organization (YPO). YPO is a global leadership community of extraordinary chief executives — more than 30,000 members from 142 countries. McKeel is also a Co-Founder and General Partner at Grand Rapids, Michigan-based venture capital firm Grand Ventures. Notes: Arete is a concept in ancient Greek thought that, in its most basic sense, refers to "excellence" of any kind. This meaning was related to the idea of the fulfillment of purpose or function, the act of living up to one's full potential.  In his early twenties, Mckeel planned to be a Russian Orthodox priest. He earned his master's degree in theology from Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary in Yonkers, New York. Why McKeel tracks everything: "I noticed that people who accomplished a lot kept track of their life." He tracks: sleep, exercise, diet, goals, and more Think, "What am I trying to do?" "We are in the golden age of habit formation." "The best leaders are constantly looking for better ways to do things." "Intrinsic motivation is imperative for happiness." "I'm inspired by what I see in others." -- The spirit of the craftsman In 1999, Hagerty had 35 employees... They now have 1,600. The lightning bolt moment - McKeel went to a YPO branding conference at Nike. And learned about how Nike viewed branding. "Nike is the spirit of the sport." -- Think more like a club than a company. McKeel created a membership organization and media brand as part of his business. Leadership "Must-Haves" Growth mindset - you are not a finished product "I don't believe in work-life balance. You get life." Curiosity in the interview process They need to understand what they will need to learn along the way The power of YPO: 30,000 members It's operational leaders doing work with people It's a wholistic view of life The Learning Leader Show is tightly in line with YPO In 2016, McKeel was elected Chairman Keys to a great YPO group: Holistic leaders (business, personal, family) Egos checked at the door Vulnerability and generosity are the keys to breakthrough leaders McKeel has interviewed some of the world's most notable leaders (Hillary Clinton, Sheikh Mohamed of Dubai, Paul Kagame, Prime Minister Lee of Singapore) His writing practice: General Eisenhower would sit alone and write out his thoughts... Ask yourself, "What's the narrative here?" Write summaries of what you learn from books, podcasts, videos, articles...

I believe in my art of hearts and as I've come to discover is that the people who are happiest with success are the ones that are more intrinsically motivated rather than through outward signs of that success. That being said, we're often inspired by what you see in others. The idea of somebody who has signs of outward success often inspire us on our way. I think it's this balance of recognizing that you do need to be inspired sometimes by others. And in fact, I would suggest that the best leaders who are out there who have lots of gifts, and are living in this path of excellence is that they have an obligation to go out there and show people kind of how to get better in their lives, not to lord it over them, but to inspire. Imagine how your leadership would transform if you didn't have to worry about reading every

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That's Trisha Shortino's book, Rise Up and Lead Well Today. Text Leader to 55123. Welcome to The Learning Leader Show, presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 44222 to become part of Mind. mindful Monday. You along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world will receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right.

You'll also receive details about how my book, Welcome to Management will help you become a more effective leader. Text learners to 4422. Now on to tonight's featured leader, my friend McKeel Haggertie. He's the CEO of Haggerty was formerly the chair of young president's organization, also known as YPO. When he took over as CEO of the family business in 1995, Haggerty was a 30-person insurance agency. Today, they have grown to more than 1,600 employees and have expanded to many additional industries beyond rare insurance. McKeel is a remarkable leader. A few of the topics we discussed. what excellence means to him and me, why we value it, and why we think you should too,

as well as the concept of adity and what that means for you and your business. And then he shares his unique definition of success. I think it could make you rethink how you view it too. And then McKeel describes in detail the two must have qualities in someone he calls a breakthrough leader. Ladies and gentlemen, I know you're going to enjoy this one. It's the great McKeel Haggerty. McKeel, man.

It's so good to see you. Welcome, finally, to the Learning Leader Show. Long time coming. Well, it's great to be here. I've admired what you do for years. And so today is an honor, a thrill. Well, I want to go back to the first time we met in person. So I was asked to speak at a YPO of

in Michigan. And I went up there and so many amazing people I met. I remember the first time, I think it was within the first 10 to 15 seconds of us talking. You started talking about, and I may pronounce it wrong, but Arate or Aratee, as I heard of the word. A-R-E-T-E-T-E. And what that means, and I wrote about this in my book, Welcome to Management, but what it means is this concept in ancient Greek thought that in its most basic sense it refers to excellence of any kind. And to me, this meeting was related to the idea of the fulfillment of purpose or function, the act of living up to one's potential. And when that was the first thing you said to me, I've never heard anyone else say that.

Other than Charlie McMahan, who has been on this show, he said it as a pastor during one of his sermons, which was awesome. And that's actually where I first heard of it. But other than that, I've never heard anyone say it. And this is within the first 15 seconds. So talk to me about that concept and why it's so important to you and why you brought it up in our very first 10, 15 seconds of meeting. Well, you know, I've listened to so many of your shows that you have been my companion on countless runs and walks and travels around the world. And I love how you ask the question about excellence, you know, to business leaders, to, you know, leaders of all types.

And I have this, you know, kind of unusual educational background for a, for a business leader today, which is, you know, after study philosophy and literature and college, I went to seminary. I, you know, started my doctoral work in ancient philosophy that I did not complete because I got into the business that I'm in is that my mind often goes to kind of ancient, more like timeless ideas when I think of how to make decisions in life and in business. And that, that concept of, of Aditi excellence is so resonant in ancient Greek thought and it I think it really valid today. And there are others, you know, human flourishing and all sorts of things that maybe we'll talk about. But I just wanted to ask you because I'm fascinated by it. And I think I live by it. And I admire people who live by that idea of excellence and fulfilling their potential. Well, we had an incredible dinner that night. And then we promised to keep in touch, which we have. And I remember one of our calls, I believe this was a video call we did on Zoom. You shared with me this, I think it's done in Excel.

You use Excel. So can you share more about you basically track everything and then some when it comes to your life? What is the Excel sheet of your life and why do you track so much of your behaviors and actions each day? Well, they're kind of two parts of it. One is, you know, my, my observation of really high performing people that I admired who had come from one place and really gone to a whole new level is that they tend to write stuff down. They're pretty intentional about writing out usually with their own hand, just things that matter to them, goals, objectives, you know, be hags, all that stuff. And I have two. I have for a long time. But accountability is a big other part of it, which is, you know, it's one thing to write things down. But, and, and even put them into action, but are you willing to, are you willing to track progress? Are you willing to sustain that progress over long periods of time? Because, you know, that idea of, you know, excellence and just living to your potential, you're going to have a lot of bumps. You're going to have my observation of really high performing people is you're going to have long

periods where you don't feel like you're making a lot of progress. And so sustaining that self kind of audit on a daily basis has met important. So I think it was 2009. I started keeping this really simple spreadsheet and I am not any kind of spreadsheet wonk but it was like literally you know January 1 to December 31st every year and I have a tab for every year since then and I've added a lot to it through the years but it starts with okay first of all I travel a lot where are you where are you home or not because I wanted to kind of hold myself accountable you know if I was traveling too much and then it was you know quality of sleep my my physical exercise what I was eating and drinking and then goals and then and then more like kind of a rating system of okay how'd I

do today and and then also some gratitude or there were some things that I felt like I needed to call out and and through the years it's been phenomenal because when I write stuff down and when I track it and I show it to people I show it all to my wife I show it to some of my IPO friends just to make sure I'm you know holding myself accountable it's amazing not only the patterns you see but just you know, creating great new habits, you know, reaching goals that you never thought were possible, all of that stuff. So, you know, we're in the growth, in the spirit of growth mindset, we're not a finished project, a finished product. So what are you going to do? How are you going to get yourself to where you really want to go? And to me, it's worked pretty well.

So it's really along the lines of what gets measured, gets managed that's spoken in the business world and for what I've seen with you, it seems that you've taken that a step further, that that's what you do for your life. And you believe that in order for you to hold yourself accountable, in order for you to continually work to improve, you need to track it to hold yourself accountable. Is it right? Well, absolutely. And it's not, you know, people are like, oh my gosh, that sounds like a lot of work. Well, you know, maybe the first year, you know, I spent a couple of hours on it, but it doesn't take more than two minutes a day to do. It's more. It's more. just, you know, I spend a lot of time thinking about, okay, what, what am I trying to do for the next

year of my life? And I kind of have two different cycles of planning for my personal life. I plan it on my birthday. And I want to have my kind of personal planning ready for my birthday because, you know, that's an arbitrary number two. But it's like, okay, well, I'm 53. So this is my 54th year of my life. What do I want to, what I'm standing there on December 31st? What do I want to have accomplished? And what habits do I want to have built in and did I hold myself accountable to it. So absolutely, you measure it. And it really doesn't take much. I have a really good friend of mine, Andy Bailey, another really disciplined guy who, you know, he just writes his down and like a school teacher's kind of planner for the week. And he has a little code system. He just writes

his by hand. You don't have to do it on a spreadsheet. It's just, you know, write stuff down and keep track. Pretty simple. Where do you think that comes from? Is that something within your upbringing? Did you learn that through reading? What was it to say I need to, this is how I'm going to hold myself accountable. The reason I'm really thinking on this, McKeel, is because I just think, I mean, I've seen what you've been able to accomplish and we're going to get to a lot of that. And I like to deconstruct and distill down the essence of that excellence. And I think for you, this is a really big component to it. Well, thanks. You know, I think I learned it. You know, I had a great upbringing in a small town in northern, northern Michigan, Trevor City,

great family, you know, entrepreneurs. I had this entrepreneurial drive. But, you know, I think you, I think the best, best leaders, you know, the people that lived according to excellence are constantly looking for better ways of doing things. You know, they don't get themselves locked into just one way of thinking. And I just started, I started discovering that there are these groups of people that seem to accomplish an awful lot more. They used their time better. They tended to be pretty happy and positive. They just got a lot done. And they didn't seem completely stressed out about it. And so I started learning about these disciplines. And of course, You know, you've talked to more of these people than I have.

We kind of live in this golden age of habit formation right now. You know, you think of, I think of all the great books. The one that first triggered, you know, this for me was, was Darren Hardy's, the compound effect. And then, you know, all the way up to, I think James Clear's, you know, work on atomic habits is genius, you know, which is, here's how you build cool stuff in your life. Here's how you maybe eliminate some of the things you're not that aren't serving you well, you know, because habits can be good and bad. Some serve you well. some don't. And so my view was as I learned about it, I'm like, oh my goodness, I can I can build this stuff into my life without just being a robotic freak about it and, and just accomplish more than I

ever thought possible, you know, which is don't, don't bound yourself. I mean, I think, and I've written and talked a lot about this idea of kind of this boundless leader who breaks through boundaries because most boundaries are self-imposed. Well, I can never do that. I don't have the background to do that. So, well, why not? Let's make it happen. Let's find somebody who can help get you there. You've talked about redefining the true nature of success in the modern world. And I love to get tactical on that for how you think about that and the advice you give to others because this one's tough. I remember my friend Jason Gaynard saying, you know, what I really realized that was doing something wrong is I was trying to impress a bunch of people who didn't matter. And when I stopped doing that, my life changed.

And I'm not trying to get too woo-woo or weird, but you know what I mean? I think this is a big deal of trying to define the true nature of what success is for you, especially now in a world where there is constant social media, constant look at me, let's pose in front of whatever. How do you define this and how have you gotten to the point to where you feel like you've gotten more clear on what this means for you. Well, there are a couple of maybe dimensions of it and pieces of it are almost a dilemma, right, which is I believe in my art of hearts and as I've come to discover is that, you know,

the people who are happiest with, you know, with success are the ones that are more intrinsically motivated rather than through outward, you know, signs of that success. They're just, you know, whether it's a, you know, musician who performs at a really high level, who works in nonprofit or missionary work, you know, whether it's a business leader that just is beloved by their teams because the way they mentor them, you know, they don't have to be the richest person or the most visible or successful person, but there's just, there's a lot of intrinsic value and motivation to it. And I do believe that that's true. That being said, we're often inspired by what you see in others. And, you know, the idea of somebody who has

signs about word success often inspire us on our way. And so I don't think it's, I think it's this balance of recognizing that you do need to, and you do need to be inspired sometimes by others. And in fact, I would suggest that the best leaders who are out there who have lots of gifts and are living in this, you know, very path of, this kind of path of excellence is that they have an obligation to go out there and show people kind of how to get better in their lives, not to lord it over them, but to inspire. So it's a dilemma of, you know, how do you balance that idea of, you know, intrinsic reward and getting better and better and better? And knowing that, you know, the deepest success, only you will know about.

I've been a very amateur musician most of my life. And I think I'm a good music fan and a hack around on the guitar here in my office, I'm virtually every day. And it's horrific. So why I don't play in public? But, you know, when you talk about like really great musicians or something like that and, you know, people will hear them perform. and say that was just the most brilliant thing I've ever heard, but for them, only they know whether they were really performing at their best that day. Because they're tiny little nuances to how they were feeling the music or little, you know, aspects to it. And that is true in

everything. Any kind of, you know, that spirit of the craftsmen, you know, who build something or, you know, does great work in the business or in philanthropic fields. Like in the end, when they're really hitting their stride. It's only they know whether they're truly successful. And that's fine. That's totally fine. You hinted at this. Your early 20s, you said you were sure you were going to be a Russian Orthodox priest. And you even earned your master's degree in theology from St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary in Yonkers, New York. And then you said, but another path called. What's going through your mind through that stage of your life and what made you want to do that? And then And what was the other path that called?

Well, thank you. It's a fascinating part of my history. And it's one I'm truly grateful for. I was an entrepreneur when I was very young. I started my first business when I was 13, which was, believe it or not, an apple orchard. And I learned a lot about business, not the least of which is it's hard to make money growing apples. And I figured I'd study business when I got to college. But when I showed up the day to register for my classes, all the business classes were full.

So I that day became an English literature major and just fell in love with kind of this, the life of mind and the idea that there were these great thinkers and great writers that I could encounter in an almost personal way by reading and studying them. So it was really a great awakening for me. And I just, you know, I just gobbled it up. So, you know, became this, you know, English philosophy major. I was a good, I was a really good student, went to Pepper 9 University. And I knew I probably wanted to get my doctorate in somebody because I was just convinced. is I'm going to be a professor. I'm going to be a teacher and I want to live this way. And but what I really wanted to study was hard. And I, I had a mentor, teacher, a professor,

friend of mine who said, well, you've been kind of coming to church with me. He was Russian Orthodox. I know you like Russian literature. You like that whole kind of intellectual tradition. There's a, why don't you, you know, why don't you join the church and go to seminary in New York? And it just, it had never occurred to me. And I love to that community and fell in love with that faith tradition, very rich, you know, fragrant, traditional, definitely conservative by any kind of modern standards, but the seminary life was very disciplined, the way I live my life. It's up in the morning early and late at night and you know, you're working all day. And but what I really, I just set all of what I just set aside and realized one thing,

a seminary in that setting is actually a leadership school. It's a school that sends, you know, trains up leaders to go out and lead a community in whatever faith tradition people are part of. And so suddenly I'm like, aha, this is kind of interesting. You know, these aren't just, you know, religious people or scholars, a very scholarly environment. These are leaders. And in fact, when I realized like, oh, my goodness, a church was one of the first global organizations and that they had this great way of replicating their messages and leadership. And I realized, hmm, okay, maybe being a priest isn't for me, but I'm fascinated. fascinated by what I learned. But, you know, I'm a closer, so I decided to go to, you know, start

doctoral studies in Boston. And then I just suddenly realized, oh, my goodness, you know, the academic life is just, I could do it. It'd be fine, wanted to finish. But the audiences are very small, you know, spending years and years and years writing books that very few, if any, people would ever read, you know, just to get published. It was just not attractive to me. And I realized that, Yes, I like the life of mind. And I like learning, but I didn't need any more education to fulfill my needs. And my family had this business in this kind of niche insurance space. And I said, you know, maybe I'll take a couple years off and go work in the business

and figure out what I really want to do and engage with bigger audiences than I was thinking I needed to engage with. And so I did something very unusual for me. I quit. I quit that whole line of my life. and I went back and started working the family business and took it over a couple years later. And I just love it. I'm still a little bit like Jim Collins described. I'm kind of like a self-employed professor learner, but I run this, you know, nice business and I've been able to do some great things. And I just, I love it. I love the way it's all worked out. So where was Haggerty when you

took over and what year was it? Well, you know, I came back in 1995. The business started in the early 80s and talk about a niche. My parents, this was a second business for them. They started up in this space of insurance for wooden boats, if you can imagine. Classic wooden boats. Can you imagine a smaller niche? My dad and mom had an insurance business that they sold. And they started this because it was it was national rather than local. It was specifically focused on this very passionate group of boat owners. And so what it meant was that while small, the financial, you know, stream of income was very steady. And by the time I got back there, we were also, we were a boat family, we were also a vintage car family. My sisters and I were

kind of lightly involved in this classic car side of the business, kind of two sides of it. And I said, wait a minute, I started thinking about it. This could actually be a pretty good size business if we really threw ourselves at it. And I actually remember the day. I was in a Plato class in Boston and we were reading Plato's Republic and I used to take notes in a certain way. I'd write class notes on one side of the page and then on the empty side of the page on the left, I'd write like other things I was thinking about. And I came up with this whole idea of what if we actually didn't talk about insurance? What if we just treated this more like a club of people of common interests? And I literally closed my notebook. It was like a lightning strike. I

I closed my notebook and got up and walked out of class and the rest is history. Wow. So in 95 you started and you took over a few years later? Yeah, 97 and then like fully really engaged in it in 1999, which also happened to be the year I started learning about YPO and that's when I poured rocket fuel on my life. So wow. And YPO, so young president's organization is what YPO stands for. and that's that's how we we've come to know each other right um so i want to i'm going to oscillate

back and forth between agriety and my IPO because they were going on at the same time so you become you're you're running the show now at the family business how many how many employees have at the time and i think we when i started it was when i came back we started we were 35 40 employees and you know now we have 1600 and are operating a lot of countries and hiring 500 more in the next year. So, we're doing so. So obviously some, some massive growth since you've taken over what, and this, this probably could take forever, but what are, what are a few of the keys of what's happened over the past 20 years to go from a 35 person small business to now this global enterprise? Well, it's been, it's been interesting. And I, you know, I go to a lot of my,

my learning, which is I think my kind of unusual approach to business is that I go to human need rather than to financial need. And I think so many businesses, we go, we go out and we get ourselves in way too competitive of a mindset. You know, you find your market and you're making your products or doing what you need to do and you just get locked in these competitive battles rather than to say, okay, what are the human needs that I'm really trying to fulfill here? and how could I create unique value and that could be significantly different than what people had thought before. And so my approach to business is often, it's like I call it kind of the peeling of the onion

approach. It's not this graph and chart model of, hey, let's go from X percentage of growth to the next percentage of growth. It's how can we peel this onion and go down a deeper layer so we can better engage with people who have these needs. And in my case, it was this. I didn't have to invent cool cars and I didn't have to invent people's love for it. I just had to tap into that love for cars and give them stuff that they really wanted

kind of better than anybody else. And every single year, Ryan, ever since I've been kind of on this path, like right in front of my eyes when I think I really know what I do and we've been far away in the leader in our space for a long time. I'm like, oh my gosh, there's another thing we could do. There's a deeper understanding that I could tap into. So it's really been this idea of discovery, you know, tapping into a niche for all of your listeners out there who are interested in niche businesses, it's a great way to go because, you know, it's like Blue Ocean versus Red Ocean strategy, you know, go where other people aren't. But I strongly, you know, recommend that idea of, you know, go where there's human desire.

And in my case, like real passion because people who love cars, they love cars. They are not trying to figure out how to spend less money on it next year. They're trying to figure out how to make more money so they can spend more on it. And that's what we feed. And it started with insurance and now it's events and storage and media and all sorts of. I was going to ask you. So there had to be inflection points along the way where you realized we're not just insuring wooden boats. Now we're going to insure these classic cars.

So can you maybe pick one or two that were big, big steep growth moments for your company when you had an idea? You decided to tap into that idea to really go. beyond what you, because you could have just stayed and been really good at what you've done. And I think I feel like you've done that and also been an and business. And we do this. And we do this. Kind of like improv training, right? And they're constantly adding on. Can you maybe pick an example or two that were really big growth years or growth moments for the company because of an idea?

And then you executed on the idea. Because that's, you know, we're talking a lot about thinking and philosophy. But at the end of the day, your business and you're not, you're not going to grow like you have without the execution part of it. That's critical. So you've gone from idea to execution regularly throughout the past couple of decades. So I'd love to hear some examples there. Yeah.

My joke is whenever people point to technology examples is like, you know, just remember, the mouse and the graphical user interface was invented by Xerox. It's, you know, it was Apple that executed on the. idea so you don't have to be just a big generator of ideas it's it's how do you connect ideas and action and there was another there was kind of my set i had the second lightning bolt experience in my life is yPO i think it was 2004 five maybe i was at a yPO branding conference at the nikey headquarters up in oregon and you know you walk in there you've got this of course relative to nike small business and you're just blown away by this you know incredible campus and

you know all these pictures of amazing athletes everywhere and the first thing that they did is because we were meeting a bunch of the top executives is they played the sizzle reel, right, of videos of all of their incredible sponsored athletes. And it was at the time, you know, it was, you know, Michael Jordan and, you know, Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong. I get it, you know, we have, Lance became controversial. But like, and I was a cyclist. And I just remember like, whoa, you know, just like music and rock and roll and all these visuals.

And you're, you're impressed. But then you're kind of intimidated because, you know, smaller business, you're like, well, I could never have Tiger Woods working for me. I could never do any of those things. You just kind of, you feel small sometimes in the face of those big companies. And, but it was like day two of this conference. And they were talking about some kind of, you know, like how they engage young people in high school sports and, you know, connect them with the Nike brand. And there was this phrase of, I don't, we don't have to have a sponsored athlete or our logos everywhere.

Nike is about the spirit of the sport. And as long as we tap into that, we won't. And it was again, this reinforcing idea that if we thought more like a club and less like this company trying to sell stuff to people, we'd win. So I went back and finally once and for all truly started and created a membership organization. So we now lead first with this idea, you join us. You join us. You get subscription benefits.

I knew we'd have to master media along the way. So for us, that meant becoming a master of automotive media, which is a huge space. right, lots of magazines and TV shows and, you know, now digital. And so I knew like, okay, if we're really going to be like a membership organization, like they're all of these domains that we're going to have to do the yes and and add them on to our world. So now, I mean, our magazine, Hagridi Drivers Club is the third highest circulation car magazine of any kind, not niche specialty magazine of any kind. You know, we have 1.6 million YouTube subscribers growing 100,000 a month. And trust me, there is no talk.

of insurance in there. It is about the love of cars and great, you know, celebrities talking about cool stuff around the car world. And it just kind of goes from there. So for me, it was, you know, another layer of the onion gets peeled. I had to have, you know, that lightning strike at Nike. And, you know, there's just, I think a lot of things that people can learn. We get just way too wrapped up in competition and less in creation. And so for me, I'm grateful for those experiences. And you've, we've talked about Jim Collins. It's a guy that you and I have talked about quite a bit. And he's all about your who. And I, I'm curious, as you're growing from, again, a small family business to this large enterprise, what was the, what's your process like for

hiring leaders or promoting leaders within your business? Because to me, I think it's important to really analyze and think about some of the must-have qualities in people in order to be a leader at Haggerty. And maybe some of the YPO stuff comes in here too. But I'm curious for you, McKeo, when you think about these are some of the must-haves and people that are going to be with me on this leadership path. Yeah. Well, you know, when you have a smaller business and you're just trying to survive or, you know,

withstand things like, you know, pandemics, it can feel really hard to be, I think. idealistic about the people that you hire, but I over and over and over again, and I do a lot of mentoring of, you know, venture stage startups and things is like, you know, the best day to start thinking about your, what your culture and what your business stands for for the people who work there was yesterday, but the second best day is today. So let's get started. And I think from the beginning, we've always had a very strong human oriented culture, but you don't define that on the first day of your existence. For us, I think this idea of the growth mindset really works. You know, every, single person who works at haggerty gets carol dweck's book uh mindset and you know we talk a lot about we've we call it haggartized it you know we take great ideas and we haggartize them you know turn them into kind of our own branding and our own fusion versions but this idea that you know you're not a finished product we want you to learn and grow with us along the way and we're very grateful that you're willing to spend part of your life with us you know doing work for us getting paid for it but you know work with us now what tools do we need to do um to do um to

to help you grow along the way. I talk, I speak often about this idea that I don't believe in work life balance. I think you get life. And some of life you're paid for, some of life you pay for. And as businesses have had to play a bigger role in people's lives as things like church attendance and other things have gone down, it's really important that well-run companies recognize. We play a big role in people's lives and we need to help people on their journey.

So to the point of the types of people that come into our world, hey, I love people who bring great experience to us, but, you know, we're growing at, you know, 15, 18% organically per year. And, you know, I'm more of a verbal person than the math person, but that means we're going to double the size of the company every few years. And if you're not growing yourself in that sort of 15 or 18% per year, you're probably not going to be very useful to us in a few years. So I really challenge, I want to give people tools, which they have to get on this growth path if they want to be along for the ride long term. And I think it just changes. just the way you deal with people when you talk that way. And it's probably strange for some,

but I don't care. That's how we do it. When you're when you're interviewing people, not we're going to talk about the YPO time as your as YPO chair, but when you're interviewing people to work for you, I don't know what you. I'm guessing we're going to be aligned, but we'll see. Maybe not. To me, almost regardless of the role, and most of my time was spent entering people in a sales role, but I still think this matters. job agnostic. I found when the person that I'm interviewing would have the confidence and the curiosity to ask me questions about the company, the role, me throughout, when then you go back

and track their performance and their fulfillment and their happiness and everything they've able to accomplish, which I try to keep good track of that, those people seem to be up here in comparison to anybody else where they approach it with curiosity because those curious types are the ones that are going to figure things out that certainly have a growth type mindset that believe that they can get better. And so I've sensed that to be one key differentiator in my interviewing when hiring. I'm curious if that's something that you pick up on or if there's other things through the interview process that you really like that have led them to then do an excellent job when they're in the role. Oh, you are.

spot on i couldn't agree more is and and i think it goes back to that idea of adity excellence right which is you know growth mindset however you want to define it is that natural curiosity is critical for anybody to be successful and you know as i said if i if i'm defining my business as a growth company and the growth isn't just about you know people in process and the financial growth but about human growth within it and that includes learning it includes you know willingness to go out and do do new things, start new whole businesses along the way. Yeah, it starts with, are they willing to walk in? And, you know, when I interview somebody and ask their, you know, future leader, real questions. And we'll end up with a real dialogue, right, back and forth. You know, I often

try to ask questions along the lines of, okay, let's envision, I have you leading something. And let's let's just paint a picture here, wild success of what that leadership looks like. Well, what are you going to have to learn along the way to make? make that success possible. What will you need to learn? What do you not know today? Because I can guarantee you, none of us know it, but what do you need to learn to make that wild success possible?

I think this idea, I'd have always rather envision wild success and then work backwards. And it sounds strange for somebody who runs a business that deep down underneath, we do a lot of insurance. But I just don't think, I don't start with risk. I envision wild success and go from there. And you can tell people right up front who want to attach to that kind of work. And it is work every day, every year. I love that. You define it and then work

your way back as to and use that critical phrase like, what do you need to learn? That's a great question. Now, in a similar vein, but a little different, you're the chair of YPO. I was. I was. I'm sorry. You were the chair of YPO. Can you first explain the massive responsibility that that role is? And well, you know, YPO, it was called Young Presidents' organization. you know, it's a, it's a group of CEOs, presidents and CEOs. It started in 1950. It's a chapter organization with a presence in over 100 countries, 30,000 members. And the members are, you have to have a certain threshold of employees and revenue. And I don't remember if it's like 14 million in revenue and more than 50 employees. And so it was started with the idea that all of the members

aren't just like financial leaders. They have to, they're operational leaders doing stuff with people and you know the the when you join you join a chapter and then you get into these forum groups which maybe we can talk about separately that are really powerful and i know you've encountered some other members who've described that um but it's it's not just about financial success at that point it's about this holistic view of life which is and we we talk about as business personal family all of it's on the table you know when you're in yPO you're going to be dealing with all of them not just one even if you want to make more money great but we're going to talk about your family we're to talk about your personal life and your personal growth. So really attracted to to it. I think your

podcast, you know, the learning leader show is like kind of very tightly aligned with the DNA of the best YPOers I've met around the world. So for me, this was the rocket fuel in my career. You know, I had lots and lots of education, lots in learning, but I didn't have a business education. And I just had it, you know, when I was younger, I just, I was done with school. I could not imagine going back and getting an MBA. So I knew I needed to learn and I could learn best. from learning from other great successful people. And YPO just gave me that exposure to, you know, amazing people living this very broad view of success,

excellence in so many ways. I was good at it. I liked being a member. I got into kind of chapter leadership and then kind of regional leadership. And then I got on the International Board of Directors. And then in 2016, I was elected chairman, which was an incredible honor.

It's people ask how you can, how you get that job. And I'm like, you know, for one thing, we're going to have to have a few drinks for me to ever explain that piece. But it's like kind of going through in high of a needle. Incredible honors elected in Osaka, Japan in 2016. And it was just this incredible journey of kind of being an ambassador to this style of leadership, you know, learning leaders, trying to live an excellent life and traveled

all around the world and met all sorts of heads of state. And my goodness, it was an incredible ride. And then you kind of have an after year. So for me, 20, you know, in the 2017, 2018. And I still do some things with YPO at a strategic level and just still write about my experiences and know and have friends all over the world. When you said, you said, I was good at it. What does it mean to be good at? No, I'm serious.

Because I think this is like from a community building perspective, people who are joining groups. Like I, the forums are, I think similar to kind of how I run. leadership circles because we become, especially as now my first group is multiple years into this, we become so close and had some of those meetings where you really get to know people on a deep level. So when you say you were good at it, because I'm curious like, how do you be a good member? This doesn't only apply to YPO. This applies to any type of organization that you're going to be a part of that you'd like to lead, a team.

So how would you define being good at it? Well, one thing that YPO does when you get in and you get in that forum experience is it requires you to be vulnerable personally. And I've become a huge proponent of the fact if you want to be a leader in anything, you want to be a good friend. You have to be willing to be vulnerable. You have to be willing, you know, you don't have to just, you know, bring the Kleenex out and cry over everything. But now and then you will. Well, I think relationships, I've learned this too, McKeel, relationships move at the speed of, vulnerability. They really do. I love that. If I think about my best,

deepest friendships, it's, it's they, they've moved at that speed. And it takes both people. If it's a one-on-one or in a group, it takes everybody. But I think that, that aspect of it is if you, if you can get to that place. And as a leader, you usually starts with you. If you can get there and you go first, man, I mean, it is pretty cool what can happen. You lead with vulnerability, right? I mean, amen. brother, that's the magic formula. And, you know, I, I sort of envisioned WIPO back in like the 50s and 60s. It was probably a bunch of men, all men, you know, had to be strong, couldn't be vulnerable. But what forum forced them to do is be vulnerable with each other. And, you know, there's confidentiality in the WIPO forum. So anything that's said in the privacy of that forum, you know, cannot be shared, which is why I think it allowed people in that different era to be vulnerable. I think people are more comfortable. being vulnerable today, but we learn a lot from that. And I love your phrase about, you know, all relationships develop at the speed of your willingness to be vulnerable. And so that's YPO.

It's the whole person. It's vulnerability. And then I think in so many ways, it's this idea of generosity. It is not, you pay to be a member of YPO in a chapter and globally. And then you pay to go to events. And some are pretty expensive, actually. But you, what none of that happens, just because you know, you pay and therefore there's a performance in front of you or they hire speakers. It's all about how we give to each other. And so the third element, I believe in not just YPO, but in leadership is generosity. Generosity. Generosity of spirit, generosity of resources. I'm willing to open up a network to you. And I just met you today. You know, this idea of, you know, when I first came in because I had this cool automotive business and, you know, went to all these cool

car events, I'd have all these people saying, wow, I've always wanted to go to that event or I'd always wanted to see a Ferrari like that. I'm like, okay, you want to go see one right now? You want, you want to go to this great event? I'll do it. So immediately this idea of, you know, reciprocity, generosity, not expecting anything back from it is a key piece. So, you know, whole person, vulnerability and then generosity is a key piece. And I was, I think I loved that. I love the fact that you had to give to get. And the more you give, you know, kind of the more you get in this environment. So or another way we put it is like, you know, you become YPO chairman, but just keep saying yes every time somebody asks you for something until you can't say yes, one more time.

But I'd do it again in a heartbeat. And it was absolutely an amazing. As part of that job, you're on stage interviewing some of the world's most notable people. You can name some of them here. I'm curious, maybe you could share a story. or two are a few people that you've met through being on stage in front of thousands of people and it's one-on-one, you and that other person. And I'd even be curious, too, about your prep process as someone who interviews people for a living. And I know this is obviously you do too. What can you, can you take us inside some of those moments of preparing and having conversations on those stages and just meeting these people who are world leaders in most cases and what that

was like for you. Well, incredible, right? And I want to learn from you too, because you've talked to so many similar people, you know, like John Chambers. You had a great conversation with John Chambers. I did too. You know, I think as a business leader, I don't think you have a better example of someone who lives according to excellence by kind of my definition as a flourishing life and just lifts people up all around him. Just an incredible guy. But the world leadership side, you know, more like people who leading countries was definitely new to me. I did not grow up meeting, you know, presidents and prime ministers. Most people do not. And I also don't have a big interest in politics. I just, I don't, I don't care for it. I think I can do a lot more through, you know, business and other organizational

things that are of influence. But I suddenly realized, okay, well, here you go. You're going to be YPO chairman. And, you know, we have these world leaders around us. And I, I had this idea that I think the chairman should do more direct interviews of these people in front of other YPO members. So that I was a member, but I was also the chairman and I could interface with this person just as a leader. And it happened in a lot of different formats and different spots around the world. But yeah, I mean, it was pretty fascinating from a lot of Latin American leaders to, I did a fascinating interview with Hillary Clinton in New York in front of the New York chapter right after she was not elected. Wow, what was that like?

Well, how it was interesting? She was, um, you know, still pretty, uh, pretty, you know, down probably. You wouldn't have, you wouldn't have necessarily noticed it, but, you know, it was very, very much on her mind. And obviously we were all absorbing, you know, that there's very, very, maybe different, um, outcomes and people expected in that election. But she, she was amazing in, I, you know, I just said, okay, look, I'm not going to talk to you about whether you lost this election or not. And if you wouldn't mind, I just prefer not to. I want to talk to you, your leadership style. And tell us about being Secretary of State for all those years. And what's it like leading this organization. And, you know, what's fascinating is then,

you know, she traveled to 142 countries, you know, rebuilt a lot of the way the State Department worked. And I get it. There was some controversy around that. But not easy work, you know, complicated stuff, life and death. And I was terribly impressed with her answer. And then, you know, whenever she kind of go into one place or another, I would. I would say, hey, I have my friend Vinete over here from, you know, Delhi. And he wants to know what do you think the current state of India-China relations are? And she looked at me and said, McKeel, do you want me to do that in 90 seconds? And I would say 90 seconds would be just fine.

And I've never gone back to the tape to say, I bet it was like 90 seconds on the nose. But she nailed a very complicated topic. But, you know, a few of them that were really powerful for me was I became fascinated by the fact that there are these countries that are kind of like niche businesses like I run. You know, people that had created incredible value in a country, surrounded maybe in a tough neighborhood or with other challenges around it, but that had done incredible things by literally redefining how the country functions. And, you know, first was Sheikh Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai,

incredible leader. And the fact that he has built and with his amazing team of, real thinkers and workers around him, you know, this city state in the Middle East in a part of the world that, you know, maybe not all of us have thought that much about. But it's, it's tough to do very creative things there. And he did very creative things by creating that airline and liberalizing some of the social parameters that, you know, other countries hadn't around and yet being very true to his own values. Just incredible how he built this incredible shining star city in the Middle East when other people didn't think it was possible. And by the way,

brand new. I mean, that country's less than 50 years old. And there it is. Another one was Prime Minister Lee of Singapore, son of the kind of founder of Singapore, Lee Kuan You. And again, different challenges, right? City, state, not a lot of like geographic power or even economic power, but, you know, it's this incredible shining light of, you know, entrepreneurialism and safety and all the things that people talk about with Singapore. And spending a bunch of time with them was pretty fascinating because this idea of being ideologically pragmatic even when other people wouldn't let you be. And realizing that you just don't want to get real leaders don't get tied down in ideology.

Real leaders have to move forward and create a better reality without it. And then finally, an amazing interview. you again, of this kind of niche country model was President Paul Kagami of Rwanda, who literally, you know, raised an army, went back into his country and seized it back and created what some people actually referred to as the Singapore of Africa since 2000. And, you know, I don't think you could meet many leaders who took a country from a worse place where it was, it was literally on fire when he took it over. And he joked with me, said there wasn't even a paperclip left if there was a building standing. He said, it was on fire

and to not only just rebuild an economy and a society, but to get people who are enemies talking again part of the process. And I learned something from him, which is, what do you do when your country's on fire? And he said, well, you have to listen to everybody anyway. And he just said, anytime people would come and say, well, this person did that and I lost all of this. He'd say, I'm listening to you. And you are going to have your voice heard. But right now I have to do these 10 things before I get to you. Is it okay if we talk in a month or two months? And just very soft spoken, but just deliberate. And so for me, I've learned a lot in business about how you can take really difficult circumstances and create this kind of niche reality that's

super cool. And so I've learned a lot from those three leaders. You, in addition to all this cool work, you write a lot. You publish a lot. I've read a lot of them leading up to us talking. I want to talk about the craft of writing for leaders. And I've been beating this drum for a while now. But the reason is because I've found the benefits of a couple aspects of writing. One, I'm a firm believer. It creates clarity of thought. You don't fully know what you think about something until you sit down. Like, you've done these incredible interviews. And I bet you learn even more when you have to sit down and write what, write about what you've learned from these amazing. leaders and it makes you a much better speaker and communicator like you're doing right now

because you've written about all these moments in your life and two if you do publish them and put it out in public you never know what could happen you never know what person you may be attracting to your work you never know who you may meet because you're willing to do it and so this thought of both the introspective action of of gaining clarity of thought by putting pen to page or typing it out on in a word doc based on what you you've what you think you know, as well as then if you do have the guts to publish that, it may lead to relationships that could change your life. I'm curious, McKeel, for you, you obviously made this a priority. Why, why is writing so important to you and how has it

benefited you? You know, I think some of it is just, I've always kept a different version of kind of a diary or a journal. You know, to me, a journal is kind of like things that I write just over, you know, over again just to kind of get it out. A diary is sort of a, you know, description of what happened. And I do them at different times of the day. And it's been very valuable to me. But I, you know, I remember reading that about Eisenhower, President Eisenhower, General Eisenhower, general, Eisenhower before is that even when he was a general in dealing with very difficult situations, he would just sit alone and kind of write out things. And I refer to it as kind of like, okay, what's the narrative here? Like what, how do I frame this in my mind? How will I frame it for other people?

how can I better understand it by just writing it down? And what you have to realize is that, you know, 99.9% of what you do write is never going to get published. But it's going to help you get clear around your thinking as you describe. And so I do that every day. And, you know, anytime, you know, I started off earlier saying, you know, the most, the highest performing people I know, write stuff down for themselves. And then they track their progress. So it's a discipline. You'll never see me far without my notebook of I just, I write stuff down and I write and I rewrite. And I think about what's that narrative that I need to be presenting and, you know, to create clarity of thought for me. And then when I do publish something, I was envision again, it's that idea that I'm not, you know, somebody who knows more.

I just, you know, may have had an insight. And I think about myself sitting in that seat watching me do an interview or listening to me speak or reading something that I wrote, which is, what does this person need to hear from me today? And, you know, it's like my speech giving tactic. is I sit in a room when people are filing in and I just think, what does this audience need? Do they need to be uplifted? Do they need to be informed? Do I need to hammer them, which is unlikely? But that's how I approach reading and writing and just kind of thinking.

So it's all about the narrative. I remember looking at you when I was speaking in front of the group. So the way this event was set up was there was a small number of people during the pandemic. In the middle of COVID, yes. September, October. It was a big, big room with a small number of people and the majority of our guests were watching because it was being filmed like live streamed. But it does give me a lot of juice when I see people engage, especially when I see people taking notes. And we had met before and I thought, here's this dude. I think you may have flown in on a private plane or something.

I thought, this guy, he doesn't, there's nothing for him to learn from me. Like he doesn't have, there's nothing I'm going to say that he doesn't already know. And, uh, the guy to know you as well as I know you now and I thought he's you know so I hope he's at least entertained but he's probably not going to learn anything by what I'm going to say and I think you were taking like pages and pages of notes almost like trying to write when I said verbatim and it made me feel really good I just got to tell you like it made me feel really good that this guy who's so accomplished and has done what he's done and I got a sense that you felt like it was worthy of the pen to get to the page so just wanted to let you know that meant a lot

a lot to me. Well, you know, you have done an incredible job building your podcast. And, you know, many of the people that I admire as thinkers and as kind of super learners who have accumulated a lot of knowledge, you've been able to put into practice in your own thinking and in your own writing. And I, you did a, I can't remember if you published it or was in a podcast where you even like one year summarized, you know, a year of what you learned. And, you know, I'm, I'm of the understanding that, you know, for one thing, ideas stack on top of each other. You know, you and I don't have to invent a cell phone to know how to use it. You know, we don't have, I don't have to, like I said, I didn't have to invent the car to drive it. We get to just drive it.

And, you know, you didn't have to invent all the ideas that you've been able to accumulate and share with the world from the people you've interviewed, but you get to use the ideas now. I get to use those ideas. So you are, you know, you're the type of person that, you know, like I've described around my experience in YPO that, you know, you have things that are worth listening to. So, thank you. And I do have a question for you a long time. Okay. Go ahead.

So, yeah, I've interviewed all these people. You've had a bunch of great interviews in the last year, 14 months. Have you heard changes in the way people are talking about leadership or excellence or any of these things since the pandemic started? Have you noticed any emerging themes that have changed? So at the beginning? of all of this, I started doing these live shows on Zoom where we would invite a few hundred people to watch live. And I did one with John Maxwell, Pat Linschoni, Admiral William McCraven.

I think there were a few others. Oh, General McChrystal. And I think a few themes that have come out is that it's critical now to over-communicate. I I think that given, especially when you're not in person, I wrote a section in my first book that says your presence is required. And I mean your physical presence. And I've gotten a good deal of pushback from people on that because it's not possible in some cases. And I've probably learned some things about the fact that maybe your physical presence isn't it. Now, I still think we sat down and had dinner that night after that, that, that talk in Michigan.

And I feel like there's nothing that can take the place of sitting down and breaking bread and becoming friends with people. And I think we did that night. So there's still something to your presence being required in some cases to develop deep relationships. But I've learned, I think, over the over the past year or so that valuing effective communication, making sure people have vivid clarity on expectations and how they're doing. I've heard a lot of, you know, I'm not sure. I think I'm doing okay because they don't see people as much or they're not hearing as much. I think I'm doing okay. And people don't, you know, McKeel, from a leadership perspective, one of the things we try to do is to minimize uncertainty.

People would rather know bad news than not know the news. You know what I mean? That's right. That's why COVID was so hard for people because we didn't know when it was going to end. There was so much uncertainty. There's like, if you say, hey, you've got to suck it up for six months. and then at six months you can go party and do whatever you want. I think people are like, okay, we can suck it up.

We're tough. We're resilient. But the fact was we didn't know. And so I think from a clarity perspective and overcommunication seems to be what's really good. The leaders who seem to be making it happen are the ones who I think take their work really seriously, but also can joke and be humble with themselves and understand that it's not all about them.

It's really about the people. people they're serving and caring about them and being for them and being overly communicative with them so that they're certain of this is my job this is what I'm trying to do this is this is some clarity on how I'm doing at the job so that they feel they feel better I know I talked to my wife about this all the time Miranda she loves her work because she always knows exactly where she stands they're like their team her team where she works at bill com is very good at always making sure they know where they stand and she loves that and I think that's a that's something we all kind of want and good leaders need to make sure like don't assume that

people know that i think a lot of leaders we do this and i've made this mistake we assume that people no they don't like they do let make sure they know and i think that's a big thing that i picked up on over the last year how about you that's interesting yeah i would say that it's all been down a communication and even if it had to be virtual is you know how often are you communicating you know what is the content of your communication um i mean i kicked off at first doing sort of two and even three videos per week via Zoom to our whole organization. And just talking about in my very first videos to the team is we just took a few breaths together.

I said, you know, I saw people freaking out all over the place. And I just said, we're just going to take a few minutes. And I'm going to stare into this camera. We're going to take a few breaths together. And while I do have a meditation practice, I mean, it was no guided meditation. I just said, you know, based on my very amateurish understanding of, you know, neuroscience is that if, you know, when people are taking short breaths, they are not listening to you.

And if you can't get them breathing and you have important stuff to convey and you can't set them at ease enough to even listen because their brains all firing, fight or flight, you know, whatever you say is just lost. And so, you know, in a panic situation like that, for me, my perspective was, you know, just kind of breathing again. And, you know, my observation of really good leaders during this, yeah, they have communicated a lot well is also, you know, like you said, like a little bit of humor, a little bit of humility. You know, I remember I was, you know, sitting in my, my office and my

dog came in and took a big poop right over my shoulder, right in full view of the camera. And just I laughed and everybody laughed. And it was kind of a serious topic. And it's like, but kids running in and out, like I've actually, I actually think it's, it's forced people to don't put on airs, you know, leave the formality aside. I mean, I didn't wear pants for months. And I joke about it, right? You know, and you're just going to see all sorts of stuff. because, you know, I do think a leader's job in some fashion is to cheer people up and to create not blind optimism like everything's going to be great, but hope. And, you know, hope really matters because it engages with the reality that can be difficult,

but then points people forward to that we can get through this if we do a few things. So I agree. I think we've got go each other here. My friend Tom Ogburn told me from a leadership perspective has been a great mentor of mine. He says, as a leader, you can't be energy neutral. You're either adding energy to it or you're taking it away. And think about that before every time you walk into a room where you show up on Zoom with your team, whatever you may be doing, you can't be neutral.

So it's time to either like, am I going to bring it or am I going to take it away because I'm down or I'm complaining? And I think that's a critical component to leading, especially now. I think so. I mean, you just, you have to be a net gain in people's lives. And, you know, leadership management. You talk a lot about management. I've kidded you a couple times.

about that and that's okay because a lot of your listeners are great managers and really want to aspire to be incredible managers of people and processes is that idea of how you come off and that you know the energy you bring to a room even if you're a real introvert i'm believe it or not like i am you know meyers briggs i am an i n tj and i mean very introverted but i've learned how to act more in a in a more extroverted way um and i just for me it just means i got to recharge alone now and that well as if it's really annoying i go suck my thumb in the corner uh you know like oh please take this away but um you you just you you have to be willing again vulnerability right tap in show people um you know shed a tear when you need to laugh when you need to you know

make make fun of all the interesting stuff that's going on so it's just an incredible journey and i just i love hearing your learnings and you know the the conversations that you have with people have been really inspiring. Well, thank you so much, man. And thanks for doing this today. It was so good to get one on tape. I know we're going to continue talking. Is there anywhere you'd send people to learn more about you online? Well, they can go to McKeillaggarty.com. That's where I, that's where everything I've published or a lot of my speeches and recordings and things will land there. But I'm very active on LinkedIn. So if people ever want to connect, I publish stuff weekly, certainly on there and love to connect. with people, especially if it's about exchanging ideas like we've been having here.

So love it, man. And somewhere around my name, I think it's also McKeel, I agree. Love it. Love it. Well, again, obviously, thank you so much for doing this, man. We will definitely be continuing our dialogue as we both progress, as you know. Amen. You know, a lot of fun.

Keep up the great work. Thanks, man. McKeel is one of those leaders that I am grateful to be able to go to on a regular basis to ask general pieces of life advice, both were at home and at work, and he's always there to deliver the ultimate giver. And that kind of goes in line with one of the first notes that I have. I wanted to share that he doesn't believe in work-life balance. He says, you get life. And to think of the whole scope of your life in that regard, as opposed to trying to get some sort of balance that almost never quite exist. That's not usually the way it works. There

needs to be more integration with your work and your life. You just get life. And then I like talking about how to have a good community forum, which is what they do at YPO. And that's the fact that it requires you first to be vulnerable. In order for it to go well, you must be generous, help others, generous in your praise, generous in how you can help other people. You have to give in order to get, but you don't give with the intention of getting anything. And when you set up a forum or a community or a small group that way, that's how everyone can be better for having been part of it. And I've learned this through running my leadership circles as well. And then I liked when he mentioned General Eisenhower that he'd sit alone and he'd write things. And then he'd ask, what's the narrative here?

And I think all leaders would be best served to sit still and reflect and document their thoughts, how they think and how they feel. They're two separate emotions. And I think that could help you as you progress as a leader. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with McKele Haggardie as much as I did. If so, I'd love it if you would write a review on Apple Podcasts and hopefully rate the show five stars. I'd love it if you would tell a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with McKeel Higarty.

It will help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to do those things, you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.