The Ryan Hanley Show - Stop Blaming Gen Z (You're the Problem) - Selena Rezvani

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

Join our community of unreasonable leaders creating undeniable success: https://www.findingpeak.com Watch on YouTube: https://link.ryanhanley.com/youtube Is Gen Z entitled, lazy, and unmanageable? Or is your leadership playbook simply obsolete? In this explosive episode of Finding Peak, Ryan Hanley sits down with renowned leadership expert and author Selena Rezvani to dismantle the myths surrounding the modern workforce. Connect with Selena Rezvani Website: https://www.selenarezvani.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/selenarezvani LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/selenarezvani/ Book: https://amzn.to/48wD6Zp Selena argues that the friction between generations isn't a "Gen Z problem"—it's a leadership crisis. We explore why Gen Z views entrepreneurship as a career insurance policy, why they refuse to make work their entire identity, and why your attempts at control and surveillance are destined to fail. Forget everything you think you know about loyalty and motivation. This conversation provides a new framework for leading in an era of radical transparency and economic uncertainty. You'll learn the difference between "Least Generous" and "Most Generous" interpretations, why vulnerability is a leader's greatest asset, and how to build a culture of co-creation instead of compliance. If you're ready to stop complaining and start leading effectively, this episode is your wake-up call. --Recommended Tools for GrowthOpusClip: #1 AI video clipping and editing tool: https://link.ryanhanley.com/opusRiverside: HD Podcast & Video Software | Free Recording & Editing: https://link.ryanhanley.com/riversideWhisperFlow: Never waste time typing on your keyboard again: https://link.ryanhanley.com/whisperflowCaptionsApp: One app for all your social media video creation: https://link.ryanhanley.com/captionsappGoHighLevel: It's time to take your business workflow to the Next Level: https://link.ryanhanley.com/gohighlevelPerspective.co: The #1 funnel builder for lead generation: https://link.ryanhanley.com/perspective--Episodes You Might Enjoy:From $2 Million Loss to World-Class Entrepreneur: https://lnk.to/delkFrom One Man Shop to $200M in Revenue: https://lnk.to/tommymelloIs Psilocybin the Gateway to Self-Mastery? https://lnk.to/80upZ9 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You need to be the shit umbrella. There is so much faux urgency, fake deadlines, urgency culture is everywhere. At some point, we decided nobody should have to wait for anything. It's okay to kind of live in an emergency type mode. A lot of cultures are like that and it's so normal. We don't even clock it, let alone stand up to it. One of the things we as leaders need to do is to be that shit umbrella, to get really good at ruthlessly prioritizing.

Selena, I'm so excited to have you on the show today. A lot of the stuff that you are an expert in, have written books in, etc., right about on LinkedIn to your 75,000 plus followers are topics that I know every leader in the country is dealing with. real everyday dealing with these issues and I love episodes when we're like dialed in on what's like the kind of pulse of conversations in this moment and I think this this you know particularly two topics that we kind of were discussing before we went live um surveillance culture gen z versus other generations etc like these are the things that that from from small businesses on Main Street with 15 employees to

mega corporations with 150,000 employees, they're all having these discussions every single day. So I appreciate you taking the time and I'm excited to have you here. Well, thank you. All of your work inspires me. So it's, it's going to be a great conversation. Well, I appreciate that. And I will try to hold up my end to the bargain, but it's tough when I got heavy hitters coming in like yourself, you know. Well, I want to get right into the, to the Gen Z one. And I'm going to set just a little bit of context and let you roll. So I was having this conversation the other day with a friend of mine who's a multi-time entrepreneur and he's at it again and he's got I think somewhere in like the 20s of employees in his current company

and he was talking about Gen Z which is what we were talking about and I was the discussion that we were having was and I hate to make this negative so to take this as a casual conversation with two people who are kind of quasi bitching at each other about things but it was like I struggle more with millennials than I do with Gen Z, and he struggles more with Gen Z than millennials, and we are kind of going back and forth over which one was worse, which one was worse to deal with. And, you know, I've found, and here's, I'll leave you with, I want to give you this thought and then let you rip.

My argument for why millennials are worse is that the bad ones are sneakier, and I don't mean sneakier in an intentional way. I mean, it's harder to tell the employees that are going to fit your culture versus not fit your culture. That's what I mean by bad. I don't mean actually bad people. I just mean fit your culture versus not. With a millennial, I feel like with Gen Z, I've found it to be way more obvious up front. This person's either a fit or they're not a fit. The not fits are really not fits, right? You may be able to wedge a millennial that's not a great fit in for a while. Gen Z, not at all. But, but, But I feel like it's, you can tell faster and easier.

With the millennials, I felt like they all kind of looked the same and he didn't know what you were getting until you got him in the door. And then it was like you were opening a present on Christmas Day. Like, am I getting a good present or am I getting a bad present? So with that context laid, I would love for you to dive into this because I know you're getting this question almost on a daily basis. So often. And it's such a topic that people have strong.

feelings about. Like there is no comment I get that's neutral or kind of middle of the road. It's often anger and frustration around entitlement and other ideas. But look, I think one of the issues that we're seeing right now with Gen Z is they grew up in a highly participative world. Like, yes, I went out to dinner. I'm going to leave a Yelp review. I'm going to go on the website of my favorite retailer, I'm going to tell them and give them input on what I would like more of. School projects, right?

There is a lot of giving input in real time, having your voice included. Imagine growing up that way. And then being welcomed by a workplace where, like, emails are written, like, directives. Meetings are sometimes monologues, where one person overrules. you know sometimes people say they want one thing like we want an innovative culture here

but they shoot down every idea like that is the quickest way to annoy a gen z so one of the things i like to share with people if you want to be that leader who reaches this group like think co-creation you know think involving them like they are a focus group who are part of you know, your product, creation, improvements, you know, service ideas, things you're doing to constantly improve. Don't just give them the mandate and think compliance. It's not going to work with them. How much of the entrepreneur culture that's kind of been prevalent since we'll say early 2000s,

really mainstream early 2000s, obviously entrepreneurship has been around for a while, but to me how I see a lot of this dividing, and again, not an expert on the top, just someone who's managed people for a long time. It feels like they come out of that Gen Zs are coming out of this idea where entrepreneurship was everywhere, right? You could start a Twitch stream. You could start a Shopify dropship store, right? And they're toying with entrepreneurship from even really young ages or at least exposed to it.

And in many times, and maybe this is for the first time, you have, you'll take a guy that may traditionally be a jock, right? And you would think, like, his idols would be, you know, Josh Allen or, you know, Tom Brady or some sports star. And instead, their idols are Elon Musk or Sarah Blakely or, you know, entrepreneurs. And now we're starting to idolize these business figures. And then when you get into a culture that doesn't match like your entrepreneurial idol, you're like, what is going on? Totally. You know, that feels like a big disconnect, too.

I want to get back to the entitlement, but how much do you think this wave of putting entrepreneurship on a platter has impacted how they approached jobs when they first get into the market? Well, I think it's totally been glamorized entrepreneurship as kind of the lone genius who, you know, created the thing in their garage or their basement. And, you know, we're all kind of enraptured by those stories. Those are cool and fun to listen to. I think Gen Z is unique with all that, you know, kind of the stories that they've seen, the specific characters and personas. What I think is interesting about Gen Z is their need to pursue entrepreneurship isn't just about revering or, you know, furthering their hobby or their passion project. It's a career, like, insurance policy. It's actually going to keep them safe because many.

of them aren't getting jobs. They are living at home or they're needing to work more than one if they're fortunate enough to have one. So I think they're viewing entrepreneurship as a necessity to survive because their skepticism of corporate America and employers is fairly high. You know, so they're thinking, let me let me do this and shore up what I can, what I can control directly. I couldn't. I think this is a topic that has not been addressed enough. And I think it is when I listen to other podcasts or shows on TV or et cetera, I hear, I hear highly successful people talking about this topic often in a way that I think misses the key element, which is this idea of loyalty, right? A lot of times a lot of the initial friction is like, I gave you

this job and now you're questioning every decision I make and I'm the boss and you know like not that I don't want you to be spirited and thoughtful but at the same time like sometimes I just need you to do what I need you to do and like there's all this friction okay back and forth and I feel like the part that's missed is 20 to 30 year olds right and capturing maybe some of millennials some Gen Z maybe even some of whatever the previous generation the world that they've come into in terms of affordability I know that's a big political kind of buzzword today affordability, but it feels very real. The safety piece is, that's such a crucial point.

They may have a job and they may be thankful that they gave you job and they may even enjoy their job, but at the same time they're going, yeah, I'm making $90,000 out of college and it's good and I can like live, but at any given moment, this company could ask me and I got nothing to fall back on and now it's going to take me six months to find another job and I might not be able to make $90,000 in my next job. And if they don't have that safety net, they're not able to show up every day confidently because in the back of their mind,

their whole time they're going, am I going to lose this job? Am I going to lose this job? So it's like, where do you fall on allowing them to have some portion of like a side hustle or, you know, it's almost like, is there a cultural element where you could say almost like Google did where 10% of it is back in the day,

Google, but 10% of your time, could be spent on a non-Google project as a way to, like, cultivate their creativity and kind of give them that entrepreneurial or scratch that entrepreneurial itch. Yeah, and I love that Google did that. And I think it works well for an employee you want to engage in the long term, right? It's a really great way to appeal to them and say, I see you as a full person, not just a coder, you know, or not just an HR analyst, right? put somebody with interest and depth,

I actually think things are going to go the opposite way with Gen Z. And I think it's because they so do not center as the main part of their identity, like a lot of generations before them have. And probably like a lot of those Elon Musk and Sarah Blakely, you know, cool entrepreneur stories have done. This is a group that does not want work to be the second. centerpiece of their life and their identity. In fact, one Gen Z said to me, like, work is only one small part of who I am. So I think as that continues, I think we're going to see more

project-based work, more gig work, more of a kind of cafeteria-style choice of being able to come in and work on a certain basis. That's probably not full-time as we know it. FaceTime means the most. Whoever's here the longest is rewarded the most. I think we're going to see things get cut up in pieces and parts. And I actually think that's going to help Gen Z to survive, rather than just looking for those big whales, the full-time jobs. How much of that do you think is youthful fantasy?

Because there was a time in my life when I believed in Santa Claus as well. You all still? I pretend I lie to my children and say that. that I do. And I ask that to say, like, I think that sounds amazing, right? I get to work on these projects as I want, and I can go on my hikes and take my selfies in Spain. And, you know, except at the same time,

this is also the loudest group talking about affordability as well. And it's like, you know, it's almost like that line from Big Lebowski, like, do as your parents did, go get a job, sir. you know what I mean like some you know what I mean I mean like there's like a tradeoff to the gig culture which is it's also like you also have to pay your bills so like it feels nice to be able to work on the projects that you want and hey I do a gig here and I do a gig here and that's great and maybe if you're supremely talented you can make enough to survive but a lot of this a lot of the friction

that I see happening in our culture is this I want to live in New York City I want to be in Manhattan I want to be able to go do fun things, but I also don't want to work for a big company. I want to work when I want to work. I want to be work in coffee shops on my own schedule. And it's like, how do we balance those two things? Because it doesn't seem to be working so far. Yeah. Well, speaking of working remotely or flexibly, you know, where you want to,

we know from research during the last five years that there is not a benefit to mandating coming back into the office. So there's still a real gap there between employees being mandated with RTO and leaders doing the, we need this for the culture, you know, and I don't think that's going anywhere. I think the smartest leaders are going to flex. They're going to realize how much flexibility leads to loyalty and feels like basic respect and caring to employees. Like you see me as a grown-up who's capable of managing my own time, schedule, and tasks.

And you're most likely, if you're that great leader, you're focusing more on outcomes than how long I'm on red or green on Messenger. I completely agree. I guess this kind of leads us naturally into the other topic that we were discussing in the green room, which is this surveillance culture that. So I'd love for you to break this down because it's very much. much as I'm agnostic to what works and what doesn't like I don't have a bias in one direction I don't want to go into the office every day I do think breathing the same air and an appropriate amount of time makes sense I don't want you keystroking me nor would I work ever work anywhere where you're keystroke tracking me but at the same time you know we do need to like get

our shit done and and actually you know hit our outcomes if those are what are given so it feels like there is a way to balance lifestyle with performance, but this counter move to surveillance culture does not feel at least at face value like the way to go to me. So I'd love for you to break down what this is and what you're seeing and then some of the impact that it's having. Yeah, I mean, we have such smart software today that can analyze how much we're typing in a given hour or use of apps, right, on our work computer, most definitely when a particular app or your entire computer is asleep and down versus active. And that's probably just the beginning, right, of what's possible. Not to

mention all your emails and things are searchable, like websites you visited. So I think in my mind, as soon as I heard about surveillance culture, I thought to me, this is something you do with an employee you want to fire. Like, this is something you do with somebody who you're looking for evidence that I know you're not doing, pulling your weight. You know, I know that you're probably taking a nap six hours a day on the couch of the eight we're working. That's how it feels to me, like evidence and like punitive, you know.

The idea of using this on employees who you either think are doing an excellent job or doing fine and meeting expectations is just the opposite of human motivation, right? There's something to be said for us feeling like capable grownups at work. Trust. It goes such a long way. And this is a hard one because even if you as a manager object to the software, the spy software, the bossware, as some people call it, your organization's mandating it. and it's a very uncomfortable place to be if you're a manager today.

I got a lot of pushback about two years ago. I did a solo episode of the show, and I can't remember the number. You can probably go back and search it if you're interested. Whatever, I'll just say it here, where there was a lot of talk during COVID of the quiet quitting, right? Quiet quitting was a huge topic. And then all this conversation started around loyalty, et cetera.

And my opinion has been for a very long time that corporations, because they have a bigger mouthpiece, or at least they did for a long time because independent media, independent opportunities to share your voice, weren't as large as they are even in the last three years, they were able to push the conversation towards the employee. The disloyalty is coming from the employees. It's the millennials. It's the, you know, zennial, whatever, right? And, well, I think that culturally we've messed these generations up in a way

in which there is some entitlement and different stuff that, whatever, I don't think that's the reason, right? There was a day, and this is my dad's generation, he was a mechanic on the railroad. So he has a pension. He knew he's never getting fired. 30 years in, he's going to get a pension, right? You work. And obviously there's productivity issues that come with guaranteed, you know, with hard-to-fire

jobs and stuff. But he knew that if he put in the time, and got to a certain point in his career, he was going to be taken care of, his family be taken care of, and he'd be okay. And there was a loyalty there, right? You put in the time, we'll make sure you're taken care of. And there's economics and all that kind of stuff,

but when that started to go away, when you got Jack Welch, who I think it's absolutely ridiculous that we hold him up as this bastion of leadership because I don't know anybody from my perspective who has wrecked leadership in terms of how they've popularized, you know, we're just going to chop heads on the bottom, 10%, you know, for whatever reason, like, like, I feel like it's the corporations that broke the loyalty agreement first.

And then the employees reacted by going, well, if I can't, if I know, if I, if I, if I'm to be here for 20 years and there's nothing on the other side of that for me or 30 years or 40 years, well, I'm just going to do three or four years. And the next, as soon as I find something better, I'm going to jump. And employees are going, oh, my God, you know, look at this culture. No one sticks anymore. And it's like, yeah, because they can't trust you. Like, you at any time will chop 30,000 people and, you know, just go up.

That's just us, you know, making our numbers. And then you wonder why your employees don't stick. It's crazy to me. I think you're so right. And I think that employer-employee contract, and I don't mean like the formal paper we sign, you know, I mean the kind of symbolic contract and relationship has been broken for a long time and in favor of the employer. And just one example of that is this built-in expectation. If you're an employee, you should give discretionary effort. You should go the extra mile.

Right? And there's some employees that might look at that today and say, but what have you done for me lately? Like, would you go the extra mile for me if I was hurt, injured, sick for a prolonged period? I needed you. Would you go the extra mile? think that's a fair question. You know, I, like you, had a parent who was a nurse at the same hospital for 25 years, but after injuring herself at the end of her career, was kind of

pushed out and, like, given really meager retirement. And that's not lost on us who come up after that generation and see them either mistreated or overworked or, you know, given and stress and toxicity that they never signed up for. So I think we're savvy of that, you know, kids of that generation, maybe boomers and above. But look, I think there's so much that can be done to kind of invite in Gen Z into the conversation, right? to give them some choice early on, a voice early on in their tenure. It doesn't mean they're at the boardroom table making, you know, decisive, you know, huge decisions about the future. But it does mean they are involved, and that's not some act of generosity they earn after five or ten years of tenure.

Like, their voice counts as an early employee, as a junior person, whether it's, you know, we need a new benefit. Let's revise what we have and get some ideas and crowdsource what people want. So often people don't include that generation. It's just like, the grownups will make the decision over here and will inform you of the outcome. Yeah. I think one of the legacies of the boomers in particular that I'm looking forward to be. being gone is an over indexing on ego in all decisions. They're not the only ones with ego.

There are certainly, I'm 44, going to be 45. There are certainly people my age who have ego and below and all around. It's a human trait. However, you know, one of the defining characteristics, in my opinion, in my experience, of the boomer generation in terms of their management style is very ego-driven. It's the, I've been here for 30 years, you've been here for three days. So what you think doesn't matter. you know regardless of what their life experience is what they learned from their parents internships

other jobs they had beforehand what they learned in college right to your point who's to say that a 23 year old doesn't see something from a new angle that has and can provide even a small insight that could help move a project forward or to you say a benefit that brings in an entire new cohort of high quality employees or team members and the other thing too that i feel like so few leaders do And this was not my original thought. This was shared with me by a mentor that I think he probably got from someone else as well, which is this idea very early on asking and checking in on a regular basis. Is this a job or a career?

Because those are two different tracks. And there's no reason that you can't have. And again, I'm speaking to you. I want to hear your feedback. I love this topic. I'm so interested in. Like, there's no reason you can't have people who this is a career track for, working alongside people who this is a job for.

And maybe the career track people do have a different set of loyalty or benefits or whatever, which is fine. Because there are people that are going to want to show up at 9, stamp their TPS reports, slide them across the table, punch out at 5, go live their life. They don't want to get emails. They're never going to show up to a Saturday meeting. And that should be completely okay. Yep. And then the people who are to career track for, you're like, hey, if this is a career for you, sorry, but the 10 a. a meeting on Saturday. That sucks. We get it. You got to be there because you're telling us

it's a career. Yeah. And I think, look, it's part of what I talk about in quick leadership is it's a tougher gig today. You're managing exactly what you just said. Let's say maybe somebody very ambitious who can't climb fast enough. You know, I want to advance. I'm a goal getter. You're going to be managing somebody who is here for the good enough job. Which isn't necessarily something to stigmatize, right? There's something to be said for someone who wants to come, do a respectable job, and leave work at work. You know, and I'm going to leave every day at five, and that's the arrangement between us. And then, of course, you're also managing people who are disengaged. And I really try to say in that case, it's not a question of that person has no spark. It's often that they have a lost spark. Something happened. something made them feel completely disembowered or disengaged. They kind of got demoted on a certain project or were brushed aside and not given credit for something that they might have led on.

Something happened. And so it kind of puts you in the, you know, as a manager needing to wear yet another hat to tailor your management style to the person in front of you and say, I've noticed X, Y, and Z. You engaging less in meetings, you know, you contribute a lot less than you used to, and I see this in your performance, I want to talk to you about it. When do you feel like you lost that engagement? Ask them. You know, they're going to have a point of view on it.

But I think don't look at that as that's a foregone conclusion or why bother. Often it's a question of reconnecting them with something that. mattered. And I think you brought up a word I really love because we don't talk about this word enough, but ego. You know, you think about boomers, I'm Gen X, and I know I was raised with this, which is that you talk a little differently when you get in the room with the SVP at your company. You know, you speak with more reverence. It's not unusual to say things like, I know you're so busy or I know your time is tight. I only have one question. question, right? Like we often do this and put folks on a pedestal. And it's something we've

learned, oh, that's a form of respect based on that person's status. Gen Z does not believe in that. And to them, it's like the stiff, old-fashioned ritual that we other generations are like coming to work and performing. And so to them, it's like very silly. You ask me a question and you're the SVP or you're an associate, I'm going to most likely answer you the same way. And that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. To me, I feel like both sides have to come a little more to the middle, right? I often hear this conversation positioned,

and I do not feel like this is how you're positioning it, but I hear it positioned as like either Gen Z is wrong, right? And like, what's wrong with them, right? This is probably the emails that you're getting and some of the conversations I've had. Or you get, you know, these crazy ego-driven, you know, boomers who just, who won't get out of the way and won't let us do our thing. And when you're positioned as one side of the other, when really it's,

there needs to be more active leadership and almost, you know, I think, and this is a lot of your work. Quick leadership addresses a lot of this is like your book, Quick Leadership. And guys, I'll have links to all Selena's work in the show notes. So just scroll down, whether you're watching on YouTube, wherever you're listening, whatever, just scroll down. You can get the book. And this isn't your first.

bestseller, you've had previous, I'll have those linked up as well. But, like, we've kind of lost the art of leadership, right? It's just show up, I've reached a position, or I was a high performer at a task, and now I'm managing people even don't have a clue what I'm doing or even want to do it, right? And then you also have Gen Z who's saying, like, I don't care if you're an SVP or an associate where my honest-to-goodness take is there should be a little respect given to that person who's put in the time, who has the experience, who does have, who has gone through some of these things before, probably dozens of times and may have acquired some insight and have a little bit of experience knowledge that they can provide.

And they're not just these older morons who want to just make money and push young people down, right? And don't know how to save a PDF, right? Which is the running joke. Yeah. And it's like, it's like, you know, and I think it's, it's this, how do you get both groups moving to the middle? How do we start to have conversations where I know we're broad,

stroking Gen C, but we'll say Gen Z starts to understand that like, look, like, being that we're human beings, there is a level of respect and appreciation for process and company culture that needs, you need to integrate in if you're going to be part of, right? You don't get to just have a job and then go, this is the way I work, deal with it. That, that, I don't think that's the right answer. However, but there also needs to be, leadership needs to be a little understanding of the fact that if you want your company to grow and you want to hire people, this block isn't going anywhere. Like this is the next group of people that you have to hire. And if you don't change in some

regard, you're not going to be able to get the best of the best out of that group. How do those two groups start to come together? Yeah. Well, I just want to say one thing as we talk about that, which is one phenomenon I hear from so many people, is talking about Gen Z as though they kind of landed here from another planet and parachuted in. And I can feel like that too. I can relate to feeling that way sometimes. But we have to remember, like, they are a product of us. You know, iPads that are in their hands that we might be, you know, be criticizing them for being such digital natives. We put in their hands. So I think there needs to be a little bit of togetherness. And I think responsibility that, like, this isn't a group that just landed on

our planet. We've influenced them. You know, we've put new tools and, technologies in their hands. And we were willing to take that risk. We didn't know how it would turn out with children. Well, now we do. So I think that's an important thing to step back and just remind ourselves. These are creatures. These are people of our own, you know, making and influencing. I think you're right. I think in terms of bridging the generations, I think we could use some of Gen Z's directness. I even welcome some of their casualness in the workplace in terms of it being less like formal and performative and like let me put my work mask on and be business self now. I appreciate that. And I think they can bring that and there's something

we can learn from some of their kind of healthy entitlement. We tend to hear that word entitlement and think all bad, that's a nasty bad word, that's a bad trait to have in somebody. I think there's such a thing as healthy entitlement, where it's not over the top, you know, it's not move over and, you know, let me get mine. It's not that. It's simply being aware of, being a good self-advocate, knowing, you know, you're offering me something and I'm offering you something in this employer-employee relationship. And one side cannot monitor that. You both have to be monitoring.

Are we doing right by each other? Is there an issue here? Am I doing two people's jobs for the same pay I used to be getting? Right? So there's a constant need to be that self-advocate to bring some healthy entitlement. And I think that's a positive thing that Gen Z brings. At the same time, yeah. boomers have a ton of experience. They've also done and accomplished things. Gen Z knows

nothing about. They've lived through civil rights, for example, and brought about laws, right, in the 60s and 70s around hiring fairly and not discriminating. They've seen things change drastically, socially, and at work, and have been part of those changes. And I think we do need to honor that, like, institutional knowledge we have, honor that experience. I just think it's going to look a little less like we're used to. Yeah, I completely agree. Yeah, I completely agree with, I, I'm, I do like the cash, the more casual. I'm going to say, I'm going to exchange, I would exchange the word casual for authentic, right?

Just being a little more true to who you are as a person. I agree that the mask, I feel like today. regardless of what generation you are, but certainly I think the younger generations are more dialed to this. They smell inauthenticity miles away. Like, it's like they have radar for inauthentic. And maybe that's because of YouTube culture

or TikTok or just in general, you know, everyone's stuff is everywhere. You know, you can't really hide today. And most people choose not to hide. They purposely put all their stuff out there. And when there's a disconnect between the work you and the real you, that is not appreciated. That is not an appreciated trait anymore.

And it, I do think that's very positive. I'm very interested. Health, the idea of healthy entitlement, I think is interesting. And I agree. I think a lot of people are going to hear that. And even though the word healthy is in front, they're going to bristle. Yeah.

I know when my peers or people reach out to me, man, that word entitlement. There needs to be like a four-letter version of the word entitlement with the way that they use it, right? Like, it's very difficult. And I think where, where I know where I have struggled at times and I, I'd like to believe that I handle this well. And I feel like I've done okay with these, with these individuals. Most of my experience with it in a negative way has been either complaining or people asking me questions. And so I know it's there.

But it's, I think what all, all. a good, let's take a good leader who is in, say, the, you know, the, Gen X, boomer, you know, early boomers who have maybe 10, 15 years, 20 years left of their career in a management or leadership capacity with these individuals, you know, one of the things that I've been talking them about is the loss of mentorship or apprenticeship culture. So do you feel like one of the solves to this could be bringing in more. of a mentorship or apprenticeship culture into your business where maybe they're not in a decision-making capacity, but they're with their boss when they're going to that big meeting.

And maybe they're sitting in the back of the room or the side. Because I'll tell you, where I cut my teeth in leadership was as a young executive in my early 30s, I was brought into every C-suite meeting. And now I didn't have a talking role. I sat in the back and I listened and then we would have a powwow after and, hey, what did you here and what did this person's reaction right but like but i was there i got to see my boss how they how he negotiated or how he responded to a tough question or a curveball that we didn't we didn't gain plan for in a negotiation and i got to listen both both positive and negative

to how he responded so do you see that as a potential solution absolutely and there's so many employees if you talk to them in all kinds of organizations who feel underinvested in, not invested in. And I agree with you that like on the job training, shadowing, apprenticing is so valuable and there's no substitute for it. It also can lead to people, you know, having more faith in you. And I'll never forget in my own career in management consulting, being very young, early 20s, and having a mentor at my firm, say to me, Sleena, why don't you give the presentation to the client next week? And it was like, what?

Like, you think I'm capable of that? And it was like a thrill and terrifying at the same. But that's what you get, right? When you're absorbing in those rooms and you're being given that gift of exposure. So I think it's wonderful. think the issue is there are so many different kind of cultures. One, a really great one would be, say, a coaching culture. And that's where it's normalized to give feedback. It's normalized to get out of a client presentation and say, like, you know, Ryan, I thought one thing you did

great was this. Next time, why don't you try this other thing to sharpen up, you know, the experience for the client? That's so normalized that it's not weird. It doesn't. doesn't sting. At the same time, maybe the person giving the presentation is asking you. They're soliciting it themselves saying, hey, you saw me in there. What's one thing you thought I did well? One thing I should try differently next time. And there's this sense that it's like incumbent upon managers and more seasoned folks to give, to mentor, to train, to have the patience to like stop and explain something that maybe this junior. or new person clearly doesn't know yet.

That is, that's not the norm that I see. You know, because there are so many kinds of cultures. There's like a get it done yesterday culture, which when speed is like your huge main goal, guess what goes right out the window is mentoring. And, you know, growth of employees because like, oh, that's just like a little fringe benefit that's nice, but that's not a necessity.

Yeah, it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Yeah. Forgetting that your business. So one of the concepts that changed how I approached both my career, how I managed, how I led, et cetera, was this idea of seasons of a business, which when you hear it seemingly makes complete and utter sense. I had just never heard it until I was about 35. And all of a sudden I was like, oh my God, like you can have a, and again, this comes down

to communication. and having trust and respect with your team, but, like, you can explain, and I have found in different, you know, when I, so I, my most recent engagement was, or engagement, my most recent company, I founded a digital national commercial insurance agency. We're fully remote.

I only met four of my 27 employees in person ever. You know, we grew the business, we sold it, exited from it. It was a great experience. But one of the things I found the team to be very receptive to, and this was only because I had acquired this knowledge, not because I didn't learn at the time, was I would explain to him, like, guys,

for the next two months, we got to go. Like, we're going to grind. Like, I'm going to be a little harder to get a hold of. Like, it's about putting numbers on the board for the next two months. Like, we have to, bam, this is what we're doing. We're putting this project on hold, this project on hold. Like, we're dialing down our meetings. We've got to go sell some stuff.

Like, get after it. But then after two months or whenever you hit that target, you can downshift back into, all right, let's start communicating a little more. let's make sure he's going to his training, she's getting the guidance she needs over here, whatever, this tool. And, like, I feel like your team will, will respond to you and will,

will be flexible to you if you share with them, one, what's actually happening, which bewilders me that there are leaders that try to hide what's actually happening in a company of their employees. Like, they don't know, right? That, to me, is bananas. And, two, like, that they feel like they won't,

they're, like, almost afraid they won't come along for the ride so they don't tell them and all of a sudden they just changed the way they're leading or what they're saying to them and now the employees at the water cooler are going what the hell's wrong with you know john you know he just he's turned into a monster the last two weeks and they don't realize that he got a big goal put on his head or she you know she got a big goal you know whatever where the leader is and that's why they're feeling stress and that stress is coming downhill and it's like it's just it's like we're we it's so much like it's abundance versus scares like we go back to these like base core mantras like that abundance

mentality of like if i share with you that we're going to we need to go get it and you're like nope i'm not doing it well then i have my answer i know who you are right i know what you're what you're but if you're like okay i can press the gas pedal for two months i'm willing to come along with it's like all right and then you just have to be good about making sure they get the downshift when it's time for that but this like pedal to the floor hustle culture bullshit like it's grind all the time like there's enough studies out to know that all the glamorizing of that is exceptions to the rule not the rule or at least that's that's my opinion of this is that we have taken a few examples of people who work 20 hour days for three years and we hold them up

and it's like no that's the exception to the rule and and it's survivor bias right it's survivor bias that they were successful because they put 20 hours in right now there's plenty of companies that have been plenty successful that didn't work 20 hours a day, seven days a week, for the first three years the company was created. I just, but we don't stop and think about these things. So if there's a leader or manager listening to this who's struggling, what's the first step to start to rein in this team and become a more congruent unit, a more successful unit with the differing of generations, and maybe differing of belief structures, like how do

you start to pull this in if you're the leader and you but and you truly want to be successful, you just don't know how to get there? Yeah, it's a great question. And I think personally, as the daughter of a workaholic, I lost my dad when he was young. I was 13 and he passed of a massive heart attack, checked himself out of the hospital at one point to give a presentation against medical orders. Like, that's the person who was my dad and was very successful and a really cool guy in a lot of ways. But, like, man, it's not a winning formula. And it's part of what galvanizes me and excites me about my work and wanting to help leaders do it differently,

not just so it's sustainable for them, but so that it's sustainable for their people. and I really agreed with what you said about like seasons to work. I think a sprint you're doing within your organization can be actually energizing and exciting to employees. You know, I think they can get that like contact high of like, oh, this is cool. We are going to sell and meet that revenue goal or like we are going to deliver this incredible product for the first of its kind or whatever. I think you can grab that. I think the key is to recognize real human rhythms. Okay, you're going to ask me to do that for six weeks,

or you're going to ask me to do that for this long? What happens after? Because they're watching, noticing, remember, they've given their discretionary effort, their extra mile. How are you now going to replenish them or make them whole in some way. It may be saying, hey, guys, we're going to do some like pretty chill work over the next two weeks.

You know, I'm asking you, and I understand that you need to be selectively excellent. We can't all be excellent all the time. We don't have infinite resources, right? Internally. And I think the best managers recognize that, like out loud. I know I just asked a lot of you all. As a result, here's what we're going to look like or perform like over the next two weeks, three weeks. Or I'm giving you the first two days of this week off, you know, where you are trying to put things in some kind of balance.

That will mean so much to your employees. And it's not just a sprint. It could be you've asked them to work over the weekend. Or, you know, you've asked them to give that something extra. what is even a small gesture you can do to say, I see you, I noticed what you did, I appreciate you, it means so much. And I don't think it happens enough, you know, especially praising, recognizing for progress, not just results. Yeah. A lot of this feels like poor leadership positioning. And what I mean by that is, I think a lot of organizations are really bad at hiring

leaders. They're good at hiring people with nice resumes. They're good at hiring people who may have been very good individual contributors in a task that's underneath that leadership position. Very bad at hiring leaders. Because to me, this is one of the things that I said to my team is as soon as we had a team that was big enough, like as soon as was pop up, as soon as was possible. I pulled myself out of day-to-day operations. I said to the team, look, like, I'm not selling anymore. So it's an insurance agency, high sales oriented. And at the time, I was the number one salesperson, as many, you know, leaders of companies are in the early days, right? They often take either business development or sales, one of those, or if they're

in engineering, but I'm not nerdy like that. I'm more a bullshitter. And my point to that is, like, I did that because I had learned, learned, not, again, not an original thought, learned, learned that, like, the CEO, the president, that leadership position, and then that position, but inside of, you know, a department of a large organization as well, is not the individual contribution. It's the leadership and performance of the team. And that is lost. Like, I don't know where that got lost in the communication or the training of leaders, but, I mean,

And oftentimes when I'll talk to maybe, I have a lot of, I help a lot of startup founders get from what I call launch to escape velocity. And escape velocity being when you can finally pick your head up and you're paying your bills and you're not worried you're going to crash you a mountain every day. Okay. And oftentimes the stuck point for them to reaching escape velocity is they're still in everyday opportunity. There's still the number one salesperson and trying to be the CEO and then wonder why they're having so many downstream problems.

And the very first thing I'll say to them is you have to get out of, you either have to go full tilt top salesperson and hire a CEO or you need to hire a top salesperson and get out of that and become the CEO because that is a job. This, to me, and I shouldn't say it, I'm interested in your experience with this, but it's just because this is, I've never done the research and it's not what I think about every day. But it's almost like we look at the CEO or the president role as a title. but not a job.

Like, we forget that it is a very specific job with a very specific job description. And we just try to, like, add that into whatever we're doing over here as well. And that just never goes well. Why do you think so many leaders refuse to move out? And I know in large organizations, this might be less of a problem, or at least slightly less of a problem. But a lot of mid-tier, mid-sized companies down to even, you know, small businesses, maybe not micro, like this is a huge.

huge problem for them. And how do they start to make that leap? And maybe what is a trigger for someone who's listening today going, I am struggling with this. And I am also the top engineer or top salesperson or whatever. Like, how do they start to make that transition, even just from an emotional standpoint? Yeah, I think it's easy to keep your hands in what you know, right? Because we all get a little ego cookie when we experience that great feeling of mastery. Like, I know this. I have experience in this. I have a thousand war stories, right? A lot of people aren't going to be quick to leave that or just put it in other people's hands. So I completely understand finding yourself in it in this overdue way. But I think there's a few things at play. I think one is, I use this

term, it's kind of cheeky in my book, but you need to be the shit umbrella. And I don't just mean that for your team, which I do, but also for you. There is so much faux urgency, fake deadlines like urgency culture that is everywhere where like at some point we decided nobody should have to wait for anything and that it's okay to kind of live in an emergency type mode. And a lot of cultures are like that and it's so normal. Like we don't even like clock it, let alone stand up to it. And so I think one of the things we as leaders need to do is, you know, there's a few things, but one is to be that shit umbrella to get really good at ruthlessly prioritizing. You know, I'm going to push back on some of those urgent requests of my team, which to be honest right now is

just distraction. And it's not like a strategic priority for us right now. Maybe it would be nice if we could, but we can't. And that's a form of advocacy that you and your team need for their calendars, for their schedules. I sometimes liken it to like Batman. And I say to people, you know, when Batman was in the Batcave, right, he was doing important work. He wasn't just like chilling. He's, he's reviewing crime rates. He's studying maps. He's like innovating on the Batmobile. And then what happens? It's like the bat signal goes off and he drops everything, right? It goes and attends to that. It's kind of like that with your people when you're asking them to attend meetings all the time or go put out a fire, right, that may or may not be absolutely

necessary. You're taking them away from that like mission critical focus time where they can do their best and contribute with the most impact. And I think sometimes we are reckless with that time as managers, both for ourselves and for other people. So I think that's just a different mindset to take. But if you're able to do that, to learn to say no, to audit your calendar more and say, I have some ridiculous recurring meetings here that this shouldn't be. If you're willing to kind of prune, you know, your calendar with your team to say, we're going to meet less often for less minutes. We're going to involve the least amount of people.

Be sparing with what you're asking of people. I think that's an important thing that's going to help you because the worst thing you can be called as a manager by your people is spineless. They want an advocate. So your role is to be the buffer. And there's just one other thing I would add, which is I think the best leaders stop seeing their role in that ego-driven.

I need to be the smartest. I need to be the toughest way. And I think they see themselves more as a facilitator. My job is to facilitate you all doing well, kind of like the conductor and the symphony. Right? My job is to communicate, make sure you're a lot, so that you can do and produce your best to remove blockers out of your way.

But it's not to be this all-knowing, my hands are in every bucket kind of person. So I agree with everything that you just said. I love the idea of a shit umbrella. I think that's 100. It's a phenomenal visual for what we're actually dealing with on a day-to-day basis, right, as leaders. But I love that. But I think your comment on how reckless we are with our time might be the conversation of our era, right?

There's so much distraction. I mean, I'm sitting here. I'm looking at you, right? I have a screen up over here of notes. I have a screen up here of your books, right, that I can reference my phones over here that could go off. I'm sure there's, you know, something, some appliance could go off upstairs or, you know what I mean?

Like there's so much distraction in our lives. and that is really like who can cut through that and be strong and committed to things simple things like just time blocking out the most important tasks in your day you know understanding that four hours on the right thing is better than 20 hours on a whole mess of menagerie of things right and can you work on the same project for an hour straight one project versus what so many people do is I'm going to pull up this important project, but then every three minutes, I'm going to check my text messages, check my email, call someone, look at my social media. You know, like, we're so, it's so rare today that we're just dialed on one task throughout

the day that we can really become, you know, do exceptional work on. And it just, I think, I think that's really dialed. You know, I talk about it like from a responsibility. So I believe in a responsibility. hierarchy, but not a communication hierarchy, to your point, I think we need to listen to everybody. Everyone should have a voice. But I think in order for things to actually get done from a responsibility standpoint, we need to have a hierarchy. However, the miss, and I think this is what you're describing, and this is where I would love your feedback, is that when it

comes to support, we have to take that hierarchy, that triangle, and flip it upside down, right? I might, the buck might stop with me as the CEO of my company or of a company in terms of responsibility. So, so I sit at the very top of the triangle or pyramid or whatever from a responsibility standpoint. However, when it comes to the support structure for the organization, we flip it up, like the CEO should be the most supportive of the managers or C-suite that's above them and then they need to be the most supportive of their VP layer and then up to where the people that are doing the work, they're up at the top and they should have all these layers of support underneath them

making sure that their day is clear, their mind is clear, whatever needs they have from a getting shit done perspective are taken care of so they can freaking fly. And it drives me nuts when you talk to an organization and the leaders going, man, I wish they would just shut up and do their frigging jobs. And you're like, what have you done to put them in a position to win? besides giving them a paycheck and a computer and a phone,

what do you actually do on a day-to-day basis to make sure that person has this space and the bandwidth to actually get their job done? Like, do they even know what their outcomes are that they need? I mean, how many employees simply don't even know what their ultimate goal is? Like the outcome they need to produce at the end of a month or a quarter,

like they don't even know. They just show up because it's never been communicated them or 15 different things are communicated them on daily basis. They have no clue what they should be working on. It's insane to me. I agree with you. And I've worked at one of those like 100,000 employee places where there was a total lack of clarity and frustration because things changed so fast, like felt like flavor of the week

kind of trends. And, oh, we don't care about that anymore. We're off to this. And what a quick way to burn employees out, right? not to mention, just confuse them on a day-to-day level. But I think you're right about that, like, inverted pyramid. I think it's managers' jobs to, like, absorb the criticism, you know, for a fail or a fumble that happens within your team.

Doesn't mean you don't rectify it and talk openly about, let's look at how this happened and how to prevent it. But that is part of your role to absorb that criticism. And it's also part of your role to deflect. the praise. So when something goes great, and it's directed at your team, really pulling them up and putting them in the spotlight. And I think there's so many ways we can, what I call like power share instead of hoard power, little things, but that mean a lot to employees. There's one I talk about in my book, ask three before you answer. So again, there's that pressure. I know I grew up

with this idea that like leaders should know it all, should be, you know, so smart, have the solutions. But when somebody asks you a question, let's say in a team meeting, I'm having this problem with a client. What should I do? You could swoop in with the answer or you could ask them some questions. You could say something like, well, what have you tried so far? Or, you know, what is your gut saying is the right next step? Or, you know, a third question where you're getting them to flex their problem solving muscles. And what are you doing? You're demonstrating trust, too. I don't need to swoop in, you know, perfect me with all the answers and save you. you've got what it takes and like don't great managers do this they inspire trust they extend trust

and confidence to you and and it's just a small thing but it's you know also airing on the side of delegating with trust you know delegating more completely again we can get so in the habit of giving the answer all the time that when someone says like hey selina i'm going to plan our our wine and cheese event on Monday night, which of these five cheeses? Do you what? Like, I could sit there and really give it thought and tell them specifically, or I could say, you know what, I trust your judgment. Yeah, it's funny.

I had a moment that I didn't mean to be a moment, which became one. I was sitting in a meeting with my team. It was an all hands meeting. You know, I'd say I, up until that point, we'd grown very rapidly. So we've been a very small team before, and I kind of did need to make most of the decisions because we were moving so fast and we were small and we're growing. But we had hit a point where we were in a more structured and organized growth environment and added team members, et cetera.

I was having kind of a not awesome day, just a lot on my brain, not necessarily problems, but just, you know, I was a little overwhelmed. And we're sitting in a salt hands meeting and someone asked a question. And I just like, it was like I didn't have any more willpower left. and I just go, I literally said, you know what, I don't have a clue how to answer. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know what you're at.

I don't know, right? And it was funny. So everyone kind of giggles, right? And there's like, is he serious? And then I go, no, I'm serious.

Like, I think it's a good question. I just don't know what the answer is. Like, you have to go do, I go, but why don't you go take a figure, you know, go figure out what you think the best answer is.

And we'll try that first. You should have seen this woman's face. She lit up like a frigging Christmas tree, right? because it was like, think about, again, and this is all just learned experience, none of this was done on purpose. But, you know, I'm watching her react

and I'm like, you could tell, like what you said, trust, empowerment, like she very clearly knew what she needed to do next, right? Like she was going to go out and figure this out and come back with a solution and it ended up being a great solution. But I wouldn't have done that if the moment hadn't been what it was

and I just kind of came off the cuff. And I, from that moment on, I just started being okay going like, okay, this thing over here, I do know. This is what I want. On this particular issue, I want this. Let's execute this.

Okay. But on these two things over here, I either don't have an opinion, which is another place where we tend to inject ourselves. Like, it's okay to say, I honestly don't have a preference on which way we go, right? That's okay. It's also okay to say, I don't know.

I don't have a re-answer. I couldn't agree more with you. because sometimes there is like a culture of I'm the manager, so I'm going to put my stamp on everything. You're going to send me something for my final approval. Well, I'm going to change it 10% because I always need to be in there somewhere on the final deliverable. And it's simply not necessary. When you're doing that, you are training people perfectly to over depend on you. And what does that do as a professional? It makes you feel like my judgment is not needed here.

This person in the role of like parent always has to sign off. You know, I don't have what it takes to necessarily do this successfully. That's the opposite of how you want your people to think. So I think it takes so much for those of us who grew up with some of these outdated images. of a leader, that they should be bulletproof, that they should be all knowing, that that, you know, that they should be, have never made mistakes. And like really challenge ourselves on a daily basis to say those things are actually holding us back. Because the best managers, like they talk about their mistakes. They don't act like they're bulletproof. They say things like, you know,

let me tell you about a time I undercommunicated and what I learned from that. or I assume no news was good news or fill in the blank, right? It's going to mean so much to your people because so many of them look at you and think they must have never screwed up. They must have never struggled. You know, they must have like kind of been born a leader and on this golden path. And it's not true. Like they've probably had just as many doors slammed in their face if not more.

So the way that can humanize you as a leader is everything. Tell them about a time your thinking changed and evolved on something. Like they will welcome it. Yeah. Leadership is so incredibly difficult. But at the same time, I feel like we make it way harder than it needs to be. Like, it's really not, it's really, I hate to say this way, but like, out of all the things that need to be done in an organization,

it's not even close to the top, in my opinion, in terms of difficulty, we make it difficult. Like, sales is hard. Creating product out of thin air as an engineer is hard. Like, there are a lot, dealing with customers who call in with problems that are upset. That's hard.

Leading is not hard. We tend to make it hard. And, you know, that's why I love when, you know, I'm able to meet people and showcase their ideas is like, like, you seem, you just, you know, what I loved about your work and as I was researching, you know, our conversation, you know, I just feel like you have a very pragmatic view. You seemingly pull from maybe both a slightly more liberal philosophy. I don't mean

politically liberal. I just mean like more open, but also very real world, right? If you take those two sides, like some of this is, I think we do need to be more open, more, I don't love the word inclusive but but but but free of spirit and and uh uh free a free of spirit is a wrong way to say that i mean like you know the diversity of thought is so incredibly necessary in our business and you know one of the things i've i've never understood about the hiring issue and like the whether it's you know bigotry misogynistic racism and hiring i've never understood that because we operate in a capitalist environment and if you're a capitalist all you're a you should really want is the best person like right like that's that's all you should want like

who gives a shit who they pray to who they have sex with what color they are like that is those are the things the stupidest reasons to hire somebody if you're if you're truly trying to make money so i i've never really understood that but but this idea of bringing in these different voices allowing them to be heard acknowledging them even if it's to say look that's a wonderful idea but we can't execute on it for three months so i hear you it's going to on the list, and I appreciate the idea, but it's three months from that. That's a perfectly okay thing to say. Instead, we say, be quiet, you haven't had enough experience, or we placate them and say,

oh, that's an amazing idea. We never execute on it, and now they feel just as not heard, right? But these are all, like, us as leaders. It's not the people. Like, we started with Gen Z, but I feel like what I love about this conversation is that here we are towards the end. And what we've really come back to is it doesn't matter, Gen Z, millennial, boomer, whatever. It's who are you as a leader and can you position yourself and grow as a person to move with what that specific individual needs and how they fit into your team.

Does that seem like a good way of surmising where we've gotten to? Yeah, I do. And I agree, like some of the terms feel flowery to say, like they feel a little woo-woo to say, leaders, you need to create psychological safety. Right? It's kind of like, well, what is that? What on earth is that? And they may sound that way. They may sound a little woo-woo and be authentic and all of that.

But, man, there is some truth to this. And like you said, being in a capitalist society, what do capitalists like numbers, hard numbers and metrics? Well, we have so much of that to show that a cognitively diverse group makes better decisions, right? has better deliverables, not necessarily easier to work with, right? Because there's more of a rub, more tension, but that's what leads to the better outcome. Easy shouldn't be the goal. That's the part that drives me nuts is like when you get that, like to your point, if you have a homogenous group, they are way easier to manage because you know what you expect.

However, you are also absolutely missing opportunity. So you're making a conscious decision. If you, you know, if you're, if you're, if you're, whether it's political or, or geographic or whatever you're, you know, you only hire men or you only hire, whatever it is, right? You only hire people under 40. It's okay to maybe over index on certain personalities or types that seem to do better. But if you don't have that, if you aren't the type of leader who is willing to be flexible enough to bring in these different thoughts and these different viewpoints, both from generationally. culturally, et cetera, geographically, like you are missing opportunity.

Like you are making a choice, a conscious choice to limit your opportunity and to limit the upside that you can produce. And I've just never, I've never been able to rationalize that as a human being. And maybe it's because I'm severe ADHD and all I care about forward progress and I can't even be bothered with things that slow that down.

But like, I've just never been able to wrap my head around that because this seems like some basic human psychology and everything that you're talking about makes complete and utter sense. Like you've given them the playbook with just the basic amount of human psychology, but no one wants to go that deep. It's, I give you a paycheck, do your job and shut up. And I, it's just destroyed companies. We need more.

You know, you talked about us hiring not so well for leaders. I also think like we under-equip them once they're there. Maybe they were a brilliant engineer and now they're the engineering manager. Let's equip them. Let's assume this is not inborn. People don't know this. They don't learn it in school often. Give them some tools.

Give them a toolbox. Give your people like a shared language so they can help each other and identify, oh, you're doing that really well and support each other. Or, hey, you know, I noticed you're doing that thing we learned about. You know, you're kind of talking over people and it made it really hard to contribute last week, right? We need that. It's hard to be like the lone, you know, a hero trying to do this stuff by yourself in an organization. So equip your people, make it shared common knowledge and vocabulary. It becomes so much easier. Yeah, I completely agree. And the last thing I'll

throw on this is my final thought is simply, I think we need to stop assuming a negatively perceived behavior, behavior is happening intentionally. And this was the case for me, talking over the thing, right? My brain is going really fast all the time. And I didn't even realize why up until I was actually diagnosed back in 2020. I didn't understand why I was the way that I was. And I used to get a lot of feedback about talking too fast, which I do talk too fast, or talking over the top of people.

And finally, I had someone come and you're being so disrespectful. And I was like, I was blown, I was like, when they said I was being disrespectful, it was like a gunshot. You know, I, I, I, that's like the last thing that I wanted to be. I was just so excited about what we were talking about and where we were going. Like, I get all amped up and, you know, at that time, not understanding how to control myself, I was just, like, vibrating with how excited I was to figure out the solution. And, you know, I didn't understand that if I answered really quick, people would think I wasn't

listening to them in these different things. And it's like, sometimes I think we just need to approach people in a way that, you know, like if there is a perceived problem, we shouldn't go into that conversation with the assumption they're doing it intentionally or they're doing it for nefarious or negative reasons. Sometimes a lot, most people just, we're all freaking humans who have all this crazy stuff

going on in our lives all the time. And a lot of times we just don't even realize what we're doing. And not that that's, you know, not that we shouldn't be self-aware, but I do think a lot of problems get caused by assuming intentionality that isn't necessarily. Yes. I agree with you so much. It's actually one of my favorite tips from quick leadership is about LGI versus MGI, which is just the simple framework, least generous interpretation, most generous interpretation. And just asking yourself in a pissed off moment when you're feeling like spitting nails and you're making certain assumptions in your head, I wrote to that person twice today, like why, you know, they just don't think I'm right? You start filling in the blanks, not always generously, right? And it may be that actually

they're in all-day meetings and they are working to get you what you need. But you would never know that, right? Taking a minute to say, what kind of interpretation am I making here? And how might I change the one I have if I don't like it? You know, they've always helped me in the past. I'm going to trust in this situation that they're working hard and they're busy and that they are going to get back to me. And if they don't buy tomorrow at nine, I'll call them again. But it's just a little thing we can use to label what's going on because we've all been there. That person in front of us who's driving so slow, like we all make up stories about how thoughtless and this, that to the other that is when we have no idea what's going on in there. Well, I think a phenomenal way

if you're a go-getter to start getting that leadership education is to connect with you, follow your work, particularly on LinkedIn, and not only your most recent book, Quick Leadership, but as well as a lot of the other books that you've written besides, say, LinkedIn, the books, et cetera, where is the best place for people to get deeper into your world so they can start following along with your methodology and what you teach and preach? Yeah, thank you. My books are available everywhere, books are sold. And I make leadership video content five days a week.

So I put that on Instagram and TikTok, and I'd love to hear from you all, kind of jump in, let me know what you want videos and role plays about that have to do with sticky workplace situations. So that would be a great place to find me. Well, I appreciate you and your work and your methodology. And I know this is the second book in a series when the third one comes out. We'd love to have you back on the show. I wish you nothing but the best, and thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you for elevating leadership.