The Ryan Leak Podcast - Don't Let Success Steal Your Innovation

Episode Date: July 22, 2022

Today's episode is tackling chapter 11 from Chasing Failure, If At First You Don't Fail, Try Again. Sometimes the more success you have, the more you feel like you have to lose when thinking about trying new things. Join the conversation with Lacey Stenson and Ryan Leak as they unpack what it means to keep an innovative attitude. You can also get your copy of Chasing Failure at ryanleak.com. If you'd like to receive encouragement from Ryan every single week, text "Followership" to 469-809-1201.

In today's conversation with my good friend Lacey, we talk about chapter 11 from my book, Chasing Failure. If at first you don't fail, try again. It's this idea that the more successful you become in the event that you get a large following, in the event that your influence grows, in the event that your company experiences a lot of growth, there can be this thing in us that says, well, now, Now that we've grown something, now that the pie's gotten bigger, well, we don't want to take risk anymore because we've got more to lose. But I would actually argue that by playing it safe, you actually have something to lose.

So in the event that you are winning at a high level, I would encourage you to continue to keep a mindset that stays innovative. So go ahead and check out this conversation for me and my good friend Lacey. Right. This is one of, I think, the most challenging chapters for when you're mid to late career because you really talk about how when you've tasted success or you received some public success, how success sometimes has a way of making us even more afraid to fail. So I'd love to open by either learning from your personal examples of where, these cases of success and you found yourself maybe clamming up a little bit around that risk

appetite you used to have in your younger, wilder days, or where you're seeing executives come to you from a position of success and you know you've heard about, you know, their younger years or their junior years in the business where they were just swinging some grit and some scrappiness and taking some more risks. So if you wouldn't mind, open us up, I guess, with more explanation around success. Yeah. Well, I think that the more success a person experiences, the less that they want to take risk.

It's easy to take risk when you don't have any kids. You don't have a family or you don't have a mortgage. but the more you get sort of solidified in your life, the more you get solidified in your career, you know, the less you want to get outside your comfort zone because you work so hard to create the comfort zone. You're like, I think I'm going to risk it all now. Well, I don't think that people should risk it all,

but I do think they should risk it some. and I think that for all of us to continue growing, we just have to have a willingness to try new things. And I think what COVID-19 did, if we're looking at it just from one large social experiment, it forced us all to try new things. It forced us all to study new technologies that had it not been for a pandemic,

we wouldn't have studied. we wouldn't have forced ourselves to migrate digitally. And I think there were obviously lots of pros and cons from the new virtual workplace. But it forced us to adapt. It forced us to read more. It forced us to try new things, which wasn't our natural habitat. So I think that the more. more followers you get, the more elevation you might experience in your life, there's going to be

that feeling of like, oh, there's, there's more to lose. And so on the side of following, you know, before that journey, I think it's important that you understand that you don't want to lose that, what I would consider that spirit of courage of saying, hey, you know, we're going to continue to roll the dice and see what happens. Because the minute you, and again, we talked a little bit about this in the last episode about talent shortage in the American workforce. And so there's a lot of, well, a lot of leaders. I'll, I'll talk with that are just, they just don't want to change.

They don't want to try anything new. And I'm going, well, this is why people are leaving. Because you won't try anything. And so there is this idea that, well, if I just stay safe in the corner,

well, nothing bad can happen to me. But I'm like, yeah, but what could happen to you is while you're safe in the corner, you could end up in that. corner alone because you didn't do anything different.

And so sometimes we can be so afraid of losing our success that we actually lose our success in the process of doing nothing or just trying to do the same old thing. And so I'm all about those calculated small little risk that people can take, whether that be weekly and monthly of just trying. trying new things. Sometimes it's professional. Sometimes it's personal. You'd be surprised how many people eat at the same restaurants

over and over and over again. Sometimes I'm like, you need to just try something new. I think it's, I think it's good for you. Yeah, that's awesome. I think too, like you hit on it right on the head. Would we get married or we have kids or you buy a home?

Sometimes there's other voices into that equation. and especially, you know, given the executives you coach or the young 30s who really are trying to build a family and have family-led decisions, it's hard to let another person's voice into that. But I think surrounding yourself with a board of advisors or coaches or mentors in your life that could also add balance to helping you take those risks only ends up paying some sort of exponential benefit to it. You list a great couple examples under strategic risk. And one of my favorite is this idea of Disney buying Pixar. And you give a really great visual tool of a couple pros and a lot of cons to this feel. And I'd love to learn a little bit about how you coach others towards strategic risks,

how you help others identify, you know, where to take the chances, knowing that the pros outweigh the cons and how to even. go about that process. Yeah. I think the one of the, one of the strategic risk that often comes up with a lot of people who honestly is really just speaking up.

I mean, it's really just, it's really just speaking up. There's this kind of inner voice that I think we all have and we go, oh, I should say something, and then we don't. We got a lot of reasons to do that and we go, okay, and there's this fear of looking stupid or being rejected or, you know, we're sort of putting ourselves out there and it's not going how we thought it would. And I just, I've gotten in the habit of just celebrating bravery.

And I think there's, with all of the organizations I've worked with, I've never seen on anybody's website that I've worked with, as a value system, bravery. In other words, when you put yourself out there, we clap. When you put yourself out there, we celebrate that. We reward that. And I wish companies would do that more because it would encourage. I think they're missing some of their best ideas because people are afraid to speak up

because of what that might make them look, look why I can. And I think that sort of hos them back. And so I think sometimes you just have to be willing to try something that's a little bit different. I know for one of the things that we've tried over the last year, that we've gotten an incredible amount of feedback from that I'm still slightly nervous about. is moving our primary communication from email to text. And so when we first, when it was first introduced to me, community is the texting service that we use.

One, you know, consistently creating eye-popping, engaging emails that have this amazing subject line, to me it was just like, I just want to encourage people. I just like, I don't want to have to do this whole song and band. And texting just felt more like me. I felt like more of my brand. I mean, I don't want to have an email subscription. It just meant like, hey, in terms of the primary tool that we use to connect with our audience,

we wanted to do texting, well, it's just a different strategy. It's just different. It's not atypical. And so, and I know how a bunch of celebrities use it, but I'm like consistently texting back and forth with people in our text community. And so the way that we now end events

is we put up a QR code. We say, hey, if you'd like to receive encouraging text from me every single week, I want you to text this number. and people do. So we've grown that list to a few thousand people that I text every single week. Sometimes I'll ask questions.

People over back in during Thanksgiving, I said, hey, send me a picture of your Thanksgiving meal. People sent me pictures from all over the world of just their meal. You know, it was just a fun way of just like just engaging with the audience and be like, that'd be kind of difficult to do through email. and who's really checking email on Thanksgiving. And the open rate of an email list is like, I don't know, 7% or something like that.

The open rate of a text message is 97. And so we just, yeah, so we just decided to just move our strategy that direction. And so, you know, I'm consistently being told about how things work. And I'm consistently not believing people. That's just kind of like how. I think I'm like, that's not how it works. I'm like, are you sure that's not how it works? It may maybe they're right.

But could it work a better way? And so I just, this is kind of how, how I think I just try to challenge the status quo. And so gas prices go berserk a few months ago. And as they still are, as today. And I just, I was getting gas from my wife's car. And I just remember thinking like, Man, it would be awesome if I could help some other people with gas money today. Because I can afford a tank of gas for our vehicles.

And I could afford a tank of gas for yours and probably a few others. Like a tank of gas isn't going to, at this stage of my life, alter my budget really at all. and that's what you call fortunate like that that's what like that's that's that's that's amazing and I thought

man you know what I'm at this gas station and I'm literally looking around and I'm going I wish I could see everyone's budget on their forehead and I wish I could see who couldn't afford gas right now

and I would gladly go help them and I just thought I got a few thousand people that I text every single week and I just thought, I wonder how many of them could use some gas. And I wonder how many of them are in my position. And so I'm like, I speak to a lot of leaders who got a lot of pretty good salaries.

And so I'm thinking a lot of them are getting text messages for me. So I call Whitney, I go Whitney, I think we're going to turn into a bank for a day. And so I send off this text message or I just say, hey, here's a deal. if you can, if you need some gas today, like if things are just tight, would you, would you just send back the number one to my number? And that'll signal to us, say, hey, you could use some financial assistance today to get some gas. And if you're in the position of helping group number one, and you've got more than enough and you feel like, yes, I can help the people. that could use some gas. Well, then I want you to send back the number two.

We raised about $10,000 in three hours. Wow. And just gave it away. And so what we did is we connected a bunch of strangers through a texting app and just helped make the world the better place. Now, it's a lot different.

And again, I'm sharing with you the best story of a strategic chance. But the entire time, I got friends in my ears going, dude, dude, you can't be one of those people that's asking for money. It gets weird. People just get real. And you have all of these like voices in your head, not even just from friends, but just your own inner thoughts that just. giving you all these reasons not to try something.

I'm like, I don't know how this is going to go. And nobody's being forced to do anything. But we were just so amazed. We had so many people right back of, hey, we can go to a funeral now. We can afford to go to the doctor. We can, I mean, just, I was amazed how many people were making decisions

about where to go based off of gas prices. And we solved that problem for a lot of people in that particular week. And so I'm just, I'm personally a fan of just going, hey, like, I'm actually okay with someone writing back going, I can't believe you would ask us for money

to help other people. Because again, you always got that person that just kind of wants to watch the world burn and you're just waiting for them to kind of pipe up and save their peace and whatever. But here's, to my surprise, actually to this day, I'm still surprised.

Not one person questioned it. Not one. That's amazing. Not one, which I took as a big compliment of like, hey, they trust that I'm going to do with the money. And she was doing all of the transactions and making sure that people got what they needed and had an Excel spreadsheet and all of that. And we took all of the thank yous and a lot of the, testimonials that we got back and we shared them with the people that gave.

And I said, I just want you to see how you made a difference in a stranger's life today. And so I just, again, it's different. And I've talked to you about this of even just like hiring processes at companies. Like the strategies that you've implemented and the companies you've worked with, It's just different.

Like I'm having conversations with leaders now about benefits. And the question I've been asking about these benefits is, are they beneficial? And are you sure? And I'm going, hey, this gal here that works for you, that's great. Okay, you give her health benefits. Yeah, her husband has a job that already covers her. So she doesn't need double dental. she doesn't need double big

so I said so why don't you like give her something that's like beneficial and there's like well we just we just don't that's just not us I'm like well why not like try try doing something different

bring something new to the table I mean it's it's a people during a pandemic had so much time to sit at their house and ask themselves this question. Do I really want to work here? That's right. You're spending so much money recruiting.

And I'm just like, give them a reason. And here's the interesting thing. Every single team member that's thinking about leaving their job is often not including their boss in the conversation, which means you're not in the room when it's happening. So to me, I'm going, you want to try some things that say, man, is this beneficial? I think if you find yourself in a position where it's like,

man, I just don't have that much leeway to try that many new things, I think you've got to look at the arena you have been given and go, man, how can we add value to other team members or the people that we serve, people we sell products to. Like what can we be doing that can try some different things from the strategic standpoint? I think that that is what can really, I think,

move the dial for people. And again, I'm the chasing failure person. I'm just like, hey, if this goes bad, you know, like it goes bad. But I think, so many people are so, I mean, you and I were just talking last week about the rise of TikTok,

not just in its viral nature, but it's business nature. Right, for business. And how it's, yeah, that's right. You know, and so there's so many people that are just like, no, we just don't really want to, like, start moving our content over there. It's just another, you know, we're kind of in the IG space.

We're kind of in the, in the, in the LinkedIn space, we kind of get Facebook figured out, well, guess what? They're all changing the algorithms too. They're trying new things. They're being futurist. And so TikTok can get a lot of this pushback at this time.

And it's like, well, you've, when have we not had to adopt to something new? I just think that there can be this fatigue of trying new things or having to learn new thing. that people don't want to do it, but I'm just a fan of people going, hey, you know what, we're going to change is constant. It's never going away.

I know we're like waiting for this consistency thing to come. I just don't know that it's coming. I mean, if it comes great, I just mentally, I put myself in a position to say, hey, if I'm always willing to change, the day that I have to won't be very difficult. because at the beginning of the pandemic, we weren't given options.

But I think if you put yourself in a position to say, hey, I'm always trying new things. When you're forced to, it's going to be a whole lot easier of a trip to make than if you never try new things. Gosh, isn't that so true? And it feels like our appetite for change is so much greater and being more flexible when you're first in a company. Because the entitlement and like the seniority doesn't kick it. because you don't know how things have always been done, so you're willing to try new things. And coming from the HR and people world,

I think some of the best recruiting programs really capitalize on the first, call it 90 to 120 days of a new hire coming in. Because they're coming in bright-eyed, right? You and I both know this. It was the best time to survey people and ask, what's the first thing you would fix in 30 days? or what's so obvious that we should be working on. Where was there friction in your onboarding process

or what just doesn't make sense as we've learned our new processes? Because to your point, so many people want to change, but they're not willing to change the way things have been done, especially not in a degree of 180. They want to do things the way things were done, but just slightly, just slightly enough,

but it still feels comfortable, but produces three X different returns. So, yeah, one thing I love that you bring up in this chapter is what are you willing to spend? to get better after you've already had success. And you bring up this idea around a personal exploratory budget that's set within your means to really help you, almost like with your own R&D program.

And I'd love to hear how you came up with that concept, how you see this in action, because so many of our listeners today, I think only know development and growth to be a stipend that's handed out maybe to a leadership team member or something that's controlled within their, you know, talent management team suggesting platforms or suggesting kind of the next tier of skills to build upwards. So talk to us a little bit about how you came up with this personal R&D budget.

Right. So this could be like, this very question could be a two hour long episode because I get so passionate about, like, my secret, my secret passion. is actually sitting down with people and going through their budgets. Like, my wife cracks up because I just light up when somebody's like, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm like, all right, step into my office. I throw up spreadsheets on this screen. And I'm just like, okay, how much you spending it?

Like, I love helping people figure out, like, math equations and how they can kind of reach some of their financial goals. So naturally, whenever I bring up a personal R&D budget, first you go to a company R&D budget. the top companies in the world spend billions in trying stuff. They're successful because they spend money on trying to do dumb stuff. And they try 10 dumb things and one of them is actually brilliant. And it makes them even more money.

So thinking about that principle on a personal level, I think we have to be willing to spend some money on our growth and development. Now, a lot of people go, Ryan, that sounds like a great thing for rich people. That sounds like a great thing for people that have a whole lot of margin. So once again, if we were to sit down, okay, you were to come into my home office and we were to break down your budget, I guarantee you. we would find something that is not adding value to your life that you don't need to be buying. Guarantee it.

There's something. It can be very, very small, but there's something. And I just think that because we don't often value our growth that much, we don't invest in it. And so I just over and over when you came to me a year ago. And you said, hey, have you ever considered a speaker coach? You remember this conversation? And I'm sitting there thinking, I'm sitting there thinking to myself, like, have I considered a speaker coach? Like, I should be offended right now.

What do you mean? You're trying to say, I need coaching. You're trying to say, it's just like, no, like, there's levels of it. and I think that you could go to the next level. And you remember our first call with the spirit coach? I said, hey, give me your pricing. And they go through their pricing. And I said, yeah, I'll do it.

Well, it didn't mean I had it at the time. It just meant I valued it at the time. And I thought to myself, and I don't know if you remember what I said to them. I said, hey, your pricing is some, is the price of a, speaking gig. And so if your coaching can get me just one speaking gig, it'll pay for it. So I'm just trusting. I was like, I'm just trusting that you're really good and I'm trusting that I'm going to listen to you that I'm going to be able to get this back on some level or another. So it's,

it's an investment that could go bad. But looking at my entire. just personal business. I'm like, well, I spent more on dumber things. And so it ended up being one of the greatest investments I've ever made. So I think that it's important. But don't you think it's so true in that moment. Oh, sorry, go ahead. You're finished. You're finished. No, no, no, good. My thought was pretty much done. And now I don't even know what the rest of it was. And I'm already excited to hear what you're

going to ask. Well, I was just going to say, isn't it? It's so true of us that we don't think we need a coach unless we need to go from, you know, five stars to 10 stars. And, you know, at that time you and I had that conversation, you were nine and a half, nine, nine and a half stars. And you just get to a place of success where it's like that half a star pays dividends still, right? And it's like you get to a point in your success where you're no longer can read books on time management and find an extra 20 hours in the day. There's no, you know, you get to a place where you can't read financial savings books

on better finance and investment strategies and make millions of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars. You get to a place where your small edges or small benefits are what you're scooping up and what you're paying for. And the day you had that meeting with the speaker coach, she said, Ryan, you're here and you're, I think she even said, right, like, you're one of the best coaches I've seen. Let's make you better. and it's just I think there's something about our own pride

where we feel like we don't need a coach or a mentor because we feel like we've already progressed so far, right? We forget that we're on third base until we go home. And then we start another lap, but sometimes you just need those coaches that help you just find those small little adjustments that you're such a sports fan. I'm sure we've got better analogies there, but I just think that's all with you and you take coaching so well.

I think that's the other thing, than open to coaching. Well, and I think we could close with this, with this thought. I think this is, this is probably a big tension, especially with a lot of followers,

is all of us are told, you got to find a mentor. You got to find a mentor. As if that was easy. As if there's a bunch of mentors. sitting at a park just waiting for you to come

and help you take your life to the next level. It's like it's free hugs. Those people are signed with free hugs for mentors in the park. Yes. It's actually very, very difficult

to do but it's just and I've thrown the statement out there. Oh, you've got to find a mentor. And people are like, great, will you mentor me? I'm like, I wish I had time. And so here's something that has, I get asked all the time to mentor different people. And a lot of times there's like a formal process to like somebody that wants me to be like their executive coach versus their wife coach versus, you know, hey, I just need a little bit of advice. And, you know, and Whitney's very helpful and trying to help figure out what kind of level is it and what is it that we're,

trying to accomplish, so on and so forth. But I will say this, the people that have been persistent, sometimes what I'll do is somebody will say, hey, will you be my mentor? I'll say, hey, man, right now my calendar is absolutely insane. I don't have any space for it, but would you reach out again in six months? And if they reach out in six months, I give them my time.

Because that meant that they set a date. They put a reminder in their calendar. Like that's a person that I think, okay, they're serious. There have been people that have said, hey, do, can I just, can I just get 20 minutes of your time while you're driving to the airport? Sure. Yeah. Hey, how can I help you? And then we get off that phone call and they say, hey, I just, I really appreciate it the time you gave me.

Hey, here's $100. Here's a reality. I don't need the $100 by the grace of God. We're doing all right. However, the fact that they valued my time makes me want to give it more. That makes sense. So I think if you're in this position and you're looking for a mentor, and again, this goes all into chasing failure,

there can be this thing of like, oh, I don't want to reach out to this person and like never hear from them. And that has happened. I've been on both ends of that. I've gotten so many messages on certain days, certain events, 10,000 people and we get, I don't know, a couple hundred emails. Like, man, somebody slips through the cracks, and that breaks my heart. I can't reach everybody, but I do my very best to respond to people.

And yet there's people I've reached out to that I'm still waiting for a response. heck, I messaged Shack a couple of days ago, okay? Like, I literally just message Shack. So Shack just moved to Dallas. Did I tell you this? Shack just moved to Dallas. And I'm like, Shaq, listen, bro, you got to come hang with your boy. And I just messaged them.

And it's like, like, what's the worst that can happen? He just not respond. But what's the best that can happen? He's like, yeah, where are you going to eat? That's on me, dude. I'll buy. So there's people that I'm still waiting to hear back from. And there's people that are waiting to hear back for me.

But I just, I think one of the ways, like, if some of those people that I'm waiting to hear back from, give me the time of day, I want to make sure that it's worth their time and that I show that I value it greatly. And so I think if you're in a position and you're seeking mentorship, hey, it's okay to not get responded to.

When you do, don't waste their time. Be prepared. I can't tell you how many green rooms I've sat in with people of high influence and somebody begged their way to get back there and they weren't ready with a question. I can't tell you how many meetings I've set up between people and say, ma'am, could you introduce?

me to this friend, could you get me a lunch? And I will leverage my influence for somebody else, which I believe is very important. And I'm amazed, absolutely amazed by how many times my influential friend will call and go. They didn't ask any question. I'll say, excuse me? They said, yeah, they talked the whole time. Like, they were trying to impress me. And I thought, I'm sorry. And so I was with John Maxwell a couple of years ago. And his chief of staff is a really good friend of mine. Great guy.

And I just told him, I just said, hey, chat, John, just know this. I have in my notes on my phone, my iPad, and my computer, questions for John Maxwell. There's 20 of them. So any moments that I get with somebody of that caliber, I'm ready. I always have a question. And guess what? I try to ask questions that he hasn't already answered in his books.

So I've read slash listen to so many of his books that it's like, hey, here's something that I've not heard you talk about. And I could be wrong. but could you give me some insight into perhaps some of the conversations you've had with your family on the journey of your success? It's a difficult. I'm ready. Does that make sense?

It's like, so I think if you're in that position, you, you've got to stay ready and make sure that it's, it's, you're prepared for that opportunity. Because if you're not, it's just going to, I mean, you've, you've, you've wasted it. I think those are some things that people can be doing, even when they've gotten a little bit of success. They can be taking a few more risks in that area. Gosh, I think that's such good advice, Ryan. Having been on the other side of just what you said, connecting folks, knowing some pretty well-known or established high-profile people,

nothing deflates them more than being asked the same routine questions over and over that are publicly available, right? And I think that's just such good advice. And I think especially in the vein of mentorship, you know, we all want to mentor, but I don't think we're doing the readiness work, which I've heard you talk about around what do we want mentorship over, which behavior, which habit, which grow skill, which life cycle, you know, what decision are we trying to make? Because mentorship isn't just magical because it's mentorship. It's really really productive and magical when you find the right teacher for the right skill set. And that's what I love so much about your readiness talk is just doing the heavy work and having heavy awareness to figure out what is the next growth going for you.

Gosh, good one today, Ryan. Thank you so much for walking us through that chapter. Hey, thanks for joining us today on followership with Ryan Lee. I would love to keep you encouraged each and every week. And I actually have a group of people that I text weekly to keep them inspired and motivated. If you want to be a part of that community, text the word podcast to 469-809-1-201. Again, text the word podcast to 469-809-1201. And this will put my contact information directly in your phone and you will start getting a weekly encouraging text for me.

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