The Ryan Leak Podcast - Shadow People with Tim Schurrer

Episode Date: August 26, 2022

On today's episode, Ryan interviews Tim Schurrer about his new book The Secret Society of Success. Tim is the CEO of David Novak Leadership and Host of the "Build a Winning Team" podcast. 

Welcome to followership with Ryan Leak, a podcast designed to talk about the other side of leadership. When we look at large organizations, small organizations, there's a lot of leading going on, but there's more following. Isn't that true? That's why we designed this podcast to help people follow well. Today's guest is Tim Shore. He is a friend of mine who is brilliant. He's written a book called The Secret Society of Success. And in his book, he really talks about people that find themselves in organizations and they're behind the scenes people.

They're, I use this phrase that you'll hear a little bit later about shadow people. These are people that aren't getting a whole lot of recognition, aren't given a whole lot of spotlight in what they do. And so I think that what I found to be true in Tim's book is you can find a lot of peace in, in accepting the fact, you know what, I actually don't need to be on the stage. I don't actually need to have the bright lights. I don't actually need to be front and center to really enjoy my life in my career. And so please join me as we welcome my good friend Tim Shore to the podcast. We had a wonderful conversation and I think that you are going to enjoy it.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the podcast, my friend Tim Shore. me and Tim recently got connected through a mutual friend who does a lot of stuff with me on the speaking side of things and said hey you got to be on Tim's podcast and so

we're like looking into each other and I'm like wait a second we have like I don't know what like a hundred mutual friends and like I went to college with his cousin and it's just like all of all of this stuff so he's like dude you got to be on my podcast

And then this morning I was like, hey, you got to be on my podcast. Then we're like, well, when? I was like, how about right now? Let's hit record. He would show gracious to send me his new book. It's called The Secret Society of Success. Stop Chasing the Spotlight and Learn to Enjoy Your Work and Live again. I just finished this book about a week and a half ago.

And I just thought, everybody I know needs to read this book. book. And I think that the subject of this book is so perfect for this followership audience, people that have jobs that aren't all that sexy, but they're still trying to find fulfillment and enjoyment in what they do. And so I think this book, I would be an incredible resource for you. I encourage everyone to go get it. And I said, Tim, when you come on and talk to us a little bit about your book, Tim, welcome to followership with Ryan Lee. So good to see you again. I know we had lunch yesterday in Nashville,

but here we are again, and it's good to be all in you, man. Say hello, say hello to the followership people. Man, I'm just fun to be here. This is so fun. I feel like I'm just over here giggling and smiling. The whole thing is so wild to me, but I can't believe we know as many of the same people as we do.

I'm like watching this video from your wedding, and I'm like, I know the guy facilitating your wedding. What is going on? That's hilarious, too. Dude, so tell us about where this idea of the secret society. First off, what is the secret society? When you say the secret society of success, who is that? Tell us who that is.

All right, so I'll frame it up with this story. It's one of my favorite stories, Apollo 11. A lot of people are familiar. You've got Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin. One small step for man, one giant least for mankind. Right. But what a lot of people don't know, there's a third astronaut on that mission, and his name was Michael Collins.

So Michael Collins is the guy who ubers kneel and buzz to the moon. He drops them off. That's right. Those guys then do all the various tasks they have to do on the moon surface when he actually stays back in the command module, orbits them in something like 26 times until those guys are ready to be picked up and brought back to Earth. And what I love so much about this story is that when Michael gets back, he sits down with the press, he talks about how content he was to have had one of those three seats.

And what's remarkable about that response is most people would probably talk about how frustrated they were to have made that massive trip and they didn't get to walk on the moon. They'd try to play the victim in some way. But that's not at all what Michael does. He talks about his contentness, which is not a message that. that we hear these days, everyone is saying, hey, to be successful, you have to be the person in the spotlight, you have to climb the ladder, be the boss, have fame, money, and power. But what I have been learning as I've been navigating my career the last 15 years is the further and further I got away from the spotlight was actually when I found contentment and fulfillment in my life. So the question is, do you have to walk on the moon to be happy?

Wow. That's it, right? Because if success is only these things, then are the rest of us just missing it? We just actually looking at success in the wrong way. So the secret society is this group of people who have taught me to think about, look at, approach success from a very, different vantage point than maybe the one that we are hearing from culture and in all these other messages out there these days. He said, do you have to walk on the moon to feel like you're a success? That's it. That's a line. Like that is that is so much what even if I can even speak vulnerably, I feel that pressure.

Yeah. Every day. Like, not let's just go to the moon, but like, let's go dance on the moon. Like, let's do the show thing. And, dude, that is so encouraging because in, you know, in reading your book, that, that, first off, it was a brilliant story. Way to start off the book with like the perfect analogy of like, am I okay being a Michael Collins? Like, am I okay just being somebody that just ubers somebody else? to the moon. And I think about friends that I have, like,

they feel like I'm just Uber in. Like, I don't feel like, like, I just think about this large group of people. I just feel like their life isn't enough because it's not sexy according to. And then they could fill in the blank with a myriad of different audiences and family members and friends that,

and I just, I want to free them today. And that, again, I'm not just hyping up your book because you're my friend. I'm telling when I first saw that first story in the book, I thought that this is something that is desperately needed. Well, what has been your career path thus far? Because you haven't been in the spotlight. So let's update our audience on just different people that you've worked for because you've mastered the behind the scenes role where you haven't been front and center. But you've had a great career.

Yeah. So give the audience a little bit of context like, okay, where have you worked? What are some of the things that you're doing and who are some of the people you've worked for? So for the last 10 years, I was working as the right hand to Donald Miller, running and building both story brand and business made simple. Explain story brand and business made simple for people that don't know what it is. Yeah. So Storybrand is really what put us on the map on the marketing front and in the business world.

And so Story Brand's a marketing framework that helps people filter and clarify their messaging. So what's wild is so many business leaders don't know how to talk about what they do. It seems so simple, right? And yet, if you're asked at a dinner party, what do you do? The words that come out of most people's mouths is just so convoluted. they have no idea how to talk about what they do in a simple way, which makes sense because you go to their website, it's also just as confusing and just as cluttered.

And so if people can follow the framework that we outline for them and learn to talk about their business using elements of story, we can simplify it and help them talk about what they do in a simple way. So that is really what we did. And what's been neat is the company grew from 250,000 to 16.5 million in my time. And we grew to a team about 30 people. And for a small business, that's pretty great. But the grand scheme of business, it's all relative.

But what's neat about that is, and one of my favorite memories of my time working with Dawn and that team. So about 10 days after a book comes out is when you find out if it hits, the various bestseller lists. Correct. And so Don got a call the day he was in the office, and we knew this was the call from the publisher we'd find out. So he gets off the phone, lists his hands in the air, and says, we hit number five on the New York Times,

which is the highest any of his books had ever hit on the list, which is a huge deal. We're high five and we're hugging. And then something really beautiful happens. Yeah. We all went back to work. That's right. And a lot of people would hear me say something like that and say, y'all are dysfunctional.

Like you don't know how to celebrate wins. But I actually love it because to me, it's an example of a group of people, a culture that had been created, which was us focusing more on the work than what the work would do for us or give us. It wasn't about the accolade. It was about the process. And so for me, what I've tried to do in my career is be more interested in doing the work and locking arms with a team of really talented people to make some really beautiful things happen, whether or not people ever know my name.

And so it's a little ironic that now I launch a book. I have my own podcast and all that. but I still feel like somebody who's very much behind the scenes. Like people behind the scenes are my people. These are the ones that I love to connect with because so much of what goes on behind the scenes and most companies is just underappreciated, undervalued. And I'm someone who has almost this gift of like being able to see,

oh my gosh, if people only knew all of the work going on day to day, and if people only would recognize that and value each person's contribution, what would that do to our company cultures and what would that do to our environments? And so that was the kind of culture we tried to create. And now me talking about all that I do in my book, this is so much of what I'm passionate about

is shaping teams, shaping cultures to look at how they do their work, to look at success a little bit differently, and maybe even add a little bit more, bit of validation for people in behind the scenes roles to be like, hey, what you are doing is exactly what you need to be doing. Like, don't believe the lie that you are not successful just because people don't know your name.

In fact, you don't need a stage to make an impact, right? It's incredible, man. What was the phrase you used earlier for what you told me a little story about what you Almost called this book. Please, please share that. They got to hear that. So I almost called this book The Shadow People. And I got that phrase listening to an interview that we did on the Storybrand podcast with Ernie Johnson,

who's The Host of TNT's Inside the NBA, one of the most remarkable human beings of all time. And he was saying that when he would travel with Jeff Foxworthy, Jeff Foxworthy is always looking for the shadow people. You know, the people behind the scenes that no one else is recognizing or noticing. And I was just starting my book process right around the time I heard that and I just was floored by that phrase.

And I thought, that's it. There's so many people that are doing incredible work that just feel invisible, which actually makes sense. And here's why it makes sense that people feel invisible. It's because for most of us, if we're doing our job well, no one notices us.

So I'm at this concert at the Rhyman Auditorium, which was actually across the street from where you and I had lunch yesterday. Okay. And I'm watching one of my favorite artists play, and he's playing guitar, standing center stage. And then on the second song, he jumps back onto a piano. And so in that transition, the guy running the main spotlight loses them. And, you know, the guy running the spotlight, you could tell he's lost because he's doing like figure eights on the stairs. You know, everyone in the crowd knew what was going on. And the lead singer calls him out in joking ways.

Like, got to stay with me, bro. And the show goes on. But I'm sitting there in my seat thinking, if that guy running the spotlight is doing his job to perfection, no one notices them. And how many of us are doing our jobs well and we feel. invisible. Wow. So what are we supposed to do about that? Because if all that we hear from, you know, culture or the people that are getting

the promotions are the ones that everyone is talking about, then we feel this pressure to demand attention, to get people to notice us. Yeah. And yet for so many of us, it feels so contradictory to how we actually want to show up in our lives. we want to be a part of really great work. We want to strive for excellence in all that we do. We're willing to be a Michael Collins,

and yet we're told that we're not enough if we do that. And so what I have found is an antidote for all of this. Tell us. What if we actually started to become the people who recognized others around us? like what if we actually the next time that a colleague does something for you maybe they follow up with a customer because you didn't have time or you know what if the next time that someone running the spotlight in whatever you know industry you're in what if you went up to them after the show and said you crushed it today i am seeing the

work that you do i see you right and so if we can could be the kinds of people who start to recognize people behind the scenes. I just feel like it's going to make a massive difference in people feeling invisible and alone and not seen and not valued. And so I feel like I'm just trying to walk that message out everywhere that I go and be the person who's like, there's so much incredible work happening from these shadow people, these people behind the scenes. And I just want people to feel seen and appreciated. Man, I love that so much. And it goes directly into my next question.

One of my favorite parts of your book is about creating a culture of recognition. You tell several stories in that piece, one about Sarah Sloyin, who was the senior vice president of venture leadership. She invited you to one of her weekly stand-up meetings. And you told another story about the former chairman and CEO PepsiCo. would you share those two stories about what you learned at the Entra Leadership weekly stand-up meeting and what you learned from the former chairman and CEO of PepsiCo? Yeah, so Entree leadership is under the umbrella of the Dave Ramsey Company. And so I go in one day, Sarah's a good friend of mine,

and she invited me to one of their team meetings. And they did something at the end of the meeting, they called shoutouts, which is where they just take a couple of minutes and call out some of that work that may have otherwise gone unnoticed. And, you know, so that week, they had launched something,

one of their digital products. And so a developer got a shout out for some of the work that they had done to, you know, launch their piece. And a few other people got some, you know, verbal paths on the back. And everyone walks out of that meeting on a high note because people were just being recognized.

And so I wanted to, create the same kind of thing in our company. So we started doing the exact same thing in our staff meetings. We would just take a couple of minutes at the end of the meeting and just shout out people for doing great work. And here's a thing that I think a lot of people don't understand about recognition is leaders need recognition too. I think everyone expects it to all be top down, but leaders all the time talk about how leading is lonely. What are they saying? They don't feel seen and unvalued and appreciated, right? So what if at the next staff meeting, envision a company who, you know, has maybe been having some tough revenue months,

imagine what it would feel like if one of the team members at the end of that meeting or privately goes up to the leader and says, you know, for the last several weeks, we've been talking about revenue being down. And I can only imagine you as the CEO, how much pressure you are feeling because of it. And yet, I keep getting a paycheck every two weeks. I just want you to know. I see you. I appreciate all of the work that you were doing to get us back on track. And I want to do whatever I can to help us get back on track to. But I just need you to know that I appreciate all the work that you're doing. I'm sure it's pretty lonely sometimes. Yeah. What does that take 15 seconds? and yet how does a leader feel walking away from an interaction like that?

They feel appreciated and valued like a little boost in their own morale. And so recognition needs to go both ways. So shoutouts is a really great way to do that and fuse that into your staff meetings. And it's easy. It can be a few minutes. But also what I love, Andrew Newy is the former chairman and CEO of PepsiCo. And so she did something that I think is just so funny. She would write notes of recognition to the employee's parents,

thanking them for raising such great kids that then those kids were adding such incredible value to the company. Who does that? Who does that? She does that, right? And I just love when you see leaders, like all leaders cast a shadow. So if you're listening to this and you're a leader, what kind of shadow are you casting for your organization?

Wow. And for Injernui, the shadow she's casting is saying, hey, I want to value people's contribution, and I'm willing to take the time to write a note to their parents. Right. I just love what that does in a company culture, showing people what really matters. So let's just say you're a shadow person, okay?

Not a shallow person, a shadow. person with a deep. And, man, you just, you just feel so unrecognized. You feel so unseen. You feel so undervalued. What's your encouragement to that person today? Yep. Let's start with the truth, which is you will never be fully recognized for all of the work

that you do. Wow. I wish I had a different message. Say it one more time. Say it one more time. You will not be fully recognized for the work that you do. And I hate having to start there, but that's just the truth. So what do you do on the days when you just wish more people would notice you? Right.

Like I can't control anyone else's behaviors or actions. I can't make people recognize me. I can't make people appreciate me. So I can be the person who is doing that. that for others. Right. But I don't know if that's going to come back. So the thing that you have to do

is find this internal drive, the motivation to do the work whether or not you're ever noticed and recognize for it. Fall in love with the process. The love of the work itself.

Because if you can do that, I feel like you've got a shot at actually being happy. But if your only motivation is validation from then somebody else or being appreciated and seen from someone, I just feel like you're setting yourselves up to lose. So I think that what you have to do is define

what is success for you really? Is success attention and recognition or is success the work? Is success contributing to something whether or not people know your name? Are you willing to do the work or do you need to walk on the moon to be happy? And I think that that's what I love so much about Michael Collins, the example he gives all of us to follow it.

What if you were willing to do your job with excellence to the point to where you are one of the three people chosen to go to the freaking moon? And yet you didn't demand attention. You didn't demand applause or the credit, but you were just content being a part of a greater whole. So I hope the encouragement I would offer to everybody is find something that you love to do, a subplot that you are willing,

a plot that you are willing to be a subplot in, contribute to something bigger than yourself. I feel like you can make all the impact that you could ever imagine doing that with excellence. And that to me is what success is. That was remarkable. It was remarkable. I'm serious to,

I mean, like I, man, I just think of, you know, you and I were talking earlier about the amount of successful people we know that people have never heard of, that don't have social media, I don't have a book, They don't have a podcast. They're just doing their job really well and building great businesses.

It's so funny. Like when people ask me who I'm speaking for next, I always laugh. I'm like, you've never heard of them. They got like 100,000 employees. You just, you've never heard of them. They're not just shadowed people. They're shadow companies. But there's a lot of people there

and they're paying me to come to speak. But those companies, those leaders, those people really encourage me. And I really want to encourage people today, like, you know, for those who are kind of stuck in this trap of trying to climb the ladder, hear from Tim today, here from me today, like where you're at on the ladder is okay.

Yeah, like it's enough. Like do a really good job at whatever ring on the ladder you find yourself on and stay encouraged. So Tim, and once again, thank you so much for being on Fowler. Shit with Ryan League today.

Everybody go by the secret society of success. I'm telling you, it will encourage your soul. All right, I'm going to give you one last thought. You ready? It's the North Star for me. And I just love this quote so much.

by Albert Switzer, he says, I don't know what your destiny will be. Perhaps some of you will occupy remarkable positions. Perhaps some of you will become famous by your pens or as artists, but I know one thing. The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve. That's the stuff, right?

That's it. If there is a common denominator for people in the secret society, they help others win. So may we be the people who help others win, who define success for ourselves, who are willing to serve somebody else, whether or not we get the attention and the recognition that we crave. I think if we do that, the rest is going to take care of itself. I love it. Thanks for your time today, man. Thanks for having me.

Thank you.