Your Transformation Station - 68. WHO Comes First "Leaders or Followers" 'Jerry Fu' w/ 'Favazza'

Episode Date: November 24, 2021

Jerry has been working as a leadership expert since 2012 and specializes in conflict resolution with a focus on "Asian-American leaders". Jerry tells us "the best way" to ask for help from leadership, as well as constructive approaches to solving the workplace problems common to both followers and leaders.  https://www.adaptingleaders.com/blog/unpaid-endorsement-your-transformation-station-podcast Support the showPODCAST INFO:Podcast website: https://ytspod.comApple Podcasts: https://ytspod.com/appleSpotify: https://ytspod.com/spotifyRSS: https://ytspod.com/rssYouTube: https://ytspod.com/youtubeSUPPORT & CONNECT:- Check out the sponsors below, it's the best way to support this podcast- Outgrow: https://www.ytspod.com/outgrow- Quillbot Flow: https://ytspod.com/quilbot - LearnWorlds: https://ytspod.com/learnworlds- Facebook: https://ytspod.com/facebook- Instagram: https://ytspod.com/instagram- TikTok: https://ytspod.com/tiktok- Twitter: https://ytspod.com/x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The better answer, if something is not going according to expectations, is to say, hey, boss, this is true. I've tried options at one, two, and three. And all three of these have failed. So in light of this, you know, are there resources that you could recommend so that, you know, because you need to basically kind of, you know, account for the fact that, yes, boss, I've been at work. I am not making excuses. And this is what I've done so far. And this is where it's got me. So, you know, I feel like I've come to the end of my own. abilities or perspective, you know, what else can you suggest so that I can be sure to honor and meet expectations? How can you create a transformation in others if there's no transformation in yourself? Join your host, Greg Favaza, as your voice on the hard truths of leadership, your transformation station connecting clarity to the cutting edge of leadership. As millennials, we can establish change, not only ourselves, but through organizational change, bringing transparency that goes beyond the organization and reflects back into ourselves.

Extracting, actionable advice, and alternative perspectives that will take you outside of yourself. Jerry, welcome to your transformation station. How you doing? Great. Excellent. What can you share with our listeners here today? A little snapshot about yourself and what makes you so unique? Well, I mean, I think some of the things, if I had to kind of, you know, show off some of the tools in my toolbox. I mean, I took German in high school, so that always surprised.

as people. Yes. Yeah. Well, Jerry, tell us about your leadership and what you tailor your strong shoot to your specific audience. Sure, sure. Yeah.

I think in terms of that regard, yeah, I've gotten very good at listening actively. That's the first thing is just to really, instead of jumping in with the solution immediately, just because I feel like I'm so familiar with the problem, let me slow down and really learn the situation more completely. Second is just, yeah, the types of questions that I ask, you know, just really getting into the heart of an issue and then, you know, kind of just giving, offering tools that, you know, I've refined over the years in my own experiences and just saying, but not imposing them on them on my clients or anybody else, but say, hey, you know, here's a hammer or a screwdriver or a

power drill, which of these is most useful to you or which one catches your interest, right? and then giving them the chance. And then, yeah, just the life experiences that I can draw from. You know, it's not a typical path by any stretch. You know, dealing with bounce paychecks with the crooked boss, that's never good. Dealing with, you know, finding out that when I was the Sunday school director, my second day on the job, there was a guy, sexually harassed woman in the class, and they just told me, hey, Jerry, go handle it.

It's like, okay, you know, sure. Let me just run toward the gunfire, right? No plan, no manual, nothing. I like that. Jerry, let me, let me roll out the red carpet for you a little bit. So you were in pharmacy almost like 12, 10, 10 years ago. It's now 16, yeah. 60.

Oh, yes. So you've had a lot happen since then. You focused your specialties and have been refining and refining in leadership. And the people that you coach, that you help is Asian-American. culture. Is that correct? Yeah, that's the, that's the ideal client. Correct. Okay. Yes. So tell us a little bit about that and customs and courtesies and what makes it different from culture to culture with your specialty. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, the unspoken rules, you kind of learn the hard way, right? one is that if you are a guest in someone's house, number one, you always show up with a gift.

You always show up with something as a token of appreciation for, hey, thank you for letting me stay, you know, like three days for the weekend or something like that. And it took me a while to pick up on that. Another was, you know, when, after you're done staying there, right, you leave the guest room and whatever facilities they make available to you, you leave them as if no one, was there to begin with. Like, you leave them either in the same shape you found them or better somehow if there's things that you could clean up.

And, you know, you don't learn this until often that is too late. And then you're like, well, why didn't they ask us back? And it's like, oh, it's just a really, it's a really unfortunate game to play where you have this honor shame dynamic, right? Where it's like, okay, we only want to do things that bring honor. We don't want to bring shame. But then when that fear of bringing shame involves, oh, here are the expectations for our guests, right? Hey, take off your shoes before you enter the house, you know, leave things the way you found them, you know, clean up as best you can.

Right. But we often as Asians play the short game and say, well, you know, let the guests do what they want. But if they secretly hit all these trip wires that make us upset, well, you know, we just want to. invite him back. It's like they're willing to, and they're willing to basically kind of quietly cut off the relationship rather than risk, you know, embarrassing their guests or things like that, even though the short-term pain is better, right, in managing that and resolving that conflict is better than, you know, just letting them do what they want without any level of awareness and then saying, well, you know, they can't be that good a friend if they didn't figure out the game,

the secret rules of that game. So to come out and be able to be able to be. be more vocal about that without being sounding diva-ish or antagonistic when explaining these things is really the heart of what I want to equip all my clients with so that, hey, I don't have to stay resentful just because I felt like if bringing up my needs and interests or perspective would cause problems or I wouldn't know how to handle that if I got some pushback. So I really like that, were you related in the personal realm as far as you. inviting guests. Now, I'm guilty. I'm the guy where it's like, go ahead, do what you want, but it's like, in the back of my mind, I have an idea of what is acceptable and what isn't

acceptable. And I think that that's what they would know. But in reality, I mean, we grew up from different areas. We just, there's a different social upbringing. So their normal is completely different. And I'm just more of just a perfectionist. So, there's a lot more than the average where I will like freak out. Like, whoa, whoa, do not touch like my collection of things. Yeah. Just get out of there. Just don't go in that room.

It's like, yeah. Don't touch my man cave. No. How can we relate that into a organization as far as leaders and having that expectation met towards their followers? Yeah, yeah, great question. the times where we've, I know I've had the most success is when, is when you allow for discussion, right? Like, let's, you know, one of the, one of my favorite things to do when we lead leadership workshops, but this also works, you know, and like, you know, on the clock is when we ask, you know, say my technicians, hey, you know, what do you, if you were in charge, what kind of rules would you set?

Like, what kind of practices would you want if you were in charge? And, you know, they'll say things like, oh, you know, we want to communicate well. We want to solve problems quickly, right? We want people to be confident. And so one thing we always plant is, well, punctuality, right? Do you like starting on time? And no one says, well, no, I don't want to start on time. Like, no one says, nah, I don't want to admit that I'm just lazy or something like that.

Right. And so, but you allow for them to discuss the student. You can say, hey, look, here's something that I want to put on the table. Do you want it? Yes or no? no, okay, all right. Like, you know, thank you for your honesty. And so to allow for that discussion, and when people have a say, right,

and the kind of rules and policies that you set, you get a lot more buy in when they feel like they've been heard. And what's funny is at one point, on the clock, you know, we started to do a morning huddle. We used to have a weekly meeting, but then like the agenda would just like accumulate after a week and it would just be terrible. And so we started to do daily huddles.

just to kind of wash out the agenda, you know, more regularly. But what's funny is one of the newer texts didn't like that. And she goes, I don't see the point. And we're just talking about the same thing over and over again each morning. I think a weekly meeting would be more appropriate. And all the other texts actually overrode her. And they're like, hey, Denise, thank you for, you know, expressing your opinion. And we're, you know, we've been through that.

And, you know, we're not going to go back to that because, you know, we shouldn't have to let you experience how inefficient and drawn out these are just for you to get on board with the fact that a morning huddle is more practical and efficient. Ooh, I like that. That's very well put. Let's backtrack, though. You said something perfect. As far as with people being honest, open and honest, how do you know that they are being open and honest?

And can you distinguish that from them just they're trying to avoid not saying anything stupid that would get them in trouble? Yeah. Yeah. And dealing with Asians, you have to deal with this, right? How is everything? Oh, it's fine, boss. It's fine. What's that fire in the back?

No, no, no, no, no, something. You know. Tiny fire. It's okay. No, I mean, you know, you have to, as a boss, you have to establish, you know, earn their trust, right? Normally they think, oh, if you're the newest higher on the block or you're the lowest rung on the totem pole, then you have to earn trust. That's just true regardless.

but when leaders are willing to ask, hey, how do I earn your trust? And then you show, hey, look, I'm just trying to sit you up to succeed. How do I help you succeed at this organization, right? How do I make sure that you look good so that I look good? And so when employees realize, hey, my boss is not just the big, bad, like, secretly looking for things where I mess up and building a case to get me fired, it's like, no, boss wants to do everything he can. to help me succeed. I got to get it back in there again. Like I like,

what you have it, you lose it. It's like, it's okay. No, we're going to fight through it, man. We're going to power through it.

It's okay. Yes. Yes. Okay. So we are back from our break here. Yeah, right. So what can you tell us about what you've learned

with your clients and what could you use this information that you've obtained to relay to our audience for them to become a better leader today? Yeah, so kind of to elaborate a little more on what we previously were discussing, right? Part of it is being able to draw out when, yeah, provide a safe environment, right? When bosses normally, right, yeah, with Asians, it's like, oh, boss man, got to make sure that boss isn't upset and, you know, don't want to possibly give him any information that might upset him. So I'm just going to have to say everything's fine, even if not everything is fine, because I don't want to admit that if for some reason. something is not going to plan that somehow if I ask for his help, you know, that that would look poorly upon me, right? On one hand, yeah, like, I realize in my own journey, hey, boss doesn't

want to hear stories about why you couldn't get the job done. Boss just wants to get the job done. So, you know, utilize as much as you can. But the better answer, if something is not going according expectations is to say, hey, boss, this is true. I've tried options at one, two, and three, and all three of these have failed. So in light of this, you know, are there resources that you could recommend so that, you know, because you need to basically kind of, you know, account for the fact that, yes, boss, I've been at work. I am not making excuses. And this is what I've done so far. And this is where it's gotten to. So, you know, I feel like I've come to the end of my own abilities or, perspective, you know, what else can you suggest so that I can be sure to honor and meet

expectations, right? And for me, right, my biggest mistake was thinking, yeah, oh, well, if I just have a good enough reason to fail, then the boss won't be upset. It's like, no, no, no, that's how you get fired, which happened. And so, and so I think what I try to communicate to my clients is that, hey, don't play scared. You know, so one client I have, had, you know, he had a lot of challenges trying to design a career path that he was actually happy with. And with that in mind, right, he left his, you know, the city he grew up in to take a job at a company. He was more excited about but had no, you know, community or social support. And, you know, he grew from that experience. But along the way, he would get job offers, you know,

closer to home or opportunities and he would ask me, hey, you know, this job isn't, it's closer to where I want to be like socially, but it's a slight detour or it's going to take me down a path, you know, in my career. I'm not, you know, interested in pursuing. What do I do? And so it wasn't my place to tell him, oh, yeah, take this job or don't take this job. It was more about what is the most important thing. You need to say yes to, right? What is the most important commitment right now? because the decision making doesn't get difficult between the good and the bad. It gets hard between the great and the good, right? Say, okay, what is the biggest game I need to hunt right now, right?

In one way of asking that. Another client, right? Don't monologue. Don't you monologue on me now. I know, right. Go for it. No, no, no, no. So I like where this is going.

This is good. All right. Now, let's climb up the channel a little bit. Now, tell us your approach on how you would handle an organization. as a whole. I'm talking, we're going from team leader position to CEO. How would you orchestrate the distribution and delegation of leadership of your resources and how would you pivot if something would occur? Yeah, yeah, great question. Yeah, part of it is why do, why would we, why would we even start this company? Like, what problem are we trying to solve or

you know, what, what delight, you know, or what experience do we want to provide, right? Because those are the, if we're talking about business experiences, right, either you solve a pain point that people are willing to pay money for a solution for or you provide some pampered, like spy experience that people are saying, oh, this is wonderful. Like, I would, you know, shell out money to feel like a king, right? So what are we trying to do, right? What are we trying to do? What is the benefit of even trying this out, right?

So once you, because if you don't have a clear reason for even starting a company, right, the buy-in is very, very difficult, even from a, even from like the leadership standpoint, right? Because if leadership isn't on board with how they're trying to make money and what that benefit to society is, you know, how do you expect anyone hire you hire to really be excited about their job, right? So part of it, yeah. So have that target in mind and then to say, okay, now that we have a strategy in mind, How do we want to set up this company, right?

Do we need, you know, several mid-level managers? Yes or no? You know, let's set that up. And then also, okay, what kind of culture do we want to provide, right? And you can get bogged down, right, in saying things. I've made this mistake, oh, we need integrity. What does that even mean? We don't know.

But it just sounds like a word that, you know, companies need to have, right? Donald Miller talks about, hey, no, just list key characteristics. things like three to five, hey, I need people who are punctual and focused and efficient and, you know, coachable and communicate well, right? Now you have a clear, I need these five things. These are very specific and concrete. Okay, we need this in everybody, right? And so once you have an idea of what kind of, you know, personalities or, you know, positions you need, okay. Yeah, now, how do we keep them engaged? How do we inspire them to really be not just to motivate them with like bonuses or things, but to provide an environment, they would be excited to work for, knowing that

their work is meaningful and that they are given a level of autonomy to get that job done. So those are some things there. You've got a lot of touch points for me to play with here. Yes. I want to go a little back and I want to talk about this approach. How would you handle it if we were to expand, say outside the state or even outside the country? I think that would be a real good one as far as understanding what that entails. Yeah, great question.

If it were up to me, you know, I think the magic number I would read about is like anything greater than 150 people like total from, you know, a total number of employees just gets very difficult to manage. And so you want to keep groups relatively small. Like if I were to franchise this thing, right, just to say, okay, start a, you know, yeah, we have a group. Start it up here. Don't get more than 20 people.

Make sure you comply with any local laws that may, you know, other new circumstances that are different to ours, right? Do your research, right? Do that homework. Make sure everything is compliant. Make sure that you are aware of how you may need to adapt these principles to local cultures. And, you know, as long as people agree on the benefits, yeah, you know, plant the seed. You know, agree on the plan and the benefits of this. Yeah, plant the seed and see how it grows.

The saying I've heard that I like was like, you know, point set is look different in different kinds of soil, but people know it's a point set up. So yeah. I like that. Why small numbers? Why not bigger? Just there's no secrets, man.

When you only have 10 people, right? You got to, you got to, you can't hide anything, right? And if you do, you're going to be found out pretty quick. And so, you know,

they, we talk about like in small groups, right? Like we say, oh yeah, no more than six people because as soon as you have more than six, right, then not everyone feels hurt or people, like, it's easier to hide. And people kind of just kind of swim under the radar. And, you know, if there's as long as there, you know, there might be cases where that's

okay. And people are just saying, hey, I don't need to be as vocal or visible. I'm as long as I'm still contributing, you know, and maybe there's a place for that. But with companies, you need everyone engaged and provide a level of accountability that don't get when you know um when and you get big enough right and then people start skimming things off the top oh no one's going to miss this you know if i take like some office supplies from the closet you know no one and that there's there's there's there's there's uh there's a great book incidentally called predictably rational where like the the the lead um experiment talks about he's like no

no one will steal the entire boat but people will when given the chance they'll shave a couple dollars off you know here and there so it's like hey just don't let that happen i like that so with Let's say you do have a larger team. You have more manpower than you can handle. For somebody in that position, how can they utilize their resources and how can they get these people to work effectively without over expending themselves in the process? Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, there's a hierarchy when done well, right? you would, I mean, this is, we can talk in theoretical things, but it's like, okay, what are, like, catalog

all the tasks that are involved or, right, catalog everything and then start to group them in like four or five major categories, right, just to say, okay, what are, how can we group things into, you know, so that each group doesn't have more than like 10 things that they're responsible for or something like that, right? And then, okay, who matches up with these tasks, right? Some groups may be smaller. Some groups may be slightly larger, but we know, hey, this is the limit of how big groups can be. Okay, once we've basically grouped the tasks that we believe are fair or, you know, like are associated in some reasonable way, okay, let's appoint someone to be in charge of each of these divisions, right? And so now the hierarchy is not to like inflate anyone's ego is to say,

hey, who is ultimately responsible for the health of the group? You know, let's play and we need people, We need one person to play point for each of these, right? Okay. And again, use, leverage the democratic approach where you say, hey, guys, we need your help trying to sort out everyone's talents and how do we match task to strength, right? How do we make sure that we have personalities that will, that will, you know, are committed to the greater good of the company, even if there's a productive conflict in the middle of things.

Like, it's not that you won't argue. It's just what are you arguing about. Bingo. All right, stop right there. You got to hit this. For the people that you have that are in charge that's taking point for these groups, what would their personalities be, in your opinion? Well, I mean, it's, I think it's different for everybody.

And that's the easy answer, but let's go into specifics, right? Yes. You know, the people, regardless of whether or not you're introverted or extroverted, because we're not here to because there's strengths to both. but like if I were to hire leaders, I need people who are coachable, you know, to that kind of what I mentioned earlier. I need people that when I give them feedback, they understand, hey, it's nothing personal. We're just looking to improve.

And, you know, they're going to adjust whatever, you know, they need to and just demonstrate by their work that they took my feedback seriously, right? I need people who build relationships well. So I need people that know how to earn trust or at least study the ways that they need to earn their team's trust and also their boss's trust. And we say, okay, you know, I need to set a good example for everybody. I don't have to necessarily burn the midnight oil. But I do want to be sure that people, there's no question about how hard I work.

Other qualities, you know, I think about the leader I'm all of my own style after. Are they fun to be around, right? Do they, you know, are they, do they whine a lot? It's like, no, okay, please don't, right? Complainers are never fun to be around and I've been guilty of that myself. Yeah, right. And so, you know, I look at people who are, are they fun to be around? Number one, you know, because they've earned their trust, right?

They're usually fun to be around. Number two, are they fun to learn from, right? That I've taken heart, you know, to learning interesting things so that people are just like, hey, what's Jerry, what else is Jerry learning, you know, and I can share interesting things with them. And then just to continue to collaborate well, hey, you know, this is what I was experimenting with. What do you think? And all of a sudden people are like, oh, wow, hey, yeah. My opinion is important. So things like that, I would look for in people who lead because I know I can, they're fun to be around.

You know that working on themselves is not just something to do for the boss, but something to do for themselves. And I think those are key characteristics. I need people who are willing to grow up. I like that. I really do. Now, how. How do we illustrate, how do we, I want to make sure people who are in this position, they can take something away from this. Are they, how do you decipher people who are actually an individual who is not learning because this is the only thing they have and they're just echoing everything you say, but they're actually taking this information that's being passed down and learning and wanting to apply efficiency and bring back. higher numbers, bring back results and that wants to make a change because they believe in what the organization is saying. Yeah, great question. I think a lot of, if I'm just thinking out a lot

at this point, you know, part of, I'll give an example. So part of it is in the screening process, right? Like when I interview people, one of my favorite questions to ask is, you know, what do you do with your free time? Or what was the last book you read? Right. If they're reading books and they say, oh, you know, I read this, you know, nonfiction book by, you know, John Maxwell, right? And I read this and I was looking at things. You know, that's a good sign, right? I remember there was one technician I interviewed and she talked about how I said, you know, what are you doing in your free time? She goes, oh, I'm working on my kitchen and refurbishing all the refurnishing all the cabinets. And I was just floored because I'm just like, wait, you're doing this yourself. And she's just like,

oh yeah, she's like, I'm a do it. I'm a, I'm a fixed kind of person. I love projects. And I'm thinking, this is, this is a big green light, right? This is good. And then, but yeah, so, but on the clock, right, you can just ask them, hey, you know, how's this going for you? Oh, well, you know, numbers aren't to, you know, numbers aren't where I need them to be. It's like, okay, so what's your next action, right? What do you think is a real challenge here for you? And if they give me answers that say, okay, like, and they think about some solutions that they want to implement, right? And then, I say, okay, now that you've come up with some strategies or some action items, okay, let me

check back in a week or two, see how things are going, right? I'm going to give them space to say, okay, yeah, here's an idea, here's the target I'm shooting for, let's see how it goes, because it's not about the goals necessarily unless it comes to just making sure you have enough revenue coming in. It's more about the process of goal setting and just saying, hey, okay, if things aren't going the way they need to, all right, let me come up with some solutions that I can experiment. Okay, this, this is good. Hell yeah.

Because I wanted to illustrate this somehow with what we were talking about and you just gave me, you gave it to me right here with the ripple effect. So with somebody who is a do it yourself or somebody that is working on themselves in their personal time, not only then they're making their life better by fixing up their kitchen, a better connection with their family, but it also intertwines back into the workplace because when, somebody who's in charge, whether you're applying for a job or you're currently in a position and they ask you, you being the set employer, saying, hey, what do you do in your spare

time? You know, you're like, oh, I'm working on the kitchen. Well, now, not only that, that does that illustrate that you are an achiever, you're doing stuff that average people doesn't do, but that gets you the possibility to get promoted and to start taking charge in other shit. Yes. That is awesome. There you go.

Hell yeah. Tell me more. Tell me which going through your head right now. I just had to illustrate there. That was good. Yeah, no. I mean, I'm just happy. I'm giving you, you know, you're hitting live drives based on the, you know, on the pitches.

I'm throwing at you. You know, I love the story that comes to mind when, you know, there are people who are between jobs, right? And then they say, hey, you know what? Let me just start volunteering. And so they go to their local church or whatever. they start helping out with like the coffee shop or things like that. And then the skills that they learn in volunteering and then, you know,

getting promoted to coordinate volunteers actually parlays them actual employment. Like those stories are wonderful because people realize, oh, you know what? I just need a setting to demonstrate where I'm improving. And now, you know, either I can be broke and not do anything or I can be broke and helping. And eventually, you know, that's a stole way.

to work on your resume, right? Because we'll say, hey, what are you doing with your dead time? And if you just say, well, you know, no, I just sat around and felt sorry for myself and hope that, you know, someone would, you know, a friend would hire me. It's like, no, like, you don't need to wait for someone to take pity on you to do something. It's like, no, like you can say, oh, I learned to cook new recipes or, you know, I read more books, sign leadership to improve myself, right? When people realize, hey, you know what, like, there are productive actions that can do

even as I'm waiting, where it's an active form of waiting, not a passive form of waiting. And things always end up better, I think. I really like that. And also, I got a caveat. One more thing that I go ahead. So with the whole ripple effect, I got to throw more piece on there because I want to make it a big cheeseburger. I want to make it a double fucking quarter pounder. So the leaders who are asking that question, one, you're taking that active role in your position,

but you're learning the personnel that works for you on what they're doing so you can use their understanding of what things they can do to do to you to coordinate your manpower, the people that you have, to do the very specific things that they can do. Thus, they take more responsibility, thus you look better. Thus, everybody's better. And then it's all around good for everyone. Everybody wins, man. Absolutely.

Just by one individual, well, two, him and him. If you just fucking take the active role and do what you're supposed to do, shit fucking ends up good for the entire organization. That's fantastic. Now with you, how did you, why did you get into coaching? Why are you doing that? Yeah, great question. I know it's my own personal journey.

What I tell people, the tagline I've used a couple of times is that leadership saved my career. In that, you know, I got fired from the teaching job I moved to Houston 4, and that was a painful wake-up call. I did not appreciate it at the time, but it really is necessary. And so the roller coaster got weirder after that ended up at a house and cards pharmacy job where four of my paychecks bounce only for crooked doctors. Not a good situation. But, you know, in my conflict aversion, right, I'm still scared, you know, to deal with difficult situations or people are upset with me, especially a boss is clearly ripping me off.

And so, you know, and then even worse, he's like, well, I can't, you know, make up the difference unless you move more crooked scripts. So now I have to dirty my license even more just to like even try to make break even. on my on my bills. And so the next company, my friends helped me get me out of that one, got into another one where money was tight and said, hey, we like you, but we can't pay more than eight hours a week. And I said, uh-oh. And so I move out to Austin temporarily, which is about two and a half hours away and, you know, to get more hours. And now I have no idea what my life is going to look like. And that was the summer where I was tapped to help teach some

leadership workshops through a pharmacy leadership nonprofit. Some of my friends run. And, you know, that was the transformation, right? When I had to teach leadership, And then I saw a model for me in an effective way before I said, oh, leadership is hard. You know, I haven't been good at it. I guess I'll never be good at it. Just very pessimistic, fixed mindset level stuff. And then now it was asking myself, well, what if I could be a good leader, right? Giving permission to succeed or for the possibility that success is within my reach.

And so, hey, how would I carry myself? What work with that involved? And try, struggle, fail. Like, I got written up the next year by that company, even after I took a full-time manager position in Houston. because I said, okay, I'm ready to take on this challenge. And, you know, my technicians were acting up. And my company said, nope, you're also part of the problem because you're not willing to discipline or fire them.

And I said, oh, more humble pie. All right, just serve it up some more. And, you know, the only reason I even got an interview after that company had his funding pulled was that I had leadership experience on my resume. So I said, wow, that was a really good decision. I'm glad I did that. But the jobs that even though I had more options available to me, The jobs would only last. I went to two years.

I say, you know, I had more icebergs to hop to, but they were still melt, you know, after a while. And so when my previous company went under four years ago, I said, well, you know, I'm tired of chasing scripts. I'm tired of fighting insurance companies. But I love developing people, you know, through these workshops that I've been helping with since 2012. What if I had a career full time trying to do this? And so still scared of failure.

Still scared of rejection. And it took a pandemic for me to finally open up the LLC and get the website up. and, you know, trying to get that thing going. And so, yeah, but that's what got me into coaching because I want to focus my time on developing people and not, you know, pushing scripts any longer. I like that. And I understand it with being, like, once you, like, leave a job, you bounce to a different job and then you go to another job and somehow it doesn't work. A lot of people won't see this struggle, but I've experienced this struggle with you. where we pivot towards opportunities.

But what people, when they see that and they're hiring, they think of you as someone who's just going to up and leave when that is not the case. It's like you try to explain it. They're like, no, dude. Yeah. People tell themselves different stories about your resonate, right? It doesn't matter what it actually happened. They see evidence and they come up with their own conclusion and they believe they're accurate or justified.

You know, if it fits their narrative, great. If not, well, you know, maybe you don't want to work for him anyway. So it's okay. Exactly. And that's why, shit, I think it was like maybe three episodes ago, whoever I was speaking, do, he said, do not bend who you are. So regardless of your past, own it and just be you. You either going to get the job or you're not. And why would you want to get a job if you're not even being the person you are to get the job?

It's not worth it. It's just going to be more miserable than you think. Yeah. So where can our listeners get? get in touch with you if they want to learn more. Yeah. People can connect with me on LinkedIn if they want, but all the good stuff happens at www.

adaptingleaders.com. There's a free downloadable guide on handling hard conversations. You can schedule a complimentary 30-minute call. And there's a blog there where I summarize, you know, interesting and useful leadership books and offer other life hacks. So whether you hire me for formal coaching packages, for yourself or your organization, great.

Otherwise, there's plenty of free stuff for you to help transform your own life. Hell yeah. Jerry, is there anything else I have not asked you that you would like to share the audience today? Oh, hmm. Apparently one of the more interesting questions on my pod match profile was what are three life hacks that you would tell your younger self. I can do that. So if I had the chance to travel back in time. and tell my younger self, hey, here are three things that'll make your path a little easier.

Number one, get curious about, you know, difficult situations. Don't run from them. You know, you don't get better by avoiding. So that's the first thing I would tell myself. The second I would tell myself is, hey, read more books. Like, it can only help you to at least have the information there. It's up to you to apply it, but at least have the information there. And then three is if you're upset, you know, or if you're if there's a, if you find yourself resentful, you don't have to settle for it.

You know, just go and if, you know, if you're upset with a friend, you know, about something they did or, you know, that they've shown a pattern that you're, you're tired of dealing with, hey, you know, why settle for a subpar friendship? Like you're better off if even if you have a falling out, right? You're better off knowing, hey, at least they know why is this up with them instead of just, you know, holding on to the trim and hoping that I get over it someday. I really like that. Don't settle. I definitely can relate with that. I was living in Durango, Colorado. I was there for maybe a month and a half, almost two months, moved out to a small town.

And it just didn't hit where I wanted to hit. and beautiful area. I miss it to death to this day. But I just made the decision. You know what? I'm not happy. I'm moving. I'm going to just,

I went to Texas, actually. So I ended up going all the way out there to San Antonio. Yeah. And I was homeless for about a week, week and a half. And finally got myself a place. And then it was just on from there. And now here I am in Missouri. Yeah.

Awesome. So that is it. Anything else you would like to relate about your product? Anything, something cool. If not, Jerry, we can let you go. Sure, I can mention one other thing. Right now I host a monthly book discussion called Coaching by the Book. That happens on the first Wednesday of every month.

And where we take books like, you know, advice trap by Michael Bungy Stanier or some of the Heath Brothers books that I love so much. The next one that's coming up as of this recording, I'm excited to announce the title of the book is called How to Castrate a Bull by Dave Hitts, the founder of NetApp. And he talks about how we took NetApp to like the startup company up to like this enterprise company. And people are just like, I've never heard of this guy. That's because NetApp does memory storage for companies like Southwest and Yahoo. So they're more behind the scenes.

But they can't afford to lose that data, right? Because if the systems go down and you lose flight information, uh-oh, you know, Southwest is in trouble. But yeah, the guy's a billionaire. and if you want to, you know, hear about how to become a billionaire, you know, studies, read his book. So, yeah, books like this, right? You know, it's the time to network. I give you a summary. We have some facilitated discussion about it.

So it's a nice way to connect with people and just get some information that you might apply to your own life and see some dividends there. Beautiful. All right, Jerry. I'm going to let you go. I appreciate your time today. Thanks, Greg. Have good day, everybody. You too.

You've been listening to your transformation. Station, your voice on the hard truths of leadership. We hope you've enjoyed the show. We hope you've gotten some useful and practical information. Make sure to like, rate, and review the show. Remember, your transformation station is on all major platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and YouTube at YTS, the podcast, and visit the website at YTSThepodcast.com.

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