202: Uncommon Greatness by Mark Miller

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1. 00:00:00 All right, so let's talk about a book.
2. 00:00:02 But before we do that, Mike, tell me about Macstock.
3. 00:00:06 Macstock was great.
4. 00:00:08 Happened as we record this last weekend.
5. 00:00:11 Shared with you before we hit record
6. 00:00:16 that the timing was tough for me because I overcommitted
7. 00:00:20 to stuff, basically.
8. 00:00:22 And I did two all day workshops.
9. 00:00:24 Immediately got in the car, went down to Macstock,
10. 00:00:27 and then did two more workshops.
11. 00:00:30 But it was a ton of fun.
12. 00:00:32 One of the things that was added this year, kind of at my request,
13. 00:00:37 was these workshops.
14. 00:00:40 I collaborated a little bit with Mike Potter on this idea.
15. 00:00:43 And I say a little bit because he did the majority
16. 00:00:45 of the heavy lifting.
17. 00:00:45 I had a couple of calls with him,
18. 00:00:47 and we had some emails that went back and forth.
19. 00:00:49 But he basically put it together.
20. 00:00:51 But essentially, this conference was Saturday, Sunday.
21. 00:00:55 And on Friday, the day before, there were four workshops
22. 00:00:57 that were an hour and a half.
23. 00:00:59 I did mine on journaling, and I shared some journaling shortcuts,
24. 00:01:02 helped people craft their journaling workflows,
25. 00:01:04 not just the crazy one that I do an obsidian,
26. 00:01:06 but things that you could do inside a day one,
27. 00:01:08 or even Apple's journal app, stuff like that.
28. 00:01:10 And it was awesome.
29. 00:01:11 I think there were like 40 some people
30. 00:01:13 that signed up for the workshops, which was great.
31. 00:01:17 And then the conference itself, I spoke on Saturday.
32. 00:01:19 Unfortunately, I had to leave early.
33. 00:01:21 So I took off after the conference
34. 00:01:24 and got up on Saturday.
35. 00:01:24 I wasn't there for Sunday.
36. 00:01:26 But yeah, it was at a new, freshly renovated conference
37. 00:01:33 center at a Holiday Inn, which was kind of the perfect place
38. 00:01:37 for it.
39. 00:01:37 There were tables set up so people could set up their computers
40. 00:01:40 and follow along with stuff.
41. 00:01:42 And it's always one of my favorite weekends of the year
42. 00:01:45 because those are my people.
43. 00:01:47 I got to meet somebody from the Life-Themed cohort
44. 00:01:52 and the Practical Pecam cohort that I do some Hugo.
45. 00:01:55 I'm not going to share a last name, but shout out to Hugo
46. 00:01:57 for your listening.
47. 00:01:58 That was fun to hang out with you in Woodstock.
48. 00:02:00 We went to, got dinner together, went to the bookstore.
49. 00:02:04 He convinced me to buy a fiction book for my trip to London.
50. 00:02:08 Which one?
51. 00:02:09 Which one?
52. 00:02:10 The Three Body Problem.
53. 00:02:13 Oh yeah, three-body room.
54. 00:02:14 OK.
55. 00:02:14 Yeah.
56. 00:02:15 Winner of the Hugo Award, which we had a good time with,
57. 00:02:18 like, hey, you picked this one.
58. 00:02:21 He's like, yes, I personally recommend this book.
59. 00:02:25 So yeah, it was really fun.
60. 00:02:26 And I would love to do some sort of, like, bookworm library,
61. 00:02:32 whatever style meetup.
62. 00:02:34 So I met a couple people who listened to the show.
63. 00:02:37 If you are thinking about coming next year,
64. 00:02:40 you absolutely should, first of all.
65. 00:02:41 But second of all, let me know.
66. 00:02:43 And we'll try to arrange something that would be super cool.
67. 00:02:47 Well, good.
68. 00:02:47 I'm glad it went well.
69. 00:02:48 I'm glad you--
70. 00:02:49 I know you this past week and then rolling into this week
71. 00:02:53 has been a whirlwind for you.
72. 00:02:55 So I'm glad all that stuff went well.
73. 00:02:57 All right, let's hit follow up.
74. 00:02:59 I'll go first.
75. 00:03:01 I had two items on follow up.
76. 00:03:03 And that's in my reflections and personal retreat.
77. 00:03:06 Was I thinking about whether I've done the right thing
78. 00:03:08 or whether I've followed my North Star?
79. 00:03:10 And yes, but not a lot.
80. 00:03:13 So mainly on the follow the North Star one
81. 00:03:16 is I frequently get this reoccurring question of,
82. 00:03:21 are you putting your time in the right places?
83. 00:03:22 So sometimes I answer that question positively.
84. 00:03:26 And I'm like, yeah, I did a good job today or this week
85. 00:03:28 or over the last couple weeks.
86. 00:03:30 And then sometimes I do not.
87. 00:03:32 Sometimes I feel like I've focused on the wrong things
88. 00:03:36 and I've put the wrong things first.
89. 00:03:38 So that's something I want to keep doing.
90. 00:03:39 I want to keep thinking about, one, what is that North Star?
91. 00:03:42 And am I pleased with the North Star?
92. 00:03:46 And then the second one would be,
93. 00:03:47 am I doing things in a way that it's done the right way
94. 00:03:51 towards that North Star and keep it on track with that?
95. 00:03:54 So that's something I'm going to keep working on.
96. 00:03:57 In terms of looking up Gandhi's seven blunders of humanity,
97. 00:03:59 I did not do that.
98. 00:04:01 I actually completely forgot I was supposed to do that
99. 00:04:04 until I looked at these show notes and said,
100. 00:04:07 oh, I said I wanted to look up Gandhi's seven blunders
101. 00:04:10 of humanity.
102. 00:04:11 And I really need to put that in my reminders app
103. 00:04:13 if I, or my task management app if I want to actually remember
104. 00:04:17 to do that.
105. 00:04:18 So how about yours?
106. 00:04:19 So you're trying to constantly be in the lookout
107. 00:04:20 for new allies.
108. 00:04:23 Yeah.
109. 00:04:23 And I was just reviewing that episode.
110. 00:04:26 We record this right before that one goes live.
111. 00:04:30 So a couple weeks in advance.
112. 00:04:32 And I just listened to that again.
113. 00:04:34 And I basically said at the time that there's no way
114. 00:04:36 this will actually be completed.
115. 00:04:39 But the perspective shift, I think, is there, which is essentially
116. 00:04:44 to engage in discussion with people who have different opinions
117. 00:04:49 and then not just walk away from that discussion,
118. 00:04:54 but maintain those relationships.
119. 00:04:57 And that was something that I had a little bit of an opportunity
120. 00:05:02 to practice when I was at MaxTock.
121. 00:05:04 Kind of the cool thing about MaxTock
122. 00:05:06 is it brings together all these nerds and geeks
123. 00:05:09 from all over the world.
124. 00:05:11 But other than Apple stuff, there's not a whole lot
125. 00:05:15 I have in common with some of them.
126. 00:05:17 And that's OK.
127. 00:05:18 That's what we're there for.
128. 00:05:21 That's what we talk about.
129. 00:05:22 And in the course of the discussion,
130. 00:05:25 other things come up.
131. 00:05:26 And it's kind of interesting.
132. 00:05:27 It's like, oh, so you believe that thing?
133. 00:05:29 OK, that's interesting.
134. 00:05:32 But it's cool because it's so small that you get to--
135. 00:05:37 you're kind of forced to spend a lot of time
136. 00:05:40 with the people that are there, not that I
137. 00:05:42 got a chance to hang out with everybody.
138. 00:05:44 But it's just such a small group that you really
139. 00:05:49 don't have the opportunity to just go off and form your clicks.
140. 00:05:52 And I'm going to hang around with these people
141. 00:05:54 because there's 1,000 people here.
142. 00:05:57 And we're just going to go do our thing.
143. 00:05:59 It's not how it works.
144. 00:06:00 The hotel-- well, we think the exception of us
145. 00:06:02 because we stayed at an Airbnb because we
146. 00:06:04 love the town of Woodstock so much.
147. 00:06:06 But for the most part, the conference
148. 00:06:08 is all at the same place.
149. 00:06:09 The hotel where the rooms are, everybody is right there.
150. 00:06:14 So it was a cool time not to rehash that whole follow up
151. 00:06:19 again.
152. 00:06:20 But yeah, so all that to say, I feel like the perspective shift
153. 00:06:25 is there making progress.
154. 00:06:26 But I don't think this is ever really going to be done.
155. 00:06:29 I just hope that the perspective, I guess, kind of sticks.
156. 00:06:33 Good.
157. 00:06:34 Good.
158. 00:06:34 Let's get into today's book.
159. 00:06:36 Today's book is called "Uncommon Greatness" by Mark Miller,
160. 00:06:39 the five fundamentals to transform your leadership.
161. 00:06:43 So Mark Miller is the-- he was the former vice president
162. 00:06:46 of high performance leadership at Chick-fil-A.
163. 00:06:49 He runs a website that's dedicated to leadership
164. 00:06:53 and leadership consulting.
165. 00:06:56 In the very intro part of the book,
166. 00:06:58 he talks about the fact that this book came out
167. 00:07:00 of two former books.
168. 00:07:02 And it's kind of the one book to put these couple ideas together.
169. 00:07:07 So the first idea would be, hey, how
170. 00:07:09 do we develop leadership skills?
171. 00:07:10 And that book he has is called "The Secret."
172. 00:07:12 And then the other one is, how do you develop a heart
173. 00:07:14 for leadership?
174. 00:07:15 And that one's called "The Heart of Leadership."
175. 00:07:18 So he said, well, how do we put these two together?
176. 00:07:20 And he wrote a book called "Uncommon Greatness."
177. 00:07:23 I think the structure of the book is pretty straightforward.
178. 00:07:28 So you have essentially an introduction.
179. 00:07:31 You have five different sections.
180. 00:07:33 And each of those five different sections is a fundamental.
181. 00:07:37 So you have a fundamental one, two, three, four, and five.
182. 00:07:40 And then you have an epilogue at the very end.
183. 00:07:42 It's a pretty-- I would say concise, tight book--
184. 00:07:46 wasn't very difficult to read at all in terms of its structure
185. 00:07:53 or in terms of the way it was laid out.
186. 00:07:55 Anything you want to hit on, Mike, about the book?
187. 00:07:57 Well, I agree with you that it's pretty tight.
188. 00:08:01 It's a pretty easy read.
189. 00:08:03 Will-- I'm interested to see where this conversation goes.
190. 00:08:07 Because like you said, it's a little bit of a greatest
191. 00:08:10 hits type book, combining things from other places,
192. 00:08:14 which I am generally not a huge fan of.
193. 00:08:18 There's a lot of little things that he mentions in here
194. 00:08:21 that he could obviously speak a lot deeper to the points
195. 00:08:26 that he's making here.
196. 00:08:28 And I'm kind of curious what sort of paths
197. 00:08:33 your brain went down as you were reading this.
198. 00:08:36 Yeah.
199. 00:08:38 Let's see how the conversation unfolds
200. 00:08:39 as we talk about the actual book.
201. 00:08:41 And then if that question comes back up, ask me that.
202. 00:08:43 Ask me that again.
203. 00:08:44 Like if I don't address it during it.
204. 00:08:46 So let's go and get into the introduction.
205. 00:08:49 Introduction is fairly high level in terms of--
206. 00:08:54 you know, I guess the way I can summarize it
207. 00:08:57 is in his mind, every problem is a leadership problem.
208. 00:09:00 He makes the statement, every problem is a leadership problem.
209. 00:09:02 So you ask yourself, do you agree with that?
210. 00:09:05 Like, I mean, that's where I went in the introduction.
211. 00:09:07 I was like, well, do I think every problem is a leadership
212. 00:09:09 problem?
213. 00:09:10 I don't know if I have the answer to that.
214. 00:09:12 But it wasn't difficult or it's not
215. 00:09:14 difficult for me to think about the fact
216. 00:09:16 that a lot of problems do stem back to either I'm leading
217. 00:09:21 poorly or someone's leading poorly.
218. 00:09:23 And therefore, we've lost direction
219. 00:09:26 or we've lost the North Star or the way we want to go on this.
220. 00:09:31 So he breaks this uncommon greatness
221. 00:09:34 and into a couple of different ways.
222. 00:09:36 So first thing he says, believe leaders, uncommon,
223. 00:09:39 great-- or uncommonly great leaders,
224. 00:09:41 I guess is the way I'll describe it.
225. 00:09:43 Believe they can make a difference in the world.
226. 00:09:44 They care deeply about personal excellence.
227. 00:09:46 And then they're energized by producing tangible results.
228. 00:09:49 So these are what uncommonly great leaders do.
229. 00:09:53 I thought the intro, the very, very first part
230. 00:09:55 of the introduction was a little bit cheesy,
231. 00:09:57 a little bit like motivational speaker-y.
232. 00:10:00 But maybe I'm getting too quickly into styling rating,
233. 00:10:03 but I had a little bit of like, ah, this is a little bit cheesy
234. 00:10:07 for me.
235. 00:10:08 So that's the introduction from my perspective.
236. 00:10:11 I should love this book on the surface,
237. 00:10:16 because this is the type of person
238. 00:10:18 that I look up to and I want to learn from.
239. 00:10:24 They've had the experiences.
240. 00:10:25 They have the connections.
241. 00:10:26 They can speak to these things from a place of experience
242. 00:10:31 better than I can and a lot of people
243. 00:10:34 that I know in my immediate circles.
244. 00:10:37 And right away, I feel like we've
245. 00:10:39 gotten off on the wrong foot because of kind of what you said
246. 00:10:42 every problem is leadership problem.
247. 00:10:44 He's not wrong when he says that.
248. 00:10:48 But it also is a polarizing statement
249. 00:10:51 that he shares right at the beginning,
250. 00:10:53 which even for someone who is fascinated
251. 00:10:56 with the topic of leadership felt ostracizing.
252. 00:11:00 Like, OK, you're pushing me out instead of drawing me in.
253. 00:11:05 And I guess just for like comparison's sake,
254. 00:11:09 some of the other books that I've read on the topic
255. 00:11:11 of leadership, which I have read a ton of them.
256. 00:11:13 But some of the ones that I've enjoyed the most
257. 00:11:15 are like John Maxwell and he kind of humblebrags
258. 00:11:18 about the relationship that he has with John Maxwell.
259. 00:11:23 And you compare this to like a John Maxwell book,
260. 00:11:27 like the 21 Laws of Leadership.
261. 00:11:31 And it just has a different tone right from the beginning.
262. 00:11:37 And I hesitate to talk about this because I'm sure Mark Miller
263. 00:11:42 is an incredible person.
264. 00:11:44 And some of the things that he shares here,
265. 00:11:46 it's like, I would love to meet you in person and pick your brain.
266. 00:11:50 Like, if I could see you talk about these things,
267. 00:11:53 then I feel like they would hit totally different.
268. 00:11:57 And I would get more value from them.
269. 00:11:58 It's almost like he has all of this experience.
270. 00:12:01 And he just had some trouble translating it
271. 00:12:04 into the written word in a way that
272. 00:12:07 is engaging to someone who is interested in the topic.
273. 00:12:11 Maybe some of that is, like I mentioned,
274. 00:12:14 the greatest hits thing, where it's a mashup
275. 00:12:16 of some of the different ideas that he shared in other books.
276. 00:12:19 I never like it when people do that, by the way,
277. 00:12:22 because you're left with a couple of paths
278. 00:12:25 whenever you reference something that is in another book.
279. 00:12:28 You can be like, oh, there's these five things.
280. 00:12:30 And don't worry about it.
281. 00:12:32 I talk about somewhere else.
282. 00:12:34 I assume that you've read it all because you're my greatest fan.
283. 00:12:36 Why else would you be reading this?
284. 00:12:39 Or you could be like, OK, you probably not read this stuff
285. 00:12:42 before, so let me unpack all of this even briefly,
286. 00:12:46 but it takes 10 pages to get through.
287. 00:12:49 And he takes the first approach, which is weird,
288. 00:12:55 because it's a short, quick read.
289. 00:12:57 And I get it if he did that everywhere that he was
290. 00:13:00 dropping the stuff in.
291. 00:13:02 It probably doesn't fit anymore.
292. 00:13:05 But it just felt a little bit like I'm not--
293. 00:13:08 because this is my first experience
294. 00:13:10 with Mark Miller picking up this book.
295. 00:13:12 It's like, oh, you're not cool enough.
296. 00:13:15 You're not in the club.
297. 00:13:16 You don't know about this stuff.
298. 00:13:18 But here's the upsell for only--
299. 00:13:22 he doesn't go that far, but that's sort of in the same vein.
300. 00:13:25 It's like, well, if you want to go deeper with this, then.
301. 00:13:29 So I didn't get the--
302. 00:13:31 if you're the cool enough vibe, right?
303. 00:13:33 I never got that vibe, but I very much got the upsell vibe.
304. 00:13:35 And then one of the things-- and I can't remember
305. 00:13:37 if he does it after the introduction,
306. 00:13:38 but it's not very far into the book.
307. 00:13:42 And I wonder how much it's the publisher.
308. 00:13:45 I wonder how much it's him, where they kick you to a website.
309. 00:13:49 And they say, for our free guide on whatever it is,
310. 00:13:53 and it's like, ah, dad, go on it.
311. 00:13:55 And as soon as I read that, my brain
312. 00:13:57 shifts to this book is it's going to have some decent stuff
313. 00:14:02 in it, but it's kind of a marketing book.
314. 00:14:05 The whole point of this book is to push you to the website.
315. 00:14:07 That way, then, we can do consulting.
316. 00:14:09 And it's like, OK, but there's been probably 10 books or so
317. 00:14:15 in my life where that's happened.
318. 00:14:17 And they all have the exact same feel to them.
319. 00:14:20 They all have this weird--
320. 00:14:22 you said it, but like cheesy motivational
321. 00:14:26 is the only thing I can think of as a way to describe it.
322. 00:14:29 But it's like, there's something off-putting about it.
323. 00:14:33 And it sets the stage or it sets the tone for me
324. 00:14:36 where I'm just like, I don't know.
325. 00:14:38 And then we go on and it kind of flavors the rest
326. 00:14:41 of the book for me.
327. 00:14:42 So that's just kind of how it started for me.
328. 00:14:48 Yeah, so let's unpack that a little bit,
329. 00:14:49 because if we don't, maybe I come off as a little bit
330. 00:14:54 hypocritical, because what that essentially
331. 00:14:57 is a lead magnet.
332. 00:14:59 And I do the exact same thing with a lot of the stuff
333. 00:15:03 for my creator business.
334. 00:15:05 I include a link to the book notes
335. 00:15:09 that I take from these books.
336. 00:15:10 And it's a landing page.
337. 00:15:11 People can enter their email and they get the notes.
338. 00:15:16 But the thing that I think that rubs me the wrong way about
339. 00:15:19 this is it feels tacked on.
340. 00:15:22 Like there's not a real clear connection as to, OK,
341. 00:15:25 you are obviously interested in this.
342. 00:15:28 So this is the next thing that would be of benefit to you.
343. 00:15:32 It's like the marketers were like,
344. 00:15:35 hey, we need something to capture emails.
345. 00:15:37 What can you create?
346. 00:15:38 He's like, I know, I'll make an assessment,
347. 00:15:40 which he mentions assessment.
348. 00:15:42 And again, like you probably heard me rant about this before.
349. 00:15:46 I hate it when people talk about that,
350. 00:15:47 because I know what goes into an actual research-based
351. 00:15:50 assessment.
352. 00:15:51 And this is not an assessment.
353. 00:15:54 This is a survey maybe, probably a Facebook quiz.
354. 00:16:01 So don't call it an assessment.
355. 00:16:02 But yeah, it's like here's the URL.
356. 00:16:04 Here's a QR code.
357. 00:16:06 Like checking all the boxes in terms of the marketing person
358. 00:16:09 who worked with them and like, do you have this?
359. 00:16:11 Do you have that?
360. 00:16:12 But it doesn't feel like, OK, this is actually valuable for me
361. 00:16:16 to get the deliverable outcome.
362. 00:16:19 And maybe that's part of it is like it doesn't feel
363. 00:16:21 there's a deliverable outcome with this.
364. 00:16:23 Yes, he's got five different fundamentals.
365. 00:16:26 But again, they're coming from two different books.
366. 00:16:29 And all of my action items come from the fifth fundamental,
367. 00:16:33 which is based on the other book.
368. 00:16:35 So maybe I just missed the forest through the trees
369. 00:16:42 as I was reading this.
370. 00:16:43 And other people would read this and be like, oh yeah,
371. 00:16:45 obviously I want that downloadable stuff.
372. 00:16:47 But it feels tacked on.
373. 00:16:49 And it doesn't feel like you're considering the reader
374. 00:16:53 as you go through it.
375. 00:16:54 One quick example for the lead magnet that is actually
376. 00:16:58 working for me and the reason why I think it's working
377. 00:17:00 is because it is delivering value to people who
378. 00:17:03 are watching my YouTube videos.
379. 00:17:04 And I know that if you're watching a YouTube video on how
380. 00:17:06 I do journaling, you're interested in journaling
381. 00:17:09 and obsidian.
382. 00:17:09 So you probably want my journaling template.
383. 00:17:12 OK, so that's what I'm going to offer you.
384. 00:17:14 It's not just like, hey, for a bunch more resources,
385. 00:17:16 go over here.
386. 00:17:18 It's I guess the obsidian vault is sort of that.
387. 00:17:20 But the main thing, the thing that you came there for
388. 00:17:23 is in there.
389. 00:17:25 I throw a bunch of other stuff in there as well as other things
390. 00:17:28 that you may be interested in.
391. 00:17:29 But I'm not asking for anything extra in terms of that.
392. 00:17:32 It's like, well, you want the template?
393. 00:17:33 Well, here's the template, by the way, all of the templates
394. 00:17:36 and all of the tips and all that stuff is also in there.
395. 00:17:39 But I feel like if you're coming to this because you're
396. 00:17:42 interested in this, this is the natural next step.
397. 00:17:45 So yeah, I think my brain has a bias too for expecting
398. 00:17:51 that in social media, expecting it in YouTube,
399. 00:17:56 expecting it in those avenues, but not expecting it in books.
400. 00:18:01 And this is probably a me issue.
401. 00:18:03 I do not expect you to upsell the wrong word.
402. 00:18:08 But like, oh, go to this site for more resources.
403. 00:18:11 Go to this site for more tips.
404. 00:18:13 And I can very much see it coming out of a, hey,
405. 00:18:16 I just couldn't fit all the stuff in the book.
406. 00:18:18 Or I didn't want to go to that length in the book because I
407. 00:18:22 have all these other resources over here.
408. 00:18:24 But it just doesn't sit right with me in a book.
409. 00:18:27 OK, so let's put that aside.
410. 00:18:30 Sorry, one other one other thing because I think I know why
411. 00:18:33 it doesn't sit well for you in the book.
412. 00:18:35 I think it's because you don't get to the end.
413. 00:18:39 And then it's an invitation to go to the next level.
414. 00:18:42 It's almost framed as the expectation is you're
415. 00:18:45 going to do this and follow along.
416. 00:18:48 Otherwise, why are you pointing me to this after the first
417. 00:18:51 section?
418. 00:18:52 And that feels weird.
419. 00:18:53 Like I bought the book because I want to know what you have
420. 00:18:55 to say.
421. 00:18:56 Isn't that enough?
422. 00:18:57 Now you want my email?
423. 00:18:59 Just for me to understand your arguments
424. 00:19:01 and decide if I want to do anything with them.
425. 00:19:03 Whereas if it's at the end, it's like, OK, yeah,
426. 00:19:06 we're on the same wavelength.
427. 00:19:07 I like you.
428. 00:19:08 Let's do this.
429. 00:19:09 Yeah, yeah.
430. 00:19:10 That's a good point.
431. 00:19:11 It's a real good point.
432. 00:19:12 Now I have a--
433. 00:19:14 in my mind map here, I have a different section.
434. 00:19:16 And I don't know if it was a distinct chapter or not.
435. 00:19:18 But I have to choose a different path.
436. 00:19:20 So I have the introduction that kind of lays out this idea
437. 00:19:23 of, hey, leadership is important.
438. 00:19:25 And then I have to choose a different path that essentially
439. 00:19:28 is greatness and common or uncommon leadership, right?
440. 00:19:33 And this idea of greatness.
441. 00:19:34 So he has this table that he puts in there.
442. 00:19:36 And it says, common leadership is focused on the achiever,
443. 00:19:39 widely celebrated, exalt the individual.
444. 00:19:41 Uncommon is focused on others.
445. 00:19:43 Often goes unnoticed.
446. 00:19:45 It elicits excellence for others enduring value.
447. 00:19:47 And then he gets into the overview
448. 00:19:50 of the fundamentals of uncommon leadership, which
449. 00:19:53 this all might be actually in the introduction.
450. 00:19:55 And I just separated it out for some reason
451. 00:19:56 into two sections.
452. 00:19:58 Is it its own chapter, its own thing?
453. 00:20:01 Yeah, so actually, I guess we should talk a little bit
454. 00:20:04 about the structure of the book.
455. 00:20:05 We can definitely go into this section here.
456. 00:20:08 But the table of contents--
457. 00:20:10 because I look at that when I create the mind maps,
458. 00:20:12 there's on the-- and I basically look for the headers in there
459. 00:20:15 for the different sections.
460. 00:20:17 So introduction and choose a different path
461. 00:20:18 are both on the same level.
462. 00:20:20 And then there's a header for fundamental one,
463. 00:20:23 see the future, fundamental two, et cetera.
464. 00:20:26 Under each one of the fundamentals,
465. 00:20:28 there is essentially a chapter which has material,
466. 00:20:31 and then another chapter called ideas for action.
467. 00:20:34 Which I like that approach.
468. 00:20:36 Here's a whole bunch of things you may consider doing
469. 00:20:39 as a result of this material.
470. 00:20:41 What I was not a fan of was most of the ideas for action,
471. 00:20:44 I guess, because I got to the end and I was like, huh,
472. 00:20:47 I only jotted down a couple of those,
473. 00:20:49 and they were all from the last one.
474. 00:20:51 Yeah, yeah.
475. 00:20:53 OK, so we got an idea for--
476. 00:20:54 for we're going, so the five fundamentals of leadership,
477. 00:20:56 let's get there.
478. 00:20:57 Actually, one more thing about choose a different path.
479. 00:21:00 You mentioned the common greatness
480. 00:21:01 of an uncommon greatness table,
481. 00:21:03 which I jotted that stuff down to.
482. 00:21:04 And I understand and I like where he's going
483. 00:21:08 with defining uncommon greatness.
484. 00:21:10 I guess my issue is with the things
485. 00:21:13 that he listed under common greatness.
486. 00:21:14 I'm not sure I would call that even greatness.
487. 00:21:17 OK, OK, yeah.
488. 00:21:19 I mean, I get what he's going for there.
489. 00:21:21 This is how most people think about it.
490. 00:21:22 This is what it actually is.
491. 00:21:24 But I don't know, just didn't really
492. 00:21:26 like the way that he defined that as greatness.
493. 00:21:29 I don't think that's not what it is.
494. 00:21:33 So this irony wouldn't have occurred unless you and I
495. 00:21:36 had this conversation.
496. 00:21:37 But I have the question in this section about ask.
497. 00:21:41 So I put ask in capital letters and then I say,
498. 00:21:44 how can I add the most value in every situation?
499. 00:21:47 And then I think about what we're doing.
500. 00:21:49 And it's like, does this book add the most value in every--
501. 00:21:52 it's like in every situation?
502. 00:21:53 Or do I need to be kicked out to--
503. 00:21:55 what is it?
504. 00:21:56 Every day leadership or something like that?
505. 00:21:57 Everydayleader.com.
506. 00:21:58 I don't even remember what the URL was.
507. 00:22:01 But OK, so let's get to the five fundamentals, which
508. 00:22:03 we're then going to unpack in each one.
509. 00:22:06 So see the future, engage and develop others,
510. 00:22:09 reinvent continuously, value results and relationships,
511. 00:22:13 and then embody a leader's heart.
512. 00:22:15 Now, Mike, I have a question for you
513. 00:22:17 as we talk about these five fundamentals
514. 00:22:19 of uncommon leadership.
515. 00:22:22 Does he say in Choose a Different Path
516. 00:22:25 that they represent the acronym SERVE?
517. 00:22:27 Or does he wait until the very end of the book to do that?
518. 00:22:31 Because if he said it in the beginning of the book,
519. 00:22:33 I missed that.
520. 00:22:34 And I feel like that's not something I would have missed.
521. 00:22:37 And then you got to the end and I was like, oh, that's cute.
522. 00:22:41 Right?
523. 00:22:41 Like that's really cute.
524. 00:22:44 But I never had it until the very end of the book.
525. 00:22:46 So did I miss that?
526. 00:22:48 Or did he just not-- did he hold it till the end?
527. 00:22:50 I mean, if you missed it, I missed it too,
528. 00:22:53 because I had the same reaction.
529. 00:22:54 And maybe that's what he was going for at the end.
530. 00:22:58 But it is a little bit weird.
531. 00:23:00 OK.
532. 00:23:01 All right, because just in case people missed it
533. 00:23:03 as we were talking about it, see the future, engage,
534. 00:23:05 reinvent, value, and embody the first letter of all those
535. 00:23:09 spells out the word SERVE, which at the very end of the book,
536. 00:23:11 he's going to talk about the fact
537. 00:23:13 that leadership is service, which there's
538. 00:23:15 been a bunch of stuff written on the fact
539. 00:23:16 that being a SERVEENT leader and all of that.
540. 00:23:19 OK, so we'll maybe we'll unpack these
541. 00:23:22 as we get to each one of them.
542. 00:23:24 So let's start with see the future.
543. 00:23:25 So now we're in fundamental one.
544. 00:23:27 Now we're in see the future.
545. 00:23:28 We'll do ideas for action separately.
546. 00:23:30 So actually, now let's just do it all.
547. 00:23:33 What did you get, Mike, out of see the future?
548. 00:23:36 Like what was your big takeaway in terms of this?
549. 00:23:39 Or you obviously said already that you don't have many ideas
550. 00:23:43 for action until we get to the last one.
551. 00:23:45 So what's your key takeaway from see the future?
552. 00:23:48 Yeah, well, essentially, it's talking about the leader
553. 00:23:54 needing to have a vision.
554. 00:23:56 And he's got some cool stories as he
555. 00:23:59 goes through these different sections where
556. 00:24:02 this is an example of a leader with vision.
557. 00:24:06 He has some specifics as to reasons
558. 00:24:08 why a leader would withhold the vision.
559. 00:24:11 But the way that it's packaged under any fundamental one
560. 00:24:14 feels like he had a bunch of listical blog posts.
561. 00:24:18 And he tied them together.
562. 00:24:20 And then maybe asked chat GPT to smooth it out.
563. 00:24:23 (laughs)
564. 00:24:24 Wow, wow.
565. 00:24:27 I mean, there's some pretty big leaps.
566. 00:24:29 I don't know that it's necessarily in this section.
567. 00:24:33 But I really believe in the power of vision.
568. 00:24:38 And this is where if you were able to sit down
569. 00:24:40 and pick his brain, he probably has a lot of value
570. 00:24:43 to add to this.
571. 00:24:45 But he's just like, this person talks about this.
572. 00:24:48 This person talks about this.
573. 00:24:49 In this book, this person, I'll summarize
574. 00:24:51 the whole thing for you in three sentences.
575. 00:24:53 And you're just like, so.
576. 00:24:56 Yeah.
577. 00:24:57 Like I have done a lot of research on the topic of vision
578. 00:25:02 myself and not when I say research.
579. 00:25:03 I mean, it's a topic that I've been personally interested in.
580. 00:25:07 It's kind of the basis for all of the life-themed stuff
581. 00:25:10 that I do.
582. 00:25:11 So I'm not coming to this new, but I also probably don't have
583. 00:25:15 as much experience or know as much about it as he does.
584. 00:25:20 And I feel like this is very surface level at this point.
585. 00:25:25 And it's frustrating.
586. 00:25:28 Yeah.
587. 00:25:29 I think that is a key takeaway when we get to silent rating.
588. 00:25:32 That's a key frustration of mine for the whole book.
589. 00:25:36 Is I think the five fundamentals are good.
590. 00:25:39 Like I'm totally on board with the five fundamentals.
591. 00:25:43 But I don't think, I think this is like a leadership 101 book.
592. 00:25:48 Right?
593. 00:25:50 And I did not want it to be a leadership 101 book
594. 00:25:53 and I'm walking away going, okay, that was a good reminder.
595. 00:25:58 I don't know if I needed 200 and however many pages
596. 00:26:01 to be reminded of those.
597. 00:26:03 It's not even a leadership 101 book
598. 00:26:05 because there's all of these different things
599. 00:26:08 that he's grabbing from.
600. 00:26:09 And he's just laying them all out
601. 00:26:12 and it's completely overwhelming.
602. 00:26:13 A good leadership 101 book will say, start here.
603. 00:26:17 Here's three things.
604. 00:26:19 Master these, then we'll come back
605. 00:26:21 and we'll do the next thing.
606. 00:26:23 And he's just kind of laying it all out,
607. 00:26:25 which is why I made the comment about the listicles.
608. 00:26:30 Like I get it.
609. 00:26:31 If you're talking about this type of stuff,
610. 00:26:34 you want to create these lists.
611. 00:26:36 You want to create these acrostics
612. 00:26:39 so that people remember these things.
613. 00:26:43 But it's a whole bunch of surface level lists.
614. 00:26:47 I mean, just the ideas for action.
615. 00:26:49 Every single section under ideas for action
616. 00:26:51 has at least three, maybe four different key things
617. 00:26:56 that he bolds.
618. 00:26:57 And then underneath that, there are lists.
619. 00:27:00 And I felt like all I was doing
620. 00:27:02 as I was taking these notes is making all these lists.
621. 00:27:07 Yes.
622. 00:27:08 And I get done and I'm like, what am I going to do with this?
623. 00:27:11 This book more than any book that I've read
624. 00:27:14 since I joined the podcast was very much a list
625. 00:27:19 that broke out into another list,
626. 00:27:20 that broke out into another list.
627. 00:27:21 But there's not a lot of like meat there.
628. 00:27:23 There's not a lot of like heavy idea,
629. 00:27:25 which this is why I refer to it as a leadership 101 thing,
630. 00:27:28 is if I make just the headers, right?
631. 00:27:31 Like so if I would just take his headers
632. 00:27:33 or his bolded words and make this out,
633. 00:27:36 it would be a fairly decent in my mind.
634. 00:27:38 Oh, okay, well, let's go into see the future ideas for action.
635. 00:27:41 So if I'm going to, what could I do
636. 00:27:44 to actually see the future?
637. 00:27:45 Well, his bolded items are,
638. 00:27:48 remember the past, remain grounded, dare to dream.
639. 00:27:51 Okay, cool.
640. 00:27:52 So remember the past, like if I have those somewhere outlined,
641. 00:27:55 so there's a saying, right?
642. 00:27:59 Tell them what you're going to tell them,
643. 00:28:00 tell them and then tell me what you just told me.
644. 00:28:02 Right, and like that's a decent way
645. 00:28:04 to like teach a class or whatever it is.
646. 00:28:07 Well, he does this in terms of,
647. 00:28:09 you know, he doesn't necessarily tell you
648. 00:28:10 what he's going to tell you as well,
649. 00:28:12 but then he tells you the thing
650. 00:28:14 through the bulleted paragraphs.
651. 00:28:15 And then at the very end of the chapter,
652. 00:28:17 he basically gives you the list.
653. 00:28:19 He gives you exactly what you're describing about
654. 00:28:21 like the highlighted level,
655. 00:28:24 the bulleted list.
656. 00:28:27 I mean, I don't know how else to describe it.
657. 00:28:29 It's exactly what it is.
658. 00:28:30 Where it has, yeah, here are the key takeaways.
659. 00:28:32 Remember the past, remain grounded, dare to dream,
660. 00:28:35 which is where I wanted to go.
661. 00:28:37 Okay, that's fine, but like what do I do?
662. 00:28:40 And I think that's where I get frustrated
663. 00:28:42 'cause it just kicks you out to,
664. 00:28:44 if you want more on this,
665. 00:28:45 or if you want more.
666. 00:28:46 No, I don't want more.
667. 00:28:47 I want something.
668. 00:28:48 Yes. (laughs)
669. 00:28:50 Okay, so what else do you have on,
670. 00:28:51 on See the Future?
671. 00:28:52 One, vision's good.
672. 00:28:54 We need to have vision as a leader.
673. 00:28:56 We've all been in a situation where we've been under a leader
674. 00:29:00 or at least we assume,
675. 00:29:01 sorry, I'll assume that everybody's been in a situation
676. 00:29:03 where you've been under a leader who has poor vision.
677. 00:29:05 They don't know where they're going.
678. 00:29:06 They don't know how to direct you and lead you to some place
679. 00:29:09 because they don't have any idea of where that place is.
680. 00:29:13 I think the, my key takeaways were two here,
681. 00:29:16 is if we don't have a vision or a place that we're trying to go,
682. 00:29:21 even if it's wrong, right?
683. 00:29:22 Like so wrong vision can be okay,
684. 00:29:24 but like having some place that we're striving for,
685. 00:29:27 then we're really hurting the folks that are following us
686. 00:29:30 and we're hurting the organization.
687. 00:29:31 So that's one, right?
688. 00:29:32 Like I was one of my major takeaways.
689. 00:29:34 The other one was to map out this, you know,
690. 00:29:37 strategic listening plan.
691. 00:29:39 I thought this was an interesting idea
692. 00:29:40 that maybe was new and I hadn't really thought about that
693. 00:29:42 before is as I'm setting that vision,
694. 00:29:45 actually go out and listen to people at all levels
695. 00:29:49 of the organization because that's gonna help you set the vision
696. 00:29:52 in an informed way.
697. 00:29:54 And that was probably like my biggest takeaway from like,
698. 00:29:57 I hadn't heard that one before.
699. 00:29:58 That was pretty good in terms of making me think differently.
700. 00:30:03 - Yeah, I mean, that's the,
701. 00:30:07 maybe the where the value lies,
702. 00:30:09 but also the problem with this book in my opinion.
703. 00:30:12 So it's obviously written from an organizational perspective.
704. 00:30:16 I mean, just under the first,
705. 00:30:17 remember the past, he's got listened to the founders.
706. 00:30:21 So that's assuming that a certain type of organization
707. 00:30:27 and I think that when he talks about those things,
708. 00:30:31 there's not enough there to really,
709. 00:30:35 if it's something that is completely new,
710. 00:30:37 there's not enough to be like,
711. 00:30:38 okay, now I know how to do this,
712. 00:30:40 but also it's not real prescriptive,
713. 00:30:45 which in one sense is good.
714. 00:30:46 These are all ideas for actions,
715. 00:30:48 things that you could do.
716. 00:30:50 But also it's also just a bunch of things that you could do.
717. 00:30:53 Like which ones are the most important?
718. 00:30:55 You've just given me a whole bunch of things.
719. 00:30:58 And my tendency is to,
720. 00:31:01 if I'm gonna read this as the type of leader
721. 00:31:04 that it seems like he's targeting,
722. 00:31:07 I'm gonna be like, oh yeah, we don't do that.
723. 00:31:08 Oh yeah, we don't do that.
724. 00:31:09 Oh yeah, we don't do that.
725. 00:31:10 And I'm gonna walk out of this with like 50 things
726. 00:31:12 that I'm gonna try to implement as change
727. 00:31:14 and unless I'm the CEO visionary, which sounds,
728. 00:31:17 I don't think that's likely,
729. 00:31:19 you're gonna get frustrated trying to implement this stuff.
730. 00:31:21 Speaking as a former second in command,
731. 00:31:23 I can tell you like the way to affect change
732. 00:31:25 in an organization is you're gonna pick one thing,
733. 00:31:27 you're gonna collaborate with people
734. 00:31:28 and you're gonna try to cast vision for this
735. 00:31:30 and make that thing a little bit better.
736. 00:31:32 And this is just sort of like praying spray at this point.
737. 00:31:37 And I really didn't like it, which is weird
738. 00:31:42 because the ideas for action,
739. 00:31:43 my whole thing when I read books is I'm not gonna adopt
740. 00:31:46 the system, I'm gonna find one or two things
741. 00:31:48 that really stand out to me and I'm gonna implement those.
742. 00:31:52 And I did find a couple of those towards the end,
743. 00:31:55 but the first several sections here,
744. 00:31:58 it kind of feels like this isn't his main message,
745. 00:32:02 the fundamental five, that's obviously his main message
746. 00:32:04 'cause he wrote a whole nother book on that particular thing
747. 00:32:06 and he can sit down into a section, a chapter or two,
748. 00:32:10 which I mean, I think the quality of writing
749. 00:32:12 definitely elevates at that point,
750. 00:32:14 like not the quality of writing,
751. 00:32:15 but the quality of the ideas that he's sharing there,
752. 00:32:17 just because like this is something
753. 00:32:19 that he's been living for a long time probably.
754. 00:32:22 And this feels like, well, I'll check the box.
755. 00:32:25 There's the story, there's the point,
756. 00:32:28 I guess this all wraps together, boom, done.
757. 00:32:31 (laughs)
758. 00:32:32 Onto the next one.
759. 00:32:34 - All right, let's move on to fundamental two then.
760. 00:32:35 If you're good with that.
761. 00:32:36 So fundamental two is engage and develop others.
762. 00:32:39 So again, again, same structure,
763. 00:32:41 engage and develop others and then engage
764. 00:32:43 and develop others ideas for action.
765. 00:32:46 So let's go less about structure
766. 00:32:50 and more about what caught you,
767. 00:32:53 like what was interesting,
768. 00:32:55 what did you take away from this one?
769. 00:32:58 - Well, I think that the idea of engagement
770. 00:33:03 and culture is really powerful.
771. 00:33:07 I'm not sure he's really trying to speak directly
772. 00:33:11 to organizational culture,
773. 00:33:12 but that's what I think of when I think about engagement
774. 00:33:16 and when you're trying to create engagement
775. 00:33:18 in an organization, a lot of times that needs
776. 00:33:23 certain conditions to be met in order for that to happen.
777. 00:33:28 So some of the ideas they talks about here,
778. 00:33:29 it's easier to lead people if you love them
779. 00:33:33 and then the different levels of engagement
780. 00:33:35 where you decide who to engage or enlist to join your team
781. 00:33:37 and then what do you do to ensure the talent
782. 00:33:39 that you've already invited stays motivated
783. 00:33:41 and contributes at a high level,
784. 00:33:42 like again, kind of good, high level stuff here,
785. 00:33:47 but I'm not sure that there's a whole lot of actionable
786. 00:33:52 takeaways here from the ideas for action,
787. 00:33:57 that reading them as bullet points
788. 00:33:59 like does not do justice to the things
789. 00:34:02 that must be done to create this.
790. 00:34:04 Like he talks about building trust,
791. 00:34:05 you need to create psychological safety, right?
792. 00:34:09 I worked tirelessly to do that.
793. 00:34:11 (laughs)
794. 00:34:12 When I was at the day job and it is so hard
795. 00:34:17 and you can do everything right
796. 00:34:20 and it still just takes time,
797. 00:34:22 especially if you're trying to shift a culture
798. 00:34:25 where this is the way we used to do things
799. 00:34:26 and this is the way we want to do things.
800. 00:34:29 It's really, really hard, but it's one bullet in a list.
801. 00:34:31 So I don't know, like, but there's probably a whole lot
802. 00:34:35 of great conversation to be had about some of the topics
803. 00:34:38 but I'm not sure any of it is based
804. 00:34:40 on what's shared in the book.
805. 00:34:42 - So I hadn't thought about this until right now,
806. 00:34:46 but like this actually would be a good book
807. 00:34:50 to go through with another group of leaders, right?
808. 00:34:53 So you have 10 leaders sitting around in a room
809. 00:34:56 and you're looking at these lists
810. 00:34:58 and these ideas for action
811. 00:35:00 and you're doing almost an assessment of like,
812. 00:35:02 am I doing these things and then how well am I doing
813. 00:35:05 these things, but then where the real value comes
814. 00:35:08 and where the real meat of everything comes
815. 00:35:11 is the discussion we have afterwards.
816. 00:35:13 So think about it, you and I are sitting in a room
817. 00:35:15 with eight other key leaders
818. 00:35:18 and I look at this list and one of them's build trust,
819. 00:35:22 help people grow, build genuine community
820. 00:35:24 and I think and I go, man, I'm not doing anything
821. 00:35:27 to help people grow and I can then ask the question
822. 00:35:29 at the table, is anybody doing anything
823. 00:35:31 to help people grow and somebody's like,
824. 00:35:33 oh yeah, this is what we do, we do this and this and this
825. 00:35:35 and I immediately get ideas for helping people grow
826. 00:35:39 and then I can ask a bunch of other questions,
827. 00:35:41 well, how do you pay for it
828. 00:35:42 and where do you get your resources from?
829. 00:35:44 And if I think about this book as an assessment
830. 00:35:49 of my leadership activities where I can do it
831. 00:35:54 and do an assessment of my own
832. 00:35:56 and then I can actually ask questions and do follow up,
833. 00:35:59 this book becomes a lot more valuable to me
834. 00:36:01 at the high level that it's at, right?
835. 00:36:04 Because it does that overview of all of what he's considering,
836. 00:36:09 what Miller's considering, the key areas
837. 00:36:11 and then I can dig in more for what I actually need
838. 00:36:16 and I can gloss over the areas that we're doing well
839. 00:36:19 or the areas that we feel like we're doing okay with
840. 00:36:21 and that actually becomes, I mean,
841. 00:36:23 the book is a lot more valuable if I think about it like that
842. 00:36:26 than it does just me reading it and going,
843. 00:36:29 I gotta help people grow, I gotta build community.
844. 00:36:31 - Possibly, possibly.
845. 00:36:32 - I think you're right that that is a potential scenario
846. 00:36:35 where you've got like an entrepreneur book club
847. 00:36:38 and you're talking about the themes here
848. 00:36:39 and everyone is well read on all these topics.
849. 00:36:41 So you just use this as like conversational starting points.
850. 00:36:44 The thing that is difficult for me to wrap my head around
851. 00:36:47 is that this is all conceptual,
852. 00:36:48 but it's obviously framed in the context of an organization
853. 00:36:52 and the, I've been in the room for those types
854. 00:36:56 of conversations, that's the thing.
855. 00:36:58 There was an organization that I attended the meetings
856. 00:37:01 and I was at the day job called,
857. 00:37:03 I think it was Entrepreneurs Organization, EO,
858. 00:37:05 and basically every quarter they would have a different theme
859. 00:37:09 that they would discuss.
860. 00:37:10 So one quarter, it's cash, one quarter, it's people,
861. 00:37:14 one quarter, it's systems.
862. 00:37:17 And there they have different guests that come in
863. 00:37:20 and they present on these different sections
864. 00:37:23 and here's some principles that you should consider
865. 00:37:25 and here's some resources and tools that you can use
866. 00:37:27 to help implement this in your organization.
867. 00:37:30 And it's kind of loosely based off of a system
868. 00:37:33 by Vern Harness called Scaling Up,
869. 00:37:37 which I actually really liked that.
870. 00:37:38 So if I were working with a company or organization
871. 00:37:42 to shift culture, I would start with one of those
872. 00:37:45 business operating system books.
873. 00:37:48 Scaling Up is a good one.
874. 00:37:49 We worked with a pinnacle guide for a while.
875. 00:37:51 Pinnacle I think is actually a really good one too.
876. 00:37:53 That actually combines a bunch of different elements
877. 00:37:55 from a bunch of different systems,
878. 00:37:56 but it's framed as like, here's a tool
879. 00:37:58 that can help you do this, here's a tool account,
880. 00:37:59 you do that, pick the tools that you want,
881. 00:38:02 solve the problems that you're facing,
882. 00:38:04 probably another one is like traction or EOS,
883. 00:38:08 but it's hard without that context to go any deeper
884. 00:38:12 as to like, well, how would you actually do that?
885. 00:38:14 (laughs)
886. 00:38:16 So you're right that if you have the right people
887. 00:38:18 with the right context in mind,
888. 00:38:20 this could spur a great conversation,
889. 00:38:23 but I guess the hard part is this is not talking
890. 00:38:26 about the business operating system specifically.
891. 00:38:28 There is no system actually that he's proposing
892. 00:38:32 as a way to do all of this stuff.
893. 00:38:34 And it's just kind of like, oh, hey, remember this.
894. 00:38:37 - Yeah.
895. 00:38:38 - No, I agree.
896. 00:38:39 I think that's exactly what he's doing.
897. 00:38:40 He's saying, remember this and have you thought about this?
898. 00:38:43 And this is what separates what I consider
899. 00:38:46 a common leader versus an uncommon leader
900. 00:38:48 apart from each other.
901. 00:38:49 - Yeah.
902. 00:38:50 And I guess the issue that I have just so people understand
903. 00:38:53 why I'm being so harsh on this one, I guess,
904. 00:38:56 is that I have thought about this.
905. 00:38:58 I have tackled a lot of these issues.
906. 00:38:59 And so when I hear him talk about it,
907. 00:39:01 I'm like, well, that's not good enough.
908. 00:39:03 (laughs)
909. 00:39:04 - Yeah, yeah.
910. 00:39:06 So let's take a, let's find a positive in each one of these.
911. 00:39:11 - Okay.
912. 00:39:12 - So I'll start first on this one.
913. 00:39:15 I think the positive in fundamental two for me
914. 00:39:18 was build genuine community.
915. 00:39:20 That I think that, you know, a lot of bad leadership
916. 00:39:23 can get softened if you have a really strong community
917. 00:39:28 where, you know, and the ideas that he,
918. 00:39:32 you know, the list within the list that he unpacks here
919. 00:39:34 would be set the strategy, value diversity,
920. 00:39:37 no others deeply and celebrate often.
921. 00:39:39 I think that if you're actually in community with people,
922. 00:39:44 then a bad leader, everything they do is softened.
923. 00:39:48 So I think that's my like key takeaway out of this one
924. 00:39:51 is if I'm a leader and I've developed
925. 00:39:54 a really good community underneath me or at my organization
926. 00:39:58 to where they actually like each other,
927. 00:40:00 they're authentic with each other
928. 00:40:02 and they enjoy coming into work every day,
929. 00:40:05 I can screw up and it'll be okay, right?
930. 00:40:07 Like everything will, everything will have softened.
931. 00:40:09 So I don't know if that's the way I should look at it,
932. 00:40:10 but that's the kind of way I think about it.
933. 00:40:12 There's a bunch of positives on the other side of that, right?
934. 00:40:14 They work better in teams and they do projects better.
935. 00:40:17 But like, that was a big, I guess a bigger takeaway
936. 00:40:20 for me for this one.
937. 00:40:21 What did you have?
938. 00:40:23 - Okay, I'm gonna spin your action item a little bit here
939. 00:40:25 if that's okay.
940. 00:40:26 So like I'm gonna take one of these ideas for action
941. 00:40:29 and if he's got something that I think is worth calling out,
942. 00:40:33 I will share that, but if not,
943. 00:40:34 I'm gonna add my own version of what he's talking about here.
944. 00:40:39 All right, so under Bill Trust,
945. 00:40:41 he's talking about creating safety
946. 00:40:43 and I think one of the best things that you can do
947. 00:40:48 to do that is to revamp your meeting structure.
948. 00:40:51 And this is kind of along the lines
949. 00:40:52 of get a good facilitator,
950. 00:40:54 which is one of the things that he calls out here.
951. 00:40:56 But I'm gonna give people something specific.
952. 00:40:58 When you are looking at your meetings,
953. 00:41:02 I think the biggest thing that makes a difference tomorrow
954. 00:41:06 is to start and end the meeting with a positive focus.
955. 00:41:11 So what you are doing at this point is you are calling out
956. 00:41:15 the things, praising the things that people have done,
957. 00:41:18 that exemplify values in your organization
958. 00:41:21 or places where they've gone above and beyond.
959. 00:41:24 That's at the beginning.
960. 00:41:25 You're recognizing the wins
961. 00:41:27 and you're reinforcing the type of behaviors
962. 00:41:29 that you want to see in the organization
963. 00:41:31 that are in accordance with your values.
964. 00:41:33 And then the last thing is every single meeting
965. 00:41:37 to express gratitude to a single person.
966. 00:41:40 Now, if you've got a meeting with five people
967. 00:41:42 and you're the team leader,
968. 00:41:43 it can be tempting to be like,
969. 00:41:43 thank you to this person for this.
970. 00:41:45 Thank you to that person for this.
971. 00:41:46 But everyone express briefly one person
972. 00:41:50 that they are grateful for,
973. 00:41:51 something that they did specifically as it pertains
974. 00:41:54 to the things that they were talking about in the meeting.
975. 00:41:58 And I implemented that when we were at the,
976. 00:42:02 when I was at the day job,
977. 00:42:03 we do it as part of our family meeting, Rachel and I,
978. 00:42:05 we have our date nights,
979. 00:42:06 part of my discipleship group.
980. 00:42:08 This completely changes the atmosphere in the organization.
981. 00:42:11 You can be in the meeting and you can be fighting about,
982. 00:42:13 well, this is what I think should happen.
983. 00:42:14 This is what I think should happen.
984. 00:42:16 But then when you express gratitude to people for something,
985. 00:42:18 like all of the,
986. 00:42:19 all of those negative,
987. 00:42:21 unresolved negative feelings are,
988. 00:42:24 they're stripped of their power essentially.
989. 00:42:28 It's disarming.
990. 00:42:29 It's like, well, I know this person really cares about
991. 00:42:33 me as a person and what I'm doing.
992. 00:42:35 And you know, if you're saying,
993. 00:42:37 well, yeah, people can fake it, yeah, they can.
994. 00:42:39 But if you do it consistently enough,
995. 00:42:42 this will definitely build trust in the organization.
996. 00:42:45 - Yeah.
997. 00:42:47 All right, the next one is fundamental three.
998. 00:42:49 This is reinvent continuously.
999. 00:42:52 So my takeaway on this one,
1000. 00:42:54 you know, he does an interesting,
1001. 00:42:56 kind of deep dive into Mr. Beast.
1002. 00:43:00 He seems like he has a lot of respect
1003. 00:43:02 for the way Mr. Beast reinvents.
1004. 00:43:05 And he actually, again,
1005. 00:43:06 a list within a list, but he has Mr. Beast tips,
1006. 00:43:09 you know, learn from others, more ideas,
1007. 00:43:11 better ideas, capture ideas,
1008. 00:43:12 every video is an opportunity to improve,
1009. 00:43:14 involve others and be patient.
1010. 00:43:15 This one really, you know,
1011. 00:43:20 I get the idea on this one
1012. 00:43:22 that you have to think about reinventing
1013. 00:43:24 and you have to think about escaping the norm
1014. 00:43:29 and, you know, when is the time for change?
1015. 00:43:31 Well, it's always a time for change.
1016. 00:43:32 So you have to be thinking about it.
1017. 00:43:33 And he gives examples of people who kind of did this well
1018. 00:43:38 and didn't do this well,
1019. 00:43:40 lists the questions to help you reinvent yourself.
1020. 00:43:43 I just, I don't think I got a lot out of this section.
1021. 00:43:47 I had a fundamental three that was like,
1022. 00:43:48 okay, reinvent yourself.
1023. 00:43:50 Yeah, but not always.
1024. 00:43:52 Like I don't always want to reinvent myself.
1025. 00:43:55 Like there are certain things, you know,
1026. 00:43:58 I've heard it referred to as the performance engine.
1027. 00:44:00 There are certain things we do in our organization
1028. 00:44:01 where we don't want to reinvent that.
1029. 00:44:03 Why?
1030. 00:44:04 Because it brings in X amount of revenue every month
1031. 00:44:08 and we need that revenue
1032. 00:44:09 or else none of the other stuff happens.
1033. 00:44:10 But now I think if you are only banking on that
1034. 00:44:14 and then you lose the contract, okay,
1035. 00:44:15 you should have been thinking about reinventing
1036. 00:44:18 reinventing continuously.
1037. 00:44:20 So it's a both and I get where he's coming from here,
1038. 00:44:23 but this is probably the one where I was kind of like,
1039. 00:44:26 yeah, okay, I understand what you're going for,
1040. 00:44:28 but I don't think I agree with this one quite as much
1041. 00:44:31 as you're emphasizing it.
1042. 00:44:33 Yeah.
1043. 00:44:35 So a couple of things here.
1044. 00:44:38 The domains that you should constantly be looking
1045. 00:44:40 to reinvent self systems and structure.
1046. 00:44:43 I like that.
1047. 00:44:45 And I think really if I were to condense it,
1048. 00:44:47 there's really just two self and systems.
1049. 00:44:51 The structure he says should enable
1050. 00:44:53 not inhibit the accomplishment of the task at hand.
1051. 00:44:55 I feel like that gets into systems.
1052. 00:44:59 He probably has a real clear delineation,
1053. 00:45:01 but I think systems go beyond just,
1054. 00:45:06 here's the standard operating procedures that we use
1055. 00:45:08 to execute a task.
1056. 00:45:11 And I think it's maybe a little bit of unnecessary complexity
1057. 00:45:14 to break those apart.
1058. 00:45:17 If I were to take that a step further,
1059. 00:45:18 I think the next step is,
1060. 00:45:21 like if you just look at that,
1061. 00:45:22 structure should enable not inhibit
1062. 00:45:23 the accomplishment of the task at hand.
1063. 00:45:25 That is true, but if you're a leader,
1064. 00:45:27 then you could take that too far
1065. 00:45:28 and you can create some very complicated structures
1066. 00:45:31 to support the way that you think something should be done.
1067. 00:45:33 And if you really want a high performing organization,
1068. 00:45:35 what you need is you to get out of the way.
1069. 00:45:39 You have a unique ability,
1070. 00:45:40 so go function in that,
1071. 00:45:41 the people that you're hiring for the jobs
1072. 00:45:43 underneath you have unique abilities
1073. 00:45:45 that compliment yours.
1074. 00:45:47 They're not in that position just because
1075. 00:45:49 they are lower than you on the org chart
1076. 00:45:52 and they don't make as much as you and the salaries.
1077. 00:45:56 They have maybe better ways of doing things
1078. 00:45:58 and the more structure that you add,
1079. 00:46:01 the more micro-manage-y you get,
1080. 00:46:04 the more life you suck out of those,
1081. 00:46:07 potentially a high functioning individuals.
1082. 00:46:10 The other thing I wanna nitpick in this chapter,
1083. 00:46:13 he references atomic habits,
1084. 00:46:16 but he references it really weird.
1085. 00:46:19 So he talks about systems and value systems.
1086. 00:46:26 You need to have these habits
1087. 00:46:28 and you need to get 1% better every day,
1088. 00:46:31 but the one quote that he pulls out of atomic habits,
1089. 00:46:36 paints it in a negative light.
1090. 00:46:40 I don't have the book in front of me.
1091. 00:46:41 I should have wrote this down.
1092. 00:46:43 Do you remember reading that part
1093. 00:46:44 where he actually quotes James Clear though?
1094. 00:46:47 Yeah, so do you remember what exactly it was?
1095. 00:46:49 If something along the lines of like,
1096. 00:46:50 this is how you break bad habits or something?
1097. 00:46:52 No, I don't remember how it, I don't remember it.
1098. 00:46:54 And I don't remember it flagging to me as...
1099. 00:46:57 Well, okay, so he's quoting James Clear,
1100. 00:47:00 but the part that he's quoting James Clear on
1101. 00:47:03 is like a really minor point that he's sharing from the book
1102. 00:47:07 and he shares the quote.
1103. 00:47:10 Then he goes on to talk about in his own voice
1104. 00:47:15 all of the things that I'm sure he read in atomic habits.
1105. 00:47:18 He talked about brails for the British cycling coach.
1106. 00:47:21 That story is in atomic habits.
1107. 00:47:25 And he talks about the 1% better idea.
1108. 00:47:28 That's James Clear from like 10 years ago.
1109. 00:47:30 I remember those charts on his blog.
1110. 00:47:34 But the thing that he credits James Clear with is like,
1111. 00:47:37 if you were to look at that and be like,
1112. 00:47:39 oh, this came from atomic habits,
1113. 00:47:40 I don't wanna read atomic habits.
1114. 00:47:41 (laughs)
1115. 00:47:43 It was really strange.
1116. 00:47:44 I didn't pick up on that, so that's an interesting find.
1117. 00:47:49 Yeah, and you know, James Clear's borrowing this stuff
1118. 00:47:52 from other people and looking at the same research studies.
1119. 00:47:55 So maybe that's not actually what happened.
1120. 00:47:57 Maybe he's actually reading the research
1121. 00:47:59 on the British cycling team,
1122. 00:48:01 but it was just put together really weird and maybe go,
1123. 00:48:06 huh.
1124. 00:48:07 Well, good, he challenged your mind.
1125. 00:48:10 He challenged your mind on maybe an example
1126. 00:48:12 that you don't wanna follow.
1127. 00:48:13 Yeah, yeah.
1128. 00:48:15 All right, so what's your one?
1129. 00:48:17 I'll make you start on this one.
1130. 00:48:18 What's your one big takeaway from this one?
1131. 00:48:22 Well, I like the reference to think different,
1132. 00:48:27 but I gotta ask you, having read this now,
1133. 00:48:29 like do you know what that means?
1134. 00:48:31 For him, I can tell you just based on my notes,
1135. 00:48:34 it means invest time, think opposite,
1136. 00:48:36 and then ask more questions.
1137. 00:48:38 Because that way those are the bullet items in the list.
1138. 00:48:41 Okay, so I'll give you a little bit more structure
1139. 00:48:43 with that if you want to start considering more options
1140. 00:48:47 and to ask more open-ended questions.
1141. 00:48:49 I'll give you three specific open-ended questions.
1142. 00:48:52 Okay, what should we start doing?
1143. 00:48:55 What should we stop doing?
1144. 00:48:56 What should we keep doing?
1145. 00:48:58 I first came across those, I don't know,
1146. 00:49:02 maybe like 10 years ago at this point,
1147. 00:49:04 and I have brought them to every organization
1148. 00:49:06 that I have been a part of.
1149. 00:49:08 We incorporated them into our retrospective process,
1150. 00:49:11 and we always are blown away by the quality of ideas
1151. 00:49:16 that are generated by the group using those as kind of openers.
1152. 00:49:21 So yeah, like he talks about asking questions here,
1153. 00:49:26 which I think if I were to pick one thing verbatim,
1154. 00:49:28 then he said that's it.
1155. 00:49:30 But then what are the questions?
1156. 00:49:31 He gives you a list, I didn't really care for the list.
1157. 00:49:33 So those are the three that you should ask.
1158. 00:49:35 What should I start doing?
1159. 00:49:36 What should I stop doing?
1160. 00:49:37 What should I keep doing?
1161. 00:49:38 And that's part of my personal retreat process too.
1162. 00:49:40 So it doesn't just apply to an organization as well.
1163. 00:49:43 Yeah, I like, I think my big takeaway from this one
1164. 00:49:46 is his distinction between artistic creativity
1165. 00:49:50 and creativity from a viable option standpoint.
1166. 00:49:54 Like, so make options and make things
1167. 00:49:58 that are gonna move the ball forward
1168. 00:50:01 or that are different in their nature.
1169. 00:50:04 I like that idea because I've heard you talk about this
1170. 00:50:07 and I've heard other people talk about this before,
1171. 00:50:08 but we think I'm not creative,
1172. 00:50:11 but creative doesn't mean art
1173. 00:50:14 and it doesn't mean design always.
1174. 00:50:16 It doesn't mean those things.
1175. 00:50:17 It means thinking in a way that adds value differently.
1176. 00:50:22 And that's what I think creativity really is
1177. 00:50:26 in the non-artistic context.
1178. 00:50:28 So I liked that he called that out
1179. 00:50:30 and I liked that he helped people think about that
1180. 00:50:32 and see that yes, we're saying reinvent continuously
1181. 00:50:36 and then he goes into this whole idea
1182. 00:50:37 of cultivate creativity,
1183. 00:50:39 but think about creativity differently.
1184. 00:50:41 I think that was my,
1185. 00:50:43 if I had to put a spotlight on one thing out of this,
1186. 00:50:47 the small second one was lowering people's standard
1187. 00:50:52 on what we actually need to do to reinvent.
1188. 00:50:58 Reinvent doesn't mean uproot my whole life.
1189. 00:51:00 Reinvent means make that small change,
1190. 00:51:02 make that small change.
1191. 00:51:03 So this ties back into your atomic habits conversation,
1192. 00:51:05 but it's like just bringing people,
1193. 00:51:07 if they've never read that
1194. 00:51:08 or if they've never heard of that before,
1195. 00:51:09 it's like, okay, the small changes will stack together
1196. 00:51:12 and they will add up and they will make
1197. 00:51:14 a larger change over time.
1198. 00:51:15 So I think those are my two major one
1199. 00:51:19 and minor one from fundamental three.
1200. 00:51:21 - Gotcha.
1201. 00:51:22 I guess one other thing on the atomic habits thing,
1202. 00:51:27 I've been brewing on like,
1203. 00:51:28 why is it feel so weird to me?
1204. 00:51:30 I think maybe it's because at this point
1205. 00:51:35 we're in fundamental three.
1206. 00:51:37 So he's shared a bunch of stuff from other books
1207. 00:51:41 that he's sort of assumed.
1208. 00:51:44 You have some shared knowledge about,
1209. 00:51:47 but if there is one book that you can absolutely assume
1210. 00:51:52 your reader has some knowledge about,
1211. 00:51:56 it would be this one.
1212. 00:51:57 And I guess that's just not the approach
1213. 00:51:59 that he took with it.
1214. 00:52:00 - So it's a pretty popular book
1215. 00:52:03 in the world that would be reading this.
1216. 00:52:05 It's pretty popular.
1217. 00:52:06 - Yeah, I forget the statistics,
1218. 00:52:07 but it has been at the top of the New York Times
1219. 00:52:11 a selling list longer than,
1220. 00:52:14 I want to say longer than any other nonfiction book.
1221. 00:52:18 And I don't know if that's ever or just in recent history,
1222. 00:52:21 but it's like four or five years in a row.
1223. 00:52:23 And it's like completely unheard of
1224. 00:52:26 for self development book.
1225. 00:52:29 So yeah, definitely a big deal.
1226. 00:52:32 - All right, fundamental four is value results
1227. 00:52:36 and relationships.
1228. 00:52:37 So he focuses a lot on the and
1229. 00:52:40 this one makes references to the idea
1230. 00:52:45 of you're gonna do something and this other thing.
1231. 00:52:48 So a lot of leaders he calls out
1232. 00:52:51 just focus on the results.
1233. 00:52:52 So they neglect the relationships
1234. 00:52:54 and you can't do that.
1235. 00:52:56 You actually have to focus on both of those,
1236. 00:52:59 refers to Coach Wooden at a UCLA
1237. 00:53:04 and why people looked up to him
1238. 00:53:05 and why he was so successful
1239. 00:53:08 because it was his style of both resulted relationships,
1240. 00:53:11 breaks it down into this idea of setting the example,
1241. 00:53:16 coach for success, demonstrate care
1242. 00:53:20 that you want to do these things.
1243. 00:53:22 This style is very wash rinse repeat.
1244. 00:53:27 So fundamental one, fundamental two,
1245. 00:53:29 fundamental three, fundamental four,
1246. 00:53:31 you're getting the exact same structure to the book.
1247. 00:53:36 So you kind of knew what you're getting into,
1248. 00:53:37 he's gonna have a couple examples here.
1249. 00:53:40 I think I'll start off quickly
1250. 00:53:43 and just give you my key takeaway is,
1251. 00:53:47 I think it's really this idea of feedback.
1252. 00:53:50 He talks about what kind of feedback should you give?
1253. 00:53:53 We should give honest feedback, you should give thorough.
1254. 00:53:55 He says completely, but give thorough feedback,
1255. 00:53:58 give it timely and give it in an actionable way.
1256. 00:54:02 And I think this is just a key skill
1257. 00:54:05 for hitting both results and relationships.
1258. 00:54:08 That if you're able to give feedback honest fully,
1259. 00:54:12 timely and actionable, then you can get better results
1260. 00:54:16 and you also keep the relationship strong
1261. 00:54:19 between the people that you're given that feedback to.
1262. 00:54:22 So I think that was my key takeaway out of fundamental four.
1263. 00:54:27 - I actually like this section.
1264. 00:54:31 The coach for success section specifically,
1265. 00:54:33 I feel like there's some good stuff in there,
1266. 00:54:35 but I think he ripped that out of another book
1267. 00:54:38 that he referenced, I forgot to jot down which one that was.
1268. 00:54:42 But like the provide situational coaching,
1269. 00:54:44 I feel like there's some good stuff to dig deeper in there
1270. 00:54:48 where essentially if someone has no experience
1271. 00:54:50 but they're an enthusiastic beginner,
1272. 00:54:52 you offer a directive.
1273. 00:54:53 If someone has experience but lacks a critical skill,
1274. 00:54:56 then you're offering coaching.
1275. 00:54:58 If someone has experience or skills but not confidence,
1276. 00:55:00 then you are supportive.
1277. 00:55:02 And then if they have both confidence and confidence,
1278. 00:55:04 you are delegating that to someone else.
1279. 00:55:07 Kinda reminds me of the,
1280. 00:55:09 I've heard different formats for this where like,
1281. 00:55:14 in delegating, I do it, you watch me do it,
1282. 00:55:17 I watch you do it, then you do it.
1283. 00:55:18 That's just kinda how it mapped in my brain.
1284. 00:55:22 So I kinda like to dig a little bit deeper with that.
1285. 00:55:26 I do think that the results and relationships,
1286. 00:55:30 the real power there you hit on this
1287. 00:55:32 is just substituting the word and.
1288. 00:55:36 So maybe the real value of this just comes from considering
1289. 00:55:39 the title of the section.
1290. 00:55:41 Like the John Wooden stuff is interesting.
1291. 00:55:45 I'd heard some of that but not all of it.
1292. 00:55:47 He kinda zeroes in on the Bill Walton thing
1293. 00:55:51 and how he would call him like every single day
1294. 00:55:53 just to see how he was doing.
1295. 00:55:56 And he uses that kind of as like a metaphor
1296. 00:55:58 for like, wouldn't it be great if people cared that much
1297. 00:56:01 about you that they were calling you 30 years after,
1298. 00:56:04 you know, you had contact with them.
1299. 00:56:07 And that idea kinda challenged me.
1300. 00:56:10 What can I do to invest in the teams that I'm a part of
1301. 00:56:13 to build those relationships?
1302. 00:56:17 But I don't have anything specific from that.
1303. 00:56:21 I mean, the different ideas for action,
1304. 00:56:24 demonstrate care and set the example
1305. 00:56:28 in addition to coach for success, obviously.
1306. 00:56:30 I feel like again, you can go a lot deeper
1307. 00:56:35 with some of this stuff.
1308. 00:56:37 I guess if I were to pick one that kinda just stood out to me,
1309. 00:56:40 it is set the example because two of the things
1310. 00:56:43 that he mentions under there are know the values
1311. 00:56:45 and share the values.
1312. 00:56:46 And because I was part of a project where we were shifting
1313. 00:56:50 cultural values at an organization about 20 people,
1314. 00:56:53 I can tell you that this is difficult
1315. 00:56:56 and again, you can't overstate the importance
1316. 00:57:00 of this stuff so it could go a lot deeper than this.
1317. 00:57:03 But just to kinda like hit on these
1318. 00:57:06 and give some practical examples maybe know the values.
1319. 00:57:09 One of the ways that we try to do this is we would have
1320. 00:57:13 this thing built into Slack, the communication tool
1321. 00:57:16 where if you saw somebody exhibiting a value,
1322. 00:57:18 you could give them some points associated with a value
1323. 00:57:21 and it was tied to a custom hashtag.
1324. 00:57:23 And then the person with the most number of points
1325. 00:57:26 at the end of the month got a Amazon gift card or something.
1326. 00:57:30 So you have to constantly be talking about these values,
1327. 00:57:34 constantly driving them home.
1328. 00:57:35 And really as a leader, you haven't communicated your values
1329. 00:57:37 until you see your team starting to express them
1330. 00:57:40 out of their own mouth, I'm prompted in front of you.
1331. 00:57:44 So know the values, share the values,
1332. 00:57:46 hit on them every single time.
1333. 00:57:48 It's why we've got our family core values printed out
1334. 00:57:50 and hang on our living room wall
1335. 00:57:51 so that they are always visible.
1336. 00:57:54 And when it comes to an organization,
1337. 00:57:57 like all of this is pointless.
1338. 00:58:00 If the leadership team and specifically the visionary
1339. 00:58:03 isn't going to abide by the values,
1340. 00:58:05 they're not aspirational, they're not something
1341. 00:58:07 that you do most of the time.
1342. 00:58:09 Like these have to be absolutely never going to break this
1343. 00:58:13 because it's so important to us as an organization.
1344. 00:58:16 And if you've got leadership that is saying one thing
1345. 00:58:18 and doing another thing, then obviously you're not gonna,
1346. 00:58:21 you're not gonna be able to gain any traction with this stuff.
1347. 00:58:24 But ultimately when you have those values in place,
1348. 00:58:27 I feel like that's where you can build the relationships.
1349. 00:58:32 Until you've established that, it's kinda like,
1350. 00:58:35 what are the rules that we're playing by here?
1351. 00:58:38 And unless you get everybody on the same page,
1352. 00:58:41 like you're not gonna be able to make much movement there.
1353. 00:58:44 - This is the section where I probably have
1354. 00:58:47 the biggest disagreement with Miller
1355. 00:58:50 and it's because he states in fundamental two,
1356. 00:58:53 which is engage and develop others,
1357. 00:58:55 that this fundamental requires the most time and energy.
1358. 00:58:58 So he thinks fundamental two,
1359. 00:58:59 develop and engage others.
1360. 00:59:00 I disagree.
1361. 00:59:02 I think fundamental four is what requires
1362. 00:59:04 the most time and energy and it's the relationship side.
1363. 00:59:08 That I think that if you're really gonna do relationships well
1364. 00:59:11 and you're gonna set the example coach for success
1365. 00:59:14 and then especially demonstrate care,
1366. 00:59:16 that it just takes so much time.
1367. 00:59:20 And that's not a bad thing,
1368. 00:59:22 but it's one of those things that,
1369. 00:59:25 he throws out the demonstrate care is practice,
1370. 00:59:27 deep listening, pursue real relationship
1371. 00:59:28 and engage personally.
1372. 00:59:29 And if I'm gonna do those three things,
1373. 00:59:31 it's a lot of not only actual on the clock time,
1374. 00:59:36 I need to actually engage with you and spend time with you,
1375. 00:59:40 but it's also the time for referencing another book,
1376. 00:59:44 it'd be that diffuse time.
1377. 00:59:45 Well, I'm thinking about what you told me.
1378. 00:59:47 I'm actually thinking about how do I enhance this relationship
1379. 00:59:51 and how do I keep this relationship moving forward?
1380. 00:59:54 And then I'm thinking about ways that I engage,
1381. 00:59:56 but it's not just with one other person, right?
1382. 00:59:58 And my thought, the best example I have on this is,
1383. 01:00:02 is my wife, it's like, if I'm doing that well,
1384. 01:00:05 it takes a lot of mental energy for me to do that.
1385. 01:00:08 And it takes a lot of time for me to plan different things.
1386. 01:00:10 And then you add your kids to it,
1387. 01:00:11 or you add just the people at your work.
1388. 01:00:13 If you've got five people that you're trying to do this with,
1389. 01:00:16 that's just a lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of energy.
1390. 01:00:20 So this is probably my biggest disagreement
1391. 01:00:22 with one of his points that he makes throughout the book.
1392. 01:00:26 Yeah, I didn't pick up on that, but I think you're right.
1393. 01:00:28 I mean, the whole thing about giving great feedback,
1394. 01:00:33 for example, be honest, empty the tank,
1395. 01:00:35 respond quickly, make it actionable.
1396. 01:00:39 That's a nice list,
1397. 01:00:42 but that's essentially radical candor.
1398. 01:00:46 Which was what, 350 pages?
1399. 01:00:48 Yeah, exactly.
1400. 01:00:50 So you're right, this is definitely the hardest part.
1401. 01:00:56 And I shouldn't say maybe the hardest part,
1402. 01:00:58 but it's definitely going to take the most time.
1403. 01:01:00 There are structures that you can use to provide
1404. 01:01:04 some scaffolding or framework to make it easier
1405. 01:01:08 and more effective, more efficient when you are giving feedback
1406. 01:01:11 and you are developing these relationships.
1407. 01:01:13 But this is the hard part about management,
1408. 01:01:16 is it's all relationship stuff.
1409. 01:01:19 And again, I guess it kind of comes down to meeting structure
1410. 01:01:24 being the thing that is going to either make this work
1411. 01:01:27 or you try to implement this and you quickly get overwhelmed.
1412. 01:01:32 Because if you've got bad meetings
1413. 01:01:34 and you're not able to resolve issues
1414. 01:01:36 and you walk out of there and people aren't clear
1415. 01:01:38 and like this is what I need to do
1416. 01:01:40 and how it contributes to the success of the organization,
1417. 01:01:44 then what's going to happen is you're going to spend
1418. 01:01:46 a whole bunch of extra time trying to get that clarity
1419. 01:01:50 by communicating asynchronously through email or Slack
1420. 01:01:54 and it's just not going to get you there.
1421. 01:01:56 Exactly.
1422. 01:01:58 Alright, fundamental five, embody a leader's heart.
1423. 01:02:01 So this is Mike's favorite section,
1424. 01:02:03 so he's probably going to, or sorry,
1425. 01:02:04 it's the one I shouldn't say favorite.
1426. 01:02:07 It's the one that he took the most action items out of
1427. 01:02:10 or he had the most notes on.
1428. 01:02:12 He talks about the idea of the leadership iceberg
1429. 01:02:17 and there are skills which represent the top of the iceberg
1430. 01:02:20 which is only about 10% of the iceberg
1431. 01:02:22 and then there's heart which represents the bottom part
1432. 01:02:26 where 90% exists.
1433. 01:02:28 I agree with the premise.
1434. 01:02:30 I think that having the heart of the leader drives a lot of it
1435. 01:02:34 and then the skills can develop as you go
1436. 01:02:37 and you're not always going to hit things perfectly.
1437. 01:02:40 But if you have the right heart and you're going through it
1438. 01:02:42 and I think what makes me agree with this the most
1439. 01:02:45 is the fact that I've had leaders like this
1440. 01:02:46 where they don't have to do everything right.
1441. 01:02:49 Like everything, they can mess up
1442. 01:02:50 and they can make even big mistakes
1443. 01:02:52 but you're like, man, they wanted the best
1444. 01:02:55 for the organization or they wanted the best for me
1445. 01:02:57 or they were really thinking they were making
1446. 01:02:59 the best decision and it just panned out in a different way.
1447. 01:03:03 So I like that leadership iceberg idea and that model
1448. 01:03:08 comes from his book, The Heart of Leadership.
1449. 01:03:12 So it's again one of those recycled things
1450. 01:03:14 where he hits it at a higher level here.
1451. 01:03:17 I also like the idea in this section
1452. 01:03:21 about putting others first.
1453. 01:03:23 This is something that's been on my mind
1454. 01:03:25 and on my heart a lot lately I would say
1455. 01:03:27 in the last three to five years where we live
1456. 01:03:31 in a culture that's so self-focused.
1457. 01:03:35 How can we intentionally turn that
1458. 01:03:37 and think about others first and think about
1459. 01:03:40 how do we serve these other people first
1460. 01:03:42 and how do we help the other people grow first?
1461. 01:03:44 And really my role as a leader is to
1462. 01:03:48 what is it, the rising tide lifts all boats, right?
1463. 01:03:51 So if we can help everybody get better
1464. 01:03:54 and help everybody grow and help everybody do good work
1465. 01:03:57 then we're all gonna grow
1466. 01:03:58 and we're all gonna move this thing forward
1467. 01:04:01 in the way we want to.
1468. 01:04:02 So I think those are my two big takeaways
1469. 01:04:06 from Embodied Leaders Heart which is fundamental five.
1470. 01:04:10 - Yeah, so my takeaways specifically
1471. 01:04:13 from accept responsibility, find someone to praise weekly
1472. 01:04:18 and then under respond with courage,
1473. 01:04:20 find something hard to do.
1474. 01:04:23 But I wanna back up just a bit though
1475. 01:04:24 and the whole leaders heart, there's another acronym here,
1476. 01:04:27 the heart of leadership.
1477. 01:04:29 So hunger for wisdom, expect the best,
1478. 01:04:31 accept responsibility, respond with courage
1479. 01:04:33 and think others first, which man,
1480. 01:04:36 he really loves his acronyms.
1481. 01:04:38 When I see acronyms like this,
1482. 01:04:43 I tend to try to shorten them,
1483. 01:04:48 to make them more memorable.
1484. 01:04:50 So hunger for wisdom becomes hunger,
1485. 01:04:53 expect the best, becomes expect, accept, respond, right?
1486. 01:04:57 And then that helps me remember,
1487. 01:04:59 oh, heart, that's what this stands for.
1488. 01:05:01 'Cause I like the visual where he's going
1489. 01:05:04 with the heart of leadership.
1490. 01:05:06 But think others first, think,
1491. 01:05:08 like that one doesn't connect for me.
1492. 01:05:12 - Yeah, yeah.
1493. 01:05:13 - So it feels a little bit forced as an acronym
1494. 01:05:16 to tell you the truth.
1495. 01:05:17 But I do like the ideas here a lot.
1496. 01:05:20 And I feel like this is actually the section
1497. 01:05:22 where he's got these five different things
1498. 01:05:24 instead of three or four.
1499. 01:05:25 And every single one of them has multiple lists underneath them.
1500. 01:05:29 So like think others first, listen to understand,
1501. 01:05:32 lead with empathy.
1502. 01:05:33 There's actually three points I've jotted down
1503. 01:05:34 under each one of those.
1504. 01:05:36 So that's why I said at the beginning
1505. 01:05:37 that I feel like this is the one
1506. 01:05:39 where he's got the most meat on the bone.
1507. 01:05:42 And it's been condensed down into this section,
1508. 01:05:45 but because he went through the distilling process
1509. 01:05:48 of writing the book ahead of time,
1510. 01:05:50 he was able to condense that down into these sections.
1511. 01:05:53 It feels like he's starting from a different place
1512. 01:05:56 of knowledge with this fundamental
1513. 01:05:58 than with the other fundamentals.
1514. 01:06:00 And I feel like that makes this one read differently.
1515. 01:06:05 It creates a lot more trust right from the beginning
1516. 01:06:10 in this section, I feel like.
1517. 01:06:11 You know, I can relate to him and I'm, I don't know.
1518. 01:06:14 Not that I was looking side-eye
1519. 01:06:17 through the other four fundamentals, but sorta, I guess.
1520. 01:06:20 By the time I got to this point,
1521. 01:06:22 I realized the difference in the perspective here.
1522. 01:06:26 So I am actually interested in seeing what else
1523. 01:06:31 he's got to say on this particular topic.
1524. 01:06:33 Maybe I'll pick up that other book.
1525. 01:06:36 It's definitely a good way to end the five fundamentals,
1526. 01:06:41 but this is also a weird wrap-up as he goes
1527. 01:06:45 into the next section too,
1528. 01:06:47 because it's not explicitly called out before then.
1529. 01:06:51 So, you know, it's kind of like,
1530. 01:06:54 you're tying it all together here,
1531. 01:06:55 but also maybe this is the foundation.
1532. 01:06:58 So I get, you know, it's last because you want it
1533. 01:07:02 to be the E and serve, but maybe it should have been first.
1534. 01:07:06 - Okay.
1535. 01:07:07 I'm really glad you said this because it seemed to me,
1536. 01:07:11 and he actually makes a comment here
1537. 01:07:12 that the five-heart habits,
1538. 01:07:14 which those are what you just outlined with heart,
1539. 01:07:16 you know, hunger, expect, accept, respond, and think.
1540. 01:07:19 The five-heart habits that enable us to move
1541. 01:07:21 from common to uncommon.
1542. 01:07:22 So he actually calls out this idea.
1543. 01:07:24 So it's almost like this is like the,
1544. 01:07:27 this is the why I wrote this book, right?
1545. 01:07:29 Like I wrote this book because I wanted to write this chapter.
1546. 01:07:33 I wanted to write chapter, you know, in fundamental five,
1547. 01:07:36 but I needed all that other stuff to round out the book,
1548. 01:07:41 maybe, or to like set the foundation for the book
1549. 01:07:44 or whatever it was, but I felt the exact same way.
1550. 01:07:46 I was kind of like, well, this seems like your,
1551. 01:07:50 what I really wanted to say, section,
1552. 01:07:52 and all this other stuff I just collected
1553. 01:07:55 and like set a foundation that way this section had more oomph
1554. 01:07:59 when I made it.
1555. 01:08:01 So that's funny that you called it out
1556. 01:08:02 'cause I kind of had a similar feel.
1557. 01:08:05 - Interesting.
1558. 01:08:06 - Yeah.
1559. 01:08:08 - Okay, so let's move on to the epilogue then.
1560. 01:08:11 The epilogue basically is all about Truett Cathy.
1561. 01:08:16 So the epilogue's point is Truett Cathy was the CEO
1562. 01:08:20 of Chick-fil-A, Miller considers him an uncommon leader
1563. 01:08:25 and he gives a bunch of different examples
1564. 01:08:28 of how Truett Cathy demonstrated serve
1565. 01:08:31 and demonstrated these five fundamentals.
1566. 01:08:34 And you know, he calls out the idea of like,
1567. 01:08:36 what will your legacy be?
1568. 01:08:37 Like what are you gonna, what are you gonna leave?
1569. 01:08:39 What will people remember you by?
1570. 01:08:41 And you know, he wants people to always think about serving
1571. 01:08:46 as a leader, always think about those five fundamentals.
1572. 01:08:49 And I thought it was a, I thought it was a fine way
1573. 01:08:52 to wrap up the book.
1574. 01:08:55 It almost read like a tribute to Truett.
1575. 01:08:57 And he's just like, I need to write this.
1576. 01:09:00 I need to write this.
1577. 01:09:02 Do I think it was necessary?
1578. 01:09:03 No, I don't.
1579. 01:09:04 Do I think it was one more set of decent examples
1580. 01:09:07 for the S-E-R-V-E acronym?
1581. 01:09:11 Sure, I think it was fine.
1582. 01:09:13 So I, this might have been my favorite part of the book.
1583. 01:09:18 I feel like the stories that he shared here were great.
1584. 01:09:20 What I would have liked to see happen with this book,
1585. 01:09:24 honestly, is the choose a different path
1586. 01:09:29 be bundled into the introduction.
1587. 01:09:34 And then this takes the place of choose a different path
1588. 01:09:38 as like an introductory chapter.
1589. 01:09:41 Oh yeah.
1590. 01:09:42 And then the rest of the book is going deeper
1591. 01:09:46 into these five elements that I've explained briefly here
1592. 01:09:51 and shared some cool stories about Truett Cathy.
1593. 01:09:55 And then instead of the random examples,
1594. 01:09:58 sharing personal examples, and then maybe he doesn't have
1595. 01:10:02 to be there, but let's just use Truett Cathy
1596. 01:10:04 as the person we're going to dissect here.
1597. 01:10:07 Because it feels like in terms of the uncommon greatness,
1598. 01:10:11 that's the avatar.
1599. 01:10:14 Okay, so let's share more stories
1600. 01:10:16 about how things are done at Chick-fil-A.
1601. 01:10:18 Yeah, there's gonna be some people who are like,
1602. 01:10:20 "Nah, Chick-fil-A, I'm outta here."
1603. 01:10:22 But there are also gonna be some people who are like,
1604. 01:10:25 "Yeah, I'm totally in now."
1605. 01:10:27 Which I would probably be in that camp full disclosure.
1606. 01:10:31 But I feel like having that as a focusing mechanism
1607. 01:10:36 at the beginning would have resulted in better discussion
1608. 01:10:41 and material around the fundamentals.
1609. 01:10:44 And then you probably don't need all of the ideas
1610. 01:10:47 for action in all of these.
1611. 01:10:48 You could just use the ones that are really highlighted
1612. 01:10:51 by the stories that you've told.
1613. 01:10:54 But because you've got this acronym
1614. 01:10:56 that you are 100% committed to,
1615. 01:11:01 and you're putting the foundational chapter at the end
1616. 01:11:03 because it's the last letter in the acronym,
1617. 01:11:07 it feels like you kinda have to fill a bunch of other holes.
1618. 01:11:12 Whereas if you introduce it this way,
1619. 01:11:15 I feel like you maybe don't have that pressure.
1620. 01:11:19 Like this is the context of the book.
1621. 01:11:21 So I will just speak to the things that align with this.
1622. 01:11:26 And I feel like that might have been a better book.
1623. 01:11:30 - All right, good. So let's go to action items.
1624. 01:11:32 Mike, do you have any action items
1625. 01:11:35 that you're walking away from uncommon greatness with?
1626. 01:11:39 - I do. I've got two which came from that last fundamental.
1627. 01:11:42 Again, there's like a bunch of like very surface level stuff
1628. 01:11:47 that he mentions here that you could totally create
1629. 01:11:49 in-depth projects about.
1630. 01:11:51 But none of them resonated with me to the point
1631. 01:11:53 where I want to do something about these.
1632. 01:11:56 He does mention several books though that I ordered.
1633. 01:11:59 - Okay.
1634. 01:12:00 - I think this book bought three additional books
1635. 01:12:03 as a result of reading this.
1636. 01:12:06 So that it cost me some money.
1637. 01:12:09 I guess you could classify those as action items.
1638. 01:12:11 But the two that I listed were find someone to praise weekly.
1639. 01:12:14 And I want to do this probably via text message.
1640. 01:12:18 I've got different text message threads for different teams
1641. 01:12:22 that I'm a part of.
1642. 01:12:23 And I really just wanna get in the habit
1643. 01:12:25 of sending out some of those encouraging text messages.
1644. 01:12:29 And the other thing, find something hard to do.
1645. 01:12:32 This was something that we did as a family a while back
1646. 01:12:36 when I read "Grit" by Angela Duckworth.
1647. 01:12:39 We actually had something on our fridge for a while.
1648. 01:12:42 That was like, this is what this person is doing.
1649. 01:12:45 That's hard.
1650. 01:12:46 And I've gotten away from that.
1651. 01:12:47 My hard thing at the time was learning Spanish
1652. 01:12:50 'cause I'd just gotten back from my mission ship to Costa Rica
1653. 01:12:52 and couldn't speak a word of Spanish.
1654. 01:12:54 But having done Duolingo now for something like 1,600 days
1655. 01:12:58 in a row, it's probably time to find something new
1656. 01:13:00 that fits that description.
1657. 01:13:02 - Yep.
1658. 01:13:04 All right, so I had two as well.
1659. 01:13:06 First one was, I wanna map out a strategic listening plan.
1660. 01:13:11 In the context of the fall semester,
1661. 01:13:15 how do I listen to students, the other faculty admissions?
1662. 01:13:19 How do I listen to the folks around me
1663. 01:13:22 to help lead the engineering program better?
1664. 01:13:24 So it's very contextual, it's very specific.
1665. 01:13:27 I won't make any steps on this one for next episode.
1666. 01:13:30 But at the same time, I do wanna map out
1667. 01:13:32 that strategic listening plan
1668. 01:13:34 because I think that's important.
1669. 01:13:36 The second one is in my journaling
1670. 01:13:39 and in my daily reflection,
1671. 01:13:42 I wanna think about how did I serve others?
1672. 01:13:44 So how did I put others first?
1673. 01:13:46 How did I serve others?
1674. 01:13:47 And I wanna be able to actually write something down
1675. 01:13:51 of this specific individual was served today
1676. 01:13:54 or this specific individual was put first.
1677. 01:13:57 And hopefully that's more than one person,
1678. 01:13:59 but those are my two action items walking away
1679. 01:14:04 from our book.
1680. 01:14:05 All right, let's get to style and rating.
1681. 01:14:07 I am, this is my book, so I'll do style and rating first.
1682. 01:14:11 We've talked a good bit about, you know,
1683. 01:14:14 kind of our thoughts and feelings on this book
1684. 01:14:17 and the way it was from a style standpoint,
1685. 01:14:21 didn't really bother me that bad in terms of the structure.
1686. 01:14:24 I like Mike's idea a lot in terms of that epilogue
1687. 01:14:29 could have gone to the front
1688. 01:14:30 and then we could have built more of the narrative
1689. 01:14:33 around the points, the key points based off of that epilogue.
1690. 01:14:36 I actually like that a lot.
1691. 01:14:39 But overall the style didn't bother me.
1692. 01:14:41 I kind of knew what we were getting into
1693. 01:14:42 and it was fundamental action, fundamental action,
1694. 01:14:45 fundamental action and it flowed really well.
1695. 01:14:48 Very easy read, didn't think that there was anything
1696. 01:14:51 overly confusing or written in a way that was not,
1697. 01:14:56 I don't know, written in a way
1698. 01:14:57 that could have been done extraordinarily better.
1699. 01:14:59 I did not, I wish we'd have gone deeper on certain things
1700. 01:15:03 instead of what I feel like was pulling the,
1701. 01:15:05 pulling the rip court at the end of each chapter
1702. 01:15:07 that said go to this other resource.
1703. 01:15:09 That's gonna hurt the rating on this book fairly significantly.
1704. 01:15:12 I do think this book is much more of an assessment
1705. 01:15:15 of your current leadership and your current leadership style
1706. 01:15:19 that could then be used to focus in on specific areas
1707. 01:15:21 but you're gonna need to tie into other more
1708. 01:15:24 in depth resource to resources to focus on those areas
1709. 01:15:27 to actually make progress or to do those things.
1710. 01:15:31 I still consider this book a like a leadership 101
1711. 01:15:35 kind of a book without, as Mike said,
1712. 01:15:37 without the, what do I do about it?
1713. 01:15:40 When I realized that there's this whole,
1714. 01:15:43 what do I do about it?
1715. 01:15:44 So all of that being said,
1716. 01:15:46 my rating on this book is going to be three stars.
1717. 01:15:49 - All right.
1718. 01:15:52 Well, let me respond to the Leadership 101 comment
1719. 01:15:56 that you shared there because when I hear 101,
1720. 01:16:01 I think about some of the college classes that I've taken
1721. 01:16:04 and you have more experience with this than I do.
1722. 01:16:06 So you can correct this if I'm wrong.
1723. 01:16:09 But with a 101 class, I feel like that's followed up
1724. 01:16:12 with a 201 or a 301, so it's fundamental principles
1725. 01:16:16 and then we're gonna build on this.
1726. 01:16:18 The impression I get with this book is this is more
1727. 01:16:22 like a survey of whatever or overview of whatever,
1728. 01:16:27 which I remember some of those survey classes.
1729. 01:16:30 Like I took a survey of religion or something,
1730. 01:16:35 like intro to world religions.
1731. 01:16:38 And it was just, okay, so this is what this one says.
1732. 01:16:41 This is what this one says.
1733. 01:16:42 And obviously with something like religion,
1734. 01:16:44 you can go way deeper than what was shared in that class.
1735. 01:16:47 But sort of like a sampler.
1736. 01:16:50 - I stay corrected, you win, you're absolutely right.
1737. 01:16:52 It's much more like a survey.
1738. 01:16:54 It's much more like a seminar or a survey class.
1739. 01:16:57 And just for fun, mine was appreciation of jazz.
1740. 01:17:01 So we listened to a lot of jazz music
1741. 01:17:03 or appreciation of music or something like that.
1742. 01:17:05 I remember there being a lot of jazz in there though.
1743. 01:17:07 (laughing)
1744. 01:17:08 - Cool, yeah.
1745. 01:17:09 So I have actually nothing against that approach.
1746. 01:17:14 But if someone were to have walked into my class
1747. 01:17:19 and be like, okay, so here's the outline.
1748. 01:17:21 We're gonna do a survey of these world religions
1749. 01:17:24 and we're going to make them fit into this across the cake.
1750. 01:17:27 (laughing)
1751. 01:17:28 Obviously that changes the way that it is presented.
1752. 01:17:32 And in my opinion, makes it not as good.
1753. 01:17:35 So I wish that he had not done that.
1754. 01:17:38 I think there is definitely some good stuff in here.
1755. 01:17:41 There were some aha moments that I had in my mind map.
1756. 01:17:46 There is definitely interest in some of these topics.
1757. 01:17:49 And I mentioned I bought a couple other books
1758. 01:17:52 that I want to go deeper based off of things
1759. 01:17:54 that he had mentioned.
1760. 01:17:56 I just think that in terms of leadership books
1761. 01:18:01 because that's a topic that I love.
1762. 01:18:04 I mean, when I saw that this was the one you wanted to read,
1763. 01:18:08 I got real excited.
1764. 01:18:10 And then when I got into this, I got kind of sad.
1765. 01:18:13 (laughing)
1766. 01:18:15 And again, I think if I were to work with Mark Miller one-on-one,
1767. 01:18:21 he's probably, if he does any sort of coaching,
1768. 01:18:25 like he's the fact that I didn't really like this book,
1769. 01:18:29 is not a detriment at all.
1770. 01:18:30 He would be on the short list of people that,
1771. 01:18:32 yeah, you've done this before
1772. 01:18:34 and I want to know what you know.
1773. 01:18:37 I just think from a bookworm perspective
1774. 01:18:40 that there are a lot of other better leadership books
1775. 01:18:45 than this one.
1776. 01:18:47 If you're interested in the topic of leadership generally,
1777. 01:18:49 I kind of already mentioned this one.
1778. 01:18:51 I think John Maxwell, the 21 year Refutable Laws of Leadership,
1779. 01:18:55 that's probably the place to start.
1780. 01:18:57 If you're looking for business application of values
1781. 01:19:01 and how do you implement some of this stuff,
1782. 01:19:04 a lot of the Patrick Lencioni fables are really good.
1783. 01:19:09 Five dysfunctions of a team is one of my favorites.
1784. 01:19:13 Yeah, there's a lot of other ones I think I would pick up
1785. 01:19:16 before I picked up this one.
1786. 01:19:18 But I am interested in his other book.
1787. 01:19:22 So I don't know if I'm gonna pick that one up yet or not.
1788. 01:19:25 I've got a bunch of other things to read prior,
1789. 01:19:28 so we'll see.
1790. 01:19:31 I'm gonna meet you at 3.0 because I think there is some
1791. 01:19:35 good stuff here, but I don't think you're gonna get it
1792. 01:19:37 from reading this book.
1793. 01:19:39 This may open up some loops and you are gonna take that
1794. 01:19:43 and you're gonna dig deeper.
1795. 01:19:45 But I don't think that there's a whole lot here
1796. 01:19:50 that's gonna translate into tangible action.
1797. 01:19:53 Even like the high level stuff that he shares
1798. 01:19:56 where you should really do this, you know, I don't know,
1799. 01:20:00 build trust, build genuine community.
1800. 01:20:03 Like that's not enough to go off of.
1801. 01:20:05 If you're gonna try to just implement the sub-bullets
1802. 01:20:08 that he shares underneath that,
1803. 01:20:09 set the strategy, value diversity,
1804. 01:20:11 no others deeply, celebrate often,
1805. 01:20:13 you're gonna end up making a whole ton of mistakes
1806. 01:20:17 and your team's gonna disappear.
1807. 01:20:19 Like you can't afford to take that approach.
1808. 01:20:21 You need something else.
1809. 01:20:23 And from an individual perspective, you know,
1810. 01:20:26 this is all based off of his experience
1811. 01:20:29 and sounds like work at Chick-fil-A.
1812. 01:20:33 It's a very business heavy context.
1813. 01:20:38 Like if you're interested in the topic of leadership
1814. 01:20:40 but you wanna apply it to yourself personally,
1815. 01:20:42 which is kind of the boat I find myself in,
1816. 01:20:45 being a solo entrepreneur with the independent creator
1817. 01:20:49 business, you know, like I like to read
1818. 01:20:52 these business type books but working with teams,
1819. 01:20:53 but a lot of, I don't have a team that I can implement
1820. 01:20:56 this with directly.
1821. 01:20:57 But that's okay. Like I figure out ways to translate
1822. 01:21:00 stuff like the radical candor into my own personal context.
1823. 01:21:05 This one's just hard to do that with.
1824. 01:21:08 And I feel like there is a better version of this book
1825. 01:21:11 kind of talked about how I would rearrange the outline
1826. 01:21:15 and do the introduction than the epilogue
1827. 01:21:18 and then the fundamentals.
1828. 01:21:21 I would love to see what that looks like.
1829. 01:21:23 And you know not, he's written several books.
1830. 01:21:27 So he's ahead of me.
1831. 01:21:28 I'm just a guy who critiques books on a podcast.
1832. 01:21:31 (laughing)
1833. 01:21:33 Take what I say with a grain of salt here.
1834. 01:21:37 And you know for people who write multiple books,
1835. 01:21:39 I also kind of see this trend where if you write a great
1836. 01:21:43 first book, you feel the pressure to write a great
1837. 01:21:45 second book and not every book is a home run.
1838. 01:21:48 So maybe we just picked the one that is the least
1839. 01:21:53 in alignment with what I want from a leadership book.
1840. 01:21:57 Maybe these other stuff is awesome.
1841. 01:21:59 But yeah, this one I thought was okay.
1842. 01:22:02 - I'll echo the fact that he's somebody,
1843. 01:22:06 just from reading the book, I would be interested
1844. 01:22:09 to sit down and talk with or to, you know,
1845. 01:22:13 work with the consulting side or be under his leadership.
1846. 01:22:17 I get that vibe as well.
1847. 01:22:19 I just don't think, you know, I think the book could have
1848. 01:22:23 been better and that's why we both rated it a three.
1849. 01:22:26 I'm actually really surprised and hopefully this doesn't
1850. 01:22:28 come across the wrong way.
1851. 01:22:30 I'm really surprised you gave it a three.
1852. 01:22:31 I was, if I had to guess you were given this book a two.
1853. 01:22:35 So the fact that it came out of a three from you,
1854. 01:22:37 I was like, "Well, interesting, okay, okay."
1855. 01:22:40 - Well, I tend to be a little bit generous with my ratings.
1856. 01:22:46 There's definitely the bell-shaped curve with my ratings.
1857. 01:22:51 I think I've only given one or two stars.
1858. 01:22:56 Maybe I'd never given a single star.
1859. 01:22:59 If I did, it was probably for the art of asking.
1860. 01:23:01 I hated that book.
1861. 01:23:02 But I also believe that whenever you read a book,
1862. 01:23:08 even if it's one that you just absolutely do not like,
1863. 01:23:13 it's really hard for you to engage with it,
1864. 01:23:15 I feel like I can always get something out of them.
1865. 01:23:20 So the fact that I got a couple positive action items
1866. 01:23:23 that probably skews me a little bit higher
1867. 01:23:25 than the general discussion.
1868. 01:23:27 I should also add though that that's bad advice
1869. 01:23:31 for most people.
1870. 01:23:32 If you don't have a podcast where you have to talk
1871. 01:23:36 about these books every two weeks,
1872. 01:23:37 you have our permission to stop reading a bad book.
1873. 01:23:41 - Just put it down, right?
1874. 01:23:43 Do something better with your time.
1875. 01:23:45 - Yes, I agree completely.
1876. 01:23:46 - Yeah, yeah.
1877. 01:23:47 - All right, so let's put uncommon greatness.
1878. 01:23:50 Is that the right name?
1879. 01:23:51 My gosh, did I just forget the name of the book?
1880. 01:23:53 - Yes, that is the name.
1881. 01:23:55 - All right, so let's put uncommon greatness on the shelf.
1882. 01:23:57 Mike, tell us what the book is for next time.
1883. 01:24:00 - The next book is Hidden Genius by Paulina Merinova-Pompliano.
1884. 01:24:05 I think I said that name correctly.
1885. 01:24:07 I apologize if I did not.
1886. 01:24:09 And this was someone that I came across
1887. 01:24:11 her podcast episode on Good Work by Barrett Brooks,
1888. 01:24:15 who is a former second in command at ConvertKit.
1889. 01:24:19 Really enjoyed that podcast episode.
1890. 01:24:22 This book has a blurb by James Clear on the cover,
1891. 01:24:25 which significantly increases its stock in my eyes
1892. 01:24:30 and is a little bit outside of the normal books
1893. 01:24:35 that I see popping up all the time in the circles
1894. 01:24:39 that I run in.
1895. 01:24:40 But still, it speaks to the perspective
1896. 01:24:44 and mindset of successful people.
1897. 01:24:47 So I think it's very much in line with the themes of Bookworm,
1898. 01:24:50 but wasn't one that I had been on my radar
1899. 01:24:53 prior to listening to the episode.
1900. 01:24:55 So once I listened to that, I was like,
1901. 01:24:57 oh, this might be a fresh take maybe on some of the stuff
1902. 01:25:01 that we talk about a lot.
1903. 01:25:03 That's my hope anyways.
1904. 01:25:04 - Then the book after that will be The Ritual Effect
1905. 01:25:08 by Michael Norton.
1906. 01:25:10 Learned about this book, it's fairly new.
1907. 01:25:12 I like the idea of, I don't know,
1908. 01:25:14 thinking about things in terms of rituals or habits
1909. 01:25:17 or less about doing a single thing,
1910. 01:25:20 but making it part of your system,
1911. 01:25:22 making it part of your routine.
1912. 01:25:24 So I'm excited to open this one up and see
1913. 01:25:28 what it's like in terms of how will it impact
1914. 01:25:30 my day-to-day activities.
1915. 01:25:33 Mike, do you have any gap books for this period of time?
1916. 01:25:38 - Well, the fiction book that I mentioned earlier,
1917. 01:25:42 I will be leaving for London shortly.
1918. 01:25:44 I'm going to the Relay 10th Anniversary Show,
1919. 01:25:47 and I am bringing the three-body problem.
1920. 01:25:51 Is that the title?
1921. 01:25:53 I always mix it up. - Three-body problem.
1922. 01:25:54 - Okay.
1923. 01:25:55 Yeah, so I'm gonna bring that one with and read it.
1924. 01:25:58 Other than that, I do not have a gap book.
1925. 01:26:00 How about you? - Okay.
1926. 01:26:02 So I am still working on Evergood and Devere.
1927. 01:26:05 It's the book that just won't go away, right?
1928. 01:26:07 'Cause I read it so slowly,
1929. 01:26:09 'cause I'm taking more detailed notes
1930. 01:26:11 than I would normally on it.
1931. 01:26:14 So Evergood and Devere is definitely there,
1932. 01:26:16 but then I am re-upping my project management
1933. 01:26:21 professional certification.
1934. 01:26:23 So there's some professional development stuff
1935. 01:26:24 I'm doing there, so that'll prevent me
1936. 01:26:26 from doing any other gap reading.
1937. 01:26:28 All my learning education time goes into
1938. 01:26:32 thinking about artificial intelligence and LLMs
1939. 01:26:35 and how that impacts project management.
1940. 01:26:37 - Nice.
1941. 01:26:39 All right, well, thank you all for joining us.
1942. 01:26:42 If you're interested in us talking about board games,
1943. 01:26:46 the pro show this week was learning a lot
1944. 01:26:49 about Mike's board games and how many he has
1945. 01:26:51 and where he stores them and those things.
1946. 01:26:54 He also gave us some good recommendations
1947. 01:26:55 on some board games to start,
1948. 01:26:57 especially if you have younger kids like I do.
1949. 01:26:59 Now, so that was a lot of fun.
1950. 01:27:01 If you're interested in becoming a pro member,
1951. 01:27:04 you get the bootleg version of the show the next day.
1952. 01:27:09 Then the pro show comes out a little bit early,
1953. 01:27:12 followed by, and it's an ad-free show
1954. 01:27:15 with that extra content added in there.
1955. 01:27:18 You also can get a wallpaper, a bookworm wallpaper,
1956. 01:27:24 and Mike, am I forgetting anything on the pro show?
1957. 01:27:27 - No, so just to condense it, the couple perks,
1958. 01:27:32 you get the bootleg, which I upload
1959. 01:27:34 when we get done recording.
1960. 01:27:35 So that's about two weeks early.
1961. 01:27:37 And then the pro show has the extended version,
1962. 01:27:41 extended section at the beginning
1963. 01:27:42 where we talked about the board games today
1964. 01:27:44 and no ads if there are ads in the episode.
1965. 01:27:47 So that gets released the day before in the regular show.
1966. 01:27:52 And to join, you can go to patreon.com/bookwormfm.
1967. 01:27:56 It's $7 a month and it is the primary way
1968. 01:28:01 to support the show.
1969. 01:28:03 So if you enjoy bookworm, get value out of it,
1970. 01:28:06 and want to support the ongoing development,
1971. 01:28:11 I don't know, the podcast, that is the way to do it.
1972. 01:28:15 And we really do appreciate everyone
1973. 01:28:16 who is willing to throw some money our way.
1974. 01:28:19 - Thank you all for listening,
1975. 01:28:20 and we'll put uncommon greatness on the shelf.
1976. 01:28:23 We'll pick up Hidden Genius for next episode,
1977. 01:28:25 and we'll talk to you guys next time.