0:01

Hey there everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the"Forged by Trust" podcast.

0:05

As always, I am your host, Robin Dreeke, the founder and CEO of People Formula a leadership and communication strategies company, as well as a retired head of the FBI counter-intelligence behavioral analysis program, where yes, my job for my career was recruiting spies.

0:21

And with me today is a great friend and amazing author, Jeff Gibbard.

0:26

Jeff is formerly known as the world's most handsome social media and content marketing strategist.

0:32

And he's also goes by another title called superhero.

0:36

Jeff is the author of the Lovable Leader, a strategist and a professional speaker, and the founder of several companies, including"Super Productive" and"The Superhero Institute".

0:45

Jeff helps people to unlock their potential, to grow revenues while making a positive impact on the world.

0:51

And Jeff is also known as the host of his own popular podcast called"Shareable".

0:56

We cover a lot of resources today, including Jeff's amazing book, the"Lovable Leader", but also is going to talk about; validating people like a super hero, the three pillars of lovable leadership, how to stay optimistic and really great news about how to walk into a room.

1:13

But before we begin. Please let me take a few minutes to share how you can support the show.

1:18

Go ahead and go onto your favorite podcasting platform and leave a like, and leave a review.

1:24

It goes a long way to help get this great content and message out to the rest of the world.

1:28

Also, please check out those resources in the show notes.

1:31

I could take a lot of time to put the great links of all the resources that we talk about during the show onto those platforms for you.

1:39

And also check out my new self-mastery reading list on my website, PeopleFormula.com and help me and help yourself by purchasing any one of my three books.

1:49

But most importantly, start with a simple primer called"It's Not All About Me: The Top 10 Techniques for Quick Rapport with Anyone." And with that, sit back, relax, get out that note-taking gear and join our chat about being a lovable leader.

2:06

Robin

2:08

Jeff Gibbard superhero has entered the

2:11

room. What is up, man?

2:13

I'm super jazzed about this.

2:14

Not nearly as much as I am. Jeff. Matter of fact, any day you wake up and say, I get to talk to a superhero is an amazing day.

2:22

And it was really funny because that literally is what popped up on my Zoom.

2:27

And I see that most awesome book behind you. I have mine here, the most"Lovable Leader".

2:31

Thank you.

2:34

I was pouring through your content last night, and I have a plethora of things to chat about.

2:42

First of all, thank you for having time to chat with me because, oh my God.

2:47

Yeah. Your content is beyond.

2:51

You are the Maestro of production.

2:54

There. You're one of these few individuals in life.

2:57

If not the most prolific individuals of producing content.

3:01

All of which I want to consume, which is highly unusual.

3:05

Usually people put out something like once a week or twice a week, and you are multiple times.

3:10

Every day and all of it is phenomenal.

3:13

I wish you good.

3:16

Probably, you know, you have your book out, but you could easily put together an encyclopedia series on everything

3:21

you do. Ah, thank you, man. I, I, you know, I think I attribute part of it is to like the ADHD mindset of like, I'm just like interested in a million different things.

3:31

But I really I think a lot of it is just consistency, right?

3:34

Like I started blogging back in like 2008 and I just developed a habit for it.

3:37

I've always been a writer. I got into podcasting in 2013.

3:40

So then I got a bunch of, you know, I've got, you know, 200, some odd shows there.

3:44

I started other podcasts because I liked

3:45

that. I know I've got to say not, and not just one podcast.

3:48

You do multiple podcasts,

3:50

multiple.

3:52

And I mean, I've already stolen so much from you.

3:54

One of the greatest things about being a podcaster is you learn so much from your guests.

3:57

I'm grateful to be able to share it with others, but I'm greedy.

4:00

I do it all for

4:00

myself as well. I say the same thing, man.

4:03

I'm like, I think every person I talk to is a gift to the audience, but like, The first and foremost reason I did is because I get to talk to amazing people and I get to learn from them and I get to hear their story.

4:14

And I, and I really also think it's like, for me personally, I, I, and I see the way you interview.

4:19

So I'm gonna, I'm going to take a gander and a guest that you're the same way, but.

4:24

I enjoy so much the ability to ask somebody a question they've never been asked by someone else, like, to be able to get into a territory that maybe they've left unexplored or that nobody's ever asked them about.

4:34

And like, because I think that's where that connection really happens, you know, is when you get into that stuff.

4:40

And I hope I can do that. Who knows, because you're on so much in your, and you share so much.

4:46

But with that, it makes a beautiful transition.

4:49

And here's a question I've never asked because of how you do your bio and that is every superhero has a backstory..

4:56

So Jeff, what's your backstory?

4:58

How did you become the superhero you are today and arrive at this place where you are so prolific at putting out amazing content about being a Lovable

5:05

Leader. So I think my origin story is you know, if I were to like point to what of my origin story really resonates most with me is that I think I've always at heart been I've had an issue with authority.

5:17

I've wanted to do my own thing. I've wanted to make a dent in the universe.

5:21

And I think I've been keenly aware of my own mortality for a variety of reasons.

5:25

My father was a funeral director, went through a little depressive spout in my early pre-teens and had like a whatever comes before a quarter life crisis.

5:34

And and watch this movie"Dead Poets Society". Wow.

5:37

I have to suck the marrow out of life. Right? Like I have to seize the day I have to, because you never know when your number is going to get called.

5:42

Right. And then to reaffirm that sort of belief in like the impermanence and like the tempera temporality, I guess, of life like that, it's fleeting.

5:51

On my last day of high school, my mom got into a traumatic car accident where she had a traumatic brain injury.

5:56

She survived, she was in the hospital for eight or nine hours, got nine or eight and nine or 10 pints of blood or something.

6:01

And she survived. She was almost gone like in an instant.

6:05

So I've just always had this pressure.

6:07

I feel like both good and bad. Like stress can be both good and bad, but I feel this pressure to make a meaningful impact and leave the world better off than, than I found it.

6:16

So I think part of the, what drives me across everything that I do.

6:19

So like, I guess the moral of the story is like, I'm only here for a little bit, so I'm going to leave it all on the court.

6:26

And there there's a downside to that, but the upside of it is that I, I put my thoughts out into the world and I'm willing to be wrong.

6:32

I'm willing to be really wrong. And yeah, where people just want to be seen and where like, you know, people, people can be who they are.

6:38

They can be free to be who they are.

6:41

And it's beautiful. It's just, it's fascinating because you, your context in which you're framing that, you know, living every day, basically as if it might be your last is a very stoic.

6:50

Live it live as if you might not wake up in the morning, you know, what would you do today if today was your last day and you seem to have really embraced that because of this origin story of yours, which is touching and profound, which also, yeah, I was just chatting with a good friend of mine a few minutes ago.

7:06

The way life works, unfortunately is in order to have that kind of value, you need to have context and context comes from And your dichotomy, you learned, it sounds like at a young age was death in life, you know?

7:18

And so w with facing that at a young age, you made a choice, you weren't a victim and you said, what am I going to do about it?

7:25

And you are living life to its fullest?

7:28

The funniest thing I found is that you said you can be really wrong.

7:32

I haven't seen anything really wrong. Superhero, Jeff, what have you been wrong?

7:37

Oh, man, I've been wrong so many times throughout my life and you know, I, I see.

7:42

I see my own story as a a constant chasing of being a better version of myself.

7:47

So every project I've ever done, I look back and I think how it could have been better, but even more importantly than that, I think about who I was before I knew more about the world, more, I thought about other people.

7:58

You know, there were definitely times from my past where I was far too sexist for my own comfort.

8:03

Far too racist for my own comfort, just. Ignorant to the world around me and, and a product of the, the, you know, world that we grew up in internalizing certain values, ways of seeing the world.

8:13

And it's not until you actually listen to other people, you know, read, learn about the world around you in a, in a more holistic way that you can see the error of those ways and the ways that you showed up then.

8:25

So I think about ways that I showed up all throughout my twenties, all throughout my thirties, and even I'm only 41 now.

8:29

But even in the past couple of years, I have things I can look back on and say, okay, we'll learn from that.

8:34

How do you become a better version of yourself? Any time where you cause harm to another person is an opportunity to learn and grow how to not do that again.

8:41

Yeah.

8:42

Not causing harm to someone else. And when you do the pain, inflicts on yourself is, is immense.

8:47

And I share that boat with you being this extremely horrendous extrovert.

8:52

That is me centered. When, when you inflict pain on others, it destroys you internally and it becomes your, your life goal of never doing that again.

9:02

And inevitably you do. sometimes people can point to a moment or two or a bunch that, that resonated strongly with them that kind of made them open like that to realize, ah, I don't have the full picture here.

9:14

I think there's something I'm missing. Or it's just kind of a trickle event, you know, throughout life.

9:18

Do you have any one or two, moments when you're like, oh, man, I really was looking at this individual in a very boxed way with.

9:27

And anything like that, that you can think of that.

9:31

Yeah. I can give a couple that kind of, I think, triangulate to give you the picture of it.

9:36

I think the one is that I remember at an early age growing up and having moments where I was bullied, where I felt other, I felt different.

9:43

I felt scared all of the things that you feel like when you're in a bullied situation.

9:47

And I didn't like the way that I felt there. Right. So there was the feeling of fear from others.

9:52

The that, that other people could harm me in some way or another.

9:55

And then during that phase where I was kind of going through like that, you know, young teenage angst thing, I had my own issues with myself.

10:01

I was short, I was overweight. I had whatever these things were.

10:04

So I had my own critique and self perception of myself where I'm beating myself up.

10:08

And I had a moment where, yeah, but I had a moment where I just, and I remember this moment, it was like clear as day.

10:14

I might've been like 13 or 14. I don't remember exactly the age where it happened, but I looked at myself in the mirror.

10:19

And I want it to be taller. I want it to be thinner.

10:21

And I w and I didn't want to have like, reddish hair, like, cause these were all the things that I would get bullied or made fun of about.

10:26

Right. I looked at myself and I basically said to myself in the mirror, I remember this day, like, this is it.

10:30

Like, this is who you are. Like, you can wish it away all you want, but like, you are short.

10:35

If you want to do something about your weight, like get out of your control.

10:39

Your hair is the color it is. Like, accept yourself, love yourself, because that's where it's got to start.

10:43

Right. And it didn't necessarily sound like that language.

10:45

Cause I'm now 41 re recounting it.

10:47

But I remember having the moment looking at myself and just saying, you got to accept this.

10:51

Right. And how old were you again?

10:53

When you said a 13, 14, 13, 14.

10:56

I had like a major early life thing going on.

10:59

Self-awareness at such a young age. I mean your EQ, I mean, your emotional intelligence at that age.

11:05

You know, for anyone's age, it's pretty low, because it's so look at me, look at me, look at me.

11:09

But you had a profound EQ accelerator moment at that age.

11:14

Wow.

11:15

I give a lot to my parents in that, you know, specifically like my dad, I think he was very instrumental in kind of just asking me questions and, and I don't remember exactly what he said around them, but I remember it was around a time where he was.

11:27

Kind of just asking me to, to, to question why wouldn't accept myself for whatever the different things were.

11:31

Right. So, so there's those, and then I think so that's the history, right?

11:35

And then sort of the catalyzing moment, that's the trigger.

11:39

And I guess the action for me was there were, there were points throughout, especially my early twenties where I was not the person that I thought in my head that I was right.

11:49

Like, I, I love Superman from the moment I was a little kid.

11:51

I was all about the superhero thing. And I, I had this high self image of myself.

11:56

And then I did things that I saw the impact of it, how it, it did not make people feel respected.

12:02

It didn't make them feel safe. Didn't make them feel however, and I looked at how, and these are sometimes with people who were close friends of mine, I looked at how that interaction, you know, caused our friendship to fall apart or whatever.

12:14

And I knew that I was causing them to feel the way that I had felt early in life, that I was being the thing that potentially made them feel the way I did when I was a kid being bullied or whatever.

12:23

And I think that almost made me like recall my trauma through their trauma.

12:29

And I think from that is why I've, I've spent a lot of time trying not to do that.

12:33

Trying to make people feel seen, to make people feel appreciated, to make them feel like they're enough.

12:37

Like one of the things I do on my podcast and this isn't like a tactic or a strategy like you and I talk about trust a lot and we talk about like, it's really gotta be about the other.

12:45

Person's gotta be authentic. I try to look for things to acknowledge and appreciate about people.

12:50

I try to find the reasons why they're amazing. I really try to point it out for them because oftentimes they don't see it themselves.

12:55

And I, and I do that, not because it's like, oh, I'm a butter them up so I can have them hit them on a sales pitch afterwards.

13:01

I do it because I feel like. That might make their life completely turned around.

13:06

Like they might have their 14 year-old moment look at themselves in the mirror and go, you know what?

13:09

I'm really awesome at sales or I'm really, really good at building relationships or, oh my God, I can really, you know, build something better than other people.

13:16

Like, I, I should be proud of that. And I should take that with me, you know,

13:19

you know, and that is a, it's one of those elusive obvious things in life where.

13:26

Th the insecure thing that you can't give power away because then you'll have less power because you, you know, all these people want to crave power and control.

13:34

Yet the best thing you can do for yourself for anyone else is show gratitude.

13:40

Define and find their greatness, share, help them understand what it is, share it with the world because one you're being of service.

13:47

And the greatest thing you can do for others is be of service, obviously.

13:50

And it's actually what it does for us psychologically.

13:53

Provides us emotional comfort as well because all human beings, you know, we're genetically and biologically coded to crave and seek psychological comfort.

14:01

The best way to give it is to validate the strengths, seek the strengths, and you give yourself such a positive confirmation bias.

14:09

When all you're doing is seeking the greatness in others, you know, you're going to find it and it will be in the most unusual places.

14:16

And you'll be amazed and profoundly impacted sometime.

14:21

So when you first discovered this in the twenties, you know, in your twenties, what were some of the first actions you did?

14:26

You know? It was like, all right. I'm, I'm causing some pain here in others.

14:30

Wasn't my intent. You know, cause again, you and I can relate on this.

14:34

I did the same thing. Was there anything consciously you started doing in that or were you just aware?

14:39

I think awareness is definitely a starting point because I think that's the first roadblock to anybody that doesn't make those sorts of changes that just continually harms others.

14:48

And I think there's an expression; hurt people, hurt people.

14:52

And I think anytime I've looked at myself and seen something in me where I'm causing others harm, I think what's going on in me.

14:59

That's making that happen. And I didn't start therapy until I was much older, but I remember After I got divorced.

15:05

I, it was the first time I actually saw a therapist, but in my twenties during that time I definitely sought the comfort and the counsel of friends and other people.

15:12

Like I would, you know, sort of informal therapy of sorts and trying to get other people's perspectives, really just trying to be a good listener.

15:20

You know, much like you, I'm a, I'm a stick of dynamite type extrovert.

15:24

So it takes something for me to shut my mouth and just listen and actually hear other people, even though I'm like, you know, ferociously interested in other people, it's really hard not to just like ADHD, talk over them and just, you know, extrovert.

15:37

But I tried listening a lot. And then I think the other thing that I've I've really retreated to, I say retreated to, but I feel like I've turned to as an asset, but I've also seen.

15:45

I say retreated purposefully because I find a lot of comfort and safety in going and working on myself by learning.

15:52

So I on my various different profiles, like Myers-Briggs and DiSC and Enneagram, like my, my desire for self-improvement is like at the top of the chart, right.

16:02

I read a lot to try and learn more about the world around me.

16:05

And that has tended to be one of the first places that I go.

16:09

So like for the last several years, I've really been spending a lot of my time reading, learning about people who have different experiences than I do in this world, specifically in this country and looking at the history of those sorts of experiences and trying to empathize and imagine myself in that position and try to think through if that's happening, what are some solutions to that?

16:29

How can I be a part of effecting the change that these sorts of things don't happen?

16:34

So, in my twenties, I just started an early version of that.

16:36

And I think I just got better at it over time.

16:39

Can you remember the first book that you read and the self-improvement that we'll

16:45

probably share it? I I'm, I'm willing to almost bet that we would say the same book,"How to Win Friends and Influence People."

16:50

Yep. This is my first copy.

16:52

Literally the most important book I think I've ever read.

16:56

And, and here's a big thing about that, that book.

16:59

Wasn't just the most important book that I had ever read, like con like from the, from the text and like what it did for me as a, as a person relative to the content of the book.

17:09

Robin. That was the first book I ever enjoyed reading prior to that I did not enjoy reading at all.

17:14

And the reason was is that throughout school, I was forced to read things that I never cared about.

17:18

Reading nor was interested in reading. It was all fiction.

17:21

I had a hard time focusing on it because of my ADHD.

17:24

I would forget characters, names and things. So I had a really hard time reading certain types of books and how to win friends and influence people was the first book where I was like, oh my God, are you telling me that there are manuals out there that I can read that will help me to grow and become, superhuman?

17:39

What? So it actually unlocked reading for me.

17:43

And since that time, I've probably read hundreds, hundreds of books at this point, from that moment.

17:49

And it was, I started so late in my life that that book was the trigger.

17:54

But yet that book changed everything for me. I remember from that book, I'll tell you one of the big things from it was there's the quote in there.

18:00

Where I think he quotes William James, where he says human beings.

18:02

Great. I'm paraphrasing here. Human beings, greatest desire in life is to be acknowledged.

18:08

And I was like, oh my God, that is so profound and so true that we just want to be validated and seen that we, that, that our existence is enough and that we matter and that our contributions are worth something.

18:19

So I focused from that moment on, on doing that on focusing on making people on focusing on like what I said about my podcast, guests.

18:25

Focusing on things that I love about people and what makes them great, rather than trying to pick them apart and find out whats wrong.

18:32

Because I guarantee you, a couple of things, that human behavior that are guaranteed human beings for all psych seeking psychological comfort.

18:40

And this that's what Dale Carnegie talks about is how do you provide psychological comfort for all?

18:45

And those are you encounter. And the other thing that's guaranteed to all human beings is we're all working on something.

18:49

We're born pretty perfect. The world messes up for about 19 years and we spend the rest of our lives overcoming our insecurities.

18:55

You look, if you look for someone's faults, I guarantee you you'll find them.

18:58

If you look for someone's greatness, I guarantee you will find that..

19:01

Perfect. And yes, you, you, your guess is right.

19:04

That was my first aha moment as well. When I realized that books can be manuals.

19:09

And I, when you have someone introduce a great book like that to you and they teach you how to use it as a manual, that was what was critical for me was, Hey, you take notes in the margin.

19:21

You go out, you read you then practice.

19:24

You then after action yourself, you reflect, you read again, you go practice again.

19:28

And that became the sequence of wow. I can become a better human being.

19:33

And you just took it to the next level in the whole area of being the lovable leader.

19:38

And there's so many rabbit holes we could go down on everything.

19:41

So we haven't even talked about the things I want to talk about yet.

19:44

But we're going to, because I really want to hit the three pillars of lovable leadership that this brought you to.

19:50

So expand on that if you would.

19:53

Because the most important thing is. Podcasts are also learning venues.

19:57

And I want people to be able to understand these three pillars and then start enacting at least one of them by the end of this show.

20:03

Oh, absolutely. And Robin, I, I love talking with you, man, because I feel like we could do it for hours and hours.

20:08

We have so many overlapping and aligning interests.

20:10

And thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about some of the things in my book.

20:13

I know that we, we align on so many of them.

20:16

So the three pillars of lovable leadership and, and just to kind of.

20:20

Quickly set the context 20 seconds that I wrote this book because I was tired of the way that I saw it, leadership being talked about and being done, it was all about results.

20:28

And it was all about in so many ways, domination and control.

20:31

I'm not about that life. I'm about, and I'm psychologically unemployable.

20:35

So like I can not work for anybody else. So I tried to figure out.

20:39

Like what? Sorry. I was like Psychologically unemployable.

20:42

I love it. I

20:43

now

20:43

have a new phrase I can use. Yes.

20:47

Like it just doesn't work. So I had to figure out like, well, what, let me, let me approach it from, let me crack the code.

20:54

What's a company I could work at. And I, I tried to boil it down and boil it down and boil it down until I distilled, like, what are the core components that make an environment that I think I could exist in, but then also I think that other people are looking to be in, and these are, this is where I came up with the three pillars.

21:08

So the three pillars are. Care, Trust and Safe Travels.

21:11

And I'm going to explain them all briefly. So care is about care for the people that are, you know, in on your team care for each other.

21:18

It's also that care for the work and the integrity of the things that you're doing together.

21:21

So care is I think the foundational is the fertile soil in which everything else grows.

21:27

Trust, as, you know, as you know, very well is essential to even being able to create teams that are resilient, that are able to you know, persevere through challenges, they're able to stick together.

21:38

It's, it's all of those things. And I built a framework in, in my book that is derivative of yours a hundred percent.

21:45

Like there's no question that your book, the"Code of Trust" inspired my, my work on trust is directly influenced by your work.

21:52

The code of trust. So trust is being an essential component of being an excellent leader.

21:58

If there's no trust, it just breaks down. And the third piece, which is a reimagining of what we typically talk about in leadership, which is results, right?

22:06

So as a leader, you need to be going somewhere. You need to bring people to a destination.

22:10

I think of this, the analogy I use all the time for this is let's say that as a business, the metaphor here is you're in New York and you want to get to Los Angeles.

22:17

That's the goal. It could be certain amount of profit rise, whatever this and that the other thing.

22:21

Well, let's imagine that you get on the plane. That's an easy way to get from New York to Los Angeles, right?

22:26

You know, the direction, you know, where you're going. However, it's not enough to get on the plane and say, we're going to go from New York to Los Angeles because if at 30,000 feet, the doors open, everybody flies out the door.

22:35

It's not a particularly good way to get from New York to Los Angeles.

22:38

So you also have to have safety. You have to have confidence that if we're going to go to that direction, that I'm going to be safe to give my best that I'm going to be free to let go and enjoy the ride together.

22:49

I think the idea of safe travels is saying that it's not just about the destination.

22:54

It's also about how we get there together. So the safety element, the psychological safety, the creating the opportunity for people to bring their best selves to work.

23:02

I think all three of these elements kind of combined to give you an environment that just about anybody could work in.

23:07

If you feel cared for you, trust the people around you, you trust the people that lead you.

23:11

You trust the people that you lead. And then you set destinations that you create the conditions where everyone's going to feel safe, getting there and bringing their best selves.

23:18

I think you've got an opportunity to build a world-class team no matter what

23:22

totally agree. 100%. And that safe travels is critical for innovation, because if people don't feel safe, you know, emotionally, physically, spiritually, whatever it is, they're not going to innovate.

23:33

And innovation is the only thing that solves challenges and problems.

23:36

I'm curious. So that safe travels is so important to create that psychological safety for people because they can innovate through any challenge when they're facing that.

23:45

From your experiences of consulting, working with people...

23:48

how do you take someone or an organization that doesn't provide that psychological safety?

23:55

What specific things can you do to provide safe travel?

24:00

So I would say, and I'm not an expert on this topic, but I would double underline exclamation point and highlight in bold how important this is.

24:08

But I would probably start with diversity, equity and inclusion training and understanding that organizationally, because I think that's actually one of the first steps.

24:16

If you can't nail that you can't know anything else.

24:18

So I would say the very, very first thing is about being able to create an environment that is safe and free for literally everyone.

24:24

And I think that is the very, very first thing.

24:27

Now, I think there's a lot of things that are going to follow that or that are going to intersect with that very, very tightly.

24:32

And I think a lot of that comes around guidelines and expectations.

24:35

And it's also about, I think Setting examples and about what is allowed and not allowed and not in terms of like rigid rules, but more in terms of like, what do we, what do we expect from one another about how we're going to interact with each other?

24:48

I think that is such a critical piece about being able to create environments of safety, because you need to be able to know that when you put forth an idea, you're not going to be criticized for that idea in a brainstorm that's silly.

24:57

It's counter to the idea of a brainstorm, right? You need to understand.

25:00

The people that you're working with have a commitment to your growth, and you should have a commitment to theirs.

25:05

You have to have the sort of opportunity to take ownership over your work because we know autonomy is such an incredibly important part to people feeling connected to their work, to employee engagement and retention.

25:14

So there's, there's all of these elements. I actually write about something in the book called the eight commitments of the team.

25:19

And those eight commitments are what I think are kind of like the big eight things that if you're a team and you have all these things, I can like listen real quick, you have safety and protection, communication, guidelines, alignment, ownership, growth, courage, resilience, and cooperation or I'm sorry, cooperation, collaboration.

25:34

So those eight, I think when you bring them together and you have a team that exhibits all of those things and you set the expectations that that's, what's going to happen.

25:42

You create the conditions where when things do go out of bounds, as they inevitably do humans, we mess up, you create the resilience and you create the systems by which you can bring things back together.

25:53

So in the area of communication, out of those eight things, what sort of things do you recommend people do for communication?

25:58

So I, my philosophy is that communication should be kind candid, clear, and direct.

26:04

And, and that might not be the exact things I wrote in the book, but the idea is that essentially we should be able to speak freely and honestly, to one another clearly.

26:11

And and with kindness and that's not the same as being nice, but it's, it, it hearkens back to the first pillar of lovable leadership of care.

26:19

Which is that if I care about you and I trust you and we're going to go to the same place together.

26:25

Then I should be able to tell you what's going on.

26:28

I should be able to tell you if you've hurt me, you should be able to tell me if I've hurt you in some way.

26:32

As I like to say that we are in each other's sides to try and resolve this, like it's not about, you know, keeping score or you know, tracking, who's got more, more integrity points, but more about like, well, how do we just resolve this thing together?

26:45

So in the communication guidelines, it's really about.

26:48

Trying to get people to understand how not to talk to one another and how to talk to each other.

26:51

What's effective. What's not effective placing blame, calling names, anything like that.

26:56

It's not going to be useful, but if we can be honest, if we can be clear and we can be direct with one another with kindness, it's going to work out really well.

27:02

I think

27:03

what guidance and strategies do you have for I'd imagine the most challenging aspect of communication like that, where it's caring as well as direct from people taking it too personally.

27:16

Oh, well, I mean, I, I think this is a rabbit hole.

27:20

We could go super deep down because I really think that that's that's based on how much trust there actually is.

27:26

Right. Cause I think that if you're thinking about like your very best.

27:31

Your very best, best friend could say something completely off the wall that they don't even think about the impact of it could be really hurtful.

27:37

It can be really offensive. But you've known this person for 15 or 20 years, you know, the person that they are, and they've got enough stored in the bank of trust that you're willing to say, Hey, I don't think you meant to say it exactly that way.

27:51

Why don't we try that again? I want to let you know how that made me feel.

27:54

Here here's here's what's going on? You talk about it, right?

27:57

I think the problem is when people will take it personally, if they don't trust your intentions, like at all, right.

28:04

Or, or if there's unspoken things that they've been holding onto, right?

28:08

Like if, if you've got two people that are. That are just upfront with one another.

28:12

They trust each other. They like each other enough. There's nothing that they're holding onto.

28:16

Transgressions are dealt with in that moment.

28:18

They're there a thing that happened and you work with it right?

28:22

By contrast, if you've got stuff that you're holding onto, that means so much more because it's not just about that thing.

28:27

It's about that thing on top of all of the other stuff that time you did it last time you always do this.

28:33

You never do this. When you've got that kind of baggage.

28:37

Then it becomes personal. The other side of it, which is I think that the, probably the more common thing that happens, which is why do people take things personally?

28:45

And we slightly touched on this earlier. We are all just bundles of trauma walking around.

28:50

It might not even be you and what you said to that person, but it's what they've gone through.

28:55

I actually just wrote a post about trauma in business.

28:58

You know, people will, I gave this example of like, this woman works at this company and she wasn't properly onboarded.

29:05

And in her last company, they didn't properly onboard her.

29:08

Every company she's ever worked in, she basically had to figure it out her for herself.

29:11

And that now is her way of being, right. So when she goes to a new company, she's fine, she'll figure it out herself.

29:16

So what happens when somebody comes onto her team? Of course, she's not going to onboard them properly.

29:20

She's never been onboarded properly. So she's just going to say, well, they'll figure it out themselves.

29:24

I always had to do that. That's business trauma.

29:27

Right. And we all walk around with our stuff, right?

29:30

Like I've got all sorts of trauma about work, about what I believe.

29:33

Based upon the stuff my parents went through based upon the stuff that I went through in early jobs and how it was treated.

29:38

And then you have a reaction to that when somebody may very innocuously and who's on your side may say something and you go, yeah.

29:46

I'm not going to take one for the team because every time I've ever taken one for the team X, Y.

29:50

Right. So each situation is different, but people, we're all a collection of individuals with our own individual traumas.

29:56

These aren't rational, logical things. Often times it's emotional.

29:59

It comes from somewhere that may or may not have anything to do with you.

30:01

So if we extend empathy and we get curious, and we ask people about that and you really try to be on the same side of the table with them, I think you can work through things like that.

30:09

You, you brought up a really powerful concept there in the fact that when we.

30:14

When you have situations like that, like the woman you talked about, where she had to basically onboard herself multiple times.

30:21

What that is, is if you become self-reliant self-dependent and which is about self it's centric, egocentric, and not in, you know, again, you put the negative connotation, decided it becomes egocentric, which is about power and, and as a vice, you know, converse.

30:40

Which is leadership, which is about others. And so you, especially, you know, you growing up when you face trauma, when you face challenges, when you face bullying and you don't have a support network, and it's all comes down to self-reliance and you are an extrovert.

30:54

So you're got popularity bleeding into these things.

30:57

It keeps reinforcing self, self, self, self, self.

31:01

And when you finally have a position where you need to exercise leadership, which is about others you don't have the tool set because it's always been negatively reinforced that I need to take care of myself.

31:09

I need to take care of myself. And so that's where that more trauma keeps cascading until you have those aha moments.

31:15

A hundred percent. Yeah. That's I was literally one of the aha moments I recently read again, voracious reader, probably not nearly as much as you, in a Robert Greene's the"48 Laws of Power" and I had this aha moment was like, wow, there's this thing called power.

31:31

And it's the opposite of leadership because power is about self.

31:35

And I started reflecting to kind of like you did right there.

31:38

About all these events in life, especially when we're younger, when these things get reinforced that, wow.

31:44

It was literally me being self-reliant and an extrovert and trying to crave popularity, which was my undermining at a young age, which I think many people experience.

31:54

That's why great strong leadership. It's a journey because we're not really bred for it.

32:01

We're bred for survival, which is about self which.

32:04

I think it's another good segue to talk about.

32:07

How do we create then as you talk about the, I love the, the phraseology, how do we create these really important moments?

32:15

That kind of set the stage for us to move forward in life.

32:19

That's a tough one. Cause that's a, that's a big question you just offered there.

32:21

You know, one thing that rabbit hole you want.

32:24

Yeah, man, I would say one thing that occurred to me is, you know, kind of tying those two, like what we were just talking about to what you are talking about now about, you know, how do you look for those moments?

32:34

I think there's an awareness that, that I think comes from the question.

32:38

Either. What is this person protecting themselves from?

32:41

Or what am I protecting myself from? Right.

32:43

You know, we, as humans are, are, are looking for that psychological comfort.

32:47

We're looking for safety. We're looking for security, try to avoid pain.

32:50

We try to run towards pleasure whenever possible. So what am I protecting myself from right now?

32:55

Who am I protecting my protecting myself? Am I protecting my team?

32:58

So looking for those moments where you can remove yourself from an automatic reaction.

33:05

And instead, try to be proactive around making a conscious decision about what's currently going on.

33:11

Right? Like, I guess I could say in that moment where I was 13 or 14, the real, real, real background stuff.

33:17

Was having an understanding that I was trying to, in some way, enforce something in my life that wasn't likely, right.

33:23

That I was trying to protect something. And that the easiest way to protect myself from my own criticisms was just to accept myself in that moment.

33:30

And granted that wasn't the actual thought process of a 13, 14 year old, right.

33:33

That's actually what was really, I think the net effect of it was that I decided that the threat was coming from inside the house and I just had to get rid of it..

33:42

I say, I'm fine, who I let go of it.

33:44

Right. And I think a lot of the moments that at least I've noticed in my own world is realizing that whatever the action I was doing, that I'm no longer fond of how that made me feel or how it made others feel was that it came from some place of, of protecting myself from, from embarrassment or from something I was scared of that might've been based on faulty information.

34:07

Any number of different things like, you know, how would I be perceived all of these different things.

34:11

When you, when you ask yourself, what am I protecting myself from?

34:14

And you recognize it, you have the option to at least choose a different path.

34:18

So I would say that's one of the ways that I would look out for it is when you reach one of like a, what feels like it might be a big moment and we have a gut feel for it.

34:26

I would say, ask yourself, am I protecting myself from anything?

34:30

That is profound because it's also demonstrating an extremely high level of self-awareness in that.

34:39

And that's another huge rabbit hole, did you ever become conscious of the fact that wow, I am actually become a little more actualized and self-aware.

34:48

Do you have anything you actually do to maintain that self-awareness granted, I think this, this question that you asked yourself is phenomenal.

34:54

What more, because it is a critical skill.

34:58

I think, to become a net lovable leader is to know yourself.

35:03

In a healthy way, you know, false and everything, but without shame, how, how do you become more self-aware of what what's,

35:11

this is a juicy steak that you've just served up right here.

35:13

And I'm so ready to cut into this because and I can't tell you where it could do my dance.

35:17

I can't exactly tell you where it comes from. I guess I could.

35:20

Kind of postulate where it, maybe it comes from, but like I am on a constant path towards becoming the absolute best version of myself.

35:28

And I've just always seen that whether it's self assessments or external assessments are a good way of gathering data to understand where to go to work.

35:36

Right. And, and sometimes it's going to reveal things where you say, well, this is a weakness that I sh I can, and should sure up.

35:43

And then there's other times where you say, you know, this is actually, I'm comfortable with this as a weakness.

35:47

Because we can't be good at everything. Right. But I think the first time I took Myers-Briggs, which, you know, criticisms of the assessment aside, scientific validation and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

35:59

It doesn't matter to me, point is it was something interesting.

36:01

I, I could look at it and say, oh, this is this is an archetype, right?

36:05

There are other people who are like this one, I'm not alone.

36:08

There are others like me too.

36:10

There are certain characteristics that I can be now more aware of.

36:13

These are ways that I am. Right. I took disk and for me, the Enneagram was like a huge one for me.

36:19

And all of these, I don't put like a stamp of like a hundred percent approval on these.

36:23

But I think they're interesting pieces of data to look at.

36:26

And when I did the Enneagram, I went down like this deep, dark rabbit hole of like really learning about my type, the particulars of my my thing.

36:35

I'm an eight wing seven. And I went, I learned a lot about people who are like that.

36:40

And I felt really seen, I felt very validated, like, oh, I, this is who I am, but you also get to learn like both the strengths of a personality like that.

36:49

And you learn the weaknesses of a personality like that.

36:51

And then you get to choose what to do with that.

36:53

Right. So I know, and you, you and I are similar in this and that, you know, we're this blaring extrovert, like our instinct, our inside of us makes us want to talk over people and burst into a room and take it over.

37:04

Right. Inside of us. We need that.

37:06

It's, there's something there for it. But we know that so we can choose to let ourselves do that.

37:12

We can choose strategically to let ourselves do that in certain times where like, you know what, I need this, and this is the right room for it.

37:18

And I feel like it's going to be well received and okay. And then there's other times where you go, you know what?

37:22

I do this a lot and maybe it's time that I, instead of.

37:26

Shine the spotlight on someone else. I stepped back so that other people can have that moment as well.

37:31

So I think just being aware of your stuff is a really, really good starting point.

37:37

And I think where if I had to guess where it comes from for me is like this whole superhero thing, right?

37:42

Like how do I self-actualize myself into something.

37:46

Who can change the world who can protect others, who can make an indelible mark in the world?

37:50

How do I do all of that? Well, I got to constantly be improving and working on myself, never being satisfied.

37:55

And there's, there's downside to that. But the upside of it is that I am always working on myself to try and be better.

38:01

So you are a superhero. What are your superpowers?

38:04

Someone asked me that question not long ago.

38:08

And I gave an answer to it and they mirrored back to me something different.

38:12

And I've been going with that ever since. So my friend, Tony Chapman asked me on the mic swap on my show.

38:17

What's your superpower. And I can't remember what it said at the time communication connection sales.

38:23

I don't know. Is that something. Interesting.

38:27

I would say that your super power is resilience and reinvention.

38:30

And I hadn't thought of it because I think, you know, I told the story about my mom, my parents divorced, I told, and there's all sorts of stories throughout my life that are opportunities where I could've just like, just stopped pushing forward on something, but I always really admired the whole like Rocky, you know, it's not, it's not how hard you get hit it's whether you keep getting back up sort of thing.

38:53

I don't know, for some reason that always resonated with me, like I don't really have the quit thing in me.

39:00

And I think that being just a part of me is what causes me to kind of keep going the way that I go.

39:06

So I think the superpowers, the resilience is to get back up is to keep being hopeful that there's something better out there.

39:13

And I hope that I always hold onto this as a super power, because I feel like it's the thing that's gotten me through a lot of really rough times in my life.

39:19

To just feel like I could get back up that there's still a chance for things to get better, even no matter how dark things get.

39:25

Like I get in my way where I look at the world, I'm like, oh God, things are so messed up and this and that.

39:30

But I always try to pull myself back out of that and remain hopeful that things can be better.

39:34

And I think the resilience is the one piece.

39:37

I think, related to that, as my friend Tony said, is the reinvention.

39:40

You can't just get back up and keep trying to do the same thing that got you knocked down the first place you have to rethink where you're going.

39:46

You know, right now my title is superhero and I wrote a book on leadership, but like, if you talk to me eight years ago, I was the guy everybody knew is the social media guy.

39:55

My headline at the time was the world's most handsome social media and content marketing.

40:00

Good branding. But that was my thing. That was what I was into.

40:03

And I got to a point where I was no longer into that.

40:06

I didn't like what social media was doing to society. And I said, you know what?

40:08

I got to reinvent what I'm doing. I got to figure out what was it that got me jazzed in the first place.

40:13

Let me see if I can find something else that does that. And I think that's probably what my superpower is, is the ability to keep getting back up.

40:20

And when I get back up, decide if I need to reinvent myself to keep moving forward, I'm

40:25

going to add one thing to your superpower that I see overarching all of these things, and that is optimism.

40:33

I see you as eternally optimistic because none of these things can be affected unless you maintain a optimistic viewpoint of the world.

40:42

And this is not rose colored glasses, because I think you come across very pragmatic and realistic, even though you are a superhero.

40:49

But I, you know, this eternal optimism. Keeps that ball rolling forward, because if you just thought, you know, if you had despair all, everything else would fall apart.

41:00

So how do you maintain such great optimism?

41:03

Whether you even know it or not?

41:04

I, to be honest, I don't think I know. I don't, I don't know if I know how I can keep looking for the bright side of things.

41:13

Except I, if I, if I like really, really dig into it and try to think of it is that I don't think that I could live with the alternative.

41:20

Like, I, I honestly think that what keeps me going in life is the belief that things will get better, you know, and, and the belief that I might be able to make an impact and that if I give up on that, I'm, I may be one of the critical pieces to make it get better.

41:35

Right. Like we all have an impact on the world.

41:40

Whether it's like, I think people get really hung up on like to change the world is to like literally change the entire world.

41:46

But I guess I've maintained that small things make a big difference sometimes.

41:51

And I, I feel like my presence, even if it's just that I make the people around me feel validated.

41:57

And I, maybe I empower someone to do something extraordinary by way of them interacting with me, that contribution alone.

42:03

I feel like I'm contributing towards making the world a better place.

42:06

And if I don't do that, if I don't keep trying to bring brightness and positivity and optimism into the world, if I don't keep treating people the way that I, that I want to treat people, make them feel validated and seen.

42:19

Then I'm relinquishing my say my vote in the type of world that we want.

42:24

And I think that's irresponsible. So I think that's probably where it comes from for me is like, I feel a profound sense of responsibility to be optimistic in the midst of all of this, because otherwise I'm just, I'm just letting it happen.

42:37

So kind of exploring a one little nugget further.

42:41

I'm curious. So when you see events happening, That some might give labels of tragic, horrendous horrible.

42:51

Do you see it as a learning moment and a gift because of the learning moment that we can take, learn a pass on or, or is it just merely a horrendous event?

43:00

That impacts us negatively. I think it's

43:02

both, to be honest. Cause there's, there's nothing that I see that's like horrendous and horrific and causes any form of human suffering that I'm like, oh, well collateral damage.

43:11

Like none of that, like suffering in general, just, yeah.

43:15

You know what I mean? Like it, it always affects me, but I, and I always see every single time.I see something like that.

43:21

I feel like this should be the wake up that this is the last time.

43:24

Right. Right. And I look around, you know what?

43:27

Nope. We're not. So

43:29

there are definitely no last time. I mean, as another race of a reader of history and books, you know, there is no last time because we've always been here before, will, you know, speaking to my, my love of Battlestar Galactica, all this has happened before and all this will happen again.

43:45

Yeah. But like good, great example. Right? Like you walk by someone who's homeless on the street.

43:49

That that, yeah, that's a lesson. We should look at that and say, we should not allow this in society.

43:53

Like people should have a roof over their heads. Like we're better than this.

43:57

But at the same time, it's still profoundly tragic.

44:00

And yeah, that, that goes for anything, whether it's war, whether it's famine, where there, you know, whatever it is in the world, even if it's just like, you have an awful experience at work.

44:08

And two people fight about something like that's a lesson, but it also could be at the same time, tragic for the person who's dealing with whatever trauma they may take.

44:16

Right. I'm a big believer in you can't, you can't change the world, but you can make a difference one person at a time.

44:21

And that's it. If everyone just made a difference, one person at a time it makes a profound difference.

44:25

And you know what, I, I talk about that stuff a lot and I feel like people roll their eyes at the idea that you can make a difference.

44:32

One person at a time. People like really, they think, oh, that's so Pollyanna that's so like new age.

44:38

No, it's just straight math as you've demonstrated there.

44:40

You know what I mean? Like you literally, everybody was.

44:43

Yeah. And it could, and the other thing that's crazy to me is that it can happen instantly.

44:47

Like we could literally decide tomorrow that we're just going to.

44:50

Because it's all made up everything. We're all, we're making it all up as we go along.

44:53

And I just think, you know, if we made it up and we decided that the north star that we're going towards together is a better world where we treat each other with kindness, compassion, and.

45:02

All of that. Like, I think we just have a better world and we can go super far down that.

45:05

But

45:05

absolutely. I think it's a great segue to, to a final question, because as we said, I could go forever talking to you.

45:13

And matter of fact, just talking about that whole change in the world thing Types of reading I love to do is the self-awareness stuff.

45:17

So I've read Eckert Tolle as well. And his last book I read a"New Earth" talks about just that, you know, with our own personal mindset and making those differences, one person at a time.

45:26

Of living in the now living in a present and taking care of others with the kindness, it does make a huge impact.

45:31

And even. Individuals like you that do this great work with C-suite executives and all the people that think the type A's or organizations that are filled bureaucracy can't do that.

45:41

Yea they can, one person at a time.

45:43

It's not that hard. So the final thing I wanted to ask you, because I, I was intrigued by it and that is, I think it kind of wraps all these things together, that whole first impression.

45:52

So with all this packaging, you do this self-awareness.

45:56

How do you walk into a room?

45:58

Oh man. So there's a couple of ways to answer that.

46:01

There's I just wrote a post recently called how to walk into the room.

46:04

And it's, it's about like the first impression you make with a new team.

46:08

I saw. That's why I said I loved it. Yeah.

46:11

So, I mean, I guess I would say if, if I'm looking at the most common way that I enter the room my first impression is very it's very loud and it's very strong and it's fast and it's ADHD.

46:22

And so I mean, that's the standard.

46:24

How I try to walk into the room is I, I very much try to be aware of deliberately slowing down.

46:31

To assess things, not talk as much, listen, more, ask more questions.

46:36

Like that's what I'm working on. That's like the Jeff project of how to walk into a room that.

46:41

The standard Jeff walked into the room is is that, is that guy that's inside of me that wants to take in, wants to dominate, wants to be the most important person in the room that wants everyone to think he's the smartest person in the room.

46:51

Like that's, that's the guy that's inside.

46:54

That's. You know, protect his image that, you know, I need everybody to see me a certain kind of way.

47:00

But what I'm trying to do before I walk into a room before I make a first impression.

47:05

Is trying to think, well, how can I best serve the people in this room?

47:09

Is it by coming in and being the smartest person in the room?

47:11

Or is it by coming in and listening and actually trying to gather where I could make the biggest impact.

47:17

So I guess how I walk into a room versus how I should walk into the room, maybe two different things, a lot of the time, but but I know how I want to walk into a room.

47:24

I

47:25

like that basically assessing, slowing down and assessing.

47:28

And what does the room actually need from Jeff before Jeff gives a room what I want to

47:31

give it? Yeah. Cause it's easy to lean on your strengths, you know, like to, to think like, this is my value.

47:36

Right. And I, and I think that's where that comes from is saying, this is what my value is when really, like, maybe you actually have more value than you're giving yourself credit for.

47:45

Maybe you're not just the guy that knows how to strategize.

47:47

Maybe you're not just the guy that like comes in and brings good.

47:50

Maybe you're not the guy who can just build things. Maybe you have other value and you got to give yourself the opportunity to let people tell you what that is.

47:56

Cause you may not know. Yeah.

47:59

And Jeff, I think you do a phenomenal job of, of what I think most people wish they could do in life.

48:05

And that is discover what their weaknesses or challenges are and make it their life's journey to not have them the same by the time we pass on to whatever is next.

48:15

So thank you for that and sharing that journey with us.

48:19

What didn't I ask you that you thought would be really critical to share with an audience before we depart?

48:25

Oh, man, I don't know. Robin.

48:28

I feel like there's like 10,000 things that I still want to sit down and talk with you about, because I think we, we.

48:34

We have a lot of things that overlap. We see a lot of of, of the world and like some of its problems and some of the things that are opportunities the same way.

48:41

So I can't think of just one thing. I just want to express gratitude for you having me on your show.

48:45

When I first read your book, I was like, there's no way I'm ever going to get to meet and talk to this dude.

48:49

But here we are, and we're we're meeting and we're talking about it.

48:52

And and I just really appreciate the opportunity. To sit and talk with you about

48:55

this stuff. And meanwhile, as I told you, in an email, your book, the"Lovable Leader" is the book.

49:00

I wish I could have read written because you, you made my content so much better and you wrote it so much better and you share so much better everything.

49:11

Curious for you to say that. Cause when I, when I wrote to my, so when I started talking to my publisher, before I ever put out the book, they were like, how do you envision your book?

49:18

I was like, all right, it's it's I want it to be a mix of life.

49:20

How to win friends and influence people, the code of trust.

49:23

And then I listed off like three or four more books.

49:25

And what was the other one? The coaching habit. I think I gave like a bunch of different books.

49:29

It's a mix between these. So yeah, during one another, let's do it.

49:34

You did it. You did a phenomenal job. Jeff, where can people find out more about you?

49:37

His content is phenomenal. There is no bad content I've seen from you where can we go to get it?

49:41

Together. Thank you, sir. I make it real easy to find me.

49:44

Now. I put together this site, just JGibbard.com and it actually is like a menu.

49:50

What are you looking for from Jeff? You look at the content. Here you go.

49:52

You looking for working with Jeff. There you go. You're looking for my social.

49:55

There you go. So it's, it's really, it's the it's the Jeff's menu and it, it basically is a series of nested menus that bring you to whatever it is that you're looking for.

50:02

For me, if you just want to follow me on Twitter. Great. If you want to subscribe to my newsletter, there's links there.

50:07

Everything you could possibly want. That is Jeff.

50:09

That's the place to get it. Even my side projects.

50:11

If you just want to look at all my stuff I'm doing on the side, I got an Instagram account of what I'm cooking.

50:15

Like follow it. If you feel like it, it's all there.

50:18

Jeff, I can't thank you enough for sharing your time.

50:21

You are exceptionally busy. I still have no idea how you put out so much content and being able to carve out a little bit of time with me.

50:27

This audience, my audience is we're just grateful, extremely grateful.

50:32

Hopefully everyone's got some new tools to walk away from.

50:34

I know I do. I got my notes. I have more notes.

50:37

I have just oodles of Jeff notes and Jeff with that.

50:40

I thank you. And I can't wait to continue the conversation and see you all soon.