Staying Relevant In A Disruptive Marketplace with Garry Ridge

Welcome to the Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, best selling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markell. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your Conscious Pivot.

Hey, everybody. Welcome. Welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markell, and I feel very blessed in this moment to be here. I'm actually standing. I've got one of these autonomous moving desks and today I was inspired to stand during this podcast, which is really good. My back feels a lot better actually just being in this position. So I'll give full credit to the person who deserves that credit in just a moment who's the guest on today's show. But in the moment, I just want to acknowledge how I'm feeling and that is grateful and blessed to be here now, to be breathing for it to be a sunny day. We've had a lot of rain in Southern California this winter and the hills are literally alive with color. Things that some people haven't seen in more than 10 years, these beautiful orange poppies that are growing on the mountains outside our house. And just so much to be grateful for in this moment. Always a lot going on in the world, sometimes things that are saddening, sometimes things that bring our energy down or get our energy up in ways that are not necessarily healthy. And yet there's always more to be grateful for than there is to be complaining about. That's what I, at least that's my personal experience of it. So I feel blessed in this moment to have a gentleman that is joining me that known for a little while now, so sort of almost a year, I guess, at this point, and got introduced to him and got to know him and even visit him at his, at his workplace where he is operating an incredible company that you're going to hear about in just a moment and just have an enormous respect for this gentleman. I think what he will bring today is not only a lot of life experience and really invaluable business experience and wisdom and, and I look forward to that. I'm going to learn some things and I know all of you will. So my guest today is Gary Ridge, the president and chief executive officer and director, CEO and board member of WD40. He joined WD40 in 1987 and held various leadership positions in the company before becoming the CEO in 1997. There is, I'll say as an aside, companies of this magnitude these days aren't around very long, or I should say they're around less and less. Their longevity has really decreased. I think the average age of a Fortune 500 company used to be about 60 years, and now more recently it's 18 years. So longevity is a big deal even in the most prolific of ongoing concerns of businesses. So it is no small feat that this company, WD40 and we'll get to hear about its roots because it's been around a long time, is under great leadership and what it is that has helped it to stay relevant in a marketplace that is so disruptive and changing so rapidly. Gary Ridge is also an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego where he teaches leadership development, talent management and succession planning in the Master of Science and Executive Leadership program. He's passionate about learning and empowering organizational culture. He's helped establish that, in fact, at WD40. And in 2009, he co authored a book with Ken Blanchard outlining his executive leadership techniques titled Helping People Win at Work. And I love the subtitle, a business philosophy called Don't Mark My Paper, Help Me get an A. Just love that. He's a native of Australia. You'll hear that pretty quickly, I think. And he holds a certificate in Modern Relating and Wholesale Distribution and a Master of Science and Executive Leadership from the University of San Diego. So. Wow, that's a mouthful. Gary, thank you so much for being on the show. Welcome, Adam.

It's great to be with you today. Thank you.

Yeah, it's a pleasure. You know, that is a very significant bio and introduction. What is something that you would love for people to know about you that's not written in that bio, in that intro?

I'm consciously incompetent.

Yes, say more. I believe that. And I also want to probe that. What do you mean by that, that you're consciously incompetent?

Well, the three most powerful words I've learned in my life are the three words of I don't know. And when I got comfortable with really the vulnerability around that. It's amazing how the world around me just opened. You know, I read book just recently that was a follow on from who Moved My Cheese Called out of the Maze by Spencer Johnson, who had passed away. And in that book it talks about what are your beliefs? Why do you believe things? And the question we need to ask ourselves a lot these days Is why do we believe what we believe today? A fact is something we believe to be true. And I think as a mindset, I love the mindset of, well, you know what? I'm consciously incompetent. I'm just this basic human being bumbling my way down the road, life bumping into stuff. And that opens up a wonderful posture of learning. And I love that Nelson Mandela said that education is the most powerful tool we'll have to change the world. And I'd say learning is the most powerful tool we have to change the world. So that's kind of what I mean by that.

Yeah, I mean, it's very different than being unconsciously incompetent, which when. When we have blind spots and where we think, as you say, those three dangerous words. I know that when that's sort of the. The tape that's playing or the programming that that is running us, it's. We have many blind spots, and we don't have the humility, I suppose, to recognize that we know as little as we actually do.

Yeah, it's true. And that's why at the company a long time ago, we said, we're gonna take the word failure out of our vocabulary. We don't make mistakes. At WD40 company, we have learning moments, and we emphasize that a learning moment is a positive or negative outcome of any situation that needs to be openly and freely shared to benefit all people. And by taking that fear away of failure and opening these fields of learning, it's amazing the culture that it allows to build within the organization.

I think it really is telling that failure, or the desire to avoid failure is something that is ingrained and programmed like a computer program, Something that we receive when we're very, very young, from the time we're even in pre kindergarten, where sort of the idea that if you make a mistake, there's a consequence. Usually later, I think, when we start to get grades assigned to us. I remember when our girls were very little, our second born, Lindsay, she brought home a paper, and she must have been in second grade or third grade. And the teacher had these stickers that she put on. And sometimes it was a sunshine sticker. And it meant, you did great, and it's great. And sometimes it was a cloud, you know, like a cloud with the rain and the lightning bolt. And our kid came home with a paper that had a cloud on it. And we just was, like, pretty blown away by that. That whole idea of sort of creating that. That judgment about. And the good and the bad, the right and the wrong out of this effort to be creative, because it was a creative assignment of some kind. And, and when we're programmed that way from childhood, I think we, we end up trying to play life safely at various points because we realize there's consequences for making mistakes and, and safety. I guess this is my question to you. In a business that is evolving, it's already had quite a bit of time on the planet, but is evolving forward knowing that the state of the environment that we're in is one of constant change, can you play it safe? Do you want to either invite people onto the team or encourage people on the team to be playing it safe? And I think you've already answered the question, but from a cultural standpoint and from just the business bottom line standpoint, how dangerous is it to be playing the game of business or the game of life, I suppose safely?

Well, you know, I think there's a difference between playing it safe and being curious about what can change. And I think that's important. In fact, you know, Simon Sinek's just in the middle of or near the end of releasing a new book, and it's. And it's called the Infinite Game. You know, a lot of organizations play the finite game, but life is an infinite game. And if we think about the power of saying, okay, what are we here to create over time, and we know that everything is not going to go just the way we thought it was going to go. So being curious around what it is we want to achieve, and, you know, I'm not sure what safe is today. You know, I'm not sure I know what that means. And we don't live. We live in a world that's, you know, it's full of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity. But, Adam, that's what makes it fun. And that's what, you know, helps us really drive those creative juices and move forward to a better place. So, you know, like you, I think, you know, I'm grateful that I'm actually standing here today and, you know, life's a gift. We don't want to send it back unwrapped. So let's just, you know, really understand. And our job at the company, and I think the greatest satisfaction I know I get as a human being is not marking people's papers, but helping them understand clearly what our A looks like together and then helping them get that A being, the sweeper, if you will, to help them sweep out of the way. Because life's about getting a. Is not about some stupid normal distribution curve.

Yes, I Mean, it's. Well, first, back to safety. I would define safety as the status quo. And I think that's where the great danger is for a company and even for individuals. When we work in organizations, one of the things that they bring us in to do is to look at where there is a status quo. Where is there, as you say, a belief system that's sort of running unconsciously? In fact, the book Pivot that came out a couple of years ago, one of our chapters is about unbelieving.

Right.

What are the. What are the things that are essentially lies that we've either been sort of led to believe by people who have influenced us, which is always the same case. Right. So our parents. The parents get thrown under the bus first, but then it's teachers and other. Other influencers, and we adopt those beliefs but don't question them. So I love the word curious and curiosity. And to encourage that within an organization in many ways is probably a big part of the innovation of that organization, as well as what brings daily juice. Just the feeling that people are actually alive. Because when we stop being curious about things, we stop moving anything. That's what's so insidious about the status quo, is that when things stand still and stop. Like water, when water stands still, what. What ends up happening to.

Stagnates gets full of stuff. You don't want to be in there.

Yeah. It gets toxic, and ultimately it turns to something that amounts to death. Like when we stop moving our bodies entirely. There's. There's a name for that, so it's called Dick. It's rigor mortis. I want to read the purpose of your company because you inspired me. When I got to come to the WD office, the corporate office headquarters in San Diego, I was really moved by not only the physical layout of the office, which I know you guys took a lot of time to design, specifically with things like collision zones, which I hope you'll share a little bit later about what the collision zone is. But just the idea that that physical environment, as well as the things that you were teaching, the things that you were learning together as an organization, were creating this culture that has a very significant purpose. And I thought to myself, you're looking at that and thinking about what we've been, ourselves as an organization, have learned. I think a lot of times companies are trying to figure out what their true purpose is, and when you ask them, it's usually somehow related to the benefits of their product or service, and they confuse those things and they get confused with vision and mission and purpose, etc. And for some time now, I thought, geez, whatever your purpose is, you should be able to write it on a T shirt. You should be able to. It should be succinct and clear enough that it could go on a T shirt, like, you know, whatever that might be. I want to read your purpose because I thought this was just so clear and it's counterintuitive when people hear this. So this is WD40's purpose. We exist to create positive, lasting memories in everything we do. We solve problems, we make things work smoothly, we create opportunities.

We're in the memories business.

You're in the memories business. But for people who don't actually know what WD40 is, which would be shocking to me, please share what the products and services are that this company that's in the memories business is selling in the marketplace.

Well, we're selling solutions, actually. But, you know, WD40, our core product, the blue and yellow cam with the little red top, you know, the product was developed just over 65 years ago here in San Diego. It's a true example of being creative and never giving up. There was a problem with corrosion and condensation in the umbilical cord of the Atlas space rocket. The company was then called Rocket Chemical Company. The chemists got together to solve that problem, and 39 of the formulas failed, and the 40th formula was successful. That's why it's called WD Water Displacement 40th Formula. And today that brand is certainly a champion brand here in the US because it's an honest product that does what it says it's going to do. And we now market in 176 countries around the world. There's eight out of ten households in the US have a can. And thank goodness there's a lot of households outside the US Are still getting their first can for the first time. And a lot of artisans, a lot of people don't realize they, even though they look at us as a household consumer product, I often say we're not a consumer product. We're a product that's consumed by a wide range of end users and particularly artisans and tradesmen and people who are creating memories for other people. So one of the wonderful things about being with the company, I've been here 32 years, is when I talk to people and they say, what do you do? And I say, WD40. They say, oh, I remember when. And I think, yes, it's working, so it's important.

What are, what are some of those things? That people tell you about the. Because I can imagine that I'm just thinking myself now, what are my memories of WD40? And they're very specific places actually. So I'm curious, what are some of the kinds of things that you hear? Are they memories about putting together their son or daughter's bicycle when they, you know, at Christmas time and things like that?

Yeah, you know, I was talking to someone the other day and they said, oh, you know, I always remember my granddad, you know, I was out and he had a farm and we used to go out and you know, he'd be working on the farm and I can still remember the smell of WD40. You know, him with or, you know, we sometimes say we're, we're kind of a rocking chair brand in a lot of ways because, you know, there's always a connection to some positive outcome in most cases. So those are the sort of memories that get created. And you know, I remember fixing my bike son and my son's bike with him, as you've just said. So, yeah, it's that connection of a positive outcome. But you know, you're probably going to cover it later. But you know, importantly, not only why we exist, but how we do it is important and you would have seen that here. And I think this is a powerful thing in our company because we say we create these positive, lasting memories by cultivating a trust tribal culture of learning and teaching which provides a highly engaged workforce who live our company's values every day. And there's some important words in there. Tribal, learning, teaching, engaged values.

Yes.

And you know, people today are just hungry for true purpose. And I think our role as leaders is to create environments where people go to work every day, they make a contribution to something bigger than themselves, they learn something new, they feel safe because of the values and they go home happy. Because happy people create happy communities and happy communities will create a happy world. And to think that 65% of people who go to work today don't like their jobs to me is just a sin. And whose fault is it? It's Alpha because we as leaders create these toxic environments. I'm not sure when you were here whether I birthed Al the soul sucking CEO or not, but I have a guy called Al the soul sucking CEO and I talk about him when I'm out talking about leadership and he has these behaviors that you don't create a culture of inclusion and a culture where people actually feel like they belong.

Yes. And I'm trying to figure out where I want to go next with that. But you and I, we got to spend some time, as you said, in the headquarters and you actually have a teepee, there's a teepee downstairs to represent that tribe. That idea that we want to belong and that people need that crave, that sense of belonging and we spend more time at work than anywhere else. And you're right. I mean the, or the statistics, I should say, are not right as much as they are startling in the fact that so many people are unhappy and more than 50%, I think according to some recent Harris polls of the workforce are actively looking for another job. See, what does toxicity look like in the organization? There's people literally trying to get out. Absolutely.

That's terrible. I mean that's really not a good thing.

It's not. And the turn, the cost, the bottom line cost to turnover is. I don't think it's even calculable. I mean it's because you're in losing talent then having to attract talent and retrain talent and all the things that are lost in that process by way of productivity. I don't know that you can even put a number on it. I've seen some numbers that say it's something like a half a trillion dollars in the US alone, but I don't even know that that could be accurate.

And you know the sad thing, Adam, we're really slow learners because in 384 BC Aristotle said pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. How you know, how long is it going to take us? But you know, here's the other thing that works against it is that in most organizations, leaders ego eats empathy instead of their empathy eating ego. And when you've got.

I want you to repeat that, Gary, I want you to say that one more time for folks, please.

It's where ego eats empathy instead of empathy eating ego. And my Al the soul sucking CEO has an enormously enlarged ego.

Do we have a doll? Isn't there a doll of Al, by the way?

Yeah, there is. I have it right here. I'll get it. Hang on a minute.

Oh yeah, please. I think people need to see the doll of this soul sucking CEO named.

Here he is.

There he is. Oh, look at him eating empathy.

There he is. Now when you get Al and his cousin together and his cousin is short sighted Sam, so you get Al the soul sucking CEO and short sighted Sam together and you put them in an organization, you get absolute terrible, terrible culture.

Yeah. And you know what, it's interesting because everything is as you say, sort of there to be. To be observed and therefore learned. I suppose that millennials, who are misunderstood, in my opinion, a misunderstood group of work, of the workforce they're transferring, they're exiting organizations at about every 18 months. That's a lot of transition. Even for somebody that wrote a book about career transition, every 18 months is a lot of transitioning. And I think it's just what you're talking about when they find themselves in a culture where their souls are being sucked. You know, it's one thing if you're making a lot of money, and I think that's also a part of what's happening in the tech space in some places where the prospect of becoming very, very wealthy is having people sort of think that they can. That workaholism, that it's an aspirational lifestyle to work 110 or 120 hours, like Elon Musk is, you know, sort of declaring you must do. I don't know that that's the answer. But there's. There's great purpose that's driving that, whether it's to get rich or it's to go to space and whatever other things are being, you know, sort of dangled in front of folks. But. But where there's a lack of purpose or where you. You can feel that. That your. Your soul's being sucked and you're not being taken care of, rewarded financially, there's no reason to stay. So I just think they're this. They're so much smarter than we were and. Or at least our generations, because we would put in 10 years before we'd figure that out. We'd give our life's blood to something. I did it for 18 years. I was an attorney for 18 years. And frankly, most of that was my sense of responsibility to my family, to my clients, and the fact that I was making sort of an obscene amount of money.

But as you told me, Adam, there was a great song by the Beatles. Right. Money can't buy your love. Nope.

Or a good night's sleep.

Or a good night's sleep.

Yeah, it's interesting. I would love it if, as our community is always, I think, chomping at the bit for the pivot story or stories. So is there a place in your career where you might have found yourself in that situation where you didn't know which way to go next, or you'd kind of hit a bottom point? And it could be in the business side of things and the model wasn't working, or you weren't working in the model, or it could be Personal. But anything at all that you want to share would be. I know people would just love that.

Yeah, I think, you know, one of the big pivots in my life is back in 1994, I moved from Sydney, Australia to San Diego. And I came from an environment which I'd lived in, you know, all my life. And I knew which side of the road to drive on. And it's a different side over here. And anyhow, I arrived here and suddenly I realized that there were lots of things I didn't know. And then in 97, I got to leave the company and I really realized that micromanagement was not scalable. You know, I was the typical be brief, be bright, be gone guy. You know, on the disc scale I was probably a turbo D and I was dry. You know, I was a driver. And then I looked at how am I going to take this blue and yellow can to the world? So I went back to school and I went to the University of San Diego and I did a master's degree in leadership. And that's where I met Ken Blanchard. He was my professor in one of the classes. And my goal going back to school was I wanted to confirm what I thought I knew and learn what I didn't know and what I didn't know. And what I learned was there's a balance between being tough minded and tender hearted. And if you can get that balance right, you can absolutely create an organization. And if you look at most organizations, they are very focused on strategy and execution. But there's some elements that need to have equal focus, people, values and learning. And we put this model together that says we're going to spend an equal amount of time on what's our purpose, what are our values and how do we learn as we do on strategy and execution. Because if you just spend it in that strategy execution, I call that the typhoon zone. Because eventually in the short term you may be very successful, but you'll blow out either personally or the organization because it's not sustainable. You can't build an enduring life or an enduring company over time if you're just burning out in this typhoon zone. And that to me was a big aha moment. And that was the pivot that I took. I consciously went from saying, I'm going to not be a turbo D anymore. I'm going to say I'm going to get the balance between tough minded and tender hearted good as I can. And I worked on it. And that was the time, that was really, really the time when I made that change.

Yes.

And it was hard. Was really hard.

Okay. Begs the question, what was really hard about it?

Letting go of ego.

So the distinction between tough minded and tender hearted, or not even the difference, but the harmony between those two has to do with a letting go or release or a dying of the ego. Is that.

Well, yeah, I think that if you, if you look at tough minded and tender hearted. Tender hearted is empathy, tough minded is ego. And if you get it out of balance, either way, if you get either of them out of balance, you know, people who work in organizations that are too tender hearted feel at risk. People who work in organizations that are too tough minded feel at risk. So servant leadership is not about holding Kumbaya singing lessons on a Friday afternoon. But if you don't get that balance right, if you don't balance those two out, you don't have the optimal, you know, cultural environment where yeah, people expect leaders to be able to make tough decisions, but they also want them to be tender hearted in thinking about what they're doing. So you've got to get that balance. Yeah.

And ultimately this is what contributes to resilience, to the longevity. Like we talked about at the beginning, that's when I'm going in more often than not these days to do keynotes at companies. That's what they bring me in for. What is resilient leadership look like? How does that contribute to performance? Because we all know whether you're a public company or a private company, performance counts. I mean, you will get graded, so to speak, on how the company does perform. But if the company's not around long enough, you can't win a race that you don't finish, for one thing.

Absolutely. And that's why one of our values is we value sustaining the WD40 economy. That's our final value in the company. Because a robust economy supports the resilience and the ability to be able to develop the people. But if you don't have the people performing at a high level, then you're not going to have a robust economy. You know, to me it's like, duh.

Yes, duh. So it sounds to me, at least I want to interpret this for folks that might be thinking, so where does a company allocate resources or what's the proper allocation of resources, especially for companies that are maybe less mature, that don't have a lot of cash reserves sitting in the bank? The allocation of time, energy and money toward the personal development, not the development of the talent as well as the organizational development as a learning culture versus the hey, we got to make sales thing. Hey, we got to get our marketing straight to make sales. To be able to survive in such a difficult economic environment. I mean, the environment's changing all the time. So is there a way to look at that allocation that you learned along the way? And part of it is going to be trial and error for sure, because plenty of mistakes. Right.

I'm not smart enough to tell anybody how they should allocate their resources in their business, but I don't think it's a resource issue. You don't have to be an asset. Really what it's about, you know, how much does it cost to say please and thank you? How much does it cost to recognize people? You know, most people only know they're doing a good job because no one yelled at them today. It doesn't cost anything to treat people with respect and dignity. That's really what it gets down to.

More than 80% right now. The people who are dissatisfied, who say they're dissatisfied at work, are dissatisfied because they can't stand their supervisor.

Right. They hate their boss. Why? Because he treats them. He treats them badly. He treats them poorly. You know, care, candor, accountability, and responsibility is what it's all about. Care for your people. Be candid with them. No lying, no faking, no hiding. Hold you and them accountable. But be sure that you're clear what we're holding each other accountable for. And then be responsible as a leader and a coach. And a coach doesn't spend time on the field. The coach is in the locker room and on the sideline watching the play and helping the player win. It's called side by side leadership. Get alongside your people and help them get an A. We're not here to mark their paper. We're here to help them step in to the best version of their personal self and treat them with respect and dignity.

Yes. And from leadership, that's modeling as well.

Yeah, right. That's not rocket science.

Because if you're a parent, most. Most parents realize this, that their kids don't listen to them. I'll just speak from my own experience. Our kids don't really have never. Our youngest is now 18 and leaving the house, but the other ones are older and they very rarely sort of listen. But they watched. They were always watching us and seeing, is there. Is there congruence or, you know, the story that's coming out of my dad's mouth, does that match up with what he's doing himself and in his life? And so, yeah, there's, I think, what one Thing that I want to underscore that you said was that you don't necessarily have to have a big budget, let's say, to create the kind of environment, as Yogananda said, environment is stronger than will. So the environment that you can create is one that would, long term create a culture for sustainable, for sustainability, for longevity, for resilience. Right. So. And at the same time you're creating that culture, you're also watching, you know, watching the things that are. That you have to measure to know whether you're on target or not. Right.

Okay. And here's my, Here's a look back at learning.

Okay.

We had these principles that are described in our how, in our tribal culture of, you know, learning and teaching, of values, of belonging, of celebration. We started all this 22 years ago. Back then, we had employee engagement nearly as horrible, not quite as horrible, but nearly as horrible as most people have in the companies they're working for today. And we look, looking back, we said, okay, if we deploy the principles that we know of, you know, care, candor, accountability, responsibility, our tribal culture and go forward. So what's happened over that period of time? Today, our employee engagement is 93%, 99% of our people say they love to tell people they work at WD40 company. And now here's the cut. Here's the cut. Our market cap has gone from just around 300 million to 2.4 billion over that period of time. So we've had a compounded annual growth rate of total shareholder return about 12%. And in the last 10 years it's been 20%. And what do we do? We sell oil in a can. No, we don't. We're in the memories business. So I think we have an absolute demonstrated record of if you build employee engagement and you build a place where people want to go to work every day and make a contribution and learn something new, you will drive your economic engine.

Yes.

Oh, and at the same time, our revenues have quadrupled, by the way.

So since we've got those four things, I'd love it if you just give us a one liner for each of the four. Because I'm sure at this point people have driven off the road, you know, pulled off the road to take notes, stopped the treadmill, got out their phone and they're taking notes now. So what are those four things again? Start with care, if you would care.

You have to have an environment where you care for your people.

Now let's all, now let's all go duh. Right? Except it doesn't exist in most workplaces, but. So it's not quite a duh, but yes. So care. Yes.

Candor. And candor is no lying, no faking, no hiding.

Transparency. Another way to put that.

Transparency. Most people don't lie, but because of fear, people fake and hide in organizations. So if you've got an organization that is riddled with fear, you'll get people faking and hiding.

Exactly. Sometimes called political correctness as well.

Whatever.

Exactly.

Care. Accountability. Now, accountability is what do you expect from me as a leader, and what do I expect from you? And do we have agreement around that? The reason we let people down in life in most cases is because there's no clarity around what we expect from each other. So have the conversation.

It's not expectations that are the issue. It's unstated expectations.

Exactly. So what do we expect from each other? And then. And then be brave enough to hold each other accountable. And if you care enough about your people around accountability, you won't be afraid to have those loving conversations that some people sometimes call tough conversations. The more I care about people, the more I want to say to someone, adam, I. I care about you. I want you to succeed. Here's what I've observed is getting in your way. How can I help you get that out of your way? Because you're better than this. And I know that you can, you know, you can achieve personally and professionally what you want in life. And there's nothing that will give me more joy than to see you do that. So stop being an ass.

You're an Aussie to me, so candor comes easily to you, I think, more than somebody. Do you like baseball? As an Australian living in the U.S. okay, so what I love when it comes to accountability is the example that set in baseball where if the pitcher. The pitcher is not doing well in a game, what. What's the first sign of that? Typically, I mean, the balls are flying around, runs are being scored. But then what happens? What happens on the field? Yeah. Third baseman comes in, the catcher comes out, the coach comes out. Right there. They're huddled on the mound. And so to me, that conversation isn't a conversation that's based in judgment. Right. So they don't go out there and go to the pitchers having a hard time. They go, buddy, you suck. You don't belong in the major leagues. We'll send you, hit the showers and then head back to, you know, little league baseball. That conversation looks very differently when they get out there. They want to know, how you doing? Well, my son Was a pitcher for a while, and I used to coach him. And I remember what those conversations, even in, you know, Little League would like that everybody came in and they had only one goal in mind, right?

I mean, pump him up.

Pump them up. And what's the goal for the team? Yeah, only one goal for the team, right? That's to win a game. That's all they're interested in. So that accountability isn't based in judgment, it's based in love. It's like a pat on the. A pat on the back. It's like, how's your arm? How you doing? Where, you know, did we have mixed signs or are you feeling like you want to leave the game? You know, it's a conversation, but it's based in love. And I think that's one of the hardest things in leadership, is to be able to hold people accountable. As you're saying, from a place of love versus a place of fear or judgment or anything else that has people playing on protection. They'll protect themselves and avoid responsibility or taking responsibility if they think they can't get a fair shake. Anyway.

Have you heard of Inbutu?

Inbutu, yeah, I've heard the word. I don't know what it is.

Okay. In Butu comes from tribalism in Africa. And what it is is this. If in a tribe, someone does something wrong or makes a mistake, what ubudu is, the tribe takes that person and sits them in the middle, the tribal surroundings. And for two days, they tell them how good they are at things to encourage them out of the bad behavior. That's if you read up about it in Butu. It's fantastic.

Beautiful. That's. Well, so accountability.

That was baseball in Butu.

It's that mound. It's that circular mound. So we've got care, candor, accountability, and then responsibility. Right.

And, you know, and I think you were here when you. You may have read our maniac pledge.

I did, yes. Took pictures of it as well.

It says, I'm responsible for taking action, asking questions, getting answers, and making decisions. I won't wait for someone to tell me if I need to know. I'm responsible for asking. I have no right to be offended that I didn't get this sooner. And if I'm doing something others should.

Know about, I am responsible for telling them.

There you go. You got it.

Way cool. Way cool. You know what this is? Well, this is beautiful. You know, you hit the point that I wanted to go to, which was, what was the culture like? What was the company like before you sort of had your awakening, and I know it didn't all turn around in a day, so we might as well just declare that out loud as well, because, you know, the results you've got are fairly uncommon. I'm not saying it's the only company that's ever had that kind of a change or transformation, but you're a model for it. So how long did it take and how ugly was it? In the process of getting from point A to where you are now, I.

Often say it was simple, not easy, and time is not your friend. This is a. A journey. It's not a short journey. So you've got to, you know, establish it. And then, you know, culture is no different than when we went to school. You remember we used to get a petri dish and we could put stuff in it and we made culture. Right. And it grew over time, that culture. Yes. Yeah. And what did we do? We had to mine the petri dish. We had to take out the antibodies. We had to make sure the right ingredients. We had to put it in the right temperature. Maybe it was in a. In a refrigerator or in a heating cabinet. That's the same. So this thing has to be nurtured and nurtured and nurtured. And that's the job of leadership.

Yes, the pivots constantly making a little change in direction, which is, you know, Buckminster Fuller's trim tab analogy of small changes. The law of small differences, of small changes.

So I heard someone say the other day, I was at a luncheon and a young lady was who made a comment, and she said, I haven't come this far not to go further. And I think that's what's important about culture. When you have culture, you haven't come this far not to take it further. You have to continually take it further.

And I guess that states the fact that as a company, you invest in education, you continually, not just you yourself, writing books and educating yourself, being a model for that. But the company invests in education for the company, for. For the people that work there as well.

Absolutely. Well, you know, our how statement says by being like. In a culture of learning and teaching, the number one responsibility of a learner, of a leader is to be a learner and a teacher. Yes, that's the number one responsibility.

It's. I think it's at the top of the pyramid for society as a whole, for communities, because that goes to the same thing that at Circle around the Fire, where someone stood up and shared what they learned. That person was the shaman the wise person, the chief, whoever it was. But that leader learned something and then shared it with others. And that's. And that's teaching.

That's.

It's the highest. It's the highest value we've got and a different conversation for a different day. But we know. We know that teachers are not always valued in our society the way they ought to be.

Absolutely.

So. Well, Gary, this has been a wonderful conversation that I know we could keep going on forever and ever. I want to, in wrapping up, ask you about your personal rituals and whether there's something in particular through that. All those hills and valleys and people know what that's like themselves. Just something that you've been doing on a ritual basis that helps you either physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, even, that you'd be willing to share.

Yeah, I think there's a couple of things. One thing, and I learned this from Marshall Goldsmith. Let it go. And, you know, I think that. I think that's really important in life is to, you know, you've got to empty the rocks out of the backpack on a daily basis, because eventually if you don't, that backpack will weigh you down. So I try to make sure that I live each day as today is, you know, and I think that's important. So in the morning, I'm always up early, around 4 o' clock every morning. I start my day with a little, you know, understanding of who I am. I try to center myself. I have some personal meditation that I do, which is really just to center myself and make sure that I have clarity around the importance of understanding that this day is the only day I really have. So I better do the best. And I have a personal why statement. I wake up every morning to help people create positive, lasting memories. The most exciting part of that is finding all the different ways to do it.

Indeed, Indeed. What a pleasure. I want to hold up your book as well. So folks that are seeing this on YouTube, you can check it out. It. This is the book that you wrote with Ken Blanchard, who was your professor at the time, which is pretty ripping cool. Helping people win at work. There will be, of course, in the show notes, a link to find out more about this book and about yourself and about the company. And I invite people certainly to check all that out. Yeah, it's a. You know, I think that the last thing I want to say anyway is that I so respect the fact that you've put in the years that you have to create the model for a sustainable, positive place for people to go and share their gifts. With the world. That is no small feat today. And something that is. I'm sure you've heard a few good things, a few positive things about your job, but that's a pat on the back moment to celebrate and really wonderful. So thank you for doing that. Thank you. On behalf of the whole marketplace, thank you.

As I said earlier, I rejoice in an abundance of worthwhile work.

Yeah. I have my own set of really beautiful memories attached to the WD40 product, and I only look forward to the ones in the future because we have a particular use for that product every summer. And it's all about family, it's all about friends and just enjoying life. So thank you, Gary. Appreciate it. I know that our community will have lots of comments, so those comments can be addressed to AdamMarkel.com podcast so you can leave a review on itunes, everybody. We love that. Of course, you can go to our Facebook group, start my Pivot community in Facebook and leave questions there for myself, for Gary. And we just love to get your feedback. Feedback's like oxygen. As we started our program with gratitude. So shall we conclude? And that is with a great reminder. So I'm going to ask you a funny question, Gary. I'm going to ask this question. I know the answer already, but did you wake up today? I did.

You did.

You see, it's so interesting. I get the honor to ask that question to people all over the world. And it's a curious question because some people are ready to say, yes, of course I did. And they get it. And then there are folks that are not so sure. How many of you are not so sure? How many of you are still working on it? Right? And that's the truth. We are, in many ways, not always awake. In fact, many of the years I worked in Manhattan, I would walk past people and see just sort of a deadness, just a lack of life in the eyes and thinking that people are just sort of walking around dead, not knowing it. So to wake up, our awareness, to be more conscious is clearly a goal. And so my hope and my prayer is that everybody that's listening to this, watching this right now, that you wake up again tomorrow. That I wake up, Gary. That you wake up and everybody at your company does as well, because that's not a guarantee. There's no guarantee. And in fact, when we also recognize tomorrow morning that we are taking our first breath of the day, we can be similarly aware that there will be people taking their very last breath in that same exact moment. So it's not something to take for granted. We all have challenges. There's plenty of things to complain about. But my belief is that, as you were saying, Gary, that we all have an assignment. And that's why we've been given another day. So three steps to my waking ritual. That we wake up first. LOL.

Right?

Yes, let's wake up. 2. That we can feel that gratitude for that moment where we realize we have been given another day. And third, if you're willing to do this, to take just 10 seconds, 10 seconds out of your precious day before it gets going and put your feet on the floor and feel gratitude and appreciation for yourself and that you might even out loud, declare these words, I love my life. I love my life. Gary, what are the words?

I love my life.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Ciao for now, everybody. We'll see you soon. Thank you again.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope, we hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over@adammarkel.com podcasts for more tips, strategies and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love, Join our Pivot community on facebook@pivotfb.com.

You.