#102 Robert Glazer — Serial Entrepreneur on the Most Important Tool for Success

I was a gross underachiever for a lot of my life. In fact, most of my speeches start off with all of my report cards, which are pretty funny if you read them from kindergarten to 6th grade. They all look like they were written by the same person. Like, he seems smart, but like we couldn't really do anything to motivate him or whatever. And so like most people, you know, I turned that into a sort of redemption thing and then overdid it for so long that there was no achievement that would provide any meaningful satiation. It was just sort of onto the next one. I think this is, You work with a lot of CEOs and high achievers. It's pretty common. You get to the top of this mountain and you look down for a second and you just start climbing again. So I had to redefine a lot of that for myself. But I think in, in the process, when you're overcompensating for something, it, it probably never feels like enough.

Welcome back.

This is From Startup to Grownup. My name is Alisa Cohn, and today I'm thrilled to welcome Bob Glaser to the podcast. Bob founded the global partner marketing agency Acceleration Partners, grew it into an award-winning remote company, and then moved to executive chair so he could double down on writing, podcasting, and investing. He's a keynote speaker, a podcaster, and has a fantastic weekly email newsletter called Friday Forward. He's also the author of multiple bestselling books, and his newest is called The Compass Within. As you can see, Bob's a busy guy. We had a great conversation starting with some insights from Bob's own reckoning when he hit every conventional milestone—

money, exit, bestseller lists—

yet felt drained instead of fulfilled. So we discussed all about that and how he felt and how he was able to heal from all that. We also talked about the importance of values, how they've helped Bob personally, practically, and how they were so important for his company to thrive. We also talked about the importance of values, how they've helped Bob personally, and how they were so important for his company to thrive. Bob shares 6 probing questions for uncovering values, which have been helpful for him, for his company, and for the founders he mentors. We discussed his practical tools for getting so much done and his specific process for taking action on projects. I personally really took a lot away from that. We also get into parenting. Bob talks about the parenting playbook he uses to keep his 3 teens grounded in a world where they have a lot of material comforts around them. You're gonna love this conversation and get a ton out of it. So please enjoy my fantastic conversation with Bob Glaser.

Bob, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you.

Thanks for having me. And, uh, for, for, for, we, we, we had a little audio mishap last time, so we're gonna, we're gonna make it better this time though.

You know, Bob, the good news about you is that every time we record something, it's like if it doesn't work out, that's okay. You've got another book coming out. Okay.

Um, this is it for a while. This one's taken a lot outta me, so, uh, oh, well, I wanna, I wanna hear, the last one was easier. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Well, I wanna hear all about it.

About that, but I actually, I wanna sort of step back because you, Bob, are like, I don't wanna call you a unicorn, that's like an overused word, but like you are definitely a very productive person. You're a bestselling author, you're an entrepreneur, you're an investor, you're a podcaster. God, what am I missing? You're a course creator. Of course, you were the founder and the now executive chair of Acceleration Partners. And people would look at you and they would say, oh, he's reached it, success. Was there a moment that you kind of realized, hey man, I'm successful?

It's a complicated question. Yes, but probably like not in the way that people would describe and probably after chasing false definitions of success and then realizing that a lot less of the self-objectification, sort of Arthur Brooks version of success wasn't really the success that I wanted. Because I think the problem with folks and look, we'll get into, I'm sure talking about values and I talk a lot about they come from pain And for me, just out there, like I was a gross underachiever, like for a lot of my life. In fact, most of my speeches start off with all of my report cards, which are pretty funny if you read them from kindergarten to 6th grade. They all look like they were written by the same person. Like, he seems smart, but like we couldn't really do anything to motivate him or whatever. And so like most people, you know, I turned that into a sort of redemption thing and then overdid it for so long that, there was no achievement that would provide any meaningful satiation. It was just sort of onto the next one. I think this is, you work with a lot of CEOs and high achievers, it's pretty common. You get to the top of this mountain and you look down for a second and you just start climbing again. So I, you know, I had to redefine a lot of that for myself, but I think in, in the process when you're overcompensating for something, it, it probably never feels like enough.

Yeah, that's a very good point. But maybe I'll flip the question. Was there a moment where you just thought, oh my gosh, I'm so like quote unquote successful, this is not it.

Yes. But when we, when we brought in an investor for Acceleration Partners and sort of had that moment where I was gonna be able to step down as CEO, and I sort of had this moment that I had thought about for years and years and, and, and some, you know, my first sort of, you know, financial security, uh, out of the business. Like I, I was falling over the finish line exhausted and trying to drag myself up and start figuring out what the next race was like right away. Um, so I actually went through a tough period, like a year of like always being injured. Like I was just kind of a, a mess after that. And I've, I've written about it and I shared a pretty long, you know, vulnerable, uh, post about that. Um, probably 3 or 4 months ago. But, uh, yeah, it, it, it, it, it should have been this, this sort of something I worked towards, toward, you know, for, for over a decade. And it, and it brought about a day of fulfillment. So, you know, and that's, that's why I had to sort of shift to something. And this, this goes to kind of what I'm doing in this next phase, but something that's more, you know, meaningful fuel on an ongoing basis.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. I think, I mean, many, many entrepreneurs, maybe even most entrepreneurs, when they sell their businesses and they have some sort of, or, you know, step away or in some way like not focus on it full-time and have some sort of financial security, they sort of think, I'm supposed to be all set. But it kind of follows like a lot of like wandering in the wilderness about like, So what is my purpose and meaning right now? And what is, what is everything about right now?

Yeah, I had, I had seen the movies. I had heard the movies. I still, I was prepared for it, but it's still real. And I, I, like you, here, here's the truth, particularly a lot of entrepreneurial CEOs and leaders, they were like ADD kids who had, didn't do very well in school. They weren't winning the awards and accolades. And finally they do this thing that they're really good at. And you know, it, the, it's their PhD and their doctorate and all the things all wrap in one and it's, and, and it, and it rewards what they're good at. And so to detach from that, you know, takes away a lot of your, your purpose and your meaning. You know, you don't have the, you don't have the degree or whatever it is otherwise. So I, I, I think it is a very common road that I've seen people go down. And look, every, you, you just got, my thing is always talk to the people that have done it before and the road ahead and then, you know, figure out the way forward. And I, I did during that time period read, well, there's a book, Second Mountain, but I thought Arthur Brooks's book, Success to Success, it really— From Strength to Strength. Strength to Strength, sorry. Yeah, it really nails this whole thing, particularly around people who are kind of strivers.

Yeah, was there one sort of idea from that book that really resonated with you that made a change for you?

Yeah, the notion of self-objectification where he said, if we were to judge others like by their looks or characteristics or achievements or whatever. Like we would never do to others to what we do to ourselves. That was the one idea. And the other one, which, you know, I'm seeing now as someone in my late, late, late, late 40s, as late as you can be, is like you have to play a different game. You can't, when I was in my 20s and 30s, I just outwork people and outrun them and travel all over the world and do 14-hour, I can't do that. Anymore. You can get away with a lot. Like my body can't handle that and I, and I'm in pretty good shape and I stay in shape. So you've, you've gotta play a different game and, and use leverage and use wisdom. You're probably not gonna out cognitively, you know, run anyone, you know, at, at, at that point in your career.

Yeah, for sure. And at the same time, I, I wanna also just emphasize, I mean, you're very productive. So you've stepped away from sort of day-to-day running Acceleration Partners and you have all these other things going on, like with your podcast and, you know, as I said, like writing book after book. So like, how do you decide what to work on?

Yeah, everything is for me is, is sort of, and I, and I think when people looked at all these different things that I was doing, like these all seem incongruous, particularly when a lot of 'em were in the organization, outside. But for me, that core purpose is just sharing ideas that help people in organizations go grow. It's, it's tied to sort of my dominant core value. And that's what I was doing both in the organization, helping people and leaders grow, finding new ideas, new things that would help people. But as we tested things in our company and built a company that went won all these best places to work awards and was one of the first large remote working company. As they worked and I saw that they were kind of better, I kind of wanted to like get 'em out there. And that's what all the books are. And you know, the last book, Rethinking Two Weeks Notice, which we talked about, but it was a lot about, hey, this is a really broken process along the way, how people leave organizations. So I think we figured out a better way to do it and people are asking me for the playbook. So how can I share that? I wrote a Friday Forward a few weeks ago about a story about how we started this wish-granting program at our company because I had seen it at someone else. And 3 or 4 people reached out and they're like, okay, so how do we do it at our company? I'm like, I'm not writing a book, but I'll take, I'll take all the stuff and I'll put it into a PDF for you and I'll like share it with you. And I'm not charging them for it. Like, to me, that's like an, that's just an idea. I, at the end of the day, I guess I think I've given up on politics or whatever. Like, I, I think leadership and great leaders are ultimately gonna make the biggest difference probably in making this world a better place. You know, you've seen it. I mean, the people who've had bad leaders, it's like it goes on and they have PTSD for years. Yeah. And the, and the ones who you have positive experiences and great leaders, like the ripple effect of that can just go on and on and on. And so I think trying to help, you know, create better leaders, that, that to me is what's gonna create more of an impact.

Yeah, I can totally relate to that. That's why I became an executive coach and not a so-called personal coach, because everything happens in the workplace. We spend so much of our time there. High achievers are always wanna be there. And to your point, like a good leader totally has a ripple effect because also people learn how to be a good leader from that person.

Right.

But bad leaders, same thing. They learn how to be leaders from that person. —like all of these years. Yeah, it's really true. And so I appreciate that you spend your time on that. It sounds like you really focus on what you feel like is relevant because you have a lot of people kind of like telling you what's meaningful to them. Yeah, I try to—

my— I think somehow what other people have told me to do, I try to filter stuff and put it into a framework or something that makes it easy for people to execute on. Um, I think there's people that over, you know, there's people who have done these things who come from you know, the workplace who have the credibility, who don't know how to express their ideas. I remember Adam Grant saying years ago that like he, you know, the, he never hired the best doers as a coach cuz it was like a diving coach would be like, you know, just like the guy was so good, he'd be like, you just go and do the triple flip and whatever. And he is like, but this other guy like broke down every move for me. And so I think there's academics who have sort of never tried something in the real world and then there's real world people who don't know how to like, frame it or put it in a digestible form. I, I think I've crossed both of those worlds where I, I understand the frameworks and how to put something, but I've also done this and started 5 organizations and built a couple of 'em and sold a couple of 'em. So, uh, the, I'm, I'm trying to pull the, the things from that real world journey that can be helpful to other people.

Yeah. How do you structure your time now that you're not in the day-to-day of your business?

Well, Very poorly this week because we, uh, our, our dog passed away in, in February this year and we got a puppy this week and my well-orchestrated perfect morning has completely gone to hell. Uh, this dog is, only has two modes. It's crashed out mode and biting everything mode and running around like crazy. Um, so, so, but I, I, I sort of follow the, the, the premise of time blocking, which is I, I set annual goals, I set quarterly goals. I have a daily, like, one-page dashboard thing that I go over. I pick the 3 things I have to do that day, and I follow the time blocking where I've, I've sort of put all the things into my calendar first that, that are most important and meet the highest objectives. Like when I see people with a Calendly and like grab any time on my calendar, I'm like, that, that's a horrible, like, thing to do. Horrifying. Yeah. Like that's like, it's one thing if you say, My calendar, my times are from 2 to 5 on Friday. That's my like time to talk. But, but I don't, I'm like, you can't have my calendar. So, you know, I orchestrate my calendar around the most important objectives, you know, for me. And, and those are sort of part of my, and, and those goals are balanced. They're balanced between personal and business and, and family. And I just find like, this is not rocket science. I, it, it's the domino effect. I find if every day I check 3 things, so that's, you know, Towards the 90-day goals, that's 270 things towards the 90-day goals. Then those get knocked down. If the 90-day goals get knocked down 4 quarters in a row, they— it's the exact same thing that executive team does with planning, right? It's great to have the big goals, but then you need to re-engineer. And I think we all lie to us about our time and we don't have enough time. You know, I could take the time that people look at Facebook every day at food, other people's food and commenting on it. And they would have a first draft of a book that they've always said they wanted to write by the end of the quarter. 'Cause that 15 minutes a day to writing you know, versus, so yeah, so I, it's not rocket science. I think I just, I think I take that light and I, and I focus it. It's a, it's a laser, not a, not a prism that's refracting. Yeah.

How do, what, what's an example or two of your annual goals that you're driving towards? And then how does that fit into like a personal quarterly goal?

Yeah, so that's a great example. So, you know, one was sort of the, I had a, a goal related to my book this year. So I had to have a specifically broken up to kind of, again, the domino thing of like what needs to happen if I want this to be the, you know, outcome, uh, for the book. Um, so I've had different ones. I usually have some sort of health one. So, so as I mentioned, uh, you know, I'm, I'm late, late, late, and so I, in the 40s, I'm, I'm, I have a goal to be biologically a certain amount less old than I actually am by the end of this year. Um, so that has like multi-components from where I wanted to be from from weight to VO2 max to muscle to otherwise. And so I started to look objectively at that and I said, yeah, I've been messing around with these things for years, but like I'm really going to do it. I'm gonna get back to some pre-COVID things. And so I have, I'm actually, well, one of 'em's off, but I'm, I'm, I've got an Apple Watch and a Whoop and I'm like double testing data right now for which one works best for me. So yeah, I have, I have those goals. They're all on here, right? So from meditation to doing the yoga. So kind of the routine that I want, if I do all of these things, I should get to the goal, right? That's sort of the, that's sort of the, the end goal.

Yeah. It's sort of click, click, click, click, click. It requires sort of the, first of all, the thinking about it and then the, you know, blocking the time out and kind of think about those activities. But then also it requires like minimizing distraction, right? Just focusing on the most important thing. How do you minimize distractions? Within a world of distraction?

I'm easily distracted. So I just like this notion of, and, and, and going back again, the goals, usually there's one around a, like a trip with each one of my family members each year. So again, that takes time. If I want that to happen, there's some planning or otherwise. I, I just think I don't make the distractions count as much. So if I have that morning routine, I get those 3 things done. I encourage the team, like those 3 things are towards the 90-day and I get it done before noon. Then like if the rest of the day goes some, I kind of play the 80/20 rule. Some things just matter more than others. And so I try to get those things done first. I definitely get distracted. I have ADD, I know that, but I know I'm best in the morning. So I lock in, I have my coffee and most of the day there's the 80/20 rule would tell you there's an hour, an hour and a half in a day that's gonna be responsible for 80% of your meaningful output. So I just try to make sure those things get done this morning. I sat down, I made the list. Actually, I, there were 8 things on it that was, and I thought it would take 2 days and I got a focused hour and I got all 8 done. Some of them were quick follow-ups on a conference someone told me they were gonna come to. Someone was paying my taxes, which I forgot to do like that. I, that was a urgent and important, but, um, you know, they're, it's not that they were all time-consuming, but they, they were that like, if I forgot to follow up with the person about the big conference opportunity, then that's like a big miss, and that conference opportunity is key to the book sales. So that's sort of how that all goes.

Got it. And you know, it's funny because we're talking a lot about, again, these activities that you do and, you know, you were a founder and a leader and I mean, again, sort of day-to-day full-time and you invested in, in building your brand and now you're continuing to invest in building your brand and sharing your ideas. Why is that so important to you?

Yeah, it, it, it's interesting if you've ever written something or you have something that you think that's valuable, I think like The worst thing you could ever do is write something that no one would read or would have no impact. And so while a lot of people aren't super comfortable trying to build that platform or promoting themselves, I like, and again, I have ideas that I think can help you. So if you want access to those ideas, follow me or have me come speak or listen to the podcast or otherwise. But it's really about impact. I think if you want to make an impact, then the amplification matters, right? A great idea, a great book that 10 people read is not gonna help as many people as a great book that 1,000 people read. Now it's gotta be a great book, but we've seen a lot of people who don't know how to champion their own ideas or don't know how to market. And those things may— being a well-kept secret has probably gotta be the worst thing in life, right? From an impact you could have made. I don't, I don't mean by financially, but I just mean from an impact standpoint. Yeah.

Did you have to get over anything in yourself to kind of like build your brand and what advice do you have for other people who are like, oh no, I'm not comfortable with that?

Yeah, I think everyone has a little bit of imposter syndrome. Only the people that don't have imposter syndrome really usually are not the strong leaders I've seen. Um, right. No humility. But, but I, I, people are, they're holding back, right? They're like, no one wants to hear this from me. I shouldn't write this. I don't know if it's good enough. There's something particularly about writing or podcasting. It seems to reward longevity, right? If you're just doing it expecting something in return, you don't get much versus if you just make your deposits over and over and over again, eventually they seem to accumulate. I mean, a couple years ago, I mean, you've seen this, I had a book out, I did a podcast tour, and I went back 2 years later and there were some well-known names and half of them didn't have their podcast anymore. And I think it's like, Well, why? Well, they, you know, I think they thought it was gonna help their business. I don't think they were doing it for the right reason. They, they were doing the podcast to help something else versus most of the people like, I do 600 of these episodes and I love every one of them. And for me it's like, I might only get this one hour with this person. And so if we were the only people having it, no one was listening it, I would love the conversation. So that's enough of, of the motivation. And I think those are the things that keep going. I mean, James Clear, you know, has written this home run, you know, true unicorn, once in a lifetime book. He just wrote and wrote and wrote for years and no one read it. And then suddenly the things indexed and they got in search and people found his new writing. And so they went and found his old writing. So inevitably, like if you don't get it out there or don't start, you're not gonna make it bad and have a chance. I promise you my first post was terrible. My first podcast was probably terrible. Watching those ones was like, oh, I need to clean this stuff up. But I think you just have to start. And I think that's one thing that entrepreneurs are good at. And sometimes, you know, people with ADD is just the act. You just have to act. If you sit around thinking of whether you should do it all day long, you def— it's definitely not gonna help anyone.

Yeah, that's for sure. I think that your whole point about like getting it out there imperfectly, maybe even badly, and then practicing and refining and refining. If you never get it out there, you don't have the opportunity to practice.

It's always such an important message for everybody. Make it bad, make it better. Right?

Make it bad, make it better. I love that. Um, you know, Bob, something we talked about last time that I just really wanna cover again is again, the notion of success and you raising kids. So you've got 3 kids. Yeah.

3 kids. That I admit to. Yeah. Yeah. At least 2 of 'em. I'll let them figure out which one I'm talking about.

And they, you know, you, you have been successful, financially successful. So you're raising kids in the context of just more material success than, you know, other people. And so I guess I'm curious, how do you think about raising kids who don't become spoiled brats in, in light of sort of what you've been able to achieve in your life?

I am probably— I am not a huge fan of parents these days. In fact, I've been working on the last book in the Elevate series, Elevate Your Kids, that sort of looks at parenting through a leadership lens. And I'm mostly disgusted what I see in sort of more affluent communities on the parenting community these days. I think that— but I understand where it comes from, right? It comes from like We are wired to keep our kids safe, and despite all the horrible things people tell you about the world today, we live in one of the safest times in history with the most resources. So without that physical safety, we've now shifted to feeling like we need to emotionally protect them in all circumstances, because I think that's what our hardwiring is meant to do, but that's not what we were supposed to do and doesn't, doesn't help them. So most people seem to be worried that their kids are, are, are not gonna have enough. I am more worried that my kids will have too much. That is a far greater greater fear. And so, you know, we have family values and, you know, those are, we talk about those a lot. I mean, for my kids, it's really about independence. And so they all work, they all have jobs. They're one of the few ones of their friends for the ones in college that have to pay for their expenses. You know, we're happy to cover their education, but they have jobs, they work, they work the summer, they work in school. I think these are, again, these are the things that different what you say and what you do. Them and in terms of values. But we really focus on the character that we want our kids to have. And so the major lessons, and I'm never worried about them not having enough or they need to fail. And one of my kids had a bunch of failures this year that actually ended up in a pretty big success that would not have happened if it wasn't for the failures. And while those were going on, we talked about that, like, this sucks, but things happen for a reason and you get back up and you You dust yourself off and you do it again. So I just think it's what you focus on for your kids and what's important. And I point out to them a lot, we talk about, oh, my daughter potentially wants to go to law school, but she wants to do more advocacy and policy stuff. And she went and talked to a whole bunch of lawyers, but should I go to law school? And she's like, and they all were like, no. And she's like, dad, but I went online and the partners make $2.2 million at this firm. I said, well, what does that you. Like, clearly, you know, it doesn't necessarily make you happy. They're all telling you not to do it. Um, so I, I, we just try to have those discussions and point out stuff and point out, oh, look, you know, discussion with my kids, look, this family, uh, you know, that seems to have a lot of means, like, the kid seems to be an afterthought and seems to be struggling, right? That's not, that to me is not success.

Are you open to sharing what happened with your kid that was the sort of set of failures that led to success?

Tell us. Yeah, sure. Well, my son, he started his freshman year in school and he applied to a bunch of different things and he didn't get into any of them. One of which was the Greek life at the school. And it just kind of started earlier than he anticipated. And while this was going down and after kind of, and he worked his butt off in school and got great grades. And while he was doing that, sort of at that low point, he figured I'd like to have options. And so he made some applications to transfer and took some shots. And he actually had a great rest of the year, loved his friends, was all excited to go back and came home and then got into a school that he had always wanted to go to and he just never thought he could get into. And so, and that's where he is going next year. And had all those other things happened, it wouldn't have led him down that road. And now he has a great opportunity and he's excited to be in a city, which is much more of a city school, which I think he realized over the year in visiting it that he likes more of a city. He didn't know that. Like, you don't know a lot of things at 18, right? And this is the— people make it the end of the world. You're going to pick this camp, you're going to pick this school, and if it's wrong, it's wrong. Like, life just doesn't happen like that. And so, you know, it worked out. I mean, I think it worked out really well for him and he's super excited.

Yeah, I also think that what kids, but also people, don't always relate to and understand is that, you know, you have these basically ups and downs and like, there's just like the sine curve of life. It just is that way that there are ups and downs. And I think if we don't, are not realistic with about that with people, then they get all wrapped up in the downs. And then to your point, often, the difficult moments are where you learn the most or where you can, you know, sort of achieve something which you didn't even realize was possible for you. Yeah.

And look, he learned in this actually like that he needed to be more aggressive and to, and to advocate for himself and something that's just not his normal state. He's a very agreeable, like gets along, you know, you don't want people to be too aggressive, but he learned that there's moments for that. And I think he's already figured that out in moving this and making the calls and getting connected with the right people. And, you know, he had to call all his friends and tell them, and he was really worried about that. And I said, look, they're still gonna be your friends, you know? And by the way, like the tough call that you don't make never gets easier. And I can see you're losing sleep over this. And just after he did it, he felt better and everyone was so nice to him and they were like, you've gotta do this. It's a great opportunity. And like, there were just a lot of life lessons in that. And look, he's now learned how to make, and then I saw him and then he had it again where he was, he had a job for the summer and he was doing it, wouldn't have the hours. And his old camp called him and begged him to come back. He decided to go and he had to call these people and tell them he was gonna change. And by this point, he knew how to make these hard calls. So it wasn't like, I actually watched the evolution, right? I was like, this is a great skillset to have to call people and tell them hard things or why you're doing something. So we're just trying so hard to protect our kids from any vulnerability or disappointment or otherwise. And man, I really, you should wish your kids a lot of disappointment early in their life because the reason why I think we have such a mental health epidemic is because people are really facing— these things are muscles that needed to be used. And they're, they're for the first time at 22, getting something wrong or selling someone, telling them your work isn't good or otherwise. And they just collapse and can't recover. And if they had got— if they had worked that muscle a little bit when they were younger, it wouldn't be such an existential crisis. Is. Yeah, I think that's so true.

I think that's such a good point and I think we forget about that and then it definitely plays out in the workplace, that's for sure. So the next thing in the, I didn't, I did not realize that you had an Elevate series. Is your new book, we have a new book out as I mentioned. No, this is, this is another year from, from, from that.

So I had Elevate and Elevate Your Team and I always envisioned the sort of last one, which will be kind of Elevate Your Kids, but that's gonna be probably a couple years out at this point.

Got it. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Well, we have this new book out, so this is not, This is not part of the Elevate series, folks. This is just Bob writing another book.

It's a double-click and we can talk about where it came from.

Well, I wanna hear where it came from, but first of all, I wanna say the name of it, The Compass Within, and it's a leadership fable, folks. It's a leadership fable. This is the first time, if I'm not mistaken, you've written a leadership fable, right? Yep.

I did not know how to write fiction and you might determine that's still the case after you read it. Yeah.

So tell us where the idea came from. Why? 'Cause you've been talking about values for as long as I've known you. Yeah, exactly. That values is important. Why did you wanna write this book now? How it's a departure from your Elevate series, and why'd you write it in a leadership fable?

So when I wrote Elevate and the capacity building framework, it was spiritual, intellectual, physical, and emotional capacity as sort of the recipe for getting better. Within spiritual, the core thing was understanding your personal core values. And I wrote about it and I shared about my experience and shared some resources. But the number one thing I got asked from people was, was, well, okay, like how do I, how do I figure out my core values? I'm like, well, I don't have an easy answer for you. I can get on the phone with you and do it for an hour. Obviously that doesn't scale. At the time we were, we were building a process based on what I had sort of learned with our, into our leadership curriculum at AP. And after 3 or 4 classes, I was like, I built a program here that's pretty repeatable. This is helping people figure out their core values. Like I think what I didn't have, people were asking me again, how do I do this? So I was like, look, I'll turn this into a course. So I took the internal thing that we had created. I turned it into an external course and a couple thousand people took it. And I just get all these notes from people that this was, this made a huge difference. And, you know, a lot of people just don't take courses. So I was like, how do I get this concept or this idea to people? I think I should double-click on it and do it in a book. But honestly, I don't know if people will read a book on core values. Like, I think it could be like a tough read or why should I read this or otherwise. And I'm a huge fan of Bob Burg's work and Pat Lencioni's books, and I got connected to them about the process. I was like, you know, actually, this might be better to show it in a character and then play the lesson at the end. So I was like, I don't know if this'll work, but I'm gonna try it. My daughter sort of had challenged me to do something difficult because, you know, write a fiction book. 'Cause I'm always challenging them to do stuff that's outside their comfort zone. And so I spent like a year or two writing it and tweaking with it, and I was like, I kind of think I think it's, it, it's working and it, it, I was able to tell the story around this character, Jamie, who's going through this kind of crisis in his life around his big three, what I call the big three. So this is your chosen vocation or career, your partner, and your community. And the community is the one that we kind of forget about the most, I think. And I, my premise is if, if you don't make those decisions with core values alignment, they're just not gonna work. And they're probably three of the biggest decisions in your life. And so Jamie's struggling with this. He gets connected with this old wise mentor and the mentor helps him figure out his values by walking him through this. He has this program at his company and then at the end of the book, it basically walks you through the exact process and how you can do it for what I call actionable core values. So I just felt like it was a good conduit to then find a way to bring this work to more people and my You said sort of what's the success? So success for me now is over the next 5 years, can I help a million people figure out their core values? Like it's not a, it's not a financial metric. It's, it's, it's, it's an impact metric.

I love that. And you did talk about this in your prior book, but you know, in terms of your own personal journey, but maybe share for other people who haven't read that, why values are so important to you.

Yeah. Well, look at the world today. Like it's a little chaotic. We're incredibly tribal and this digital tribalism, and we, we, we end up joining this group and that group and we take positions that are incomprehensible and inconsistent cuz we're kind of pulled. And I, I, I just think we're very unmoored and I think we're missing these anchored values to say, no, I don't like this behavior in all cases. And I will do this in all cases. And it's hard in this kind of digital bandwagon, I'll call it era where it's just so it's so easy to jump on when, as I was saying to someone, when, when your boat's going in the same direction as the water, it then, then you don't get points for living your values because the water's going there anyway. And it's super easy. You get points when like you point it uphill and the water's running downhill because that's when it's hard and it almost always costs you something. But yeah, for me and in the context of leadership, I found this to be the ultimate unlock in leadership. I think if you're talking about Jim Collins' Level 5 Leadership, talking about authenticity, organic, we lead from our values, whether we realize it or not. So it's the difference between you are in control of the steering wheel or, you know, in the driver's ed car, someone else is driving it. 'Cause I think it drives you to do a lot of bad things and make bad choices because you can't articulate it. Like you're, you're, you're leading from these things. And, and I can give you, I'll give you an example in a second. And, and so there's a big difference if you can know what they are, say what they are, and, and make actions on them. And most values in my experience are coming from deep formative lifetime and childhood experiences where people are running towards something that was very important to them, or just often, or more than often than not, they are running directly away from something that was painful for them. Even if they're running away from that towards their passion and that it drove their passion. But it comes from a, I didn't feel heard as a kid and I felt not let in. And so my purpose is to make people feel heard. Heard, right? And as a leader, I need people to feel heard, and I am very frustrated as a leader when people don't hear. But if I don't have the words for that, then I'm yelling at someone and disproportionately losing it at them for a reason that I can't explain.

I think that's so important. Like, if you're just acting out of those values and they're unidentified, undistinguished inside of you, the point that you just made, you overreact when someone violates your value. You don't realize that in real time. You just know that you are kind of over— you don't actually know you're overreacting. The most natural thing in the world for you is to overreact. It feels like that.

Right. Because it's a threat. It's a— I'll give you a real-world example because this is an amalgamation of multiple people. I have seen, and we've done a lot of work with the WHY work, which derived from Simon Sinek. But so there's a WHY of relationships based on trust and there's core values of people who have relationships based on trust, right? Like trust is overarching thing for them. It's incredibly important. And you know these people, that's a value. If you say to them, hey, Alisa, like, if I violate your trust, does it matter to you what was done, or am I dead to you? And these people always answer like, you're dead to me. Like, there's just no equivocation. Now, I've been doing this enough that if you asked, I'd ask the person, if I said we were doing the exercise, I said, Alisa, you seem to have core values of trust. Let me ask you something. I'm not gonna ask you what it is. Is, but did you have a real violation of your trust in your life when you were younger? And normally there is a tear or an ashen face or otherwise. And again, we just don't have to go into that, but just understand that this is a real thing for you and this is pretty deep. So how does Alisa, the trust, uh, you know, core value show up in the workplace? Well, Alisa sorts people as a leader into people she can trust and not trust. That's how she leads. If you're 5 minutes late for a meeting, if you can't be found in the afternoon, if you miss a deadline, you are in the do not be trusted. And by the way, do not be trusted is a visceral, like, you are dangerous, right? This is dangerous. This is threatening to me. And, and, and so as a leader, they're, they're constantly, we've seen this cuz when we di— they're putting the HR people, like, they were like, oh, that's what's going on. They're like constantly, this person is a 5 or a 1. So these people are in the penalty box with the key thrown out and they don't know it. They're taking people that they trust and they're giving them way too much latitude. We had someone who trusted a contractor they work with who did a horrible job, and it's really difficult for the people around them because to not realize this is the orientation. Now, someone who knew this and realized this would go into two situations. They would go to their boss and say, hey, I just want you to know trust is really important to me. And so if I ever don't have your, I tend to overwork for it. If I ever don't have your trust, like I need to know because it's really important to me. I mean, you could like manipulate someone with trust as a core value if you know that that's their, like, you know, you just have to say you trust them and that's their sort of love language in the workplace. Similarly, on my team, I would be like, look guys, like, you know, trust is really important to me and here are the types of things that break that trust. And once it's broken, it's really hard to get back. So if you see me distant or otherwise, you should come and have a conversation with me about it. This is a difference between you driving the steering wheel and the steering wheel being driven By some, by someone else. And, and there's so many examples of that. We had another leader who, you know, and, and, and she had a real core value about self-awareness was really important to her. Why? She had a parent who had some mental health issues, couldn't read the room, always embarrassed her as a child. So when anyone on her team showed any lack of self-awareness, she was like on them, right? And, and she went back, figured out her whole core values and just read it out to their team. Like, here's the playbook for working with me. Here, this is what's important to me. These are my bright lines. Like that to me is the difference between knowing, you know, knowing that and letting it kind of drive you in a bad way.

Yeah. Like a personal operating manual. Like here are the dos and don'ts of working with me. And it's so important. It comes from values. It comes from also behavioral quirks. But it sounds like you are suggesting that like the moral compass, that inner compass is what is so substantial and foundational for people to know where they stand and how they lead.

Yeah, I've seen, look, I've seen 40-year-olds in an argument over a budget and I, we've done all this why work with our team and I've gotten to know people and I've been through these exercises with them and I know all their stories and vulnerability and they are going mad over a budget. And I know that this guy grew up poor and this person has a thing of all perspectives need to be included and he feels like she's wasting money and she feels like he's not listening and taking input from everyone. It has actually has nothing to do with the budget. Budget. Like there's deep values, things that they come from a leader. And in this case, those two are clashing. And you can clash with one or more with people, but you can't work with people where you have opposite two or three values. In fact, I was doing the work with one of our leaders as part of the sort of coaching, helping her figure out her core values. And she was like, my ex-husband is the opposite of three of these. And I was, my values. And like this, and I was like, yeah, Like, that's not gonna work. So that's not surprising to me. Right? She's like, I actually have the clarity now on why this didn't work because these things are so integral to me. And this on the relationship side, I know we jump back and forth, but on, on, on the sort of the leadership style, uh, side, on the relationship side, like I think people can, you can, you can be with someone, you can have a lot, they like tennis, you like biking. Like these are, these are activities and hobbies, you, but on On the big things, you need to be connected, right? I just, that's the stuff I think we confuse, like where, like the things that we need to have in common or the things that we don't from a, for a long-term partnership or relationship, kids, raising kids, like we talked before, you gotta be, you gotta be aligned on those big things.

Yeah, totally. You have, I mean, really the key then is to identify what they are and you have 6 behavioral questions to mine for the values theme. So can we sort of talk about your framework and talk about the 6 questions?

Sure. Let's, uh, okay. Let's dive into 'em. Okay. So yeah, go for it.

I, well, I was gonna say I haven't written here, but if you wanted, you throw 'em out, go for it. Yeah.

So, so, and, and if you go to, uh, if you go to robertglaser.com/six, you can, you don't have to take these notes. The questions are there with a video that'll walk you through how to do it. They're just right there. This is, this is the core of starting the, the process. So love it. Um, the, the, the, there's some simple ones, um, and, and, and some easier ones. So, So, the, the, what professional situations are you, were you highly engaged? So this could be like, describe it, like what was the job? What were you doing? You know, otherwise, I won't, I won't read all of 'em, but I'll read a few examples and you can, you can fill in the other one. What, and then some of them try to get to the inverse of the value because that to me is often the biggest indicator. As you said, when your value's violated, it feels horrible and really bad. Had. And that often is very clear. Like, why is this person frustrating me so much? I just went through it. We got off an email with someone, someone I worked with 2 weeks ago. He's like, that email just boiled my blood. And he had done his core values list. I was like, let's go through this. 'Cause that's, I don't see it in the core values you gave me. And he was totally missing a core value. And his, he has a core value of read the room. And when I said to him like, hey, where does this come from? He, he could very clearly understand some stuff earlier in his life where like people in his life couldn't read a room and it became sort of a thing for him. And this email just failed to read the room, like, and, and that's why it just, it, it kind of struck him viscerally. So what are the qualities of people that you struggle with the most? That's one of these inverse questions where you're trying to kind of figure out, you know, the, the opposite. There's in what situations, you know, were you disengaged and weren't doing your best work. And then there's, one of them is what would you want said about you in your eulogy? Because often again, those words, how do you want to be remembered? What's the impact you want to make? Those very much kind of line up into your core values. So you'll basically, you'll do these 6 questions. It gets you started off and they're in the book or you can just go grab 'em off the website at the URL I gave you. And then you start kind of sorting them into clusters and then there's kind of a process I work you through. We, we do not do one-word values. I don't believe that those, uh, well, to talk about the core validator, but I just don't think that they pass the test. Um, I've heard, actually heard 6 different definitions of integrity, believe it or not. Um, and, and counting. Yeah. And, and I think, yeah, particularly these days, I think they need to be worded in a ways that you can make decisions. Um, and, and so that you're clear that the opposite is something you don't want. And that you can objectively rate yourself on like how it's doing. So give us, give us an example.

Give us an example of a one-word value that's not good and a multi-word value that is good.

The same value. Yeah. So integrity, right? Again, like what does that mean? Versus it could be do what you say you're gonna do, right? Or do what you say or include all perspectives or tell the truth right now. I know, am I doing it? Am I not doing it? Like, am I clear? Like I really don't like people who don't tell the truth. Truth. In fact, this gets into like lesson 303, but eventually you need to rate your values in a hierarchy because the hardest decisions are when they go against each other. So we had someone on our team who was like basically like, tell people the truth and do no harm. Well, let's say you find out that your best friend's husband is cheating on them. Like, this is where you need to be really clear with your hierarchy. Is it more important that you do no harm, or is it more important that you tell them truth. And I think you need to be clear in your head about that. Those cause the most consternation when you have actually violations between your own values. And if you gave me someone's values, I could come up with a scenario that would put them in conflict, right?

Is there something— I don't want to put you on the spot, but is there something like in a work context where you can sort of think about the hierarchy is so important? An example?

In a work context? Yeah. Yeah. Like, for example, For me, core value of sort of long-term orientation and making things better is another one. Well, there's sometimes where those are like, do I want to make this thing better or I want to make everything better? And in fact, I've had to coach people on my team and tell them, you can push back at me because it's always new idea, new thing. And they're like, look, if you want me to make any progress in the last 6 ideas, you need to either tell me which one I'm not going to do or reprioritize these in some way. So yeah, I think all of yours can fall into, you know, in that, I think for me that is a thing sometimes where I have to be like, look, like if I try to make everything better, I won't make anything better.

Yeah, that's really helpful. I think it's so important for everyone to sort of think about how they clarify their values and these questions really get you there. And then you have a bonus childhood moment prompt. Let's talk about that. What's that?

Yeah, so—

You sort of already said it, but let's repeat it. Yeah.

If you, if, if I, as I said, most people are going towards or against something and your values, people say, can they change? Yeah, they can change later in life. People have a loved one die, they get cancer, like, like things change fundamentally. 80/20 rule. I found most of these are pretty hardcore baked in from earlier experiences in life that, that, that become driving for people. So if you're, if you're looking at it, think about if this is really important to you, why? Like, is it, can you find a thing where you were trying to do the same or you were trying to do the opposite? I did this exercise with someone recently who's grown up his entire life in a family business that carries a lot of baggage with it, and they finished the core values and everyone actually looked around the room, was like, yeah, these are totally you. It was like a forum type setting. And then he was like, geez, every one of these is an opposite. Every one of these is how do I, something about that was like that I don't want to do that or I get away with to that. But there's an important thing here, and this differentiates— I think I really believe in digging deep and looking back and looking at this stuff, looking at the report cards. The difference between, and like, what therapy tries to do— and, and I'm again not trying to, but, but there's a lot of these days of like, how do we go back and assign blame to that, right? This is totally different. How do we go back and just understand it and appreciate it and know that like our whatever self is showing up with that being important? Because a lot times, your passion is super tied to pain, right? So my shitty report cards and underachievement like became like a, a very important— I'm not, I don't, I don't go back and lament that and like, I, but I just have to realize it, right? So there's a, there's a story I kind of share. Imagine in the book, imagine a, a single mom who, who ha, you know, had a daughter grew up and this is, It's told in the book, and kid was in afterschool programs all the time and alone, and the mom worked 3 jobs. The kid was really smart, got into Harvard, and went and started an award-winning afterschool program for, for kids. Now, like, the fact that the kid was lonely is just their reality. Their mom did everything they could. They worked 3 jobs, they bled to death, put them through school, got them into Harvard. They went and did this great thing and helped all these kids because of this connection to something that was painful for them. So it's not necessarily a bad thing. It just, that's how we find the connection. I think we go back and look time, and I think our motivations tied towards things that were really important to us. And a lot of times it's tradition and carrying it on. And a lot of times it's some sort of anti-tradition. Yeah.

And I think it's so well said, and I can see how passionate you are, which I love. Like it's so well said that like, it's so worthwhile to understand your own operating system. People can work better with you. Yeah. You can understand your own like makeup. You can understand where it's coming from.

It's your own instruction manual. Yeah. Yeah.

It, it really is. And I think it's so important for people to do that values work. By the way, not for nothing, when you have clarified your values, you are much more likely to be able to kind of do well in your company, even if your company has not clarified its values. And even if your values don't, aren't, aren't the same, right? It's how you show up to your leader.

It's how you lead your team. Exactly. You're, you're going to be authentic. You're gonna be lead, like, like I said, you, any company can give leadership standards for how they want people to act. They can't tell them, Alisa, this is our type of leader you need to be. There's one type of leader. Like, that just doesn't work like that in the real world.

Right? So it's very powerful for its own sake. But now let's talk about the company's responsibility here too, because I wouldn't say responsibility, but like some companies do a great job articulating their values and some companies don't. And the companies that do, very often, if I may say so, it's kind of like, as the expression goes, on the walls but not in the halls, right? So if we then say—

Performative. Performative, right? It's all words.

And if in some of the worst cases, kind of weaponized, right? So like a lot of bad practices about values inside of companies and culture inside of companies. So what suggestions, and you talk about this in the book, how should a company discover? Because first of all, you make the distinction between not create, but discover their own values.

Yeah. You know, I've done this work with a bunch of companies. It actually, I always say there's a say-do gap. I mean, there are a couple different exercises. It's different. They're the same litmus test for values. The difference is an individual, you're figuring it out for Alisa or for Robert. With a company, you're figuring it, you're like, you are the person in the middle. And then there are these bubbles with your values. For a company, the people are on the periphery and you're figuring out the bubbles that hold you all together, right? So they are, they are sort of shared. And similarly though, they're not aspirational. But, but companies have, when I've done these audits at companies and their values, and this is only done by leaders who care and wanna do this work, you can't force a company to have culture when they don't wanna have it. There's some sort of say-do gap, right? The company's either saying something in its values that it's not doing, and people are, and, and that's on the leadership, like, you know, they have to do that. Or, or there's something being done that's material to the culture that they're not explicitly What are we really saying? Right? And that's often the gap we're trying to, to, to figure out. There are a couple processes for figuring out those values. Jim Collins has a Mission to Mars thing, but you're trying to—

so describe, describe the Mission to Mars.

Mission to Mars is, is where you kind of go off and you say, look, if I'm, if I look around the room and I'm gonna go on Mars and, and I have to, you know, hire people and I'm not gonna be there, like, what are the shared characteristics or what are the things that I would, for, for me, company values are how do you want people to behave? Their characteristics or behavior of the people of, you wanna be people who fundamentally believe in what, again, telling the truth, owning it, always finding a better idea, going the extra mile, whatever it is. They're not table-stakey things like integrity and honesty, cuz the, the, the point of differentiation, like what do you do differently? In theory, no company would wanna hire someone who's not honest, right? So that doesn't get you anything different. So, you know, our core values at AP were own it, embrace relationships, and excel and improve. So fundamentally, people who are inherently accountable, who, who like relationships, lead through people. You can tell the difference between someone who leads through data and leads through people, and they're about excelling and improving. So that's where this notion— I figured out the behavioral-based questions work because we would interview behavioral-based questions. Tell me, Hey, you know, Alisa, tell me about the time for excel and improve. What's the last book you've read, course you've done, program you've done, something you've done to get better at something, right? And if Alisa's crickets on that and can't come up with anything in the last 5 years, she's not really our definition of excel and improve. Like almost everyone in our company, we do this personal core value work, had some personal core value of learning or better or improvement. Like our, we did it right. We attracted added someone who had the same core elements to our environment. By the way, some people like static and consistent and reliable, like, but, but the company that values reliability is very different culture than the company that values growth and innovation. It is not wrong. Both can be great places to work, but they're different and they need different people.

It's so important to say that. It's like, not like, oh, those are bad values, reliability or consistency. It's just that when you talk about the hierarchy of those are not your values, right? Your values in terms of the hierarchy are like people who want to learn and grow. And it's 'cause of the business we're in, right?

You don't hire a digital marketing agency who's on the forefront of stuff to be reliable, right? Yes, they want us to be reliable, but that's kind of a table stake, right? That is not the work. If you say, what kind of work do we want? They don't, we don't wanna rely, but we want, we want innovation, cutting edge, like what's the newest thing? Not reliable. Reliable, right? Right.

It's not going to be the measure of the person's worth.

They want the people to be reliable, but that's not the type of work they want. Right.

Totally. So the mission to Mars is very interesting. Are there other tools? I'll just say that Rul Vohra, who was on my podcast, the founder of Superhuman, he talked about a process they did inside of their company, which was really, really identified like, who are the people who are really excelling here and who are the people who do not excel here? Like maybe are we parted ways or like, you know, quietly they're not excelling.

Yeah, I have a similar process that I do in the projects on this. I call it, it's like DNA extraction. So we'll interview 20 people from the company. We will ask them 5 or 6 behavioral-based questions, same questions in a different way. That's what a good assessment does. It's designed to get this out. Like, who do you love here and why do you love them? And I always say, I can see everyone when I ask this question go in their head. I'm like, the person that was a disaster and you fired and didn't work out, I don't wanna know their name, but what about them? Like, what, Like, oh, they were disrespectful. They just were a lone wolf and didn't do anything with others. They were condescending. Like what? Like, and, and you start aggregating that. I mean, the whole joke is that when Enron went under and the whole thing, their core values were integrity, honesty, and respect, right? As Patty, when really what Netflix valued and the behaviors it was rewarding, we're all just like dogs and babies. And I'm training this puppy, you know, it, it, you reward, you, you, you, you do the things that are rewarded and you don't do the things that you're scolded for. Spit it. At Netflix, the real value was take huge risks, stab each other in the back. Like these were what was rewarded by the culture, taking outside risks, being aggressive. So you're talking about Enron, right?

Enron.

Yeah. I'm, I'm switching back. You said Netflix. Yeah. Sorry. Enron. Yeah.

Netflix was the culture deck. Not Netflix. No, not Netflix.

Not Netflix. But Enron. Enron. At the time Enron went under, their stated core values in their culture deck, which Patty McCord put together from Netflix, said that that they, they were integrity, respect. They were just not actually things. So all companies have these values if they're not stated, it's whatever you're rewarding, right? Like that at the end of the day.

That is so, I think that just about Enron, that's so important because like actually we're never gonna write on the walls, stab each other in the back, take massive risk. Yeah. But that was actually what they were doing, right? Right. It's such a good point.

Talk about it. You gotta, that's how you got ahead there.

Right, right. Talk about Netflix and the culture deck because you talk about that a little bit it too.

Yeah, I think like Netflix was great in that again, they said things that not everyone would say. They would say things and they didn't really call them values. I forget what they called them, but they had one that was like, you know, average work with superior results will be met with a promotion and a bonus. Superior level of works with average results will be met with a thank you and a Severance, you know, and they just said things that like not all companies would say and you could self-select into, oh, these are my kind of people or these aren't my kind of people. Yeah, that's a good point.

Actually reminds me of Amazon who like Jeff Bezos famously said, speed, what is it? Speed, quality, and price. You can't pick two here.

You can only have two. You can't have a— well, there's a— no, no, Jeff Bezos' point was you can't pick two. Right. He stole the contracting thing. That comes from originally from contractors, like on your house, speed, quality, and price. You can only have 2 out of the 3. That was the original thing. And so he must have, he modified that. That's funny.

And the point is that he was like, we don't like, just to your point about like, you know, above average, like we do all those things, right? So we find the way to do all those things. I just think it's important to be opinionated. And I think that's really what you're talking about in terms of the words. Now in your book, you talk about some really quite actually shockingly beautiful rituals. I don't know if you based them on a true story or you just made them up. Like, I love this, the people pin note cards on the wall near the core values. What other ritual, like, first of all, where did that come from? And second of all, what other like rituals do you suggest for companies to really help them hone and reinforce this values focus?

Yeah, that, that was sort of an amalgamation of some companies that have great— so all the companies I know that have great core values, it's about the operationalization of them, right? So I have a friend, actually one of the stories did come from a real friend where there's a baton and it's given in a big ceremony to the next winner and they get a painted parking space in front of the company and they are celebrated as the, the company name hero for the next month. And, and so like, like that, those are the behaviors they want people to have because look at how agile it is. It is, and people that have shoutouts and callouts. And we have core value awards at our company where people are nominated and it's an end-of-year kind of Emmy Award thing. We just had it all in person. And these are people being, you know, nominated by their peers for being shining stars of these core values. If you hear it in reviews, if you hear it in, you know, we are doing a layoff today, but we're reminding you that respect comes first at our company, like as a core value. These are just, it, it, On the wall doesn't matter. It's, are they in the interviews? Are they in the reward systems? Are they in the recognition systems? Do you hear it around important decision-making? Do you hear people using the terms of those values? One of the famous examples was when Johnson Johnson did the Tylenol recall, you know, the famous cyanide where they decided to take it all off the shelves. Their press release justifying their decision to do that started with the company's credo from like 200 years before that that said our primary obligation is to da da da da da. Like that's believing in what you say.

Yeah, and just to say about J&J, our primary responsibility is to, I think it's the mothers and fathers and children who use our products.

Exactly.

And that's why they decided to take it off the shelves. It's like a very famous and beautiful story about the way they did use values to make a hard decision in a financially disadvantageous decision.

By the way, you just one-upped me. You knew the actual phrase. That's great. Yeah, that is exactly— that's what they opened the press release with about it. Yeah.

Now, Bob, you know, people are going to read the book. I know that. And I love that you made it kind of like fable. So like it's kind of an interesting read and a fun read. But like, if you want, if you could put this on like on a billboard, I don't mean a short billboard, like what is the thing that you want people to take away from book?

I want to take away that they're gonna make better decisions with their values. And the sooner that they figure those out, the better, because there's probably a lot of decisions ongoing. And look, the book can take you through the framework, the course that if you buy the book before it comes out, you get the course for free. It's on, it's on the website. We'll walk you through all of that. But if you just want to start and you're curious, you go to robertglaser.com/6, that'll have the 6 questions. It's got a video. If you just take 30 or 40 minutes and, and the book has the same extra and, and answer those questions, you'll start to see some really interesting things that are like, someone I know just did it. She, she got an advanced copy and she was posting her pieces of paper on LinkedIn and sharing it. And she was like, there, I just had a whole bunch of interesting revelations looking at this all together. Like I, it's starting to be really clear to me like what's, what's important to me. And look, if you're never going to make a decision in the rest of your life, then don't worry, don't read the book. It's not important at all. But if you're particularly feeling unmoored right now and pulled in a lot of directions and figuring out what you want to do, you'll rarely make a bad decision if you can make it in service of one or more of these values. If you're facing, whether it's a job or a move or a partnership decision or otherwise. So I just want people to start down that path. So just answer those 6 questions and see if you're then curious to keep going with it.

I love it.

Say again where they can, is it SIX, S-I-X, or the number 6? Robertglaser.com/six, and you can get the 6 questions. S-I-X or the number 6? S-I-X, yep.

S-I-X, okay, great. So before I let you go, my last 2 questions for you, 'cause I always ask Bob, what do you wish you had known earlier on your journey? Wow.

It would be too easy to say my values. So I'm going to skip that for this one. Um, what I wish I would know earlier that I think like, again, what other people think doesn't really matter. I think we are so out-influenced by other people's whether it's opinions or perceptions or beliefs about what is important for us. So I think if I had just worried about what I wanted earlier and what I wanted to do, then I think that would be— I would've been better off. With that said, if I had understood my values, I think that would've been easier. I think the other thing is that, and we kind of touched on this, There are a lot of difficult decisions and conversations that have to happen in life, and I have never found that putting those off makes it easier. It makes it easier for the 5 minutes you don't have it, but inevitably it goes on and on and then it's a bigger blowup. And if you've been in a relationship, my example is always when the person starts telling you that you've been doing this for a month and 2 months and the example from 9 months ago Like, 'cause inevitably they, then you're like, what? Like, what do you mean? It just doesn't go very well. I don't know. I, I, there was some quote, I don't know whether it was Tim Ferriss or someone, he said something about success is correlated to the amount of difficult conversations you have or, or, or something like that.

Tim definitely said that.

I really do believe that. I didn't know whether he said it or one of his guests said it, but I, but I, I, I don't know if he quoted it, but he definitely said it. I, I, I have found that to be pretty true in myself. My son actually, as I was telling you, he had to have a bunch of these conversations and I was just like, just have 'em. Just have 'em. Just get 'em. He slept so much better after he had 'em.

Yeah. You know, I had to have a difficult conversation recently and I was putting it off, putting it off, and then it got moved. It got moved. And to pep, to give myself the pep talk to actually have the conversation, I told myself the same thing. Like, your life is better as a direct proportion of the difficult conversations you're willing to have. Yeah.

And they generally go better. Than you think they're gonna go. Always go better than you think. But even if they don't, it's a little like the final exam in college. After I took the final exam, people like, how? I'm like, I don't know if I failed. It's over. Like the weight of it, it's just so true. Like now it's gone. It's taken, like waiting, waiting for the grade is not as stressful as waiting for the exam. So true.

It's so true. Bob, last question. What advice do you have for other founders as they embark on their journeys to grow into leaders?

Yeah, I, I look, I, the biggest help for me has been mentors and masterminds. So mastermind, find group of people who are on the same journey as you where you can collectively help each other have the honest and vulnerable conversations. I feel like having been in those groups for years, it, it's like group therapy in some way. And then people you can have those vulnerable conversations with and talk about what's going on in your work and life and otherwise. And you're there to help each other and propel each other forward. And I, the amount of things that have come out of those groups, whether it was EO or YPO or other, other ones has been amazing. Similarly, like from mentorship, I, I got a lot of value of trying to find people on the road ahead who were one or two turns around the bend of where I was trying to go. And they'd just be like, this is what's gonna happen when you turn that corner and there's where the pothole's gonna be. And, and you know, it was super helpful. And it's funny now as I, I've been asked, you know, the reverse. Like, that's who I'm really helpful to. And I remember telling him, well, when you hit 70 employees, this is what's going to happen. He's like, yeah, totally. Like, that was like, it just, I've seen this movie, you know, before. So that sort of shifts also, you get into the strength to strength, the sort of wisdom component. So that's where I try to like, I try to keep a couple people on the road ahead and work with a couple people who are a couple turns behind. And I never try to, I mean, I try to figure things out on my own, but I really try to not, I, I'd like to learn from other people's mistakes, not my own, ideally. Although I, I have plenty of my own mistakes to learn from too.

I love it. The book is called The Compass Within. Go to robertglaser.com/6 to get the download, the 6 questions, and also preorder the book 'cause you get the course for free. So that sounds amazing. Thanks for joining me today, Bob.

It was great to have you. Thanks, Alisa.

Thanks for listening to From Startup to Grown Up. If you like what you heard, give it a review on Apple Podcasts so other people can find it. And if you know of a founder or someone else who is meant to be on this podcast, drop me a line through my website, alisacohn.com.