Turn Your Career Setback Into A Growth Experience — Doug Lennick

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Thank you, Bill. It's great to be here. And it's a great topic, actually. Obviously, we've all had setbacks and. Or if we haven't, then we haven't tried much yet.

Yeah, no, look, let's frame that topic a little bit more, right? Like a setback is anything. It's when. It's when life throws you a curveball, right? Like, there you are, and suddenly you or someone you care about has a diagnosis of a health condition. There you are, and there's a storm and your business or factory is underwater or impacted by that. There you are, and. And a key customer is impacted and your business is threatened, right? There's a crime, there's a whatever, or world events, right? Ukraine was invaded brutally and. And rapidly. Israel was attacked viciously just this last week. These things throw us right, and. And can throw us off our game, but how we respond makes all the difference.

That. That's absolutely. That's absolutely the truth. And what you just basically said is you captured the essence of it all, which is.

All right, well, let's wrap, then we're done.

We can wrap it up and just say, he got it. I mean, because it's the notion of what happens in life, let's call them obstacles. Obstacles happen. Life happens. And it comes fully equipped with surprises and things we didn't expect. And a lot of people find that obstacles are in the way and they stop them. But for the person that actually makes it to where they'd like to go, they don't view obstacles quite so much as in the way as they do on the way. So, you know, and I look at my own career and tell that long.

Story, because the simple. The concept of our show, our topic today, is really, really simple right at its core. But it's complicated, nuanced, and I think your life story and the story of some of the people you work with is useful. So let's start with you. Tell us about your career. You're starting to tell us as we were.

Right now, for example, I'm sitting in downtown Minneapolis at the corner of 7th street and Marquette Avenue, right? Downtown Minneapolis, the heart of downtown Minneapolis. I'm on the skyway level in what we affectionately refer to as world headquarters, two blocks down the street on 7th Street. Across the street on the skyway level is a new building. But 50 years ago, I had a business there that was called Minneapolis Circulation. At that same time, I was starting my career as an IDS financial advisor on the 44th floor of the tallest building in the state, which is right next door. And I look down and interestingly enough, just that business, when you talked about setbacks and you said you could even tell your own I hadn't even thought about was both a wonderful thing and a setback all at the same time. And it was an interesting thing with that business. So, Minneapolis circulation. I was an entrepreneurial hippie. Keep in mind I'm 71 years old and so that's a while ago. So I'm 21 years old and I wore my hair long. I used to have hair, now I don't. And my grandson points that out. You know, grandpa, you don't have any hair. I know. But anyway, this business, we owned the circulation rights to what became Minneapolis St. Paul magazine. And we did that because I had done spent time working on the telephone selling books for Time Life Books. And I rose my way up into while I'm going to college trying to be an accountant. I failed out of the. I didn't fail. I dropped out of the accounting school. The business that I started collapsed because I wasn't prepared for the truth. And the truth was there's going to be some uncertainty. I remember how excited I was every day, 21 year old guy doing a little dance at the post office. Because the post office, the box was stuffed with envelopes with checks. And I'm thinking, I've made it. Well, I made it and I blasted and I lost it. And we made it again and again and those things happen. So you have setbacks and yeah, you.

Know, that's a really useful thing. Think about it. Like I, you know, I'm just a little bit younger than you at 59, but I. And I'm starting to lose my hair, I'm sure.

Well, here, Bill, I'll give you, here's explain it this way. Just say you're getting taller, that you're growing through your hair. Your hair's still in there. Yeah.

Hopefully I get more wise as I lose the hair. But you get a new client, you get a new opportunity, you launch a new program. People show up and you're like, yeah, this is going to last forever. This is going to be great, right? But then things change and things change faster and faster than ever before, right? You're cruising along, you're happy as can be, and then boom, something happens, right?

And it happens from anywhere. And business people get to understand, you know, the concept. Birds don't eat birds, cats eat birds. We think that our competition are the other birds. They're not. The competition's the cat. You don't know who the cat is. And that's what's so fun about business today. You don't know where it's all coming from. And the winners are the people who know how to handle whatever happens. So the premium isn't on knowing what will happen because no one does. The premium is learning how to deal with it and then not waiting for somebody else. And so I love the book don't wait for somebody else.

What happened to your. To the publishing company? What was the publishing company?

How'd you navigate that in that particular deal? What happened is we had arranged the financials really well. I mean, I must say that I was in business with two partners. And the three of us together, all young guys, did a really masterful job of putting together what was a really good business proposition. But the publisher decided to try to work around us. Once he figured out what we were doing and why it was working for us and for him, he tried to cut us out. And when he cut us out, so.

Good for people to think about, right? There are these moments, and you, you're like, oh, we're doing 20% or better net profit. Like, okay, somebody's going to figure it out and start to compete with you soon.

Well, it was. It was a publisher. See, like, we literally owned the circulation rights. So when somebody wrote out a, you know, paid it. Their subscription, they. They paid for. They wrote the checkout to my company. Our company. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we gave a little bit of that to the publisher. But what we really gave the publisher was a paid subscriber so that he could make money advertising. So I understood, you know, I wasn't that dumb. We, you know, I got it. I had worked for Time Life Books. I get it. You make money on advertising. And advertisers like to know that subscribers are paying. So he tried to cut us out. He successfully starved us out, by the way. He cut us out, and we were not ready for that.

Yeah.

But we reincarnated that business in the form of a company called Twin City Telemarketing. And so we built beyond that. We went to other magazines, and guess what? We made those work. So it's a long and interesting story. All the while, I'm building my financial advisory career that later resulted in me being and Chuck. That's where Chuck and I, my co author, we ultimately met. We were both executives at American Express Financial Advisors. I started when it was IDS right across the street, the IDS Center. So here I am 50 years later, two blocks down the street, nothing's changed and everything's changed. And the thing that hasn't changed is emotions still happen. I still have to deal with them. And those who learn how to do that win.

Yeah. Let's tell some other stories then. So you went through some phases of that growth. You went from selling your own subscription, working with a publisher, to running a telemarketing operation, selling for other magazines. And you moved into financial advisory and then IDS that became the American Express Financial. Right, Yeah, I got that. Are to that.

It's now Amer Price. It's now Amer Prize. Is the name of the company today. Ameriprice Financial or Amer Price.

One of the people that you worked with and wrote about is Trish Mole. Trish Mole. Trish Moll. Tell us about Trish.

Trish is, you know, interestingly, she's an extraordinary leader. And one of the things that I can start with is Tricia is one of those people that starts with the right intent. Some people get into leadership roles because they didn't like the role they were in. They thought, maybe I'll become the boss and maybe I'll get better. She actually wanted to lead because she wanted to help people be the best they could be. She's that kind of person. And I think in her career, she was experiencing opportunity. She was doing really well. She was a finalist for career advancement a couple of different times, Got very close, got passed by, but hung in there. And executives in the firm, executives that I don't work there anymore, haven't for 21 years, while I did sort of kind of halftime, sort of quarter, kind of. But they, they. They kept calling her, they reached out, they reinforced her. She has continued to get promoted. I think she's been promoted since we wrote the book again. And so she's done a phenomenal job. So I was really. It's interesting that you picked that story, but. But Trish Mall didn't wait for somebody else to fix the fact that she had it within her to help the people that she served as their leader, help them get better and what leaders do.

What was she doing before and what was her setback? I'm not sure I followed it.

It was less a setback than it was. The setback was not getting the job. It was kind of, you know, many of us have had that. She was so well prepared and just missed getting opportunities a couple of times. So dealing with that and staying the course and still believing I'm going to keep doing the right Thing anyway, I'm not going to moan, I'm not going to groan. I'm going to keep playing the game the way it needs to be played, the right way to play it, because it's the right thing. You know, interestingly, Bill, we just did this. I just released it literally last week. We talked at our Evolve Conference. Think to perform for the last year, we redid our online values exercise. People can go there for free. They can do the values exercise we captured from 146 nations from around the world. There are 195 countries in the world. We captured the values. Roughly 90,000 people have completed the exercise. The top values in the world we just are releasing. This is the first podcast I'm having a chance to share this, but we're releasing this information right now. And here's what I will say. And this relates directly to Trish Ma and why she is so successful and the impact that she has. Even though she didn't get everything that she wanted when she wanted it, she stayed doing things the right way. So here's what we came to realize. The values of the world. Turns out the values all over the world fall into about four buckets. People value people. Bucket one, people value making a difference. Bucket two, people value making a difference, doing it the right way. Bucket three, people value being rewarded for making a difference, doing it the right way. Now what's interesting is the reward which they value and they get is the right way with integrity, honestly.

Making a.

Difference, helping others, making that impact. Those are the things people literally pick those words and they get rewarded with happiness. The third highest value in the world is happiness. Number one in the world is family. Number two in the world is health. The reward for people who do it the right way is they are healthier, they are happier. Now, by the way, money and wealth make the top 20, but they're in the bottom quartile of the top 20. And what's interesting is the nations outside the United States that have been most useful using the tool. A couple surprised me, like Indonesia and India of top five outside of the us India, Indonesia, not surprisingly, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. And then of course the US but everybody all over the world, what words do they pick? Family number one. Health number two. Happiness number three. All over the world, some people are listening to this. No, not there. Not there. Oh no. Turns out people all over. And that's what I find so fascinating. And what Chuck and I are saying, and don't wait for someone else to fix it, is we all can see the problems that exist in the world and people are pointing fingers. They got one that points to the problem. You know, I see that and then one. And I blame that. I blame you for that problem and I want you to fix it. And what we're saying is, hey, if we see something, let's fix it. You know, I work. My community that I live and pay residential taxes in is Edina. But I work and live in Minneapolis. I was at a Minneapolis park the other day and I was just picking up stuff and throwing it away. And somebody said, what are you doing? And I said, there's this trash here. And they said, why are you picking it up? And I said, because it doesn't look good. It's trash. And they said, well, there's a park worker that'll do that. I said, I get it, but they're not here. I am, and I'm going to throw it away. I'm sorry if that bothers you, but a lot of people won't even stop to help somebody because it's not their job.

Well, come on. See, I think when I hear that, I think what's uncomfortable for them.

Yes.

Is watching you do it and feeling like, why am I not doing it? And it'd be better if you stopped so that we could get in an agreement that the reality is the norm is that we just let things be for somebody else.

Yeah, exactly. We do. You know, so I think the, the opportunity that we have is enormous. But the truth is there will be obstacles. And Trish Maul dealt with setback, career advancements that didn't come her way in the manner in which she expected them to. Giving up a very lucrative business, taking in essence, a reduction in compensation, betting on her long term leadership career. So she made a long term bet on herself, overcame some setbacks because I made the bet and then it didn't work. And it's like, did I do the wrong thing? No.

So what did she actually do to deal with that? What were the measures, the moves that she did after not getting promoted?

She got focused on her own values. So one of the things that she did, there's a tool that she uses and that we teach a lot of people. It's called the four R's. It's first of all, you kind of recognize. The first R is recognize what's going on. So she recognized what was going on. And that recognition includes recognizing what's going on with me. Trish Mohl, how am I feeling? What am I thinking? What am I doing? Recognize that, recognize what's stimulating me to feel like that, recognize what's happening. And she did that. So she understood the conflicting emotions that she had. Then she went to the second R, which is to reflect. She reflected on her own values. And here's what happens. All of your listeners, all of your viewers, anybody who takes the time to reflect on their most deeply held values before making a decision of any kind, a significant decision, will make a better decision. She reflected on her values. She reflected on the big picture. Her whole story zooming in that little picture didn't look good, but the big picture still did. So she could reflect on that. She could see the big picture. And the calls that she got from people reinforced that. So she thought, okay, maybe I didn't make the wrong decision betting on myself. So then she could move to reframing, which is she just decided to change what she was thinking. All of the negative thoughts that I'm sure she spent a moment with, she decided weren't doing that much for her, and she just decided to reframe. And framing is how I think about something. And a lot of times the reasons things aren't working for me is because the way I frame things, I frame them in a way that I sabotage myself, while if I could reframe, I could turn that into my advantage, which she did. And then the fourth frame is respond. She responded by continuing to be a strong performer and oddly enough, getting better. She got better. She didn't go in the corner, whimper, you know, and again, I'm, I'm sorry, Trish, if you see this, but I know Trish, and she handled herself professionally, you know, and one says, well, yeah, you know, but professionally meant she aligned her behavior with her values. And Trish Moll ideally is a wonderful person, just like Bill Gallagher is, just like Doug Lennox is. That's why the first essential is aim to be your ideal self. If you're your ideal self, Bill, the world's going to be a better place. And you and I are just getting to know each other. But I'm pretty sure that's true already.

You share some other examples. We're going to talk about those in just a second. Before we do, I just want to remind our listeners that we have this new Growth Navigator program. And I want to tell you a little bit about that program before we move on to the some of the other examples from the book. So Growth Navigator is a weekly growth coaching program in the tools of scaling up, plus some other things from Gallup and from other organizations that help companies grow in scale we deal with your people, your strategy, the execution, the operations and your cash, your business model and your, your production of cash. We do it every week. So there's a little something every Wednesday that you do. Some coaching class, some exercise for you and your leadership team and then we lead you through quarterly plan planning, annual strategy sessions. It's mostly done online, but there's a couple of in person things. Every year in January and July we've got a big in person. So we mix online, offline, in person online and we give you something every week. If your company is ready to grow. You might check out the Growth navigator program@scalingcoach.com so you can also send us an email info scalingcoach.com or, or just go to the website and then click on the Growth Navigator. So that's Growth Navigator from Scaling Coach. You talk about some famous examples and one that stood out for me I think is really useful because a lot of our audience, I mean some of our older members of the audience were born in the 70s, but many were in the 80s and 90s and they don't really know or remember Jimmy Carter. But Jimmy Carter, one of our former presidents, suffered a setback. And so tell us that story about Jimmy Carter that you talk about because most folks didn't grow up knowing him.

Well, Jimmy Carter actually. And I don't, I'm trying to remember the story we tell in this one on Jimmy. There's several stories at the time because as I was growing up, keep in mind, Jimmy Carter became president in the late 70s. So for our viewers and listeners, there's this chain. So you have the infamous Richard Nixon who leaves office in shambles, let's say Gerald Ford replaces Nixon and ultimately Gerald Ford loses his reelection bid to Jimmy Carter. And we have double digit inflation and all of those kinds of things. And Jimmy professionally, politically had the major setback associated. And I'm not sure if this is the one we tell, but he had a setback in his political career given some of the activities that happened during his presidency. And he was much maligned and subsequent to that, he made the decision and he and his wife Rosalind continued to make decisions aligned with their values. He always was well intended. Some of the mishaps that took place under his administration he took responsibility for. But he didn't shrivel up and die either. He was told to shrivel up and die, but by a lot of people. And ultimately then came Ronald Reagan and on we go and so forth. But the recovery to, in my mind, the biggest recovery that Jimmy Carter made was after his presidency he recovered in that. He became world famous for truly being a person of conviction, recognizing that there is a growing global population and the world needs to work for all of them. And people began to buy that, the.

Paint a little, add a little more picture there to fill in for the listeners. Jimmy Carter comes to the presidency following the heels of, of Nixon's collapse and failure in disgrace from office taken over by Gerald Ford and, and Jimmy Carter campaigns on a, I would say in retrospect, a theme of decency, like, you know, I'm going to be a good guy, you can trust me, like that kind of thing. He comes into office and the economy takes a nosedive. We've got inflation stagflation, things aren't great. We did, we did get disco.

Yeah, yeah, we got the Bee Gees. We got the Bee Gees. Yeah.

A lot of good things. But, but there we are in the 70s and then we have the Iran Hostage crisis. So Iran falls in a revolution to the Ayatollah Khomeini and they take hostages from the American Embassy. And the nation is gripped in a feeling of failure and powerlessness. And Ronald Reagan comes in and says, look, we could be tough, we could be strong. And he projects a gentlemanly but strong kind of thing. There's maybe some back channel stuff around solving that. And Jimmy Carter, he loses badly to Ronald Reagan who promises to make America awesome and to restore us to what made us beautiful and noble. And he came in and not only did the hostages get released pretty quickly. Oh, and he is. Carter's campaign failed. There was also a failed rescue attempt, a very complex hostage rescue operation. So, you know, brutal setback the guy goes through and, and, and just doesn't seem to get it right. Seems to be coming at it with all the best intentions and yet he's not effective. And yet now today, his post presidency career is regarded as one of the most exemplary in history. He spent being, being a phenomenal human being. Right. Turning that around. And you say he went back to his valley. I think he probably never escaped his life.

Yeah. But I, I, yeah, if I said it that way, I, I withdraw that. He never left his, he returned and you know, and I was a person of reasonable age in my own professional career.

Yeah.

And growing myself as a, my own family. I mean I saw all of this and ultimately, you know, I, because of my role at American Express, Gerald Ford was on our board of directors. So I, I met Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger was on the board. I'll never Forget I was at a board meeting, I was trying to buy a company and Gerald Ford was there. Kissinger falls asleep in the meeting. And.

It'S remarkable. Human world leaders can be right. They're basic human failings.

Jordan was being called out to face the press, you know, because of the Monica Lewinsky thing. This is all happening and it's kind of like, wow, you know, but these are good people.

Ford was probably a little bit more decent leader than, but he was unfortunately still associated with, with Nixon and he pardoned Nixon, which, you know, maybe seemed right for him in terms of healing but didn't help in terms of feeling like there needed to be some consequences for a betrayal of trust. And of course, we've taken all the new lows these days. We won't get into that.

Yeah. And the thing, Bill, that remains always the same is the most effective leaders in our communities live in alignment with their closely held values. The most effective leaders live in alignment with what matters to them most.

If you think about the failure of leaders, right, like the ones that get into trouble, it's when they're saying something on the outside and, and then living entirely differently. They're not staying consistent with it, they're compromising on it. They're justifying and pretending to be something that they're not. Right. And no room for their humanity.

Correct. So, so here's what we suggest. It's very straightforward, you know, and really, truly, if people get in touch with their ideal selves, aim to be your ideal self. Go to our website, it's free. Thinktoperform.com we'll throw it up there. Thinktoperform.com yeah, you go there and within 15 minutes you can go through this electronic card game and you'll sort out your values, whatever they are.

That's so fun. Think to perform.com Doug Lenick, our guest. Thank you, Doug for joining us today.

Thank you for having me.

Big thanks to Wanda Mitchell for getting our show ready and helping us not to miss a beat every week. To my friend and mentor, Vern Harnish, author and creator of Scaling up and the Rockefeller Habits that came before it. To the folks at Podfly Production who get our show out every week. Thanks again to our listeners, our viewers. Thanks for watching, for being with us. We'll talk to you again next time. Until then, keep scaling. Sam, Are you ready to turn your goals into daily wins? You should check out our scoreboard software. Powered by alignment, it's the official software for scaling up with scoreboard. You'll get an AI driven coach for priorities and KPIs and it'll help keep your team focused on what matters most. With Align, you can track your goals in real time and you'll even see results on the go. With their mobile app, you can rest easy knowing that Align has world class onboarding and support to set your team up for success. This is really more than just software, it's what I actually use to manage growth in our scaling up client teams. Unlock clarity and results with Scoreboard by Aligned. To try it now, go to aligntoday.com Bill G One more time. Aligntoday.com Bill G that's aligntoday.com Bill G Check it out and try it now.