In this solo episode of the No Days Off podcast, host Brian Gubernick recounts a recent hunting expedition in remote Alaska with three friends and a professional guide. While the trip was meant to be a hunting adventure, Brian uses his experience as a client in a subordinate role to observe the guide’s leadership shortcomings. He identifies four specific leadership failures—lack of a clear, communicated plan; poor body language and low confidence; walking far ahead of the group, leaving the team unsupported and unsafe; and repeatedly speaking negatively about his own boss. From these observations, Brian distills four actionable leadership lessons for listeners: (1) always have and regularly communicate a clear vision or plan to inspire confidence; (2) project confidence through body language, tone, and energy; (3) lead alongside your team, never abandoning or endangering them; and (4) avoid disparaging other leaders, as it reflects poorly on your character. He frames each lesson with reflective questions for the audience, urging them to assess their own behavior in business, family, or any leadership context and make immediate improvements. The episode ends with a motivational call to treat each day as an opportunity to get better.
Chapters
Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Last week, or just, just more than a week, about a week and a half ago, I left to Alaska to go on a hunting trip with, with a few of my close friends and business associates. And we were out in the middle of Alaska, out in the middle of nowhere, really. Literally got dropped off by a float plane, a plane that lands on a body of water, in this case a lake. We jump out of the plane and set up camp. And there we are for 6, 7 days working out of a tent or operating out of a tent with very, very little connection to the rest of the world outside of a satellite phone. And while out there, uh, I, I think I learned an awful lot, and I wanted to share some of the lessons specifically around leadership that, that I learned on this trip. And it had to do with the perspective or the angle, the role that I was playing on this particular trip. So the 4 of us, you know, myself plus 3 others we found ourselves out with a guide, a hunting guide. And a hunting guide, for those that don't know, what's the job of the guide? The guide's job, primary job, is really to assist clients like us in successfully executing a hunting trip. So their job is to provide expert knowledge of, of the area that you're hunting. It's, it's to provide knowledge around the wildlife and different techniques or strategies for accomplishing the mission. It's also the guide's job to make sure that we're safe, it's legal, we're successful in what we're trying to achieve. Specific responsibilities are things like scouting, right? Like identifying where the best areas are for us to, to head out to based on migration patterns or based on habitat. It's also to plan and manage the logistics, right? The trip details and, and things like permits and licenses. Safety, of course, comes up. Tracking and guiding, like figuring out where we're going every day and every hour, really, and advising on the best technique for, again, accomplishing the mission. And then lastly, uh, taking care of things once we execute in what we're trying to do, which We're hunting, right? So the guide has a pretty big responsibility. In summary, the guide's job is to lead his clients. So I'm playing the role of client. And my objective is obviously go achieve, you know, what we were out there to achieve. But I was subordinate, right? Like I was following the lead of somebody else. And, and it's not often that I find myself in that role. Don't get me wrong. I am led by others from time to time, uh, but I've never been in such a subordinate role for such a period of time. It's been a long time since I've had that, to where I truly don't know a lot about what's going on and I'm relying on somebody else to lead me. And I don't want this to turn negative, but having had some leadership experience and always trying to observe and learn from the different things that I'm involved in I got a chance to kind of watch this guy, our guide, in action. And as much as I would love to tell you all the great things that he did, uh, unfortunately he was not all that great. Instead, there were things I can learn from, or things that I, that I saw him do that I had to reflect on and ask myself, do I do these things from time to time? For 4 things specifically that I learned around leadership based on the actions of this individual and frankly, his less than stellar performance. Number 1, I didn't know if he ever had a plan. I genuinely did not know if he had a plan for how we were gonna execute the mission. Maybe he had a plan and it was a really poor one, or maybe he had no plan at all. We genuinely didn't know. Where's the breakdown there? He failed to share and communicate effectively his vision. Not only did he not share that vision, he didn't repeat it and keep us apprised to what's going on. And if he was to pivot from it, educate us or allow us to participate in the conversation around it. See, I didn't need to be the owner of the plan. Frankly, I wasn't qualified. To, but I do want the leader of my party to know what we're trying to accomplish and how we're gonna go about doing that. So number 1, lack of plan led to lack of confidence in this individual. Number 2, this individual did not instill confidence in any of us, not in his body language, not in his command, not in the way he took ownership, and certainly not in the passion or energy that he displayed during this particular hunt. I was not confident when looking at this individual that we would get the job done, that he was going to be able to lead us to victory in this particular case. So number 1, failed to plan, or at least failed to communicate plan and instill confidence. Number 2, lack of body language. I'm sorry, you know, display of proper body language, display of command, lack of energy and passion also did not instill confidence. Number 3, in terms of leadership mishaps or miscues, things that led me to not be confident. This is going to sound strange, but whenever we were out hunting or hiking, which was a lot, this individual would always walk way ahead of us, which was a little weird. It left us confused as a group. There's 4 of us and there's one guy out there walking 100, 200, 500 yards ahead of us. It felt like we didn't have a partner. It felt like we didn't have someone leading us. Instead, it was like he was going to be the rabbit and we had to try to catch him. It left us really confused. And maybe more important than that, it's not really safe to do that. We're in the middle of Alaska. There's a lot of things out there, uh, predators for that matter. And we're not knowledgeable about the area. There are so many reasons why you wouldn't leave your clients behind, those you're leading behind. And he did that. Again, another reason for us to lack confidence. And then number 4, lastly, and this one really stood out to me. This particular guide worked for an outfitter, worked for a company, and the owner of that company, this particular guide spoke poorly of over and over and over again. He spoke, spoke, spoke very poorly of his leader. And that to me means that our guide was demonstrating a behavior that made me question his character. See, whether or not he liked the guy leading his company, I think it would be important for him to still be respectful of the job that he had. Instead, every single day, he would complain to us about all the things this particular leader does wrong, what a jerk he is, how he does this, how he does that. And while I appreciate that he had— he was comfortable enough to share his experience or relationship with this individual. I also looked at it and said, man, I can't believe an employee is speaking about his leader in that way, yet he wants to be perceived as a leader himself. So, these are leadership lessons for me in that I played this role and I was to be led, but I saw a breakdown and it was a really interesting perspective. It caused me to ask myself as I run through these 4 again real quick. Number 1, when I'm leading, do I have a plan? And assuming I do, is it a good one? And assuming it is, am I sharing it and communicating it regularly and appropriately? Am I casting a vision and making sure everybody in my world, on my team, in my company, are they aware of this vision? And does it inspire confidence? Number 2, am I walking with them as opposed to 500 yards, 1,000 yards ahead of them? If I'm ever walking ahead, am I explaining why that is? And as crazy as this may sound, am I leaving them in a vulnerable, unsafe position? Instead, should I be walking alongside and encouraging them and giving them a degree of comfort? Number 3, what's my body language look like? How's my command? How's my tonality? What's my passion and energy look like? Do my people believe that I believe? Are they inspired or motivated by my motivation, by my energy, by my command, by my, you know, drive to succeed? Or am I doing the opposite of that, which is having an an alternative impact on them. And then lastly, as the leader of a group, how am I speaking about other leaders? Am I speaking poorly of others, maybe even others I potentially report to, you know, or I'm partnered with? You know, am I buddying up with my people in such a way that I start complaining about somebody else? And how does that reflect on me? What's that make them think about my character? In other words, usually if I'm, you know, if someone's complaining about one individual, they're complaining about all individuals. In other words, when you walk away, you're likely the subject matter. So, I think that again, my observations or my experience here around leadership and having the perspective that I have, I learned an awful lot. And I think today, you know, what I would ask you is kind of the focusing question of those 4 things that I mentioned. Planning, you know, body language, command, energy. Number 3, walking ahead. You know, are you walking alongside, feeling like a partner? And then number 4, how do you speak around the people that you report to or that you're partnered with? And how does that look upon you, or what sort of behavior does that demonstrate? When you look at those 4 things, are you violating any of these as a leader? Because everyone here at the No Days Off Nation, you are leading, whether you're leading a business or a team or a family or a peer group, you're leading. Are you doing things the opposite of the way, unfortunately, this guide performed for us? And if not, you know, if you are showing up a little bit like this, what changes can you make today? Always interesting things you can learn when you observe, right? And so, I'm always looking for a lesson. And I encourage you to also do that today as you're walking around this world or this week or this month. Have your head on a swivel, ask more questions, observe, and then figure out what you could do differently to up your game each and every day. That's all I have for you today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
