Courage to Leap & Lead with Dr. Bob Nelson, part 2 - Episode 147

You've got courage to leap, courage to lead.

Be brave and be bold. Whoa, let it roar.

Welcome to the Courage to Leap and Lead podcast, where each of our guests share the stories of courage that helped them become powerful leaders. Before we start today's show, please remember to visit courage-consulting.com. where you can find all the episodes and other excellent resources, all at courage-consulting.com. Now, here's your host, Leadership Courage Coach CB Bowman.

Wow.

So here's the question though. Does being a visionary give you a pass for being decent to people?

Well, that's a, that's a big, bigger question. And I, I don't know, because you look at a lot of, uh, great people, and maybe they, you know, they weren't all nice people, you know, uh, if they're visionary or if they had power. And, you know, I mean, the saying, the saying, uh, the quote is, you know, power corrupts, absolute power absolutely corrupts. That's not, not mine. That's, that, that goes back. Uh, that's, uh, I can't remember who said that, but that's, um, there's a lot of truth to that. So having someone that's, uh, kind and, and, and powerful and successful is, is rarer than it should be. But that's, that happens to be the reality.

Um, why do you think that is though?

They got sloppy. They got away with it. No one held them to account. you know, they had no, no one in their life that they became— you know, you look at any famous person, they all of a sudden people are idolizing them, and after a while they believe it, you know.

Mm-hmm.

I don't know. I, I don't know why people are, uh, uh, I mean, I, I have, I have my moods, and, you know, but in general I'm, I'm good-natured and try to treat people in a likewise fashion, which I Which my father was that way as well, so maybe it's inherited.

Yeah, no, I mean, I get what you're saying, and I think that's true. It's just that— and of course this is media— it seems that the people that are the most ornery get the most press, and they get a pass, you know, for saying or doing whatever because they have this vision or they have They can press a button and the world jumps. And, and I've always wondered what keeps them at that level. You know that, that line from Annie, be careful of when you're going up because you pass the same people going down, right? But it's like nobody believes that. Everybody believes they're going to stay at the top and, you know, right to treat people in XYZ.

We just saw the, uh, the movie about Michael Jordan, Air Jordan, Air that's out.

Yeah.

And there's a, in the heart of the movie when Nike got in front of Michael Jordan and he didn't want them to be his sponsor and he wanted Adidas first or Converse second and didn't even want to talk to Nike. But they got him in the room and the guy gave him an impassioned impassioned 3-minute speech. And he touched on some of the things you just said. He goes, you know, everyone, this is what's— this is what your life's going to be. And it's not— it's— you are going to be great. You are going to set records. You are going to win championships. But you're not going to do that forever. And when you're done with that, as you come off that high, are you going to be the same person as when you went up? You know? And that's going to make the difference between you being the person that you want to be versus, you know, a complete jerk. And this is an impassioned plea that's right on the stuff you just said. So there's something to that.

So as we close out, show us your last book.

And the last book, there you go. The last book was Work Made Fun Gets Done. It has 400 Real-life examples of, of how to make any task, any group activity, any organization more fun. Completely, 100%, completely true ideas people personally sent to me. So that's kind of, again, another cut of the cloth out of this whole, you know, with the younger generation, 65% say they, they want to have fun at work. You know, they don't, they don't want to go do something dreary or wrote or, you know, for 8 hours. That drives them nuts. They want to have fun. And so what— and so we talk about what that looks like, and here's what people do. And it's just like— and just—

Give us some examples.

Well, like one, there's a woman in Los Angeles that she said, you know, when I have Important work to do. I always, I always put on Yo-Yo Ma in 2015. He did a concert. It's on the internet for free. He did a concert for, for 8,000 people, 3-hour conference. He played 3 hours from memory, and he, and he, and, and, and she said, when you, when you hear the music. It feels like God is talking to you. If I put that on and I work on something, I have the same feeling that I'm doing important work, and it makes it— it goes faster, and I'm in the flow. And I got off the phone, I turned it on. She was right. It actually works. No matter what you're doing, you have more purpose, you have more meaning by the music.

Which piece is this of his?

It was 2015. It was Bach concertos. He did like, I think there were 5 of them he played. Took a 3-minute break in a 3-hour concert from memory. It's on the internet.

I'm looking it up. I'm gonna look it up.

And listen to it. It's just wonderful. It's beyond delightful. It's moving. And so, you know, that gives her context or some Or another one, for example, on a task, you're doing a task that you don't want to do, you know, your taxes or something. And—

Oh, that's a good one.

Yeah. So, so, there's, this is actually a technique, the Pomodoro technique or something where you get a timer, a kitchen timer, you set it for 20 minutes and you put it on and you see how fast, how much you can get done in 20 minutes. You know, and all of a sudden you're not, you're not fretting, you're digging in and you're doing it. And then, wow, it got pretty far. Maybe you finished, you know. And so that's, that's an accepted technique. If you've never done that, that works, you know, to— someone told me that whenever I do something, I'm big on, I like crumpling up a piece of paper. I wrote the task, I crumple it up, it's done, and throw it away, you know. And that, you know, that physical makes me feel good. I'm getting stuff done today, that type of thing.

So, I love this. That's like when I When I get overwhelmed, I go, okay, sit down, write yourself a list. Because I'm an introvert and I'm an INTJ, and I write myself this whole long list, and then I start crossing it off as I do it. I'm like, yes, keep going. There you go.

There you go. It's the exact same thing.

Uh, or, or like the other day, the other day I was writing over the weekend. I was just really doing some deep concentration work, and I said, I need some music. And I usually don't listen to music. And so I said to Alexa, play Beethoven, and started playing. I thought, this is so soothing. I got so much done.

There you go.

Yeah. My husband comes up and he goes, this music is making me fall asleep. I said, really? I'm finding it very soothing to writing and getting stuff done.

Well, we should have a different drummer, right?

So, exactly.

Maybe he gets charged up by watching sports, you know. So, whatever it does, there you go. Whatever, whatever it takes.

Um, sports and certain jazz players. He's Italian and he loves this guy. Oh, I can't even remember his name. He's a jazz player. No, that's a comedian. I can't remember his name. But he just— oh my God. Now, when I hear the music, I like it, but it's not relaxing to me.

Yeah.

Yeah. So you're right. It's, uh, but then the question—

Different strokes for different folks.

Yeah.

That's what makes the world interesting.

Exactly. When you're writing—

We're all exactly the same in a boring place.

Yeah. You're writing the book on making work fun. Um, it's going to be different activities for different people, right? It's not one activity that the entire— Yeah.

Well, that's really all my books are like that. So basically, I'm do a research-based research foundation for that book, The 100 Best Places to Work in America. The, the variable with the largest differential between companies on that list and those that applied that didn't get accepted was on fun. 81% of companies that are on that list said that they have a fun work environment. The people said it's fun to work here. Now, the companies that applied that weren't accepted, it was only 60%. So, a 21-point differential between places that are fun versus places that aren't fun and their chances of getting on that list. So, we could take solace from that, say if the best companies in America are all mainly places to have fun, then if you're not doing it, you gotta make it happen. I remember the president of Belmont, he would, he, the college in Nashville, he did a sabbatical and he just visited companies that were high-performance companies to see, you know, what made them tick. And at the end of the day, he said the big thing that struck him, one of the big things was the people at the highest-performing companies were all really enjoying their work and they had fun with it and they enjoyed the people they interacted with and who they did it for and the whole bit. He came back to Belmont College and said, we got to have more fun here. And he created a fun committee And he volunteers and you guys set up things that are fun. That's the total instructions. Let me know if you need some budget. And they would be creative and they'd do an open house or a potluck or celebration on the roof, whatever it might be. And it got more fun in that college. So anyway—

It's fun to teach a class on having fun in your company. So, these children that are coming out and starting their own companies get it, right?

They do. They do. They tend to be better at it. And often I tend to think that they tend to be better managers. Millennials are getting into management now, and they often are better because they know what a bad manager looks like, and they're not going to do that. And they know how much what they wanted when they were coming up. how they got that or didn't get that. And so they are— they have idealism that they want to do the right thing, be the right manager, be the manager that they wish they had, or maybe they did have and they learned from. You can learn from a bad example as well, just as you can a good example.

And, uh, so, um, your last book on fun, and then you're moving to Steve Jobs.

Yeah.

What is your book going to be called? Do you know yet?

Already Naked: Lessons from Steve Jobs, the first person to create a trillion-dollar enterprise and a $2 trillion enterprise and a $3 trillion enterprise.

But you're starting with already naked? Is that—

Already naked from his commencement speech. You're already naked. That's, that's gonna be the title.

That's the one. Okay.

You're already naked. Lessons from Steve Jobs.

Go for it. Go for it. I love it. Oh, listen, before we close out, by the way, when is your book coming out?

Well, that— I usually don't talk about books this early because it's— I'm still— that's still being written. So I haven't even looked at publishers yet. But I've been working on it for several years with— I'm doing it with a former executive vice president from Apple, Jay Elliott, who was Steve's mentor for 8 years. He was there and kept in touch with him the rest of his life. Uh, he, he met him, by the way, waiting, waiting for a seat in a restaurant.

Wow. Wow.

They started talking to this, this young kid. He was 28 and, and he's starting a company. And, and Jay had worked at IBM and Intel, and he was much further along the way. And, and, you know, they talked and he goes, well, I want to, I want to show you something tomorrow. You have something? He drove him to Xerox PARC and showed him the mouse. And, you know, and, and then, then I want you to, I want you to come on board. And, and Jay was like, you know, I'm pretty— I don't need to work for a 28-year-old. I've got, I got a career. He goes, no, no, I'm serious. He goes, what convinced you that I'm serious about hiring you? He goes, I don't know, you know, some XJS, you know, roadster would probably do it red. And next day he had that car in his driveway. His wife goes, you bought a Porsche? He goes, what? What? Steve Jobs bought him a Porsche. I'm serious about hiring you. And he did.

Nice to be able to afford to do that.

Yeah. Everybody gets a car. I wanna do the Oprah moment.

Before we go again, you know, I keep saying that because I don't want to go. You became famous at your own hands. Nobody did it for you. You went around to bookstores, told taxi drivers to take you from here to there. You talked to the heads of the stores and you said, what could I do for you? We're now in a digital age. How does somebody like me who's coming out with a book get my book in front of people?

Well, every, every bestselling book, I think, has a different story as to how it got there. So you got to find your story. It would be starting with who, who is it for? And then where do you find those people? And Usually you can find people by either what they subscribe to or associations they belong to, and you can buy those contacts, and that would be a good starting point. But we are in a digital age now, and some of the success I had was in a non-digital age. But I'll give you a couple of quick stories like Costco Connections. They, you know, Costco does a magazine every month, Costco Connections.

Yes.

Yes. And they called me—

I didn't know that.

Yeah, well, they called me one month, um, and, and said, uh, Dr. Bob, we, we'd, uh, we're doing a story about you. We'd like to put you on the COVID and we're sending a photographer from LA to take some photos. Great. How'd this come about? They said, well, you know, you've been sending us stuff Every month for years now. We have a whole file cabinet just from stuff you've sent us, and we're constantly using it.

What do you mean, like stories that you sent them?

Yeah, stories. Um, I, I did a column, you know, uh, so things I see. I, I did a newsletter on rewarding employees for— did, uh, 150 issues of that, and just sort of, uh, different focuses, ideas, uh, questions on the road I'm getting, case studies. A quick, no-cost recognition, stuff like that. And you, we love your stuff and we use it all the time for our members and we decided that we need to pay you back and we're going to do that by putting you on our cover. And so, they did. And that went to that magazine at that point was mailed to 14.5 million business owners. So, that kind of helps give you some exposure.

Yeah.

And then we were talking about how I was on 60 Minutes on my book and how'd I get on 60 Minutes? Well, I got on 60 Minutes because I had— I got on— I did an article or helped with an article in the Wall Street Journal. This author, this writer was doing this article on motivating the younger generation. And he Interviewed me and, and it was good. And then, then he called back like 3 or 4 weeks later. He goes, they bumped, they bumped the article to the front page of Marketplace. And so now he's kind of in a panic. I gotta talk to some more people here. Do you have any people I can talk to? So I took an hour, hour and a half, and I, I found 7 people that he could talk to that relate to the story. And each one of them, I had their cell phone. And I said, this guy will call you. You've got to be available and all pre-approved. And I go, well, here's some people who can help you with your article. He called all of them. He used all those examples and it made the article basically. And then at the last paragraph, he kind of gave me a credit and mentioned my book, you know. And so that was— the Wall Street Journal has 1.3 million subscribers. So that was good coverage. But then, you know, a lot of media get their, you know, ideas from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal. So this producer for 60 Minutes called him up and said, I saw this article you did. And he goes, and he, in his way of paying me back, said, you gotta talk to this guy. This is the guy. And so they, you know, invited me. They flew me to New York and, you know, went into a a studio and there's, you know, 100 people and lights and sit down and Morrie Safer sits across from you and you start talking. And that ran on 60 Minutes. They repeated it multiple times. So that's a— I'm not sure what that hit was, but probably 10 million people saw that, you know.

At least.

Yeah, at least. Yeah. And so, you know, I— my— and on both of all those examples, those 3 examples I just gave you, Peter Workman at Workman Publishing said, Bob, we couldn't have done that. You did that. Oh, well, I'm glad I was able to help. So they do a lot too, but they saw me pulling with them. And that's what, you know, you gotta have a partnership with your publisher as an author. And, you know, so try to make that happen, which is, you know, you gotta maybe put up before you get— like I led with, here's what I'm gonna do, whether you do nothing at all, I'm doing these things. I'm gonna be hitting it hard here. And, you know, kind of shamed them into keeping up with me. And I had, I remember like on those 27 cities that I initially went to, I remember Chicago was one of them. And the book escort I had, you know, he'd say, okay, we're done with that interview. Before, next thing you have is you got, you're doing this over the other side of town. And so we got some time for lunch. You want to get some lunch? I go, No, no, I could eat anytime. Let's go to the bookstore. She goes, okay, well, you want me to call him first? No, I want to see what the customer sees. And so we go to the bookstore. Now we get some lunch. Now let's go to another bookstore. I could eat tomorrow, you know. And at the end of the day, this guy goes, you know, I have never ever seen someone pound the pavement like you do, and I've been doing this 28 years. And I said, really? What do other authors do? Well, they'll they'll say, yeah, take me back to the hotel, I'm gonna take a nap. Or so I had one author say, take me to the airport, I'm done with this bullshit. You know, he did one interview and he thought it was beneath him to have to actually talk about his book. And I can't imagine you work so hard on something that's important to you and then you turn up your nose at opportunity to share that with others. I can't imagine, you know, but apparently that's what a lot of authors do. I don't quite get it. So I like to think I'm not one of those.

Definitely not.

I appreciate the ride, appreciate the people that are helping along the way. Be quick to want to help them because karma is real.

Yeah.

And it comes back. And boy, I give you 100 stories on karma where I've just taken the time to talk to somebody in a bookstore, you know, at National Sherman or something. And And the guy turned out to be, you know, head of a corporation that, you know, brought me in for, you know, three three bookings and bought bought ten thousand dollars worth of books and and on and on. So you gotta, you know, I'm a big believer in in in in being being a giver and not a taker. You know, I I heard the Chairman of GE after Jack Welch speak once. And he said, at GE, when we hire someone, one of our 4 criteria is we always hire— everyone's a giver or a taker. And we make a point to hire givers, people that want to help and want to add and want to support others versus, you know, do this for me. And, you know, it's all about me and my work's important, yours isn't. And You know, and just as a general rule, we want people here that will be a team player, not just all about themselves and getting ahead and playing politics. And, you know, that's— they can go do that somewhere else.

So, you know, you're the 3rd person in a week who has said that to me, ironically. Sally Henderson, who I just interviewed, yourself, and I'm reading Becky Robinson's book, called Reach. And that's her. In fact, I'm talking to her in 4 minutes.

All right. That is—

it's a powerful message from some powerful people.

To lead, to lead with, with help.

To lead with help.

And the flip side of that is to ask for help.

Yeah.

And like, I'm not very good at asking. I never asked people for help. But I, you know, when, when Steve goes— Steve Jobs, another lesson from Steve Jobs. asked for help. He was 12, 12, and he was, he was in a computer, you know, a club type of thing. It was sponsored by Hewlett-Packard. And one, one, one time, you know, Bill Hewlett came to the meeting, you know, and, and he, he caught him on the break and said, Mr. Hewlett, I'm building an analog, uh, machine. I want to see if you had some parts you can donate to me. And Bill said, sure, we do. Bill Hewlett gave him some parts for his computer project and But, but, you know, here's a kid, you know, took the initiative here. He hired him for a summer job. And Steve Jobs said, I spent the summer soldering circuit boards on an assembly line. He said, I felt I was in heaven. Because he asked, he asked for something and people met him with that. And I think that happens more often than not. And so, you know, There you go.

That's humility. Dr. Bob, this has been a phenomenal interview. I thought you were going to be a stuffed shirt, and you just nailed it.

Well, thank you so much for that. Well, I, I do love what I do, and I love, I love, I love what you're doing too.

So thank you. It's, it's so clear, audience, that you have to pick up all of his books. Read them and then compare them to the new one.

That's another good feeling. I had the conference, I was just in Nashville. I always, I never used to bring books because it's a pain. You got like, you know, and so now I turned the switch, I don't know, 10 years ago. Now I always bring books. So ideally I have a book that I've gotten for the whole group that the person who's hiring me has gotten. And if they don't do that, then I've got a whole, I'll send you this. I've got a whole pecking order of strategies to— it's okay if you can't buy the books, that's fine. Is it okay if we find someone else that will buy books for all your people? Well, who would do that? Well, give me a chance.

I would love—

And I just go down the list, and 9 times out of 10, it's— I, I end up, you know, not just with everyone getting one book, maybe a second book, maybe a third book. And then I bring all my other books, which completely cover a table. And the one I just did, I had A record number of people came to the table and said, how much for all of them? I want to buy them all. And I go, I got a special price for that. You want, you want to take them now or you want me to send them to you? Both. And that gives you a good feeling that someone's buying your entire work. We're going to create a lending library, the Dr. Bob Lending Library. This is great.

You know, I love it.

Yeah. I love her too.

So, hey, Dr. Bob, I've got to run off because I hear Becky, but I want to talk to you. And audience, you can't hear what we're going to be talking about, but I will see you next week. Thank you, Dr. Bob.

Thank you, CB.