How The Why Of Contribute Bleeds Through Leadership That Rocks With Jim Knight

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Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to why institute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now let's meet today's guest.

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually helping you discover and then live your why. So if you're a regular listener, you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we bring on somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. And so this week we're going to be talking about the why of contribute. So if this is your why, then you want to be part of a greater cause, something that is bigger than yourself. You don't necessarily want to be the face of the cause, but you want to contribute to it in a meaningful way. You love to support others and you relish the success that contributors make to the greater good of the team. You see group victories as personal victories. You are often found behind the scenes looking for ways to make the world better. You make a reliable and committed teammate and you often act as the glue that holds everyone else together. You use your time, money, energy, resources and connections to add value to other people and organizations. So today I've got a great guest for you. His name is Jim Knight. Now Jim teaches organizations of all sizes how to attain their own rock star status. Although his illustrious career started at Gatorland Zoo in Florida, and he has the scars to prove it. Jim cut his teeth in the hospitality training industry and eventually led global training for Hard Rock International for two decades. His customized programs show how to amp up organizational culture, deliver world class differentiated service, and build rockstar teams and leaders. Known for his signature spiky hair, which you're going to see, Jim is the bestselling author of Culture that How to Revolutionize youe Company's culture and it was featured in Entrepreneur magazine as one of the five books that will help you transform how you do business. His new book, Leadership that Take youe Brand's Culture to 11 and Amp up results, just launched in May of 2021. And a portion of Jim's book sales, podcast revenue, speaking fees and training programs. Proceeds go to no Kid Hungry and Cannonball Kids Cancer. Jim, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much, Gary. I appreciate it. And I don't know that I gave you the long bio. That was quite an introduction. But, you know, you touched on a couple things that are probably going to fit in to our conversation. So first and foremost, I'm just thrilled to be here, my friend. Thank you.

This is going to be fun. Well, listen, so first of all, for you that are only listening, you can't see Jim's hair. So I'm gonna try to describe it. It looks to be about 5, 6 inches tall, straight up, perfectly straight, multi levels, multi colors. And I don't know if that's. Yeah, there we go. So how the heck did that come about and how do you do it?

Well, I would say first off, I probably have always been known for my hair since I've been an adult. You know, once I started to work on my music degree and definitely the two decades, 21 years I was at Rock International, we had a chance to look and be and say and do whatever. But, you know, I worked with the island of Misfit Toys. So believe me, this hairstyle is pretty safe compared to a lot of my rock and roll friends with piercings and colored hair and mohawks and the whole thing. But I used to have long hair. I had a mullet and I could sit on my hair. It's about two and a half feet at one point. And then when I decided about 15 years ago to kind of grow up a little bit and start speaking professionally, I went up and so it's got some spikes in there. And to answer the second half of your question, it is multilayered. My hairstylist have somebody who does the hair once a month. She uses razors instead of scissors. So that's the first secret. And then the second is I use this product called Got to Be Glued. I'm sure a lot of people in your audience probably have seen this before at CVS or Walgreens or Walmart. It's in a yellow tube. It's the same look, smell, feel, and consistency as Elmer's glue. So I just throw that stuff in there, a little dollop and 30 seconds later, this is what you get. And it's pretty much, you know, Sonic the Hedgehog all day long. This thing is hurricane proof in Florida.

Okay, so you go to bed looking like this. What do you look like in the morning?

You know what's funny? Almost the exact same. So I take a shower in the morning, but if I go to sleep like this, if I was really laying on one side, it might get a little bit matted, but you can just throw some water in there and it reconstitutes the glue. I could, if I wanted to. I could not wash my hair for three, four days and it would still be spiky like this. I look pretty good on Survivor for about three, four days. And then after that, it's pretty sad. Gary. It gets pretty weepy. Flat water is my nemesis. I jump in a pool and game over.

So, Jim, take us back through your life. Take us back to when you were a kid. Where did you grow up? How did you get into hospitality? How did you just kind of take us through the quick version of your life back when you were in high school.

Yeah. Thank you. My quick version really is I wanted to be a musician. So when I was in school, really middle school and high school, I started thinking about wanting to perform. I did a bunch of community theater. I did go to to school and have my music degree. Associate of Arts, Music and education. You know, my first job, as you said, was at Gatorland Zoo. So I live in central Florida. So I live in the land of theme parks. Disney, Universal, SeaWorld. But there's something like 27 theme parks here in Gatorland is like one of the best kept secrets. And so that was my first job. While I was doing that, you know, in the summertime at least, I started to go to college. Wound up finding out that while I was at university, to make a living being a musician, you actually had to be good. So I changed careers. They say those that can't do, teach. I became a middle school teacher. I did that for six years. I'm a product of the public education and I'm happy to have taught in that. But then eventually I needed to make some money in the summertime. As you can imagine, teachers don't make any money in the summer. And so I took a little summer gig at Hard Rock International, the Hard Rock Cafe. At that time, it was the new thing in Orlando. It was the big, busiest restaurant in the world. I was just a host, really, just seating people. I did that for a year. I became a trainer. They paid Me to start traveling and opening up hard rocks around the world. Madrid, Mexico City, Paris, Got to hang out in London. I traveled the world as a kid. A couple of years later, I became a manager and was running shifts for that building, which again, does anywhere between 42 and $45 million a year, which is unheard of in hospitality. So your skills get really sharp. Your head and ego gets really big. You're hanging out listening to 90 decibels of Zeppelin. You're meeting rock stars left and right. It was just absolutely a gas to do that. And within a year, I went over to the corporate sports center and ran training and development for them. So that's sort of the long answer. The short answer is about 10 years ago, I decided I wanted to have a little bit of a louder voice. So I wanted to contribute, as we'll talk about, a little bit more to society. And so I still pull the levers of music education and hospitality. I put all of that together to make this edutainment, if you will, in the programs, whether it's something that I write or elearning, and certainly as a keynote speaker. So 10 years ago, I left. Instead of just being in hospitality, I wanted to go vertical. And now I speak in front of bankers and insurance agents and clowns and funeral directors and, you know, if there's an association and they're looking for a speaker, I want to go out there and talk about culture and service and building teams and those types of things. Leadership is really hot and heavy right now.

So let's talk about that for a minute. What did you notice that Hard Rock did better, different, unique. That allowed them to scale to 40, 50 million, you know, per restaurant. Right, Per restaurant.

Well, I would say that's probably for three. You usually would take New York, Los Angeles. Vegas was probably one of those as well. In Orlando, those four would do those type of numbers. Everybody else between 7 and 20 million, depending on the market. But you had to be in a big A location. That was what Hard Rock started with. They're now in a lot of C markets. They've actually decided, you know, there's a lot of earth where they can plant their flag and they'll bring the Hard Rock brand to a country or market. Because some of these people in these countries aren't ever going to travel to Western Europe or the US which is predominantly where the Hard Rock is. So their future is all franchise cafes. And although a lot of people still go, hasn't that thing been around for 50 years? They have, and they're still opening up properties, but the future for that brand is hotels and casinos. For sure. That's where all the money is, particularly a casino. Casino will do what 10 hotels does and that'll do what 20 cafes will do. So, you know, but you're limited on where you can do that in the world. But I would say, to answer your question, it really was hard rock. As cool as I thought it was, it's still to me one of the awesome, great brands in the world. Even though the product I think is fantastic. I love the environment, I love the music, I love the memorabilia, the retail. All of that stuff is so cool. The buildings, none of them are the same. There's no cookie cutter. They build pyramids and inherit castles and they put a burglar on the side. It's crazy. It's always about the people. It's always been about the human. So I think really the silver bullet for them is I'm going to find the most unique people I can find because I think unique people bring some unique experiences to the party number one. But they're also going to make sure that these people have tremendous work ethic. So it's not just because they're freaky people and they look different. Which by the way, you see more companies starting to do that now. I'm so thankful that I worked for a company for two decades that was doing that before it was really popular. Allowing tattoos to be seen and you know, again, crazy colored hair and being on a first name base with the boss and pushing back and challenging the status quo and not having any fear of something happening to them. Like all of that stuff mattered. And when you can do that, you know what you get with the team members, they stick around at loyalty. That's probably more so hanging out with that interesting collection of humans. The value orientation that the company had were the two things that really kept me going. So I'd say it's sort of a tag team. It's the unique people they went and found, but also the values like save the planet, take time to be kind, all is one. These were emblazoned on the walls if for no other reason but to keep us all honest. Boy, that allowed me to want to stick around a little bit longer and invite my buddies to come and work with me.

So how did they go about finding all these unique people? What was their process or thinking even behind that? From the. Was this something that just came about by randomly or was it a strategic thing that they thought about to do or you thought about because at one Point, you were running one of them. So how did you do it?

Yeah, I was, I was just running shifts in the mid-90s, but I ran global training for the whole brand. So I wasn't actually running all of the individual properties. And I came in in the, in the early 90s. The thing started in 71. So there were two Americans that were hanging out in Great Britain and really they had two issues. You know, they couldn't find a great burger. They wanted to make sure they had a little bit of some of that greasy Tenn truck stop southern style food that you just couldn't get in the UK at the time. But there was also not a really big middle class. You know, in the United Kingdom you were either very rich or very poor. And so the fact that there were two lines for people. You were, you know, if you were rich, you stood in this line. If you didn't have any money, you stood over here in this one. And they really didn't like that. That was kind of red meat for some civil act, you know, activist rights people that were coming out of the 60s, you know, what was going on in our country. So those were sort of the two reasons they did it. But to answer your question was extremely strategic. Like they knew, again, they will have the best food, the best shakes, the best environment. I'm going to put music in there. But their real goal was let's go find some people that were unique. Ironically, they didn't go youthful. Every single One of the 42 original servers had to be over 30 years old and they had to be women. And a lot of them were redheads. And so it was so funny to think you got this group of older redheaded women who are just going to sling food around and they're going to push back a little bit. It was a little, it was a little irreverent, a little bit unpredictable. But then even as time went on, I think their goal was, where can we go find some rock stars? And maybe it's outside of the usual sea of sameness. Maybe it isn't even going to be another restaurant. So maybe I will go find somebody in, let's say maybe not so much at that time, but tattoo parlors or concert halls, or could I go and find some in a retail location that had no food and beverage background at all. They wanted people to have some experience, but they certainly wanted to populate it with just unique humans that had killer personality. I almost think of the old TV show Alice. If you think about that and you think of flow, some of your audience members may be old enough to remember it was chewing gum and, you know, just want to push back on everybody. If you could find that person somewhere in your sphere when you went out to eat, drink, shop, stay, play, do whatever, coerce them, convince them, pay them, probably a little bit more to come work for you, all of a sudden you got a rock star, you got a diamond in the rough, who is probably going to create some unfree, forgettable memories. That was their goal. So it's completely strategic. I hope the brand is still doing that. I haven't been there for 10 years, but that would be a miss if they stop hiring some pretty interesting humans.

And it worked awfully well for them. And so then you were there for how many? You were there 20 years, two decades.

You said 21 years. Yeah. So I started in April of 91. I left in April of 2012. So coming up on 10 years, nine years.

And.

What was it like for you to leave that comfort and start speaking if, you know, the middle school teacher gone culture, spike terror guy, now going to go speak to who? Right?

Yeah.

Nervous for you.

I was crazy nervous. I got to tell you. I had a little bit of some tricks up my sleeve. Part of it was the last 10 years before I left Hard Rock while I was senior director, training and development. I had a great team of nine people. I started speaking on the side at that time. The very first one, like almost every speaker out there, we do it for free. Somebody asked you to come do something? I think somebody asked me to come do like a little mini orientation about Hard Rock. Had nothing to do with what I talk about now. No leadership or service or any of that stuff. They just wanted to have somebody do the Hard Rock story because they lived in a state in the US where there wasn't a property. So I was like, yeah, I'll go do that. I'm not going to send my team. What happens is what happens with everybody. I went and spoke and somebody in the back room came up afterwards and said, that was awesome. Can you come do it for my company? And how much do you charge? And that's when the light bulb went off. So I started charging people. But here's the cool part. I never took any money, Gary. I gave the brand, I gave Hard Rock all of the money because I wanted to be above reproach. I never wanted my boss or the CEO or anybody to ever challenge me and say, oh, he's having fun doing his night job, his side job than doing the regular day to day stuff. But it did allow me to sort of feed the beast. It allowed me to just get my sea legs and get a lot better at platform speaking. I was sharing stuff that I loved. And by the way, you know, I was impacting and influencing audiences to actually check out the Hard Rock. Maybe they didn't even know about the brand, so everybody won there. But then when I actually got paid, I just put it into my budget. I mean, training people, we spend money. So to be a revenue generating initiative was like, it was so great. So I never went over budget. My boss always loved it. What you probably would imagine happens did happen to me. I started loving that gig a lot more than the detail, you know, the details of the day to day making the donuts. And so I just decided since I was already doing it, I was doing about one a month. I had a couple that were already ready to go when I jumped off. But yes, I was scared to death thinking I've got a pretty cool job and I travel the world and I'm getting paid well and look at all the benefits. I'm going to leave all that because I think somebody will pay me maybe the same amount. I'd be happy if it would have just been the same amount and I'm going to do that for a living. It was pretty, pretty crazy. And I jumped off the deep end and I've never looked back and it's been fantastic for me.

That's awesome. And so the platform that you started speaking on was culture.

It was, it was the hard rock culture. If I got to be honest, I was pulling the lever of the brand, you know, and I try to immerse people in the spirit of rock and roll. But yes, and that's where I really probably got my focus more than anything else. It was on culture, which then led into some of those other things. Service, leadership, building rockstar teams, that, that type of stuff. But I'll probably forever be known as the culture. And that's cool.

So what is it that makes a good culture and why is a culture a good culture important?

Yeah. So I would say we sort of alluded to this already. If I was ever going to write or talk about it, I actually do define exactly what culture is right up front. And if you and I actually did a survey of your audience members or even if I asked you right now, what do you think it is, I will probably agree with you. I'm in the everything is culture camp, you know, and they could be all of the stuff that I mentioned before. But at the heart, it really is about the people. And so, you know, I think about, let's say you're a legacy brand, you've been around for 15, 20, 40, 100 years. It doesn't matter. If I were to have held on to the exact group of people that started the thing in the first place, you're the founder, the president, the CEO, you've been doing it for 40, 50 years, you could have held onto that group, you'd have the exact culture that you want. But you fast forward a couple decades, it doesn't work like that because people come and go. And so I know that if I was to keep all of my awesome people, but change everything, logo font, corporate sports center, some tool, some process, the employee handbook, elearning, whatever it is, I change all of that. But I kept my people, I really wouldn't make a huge dent in the culture. I'd have exactly what I want versus, let's say that I love all of that infrastructure, I keep all of that stuff, but I kick everybody out in the organization, replace them with a bunch of other people. I've completely revolutionized the culture. So part of mission number one, out of all the stuff, and I will talk about a lot of nitty gritty details, but I can't emphasize enough when I'm in front of an audience saying you want to have a fantastic, awesome culture, number one, you got to go find some rock stars. That's got to be your absolute focus more than anything else. Because the rest of the stuff is just you being a very good manager, but you're not thinking like a business owner, like an entrepreneur, like a big brand, that's number one. And then you got to love on them. You got to do everything in your power not to muscle the result and manage through threats and punishment and fear, which I still see out there in a couple industries. I think if you can throw your arm around people and teach them and have a little bit of a heart centered mindset and they stay with you longer. I know there's a direct correlation between turnover and top line sales, not just in hospitality. I'm starting to see that in almost any industry. So again, I know that's a long answer, Gary, but I would honestly say it's always about the people. Do I want to focus on all the other stuff? Totally. But those are all just, those are the little rocks. The big things that really make a difference is I got to populate the thing with people who can absolutely just slake it. They're showing up going, I'm in the memory Making business today. They show up and do that every day. Oh my gosh, I'm going to herculean results.

So when you're leading the team and you're trying to love on them but you're not getting the result you want, how do you handle that? Because I'm sure there's people listening that are dealing with this. Their key person isn't quite doing it like they were or could or you wanted. How do you love on them yet? Results.

Yeah, well, first I'd look in the mirror. I mean maybe the common denominator is in fact the boss, it's the leader. And I think sometimes they've got to change their tactics or they've been doing it the same way and they're banging their head against the wall going, how come? They're just not responding to me? But this is why you go to conferences, you read books, you listen to podcasts. Because I think the more that you can be open minded to change and you can just put more arrows in your quiver, you're more likely to look somebody in the eye and go, this is what it will take with this person right now to absolutely rock their face off. And I'm not, you know, I would say that anyway from an end user, from a guest, from a, from a customer. But we have to think the same way from an employee. You know, these associates, these team members, they have different needs and some of them it might be a tiny little bit more money. Others, they need you to spend a little bit of time with them and look them in the eye and care about them and ask them about their family and what did they do this weekend. Others they want development. Put me on a fast track, give me a program so I can start hitting some things to ultimately become promotable. It doesn't guarantee me the job, but it's less likely that you're going to go to the outside. If I'm, if I've been on the triple A ball club and I'm ready to be called up. So I think there's a variety of things it could be surprising them with, you know, small little things, whether it's buying, sometimes a little lotto ticket stopping and getting an IC or slow Slurpee on the way. Sometimes it's just doing contests and having fun when you're at work. Maybe it's dress down day, maybe you're allowed to have a company dog, maybe you change the benefits in favor of them and it doesn't really cost you a lot of money. There's so many things I mean, I have an entire chapter dedicated sometimes with just all of these ideas literally bullet pointed. And I freely admit, I go, please don't do all of these. It's ridiculous, but pick and choose the ones that would make sense from a tactical standpoint. But I think if leaders just, in general just sat back and thought, you know what? I just need to say thank you a little bit more. I just need to tell people they absolutely rock. I need to care about them as a whole person, let them be seen, not, you know, have discussions that if something's not working, don't be freaked out about it, come to me and let's figure that stuff out. Sometimes it's the easy, free things like that that would make a difference. So, you know, this could be a whole podcast discussion for me is talking about how do you keep employee engagement going and loving on people? So when I say love on them, it isn't just throwing your arms around them and just come on, guy or girl. It's not about that. I just think when people feel like, man, this person really does care about me and there's a relationship and a trust factor, I'm willing to follow that leader off the edge of the cliff. And when they do leave the company, if they do, I'm going with them.

What's interesting is your perspective on this is right in line with the why of contribute. Right. You look at it from the perspective of, how can I help you? How can I make your time here more fun, better, more productive? How can I be part of your success? But not every WHY sees it that way. Right. And so it's kind of interesting to see leaders from how they think it would make sense to somebody whose why is contribute. Yeah, of course I would do it that way, but somebody else would look at it and say, well, heck, that seems like a lot of extra effort for just trying to get them to do what I paid them to do.

Yeah, but this is why your podcast is so great. Because I love the idea that you've taken the different tenants and you look at these and go, let's dissect it. Let's talk about each one. Because if you take any of these personality assessments, disc colors, Myers, Briggs, Franklin, Covey, you name it, everybody realizes there has to be different types of people on the team. If all of us were wise, there'd be a lot of Kumbaya and we'd be giving a lot and nobody would actually get stuff done. And so I realized that. But I just been part of my DNA, you know, I've always been like that because of my parents, probably a little bit because of religion and going to church early on. Certainly working for a brand who did not have a single marketing initiative that didn't have some type of philanthropic, charitable component. People don't know that. And then they never really wanted to scream from the top of their lungs. But I knew, my hard rock buddies, we all knew. That's part of the reason we stuck around. So I love the idea of giving back. If for no other reason but propping other people up because I know that it's in my interest and sometimes they're not a part of my inner circle. It's just I want people to succeed. And by the way, I'm a consumer. Like I personally am an experiential, starved consumer. So when I go do all those things I was talking about before, when I go out and shop land, like I care about the store or the restaurant or the hotel or the place I'm going, it doesn't matter. I want to be around awesome people. And so there's some small way that I can give back. And whether that's a nugget of information or advice or some real mentorship, I'm all about that. Sometimes it's money too. Like I don't mind helping people out. That's just how I'm wired in. I get it. You're right. There are going to be some. They're like, not my bag. It's not my gig. That's okay. I sign up for that. I'm the one who, you know, volunteered to say, hey, put me in coach in that role.

Which is what we were talking about with the YF contribute. You use your time, your money, your energy, your connections to push other people forward. And that's the essence of how you view the world, which is an awesome why for what you do. And let's transition that a little bit into leadership. So what is leadership from your perspective and what makes a great leader?

Well, now you've really asked the million dollar question. I mean, leadership, you know, it's probably like culture. These are both esoteric, very nebulous words. Everybody's got a different opinion about it, you know, And I think I've taken the slice of leadership from creating or maintaining or even completely changing and revolutionizing a culture. So I had to start with that because that was a little bit of my background. But leadership in general, again, I have been to so many courses, I've seen so many things where you talk about the difference between a manager and a leader. There are so many really important elements that come out of that. I think probably the number one characteristic that I see more than anything else is somebody who is trustworthy. If you trust that person, it got a pretty good shot of having some leadership. You know, you're trustworthy, therefore I trust you. Therefore all the other awesomeness in our relationship sort of happens from there. But, you know, the book that I wrote and the things I talk about are trying to dissect several of those. What does critical decision making look like when you get to a point and you've got to make a decision? Is it time for me to be quiet and subtle and cool and humble? Or is it time for me to be loud and over the top and grandiose and bring the thunder? Like I said, it's different for different moments. Can I be heart centered? Can I still get things done? Could I still marshal the resources that I need, but do it in a very caring and loving and kind way where it's the carrot versus the stick again. I think I remember back in the 80s, you could push people uphill, you could muscle the result. Those days are long gone. Gen Z, or even if you still go back to the millennials, they'll laugh at you. Because if they're at all worth their weight, insult, a rock star can always get another gig. We as employers need them a whole lot more than they need us. So I think sometimes in the way that you treat people is the linchpin. They'll just go, I'm out of here, man. And they'll just go right up the street and probably work for your competitor. So I think about that from a leadership standpoint. I think about mentorship. Again, I've gotten to the point that I almost dissect that into five different areas. I think you could be an internal and external. You could be a peer, you could be a public mentor, and you could even be a reverse mentor, somebody that you're mentoring. You can learn a lot from that person. I have somebody who's 25 years my younger and I learn from that person all the time. So, you know, I think about even having an unparalleled work ethic, which I know some people are going to throw certain generations under the bus. I don't want to do that. I like being extremely positive, also probably contributes to my contribute. I do think, though, that there have been some things that have been lost and sometimes having a little bit of a pep in your step, a sense of urgency, attention to detail has been lost a little bit. And I know it's not always taught with parents. It definitely isn't being taught anymore. In public education. If you're not in charter or private school and you're in public school, I don't know where you get that. And so sometimes if you come to me as a 19, 20 year old kid and you don't have that natural disposition to work hard or fast or look people in the eye or smile. Gary I used to think I was a pretty good trainer. I cannot train people to have a personality. I can't train you to smile. You either have it or you don't. If the juice isn't running through your veins, you're going to be impaired. You're just going to not be of use to me unless there's a place for you in the back where no one will ever see you, which is highly unlikely. I need people to have a little bit of this work ethic mentality. So I have a very good friend of mine who runs a frozen dessert concept in Chicago and it's populated all with Gen Z employees. They're just super, super young and they don't have a lot of these skills. And so she has to make the decision to go, there's no way I'm going to hire you, I'll move on to somebody else. Or I see something, I see the personality a little bit. They might be a diamond in the rough. Maybe I'm going to be their first and best job. Maybe they're going to always think favorably. Maybe when they finish with college they want to come back to be a manager. She's just made a cognizant decision from a work ethic standpoint. They didn't get this somewhere else. Let me be that person. I think she almost probably has the same mentality. I bet her why might be contribute as well. So I just, I think about those things. How can you be a catalyst for change? I talk a lot about change because, you know, times, they are changing. Change is a coming. You can either freak out about it or you can run away from it, or you can lean into it. You could be a part of the change. You can prepare the team for it. Like I spent a lot of time talking about that stuff. So I don't know what I rattled off, four, five, six things. But I try and chunk it down so that if I've got time, if I've got an hour keynote, if I've got a three hour workshop or somebody's just flipping through the book, at the very least they go, okay, I get it. It's really in the sphere of culture, but around work ethic and a heart centered mindset and critical decision making. And could I be a catalyst for change? Can I enlist in some mentorship? Because maybe my company doesn't have that and how can I go to the outside and make that happen? Can I think about everything that happens to me be a personal culture shift is my mind, things are happening to me or things are happening for me. So use the analogy of Shrek. I just think life is like an onion. There's lay in there and every time something happens to you, you can either be ah or you could be like man, this sucks. But okay, I'm going to use this to my advantage. How can I get better? How can I make sure I don't make any more mistakes? So I ran off on a tangent there but I think leadership is really, I would say probably the number one characteristic. If I can trust you, then I'm willing to follow you. And now I'm more open minded to doing the things you need that I might not have done on my own.

What part of being a great leader comes back to who you hire? Or is it you can take anybody and lead? Well, yeah, that's a great question.

You know, I probably. I've always been in a camp that I think there's three types of people. There are people who don't know, can't do and don't care. And I think if it's a don't know, I think you could train just about anybody. It's just knowledge dump, right. And there's so many different ways to do that. If somebody might be visual versus auditory or maybe they need a little bit more time, whatever it is. So don't knows I can deal with the can't do's. I think this is where leaders tend to get a little bit frustrated because you try and try. Maybe you really are somebody who gives somebody two, three, four opportunities. But if they really can't do the gig, I think a lot of them are willing to cut ties and move on. I would see if there's a place for them somewhere on the bus. Do they maybe have a skill? It's the old Marcus Buckingham Gallup approach. Can I focus only on their strengths instead of pointing out their weaknesses? Because everybody's got strengths. Do I need that on the team? So I think the can't do's, it's tough, you might have to cut ties with them. But there's also a whole bunch of don't care out there. Don't care is I have no love for. So as a leader, I think if somebody were smart enough to think, geez, I'm going to focus on every area of the employee life cycle, but at the very least I'm going to focus on the front end. How I recruit and interview and what's my stereotypical employee, how do I hire to, how do I train before I step back and go, yep, they're an employee, I don't have to watch them anymore. Like there's a lot of things that go into place from recruiting collateral, non negotiable interviewing standards. Do you know what you're looking for? Because it isn't just about competence anymore. It's not just about character. Although those two Cs I care about a lot now. I think about culture fit. You need all three. Competence, character and culture fit. And so I think if a leader is smart enough that they'll go and really find great people, then all the other stuff falls into place and. But if you're asking me could I be a great leader and still do it through the product, being first to the market, keeping everything clean, is it just a physical building? How do I handle stuff when it's online or on the phone? You know, regardless I think of what the product or the industry, there are certainly a lot of things that I would do. And again, I do care about the 997 things that, that somebody should be focusing on if they're in a position of power. But if I can't get some end user to think about the last three questions that always show up on a survey. Are you coming back? Are you spending more money and are you going to talk about me positively? If I can't get them to say yes to those three, I haven't created a memory, I haven't created some incentive for them to come back. So again, another long answer. I think there's a lot that somebody could do, but I now am a firm believer. And I just study and love so many brands that I just have huge crushes on. I have fallen madly in love with some great cultures out there who now swear that the only reason they are the way they are in their culture is because of their people. You can steal all the rest of the stuff, but if you can't get my people, you're never going to be able to replicate what we do. Here's a great example. Southwest Airlines. I cannot understand why every airline has not copied their onboarding and departure processes, how you bring people on, because they're still number one in departures and landings. And arrival, they're still the most profitable airline out there. You know, they have some fun when they're definitely doing safety announcements in their uniforms and all that stuff, but just in the fact that they have no fees for baggage and they can onboard everybody super quick and nobody else can figure that out, I go, why haven't they done that? But whatever. Let's say they did do all that. They could do every one of those. But if they can't take the Southwest employees, you know, all you're doing is just moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic. All you're doing is just changing and swapping systems. You're not really focusing on human behaviors, which are all learned. These are learned human behaviors. So they've done a fantastic job getting the right people. And that's why I'm a fan of theirs still.

I am as well. And so let's go back to that. I was the next question I was going to ask you, you kind of led right into that, which is, can you. Do people just have it or don't have it? And if they don't, I guess maybe you answered that with the three types of people. But I'm wondering back to training. You know, how much training do these organizations do? Let's take Southwest Airlines. How much training does their team go through before they actually meet a customer? Is it a little?

A lot.

They hire somebody who's already got those skills. How does that work?

Yeah, they do a lot. And again, when you're looking at travel, you're going to spend a lot more time because there's safety requirements that are in there probably even more than just whatever the stuff is. I would say my knowledge base is way more around retail, hospitality, theme parks, those things. You know what I learned, and I sat on the certification governing board of the National Restaurant Association. And I have to say it the long way, because if I just say nra, they're thinking of the other nra. This is buns, not guns. So when I think about the work that organization does, and I've seen just about all of these statistics, the average restaurant's orientation, day, one orientation, just to tell the story, is around two hours. The really good ones are around three hours. So at Hard Rock, I would say for that company, because we had so much more, it was food, beverage, retail, local marketing, group sales, dealing with celebrities, live music. Like you had all its other stuff. We spent an entire day. I thought that was short. I wish we had two days, but just one day orientation. Then you started your training the next day but when I hear that most restaurants are doing two hours, it just blows my mind. Then when I think about a company like Chick Fil A. This is a fast food restaurant, Fast food, chicken place. They do no training till day three. It is two days of orientation. Their story, their values, their vision, their mission. Like they dunk you in the culture. When you come up out of it on day three, you're either all in or you're not. So again, it just starts to prove they're really awesome companies out there spending a little bit more time. But I think your first part of your question was, do you just have it? And I'm a firm believer now, you don't. I think you learn everything. I think everything, you and I and your entire audience are not the way we are because we were born that way. It's the difference between us and the rest of the animal kingdom. You learn everything, Gary. You learn it from your parents, from school, from your friends, from the playground, from religion, from lack of religion. By the time you come to me as some 18, 19, 20 year old kid, you either got it or you don't. Like I said, you either have the smile, you've got the oomph to want to be around people or you don't. And so I do think people can fake it for a while. For a while. And then you become unmasked, you fall back into your natural disposition. I think training helps, I think leadership helps. I think there are some things that I can do not to fake and coerce people into doing just the things I want. Because the reality is, as a leader, most companies aren't going to have the boss micromanaging over their shoulder. You got to at some point step away and hope like heck they know what they're doing and they can represent the company, the brand very well. So I do think you ought to absolutely do all these things. Train, develop, communicate, reward, recognize all of that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. But on the front end, if you don't have people who basically are coming to the party with some of that oomph, like you said, it's going to be a slog. You're going to be pushing people uphill. So I still think there are people that just because of their environment, they kind of have the ability to sort of wing it. They can shoot from the hip, they certainly like to gab. But even those things, you got that from somebody from somewhere. So I really do believe now, I'm such a huge fan that everything is learned. Human behavior, which again, when I'm in front of an audience. I sort of have to go, you know what? You're all recruiters now. You're going to put on your human resources hat. And if I was honest with myself and I had a time machine instead of being a training and development guy, because I had no say so in how people came on board or how they left, I will train the best that I can with what you give me. But all the best training in the world isn't going to help a bad hire. I would push people, I would go back in time to be a recruiter, because at the very least, I felt like I got my finger on the pulse of what I need. I will hand them off to the training guy or girl, and they'll be in a much better place. If they don't have that, you know, if they don't have that DNA, it's going to be tough. So I just. I don't believe that you're naturally born with it.

Wow.

I love that, because I'm sure it's controversial for some people, too. Yeah, it is.

You know, I've got a baseball team for you to follow.

Okay.

Because. Follow the Washington State baseball team because the coach, his name is Brian Green. In fact, I had him on the podcast probably about a year ago, and he had taken over the worst team in the ncaa, which was the New Mexico State Aggies, and turned it around to being, you know, five winning seasons in a row, and multiple players picked it to the Major League Baseball. And then he got hired away to Washington State. But I think. I'm not sure if this is correct, but I think his first 12 days of practice, they don't touch a ball. And it's all culture.

I love it. I love it.

So I think if you follow, that'll be a perfect example for you as well, because it's all about the culture, and that's what's changed the game for so many of them. And he speaks on that now. But I'd be curious to hear, what are some other really good companies that you've fallen in love with that have great culture? I saw, I heard Chick Fil A. I know Hard Rock. I know Southwest Airlines. What are some others that you really like?

Yeah, and this is where I'm always stretching to do more outside of hospitality, because I could probably name a lot of those. Your audience will probably know Zappos. You know, Zappos is amazing to me. You know, they only sell shoes and they do it online, and they don't even sell their own Shoes, they don't even have their own branded shoes. They sell other people's shoes. And so when I see brand health studies, they're always in the top 10. It just blows my mind that somebody, I mean their founder, the late Tony Hsieh, just passed away this year. You know, he just decided we're going to have the best culture, the best customer service, regardless of what it is we do. We sell online shoes. So they get really propped up quite a bit. I like there's a computer server company called Rackspace. So a lot of people will not know who that is. But Rackspace, again, these are like tech people. These are IT people. They set up infrastructure at companies, but yet they internally have one of the greatest cultures. To the extent that some of their employees get the Rackspace tattoo on their shoulders and on their calf muscles, it's just that blows my mind. You know, Harley Davidson still does a great job out there. And again, some of my music roots, I think Fender and Gibson have their own unique cultures. There's a couple places that I love that are restaurants here locally in Central Florida. Yellow Dog Eats is one of those. I talk about them quite a bit, mostly because of the founder, the executive chef. The founder, he is one wild, interesting guy. The food's great, the atmosphere is fantastic, but this guy has no filter. And every time he's in the building he creates memories. And so people have just discovered him when they're out and about. Hotel wise. I'm still a huge fan. I know people will talk about the Ritz Carlton, but I'm a fan of Kimpton Hotels. I think that from a culture standpoint, they're fantastic. And I gotta still prop up hard rock. A lot of people don't even know there are hard rock hotels. And there's something like 30 of those on the planet now. And again, it's got some of these unique people you just don't normally see in the hotel space. So those are ones that I think of right out of the gate. I actually spend a lot of time with the U.S. air Force now. So I do some stuff up at Andrews Air Force base up in D.C. which is where the presidential aircraft go off. I spend time with the brigadier generals, all the new ones that come on board and they have a fantastic culture. And it's like the Marines. I think if you're at probably in any of the armed forces in the US they will say that there's a very distinct specific culture. But I met a at that time she was a colonel, she's a brigadier General now who works over at the Pentagon with Space Force, who just at Andrews just on her own started to change what was going on at that airlift because it was not top down. You will do it this way or else. Like we probably think about the military. It was a let me love on you and be a little bit more kind and I want to hear feedback from you and very open minded and they cared about what happens to you and your families and not just realizing you're serving, but the whole family is serving. Like I love that approach and I think I almost hate using the words a kinder, gentler armed services. But to some degree in our country at least when you've got an all volunteer military, you kind of have to go there. Now for some of these young kids that are going in, you just can't go out there and be rapid knuckles again. That doesn't work anymore. So I don't know, that's five or six. I'm trying to think again outside of hospitality, but my book will certainly list a whole bunch more, especially in this last one because I talked about leadership. My next one next year will be service service at Rocks. So I really want to highlight that. But I wonder if I could get Brian Greene in there from an employee standpoint for my 2023. It'll be engagement that Rocks. And that's all about some of the discussion that we had up front. So I'm going to check out Washington. I think that'll be really cool.

Yeah, you're going to love him. So last question for you. What's the best piece of advice you've ever gotten or the best piece of advice you've ever given?

Wow, that's awesome. So my podcast, thoughts that Rock. That's the only question we ask on all of our people on there. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given? So we turned the tables on us a couple times. I like that. I like it. I'll give you two. My father, who was really instrumental for me, just passed away this year of cancer, always said you really need to start small and just crush those things. Just start small and crush them. And then what happens is when you get the win, when you get the W, somebody recognizes that and they invite you to the party and you get promoted, you take on more responsibility. So I probably needed a little bit of a refresher. I had a boss, my first real corporate boss when I got over to Hard Rock who said the same thing. So between my first real good Hard Rock boss and then my dad, that was a real big step for me. But, but I actually teach people now my mantra, my main piece of advice is, and I still believe this, I think a single person with a great idea can start a revolution. And I think that's how dictator led countries are overthrown. I think that's how philanthropic movements are started. That's how cultures get perpetuated for all time. So even if you're a new up and coming, maybe a middle manager, and you think, I don't have a lot of responsibilities, I barely have a staff, I got a small budget, I don't care if you're making widgets, you still can make a difference. And at some point when you put your ideas on the table and you get recognized for that, you're going to get more responsibilities. And the things that used to be in your circle of concern, that you cared about, but you couldn't do anything about, now they're in your circle of influence. Now you have bigger influence, which is what my driving force has been forever. I want a louder voice. How can I contribute to the world a little bit more in my own unique way?

I love it, man. That's awesome. So, Jim, if there's people that are listening and they want to connect with you, they want to follow you, they want to get your book, where do they go? What's the best way to connect with you?

Yeah, thanks, Gary. I appreciate a bunch. Best place is really my website. All roads lead to that. It's my last name. Night Speaker K N I g h t speaker.com. you'll see the podcasts and my books and the programs that I do. I've got a book marketing company, some fun little apps out there. We help people discover their next great read. So there's a lot of, a lot of things that I sort of play in. But honestly, just I love the format of your show and I really appreciate you having me on this. This meant a lot to me to be invited because I've seen some of the people that are on your show. It means a lot.

Awesome. I am so glad we got to talk. And I've got three pages of notes here on just what you talked about. So culture is something that I think about all the time. It's something that we're working on all the time and we'll continue to work on it and that was really helpful for me. So I'm sure it was for the people that are listening. So thank you so much for being here and I look forward to just staying in touch as we go on our journeys.

You got it, my friend. We'll talk to you soon. Rock on.

You too. Thanks. It's time for our new segment, guess the why. And this week, I want to do somebody that everybody knows, at least I think they do. And that is Simon Cowell from American Idol. What do you think? Simon's why is? So let's think about him for a minute. Every time you saw him on American Idol, what was he wearing? He was always wearing a white T shirt and jeans and who knows, maybe tennis shoes. But he was not really, you know, they weren't like perfectly starched, but he was always wearing a white T shirt. I think at one point he changed to a black T shirt. I know everybody had a big to do about. He switched from a white T shirt to a black T shirt. What does it mean? But every time he gives advice to people or has feedback, he's very direct to the point. Don't give him the fluff, just tell him what it is. And so based on that, I would say that Simon Cowell's why is to simplify, to make things simple, direct to the point. Don't give him the fluff. Just tell it like it is. Don't beat around the bush. He simplifies things to the point where people can actually do them, use them and be effective with it because it's so simple. So I believe Simon Cowell's why is to simplify. What do you think? Let us know what you think. And I want to thank you so much for listening. If you have not yet discovered your why, you can do so@yinstitute.com, use the code PODCAST50 get it at half price. All of our podcast interviews will be so much more valuable for you if you know your why. And if you love the beyond your why podcast, please don't forget to subscribe below and leave us a review and rating on whatever platform you're using to listen to our podcast so that we can help spread the word. Thank you very much and I will see you next week.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest, you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others.

I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez and I'll see.

You on the next episode.