https://www.listennotes.com/e/2b9c7b7e7fdb4733878dc2b712c81bc5

Thanks for joining us today on Street Smarts with Harvey Mackay, where the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement. And now here's your host, managing partner and co founder of harveymckayacademy.com, cliff Jones.

Hello, everybody, Clif Jones with Harvey McKay Academy. And I am delighted to have with us today Rob Shallenberger, leadership expert extraordinaire. Rob, good morning, welcome.

Hey, good morning, Cliff. And welcome to anyone listening watching from wherever you are. It is a beautiful day in Utah and I know Cliff just got done with a beautiful walk up a mountain this morning. So we are excited to be on the call with you today.

Rob, you always have great energy. You hail from Utah. If you're listening to this on our Street Smarts podcast, Rob and I are going to talk about leadership and his expertise, his company's expertise, transforming leaders globally, a significantly profound process, Rob, that we're going to go through. We're going to talk today about your first book, the twelve Principles, and that's really about becoming your best, the name of your firm. I want you to tell everybody all about you, but you also have a succeeding book, which is the Transformational Challenge. So why don't we start with you telling our listeners, our audience about you, why you're doing what you're doing, a little bit about your firm, that sort of thing.

Well, good. And I wish we had the chance to really sit across almost like a campfire from everyone and get to know everyone's story, because everyone has a story. So maybe in the spirit of that, Cliff, I'll take just a couple of minutes, give my background so that we can at least relate to each other. I grew up in Utah like you mentioned, went to Utah State, MBA from Colorado State, served a two year mission in Bolivia, service mission, which was an incredible experience, came back from that and then was a fighter pilot for 11 years flying F16s in the air Force. Just some amazing experiences, working with some incredible warriors and, you know, people with some true heart and grit. So just amazing to do that for 11 years. Had the chance to finish with Air Force One, where I traveled around as an advanced agent to South Korea, Mexico and other places around the world, working with foreign embassies, Secret Service, the White House staff, and again, just another incredible opportunity where you had to pinch yourself sometimes after that. That is where really the transition segue started to happen in that my dad and I had a vision that we were going to start a company together. And so seven years ago, as I transitioned out of the Air Force, him And I started a company called Becoming youg Best Global Leadership. And Cliff, the foundation of this was really centered on research that he had started in the 70s. And then I joined in helping him with. And you've got it there. And that is focusing on what sets apart great leaders and high performers from everyone else. Because the theory was there are certain habits that you see in high performing people and great leaders. And if we could discover what those were and then develop a curriculum around that, we knew we would have something powerful. And at that point, there was really nothing like it in the world. And so we started this research and indeed, just like you pointed out, we found that there are 12 principles of highly successful leaders. And these 12 principles are very predictive of success, Cliff, in our personal lives, our relationships, and certainly in our teams and in our businesses. And, you know, you talk about leadership as a whole, this is one of the greatest predictors of success in an organization is who is leading the team and where is it going to go. And we intuitively know that the question is, are we doing the things that will predict success and help us be great leaders as we lead our own life and lead our organizations? And so around those 12 principles, we built the tools and processes over the course of a few years. And we've probably put more than 10,000 hours into this, more than $2 million, and now have built this organization that trains other companies and teams around the world. And in fact, just this year we won an award from HR.com for the number one leadership program in the world. And just to give you some ideas, what's been powerful about this, Cliff, it's taken us places I never would have expected to go. We've had a chance to sit one on one with the President of Rwanda as he's asking how does he become a better leader for his country? Which to me was a very humble, open, great question for a leader to ask. I had the chance to coach the President and COO of the Dallas Cowboys and train their senior team. And they would credit these 12 principals with helping them have their best year ever financially. And that's why they're very predictive of success. Next week we have an Africa tour coming up. One of our presenters will be then going to Vietnam. I'm going to Guatemala next week and then Malta. So it's exciting to see this Becoming youg Best Movement happen around the world. So there's a two minute background, a nutshell version on what this is and where we're at today.

That's phenomenal. Tell everybody why you are so passionate and exceptional at what you do when it comes to leadership and development.

Well, there's a quote that we all start our seminars with, and it really applies to every one of us, Cliff, and it goes like this. Good, better, best. Never let it rest till the good is better and the better is best. And the truth is, can't every one of us be better as leaders? I mean, if you're watching this, imagine going home. And if you're in a relationship with a spouse or significant other, what would that be like? To be able to have conversations where you're passionate about each other, where you have a great relationship. If it gets a little heated, you know how to overcome that and just love being around each other. And on a personal side, how about waking up in the morning excited and really feeling connected to a purpose and a passion? And that's not something that's very common in today's world. From a team perspective, how about being excited to see your team and feeling like you're moving together as a team and you're a part of something great? And I'll tell you what, Cliff, we've done a lot of research on this. We have a personal assessment that people can take for free. And it's amazing. The numbers, like less than 1% of our population, has a written personal vision. In other words, if you're flying an F16 and you take off and don't have a destination in mind, where are we going to end up? And why I get passionate about this is because every one of us will either lead a life by design or live a life by default. And so it's not just the business. I mean, the business is. Is a byproduct of our leadership. It starts right here inside each one of us. And so I get passionate, Cliff, when I hear people talk about how these tools and processes and not to exaggerate, has helped them change their lives. There's people who have averted a divorce. There are people who have taken 20 years of complacency, or I'll just say being in a comfort zone. And now we're in a totally different place where they're saying, if I only would have known this 20 years ago. And just as a side note, you know, I had a chance to teach with a group of ex fighter pilots for two years, different business processes. And it was all about the business, 100% about the business. And what I quickly found, Cliff, is that that lost. I lost my motivation and passion for that fairly quickly because it's great to see People succeed in business. It's 10 times more powerful to see people succeed in business and in their personal lives and in their relationships. And that's what the spirit of becoming your best and these 12 principles of highly successful leaders are all about. It's the personal life, the relationships, the team and the business. So it's very easy to get passionate about that when you see the impact it's having in people's lives.

If you're just tuning in, ladies and gentlemen, this is Rob Shallenberger, CEO Becoming youg Best, one of the leading leadership development organizations in the world, based in Utah. And Rob, you'll be coming back quite a bit. You'll be providing a massive amount of free insight and mentoring for our community programs such as this. But we'll also be inviting members to participate in some paid virtual live training with you and your facilitators. Isn't that what you call the people who take your leadership clientele through the programs an extension of you? Is that your profile of your consultant or leadership development? Is that part of your team?

Yeah, that's right. There's actually two aspects to that. And is this becoming your best? Movement grows. There's been two parts to this. We have trainers or speakers who will go out on our behalf when we contract events around the world and they will train those organizations or people. On another note, we now opened up, starting a year ago, a program where people can come and be certified as becoming your best trainers, where they get all the PowerPoint, the content. I mean, they get thousands of hours of work so that they don't have to reinvent the wheel and they become a certified trainer. And it's powerful because they can use that if they're a CEO, if they're a manager, they can train their own team with that. So it's not like you need to go out and be a presenter, quote, unquote. You can become certified and get all of these tools to use within your own organization or within your own network. And so that's been a really powerful model as we've opened that up, is allowing people to become certified so they can teach it within their sphere of influence.

Great. Thanks for sharing that. Now, we always want to provide huge takeaway value for our audience. So we're going to delve into the 12 principles at a high level. We can go through that. But help everybody understand. Of all the leadership programs on the market today, what is it you're finding that your clients are actually saying that makes your program so effective? As you said, HR.com rated you as the number one leadership program in the world that is significant. So tell us why that is.

Yeah, that's a great question, Cliff. There's really two reasons why. I mean, think about if you're watching this, how many times have you attended a conference or some sort of event and you're all fired up and motivated, and then what happens two weeks later? For most people, it just. We tend to go back to our normal habits and routines, which we get. Why? I mean, the average adult has between 60 to 75,000 thoughts per day. 90% of those thoughts are repeated day to day. And so a lot of us are in these habits and these routines, and it's not necessarily easy to change those and really have something that can transform our lives. With the 12 principles, there's a couple things that people are saying and it's why they absolutely love them is because, number one, it impacts every aspect of their life. You know, the relationship they have with their children and their spouse, their ability to lead their team and others. And most importantly, I would say, is the ability for them to lead their own life and do things that up to this point, most people haven't considered doing. And that's why these 12 principles are very predictive of long term success. These are high performance habits. So that's. Number one is that it reaches across every area of their life and especially their personal life as well as their business. Number two is because it's easy to implement, Cliff. And when we sat down five years ago, we said, we've got to create a process that is easy for teams and people to use and implement. So let me give you an example. After a seminar, we invite people to focus on one of the 12 principles every week. This is really modeled around Benjamin Franklin. When he was about 20 years old, he had his boss come to him and say, ben, you are a pompous, arrogant young man and no one wants to be around you. And that was stinging, as it would be for anyone, you know. And he said, that's not what I want to be. This is not who I want Benjamin Franklin to be. So he went home and he wrote down 13 virtues. And the reason he chose 13 is because he simply divided 52 weeks by 13 and realized that he could go through this cycle four times a year. And the idea was that he would focus on one of those virtues every week. So patience, kindness. And at the end of his life, he would credit that process as something that he did really for the rest of his life, as the thing that shaped him as to who he became. It was him being very intentional and focused. And we would call that making a shift from transactional to transformational. So in Benjamin Franklin's spirit, we invite teams to focus on one principle a week. Teams and individuals. And what they can do is they sit down and they discuss the principle that week and how it applies to them and what they can actually do. And what's one action item that week? Now, to help with that, we have a weekly podcast from Becoming youg Best. We send out a weekly email that has a specific story and action item for each principal. And then, of course, you have the book. So there are a lot of resources that people have that they can draw on in their discussion that week. So here's a few examples of how that's being done, and this is why people love it. To answer your question, the Dallas Cowboys would credit that process right there with helping them have their best year ever, financially. I sat down with the COO and I looked at his playbook. Now, when I say his playbook, I mean he recorded the PowerPoints and printed them out and typed up the lessons learned from every one of those meetings. And for them, they would rotate who taught the principal every week, which is smart, because if it's just the manager, it's going to fail at some point. We need to spread the wealth. The teacher becomes the student, and the student becomes the teacher. And so he showed me the playbook, and I'm like, tim, these are amazing lessons learned. He goes, yeah. I mean, it's just had a huge impact in our organization right now. Panda Express, their CEO, is amazing. They took a slightly different approach simply because of their size. So they have around 600 stores. Every one of their store managers right now is reading Becoming youg Best. And they're gonna. Instead of doing a weekly meeting with all store managers that they meet once a month to focus on one of those 12 principles. And so as a team, let's say they're focused on Principal 2. In February, every store is invited to do something within their store to get better, related to that principal that month. And then they send it into the corporate headquarters and they compile a lessons learned of what all the stores have done. And they share some of those best lessons learned at the end of the month on that call. So can you already see how different and actionable that is? It's a process. And people can wrap their hands around a process where otherwise, if you share a motivational story or something that's inspirational, we get excited, we get motivated. It's Very easy for that to fade out though, unless we have tools and processes to really help us transform our behavior and our thoughts. And so those are the two reasons why it's resonated so deeply. Number one, it impacts every area of someone's life. And number two, the simple process of one principle a week is something anyone can do at any level in any organization.

That is phenomenal. Thank you for explaining that. And what it reinforces is, ladies and gentlemen, if you look at any successful large sustainable organization on the planet today, they have implemented a strategic plan. This is a process driven, never ending cycle you can focus on four times a year, you look at the greatest companies. The process before I sold my marketing business that we implemented, it was quarterly. We would force ourselves as a discipline to extract being in the business, work on the business. But your program is implemented weekly, much like our weekly action planning for all the implementation and content we do. And you're finding that the periodization, 12, 13 weeks, measuring each step of the way, following your process is having the biggest impact, Is that what you said?

Yeah, and that's a great clarification, Cliff. So you brought up an important point, which is strategic alignment. And the truth is every single organization in the world could be more aligned than they currently are. And the more aligned a company is and a team is, the better they will perform. This weekly meeting. And this will be a separate podcast or webinar that you and I do that we've already talked about, which is around strategic alignment and planning. This weekly meeting is where the rubber really meets the road. So at a personal level, there's a process called pre week planning. And maybe that's a discussion for a separate time. It's what we do at an individual level as a team. That weekly meeting is where the rubber really meets the road. It's what can set a team apart. The quarterly meetings that you're referring to absolutely still should happen. The annual meeting, the five key strategies, the vision. So this weekly meeting is the crux of the alignment and what keeps us aligned day to day and week to week. Where the rubber really meets the road.

Beautiful. Okay, now let's really dive into some street smarts. Ladies and gentlemen, Rob Shallenberger, CEO of Becoming youg Best. If you haven't read this phenomenal book on leadership, please do. Rob, where does everybody find your book? Amazon or where do you want them to go?

Yeah, any of those places is fine. Amazon. If you want one that's personalized or signed, you go to becomingyourbest.com but you can get it anywhere that you can get books.

Okay, so let's dive into. If you're willing. I know you adapt quickly because you're an amazing leader. I'm going to read the chapter title and you share with our audience the main principle and one thing that they could apply today listening to this program.

So you're gonna go through each of the 12 principles, is that right?

Yeah. Touch on them high level. Because, ladies and gentlemen, you're gonna hear a lot more from Rob. We're gonna do a bunch of free online virtual training. There will be paid programs where you can plug right in. And by the way, if you haven't heard this already, ladies and gentlemen, Rob is accepting applications. I'm pretty sure you're highly selective, Rob, for certified partners or facilitators, what do you call them?

Certified trainers.

Certified trainers. And ladies and gentlemen, this has to be one of the best business opportunities you could identify. If you're an executive seeking to start a consulting business or to plug and play in an organization like Rob, you're plugging into a number one rated methodology. Tried and true globally. Now it is true, Rob. People who become partners with you as trainers, they do have to go build. Build their own relationships, their own networks. Of course, everything you've built so far, they get to plug into. What kind of investment does that represent? If they become a certified trainer, it's 2495.

So 200495 is all it is. You get all of the tools, all of the PowerPoints, the trainer's guide. You get all of the back end support and the front end support. So for example, Cliff, there's a free assessment that anyone can take on our website. Becoming your best.com you. It's 25 questions. It's called a personal productivity assessment. And it is these 12 principles encapsulated into 25 questions that can really help someone identify specific areas that they can do right now that will increase their confidence, their productivity, and their peace and happiness. And so someone who gets certified as a trainer has access to the assessments. They have access to those weekly emails that they can give out to teams and people they train. So there's an entire system and program that they get. And better than anything, it saves them all the time and effort of having to reinvent the wheel themselves.

All right, I'm taking off my Harvey McKay Academy CEO hat for a second, ladies and gentlemen. If you didn't hear Rob, he said $2,500, become a certified trainer for massive support. A world class number one rated methodology. So Rob, we're going to double those prices. Can we do that by the end of the week? That's crazy inexpensive. If you bought a franchise or licensed content of this quality, this kind of track record and legacy methodology behind it, you would. You're talking 20, 20, 15, 20,000.

And the investment is going to go up for that cliff. So now is the time. The sooner you can on that, the better.

No, and I'm not playing games here. I sincerely mean that. Because when I started out, I had no story, no content, no methodology and I looked around at licensing and franchising and I didn't have the capital minimum back then. 15, 20 years ago. 20, $30,000. Gerber, all those guys, right? John Maxwell. Now there are more programs out there, especially affiliate related programs and business opportunities where consultants, authors, speakers, trainers, right? These high performance hungry fighters that are a massive part of our community network. They're going to love this stuff. So let's dive into the 12 principles. Chapter number one in becoming your best. The 12 principles of highly successful leaders, ladies and gentlemen. Okay. Be true to character. What's that all about?

This is simple. This principle is not a big deal in your organization until it's a big deal. WorldCom, Enron, Volkswagen, they've all done this. At a personal level, it's. We don't lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate any among us who do.

I Love it. Chapter 2. Lead with a vision.

Yeah, and I'll look at every one of these through two lenses. Personal and team and organization personal. Your personal vision is the seed of your legacy. And less than 1% of people have a written personal vision that's powerful for them. From the team side, think of it like arrows. Is your team all going the same direction or the arrows going like this? And a great leader steps up and articulates the vision and then passionately owns that vision.

Great. Chapter three, Manage with a plan.

Action without planning is wishful thinking is the old saying. And you're 90% more likely to accomplish something when you have a clearly written goal. On average, 10% of people have them. So at a personal level, we invite people to look at their different roles. Parents, spouse, manager, personal, etc. And set clear, specific goals within each of those roles of what they would like to do this year to help make their vision a reality. On the business side, that's where the whole structure of a rhythm and strategic planning comes into place. And that's probably a. How to develop that plan is a topic for our next call.

Well, yeah, there's massive, massive insight Knowledge and resources, tools you offer your clients, your leaders and teams. So again, ladies and gentlemen, if you're just hearing this now, Rob will be back in a big way teaching on the Academy. Okay, chapter number four. I know Harvey McKay is a biggie on this. Prioritize your time.

Yeah. 68% of people feel like this is their number one challenge. And as task saturation increases, performance decreases. And in our society, we almost all feel a measure of task saturation. We've developed a process called pre Week Planning. We've developed a Becoming youg Best Planner that can help you do pre we planning. And this is a simple yet if you corner me, Cliff. And that's why I'm taking a little bit longer on this one. This is probably the single most powerful habit and predictor of success that someone can do is pre week planning. Where you look at your roles, what can you do that matters most in that role this week and when will you do it? And it's nice to have a process, pre planning of the process that helps you master that principle. The tool is the becoming your best planner that helps you simply do that so that you have it in front of you all week. A person doing that habit, living by that habit transforms their life.

Alright, now you shift gears. You go from part one, Transformational Leadership. First four chapters. Part two, Transformational Teams and Relationships. I love the sound of this one. Chapter five, Live the Golden Rule in business and in life. Talk about that. Yeah.

The bottom line is what Maya Angelou said. People won't remember what you said or what you did. What they'll remember is how you made them feel. So from the personal side, how do we treat people? Especially those who can do nothing for us in return. That's to me the true litmus test. Fairly easy to serve someone who can return it. How about those who can't do anything for us, the homeless and others from the business side, how do you create a loyal customer rather than a satisfied customer? And you do that through creating a world class customer experience. So the focus is how do you create a world class customer experience?

Beautiful. Love that one. Chapter five, just to reinforce Live the Golden rule in business and in life. Okay, chapter six, Build and Maintain Trust.

Yeah, I'll use my fighter pilot background. Imagine going into war or battle in a low trust environment. I mean the odds of winning are almost nil to zero versus going in. Knowing that the intelligence you have, you have a high trust in that person. The person who worked on your engine, packed your parachute, you trust them, you trust your Flight lead and your wingman. Well, the most successful teams in the world are the ones that are founded on high levels of trust, where there's not a culture of nitpicking behind each other's backs, where people are working together. And we call it the trust accelerator when you start to learn someone's story. So from a transformational leader's perspective, do we know the story of the people we work with and around? Are we focused on actions that build high levels of trust? Doing things when we say we'll do them, returning phone calls and so on?

Beautiful. Chapter seven, Be an effective communicator.

Yeah, I mean, we don't have to go very far to know how big this principle is. And I'll just make a comment here at the halfway point, Cliff. You can see why each one of these principles individually becomes very powerful. Yet alone, a single principle, or even two. Don't do it. It's when you bring all 12 principles together that it creates a chemistry of excellence and a really transformational great leader and high performer. So, for example, you have someone who has the clear vision. They have a great plan, they're honest in all they do, yet they're a horrible communicator. It won't work. You get someone who lives this principle. They're a great communicator, yet there's no vision. There's no plan. They're all over the place with their time. That won't work either. So I just want to point out how important it is to bring all of these together, and that's why the one principle a week is powerful. With this principle, think about how well as you're watching this, how well do you listen and communicate with others? From the team perspective, are we master listeners or are we master talkers? There's a reason we have two ears and one mouth. And as leaders, it's important we use them in that order. As you go much deeper in this principle, there's five hours worth of content. It's how do you in your business focus on the benefits rather than the features? How do you communicate your sales message and align your marketing messaging to effectively communicate what it is that you do and connect with your customer? So this principle is simple, yet extremely powerful and deep and really a lifelong journey for almost every one of us.

Chapter eight. Innovate through imagination. That's a big one for Harvey McKay, too. Phenomenal imagination. Talk about imagination.

Here. Think about this. When you buy a child a present, how many times do they take the toy out of the box and then they Play with the box. The question is, why do they do that? Well, it's because at that point in their lives, their imaginations are alive and well. As we grow and we go through our school system and we hear well intentioned parents and friends, oftentimes we as adults get constrained to think within a box. And great leaders have the ability to get outside of that box and expand horizons and think in ways that most others don't. And there's some powerful tools such as brainstorming the right way, mind mapping the correct way. And there are things that we can do to intentionally unlock our imagination so that we can be disruptive. And it's not only on the business side because either we'll be disruptive or risk getting disrupted in our personal lives. We can't keep thinking and saying and doing the same things every day and expect massive change or even incremental change. Something needs to be innovated right here and adjusted. And again, that's why all 12 principles come into play. If we're going to innovate new and better ways to improve our life and our business, then we've got to be focused on doing that because it's not going to usually happen by happenstance.

Well, the process you're talking about that you share worldwide with leaders everywhere is it becomes part of the culture, it becomes part of every person. If we believe as you do that all leadership begins with personal leadership. So next chapter you shift into chapter nine, third part of the book, Transformational Living. Talk about be accountable and accountability.

Yeah, I mean, as you're watching this, every one of us knows how important accountability is. Think about someone you know who takes responsibility for their actions. They own up. Isn't that the kind of person that you want to be around and that you want to have in your life? We all know someone, and maybe it's been us at different points in our life who blames everyone else for everything. Oh, it's so and so's fault. Oh, why wasn't that done on time? Because that broke or it was their fault. I mean, how does that feel being around that type of person and part of having a high performing life as us, excuse me, us individually and as teams is we create this culture of accountability where people own their actions and they control what they can control rather than blaming, criticizing or absolving themselves of responsibility.

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, getting towards the end of the 12 principles, becoming your best world class number one rated leadership development program. Rob Shallenberger. Chapter 10 Apply the Power of knowledge.

I love this one. This is one of the ones that is the greatest predictors of success in a leader and in a person is their hunger and thirst for knowledge. You know, we can only apply something that we already have and what should concern every single one of us. It's not what we don't know, it's what we don't know that we don't know that should be a concern. And the only way to start to get those kinds of things is developing the habits that put the right knowledge in. G I G O. Most of the world would say garbage in, garbage out. Our minds are really like a computer. If we put greatness in, then we can expect greatness out. So some of those habits, reading at least a book a month, actively listening to podcasts and making your car, university, investing at least 3 to 5% of your income back into yourself, into your own development. Because we will only achieve as much as we're able to grow and change our mindset right here. And those are some of the things that do that. And I'll just share with you one statistic that's mind boggling. 43% of college graduates will never read another book the rest of their lives. It's almost unbelievable. And I didn't really necessarily believe it at first until I've done this, you know, in seminars around the world. And it is actually very close. And I of course absolutely now believe that. And it's one of the habits that's very predictive of success. And that's why great leaders are readers.

Chapter 11 live in peace and balance.

Almost 60% of employees go home at the end of the day and feel like they have no energy left for themselves or for their family. That is not a recipe for long term success. And even entrepreneurs, one of the greatest mistakes an entrepreneur makes is they get consumed and they get completely out of balance. And so there is literally four hours worth of ideas and thoughts in this principle. Here's just a couple of examples. How many times have we driven in a car that's out of alignment or out of balance? You know, and what are we concerned about? It's okay for a little while, but if we keep driving on it, eventually we run the risk of a blowout. And it's really no different in our personal lives or in our business. We can hard charge for a little while. If we keep doing that at the expense of the other areas of our life, we run the risk of a blowout. We all know someone who that's happened to and it's unfortunate because it's very Preventable. It does not need to be that way. We can have a balance of success stories across every area of our life. No matter what we're doing, whether we're in a job, a career calling, whether we're the owner or an employee, it does not matter. And that one other aspect of this, aside from balance, is peace. And a lot of this peace, Cliff, as you know, starts with our thoughts. 70% of the time in most adults is spent thinking negative thoughts for whatever reason is how we're so quickly geared and wired to go. And it's being very conscious about what our thoughts are and using affirmations and other things to bring this principle of neuroplasticity and rewire our brain so that we're focused on high performance thoughts. It's why a morning routine is so important, to get the morning started the right way, just like you did this morning, because our mind and our thoughts will tend to set the foundation for the day. And that's all related to Principle 11, live in peace and balance.

That is beautiful. So chapter 12, quick story hired a couple of young guys, brought them to Harvey's studio. We're doing the podcast yesterday. Harvey's getting to know them, asks them what they're all about. He tells them a quick story about the three things that determine for him the initial thing that determines someone's success. He said, hungry fighter, hungry fighter, Hungry fighter. You know, Harvey, you've hung around him, he's as hungry as any of us. So let's talk about. Because this relates to chapter 12, which is never give up. And hungry fighters never give up. So talk about number 12, never give up.

This is, you know, trying to find the order that these went in was actually not easy. Cliff. We started with number one, be true to character for a reason. We believe that's the foundation. We ended with number 12, never give up. Because that book ends really what a successful leader is all about. Every one of us is going to be faced with adversity, with trials, with challenges. And the question is, you know, we've heard it a million times from different people. Will we stay down or will we get back up and finish the race? And it's so much easier to never give up when a person is living by the other 12 principles. If they originally come out of the chutes true to character, they don't have to worry about fraud or anything like that. If they have a clear vision and a purpose and a plan, it's so much easier to never get up when we get knocked down. Whereas if we don't have any of those. It's easy to focus on the problem, on what knocked us down. And, you know, you just can't beat a person with grit if assuming that they're person of integrity, you just can't beat a person who refuses to stay down. Our friend Rudy Rudiger. Most people are aware of Rudy and have watched that movie. You know, it took him like nine or 10 years to get that film published because he was turned down by so many people. We would never know the movie Rudy had he not had this grit of I'm never gonna give up. Same thing that carried him through his football story at Notre Dame. And can I just share one quick story with you on this one, please?

Absolutely.

This is what most. If you look at what a lot of motivational keynotes are around, they incorporate some form of this principle. You know, they were challenged, they didn't give up. There was a friend who owns a company who we did a seminar for. He told me this, and I thought, oh, my, Lance, who would do this? It's why It's a hallmark of successful leaders. So I'm just gonna make up a couple names here. So we're not actually using real companies. There's a very successful company out there whose name we would all recognize. This particular friend of ours wanted to do all of their apparel. Now, it's a retail industry, it's a retail store. So doing someone's apparel in that industry is a huge deal. He called the person in charge of making that decision or emailed her every single business day for two and a half years with no response. So first of all, who would ever do that? And I mean, that almost seems overbearing, but nonetheless, he did it. And eventually one day she called him back and said, look, and I'll just call him John. She said, john, I've never met anyone like you. She said, you've been so persistent. I haven't responded to a single thing over the last two and a half years. And yet you called me, you've emailed me. If you're this good, I'm going to give you a chance. And she said, what I'd like you to do is if you can make it to my office on Monday, I would like to talk with you on Monday. Boom. Done. So he flies to her office, meets with her on Monday, and she said, you know what? I would like a prototype of this and this and this. Can you have the prototype to me by Friday? Now, he could have made excuses, but he said, no, I will have one to you by Friday. That means I'm going to fly to Japan, I'm going to work with our supplier in Japan and I will fly back from Japan and meet you here on Friday. So he jumped on a plane, was in Japan, met with his supplier, was back in her office Friday with the prototypes and she said that's fabulous. I'll take 4 million units. And bam. He's on the map. He never looked back. He now has a huge multi million dollar business as a result of that deal. If you look how that came about, how many people would have given up? And even at a smaller level, 90% of sales reps give up after four tries. And you just think about those statistics and what the power of this principle is and it really applies to every aspect of our life. So that's why we end with number 12.

Never give up. Ladies and gentlemen, Rob Shallenberger. Becoming youg Best CEO. Phenomenal book. Becoming youg Best the 12 Principles of Highly Successful Leaders. If you don't have it, you gotta get it. Rob will be speaking at future Street Smarts events in the real world. Rob will be online available to the thousands of you here at the Harvey McKay Academy. So if you don't have a free membership yet@harveymckayacademy.com get one today because we give you all sorts of great free street smarts insights on leadership, sales, business development, such as with Rob today. Rob, thank you so much for being with us. Everybody stay tuned because Rob's coming back real soon. Rob, thank you.

Thank you everyone. And thank you Cliff.

Pleasure. Take care.

Thank you for listening to Street Smarts with Harvey Mackay. If you've enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you consume your favorite audio. Don't forget to leave a positive rating and review before you sign up for your free membership@harveymckayacademy.com to learn more about Harvey Mackay, make sure to visit www.harveymckayacademy.com. thanks for listening and we'll be back soon with a new episode sa.