Episode 049: Our Thoughts on Michael Jordan's 30 year Grudge

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Welcome to the Fleet Success Show, a podcast dedicated to talking about the fundamentals, standards, and best practices that empower today's fleets to achieve fleet success. Let's get into the show.

All right, welcome back for another episode of the Fleet Success Show. I'm your host, Josh Turley. Joined today by Jeff Jenkins.

Hey guys, what up?

And today we have another special guest joining us again, Angilee Turvey.

Hello.

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

So good to see you two episodes in a row.

Isn't it? It is really great to be here. Although he should have said my beautiful wife.

So, and co-host. My beautiful wife and co-host.

Well, you're much more aesthetically pleasing than Steve sitting across from me. So I will say that.

Oh, thank you.

Steve, I apologize. You're just not as good looking as my sister. I don't know what to tell you.

That got weird. For all you who listen—

Well, hold on a second. First of all, you made it weird by saying that. There was nothing weird about me complimenting a relative.

That's true. Of course, my favorite comment is, you know, people look at Ang and they wonder, "Wait a minute, you married her?

How did you do that?" Well, a little hidden secret about my sister. She's very, very far-sighted.

That must be it. I'm just kidding. It must be it right there.

Hindsight is 20/20 over here.

So today we've got this really fun topic, uh, and this spurred because we were watching, you know, we had the 75th anniversary of the NBA this year. If you follow the NBA at all, you know it's 75 everywhere. And this year we just had the 75th anniversary for the All-Star Game, and it was really cool. They brought up all the old all-time greats, you know, so Charles Barkley, the top 75 players, there's a top 75 players And so across all the positions, right? So, and you had some just amazing all-stars that were on there— Larry Bird and Scottie Pippen, all these guys. And they are bringing them up on stage, and it was interesting is that at the event and at all the festivities, you know, as they're meeting current players, you know, LeBron James met Michael Jordan, there was a huge moment. Michael Jordan talking to Magic Johnson. One of the things that everybody noticed was Michael Jordan and Isaiah Thomas would not talk to each other. Like just purposely avoided each other during the whole week. Um, if there's an article, it says, you know, watch Michael Jordan visibly still sour about his 30-year-old, 30-year-old rivalry with Isaiah Thomas. Duo seen purposely avoiding each other. Now I like they put the onus on Michael, right? But let's, let's give you a little context if you're not familiar with NBA history, right?

This is, this is, this is like '80s, early '90s type grudge that we're talking about, right?

This is 30 years ago. Yeah, um, it goes back all the way to the time when Isaiah Thomas and the Detroit Pistons were constantly eliminating Michael Jordan and the Bulls from the playoffs, and they would beat the crap out of them.

It's not the soft NBA today where if you breathe on LeBron, he flops. I mean, they were elbows pushing, hitting.

Yeah, yeah, it was, it was very violent. And they, they even had, right, if you haven't heard of this, it's called the Jordan rules. The Detroit Pistons and created and implemented a strategy to contain Michael Jordan. And it was basically, if he drives in a lane, put him on his back, you know, like they just would not take it easy on him. And so for 3 years— maybe it was just 2— it was right between the eras of the Lakers-Celtics when that dynasty was fading, you know, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, that dynasty was fading. Isaiah Thomas and the Pistons came in and they were just absolutely knocking Jordan. And he was almost in his prime, like this is when he was really great. Uh, he got even better, but as an individual contributor, this is when he was doing his best work. Um, and constantly they just were eliminating him. Jordan finally gets revenge in the '91-'92 season.

Yep.

Might have been '90-'91.

It was '91. It was '90-'91.

Finally gets revenge. And Isaiah Thomas and the Detroit Pistons, right, they lose to the Bulls. I think they got swept, if I remember right. And they walked off the court. Didn't shake hands, didn't congratulate them.

Just pissed.

They had put them through living hell the last 2 or 3 years, and when they finally lost to the Bulls, they didn't have the, the respect and the maturity to say, hey, good job, tip their hat. Instead, they were pissed and they walked off the court.

Yeah, total great example of poor sportsmanship, because if you look at the previous 2 years, the Bulls shook their hands.

Yep, they got absolutely blasted by them. They were put on their back, right? They were beat up and just, you know, outmuscled. And they did. They stuck around to say, hey, you know, congratulations, as much as it hurt and as much as it, you know. And so for them to walk off the court, like, that was the ultimate sign of disrespect. Like, we don't want to acknowledge your greatness, or, you know, that the end of an era, you know, our era, uh, because it was really the beginning of Michael's ascension to the throne. It was, yeah, it was the beginning of the first three-peat. Um, since that time though, Isaiah Thomas and Michael Jordan have never really gotten along. You know, and Isaiah Thomas, he, you know, he had his own issues and things like that, but they still have this huge grudge. And so you get now to— this is now 30 years later, and they can't even say hi when they get into a room with each other.

Yeah, not a fist bump, not a— not anything. Like, you don't even have to walk up, hey man, great to see you, give you a hug. But not even a handshake, nothing. It's just like, I see you, I turn the other way.

Yep. And Michael Jordan can be very off-putting to some people, right? He has that very dominant personality. Isaiah Thomas has that very same mindset. Yes, that arrogance, you know, that comes through. Both are very great players, but the— what ends up happening, right, we start looking at— as I was watching this, I'm like, man, 30 years is a long time for a grudge. I wonder if there's times in business where we have that same kind of thing, you know, where somebody has just offended us to the point that we can't even be in the same room with them, you know, or at least we don't even want to acknowledge them. We walk into the room and we just go the other way. And what is the cost of that? When we let a grudge like that seep into our lives and maybe you've got family like this, maybe it's business relationships, but what's the cost of a grudge like that and how does it hurt the business operations?

So two things about me, right? One is that sometimes I can take things very personally, right?

Oh.

I know, hard to believe. Number two is, 99% of the time, the next day, the next hour, I'm fine. Forgotten about it. I'll move on. It's not a big issue. Now, depends on the person, right? Typically depends on the situation, but in most cases I don't. But I will tell you, there are people I've had grudges against, and I probably still have a grudge, even though if I saw them, I'd probably say hi. I just don't know how friendly I'd be. So let me give you example number one. I had this boss, um, and we'll call him Jim. His name is actually Jim. But we're gonna call him Jim anyway. So Jim, he was the president of a flatbed company that I was working for. And Jim never did anything wrong. Nothing was ever Jim's fault. What I loved about Jim is he was very good financially. So I learned how to read a P&L. Like my financial acumen working for Jim, like just went through the roof. It was fantastic. But Jim's problem was, is that everything got pushed off to somebody else. Jim would give me advice on something to do or just tell me to go do something. I'd do it. And if it went south or if our CEO didn't like it, it went right onto me. And Jim would never take responsibility for that. Only time I've ever been fired was by Jim. And it was because basically he told me to do something. I went out and did it. And then he blamed whatever, whatever happened just solely on me and never once took responsibility. So I haven't seen Jim since then, right? I don't care if I ever see, see Jim again. But what I will tell you is if someone brings up Jim, right, my attitude will change. Not only that, huge Iowa Hawkeyes fans. So I hate the Iowa Hawkeyes for no other reason than Jim loved the Iowa Hawkeyes, right? I mean, that's the level of pettiness. Yeah, that's really— but I learned this about Jim towards the end of before, you know, we parted our ways and I wasn't there anymore. And I can tell you that it affected my attitude. I hated that place because I hated Jim and the way that he did things. And it would have been very easy for me to approach Jim and talk to him about it, right? And say something. I don't know that anything would have changed, but I didn't do that. All I did was internalize it to where it affected me so much, right? And he may not even have known how I felt about it, but I punished myself because of his actions, and I held that grudge. And I probably still do have quite a big grudge against him for what happened.

And it— you mentioned it, like, it creates a negative emotion every time you think about it.

Yep.

And you feel that, like, physically. You know, they've talked about what happens to your body when you think about people you haven't forgiven, when you think about people that are just— that have pissed you off or that have hurt you. Your body re-experiences— who said this? It was John Delony. We were at—

it was John Delony. Yeah, entrepreneurs. Yep.

He said how your body actually re-experiences the trauma as if it had just happened, right? It re-experiences the entire event again every time that you relive that and you re-examine that brick, is the way he kind of described it. You know, and you— then you just put it back in your bag and you're like, "Yep, I still want to hold on to that one. I'm going to carry that weight." But it's amazing the physiological impact that a grudge can have as you remember it, as you think about it, and as you hold it.

Yeah. So the people can't obviously see, but I could feel the temperature in my body rising by like 10 degrees, and I felt a little bit flushed just when I started talking about this. Just because I'm re-experiencing going through thinking about the crap that went on.

The trauma.

Yeah. Yeah.

You are a little red.

Thank you.

Your skin is a little red.

It'll die down in about 2 minutes.

It'll be back to normal here. So yeah.

When I think about some of the relationships that we've had and trying to think if there's any that we've really held grudges over and there's definitely some that we could have and I probably did for a little while. So I'll compare and contrast to where it was versus where it is now. But there's definitely moments where, you know, you run into somebody at the store and you're like, I don't know what to say to this person because everything I want to say isn't kind. It's not.

Yes, right.

Like, that's just not what I— it's what I want to say because I think it'll make me feel better, but it won't ever, you know, because it— like, they don't care, right?

It doesn't matter to them.

Well, it may not, but then again, it may care. They may matter to them as well, right? They may be holding a grudge. I mean, usually if something goes south with two different people, there's something between both of you. It's never typically just one.

So we did have one where it was an employee that we did have to let go of, but we see this person pretty frequently and it's one of those weird things where you're like, hey, I'm ready to forgive you. I want to move on, but they just kind of shut it down. And so it creates this really awkward tension where now, if you have friends, mutual friends, they've got to almost pick sides. Who do I want to spend time with? Who do I want to be with? And in that case, you just kind of, hey, you just got to do what you got to do. I don't want you to worry about it. If you're on that side where you've somehow offended somebody and you can't gain forgiveness, the most you can do is just, when you're ready, I'm ready and I'll be here.

Well, and a lot of people, it's funny because when they have grudge, you know it. So they unfollow you on LinkedIn. I mean, you've had that happen before with ex-employees. If it's an ex-girlfriend or an ex, some significant other, give you back a necklace you gave them for their birthday, or they unfriend you on Facebook or whatever the case may be. It's usually fairly evident. And the thing is about that is that doesn't really affect the person they're unfriending at all.

Nope.

Right.

Or returning the gift. Yeah. That person's not affected. I mean, you're affecting yourself more by holding that grudge and thinking about, oh my God, I can't ever see this person's name or I'm going to flip out. So I got to unfriend them. I gotta lose that connection. It's just, it's kind of a weird way to do it, right?

Well, and I think what happens too is now you create this, this almost like the Michael Jordan and Isaiah Thomas walking in a room, and now I can't even talk to you. Um, and that level of tension, you know, because that like, that happens for us, you know, we'll walk in a room, you're like, can I say anything? Can I not say anything? You know, like, what's okay? And you think about how how much better life would be if we could just let it go. Yeah, you know, and just like walk up and say, hey, I'm so glad to see you again. And it's, you know, like just be able to put that stuff behind us, um, is really detrimental. I think in business when this happens, it's even more detrimental, you know. Like maybe we don't go home and see him at the end of the day, maybe this isn't somebody we run into, but in this industry relationships matter and they last a lifetime. And so if you have a sour relationship with somebody, like, word gets around. It's a weird, you know, it's like cliquey and gossipy, I guess, in some ways, but word kind of gets around. And that relationship ends up poisoning other relationships. And, you know, instead of just being able to resolve the problem, maybe you offended somebody and didn't mean to, maybe you were offended by somebody, you know, if you hold on to that, it will limit your ability to make connections. It'll limit your ability to make an impact. You know, when we talk about being a successful PLE person, if you have a grudge against one of your stakeholders, it's going to limit your ability to serve them with your whole heart, mind, and strength. You know, like you just won't be able to do that. If you've got a grudge with one of your employees, you're not going to be able to lead them in an effective way until you figure out how to let it go.

And a lot of times when people get offended too, they're not assuming positive intent. I think so, you know, the oneness actually hits on you as well. So I was having a one-on-one with one of my people, uh, two weeks ago. And I, I said something and it, it, it wasn't a big deal. It's basically just, hey, your sales numbers aren't what they should be right now. Right? I mean, we know you're capable of more, but the way I framed it, I guess I didn't think about it. And afterwards I'm like, man, I wonder if he took offense by that. So this week in our one-on-one, I brought that up and I just said, hey, I wasn't trying to offend you by saying that. And you know, the response was, well, no, I didn't take offense to it. I know my numbers are bad. I know I need to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. But I thought that maybe someone could hold a grudge against me for making a comment that I didn't mean for it to go. So I wanted to make sure I cleared that up because the last thing I want is one of my employees to hold a grudge against me because I may have said something insensitive.

And I think you give them the opportunity when you recognize those moments. This is why we harp on being humble and hungry and smart. It takes being both humble and smart to recognize when you've overstepped, when you might have said something insensitive, but then being humble enough to care about it and say, "Hey, I'm actually really sorry about that," admit it and say sorry. Those are things that we talk about because they're so important to get over grudges, to get over. And really what we talk about is forgiveness. A lot of people, "Oh, you're just, that's a preachy word." Well, forgiveness is at its root, it was really about letting go of those things that hurt you, right? And finding a way to be healed, like to heal yourself and to, you know, allow yourself to kind of move past those stumbling blocks. I think one of my— there's a story that I always go back to, and it talks about this boy who put a nail into a tree when it was just a young sapling, and then the tree grew. And, you know, eventually the tree grew and it just grew around this old rusty nail, and it got to the point where that tree— that rusty nail had been in there so long that it was killing the tree. And the only thing to do was to chop the tree down. And I wonder how many times we have those rusty nails in our lives where we've just grown around them, we've calloused, we've done all these things to try to keep the harm, keep the hurt from hurting us. As John Delony says, where we re-experience that trauma over and over again. And what we, you know, the benefits of forgiveness of how we, when we can move on from those things, how much better we feel, how much lighter we feel because of that.

Well, we do. So Angelie and I, our dad kind of abandoned us when we were young. Our parents got divorced and then he was not very present.

Absentee.

Yeah, very absentee father. And we have an older sister as well, and our older sister always refers to him as the sperm donor. Not even dad. And for me, I guess you have a grudge because the one person besides, I guess, your mother that should care about you is your father. And one of the things though is I don't have a grudge against him. If I saw him, I'd say hi. I don't really want anything to do with him, but looking at him and how he was with us makes me want to do the opposite.

To be better.

Yes, to be much better. So there's a little bit of a grudge there, but I think that sometimes we can take that and we can turn it around to where we can improve ourselves. By letting go and doing something, saying, if I got offended by someone, then I can just take it as, hey, I don't want to offend anybody and make them feel the way that I just felt. So let me turn that around and not do that. You can take those bad moments and then you can make them something much better.

And I think that's the— you talk about being able to forgive is you can choose not to move on or you can choose to move on.

Yep.

And if you don't want to move on, then that's fine, but you're limiting your own personal growth because you never move out of that moment. And the ability to move on and forgive is ultimately what lets you really build those relationships and make them fuller and make them deeper because you can get on a much more personal level because it's like, hey, I know I messed up and I'm really sorry. Seeking forgiveness is a huge deal. But then when somebody has offended you, being able to forgive allows you to move on from the moment. Uh, it allows you to experience that healing.

Yeah. I couldn't imagine being in a shop, let's say with 6 other technicians and then me just having a grudge with someone that I've gotta be in a bay next to all day long and that I'm sharing tools with. And you know, like, can you just, cuz we know when you're mad at someone or there's a grudge, the tension just takes up so much energy. Yeah. When you're by each other, like it's, it takes more effort to avoid someone than to actually connect with them. Yep.

Yeah, I think it's important to know too that the letting go of your grudges takes practice.

Yeah.

And time. Because the more that you do it, the more that you forgive, the easier it is and the quicker you are about going about it. When we have an argument in our home, I am a silent arguer. I just go quiet and I don't say anything. I don't, I just don't talk. And you can tell when it's gone on for a while because Josh will start saying things like, okay, I give. I don't know what I did.

This happened just the other day.

Help me out. I don't know what's wrong.

Like, I know I did something. I just don't know.

I'm really sorry for whatever I did. I really just don't know what it is. And, um, in the beginning of our marriage, it happened a lot, a lot, a lot. And we had quite a few arguments. But as the years have gone on, if we've learned how to communicate better, how to let things go, the forgiveness process, we really don't have as many arguments anymore, or they're shorter. We're able to forgive and let it go and not bring it back up over and over and over again.

The time that I get to spend in shunned mode is just a lot less now.

So yeah, that's like a Jansen family trait because everyone in that line, we're shut down. When we're mad. It's not the get vocal, yell. It's just, you know what, gonna be on my own over here. So take that, you don't get to enjoy my presence, right?

And when you're mad at them, they're like, I don't want your presence anyway.

Yeah, that's fine. You want to be like that? Okay, I'll just be over here and you come talk to me when you're ready to talk. Uh, but I think you talk about like just sitting there in the shop, right? And the benefits of forgiveness, it really does help with team chemistry. You know, it really does help with you being able to serve the people around you. And, you know, we talk about being a successful fleet. There's no way for you to be successful if you're not all successful, right? Like, you can be the best tech in the world, but if the guy next to you is really struggling and you're holding a grudge against them, versus the shop where that same situation is happening, you're the best and they're struggling and you have a good relationship with them, I'll tell you is that second shop will outperform the first shop 10 times over. Because they have built the relationship and they've built the ability to make a mistake and then forgive one another. And that power of forgiveness really creates an unstoppable momentum within a fleet.

Well, it does. And I'm just going to add on top of that, it's incumbent on the leader to make sure that those type of things are facilitated. Get them in a room together and let's hash out what these differences are. And let's move on and move forward. Because as a leader, you notice when people don't get along. Yep. I mean, it's very obvious. And then you can also feel the tension. Anybody that walks in there can feel the tension. So if there's a disagreement or there's something that happened, get them together. Right. And a lot of people don't want to do that because of the conflict that's involved with it. Right. It's that fear of conflict that we've got to get over because, oh, I don't want it to turn into a yelling match, or I don't want it to get physical or something like that. Well, guess what? That's most likely not going to happen. Right. It's, "Angely, what did Josh do?" Or, "Josh, what did Angely do?" And then, "Oh, well, she said she didn't like how I cut my beard this week." And it's like, "Oh, okay. So what do you want to do?" You know what I'm saying? There can be resolution, but sometimes you just need a mediator that's going to help walk you through those steps and facilitate that. And as a leader, you got to do it or your culture's screwed.

Right.

8 times out of 10, it usually ends up just being a miscommunication.

Yes.

You said this and that's how I felt. Oh, I'm so— I didn't know that's how— That's not what I meant. That's not how you took it.

Yeah, right. Yeah.

The story I was telling myself, right? We quote Brené Brown all the time in our home. The story I'm telling myself is that you think this and it seems like this, right? And just that miscommunication ends up causing 80% of our problems. Now the other 20%, "No, no, I really did mean that." Right?

That's really what I said.

Right? And then you just find out, okay, well, why did that upset you so much? And well, this is why I said it. Okay. Are you willing to change? Are you willing to get better? Are you willing to do things differently? But having the courage to enter the danger as the leader and bring out those moments is really what sets you apart as a great leader versus just a mediocre one.

Well, and your people know that they've got to squash these things together if they know you're going to hold them accountable as well. And I promise you, you'll run into some people that, yeah, I meant what I said. I'm not going to change. I'm not going to do anything different. Well, guess what? That person's not a good fit then. They shouldn't work for you if they're going to cause that drama and that stress within your organization.

Now, I'll tell you one more thing that a leader has to do, right? And this is something we say all the time. The leader must go first, right? They have to model this behavior.

Yes.

So if they're getting offended all the time and they're insecure and they can never say sorry, you can never expect your people to do the same. And so it's really important that you model that behavior, that you show what it's like to to have an attitude of forgiveness and experience the benefits of forgiveness.

And I'll just tell you, it's really hard for me to do that.

It's hard for most people.

To say, "I'm sorry and apologize." Well, here's what I'll tell you. In my first couple months here, I witnessed Josh apologize to people because they mistook what he said. And the response was, "Well, I'm sorry if you took it that way. That's not really what I meant." I've never really seen that in a business environment from a CEO. I know I sure as hell wasn't like that.

Well, and I'll even flip it around too. You know, I don't even say like, "I'm sorry you took it that way." I will say, "I'm sorry that I didn't say that more clearly." Yes. And I think that's because what it does is it shifts the responsibility. And that's honestly, I think if you're having trouble forgiving, it's probably because of this. And it's because you haven't yet taken ownership for your part in every problem in your life, right? Is that there's always a part that you played in whatever situation it was. And if you can take that ownership, You can realize, you know, am I projecting? Am I saying like a backhanded sorry where it's like, well, I'm sorry that you're a jerk.

Yeah, right.

Giving Hollywood compliments.

Hollywood compliments, right? And no, this is like, no, no, I'm sorry that I said it that way, or I said it in a way that you were able to take it the wrong way. I need to be more clear. I need to say that in a different way so that you understand what my true meaning was because it was this, right? And I'll reword it and all that, but You know, I'm sorry that I raised my voice, or I'm sorry that I did this, right? The more that you can apologize meaningfully and truthfully and genuinely, because they will see through a fraud. If you're fake apologizing, they're going to see through it. But if you can say it genuinely and model that behavior, you will have a much more peaceful, copacetic, happier, healthier shop. Yeah, it'll just be healthier. Like, and you will, you have a lot less, you know, timeouts and sick outs and all that stuff too.

Like, it's just a different place when everyone gets along, when everyone likes each other's company, when, you know what I'm saying? I mean, it's just a, that's a place you want to go to every day.

You really do. Like, there's just some amazing health benefits, mental health, emotional health, physical health, to fostering that type of environment. And you get a lot more out of your team because of that.

Yep.

So, well, that's going to wrap it up for us today. Any last comments? Anjali, thank you for being here with us.

Oh, you're welcome.

Partner in crime, Jeff. Thank you.

That was a fantastic episode.

Right?

I loved it.

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