How to Build a Culture of Breakthroughs, Not Burnout with Ted Santos

What if the biggest breakthroughs in your business don't come from solving problems but from creating them? I know that sounds like madness. After all, leaders are trained to keep things calm, predictable, and running smoothly. But here's a dirty little secret. Predictable doesn't drive innovation. Safety doesn't spark growth. And playing it safe, well, that's the fastest route to stagnation. And that's what we're talking about today on Experience Leadership.

Welcome to Experience Leadership, a podcast that challenges small business owners and entrepreneurs just like you to dare to be the exception. Join our host, Customer Experience Expert Marc Haine, as he uncovers relevant and timely content to help you script and direct your business and teams to create jaw-dropping experiences your customers and staff deserve. Here is the host of Experience Leadership, author of Lights! Camera! Action!, customer experience expert Marc Haine.

Welcome to this episode of Experience Leadership. I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. And my guest today is author, speaker, and leadership disruptor who turns chaos Into Breakthroughs, Ted Santos. And today, we're going to be diving into why most innovative efforts fall flat and how you can lead your team through intentional disruption to spark very real scalable growth. My one ask is that if you know anybody who could use this information, please go ahead and share this link. If you're like most business leaders, you've probably spent your career trying to solve problems, put out fires, and keep chaos at bay. But what if that's exactly what's holding you back? What happens if the real key to performance is causing problems on purpose? I know it sounds risky, maybe even a little reckless. But that brings us to our Question of the Day. So, how much is your organization losing Right now because your team is too focused on solving the wrong problems. I'd love for you to be part of this conversation. Why don't you go ahead, share the link of this episode on your favorite social media platform, hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership, put your comments down, and be part of this conversation. As I mentioned, my guest today is a powerhouse in leadership transformation and one of the boldest minds I've ever come across. He's the creator of the Disruptive Leadership Model, a seasoned executive advisor, and the author of Here's Why You Can't Find Love. He helps leaders intentionally create the kind of challenges that lead to real scalable breakthroughs, not the meh kind that fizzles out in the boardroom. Ted, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you.

Great for having me. I look forward to this conversation. And the way you are phrasing this is so perfect, asking people to look at business from another perspective. Fantastic.

It's amazing what happens when you put a different lens on business, isn't it? It's all of a sudden you see things with a little bit different clarity.

Yeah. You start to see the same world in a way that it never was, sort of like it was hidden in plain sight. It was always there and you just never saw it because of the way you were thinking.

Yeah. Yeah. So Ted, before we get too deep into today's topic, could you just tell us a little bit about who your clients are and how you serve them?

So primarily Executives of middle market. And for me, middle market is revenues between $50 million and $500 million. CEOs primarily, sometimes boards of directors, but generally the top leaders in an organization. I have worked with small businesses, and these are people who are looking to create a breakthrough and not sure how to do it with existing resources.

I love that.

There have been the occasional VP, who you could sort of see in his eyes, he had this hunger for being a president or CEO. And I've worked with people to actually get that job, to train and coach them to become a president or CEO. Right.

I mean, just because you're highly skilled in your expertise doesn't make you the perfect leader to lead companies, does it?

Absolutely. There's a story I know of a gentleman, former CEO of a number of well-known companies. And when he left as CEO of a bank, He put the number 2 guy who was the CFO, put him in charge. He made him the CEO. And in 18 months, the board had to find another CEO because he didn't do well. He was a great number 2 guy, but he was just never trained and prepared to be the number 1 guy.

Yeah. So today we're talking about this idea of both— on both fronts, we have businesses that are constantly just trying to keep crisis at bay. And then we have other organizations that are kind of like just flowing through complacency. It's what we've always done. It's what makes us comfortable. What are the differences between the two as far as mindset is concerned? And how are those two mindsets holding people back?

So first, I would say one of the major signs of a company that's heading for distress is that they're successful and they are very complacent with the success. You could say that's a certain mindset, but one of the things that I've seen is There's a mindset of, I'm well-educated, I know everything that I need to know through college, and I'm going to grow my organization. And what that person will find is the organization will eventually outgrow them. And they will. So if you're a $5 million company and you grow to $20 million, $20 million will grow beyond what your skills and competencies can manage, and you'll shrink it back down to $7 or $8. The company that does well, they have a mindset of pulling more out of their people than their people know how to get out of themselves. And that allows that leader to constantly grow and develop and delegate to people, and their people will grow with them. In the first one where, you know, maybe he's a really smart guy, he handles everything and he doesn't delegate much, the company outgrows him and his people. The person who knows how to pull more out of people is also doing that with themselves. So they're very different mindsets.

And so when we think about these people who kind of flow into this, what level of humility do people need to have in order to turn around and say, I have a problem? Because to a lot of people, they're so ingrained in their business that their whole bubble is, well, This is normal for us. This is normal for my industry where we're in this. This is the same routine. It's nothing will change this because this is the business. How do you shake that, shake people out of that? So just a little question, Ted.

This can be troubling for a lot of people initially. There's a distinction between thinking and having thoughts, and this really becomes difficult for people who are considered really smart. Because they think it's a matter of semantics. So having thoughts is not a root. It's thoughting. You're thoughting. You're having thoughts about things that you've read, you've heard, you've seen, things that you already know about. Thinking is thinking that which you haven't thought. And the challenge with that, especially if you're smart, is thinking means you're about to face confusion, uncertainty, and possibly severe amounts of chaos. And if you're good and you're smart and you're accustomed to having the right answers and being able to learn stuff quickly and learn things that are related to what you already know, you're good. But once you get over here to thinking and the confusion and the uncertainty, you generally don't have tools to manage that. So the first thing you want to do is get rid of it. And as you were saying at the beginning of the show, That's how you end up stuck in complacency. And that's how you end up with entire industries stuck because they're all pretty much using the same tools. And a perfect example is why didn't Sony come up with the iPod? They were the masters of the miniature listening devices, but they were successful. They were complacent. Hey, we're going to even make a Discman now. And look at that. And, you know, you can carry it on your arm when you're running. And we, you know, we have these new features and benefits. And then a guy like Steve Jobs, who isn't stuck with that way of thinking, said, can we put 1,000 songs on a listening device? And his people are saying, I think you're high, Steve. What are you talking about? This makes no sense. In fact, we make these computers Ad agencies love them. Our customers are like, you know, fans, and you want us to make listening devices? It makes no sense. However, that was a problem. Once solved, it made the Walkman obsolete.

Mm-hmm.

Where does constraint fall into this? When somebody's already doing something like Blockbuster and Netflix comes along, Blockbuster is so firm in their business model that they look at Netflix and go, you're on crack. You must have been hanging out with Steve Jobs.

Exactly.

But having said that, when we have constraints holding us, like, that we have to work within, do we start to think more creatively because of that when we're ready to establish this mindset that nothing is impossible?

Well, let's say that Netflix was actually thinking and Blockbuster was having thoughts about how to make— do more, better, or different, and Netflix created an entirely new universe by thinking. And that, that would've had some kind of messy communication. How do we do this? You have to be okay with the messiness of thinking through that which hasn't been thought. And if you're only interested in being good at what you do, you're going to be, you're gonna go by way of the horse and buggy.

So when we think about this idea of disruptive leadership, disruptive thinking, are there any myths that we need to bust around this? Like when you first come up against people and you start kind of establishing, or even people who are tuning into this show right now, when they're thinking about this, they're like, what you're talking about sounds like it could be costly, it could be extremely risky. Are there any myths around this that we need to bust?

Maybe all, almost everything.

Every thought process.

Even thinking that thinking is a process is a myth that needs to be busted.

How so?

Because there are mental barriers and roadblocks blind spots that you have. And you just— these are things that you don't even know that you don't know. And I can give you an example. I had a client, he started out as a CPA, worked for one of the largest CPA firms, smart guy, decided to make a change in his career and went to the mortgage industry. When I met him, he was, I think, 62, and he was in a rut. Every day he went to work expecting to be fired. And the guy was He was someone that you couldn't not like. There was no way you could not like this guy. When he walks into the room, he knew how to break the ice and make everyone comfortable. And so he was a master at that. He would get meetings with people he called heavy hitters. These would be investors. He'd sit at the table with them. He'd crack a joke, everyone laugh. He'd talk a little business and then make another joke and another joke. And the investors would leave the table with no deal, But they would want to go out and have beers with the guy again. And he couldn't understand why he wasn't closing deals. So he was just waiting to get fired. What we discovered that he didn't know that he didn't know, when he was 13, he was in the backseat of a car with a few older guys, 17, 18 years old. And one guy said, hey, what's this guy doing with us? He's just a little young guy. He cracks a joke, everyone laughs, they put their arm around him and says, you're a cool guy and you belong. So that became his sort of superpower when he wasn't doing well. So people— and that was a blind spot. So he used it because it worked, but he had no way to distinguish when it was obsolete, when it was bankrupt. And this is something people have. It's what will derail people. So in that case, We had to get him to unlearn that, not stop doing it. You still can be the icebreaker, but that's not how you close deals. So now we're going to work on strategies and questions in a way to engage your prospects so that you can find out what their needs are and close the deal. So when he hired me, in the first 3 months, he doubled his productivity. In the next 3 months, he doubled that. So, and 3 of his competitors started courting him and he actually went to another company because they made him a better offer. So this was a guy, 62, supposedly you can't teach old dogs new tricks, and he went from waiting to be fired to being courted by his competitors. And his company would call him into the office and say, we'll give you whatever resources you need because you're that good. So that's an example of people thinking they just need to do more, better, or different of what they're already doing. And they can't see that they're digging a hole and it won't get them out of it.

How do people get into a mindset where they can start objectively looking at this? Because most entrepreneurs, most leaders I know are finger-pointing because all they see is the symptom of the problem. They don't understand what's at the root of it. But what they see is they see my staff are disengaged. Nobody wants to take a chance. Nobody's innovative. If I'm not telling them what to do, nobody does anything. What needs to happen for a leader? Let's say somebody's tuning into this today. What needs to happen as far as their own personal awareness to make them turn around and go, oh my gosh, I think I need help?

So in my work, I hate giving answers because that's— you asked what's a myth? Having the right answer. is one that puts you in a box that's inescapable.

Uh-huh.

Because that's the way we're educated. So, you know, just think of baby birds in a nest and their parents come to the nest. The first thing the birds do is open their mouth so they can drop food in. That's the way we're taught to operate in the world. Drop the answer into my brain and I'll know what to do. Tell me what to do or tell me where I can find the answer. And that's still that part of having thoughts. To actually think means that you're more discovering and you're okay with the messiness of not having the right answer. Okay? I just wanna start from there. You asked about myths.

Mm-hmm.

So people, leaders in that situation that you described, there are a number of things that they are going to have to unlearn. Perhaps they're yelling at their people, they're disappointed, They're just telling them what to do. It's almost like you're diminishing. You're not even allowing your people to show their prowess. So a more effective way, and this is giving an answer, a more effective way is to ongoingly ask your people to do things they don't know how to do or things they believe they don't know. As a leader, one of the things you want to do is have sort of an inventory of your people's competencies and capacities. And there are things that are Tangential. So maybe they haven't done this specifically, but they've done something that's close to it and you can pull them out, stretch them in that area. So ask them to do things they don't know how to do. Do not give them the answer. And when they, if they don't get it right or fail, even if you know the answer, don't give them the answer. Ask questions, be Socrates. Ask them questions that help them discover it on their own, because what will happen is their brain— there's something called neuroplasticity— their brain will grow new neural pathways that give them new perspectives and will give them this sort of prowess and pride of being able to accomplish it. The Greeks had it right. We focus so much on wanting to find happiness, but the Greeks had a word called eudaimonia, And eudaimonia is often mistranslated as happiness, but really, it's a euphoria that you experience after working through obstacles and difficulties and coming out with an accomplishment. So if you let your people work through that, they will have that experience, and they will have some new skills, new competencies. They'll have a different mindset, and you'll be able to ask them to do something else they don't know how to do. And eventually, they start developing their own way of thinking as opposed to being dependent on you giving them answers. I hope that answers your question.

Yes. So, what's interesting about that because I'm of a similar mind, I'm all about giving people the opportunity to fail forward. I think personally, I think I've seen organizations that constrain their staff so much within job descriptions that they're not actually able to tap into the superpower that their individuals have on the team. And so much so that they actually, they will actually judge people by the job description and how well they fulfill that. And because if they have any weaknesses within that job description, oh well, they don't, they don't have any strengths outside of that. It's impossible because they can't do the core bit of their job.

Right.

Which, which I think is really a shame because part of the components of what we do whenever we interview new people within our organization is we're looking for that, the magic, the people who will bring new magic and new insights and a different way of thinking. And, and we're, we're excited to bring people on board only to constrain them and muffle them. And it's kind of like the horse with the blinders on, isn't it?

Absolutely. Uh, one of the things I often ask people is, who do you want to be known as? Like, what do you want to master? If you were known as a master of some universe, what would that mastery be? What would that universe be? And people have to often think, sometimes they don't have an answer. They say, let me get back to you tomorrow. But people get to think about who they want to be known as, as opposed to a job description. And that opens up a whole new world of possibility.

Yeah. It's so, it's so interesting because, you know, when they say it starts at the top, it really does. It starts from that leadership, right? How the leader feels about certain things translates then into how the frontline managers feel about things, that in turn is, will affect the frontline service component. It'll affect engagement, attrition, the whole waft, isn't it?

Absolutely. So I did, used to do these CEO roundtables with middle market CEOs, and then I'd invite former or current CEOs of Fortune 500s. And I had a Fortune 500 CEO. I was fairly young at the time, late 40s. And he said he was really good at turning around companies and driving revenues. And he was dropped into a company that was distressed, and he fired a bunch of people and brought in his own people because he knew part of the mission was to transform the culture. And bringing in his own people didn't get the job done. So then he hired an outsider and said, fix my people. They need to be transformed. And they went to work, and it wasn't working the way they anticipated. So one of the Executives in the outside company said, do you mind if I make a suggestion? How about we transform you first? Oh no, that's just, you know, I'm a— you see where I am? I'm a CEO. Just trust me on this. You know what? I'll do it. And he transformed and he watched the rest of the organization transform right with him. He said the valuable lesson was whenever he was brought into an organization, that he knew he had to transform first, and then it would be a lot easier to get the rest of the organization to move with him. I mean, the people see the kind of commitment that he is to this transformation. It's not just lip service.

Yeah.

Like, I'm fully committed to transformation. I'm going to eat my own cooking here.

I love that. And again, the humility it takes to make— to come to that decision is huge because a lot of people, to your point, They have their corner office. They have their reputation set on it. And the problem can't be me because look where I'm sitting, right?

So great.

It can't possibly be me. And yet time and time and time again, we're seeing it in the throes of that. It's not only in the upper management, but it's in the frontline management attitudes as well. Because you know what? That becomes part of the culture, doesn't it? That if when you're in this leadership role, you have to respect me because I'm the manager.

Yeah, I heard you in one of your other podcasts talk about a supervisor who said, you know, if you don't do things this way, you don't belong here, you won't make it. It was really kind of a crude and brutal way to speak to someone. You said you really wanted to go over to the guy and say, I can help you, but you didn't think that was the right thing to do.

Well, you know, going up to a leader and saying, hey, do you know that you really suck as a leader? Can I help you? I think I can. Right, right, right. And so it, it begs the question, you know, how do these— you know, and I'm hoping that this is part of the mission of this podcast, right? I'm hoping that people will tap into this and go, oh my goodness, it's like they're talking to me, and I need to show a little more humility. I need to know that my poop doesn't— you know, I'm walking around thinking my poop doesn't stink. I have to realize I'm a human being in a role. I have fallacies, or, or, um, I have quirks and I have biases and I need help, right? And that's only at that point can somebody turn around and then come to you and ask for help to actually make that transformational change.

One of the challenges when you start talking about transformation and navigating through chaos and intentionally creating problems, we are educated, as I said, to look for answers or the easy 1, 2, 3 steps. And this is such an abstract conversation that it really requires you to to take a step back and think. So one of the big challenges, especially if you're in that C-suite, is that you created an entire identity around your title. And once you have this identity that's seen as the top of the food chain in society, it's like it's infallible. You, how could you say anything? Do you see, do you see my title?

Mm-hmm.

And so I would say one of the things, and people often say, oh, Steve Jobs was different. He had something special. I'm going to assert that, and I never spoke to Steve Jobs, but I'm going to assert that what he did was he was able to unlearn his identity and not be stuck with it. And so what he had, what he would be more left with, more empowering is This is what I stand for. This is what I'm committed to. And that becomes his true north, as opposed to the identity that's really fixed, because you can stand for one thing today, and once it's fulfilled, you create a new stand that becomes this platform for people to join you. So I stand for this listening device with 1,000 songs. iPod done. Okay, now I'm standing for that iPod being a cell phone. How do we do that, Steve? Well, that's what we're standing for, and I'm committed that we have the best. You get what I'm saying?

Yeah.

As opposed to saying, I'm the leader, you do what I say. And so people will say, well, how do I unlearn this identity? How do I get out of that? And it's not like you read a book and it has the 3 steps that you get out of it. It's more like Navy SEAL training. So if you ask me, For the 3 steps to become a Navy SEAL, you're asking the wrong question. It requires training. It requires a mindset shift. It requires unlearning. And it requires going through these conversations that could make you uncomfortable. But what's wrong with being uncomfortable? But also being able to deal with your own disruption to your own identity and way of seeing the world gives you the wherewithal and the mindset to be nimble enough to navigate yourself and others through chaos and disruption. If you can't navigate yourself, it becomes extremely difficult to navigate others who think this is a crazy idea, or I'm stuck, I'm disrupted, I, I don't want to do this. If you can't navigate yourself, how will you be able to guide and, and help those people?

I love that. When we come back, I'd like to start looking at the strategies and the steps that we can take to create more intentional chaos that's focused on the right thing And we'll get to that right after this. When the spotlight shines on your business, are customers applauding or yawning? In other words, how is your business performing? Make your business a star with a new book, Lights!

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today at your favorite online retailer or directly at marchaine.com. Welcome back. I am speaking with the fabulous Ted Santos. Ted, you just saw the ad for my book. Tell us a little bit about your book. What's it all about?

Sure. I wrote the book because we have a divorce rate that's over 50%. And I'll ask you a question. Corporate America is losing over $300 billion every year in workplace productivity. Do you know why?

No, I do not.

One word.

Relationships?

Yes. Divorce. Bad relationships and divorce. So when people go through divorce, their workplace performance drops by 50 to 75%. So when we are saying employees are not engaged, of course they're not. You have a big percentage of your employee population either headed for divorce, in the middle of one, or just coming out of one, or bad relationship that never made it to marriage, they are distracted from that. So they're not producing that. So that's $300 billion to corporate America. Another $30 billion goes to the taxpayer because those broken homes create criminals, social services are needed. There are all kinds of problems that happen that the taxpayer covers. So I wrote a book That takes my transformation methodology and I infuse that into something that people can relate to, which is intimate relationships. So I made it a dynamic conversation. There are 5 women in the book, so it's almost like a workshop. So there are 5 women engaging me. Hey Ted, what do you mean? You're a guy. How could you say that? So we're sort of thinking through and going through this conversation about relationships and what derails them and what's a more effective way to create a relationship.

I love that.

And the punchline to the book is love doesn't create a great relationship. Love is a byproduct of a great relationship. So if you haven't developed the competencies to create a great relationship, I hate to say it, what makes you think you deserve love?

So good. So good. That's kind of sort of also the metaphor for being a leader because we are in a more relational workplace culture nowadays, right? We're no longer— I remember we had a challenge with a CEO and he would walk into the building every day, pass security, go up the escalator, go directly to his office. He hasn't talked to anybody as he walked in. And so, he was so separated from the culture of the place that he didn't have a clue about the personalities who worked for him. He didn't have a clue about any aspect of it because at the end of the day, he showed he didn't care about them.

Right.

And so, for environments like this, how do we shake up that? How do we start shaking up the fact that in order to get disruptive at any particular point, we have to be focusing on the kinds of relationships that we have because we need to build trust? We have to have a proof of trustworthiness. And then what you mentioned earlier, this idea of competency and capacity.

Absolutely. So, care is really important. I mean, if you think about it, If you're going to intentionally create problems for your people to solve, that suggests you're going to make them uncomfortable. You're going to ask them to do things they don't know how to do. And if you're just going to keep status quo, that's a way to care about your people. I don't want to rock the boat. I don't want my people to feel uncomfortable. And what you'll eventually do is have an organization that's obsolete, and everyone will be out of a job. But if you want to be a leader in the industry, you have to care enough to understand who your people are and what their competencies are, what they're capable of, and not be afraid to pull more out of them. So it's really more of a care. You're bigger than you know you are. So I'm gonna pull more out of you so that you get to see the bigness that you've never had an opportunity to be. That requires a care. And when they get stuck or they don't know what they're doing, Instead of giving them answers, you ask questions because you're committed to their development. So that you really have to care about people to want to see them develop. There are CEOs who are really smart and just do everything. And what happens is the company grows to a certain milestone and those people become obsolete because he never guided and developed those people. He has to fire them. He brings on new people who are supposed to already have it, and the company outgrows them, and he has to throw them out and bring in a whole— you know, so if you care about your people, they'll be with you for the entire ride.

You just validated my tagline: dare to lead with love and kindness first. So I love that. So let's talk about this idea of disruptive leadership. You have a disruptive leadership model. What is it and how does it work?

So when I work with clients, the first thing I'm looking at is where are your blind spots, your mental barriers? We have to address that first because I'm coming in asking you, what would a breakthrough be for you? Some CEOs will say, well, I have this breakthrough. It's my legacy. I'd love to do it. It keeps me up at night every night, except it's not the right time. The economy's not right. My people are not ready. There is a long list of reasons why you can't do it. When the CEO peels back those blind spots, they then get to see that it's not the economy, it's not that their people are not— it's them saying, I'm not ready to do it. And the CEO is going to have to develop new skills and competencies. So one way to look at it is, is if you're a $50 million CEO and you want to get to $100 million, You need to become that $100 million CEO before you get there, because I've seen CEOs who grow the company to $100 million and the company is more than what their competencies can manage and they shrink it back down. So you're all, whatever your revenue milestone is, you're going to have to get there first, which means you're pulling your people along. So as I said earlier, being able to uncover your blind spots so that you don't get derailed when chaos shows up because that normally happens. And in breakthrough initiatives, you're going to deal with problems you've never seen. So how do you deal with something you've never dealt with in the past? And so that's getting back to the distinction of thinking and having thoughts and having a mindset that allows you to think through the uncertainty and really leverage your team, not do it in a silo. You know, I'm the smart guy who has to have all the answers, You have a smart team. I know I use Steve Jobs to death, but he said, we don't hire smart people and tell them what to do. We hire smart people and ask them what we should be doing. So really knowing how to leverage that. And if you look at many of the titans in the past, John D. Rockefeller Sr., Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, even Howard Hughes, they all had that same sort of mindset. They hired really talented people and leveraged them, people who were masters in a universe, whatever it was.

And to your point, you know, the number of times I've seen people get hired within organizations and the hiring manager's so excited, oh, just wait until you meet Steve. He's awesome. Oh my goodness, he's awesome. And then 2 years later, people are like, oh my God, it's like, you know, I hired Steve 2 years ago and he's not living up to the capacity I thought he had. And so, and, and again, that becomes the finger-pointing. So again, this idea of being able to vet your mindset, because that's, you know, I, I find that, you know, I, I, I'm addicted to these kind of restaurant renovation shows like Bar Rescue and, and, you know, Gordon Ramsay and all this. And I love, I love because I used to do that for a living. I used to go into hotels, but I realized very early on that you can't just fix somebody on a conceptual level because as soon as crisis hits, they're going to revert back to their bad behavior.

Exactly, exactly.

And so, what then becomes the check and balance as people are trying to make this change? What becomes the check and balance to make sure that I'm not moving backwards, I'm not falling into my old behaviors? How can we check ourselves?

So, perfect question. So the way my work works is there— I don't want people to be aware of blind spots. I don't want you to be aware of your past. My commitment is you have distinctions. And the best analogy is if you and I are walking down the beach and we have to get down this beach and we come to this sign that says the next 100 yards is filled with landmines. What do you want to do, Marc?

Run away?

Are you going to say, hey, we just, you know, throw caution to the wind and run through the landmine? No.

Yeah, no.

Right.

Then, then you get heavily strategic about it. It's like, well, if we have to get to the other side, how are we going to get this to happen?

Right. How do we get there? So if I say, hey, Marc, I have thousands of hours in training For distinguishing mines in a minefield. It's very subtle, but you can actually see what you— I have to be undisturbed. And not only can I see where they are, and I already see 3, I can dismantle those mines and we can walk through. You just follow in my footsteps. Are you going with me?

Absolutely. And yeah, and of course the most ridiculous response would be, wait a minute, but I'm the manager. You have to follow me.

So that is a great way. You asked, you know, what do people need? So people have past events, like the guy who was in the mortgage industry. That event of him being in a car with older guys was a mine in his mind. And when he was in an environment where he didn't think he belonged, it went off and he went to what allowed him to survive. So like a trigger.

Yeah.

And he starts making jokes, right? So Everyone has minds in their mind. My job is to provide you with tools so you can distinguish and see your minds in your mind and unlearn them, be able to just reverse engineer and unlearn them. And then, as you said, when you get into chaos, it may go off. And so now you have— before, you didn't know about it. You were aware something in your past And what the awareness does often is say, don't be that. That's more suppressive and unhealthy.

Mm-hmm.

I want you to have the power of walking through that minefield, distinguishing it, dismantling it, and saying, okay, the mine went off. I see it. I'm not stuck with it. This is what I'm committed to. So the guy in a mortgage company said, I'm committed to closing this deal. And I have a strategy of asking questions. So, this is real-time. Imagine being on the football field. How do you deal with— there's a defender who wants to block you and you have the ball. Real-time, how do you manage that instead of balling up and saying, don't hit me too hard?

Mm-hmm.

So, what my clients have is this distinction for the minds and a choice now to say, this is what I'm committed to. And it allows them to move forward. And what you'll find over time, if you confront those minds, they either don't go off as much or you even almost forget that over time that you ever had that mind. It's like, wow, I remember a year ago that used to bother me and now it's unbelievable. It has zero impact on me. So it's not about being superhuman, but it's confronting the things that derailed human beings in our human paradigm.

You know, this is really fascinating. I think this is a really good spot. If people are tuned in and listening to this and they go, oh my goodness, he's speaking to me, how can people get in touch with you, Ted, if they need to work with you?

Sure. You can find me on my site turnaroundip.com. And IP is like intellectual property.

Gotcha. Excellent. Uncertainty is one of those things that when people are making the change, how do managers, leaders, how do they manage the fear and uncertainty That comes with, I've never done this before and I don't know what the outcome's gonna be.

Well, that's what we've been talking about here. So I had a client once, CEO and smart guy, Ivy League educated. And when he was 5 years old, he knocked over a china cabinet. And what he was left with is, don't take risks because you knock things over, you break 'em, and you do terrible things, right? So He doesn't know that that's what has him hesitate in uncertainty because we get flashbacks. It's like we relive this moment of when I broke something and I don't want to be the guy who breaks the company, so it's better not to do it. It's unbelievable how our past is being put into our future and making decisions. So another way to look at the future is creating a future from the future. And it's a future you don't know how to do. And our founding fathers are a great example. We're declaring independence from Great Britain and we've never run a country. We don't know how to do it. And we're going to, if we get caught, we'll be hung for treason. So we're putting our butts on the line, but we're creating this future that doesn't exist. We're creating this independent nation. that we will run and we're going to have to make it up as we go.

Gives you goosebumps, doesn't it?

Yes.

Yeah.

When we come back, I'd like to talk about some pitfalls and cautionaries for the people who listen, who is like, oh, this sounds like a really great idea. And it becomes the policy of the month. It becomes short-lived. It becomes harmful. So I'd like to talk about some of those pitfalls and cautionaries, and we'll get to that right after this.

Attention meeting and event planners. Is your company or association planning a live or virtual conference seminar, or staff retreat? Are you looking for a fresh, energetic perspective on what it takes to put on a jaw-dropping experience for your customers or staff? Book customer experience expert Marc Haine for your next group event. Past participants have said, Marc kept us in stitches while teaching us how important and powerful actually designing our customer experience can be. Read more testimonials and find out how Marc can serve you and your group at marchaine.com. That's M-A-R-C-H-A-I-N-E.com.

Welcome back! As you can tell, Ted and I are absolutely committed to serving businesses just like yours. So, if you'd like to explore how we could be of benefit to you, especially if you're planning something like a leadership retreat, or you're part of a conference planning team, drop us a line. Our contact details are in the show notes. We'd love to explore how to work with you and make your event absolutely stellar. Ted, what do owners and managers and frontline leaders need to do now to overcome their own mindset limitations and beliefs? Because we've been talking about what they should be doing. I know that working with you, you're going to have some sort of a checkpoint. for them to be able to check themselves. But in the meantime, if some people are tuning into this and going, you know what, they're right, I need to change how I'm thinking, what does that checkpoint look like for them?

So reading books can be helpful. It can help you explore other perspectives. But one of the things that, uh, is really helpful for leaders is if you're in your company, that person For whom you have not much affinity. You just don't like the way they think. That's the person you take out to lunch and you sit down and you get to know them as a human being. And what you will find is they are more human like you. You have way more in common than you think. And that person probably most likely has this untapped capacity, unmind talent, that the organization isn't leveraging, and you're wondering why they are disengaged. Or as I said, they could be going through a divorce and be disengaged from that, right?

Sure.

So, you might be a support structure, but ultimately, sitting down with people who you think you don't like, and you've made up this whole novel in your head about what kind of person they are, who they are and why you're justified for not liking them. You know, I don't like people who wear bow ties and yellow socks, and I know what kind of people they are. They drive this kind of car. They, you know, the guy is too tall or he's too short. You have all kinds of reasons. Those are the people that you sit down with and you really, if you ask questions to invalidate them, most likely you're going to come up with more reasons and proof of why you don't like them, but really get to know them as a human being, who they want to be, who they always wanted to be, you know, and, and just take time to get to know them. And what that does for you is gives you new perspectives and helps you then better check yourself with other people.

I love that.

As people consume this information, pitfalls and cautionaries as they try to make a change. Obviously, again, we talked earlier on about this thing about becoming trustworthy, being in an environment where people can trust you. Are there any cautionaries and pitfalls we should be aware of as we try to change ourselves first?

Well, so one of the things that I see a major pitfall is when you're learning something that is going to support you in transformation, the pitfall is, is to make an attempt to understand it through that which you already understand. So now you're not learning anything new. You're, in a way, you're saving yourself from confusion and uncertainty by saying, oh, that's just like this. I already know this stuff. Or you try to take something from, well, I learned this other thing over here and I learned something over here and I'm going to just put it all together. My suggestion is that you master it before you start judging it. Before you start making it just like this or adding things, because once you dilute it, it loses its power. And then you can say, see, that stuff doesn't work. And it would have me wonder, is there some underlying conversation you have about yourself about nothing can help you anyway? So, but you never— that's your secret that you never tell anyone. And so once you start thinking about how this is just like that, or I already know this, Start to look at what's really underneath that, that has you sort of protect your identity from being disrupted. Because ultimately, that's what we're talking about. Your identity, your sense of who you are is possibly being disrupted. And people want to say, well, I'm okay. Why should I change? I'm really great as I am. And no one's saying you're not. Well, when you were 5, you were great. But you're no longer 5. So becoming someone you've never been, and ultimately in my work, becoming someone you didn't know how to be, is really where the power is.

That's so powerful, Ted. That is extremely powerful. Do you have any last thoughts about what we've been talking about today?

Sure. So I'll bring this, my book and everything together. Okay. So we're talking about providing people with competencies to better navigate uncertainty and chaos. Ultimately, we are talking about conflict resolution. And so if the corporation could develop people in these competencies, people will take them home and be more effective in dealing with the conflicts with their spouse and their children. And what you will see is a significant drop in the divorce rate. If corporations could take on developing my people to be more effective in breakthrough initiatives so our company can be more innovative, have breakthrough growth, quantum leaps, and my people are less likely to be divorced, they're more likely to be engaged, and they'll have a great home life and they'll come to work from a great home life and they'll have a great work life and they'll take that home and have a great home life. So It's this self-perpetuating circle of empowerment where people are actually getting what they want out of life and sometimes even more than what they expected. So corporate social responsibility is where the corporation can provide people with the skills and competencies that make marriages work.

I love that because the spinoff ultimately is if we can help our employees All our employees, not just our leaders, all our employees build great relationships and sustain great relationships over the long haul, both personal and professional. It does nothing but spin off into a positive net result in our business. Lovely!

Transforming the culture of the nation.

Amazing, eh?

Absolutely!

Ted, could you remind everybody one more time how they can get a hold of you? Sure.

My website is turnaroundip.com, and it's Turnaround Investment Partners. So Turnaround IP is for investment partners.

Lovely. Thank you, Ted. Thank you again for doing this. I really appreciate you sharing your passion and your ideas with us today. It's been absolutely brilliant. Thank you for doing this.

Well, thanks for inviting me. This was a wonderful conversation. Hey, it was my pleasure to be here.

I hope to have you back on again. when you write your next book.

I would love to.

Why don't you let me know if this was of value to you? As always, my offer stands. If you'd like 30 minutes of my time to brainstorm your business with you and your team, feel free to book yourself on my online calendar. The link is in the show notes. It's the one that's marked meetwith.marchaine.com. It would be my absolute honor to be of service to you and your team. And while you're at it, Please leave a comment about this episode. Leave a review. Let me know your feedback. I'd love to understand, was this of value to you? And of course, if you haven't done so yet, please make sure that you subscribe to the podcast. That way, you get notification when I bring you fresh new experts each and every week. Thank you again for joining me today. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope You dare to be the exception. Bye for now.

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