129. Anton Gunn | Just Lead

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, we interview one of the world's top authors, and as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and live better. In today's episode, we have the pleasure to interview Anton Gunn, author of Just Lead. Anton was advisor to President Barack Obama, the first African American from his district elected to the South Carolina legislature. Top that off with being a college athlete, a keynote speaker, a bestselling author, incredible leader, husband, and father. In this episode, you'll learn about what it takes to become a leader worth following. The top 3 questions everyone asks when they meet you, how to keep going in the midst of adversity, and why leadership always begins with service. Now get ready to learn and enjoy this incredible conversation with Anton Gunn.

Anton, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. How are you feeling today?

I'm fantastic, man. I'm excited. It's a great day to be alive and to do well. So happy to be with you.

Well, based on our pre-show conversation, I'm very excited for today's conversation too. You have a lot to offer today's audience. So why don't we kick off with an introduction? Pretend nobody in my audience has any clue who Anton Gunn is. Who are you?

What do you do?

What are you passionate about?

My name is Anton Gunn. I am a keynote speaker and leadership consultant that helps leaders and organizations Build diverse, high-performing teams and a world-class workplace culture that you can easily identify because it has 2 main characteristics. Characteristic number one, that the leaders are people that everybody admires. And I teach you how to become that leader that everybody admires. Characteristic number 2 is that it's full of people who never want to quit because they love what they do. They love where they do it. who they work with, and they're valued, respected, included, and they feel visible in the workplace. And so I spend my time and through keynote presentations and training teaching people how to build that world-class workplace culture with those kind of leaders and that kind of team.

I love that. I'd like to dive into both of those characteristics a little bit more throughout today's interview. But first, just because it's a big name and I have a feeling people are going to be curious, How did you become an advisor to President Barack Obama?

Yes, great question, Nick. So I don't come from a political family. I'm not politically connected. I didn't grow up with politics. I mean, my family is full of public servants. So when I mean public servants, 4 generations of men in my family served in the military. My great-grandfather served in both World Wars, grandfather World War II, dad served in the Navy, my uncle served in the Army and the Marines. And my brother even served in the Navy. So we came from that side of the family. And my mom was a teacher. But the one thing I can say about all of those folks in my family, the cornerstone of what we do is serving people. And I built my career serving in communities. And so I spent my time working in underserved communities, helping people to get health insurance, helping them to get education and training, all of these kind of service-related activities. But because our society is like it is sometimes, I found myself banging my head against the wall many, many days not being able to be successful. And I decided to run for public office one time, and I ran for the state legislature in South Carolina, and I lost. But I only lost by 298 votes, so less than 300 votes. And so I got close, but I didn't get over the hump. And I happened to be reading this book called The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama, who at the time was a United States senator and was thinking about running for president of the United States. And when I read his book, I was inspired, I was motivated, but most importantly, I said, man, if I was actually talking like this guy talks when I was running, I wouldn't have lost, I would have won. So I need to learn from him. And so literally, I called his office 10 or 12 times until somebody called me back. And the person who called me back happened to be Barack Obama. And I told him, if you want to become president, you need people like me involved. And he believed me. Next thing I know, I'm riding in the car with him. And the rest is kind of history from there. So I've served in multiple roles for him. worked on his campaign as a political advisor in the early days in South Carolina, and then later on in his administration when I worked in healthcare and I was an advisor on healthcare reform or the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. So I've seen the highest level of leadership, and I saw him before he became the highest level of leadership, and it actually helped to guide him along the way, uh, giving him the right words that work, uh, to be successful when it comes to talking to people about certain issues.

That is incredibly impressive. And you were one of the first African Americans to become a state representative in South Carolina. Is that correct?

That's correct. So I'll tell you, the key point about that is I helped Barack Obama on his campaign the year after I lost. And so when he won the primary in South Carolina, he says, Anton, would you want to stay on the campaign and help us out in Virginia? your home state? Do you want to go to Ohio and all these other places? I said, no. He says, well, why not? I said, because I really want to serve in South Carolina. So I quit his campaign and ran for office in that same seat that I lost in 2006 by 298 votes. 2 years later, I won by 3,000 votes, becoming the first African American in history to represent my district, and, um, was very proud to serve one term in the legislature. And I say one term, I made it 2 years. And then I got the call from him as president and his team, and they asked me to come and serve in the administration.

That's incredible. So you've written, what, 3 books now?

Yes, 3 books.

Alright, so in that whole process, when, when did you— when were you finding the time to write your books? Like, how did that come about?

You know what, this is like, might be the most Important question that you've, you've asked. Uh, book writing has, has been a, a journey for me, a, a development journey. So number one, um, you, everybody naturally doesn't know how to write a book. So, uh, I started writing my book in 2006 before I ever met Barack Obama. So I'm literally trying to put ideas on paper. And the reason why I started writing the book at the time, I was like 32, 33.

Mm-hmm.

And I had achieved a lot of leadership goals by the time I was 33. So I was the chief executive of a small organization at 27. So I was kind of in a CEO role at 27, had a small staff of 4. And I made a lot of mistakes in leadership. I'd done a lot of stuff. And so I learned a lot. And my friends would say, Anton, you need to, you need to give us a blueprint for how how we can lead like you. You need to give us a blueprint. So I started writing in 2006. I took a break in writing when I ran for office, and I started writing again in 2007. But then I was on his campaign, and I stopped writing. And I then— I had all these amazing experiences with Barack Obama, so I wanted to talk about those in the book. So my first book took me 3 years before it was published. I started writing in 2006, and it didn't come out until 2009. And then it was 9 years before I wrote my second book. So my second book didn't come out until 2018. And my third book, which I finished last fall, came out in October of 2022. It's Just Lead. And so you can see there's not a lot of consistency there in terms of frequency of writing, but I squeeze it in. And what I try to do is demystify the process around writing. So let me tell you this. I'm not a long-form literate kind of guy. I'm not gonna sit at a desk and write it out by hand, and I'm not gonna sit at a computer and type it. But what I can do is run my mouth effectively with an outline. So if you give me an outline, I can talk out that outline. And as long as I can find somebody to transcribe it, or now using, you know, AI tools to transcribe the writings. you can reduce the book writing process significantly because, you know, I speak, I write how I speak. And that's how I've been able to do the last 2 books is really talking them out and then getting somebody to help me with the editing process, which is the greatest books are not the best written books, but they're the best edited books.

Yes. And they're bestsellers, right? They're not best written.

That's correct.

And we ran a, we ran a poll recently. I want to say it was within the last couple of months to our audience. We've got a lot of readers in our And I asked the question, do you prefer short books, books under 200 pages, or do you prefer long books, books over 200 pages? And the vast majority of people said they preferred shorter books. And I think although there is some value to all the additional case studies and reference material being added in the books, readers nowadays with shorter attention spans, they want you to cut the fluff. And they just want you to tell them the information that you intended to tell them. It's not about how thick the spine is. It's about how important the information is.

Do you agree?

Totally agree. And that's the reason why my last book looks so differently than the first 2 books. So my last book is super duper thin. It is paperback. It's small enough that it can fit in your suit jacket pocket. Or you can put it in the back pocket of your jeans. It is literally 5 by 7. It is that small and easy. And it's probably the quickest read. You could probably read it in maybe an hour. The reason why I did that is for your exact point, is that people don't— they need action steps. They want, what can I do tomorrow? It's an implementation book. It's not a theoretical think piece, even though I got research and data and I got articles that are in the back. And if you want to read those, you can go read those. But what do you need to do right now if you want to be a better leader that breaks down barriers, boosts your retention in the workplace, and build a culture where everybody thrives? I wanted to give people the action steps. So long books are gone for me unless, you know, some of the— one of the 5 big writing publishing houses calls me and says, Anton, Random House wants to give you, you know, a contract to be able to write your next bestselling book. Maybe I might make it a little longer, but I promise you that I'll do a Cliff Note version that I would own and not Cliff Notes, but it'll be my version that cuts right to the point and give you the highlights.

So with that, you also have a— that I want to mention that we can mention now. You also have some free resources online that maybe you can tell our audience about that, that go along with the book.

Yeah, that's, that's a great segue. So the book is great. And some people just are not going to read all of that. They want to know What can I do right now? So I've advanced the next level. So I have the Just Lead book, but I've created a Just Lead toolkit. And the toolkit is really a worksheet and an action guide to help you. So let me just give it to you in the plainest sense. As a keynote speaker, I'm on stages 35, 40 times a year around the country at big conferences, association meetings, and also inside of corporations. Teaching my leadership principles. So in my Just Lead Toolkit, you get the 9 pivotal points that I deliver in all of my top presentations to all of those companies. Secondarily, I'm going to give you the 5 ways great teams succeed. And then the third thing is, I think this is the most powerful part of that resource, is that you get what I call an ebook on world-class leadership. It is the 10 qualities of world-class leaders. You know, these are the leaders that we all know by one name, you know, names like Gandhi, Jesus, Oprah, the one-name people who are most admired across the planet. I've distilled down very simply the 10 qualities that they all have in common or that they've expressed in their writings or in interviews or things that we know that they stand for. And if you want to become that kind of a leader, a world-class leader, How can you embody these principles? So it's called the Just Lead Toolkit. You can go to antongunn.com/toolkit, give me an email address, I'll send it to you. And as a bonus, it'll put you on my email list and I'll give you 52 leadership lessons that I deliver every week over video. And it's 5-minute lessons to help you to grow in real time as a leader. So again, antongunn.com/toolkit. You're gonna get all of the great learning that you need to be that leader that you really wanna be but never knew how to do. And I'm gonna demystify it and break it down to make it easy for you to have a massive impact on all that you serve.

I love that. Uh, Luke will include that in the show notes for everybody. Uh, you mentioned these leaders that go by one name.

Yeah.

I'm curious if you could sit down and have a leadership discussion with maybe your 3 favorite leaders of all time, dead or alive, they're back for a full day. And you maybe even you get to record this conversation and share with everybody else. Who would those 3 people be? I'm curious.

Oh, bro, that's, uh, it's the heaviest question I've ever been asked. So, uh, first would probably be Jesus Christ. That would be it. The first conversation in real time. Love to do that. Second would be Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but the questions to him won't be the typical questions, which is I would want to know, how do you balance family with your service to so many others? Because that's one of the things we never talk about in leadership, is that when you're a giver to other people, how do you balance taking care of the people closest to you, your family, the people that you care about the most? And then if I was to put a third leader in that boat, I'm going to say Kennedy. And that is John F. Kennedy, who comes from an incredible legacy of leadership. I mean, we think about all the people in his family that served, and my family is kind of like that. So I would love to, to talk to him about the importance of creating a generational legacy of leadership in your family. Where did you get it from? Did you get it from your grandfather, your father, your grandmother? And what would you hope that other people would be able to embody as they think about their leadership journey?

That's amazing. Luke, who would you have at your table?

Oh, man, I was thinking through that. And Jesus Christ is always the first one that comes to my head because I come from a conservative Christian background. So it's like that one's always at the top of my mind. But also, you know, I think I would like to talk to Buddha. 2 spiritual leaders, you know, like 2 spiritual leaders. And then the other one, you know what, um, Martin Luther King, like, that comes up a lot in my brain too because he was just such a powerful person. And I always loved reading about him because, like you said, I don't know, that man, you want to talk about a man who faced adversity, that guy, that guy did. So I think that'd be very cool too.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, he always comes to my mind too. What about you, Nick?

Oh man, I, I, the second that I said, Luke, who are yours? Then I started thinking about mine. I don't, maybe tap me back in at the end of the conversation. Jesus Christ is definitely the first choice with 100% certainty that I'd want at that table, but I'd have to really think a little bit, you know, through the, through the vein of leadership on who the other 2 might be. So Luke, I'll kick it back to you for your next question.

That's great.

So you have this, this, uh, this number, the number 59, and I've heard you talk about this story a couple times. I really like it, and I think it gives a, a good dichotomy of what leadership is and how that, that represents, um, how that number represents leadership. Uh, could you just walk us through what the number 59 means and just tell us that story?

My very first jersey number in college. It is not my favorite number. It's a number that I really cannot stand for a wide variety of reasons. So here's a short story. I was a high school football player. I played tight end. And so if you know anything about football, you know, tight ends don't wear the number 59. They wear numbers that allow them to catch passes generally in the 80s. Okay. And so I wore number 87 from 9th grade football all the way to 12th grade. It's my favorite number. 87 is like my favorite year of all time. It's like the year that I became of age. And I scored lots of touchdowns wearing jersey number 87. And when I was choosing the college to go play football, I got recruited by everybody in the country. So whatever your favorite, you know, Division 1 football team is, I'm pretty sure I met a coach from there or they offered me a scholarship from there. I had like 50 D1 offers.

Wow.

And, uh, I decided to go play in the SEC because my coach made me 2 promises. And promise number one was that I get to keep my jersey number, number 87, because I told him I wanted to play tight end. Uh, the second promise was that they thought that I could be a better defensive player. They wanted me to play outside linebacker, but I told them, no, I want to play offense. I want to catch touchdowns. And I said, well, coach, give me a chance in camp. to play tight end. And if I don't prove to you that I'm the best tight end on the roster, then I'd be happy to go play outside linebacker. Well, the first day I showed up on campus, I knew I made the biggest mistake of my life because number one, they didn't give me my jersey number. They gave me jersey number 59. Number 2, they didn't give me a chance to play tight end because you've never seen a tight end wear 59. They didn't even move me to outside linebacker. They moved me to defensive end, blocking big left tackles and guards and stuff that I just had no knowledge about. And so when that happened to me, I was mentally shook. I mean, like, I was literally in a 59 environment, but I had an 87 mindset. And so I wanted to catch touchdowns. I wanted to be on offense. I wanted to be doing all of the things that I loved. In the world that that honored my skill set, but I was put into an environment that was completely uncomfortable and foreign to me. So think about going to work on a job that you applied for the job to be the manager of marketing, or you applied to be a business analyst, and you filled out the paperwork going in thinking you're going to be a business analyst, and the day you show up at work, they tell you you're now in a warehouse. Counting inventory. How good would you feel about that job if you got put in that environment? So for me, it was a lesson, a double lesson around leadership. If you're a leader of a person and you tell them that you're going to do something, number one, keep the integrity around the promises that you make to your team. You told me I could have a jersey number, but you took it away. You told me I could try out for a position, but you took it away. You immediately destroyed my trust in you. From day one. Leadership lesson number 2 is that all of us are going to get put in some uncomfortable environments that are not naturally suited to where we are. And we can let the environment control us, or we can control our mindset around the environment. So because I was in that 59 environment in an 87 mindset, I didn't adjust well. I mean, it was like miserable for me. for my first 2 years in college, and I literally wanted to transfer. There was no transfer portal, so I can just— couldn't go and quit like all these kids were. That if I was to leave school, I was going to lose my scholarship, may not get another scholarship at another school, and would have to sit out a year. Or if I went to another SC school, I would have to sit out 2 years. So I felt trapped and like I couldn't quit. So I literally had to adjust and shift my mindset to make the best of a bad situation. And I will tell you, to this day, I can't stand the number 59, but the experience that I went through gave me a lot of maturity about how to recognize the value of people. And you put them in position to win. If you want to be the best leader, you put your team in a position to win. And you put them where they're going to perform the best and develop their skills around their natural skill set, not just because you need them to do something else. And so that's my lesson around 59. And I will tell you that it was just one of those, those tough things that I had to go through as a leader that I'm much better for it.

Yeah, I think it's, it was such an important story to tell because, you know, people looking you up, they're like senior advisor for the president.

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He's done all these amazing things. He's got 3 books. He's a keynote speaker. He's had businesses like It— you just look like this invincible person. But you've also had a lot of adversity in your life. Could you also tell us a little bit about the story of how you went from, you know, football player to your first, your first job?

Yeah, so great question. And that's what I was getting ready to say. You know, on social media, you always see the great parts of people, you know, you read their books and bios, you see all the great parts. But nobody really tells about— talks about their dark parts. And I will tell you, Um, my football experience was so bad in college that I got my degree in 3 and a half years, and I quit my football team. I never played my senior year. But it was shortsighted for me to walk away without a plan and a strategy, because for 18 months after I finished playing college football and got my degree, I couldn't find a job. Like, I used to cry myself to sleep at night, and I interviewed with like 40 companies. I mean, I literally would interview and interview and interview and interview, and nobody would call me back. I couldn't get a callback. I couldn't get— and even when I did get a few callbacks, they would look at my resume and say, oh, you look good, you sound good, but you don't have any work experience. The only thing on your resume is that you play football at the University of South Carolina and that you were the president of your college fraternity, which is Kappa Alpha Psi. And so I didn't have much on my resume, and so I couldn't find a job. And I used to think something was wrong with me. Like, I knew I was smart, I knew I was capable, But the opportunities weren't breaking for me. And I literally would cry myself to sleep at night. I was like, you know, what am I doing wrong? I don't, I don't understand it. And my morale was in the toilet. And, you know, there were some things that pulled me out. And it actually started with a great motivational speaker, a guy by the name of Les Brown, who I got a chance to meet and tell him a little bit about what his words meant to me when I was knocked down at a low point in my life. So, So I've been through a fair amount of adversity at various points in my life. Post-college was a bad time. And then, you know, about 10 years later was, was also a rough time for me. You know, I had a major tragedy in my family. So, you know, there's, there's all of that stuff that really does make you who you are. So what you see is success, but the success comes because I grew through adversity, not because I went through adversity. But I grew through adversity, and that's the lesson that we all need to take away from that.

Yeah, you mentioned, um, the tragedy, and I believe that you're talking about your, your brother passing away in 2000, right?

Yes.

Um, yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, so, um, you know, some people may be, uh, too young to remember this, but in October of 2000, uh, there was a terrorist attack aboard the USS Cole. It was a Navy ship. My younger brother joined the Navy in January of 2000 and was assigned to the Cole, and they were heading to the Persian Gulf, and 2 Al-Qaeda suicide bombers put 1,000 pounds of CTX explosive lined in a small boat and pulled alongside the Navy ship, and they detonated themselves, blowing a 40-by-60-foot hole in the side of the ship, killing my brother and 16 of his shipmates.

Wow.

And this was before 9/11. This is before most of America had any clue who Osama bin Laden was or why he mattered, that he took my brother's life. And what made it more traumatic for my family is that I told you, I come from a military family. 3 generations of my men, the men in my family, they all served in combat, but they all came home. I mean, my grandfather served in World War II, great-grandfather, both world wars. Dad was Vietnam and Desert Storm. Uncle, Korea War veteran. I mean, so they all went to war, but they all came home. But then in peacetime, in 2000, when there was nothing going wrong, I mean, we all survived Y2K, and 2000 was pretty much a good year, that my younger brother was killed in the terrorist attack. And it devastated my family and devastated me emotionally, psychologically. I just felt like, you know, there's no point of me trying to serve other people and do good work in communities. I need to just go home and take care of my brothers and, and my mom and my dad because I couldn't be there to help, help my brother in his toughest time. And so it was really a hard time in my life.

Yeah, I heard you mention once before, you said that your, your brother was kind of this big influence in your life. And without him, you wouldn't know who you were. And I think it's amazing because like, So many people would take that and just give up. So like, what, what kept you going during that time that you were really low?

Yeah, so, man, these are great questions. When my brother was killed, my brother was my younger brother. So Sherone was 5 years younger than me. And he was, he was mama's boy. And what I mean mama's boy, his birthday was Valentine's Day. And so he was you know, the, the brother that always checked in on Mom. Like, I might be too busy, the twins, baby brothers, they wouldn't check on Mom. Sherone would always check on her. And he checked on everybody like that. So he, he had this service mentality that he wanted to know how you were doing, what he could do to help. I remember even at 21 years old, like the year before he went into the Navy, um, there was a neighbor across the street from him who was married and had 2 young kids. And he was talking to him one day, and the guy said, man, I hadn't taken my wife on a date since the kids were born. And my brother volunteered at 21 to stay home on a Friday night and babysit his kids so this guy could take his wife out on a date. Now, I don't know how many 21-year-olds would volunteer to give up a Friday night to babysit some 2 or 4-year-olds so their neighbor can take his wife out on a date, but that's who Sherone was. And so when he was killed, to me, it was like he lost the opportunity to serve and have an impact on millions of people. And so my philosophy of service is rooted in my family, but grounded in trying to uplift the principles that my brother lived every day. And I'm not saying that I wouldn't have lived a life of service had he not died. But the purpose of serving the way that I do now grew out of the tragedy. I mean, the reason why I talk about leadership in culture is because, you know, when my brother was killed, there was a particular leadership culture inside of the Navy and also inside of the government that really didn't value and respect the people who were on the front lines doing all of the hard work. And so for me, my work day to day is about getting back to those things that are important for leaders, and that is to serve your people, empower them, and to help them to be successful. That's what your job is. And so many people have forgotten to do their jobs.

Yeah, well, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate it. And you're right that so many people just, they advocate the responsibility, and they don't want to even, they don't want to care. That leads me to my next question. You have these 3 questions that you say that every person that you meet, that you come in contact with, Um, that everyone has. Do you mind sharing those and what those have to do with leadership?

Yeah, so, so, um, I try to break leadership down in its simplest form. And if you want to be effective as a leader, if you want to be the most effective leader ever— and let me be clear, leadership is everybody's responsibility. It's not about a title or a corner office. It's not about having 50 people to manage. Sometimes the only person you might need to lead are your children. Or you might need to lead your siblings or your coworkers in some way. Everybody can be a leader. But the questions are this: every person that you come in contact is judging you on whether you're an effective leader or not. And how they're judging you is by how you answer 3 simple questions. Now, I'm going to give you these questions. Before I give them to you, I want you to know that these questions are everything. If you are not— if you don't have time to listen to anything else I say in this podcast, you should focus on these 3 questions, and you should write them down and put them on a Post-it note and stick them over your mirror or on the back of your phone, wherever you need them. Question number 1 is, do you care about me? Question number 2 is, will you help me? And question number 3 is, can I trust you? Now let me give you the context about these 3 questions. We love to say the words, yes, I care about you. Yes, I'll be happy to help you. Yes, you can trust me. But nobody wants to hear yes to those 3 questions. They want to see yes in your actions. How do you show them that you care about them? How do you show them that you're helping them And how do you show them that they can trust you? Now let me be clear. If you don't answer the first 2 questions repeatedly, constantly, every day, then you're never going to answer the 3rd question. Because if you don't show the people that you lead that you care about them and that you're willing to help them to be successful, they will never trust you. And so I use this and I teach this in business principles, like in companies, what a leader needs to do to talk to their team. But let me be clear, everybody asks these questions. If you're a parent, your kids are asking these questions every day. If you are an entrepreneur who has no employees, your customers are also asking these 3 questions. Do you care about me enough to make the product easy for me to use? Will you help me to successfully access your product? And then, can I trust that your product is not going to let me down when I need it? So it doesn't matter what you do, what your business product or service is, or where you sit in the organization. Those 3 questions are the cornerstone of leadership. And if you answer them repeatedly over and over and over again, you will be the leader that has a monumental impact on people's lives. And yes, you will be admired the world over.

This has been one of my favorite podcast episodes so far, and I didn't want to disrupt that line of questioning because, Luke, you were able to get some pretty special stuff out of Anton there. Um, do you want to keep going, or—

Anton's a pretty special guy, you know. He's talking about, he's talking about these leaders that have the, those one-name leaders, you know. I think we'll put Anton up there as well.

I'm a long way from it, man. I just, you know, I appreciate— I do lots of podcasts. This is probably— I can't tell you, maybe it's my 40th or 50th podcast. But I will tell you, it's all in the right questions. Because, you know, you don't want to give people platitudes, you want to give people what they need. And I know you're trying to, trying to do a good show, but it's all in the questions. And you guys asking great questions. I've never said, wow, that's a great question. I've never said that on as many podcasts as I said today. So So, kudos to you for being thoughtful and deliberate about preparing for the interview. It's been great.

Well, I'll tell you this, and I don't mind sharing it with the audience as well. Podcasting is almost like a life hack because we get access to you, somebody that has paid a lot of money to teach these principles, and we get a personal coaching session. Luke and I lead a business. It's a small business. We have about, I don't know, anywhere between 7 to 10 people if you include contractors and the mix, but, uh, we're looking to become better leaders every day. And it's not something that is as readily actionable as what you're talking about typically, like when you hear leadership principles and stuff like that. So I mean, this will be one that we go back through and talk about and try to implement effectively. So you're kind of giving us layups, which is nice.

Hey man, I love layups, man. That's the easiest basket to make. Um, don't shoot 3s when you can shoot a layup, man. Tell that to Steph Curry and everybody else in the NBA.

Yeah. Recently I was in a Thursday night basketball game and my brother was on the other team and I stopped and pulled up like a few feet behind the 3 and he just shook his head and he goes, Steph Curry ruined basketball. Yes, he did. That's what he said to me.

Yeah. Everybody thinks they can shoot out the gym now. But again, man, fundamentals. So like if you think about sports and this is a great analogy, sports, the success in sports is the people who master the fundamentals. So if you can make a foul shot, if you can make a layup, if you can, you know, dribble with your left hand equally as good as you can with the right hand, you're going to have the foundation of success. And leadership is the same way, that if you can understand people, if you can know what they care about, okay, help them to be successful and do that repeatedly over and over again, you're going to have the foundation to be a great leader. So we gotta get back to the fundamentals. Yeah, there's all these theoretical books about emotional intelligence and around, you know, complex hybrid workplaces and all that. Like, I mean, there's so much content about leadership world over. I mean, like, 200,000 people have written books about leadership. But how many of them are getting back to the fundamentals, the basics, the simplest frameworks to help people to lead in real time? And in a way that you don't have to have a 6-figure salary to be able to figure it out.

I love that advice. Before we wrap up, a couple of things. Number one, in the beginning, I said that I would go back to maybe touching on some characteristics as it relates to being a leader that everybody wants to be around and support. And also, like how to create a team where everybody wants to stick around and support each other as well. So maybe you could just offer some suggestions or things that you teach in your material on both sides of those. Spectrums.

Yeah. So the, so the very, very first one, I'll always start with leaders because I believe everything rises and falls on leadership. Every organization rises and falls on the leadership of that organization. So if you want to really become that leader that everybody admires, you got to start answering those 3 questions. And I kind of gave most people that. But here's the other thing that I want to give you is be yourself. Now, what do I mean be yourself is, um, we get a lot of bad examples of leadership. Like, we try to emulate other people that we see. And so we literally pass on bad behaviors of what we learned from our very first boss. I mean, so many people are doing the things that they learned from their very first boss. And we try to pretend to be them rather than be who we are. So I tell, if you want to be the best leader ever and you want to be admired the world over, Be authentic to yourself. And that is, you know, tell them who you are, show people who you are. Be honest and transparent about the mistakes that you've made, the failures that you have, and even those idiosyncrasies that, that you have that other people don't have. So like, when I was in corporate America years ago, everybody on my team knew I loved hip-hop. You know why? Because if you walked by my office at any point in time, you would hear Biggie or Jay-Z or Nas blasting loud. out of the boombox that I brought into work that I had behind my desk or my Bluetooth speaker. So I'm in a corporate area where everybody else is buttoned up with suit and tie and, you know, listening to elevator music, but I'm blasting classic hip-hop. I was authentic to who I am, and I could tell you why that was important to me. And because of that, people gravitated to me because I was interesting and fascinating to see this corporate guy who loves hip-hop the way he does and not afraid to talk about it in the workplace. So be authentic. That's the best advice I can give you. The second piece, and I'll transition to teams, is that as a leader, when you make a mistake, don't forget to apologize. So many leaders will make mistakes and they won't apologize. But it fractures the relationship between you and your team if you make a mistake and you're afraid to say, I'm sorry. And don't give the passive-aggressive sorry, which is, I'm sorry you felt that way. No, it's not about how they felt. I'm sorry for the mistake that I made. You need to own and account for your mistakes. The best leaders are the ones who are authentic. And they're not afraid to apologize when they screw up. So you got to get into that. Now, for a team, if you want to build a great team, a team where everybody is valued and respected and included, the context is you have to have an appreciation for what makes people different. The best teams are the ones that are most diverse. So if you got people from different geographic regions of the country, people who have different skill sets, people who come from different backgrounds, people who are different races and different genders, the teams that are the most diverse and you as a leader appreciate that diversity and create an environment where everybody can bring their individual perspective and you allow them to show up authentically at work, it's going to make you a stronger and more robust team. As a matter of fact, there's, you know, mountains of research going back, you know, 10 years now that shows that companies that have the most diverse teams outperform their industry competitors between 15% and 33%. Like, you literally make more money, 15% to 33% more than your competitors because you have an appreciation for diversity. So that's the first thing is just build a diverse team. Second thing is learn to communicate. And what do I mean communicate is you got to be effective in communication. You got to recognize that you got to find a language that works for your team. You got to build a universal language for your team. And then don't be afraid to overcommunicate. We love to think that we're We're communicating too much. You can never communicate too much when it comes to giving your team directions. I mean, just think about the sport of football. Like, you ever heard a quarterback call a play in a football game? It is one of the most complicated things you're ever going to hear come out of somebody's mouth. But guess what? It is clear and consistent communication because everybody on the team understands what was just said and most importantly what they need to do. So I, I tell you, communication is a cornerstone of building great teams beyond diversity. And then the last thing that I'll give you, if you really want to be on that kind of team that is well respected and high performing, is that you got to recruit A players. A players. There's no sports team in the world— you can look at Alabama, Georgia, you name whatever national championship team. They're not recruiting C players. They only recruit A players. And, and every team that is winning spends their time trying to identify A players. But they also understand people who could become A players but may not be A players yet, and they just need to be developed. And that's how I saw myself, is that some people would say, Anton, you were a great athlete, but you weren't strong enough. You're not an A player yet. But I believe that I can develop you into an A-player. And so you got to have those frameworks if you want to build a world-class culture with diverse teams that are high-performing and to become that leader that everybody admires.

We have so much to learn from you. I can't wait to reflect on this with Luke a little bit. And I'm not just blowing smoke. I genuinely mean that. I don't think we've had a leadership discussion that is this meaningful and could Have this much impact on our business, which is great. I will close my mouth after a couple of things that I wrote down. Number one, I grew up in New England and I grew up in New England really my entire life. The Patriots have been the Patriots and Tom Brady's been Tom Brady. Number 87 was Gronkowski for a long time.

Hey, bro.

I mean, and today it's Travis Kelce, so that's also equally as amazing. Um, I wanted to ask, did you have a chance to watch the Quarterback show that just came out on Netflix?

You know, I, I was scrolling through Netflix just day before yesterday and I saw it and I haven't turned it on yet. And I'm trying to like, you know, we're 40-plus days away from kickoff to college football, so I'm trying to get myself together. And it'll be definitely a to-do list for me to watch that leading into the, into the next football season.

Well, you had mentioned, uh, quarterback play calling, and they do a really fun segment where they show There's 3 quarterbacks that they feature and they do a really fun segment where they show Kirk Cousins and how he speaks into his phone, records all these play calls, and then says them back out loud. And he practices in his car while he's driving because of how complex they are, but how clear you have to present them. So it's just a fun little tidbit there.

Totally.

So the other thing that I was going to mention just to wrap up for anybody that's curious, These names aren't maybe as meaningful to the world as the names that you guys put out for your leadership discussion, but I'd like to sit down with Jesus Christ for sure. So, we all have that in common. I'd like to sit down with Tom Brady. I've had the chance to meet Tom, but he led an amazing team dynasty for such a long period of time. And after watching that quarterback thing on Netflix, I have more appreciation for the quarterback position and the physical brutality of the NFL than I ever had before. And I'd like to sit down with Jocko Willink. Jocko, with his book Extreme Ownership, it's my favorite leadership book that I've read cover to cover multiple times thus far in my life. And he helped me adopt that leadership style of extreme ownership. Everything falls on me as the leader in this business and will forever, no matter what. Nobody else can mess up. It's all on me. So Those are my 3.

So let me add to that. So Jocko's a former Navy SEAL. I know some former Navy SEALs. So I grew up in Virginia. Virginia Beach, Virginia is my hometown. And Navy SEALs on the East Coast train out of Little Creek Base, which is, you know, 6 minutes from my house. Matter of fact, before I went to college to play football, I worked out every day at Little Creek Gym where a lot of them would work out. So know lots of Navy SEALs. And I went to high school with one. His name is Chris Fussell. He's actually the president of the McChrystal Group. So Stanley McChrystal, famous general, has a consulting firm that teaches leadership and principles. So Chris wrote a book called Team of Teams with Stanley, Stanley McChrystal. And Chris is an extreme ownership kind of dude. And he says, that's how to be if you're going to be successful as a Navy SEAL. You have to have the right mentality, and that's why they only select the best of the best. But that was a great one to have a conversation with, is that book Extreme Ownership was really powerful to me too when I read it.

I love that.

I love that.

All right.

Luke always wraps up our podcast with his famous final question. So Luke, I'll kick it over.

Here we go. All right. So my last question is always this. You pass away and all the information that you've put out over the years, the books, Everything, your website, everything disappears, but you're allowed to leave the world with one single piece of advice. What would it be?

My one piece of advice would be to make it right. And when I say make it right, is the world is unfair, is screwed up. People experience injustice every day. Something is always going wrong. But a leader's greatest responsibility is to try to do something to make it right. The most admired leaders in the world are the leaders who saw something wrong and decided to do something to make it right. And that's what I want everybody to do. We'll get a better world and a better place if you see things that are wrong and you do something to make it right.

I want to do a whole bunch of follow-up questions, but For sake of time, we won't.

I know, and we went 20 minutes over, but it was so worth it.

Um, so final, final question, uh, where should people go if they want to connect with you and find out more about you?

Yeah, you always go to antongunn.com. That's the home of everything. I'm on Instagram, I'm on LinkedIn, uh, I'm on Facebook at Anton J. Gunn. @AntonJGunn is how you find me, and my YouTube channel is Anton J. Gunn as well. So That's where you can find me. Subscribe, like, um, get on my list. I'm teaching and adding value every day that I can, just like you guys are. And I appreciate the time and opportunity to be with you today.

Well, thank you so much. You gave us so much value today. I appreciate it. Can't wait to get this one out. Um, yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

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