221. Robert Murphy | Breaking Boundaries: Unlocking Leadership Potential at Every Level

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 Robert Murphy, author of Breaking Boundaries: Unlocking Leadership Potential at Every Level. Robert is a celebrated technology entrepreneur, software engineer, and leadership expert known as the King of Culture. With years of experience building successful businesses and empowering teams, he specializes in fostering company cultures that inspire innovation and growth. As a pilot and lifelong learner, Robert blends his technical expertise with a passion for motivating and developing engineering professionals. In this episode, Robert shares about his journey from his early experiences in retail leadership to becoming a standout leader in the technology sector. We discuss how his stepfather's guidance helped shape his resilience and leadership philosophy, the importance of building healthy company cultures, why you should always seek feedback, and his approach to empowering teams to achieve more. Robert also reflects on lessons from his book, his leadership style, and the strategies that have helped him inspire growth and success in others. Now get ready to learn and enjoy this incredible conversation with Robert Murphy.

Robert, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. I'm excited to chat with you today, and my first question has to do with your dedication.

All right.

So right when I opened up your book, I read, to my dad, Bob Murphy, your courage has always challenged me to push beyond the safety of the runway, teaching me that the greatest growth comes from navigating uncharted skies. So let's start there. Tell me a little bit about your dad and, and tell me about what type of impact he had on you.

My dad, Bob, is actually my stepdad. He adopted me when I was about 14, I think. And I don't think I would be where I'm at in life today if it wasn't for his leadership. My mom was a single mother for most of my life, so I didn't really have that male figure. So when he came in and kind of was tough on me and set some boundaries and pushed me to do things differently, I think that kind of set me up to take what my mother had taught me and then kind of become a man. So I give him a ton of credit for that. I think my mom gets a little grumpy once in a while, but she was a great influence too, which I dedicated to her in my first book. With regards to the aviation theme, we're a family of pilots. So, you know, I'm a commercially rated pilot. My dad is also a private pilot. And one of our hobbies is flying, and we have 2 very different approaches to flying. I'm very by the rules. I, you know, I fly via instruments and the gadgets and try to do things as precisely as possible. My dad's a bit more of a cowboy. So, you know, when the weather is a bit questionable, I'm thinking about staying on the ground. He's like, nah, let's go. It's an adventure. And there's been so many times where we've gone for a flight and I'm shivering my timbers in the seat and We make it where we're going just fine. And, you know, so I'm always glad that he pushes me out of that comfort zone, which is what I try to do for others.

Yeah, you know, I was going to relate it to that point because in the book, a couple of chapters in, you talk about the importance of embracing discomfort and getting outside of your comfort zone as an entry-level employee looking to take on some leadership responsibilities and grow. And so Let's— can you give us another example? Like, what's another time maybe specifically where you were kind of cautious, he pushed you, and then it ended up working out? Hmm.

Uh, specific to aviation, we, um, we recently did a flight to Las Vegas over Christmas a couple years ago. And, um, on the way back, the weather was, was really bad. It was clouded in, it was very cold, which In aviation is a bad recipe, particularly for small aircraft, because we can pick up ice and the plane doesn't really perform very well. It can kill you. And, um, but he pushed us to do it. He's like, look, Robert, you've got the skills, you did the training, you've done this 1,000 times. We know what to look for. If things don't turn out right, we can always come back. If not, we'll go somewhere else. And, uh, so we did it. We took off from Las Vegas Airport. A little bit of pressure because they had a big event coming, so they were trying to get us out of there so they could get you know Elon Musk's jet in, which was really true. They they were filling up, and I ended up being correct. The weather was not tenable for flying. We got maybe I don't know two hundred miles over the mountains. We were completely socked in. We were starting to pick up ice, and I had to make the executive decision at the time because I was pilot in command. to take us down and, and land in an airport. And we ended up in this tiny town called Kingsman, Arizona. It's— it was literally a runway in the middle of nowhere. So when we dropped out of the clouds and it was there, it felt amazing. And I still look back on that because even though the weather wasn't perfect, you know, we did like lean back on our training and use that to guide us, you know, to the runway.

So yeah, I think that's a great story. Now, to help the audience kind of be in this aircraft with you, how many seats are in a plane like this? Is it 2? Is it 4? Is it 6? Like, what's the deal?

It's a 4-seater airplane. We have a single engine, it's a propeller plane. So these are pretty small. We, you know, we go about 200 or 300 miles an hour depending on how the wind's treating us. And Like I said, they don't do ice at all. Larger aircraft like the ones you fly commercially, they have de-icing equipment. They don't even worry about it too much. But in a small plane, it's like driving your car. You got to be very careful. You know, maintenance is important.

Yeah, I, uh, a couple of years ago, my wife and I took a trip to Iceland, and we met up with an author friend of mine who lives in Iceland, and he surprised us with a fun little trip in a small plane. It was a small propeller plane like that, 4 seats. He has a friend that was a pilot and we flew over some volcanoes. We landed on a little island outside of Iceland. And what's so funny is that I have never experienced motion sickness. I mean, I've been on 1,000 boats. I've done all sorts of crazy experiences from paragliding to skydiving. I've never experienced any motion sickness.

Really?

But both ways I was sick to my stomach. I hate to admit it. And I don't know if I'll be in another 4-seat plane again for the rest of my life. So kudos to you for being able to, A, stomach that, but also B, be in control. And the lesson there with you being in command and having to resort back to like, you know, the fundamentals reminds me of a lesson that I learned in Atomic Habits, which is oftentimes we don't rise to the level of our goals, but we fall to the level of our systems.

That's right.

And I think that it's important to, to have those fundamentals, even if you're a cowboy. Like, uh, like your dad there to understand the basics and make sure that you dot your i's and cross your t's sometimes.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, that's all what being a pilot is about too. Um, you know, I think a lot of people make, make it more complicated than it really is. Flying an airplane is actually pretty simple. Um, it's all the training that makes it difficult because what they teach you is when, when the shit hits the fan, You're going to default back to your training. And that's 99% of it, is learning what to do when something goes wrong.

Now, pivoting a little bit into the subject of leadership, I imagine you teach the same things to leaders because oftentimes when you step into a new leadership role and like you said, shit hits the fan sometimes, you get a little emotionally reactive and you start to see red sometimes. You know, things start to spiral out of control. So, if you don't work on cultivating solid fundamentals, sometimes you could let things slip in the right moment. So, or in the wrong moment, I mean. So, tell us a little bit about your background. Like, how did you come to write this book?

Well, this is my second book in my, we'll call it leadership series, because I think there's more down the horizon. I've been really fortunate in my career. I mean, even starting from my first job in high school that Whatever I've done in my job roles, I've always found a way to get in charge. You know, I, I get stuff done. I'm very agreeable. I try to understand what the business goals are, ask a lot of questions about why we're doing things the way we do, which gives me better understanding. So when I realized I kind of had a knack for that, I would say like 10 years ago, I started just taking notes like every time I learned something. that was about management or about leadership or about psychology of people, I would just take a note in a Google Doc. And then I would say 3 years ago, right around when I started writing my first book, I was like, you know what, I really want to write a book. I think it'd be a good way for me to take all this stuff that I've accumulated over the years, make sense of it, and actually internalize it myself. So I wrote the first book, which was Leadership with a Purpose. That book was very focused on how to motivate people and engineers and also to, for the reader to self-reflect on like, what type of leader am I and how do I play to my strengths and where are my challenges gonna be? And then with my latest book, Breaking Boundaries, I kind of wanted to take that from the other side, which was to put the reader in the position of being the employee. You know, what are the things that leaders are looking for to get you to that next level? And, you know, I think the thesis for the book really became a thing because as I was managing people over the years, I got the same questions over and over again, and I started to see a pattern is people naturally want to get to the next level. They want to get promoted, they want to make more money, they want more responsibility, but the path isn't always clear on how to get there. And not everyone's manager is going to help usher them along that process. So Breaking Boundaries was step 2 on the other side of that management and leadership coin. And I hope readers see it kind of creates a foundation for how to think to get to that next level.

Yeah. As I was reading it, I was thinking back to my first responsibilities out of college. I had a couple of different jobs and about how this book would've been so useful for me 10 or 12 years ago. So what was your first job, uh, where you had some leadership opportunity?

Well, my very first job in high school was bagging groceries, and that didn't last very long because I was bored. Um, but I ended up getting a job at Radio Shack, which was like 2 doors down, because I would spend my breaks, you know, playing with the electronics. Um, I worked there for a very long time, but pretty quickly I was able to execute well. I was a good salesperson, but I was also trying to understand the business, like why we carried certain products, like, you know, why our customer base was on the elderly side versus the younger side and kind of playing to those strengths and learning the things that our customers were looking for. And I ended up becoming like a supervisor where I had keys to the store even in high school, which was crazy. That wasn't allowed back then. It was one of those hush-hush things when the insurance company dropped by. And I eventually became the assistant manager of that store before they were, you know, Radio Shack went out of business a number of years ago. Yeah, that was my first foray into it. And then life moved on from there. And I would say my next opportunity that's interesting is at 19 years old. I carried that experience from RadioShack into a company called HHGregg. Probably never heard of them, but they were like a big box, like consumer box store for appliances and televisions. And they ended up giving me my own store at the age of 19. I was, you know, leading the operations of the store I was at here in Florida, and they were expanding into the Mid-Atlantic. So the New Jersey, Baltimore area. And I told them I wanted a store. They thought I was nuts and they actually came back and made it happen. So I traveled to New Jersey and opened a store. We did fantastic. And, you know, retail wasn't for me. And that's when I decided to go to school. And that's a whole nother story.

Well, diving into this story a little bit more, do you think that you were a natural leader? You were naturally somebody who was reliable and attentive to detail and looking for more responsibility? Um, or did somebody else see that in you? Like, that, that story that you just told, I mean, that trajectory is fascinating, but it's not very common. So I'm just curious if you think you're naturally born a leader, or you did something to cultivate those skills, or did somebody else see something in you that you didn't recognize? Like, what was the reason that that happened to you?

I don't think there, there's one answer to that question. I don't think I'm a natural-born leader. For sure. I think leadership is a learned skill like anything else, and I just happen to find it interesting. So it's one of the things that I pay attention to. A lot of it does go back to what you mentioned, which is reliability. You know, I've always been the person that I'm there on time. I do my work when I'm there. You have my full attention when I'm present. And if something needs to be done after hours or in excess of my normal job duties, like I'm the person that'll say yes, sir, and make sure it happens. As long as it's for the right reasons. I think what got the attention towards me in terms of like opening up that opportunity is the fact that I had a good relationship with our management team at the store. You know, even though I was a run-of-the-mill employee first starting there, I wasn't afraid to go talk to our general manager. Or when our regional manager came in, I made sure that I was known. They knew who Robert Murphy was. And I leveraged that influence to kind of work my way up through the ranks, right? I could show them the good work that I was doing by being top of mind.

When I was, when I was reading through your story and some of the early lessons in this book about reliability, I was thinking about my own journey and it's kind of like yours actually. So my first job towards the end of high school was in an ice cream shop. And within a couple of weeks, I was opening and closing the ice cream shop. I had the keys. I managed the other employees in the store. Everybody was older than I was. But, and, and like thinking back then, you know, what did somebody see in me? It was that reliability. It was the attention to detail. It was like, I wanted to understand. I was curious. I was a, I was a learner at that age. Now, I wasn't a natural born leader, just like you're highlighting. You weren't either.

Right.

But it was a subject that I was interested in and that I started to pay attention to. And it— as I was reading your book, I was thinking perception is reality. You know, you don't need to be a natural-born leader, but if you act the part and you vocalize the things that are going well and you ask a lot of questions and you stand out, of course you're going to be top of mind when an opportunity pops up. So—

That's right.

Vocalizing and asking questions and making yourself known, I think, is a really underrepresented piece of, of how to be successful as an entry-level employee. Do you agree?

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I do. And think about it from this, like, psychology perspective. I mean, even if we take work out of the equation and just normal life, if there's something that you need, let's say you're broken down on the side of the road, who's the first person you're gonna call? It's the person, you know, who's gonna answer the phone and actually come and be there for you, right? And that transcends all the situations. When you're at work, you know, at an event, people are going to gravitate towards those who they know can get stuff done. are relatable, you know, aren't going to be critics. So I think if you adopt those skills, what we're talking about is gonna happen to anybody. Because when I manage people, and this is one of my weaknesses, is I always have to remember to delegate and to release control because I want things done properly, but I know I can't be the expert in everything. But this, the same concept applies because You're gonna see that the people that get stuff done and are loyal and reliable are going to get the lion's share of the work because they're gonna get it done, but also because it's making the other person's life easier. Yeah, I think so. It's a double-edged coin. You know, some people are like, yeah, you do better work, I get more work, I should get paid more. Well, yeah, but again, we're talking about the psychology of it.

Yeah, we are. But also, if even if you use the example of bagging groceries, you know, that's an hourly position. It's not based on results. It's just based on the input of hours. And if you bag groceries twice as fast as the lane next to you, you don't necessarily get paid more.

Right, right.

But there are these intangible benefits that come from working better and more efficiently. People will notice. And when somebody says, hey, we need to grab somebody out of the cash register lines and We need to, you know, put them into a supervisor position. Like the one that bags groceries twice as fast gets paid attention to a little bit faster. So I totally hear what you're saying. And I think that, you know, there's this idea of business acumen, or there's this idea of, I don't even really know how to articulate it, but you just sort of get it. You get the fact that when you do extra work and people can rely on you, yes, you work more, but you do tee yourself up. with more leadership potential. It's like pulling back, you know, the bow a little bit more. It's like that potential just continues to get stronger and stronger and stronger so that when there's an opportunity to shoot the arrow, it's a little bit stronger.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And one of the ways I try to teach this idea in the book is by providing opportunities to create business value. If we go back to your example of like a a grocery bagger. When all the groceries are bagged and there's no more customers in line, there's really 2 types of people. The first type of person is going to lean and hang out and talk with the girls at the cash register or maybe go for a smoke break. The second kind of person is gonna go find an adjacent department that needs help and provide that additional assistance. And that gets noticed because you're adding additional value to the business. And that applies no matter what career you're in. You know, in my career, I'm in consulting. If I have a slow day on a, in a customer engagement, I'm going to start working on something else that the business needs. And I can garner attention to myself by saying, hey, I'm no longer working on this, but I see that there's value over here, so I'm gonna go tackle that, right? Or you could go learn something new, like improve a skill that you have. You always hear the thing, time to lean, time to clean. I think that's crazy, but it's the default setting to get people from— to keep moving and keep adding value.

At this stage in your life, right, these first leadership opportunities, were you consuming personal development and business books, audiobooks, podcasts? Were you studying psychology or were these just Observations that you were picking up in your day-to-day life?

Uh, no, monkey see, monkey do. Early on in my career, I, I just would go like, that person's really good at their job, you know, they're a good leader. I, I would just think, what is it they're doing? And then I would write it down, you know. Maybe it's they're being a mentor, they're taking time to go do something that isn't in their job description. I think that's the gist of it. I didn't really start reading and studying leadership and psychology probably until, probably until college. I think a big inflection point for me— I went to college pretty late, by the way. A big inflection point for me is when I took world religion. That, I think, for the first time in my life, really took me out of my comfort zone. And forced me to see a perspective of a whole culture that I'd never understood before. And like, a lot of things just started to click at that point. Like, wow, there's a lot of knowledge here that I don't have because I'm too afraid to go get it. Hmm.

There's also a lot of leadership wisdom to be learned studying religion as well.

There is. I, um, in my religion class, we had the option at the end to either Take the final exam, which was all about, you know, architectural designs and religious facts, or to actually participate in a religion for 2 weeks and then just, you know, take some pictures and write like what it did for you. And I, I decided to take the harder option, which was to go practice Islam for 2 weeks, which was a wild experience. I highly recommend if someone has an opportunity to do something like that, do it.

So by practicing Islam, did you go to a mosque? Did you attend? Yeah. So what, what did it feel like walking in those doors for the first time? Was it something that you got permission for beforehand, or did you just show up to a service?

No, I, I worked with a, with a guy at the time. Um, his name's Fahad. In fact, I still am in contact with him. We've known each other for like 15 years at this point. Um, you know, He studied Islam, and I was telling him about this class and this option. He's like, you know, you should just come with me and we'll do it together. And he was able to go and go to his mosque. I think he got permission from the imam to allow me to come in, not only to be an outsider, which they totally welcomed, but also to document the experience.

Mm-hmm.

So, you know, it was a bit unusual. I had like a notebook, I was writing stuff down, and like while prayer services were happening, I was more looking around me and trying to understand than going through the motions early on. Um, but it was a real shock to me, you know, just how different it was. Um, have you ever been to a mosque?

I have. I— one of my friends got married about a year ago, uh, at a mosque, and, and it was a really fun experience. And, and funny enough, I mean, I didn't, I didn't ask you to bring this subject up, it's just timely. He was over my house this past weekend and He's expecting his first daughter, and he was talking about looking for looking for school alternatives to the public education system. And there are a couple of Islamic schools where he lives, which is in Massachusetts. And we're just talking about like I'm a practicing Catholic, and we just had our first baby, and he's a you know he's a practicing Muslim. And we were talking about how we have more in common with each other, even though we practice different religions, than we do with people that don't practice anything at all. And it was just. It was a fun conversation, but to answer your question, yes, only that one time, and it was for a wedding ceremony.

Yeah. For me, it was a big, big culture shock. You know, I've been to Christian churches like Catholic and just normal Christian churches, and, you know, you just, you dress nice and you attend, and, you know, it's all pretty normal feeling to me. But this was a total culture shock. We had to start the day by washing our hands and feet and getting clean, and we had to put our shoes in cubbies. You know, the men and women were separated. You know, at the time I was like, these guys are nuts. Now I totally get it, and I understand why they do those things, right? I tell you this story because it was a big pivot in me. It's like, I have all this knowledge, what does it actually matter? And then now I start to see how it all matters. And, and that was kind of that college experience. I know a lot of people think it's not super useful to take the humanities and the math and all that, but for me, it put me down a path of curiosity and to learn.

Yeah, I oftentimes tell people that ask me like, hey Nick, you know, you read so many personal development books. I mean, are they all saying the same things to you? And I always tell people that reading business and personal development philosophy and psychology It's a very humbling experience because every time you pick up a book, you start to learn about something you didn't know existed before. And that opens up an entire pathway that you could dedicate the rest of your life to studying. I mean, it just— every time you pick up a new book and you open a book like this, you realize there's more that you don't know. And so the more you read, the less you know, which is counterintuitive, but that's how it works. And so you take a world religion class like that. You go to a mosque and you know here here opens an entirely new pathway in your life or just a perspective shift, right? The paradigm shift from I know what I know and you can't tell me any more than that, right? And I'm going to go apply this and and live a great life and then boom now you're a lifelong learner and you're studying dozens of different subjects. So I totally get the pivot point. So how do you think your life changed after that other than the fact that Now you love learning.

For me, it was a very obvious pivot. Before, I think that critical moment in college where I had these lessons, you know, I was— I tend to be a pretty condescending person. You know, when somebody didn't know something or didn't have the understanding that I had, I was very critical. Now, I think since having gotten this new perspective, I'm a little more warm and welcoming to people that maybe don't understand something. Or just don't know something that should be common sense. And that's because I've, I deliberately put myself in someone else's shoes to understand how they see the world. And I continue to practice that even now when I'm managing people or working with a customer. I think being able to make that mental shift to go, okay, forget everything I think I know. What does this person know? And then you can kind of see where the gaps are and then, and then go from there. It also kind of made me fall in love with, with education. I, I'm one of those people, like, I watch documentaries all day long. I'm always listening to podcasts or reading a book or just trying to learn as much as I can. And I think that's what started it because before then I was playing video games and eating Cheetos, you know.

I think you and I are cut from a similar cloth. I, you mentioned earlier that leadership is a learned skill.

Yes.

And you also just highlighted through that explanation, at least from my perspective, that empathy and emotional intelligence are also learned skills. I think curiosity is a skill that can be strengthened too. And so, here we are, you know, we have these very malleable brains. We can change, we can update, we can see things from different perspectives. And it's beautiful because there's some momentum that can build around that process of learning and changing. So, here's a tough question for you. What is something that you changed your mind about? What is something that you've updated that you don't believe anymore? Does anything come to mind?

Oh, man.

And I could give you an example in my life because Just like—

Yeah, yeah, please.

I was, I was a little condescending through my early 20s, and I, I struggled with a little bit of an ego. I wasn't always fun to be around. And on the other side of the spectrum, I was very insecure, and I think that's what, what caused a lot of the ego issues too, and the condescension. But I'm, I'm more open. I'm curious now, just like you're highlighting. I, I love traveling internationally, for instance, because I love to understand how other people live and try to put myself in their shoes and see through the lens that they see. So, an example would be politically. If you were to ask me 6 or 7 years ago, I would've said I was pretty conservative politically. And I identified a lot with most of the conservative principles in the United States. And now I'd say I'm pretty right down the middle. You know, I, I, my beliefs and my ideas are a mixed bag. And I've, I've become okay thinking that you don't need to belong to one or the other, that it's okay to have different belief systems. You know, some of my belief systems are a little bit left-leaning and some of them are right-leaning and some of them are right in the middle or outside of the entire system. And so me, 5 or 6 years ago, I would've said that's crazy. But me today, I just say, Yeah. That's where I'm at. You know, I've, I've undone some of those beliefs and I've changed a little bit.

Yeah, that's a, that's an interesting example. I didn't think we'd get into politics today.

Yeah. Yeah, me neither. But, uh, yeah, I'm just curious if, if there's any, any set belief that you've undone or anything that comes to mind. And, and if not, that's totally fine. We could skip over to my next question.

Yeah, I think skip this one. I don't have a great answer outside of what we've already discussed. If you'd asked me this before a whole world religion talk, I would have totally went there because what, what I imagined a different culture of people being based on what we know from the media and, you know, what we learned from our parents is totally different than when you actually get involved and meet people. Like you said, international travel. I've done a little bit of that. And what I found is most people are normal despite the extremists which you see on TV and So I try to approach that. I mean, I work in tech, so I work with a whole gamut of people from all over the world, you know, lots of people from India and Pakistan and China and Eastern Europe. And, you know, when you boil it all off, you know, we're all just on, on this rock together. So.

Yeah, we totally are. I, I love sharing this example. I don't share it on this podcast very often, but I love sharing it with people when, when I'm sitting down having a cup of coffee or just hanging out. And the first time I ever traveled to Colombia, in South America. I was in Medellín, and we think of— it was right after the popular series Narcos came out, all about Pablo Escobar and the cocaine and everything like that. And so the standard American view of Colombia is drugs, cartels, it's dangerous, it's third world. It's still listed as third world. But what most people don't realize, and I didn't realize until I went, is that Medellín is becoming a tech hub in South America. And there is a lot of travel, and it's really safe and clean. And so a lot— I had a big shift in my perspective when I was visiting Colombia, and I had somebody tell me, a Colombian, that he would never visit the United States. And I asked why, and he said it's incredibly dangerous. I thought, what do you mean? And then you realize the, the version of the news that trickles down and makes it to a country like Colombia is the most extreme version of our news. It's the school shootings, it's the guns, it's the, you know, and then you think about the movies, White House Down, and there's always aliens attacking somebody. And it's like, yeah, of course the version of the United States that you see is going to be perceived as incredibly dangerous. And that totally flipped my mind on how I see the rest of the world, just like you're sharing.

That's a great example, and it's one I, I hadn't thought of before, but you're right. Most people probably look at us the same way that Generically speaking, we look at, you know, other countries that are, you know, war-torn or have bad governments or whatever.

So Robert, going back to the book Breaking Boundaries, we'll talk a little bit more about leadership here. You mentioned one of your weaknesses is delegation, and I have the same problem. I remember back when I was running a house painting business in college, I had a boss tell me, Nick, he who can get 5 other people to do the work for him is better than he who can do the work of 5 people. You need to get that in your head because I used to just try to do everything. I wanted it to be perfect and I had a really tough time delegating. In fact, I failed at it for years and years and years and years. I was a terrible leader because I couldn't learn how to delegate. So share with us what your experience has been and maybe some of the solutions that you've found.

Sure. Yeah, this is a big one for me. I struggle with it to this day. In fact, It's one of those things that every day I have to work on. And, and it's not because I'm perfectionist. I'm the, I'm the farthest person from, you know, a perfectionist. But I do have a vision for how I want things to end up. And a lot of times when other people did do it, they don't get to that same vision and then we waste a lot of time. Anyways, I self-reflect on that. So what I try to do, one thing I'm really good at is I'm organized. I keep a list of everything I need to do day in and day out. And what I use is a simple system for prioritizing that. It's called ABC123. The idea is you put an A, B, or C and a 1, 2, or 3 next to every item on your list. ABC generally correlates to must do, should do, or could do. And then 1, 2, 3 is how soon you need it done. 1 being today, 2 meaning soon, and 3 meaning when we get around to it. So I'll always try to delegate the things that are like a B2 or B3. to someone who I have low trust in to help them build that trust. And then as I build that trust, I can give them more important tasks. What you have to— what I have to balance is how much time I have to spend on a task. Like if there's a looming deadline with a customer, I need to get a contract out to a customer, you know, and it's something very detailed. Do I have the time to have someone else do it and go through the iterations? Maybe not. But if I don't have that time, I know I have the time to do what they call pair programming with them, where we'll sit on a Zoom and have a working session together and have them go with me along the journey. And then I build that trust that way.

Yeah, I think it's a big advantage to be very organized like you are. Um, I am, I fluctuate. I'd say I'm more organized than the average person, but not as detailed using lists like you do and, and having the discipline to rank things and then make educated decisions like that. I think that's, that's really smart. Um, another piece from your book, we'll, we'll go kind of rapid fire as we get closer to the end of the podcast.

Yeah.

Because I took up so much time talking about world religion and, and my travel and stuff. Another thing that I loved is how you talked about documenting accomplishments.

Oh yeah.

And it's important to demonstrate your growth and reliability when it comes to promotions and reviews. And, but I also think that reviewing your wins helps you focus on doing things that move the needle more often, 'cause you want more of it. You get a nice little dopamine hit when you document a win. So anyway, share, share with us some thoughts on that and why it's important to do in an entry-level position.

Yeah. So I learned, I taught myself this skill because at one of my jobs early on in my, in my professional career, I had to do what they call a 360 feedback review. And that's where you have to provide all this context about yourself and other people, you know, to kind of be humble and find out where your strengths and weaknesses are. And I'd realized that an entire year had gone past and I was struggling to remember what it was I actually did. And I know I accomplished a lot. You know, there are a lot of projects that I just couldn't get top of mind. So what I started doing from there on is as I complete things that are meaningful to the business, I just jot them down in like a Google Doc. Now I use actually a slide deck. I just put it in a slide, little blurb about what it is. And that way at the end of the year, I can use it for 2 things. One is for my feedback when I'm going through a performance review. And the second thing is, is if I need to command like a bonus or, you know, get an incentive that I was promised or even try to command a higher salary, I have the evidence of what it was that I accomplished and what the value was to the business, you know. So if I brought in a book of business to the company and we closed it and we made $1 million, I'm gonna write that down. And I've actually taken that slide and brought it to my manager at the end of the year and said, look, here's what we accomplished. Here's why I think I should be in that director position. Is your director currently doing this?

Yeah, I think that's brilliant. Uh, the idea of writing down each accomplishment on a slide with some context around what happened. I— my version of that, something I've been doing for a few years now pretty consistently, is every Sunday I try to record a gratitude time capsule. And in that gratitude time capsule, in less than 1 minute, I just pull out my phone and I talk to the camera and I say, Today is Sunday, December 29th, and over the last week, here are some of the things that I'm grateful for. And oftentimes I also like to include or highlight some of the biggest accomplishments from that week. And the idea is at the end of the year, I can consolidate all of those videos into less than 1 hour, right? 52 1-minute videos documenting an entire year's worth of gratitude and accomplishments. And it helps me reinforce the positive things that I'm doing. If I'm ever having a bad day, sometimes I'll go back into that library of videos and I'll just click around from years past and I'll get to watch myself and see what I was so grateful for and what I was accomplishing. And, uh, so I'm curious, do you ever click back through your PowerPoint list if you're ever having a bad day and just kind of browse and see some of the progress that you've made?

No, I don't do that. Um, but I do take the highlights of that and that's what you see on my resume.

Oh, I love that. Yeah, that's smart. That's smart.

Yeah, I'm never in a position where I'm like, man, what should I write on my resume? I already know because I wrote them down.

Yeah, I always joke around. I say if I ever had, if like, if Book Thinkers, this agency ever exploded and I needed to get back in the job market, I would write the ability to perform deep work. In parentheses, I've read 500 books over the last 10 years because I feel like nobody has the attention to sit down and perform deep work anymore. Crazy.

No, it's wild.

Next one from your book. You talked about most young professionals, one of the common pitfalls and the reason that they don't live up to their leadership potential is that they don't seek feedback.

I'm so glad you brought this up.

I'm somebody who loves constructive feedback because I'm like, that's the only way I'm gonna grow. Like, hit me transparently and, and give that feedback, but It's awkward for people. So yeah, let's, let's chat a little bit about this. Number one, why should we seek the feedback? And then number two, how do we get a little bit more comfortable receiving it?

Sure. Well, you have to seek feedback because if you're not getting feedback from those who are judging your work, how do you know if you're building the right thing? Yeah, like a great example is, um, let's say you're like a financial analyst or something, you're working for a CFO, and they ask you to build you know, some kind of report about budgets and you build this thing, like you should not be shocked when they come back and say this wasn't the right thing. That's your clue that, hey, I wasn't asking for feedback along the way. And at the end of the year, you know, if you didn't get that promotion or that raise that you were aiming for, like it shouldn't be a shock. So in order to prevent that shock from happening, you have to be proactive with asking for feedback. And, and the way I teach everybody I work with, peer, colleague, employee, to do this is to ask 3 questions in your one-on-ones with, with your management team. And the first one is, what are the things that I'm doing that I should keep doing because they're going well? Right? And you want to be specific. Like, if you have something in mind you want feedback on, ask. The second question is, what are some things that I've done that you would have done differently?

Hmm.

And again, be specific. Talk about some recent activities that you've done that went well or did not, and use that as an opportunity for them to say, like, you know what, you did work out, but you really got lucky. I would have done it this way because whatever reason. And then the last thing to ask, and probably the most important, is what are some things I've been doing that I should stop doing and never do again?

Right.

And that'll help that manager tell you like things that, that you've been doing that they absolutely hate or detrimental to the business, but maybe they just didn't have the time or, you know, the cojones to, to mention it to you. And you get comfortable doing this by just doing it. I often tell people, and I know it's cliché, you're gonna grow the most when you're uncomfortable. You just have to Have the, the guile to, to make yourself uncomfortable to grow. You know, it's like when I think back to the first time I presented in front of an audience of, you know, like 1,000 people, like I could have walked away, but went up there and did it. And now it's easier. It's the same thing here. Keep asking for feedback. The worst case scenario, like here's the worst case scenario. You get all this feedback, you're doing a terrible job and you get let go. But at least you know why when you're going into the next job. Whereas if you didn't ask for any feedback, you just got let go and now you're wondering like, what the heck happened? I thought they loved me. And that's because if you don't ask those specific questions, I guarantee you your manager is going to say something along the lines of everything's going great, keep doing what you're doing. And that's the lazy answer.

Yeah, that is the lazy answer. Well, I'll tell you what, you've provided a ton of value today. Tell us one more time for Breaking Boundaries, who is the target reader for this book and why should somebody read it?

Breaking Boundaries is the perfect book for someone who is just getting started in their career. I wrote this specifically for someone who's entry level between middle management. Um, although there's some chapters in here about the executive level, I want those to be inspirational chapters to help you grow. The point of this book is to reframe your thinking about work to be less about working hard and burning a ton of energy and instead to focus on things that matter to the business because when things matter to the business, you matter to them and you can command more money.

That's a mic drop moment at the very end right there.

Boom. Boom.

I love it. Maybe the editing team can add like a All right, 2 final questions and then I'll let you go. And this has been a great conversation so far. The first is this: for those that want to learn more about you or get a copy of the book, where should they go? What should they do?

You can learn more about me. I have a website, cryptoflight.io. That's the name of my, my company. I do consulting, has my resume on there if you're interested in getting in contact with me. And both of my books, Breaking Boundaries and Leadership with a Purpose are available on Amazon in ebook and paperback. And in just a couple of weeks' time, we'll have audiobook available for Breaking Boundaries.

Oh, nice. Are you reading it or did you have a robot do it or a third, like a third-party person?

A third-party person. It was, um, a gentleman I used for my first book. He did a fantastic job, really gets the message and, uh, he's recording it now. So no robots.

Awesome. Love to hear it. All right. Here's the final question. And it's normally asked by Luke who was unavailable for today. And it kind of goes like this. He says, if both of your books disappeared, Robert, and all of the talks that you've given and your consultancy, it all just kind of disappeared, but you could leave the world with one message. And I didn't give you any time to prepare for this, so I'm going to keep asking the question for a little bit longer. What would that piece of advice be?

Man, you didn't give me any time for this one.

Any answer is fine. Gut reaction.

Gut reaction. Be comfortable with being uncomfortable. That's the way to grow. You just have to get over it. Like, what's the worst that can happen? You fail. So what?

I love it. Yeah, I think the world— the world would be a better place if people decided to be a little bit more bold. So I think that's a great way to end today's show. And of course, we'll have links to Your website and the books on Amazon in our show notes. And thank you everybody for listening. All right.

Thank you so much, Nick. Cheers.

That is a wrap. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Book Thinkers, Life-Changing Books. It would mean the world to us if you could write a review and share this episode with a few of your friends. I mean, these books truly have the power to change people's lives, and by reviewing or sharing our podcast, you're helping us make an impact. If you have any recommendations for future guests or any constructive feedback for us on how we can improve our show, please feel free to submit a form on our website, www.bookthinkers.com, or send us a direct message on Instagram @bookthinkers. With that, I am signing off, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Don't forget, Thank you. Go read something.