Leveraging Thought Leadership With Peter Winick - Episode 6 - Chip Lutz

Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I am the founder and CEO of Thought Leadership Leverage. And today we are in episode or podcast number 6 of Leveraging Thought Leadership with me, Peter Winick. I am fortunate today to have with me as a guest Chip Lutz. Say hello, Chip.

Hello, Chip.

Chip is quite literal, obviously. So let me give everybody Chip's sort of official bio so they have a sense of who we're talking to. So Lieutenant Commander Chip Lutz, US Navy retired, MSED, CSP, is the president and founder of Unconventional Leader and has 27 years of solid leadership experience. He's a retired Navy officer. He has had 2 command tours and also served as the director of security for Naval District Washington, DC during September 11th, 2001. In that capacity, he was responsible for the safety and security of 25,000 people in 6 different naval installations in the National Capital Region during one of our nation's most trying times. He's a seasoned educator and trainer. He's currently adjunct faculty for two different universities and has taught over 20 different classes. He's the author of four books and has been published in Security Management Magazine, and he had a bunch of articles published in Zig Ziglar's weekly newsletter. And he is a leader that has been there, done that, has the uniform to prove it. So welcome aboard, Chip.

Hello, Peter Winick. Thanks for having me. Awesome. Welcome aboard.

So the theme of this show, as you may or may not know, is leveraging thought leadership. So what we're trying to talk about and who— well, first of all, we're talking to people like you, to author speakers and thought leaders. And we want to have a rich conversation around what you're doing to get your content out there, to scale, to leverage, to get to more people. So why don't we start with, if you could give us just a brief overview of Chip World? What are the things that you do? What are the things you get paid to do? What are the ways that you get your work out there that might be for marketing purposes? But give me sort of a broad view of the world you've created.

There's a broad view of me. For most part, I'm a keynote speaker. So, you know, and I work with mostly associations and businesses. So for me, you know, I'll go in, share some leadership strategies or teamwork strategies. And, you know, that's my bailiwick on the most. Sometimes I have a little bit longer training periods. You know, I do have an education background, so I do like, you know, the longer-term relationship during the course of a day because it's a little less show, a little more relationship-based. You get to know people a little bit better. But for the most part, I just do keynotes.

Okay. So, if I were to somehow find 20 people that were fortunate enough to see you speak in the last couple of months, what are the 3 things you're hoping they would take away and say, "Ah, what I remembered from the Chip speech is...

Well, I would hope that they would remember that, you know, leadership is a choice each and every day, that nobody's a natural born leader, that that's a misnomer. It's a deliberate choice each and every day that you make a decision on what you're going to do to serve your people every day. I hope they realize or will remember that I'm hilarious because I am.

And shy?

Well, no, in that, that, you know, humor is a great tool that people can use to connect with people. I mean, we live in of time. Very little's changed underneath the sun as far as leadership goes since, since the beginning of time. The, the population's changed, the workforce has changed. So it really kind of comes down to, um, you know, how do you, how do you connect with people? And I, I want people to realize that, you know, humor is one of those two tools as an equalizer between people, that, you know, if you can laugh with somebody, it's one of those things that helps you connect with them. And, you know, maybe you can find a little bit more with them and motivate them. Um, third thing, um, That's a good question. Nobody gets there alone. Everybody's helped along the way. That's your charge as a leader is to make an investment in other people.

Got it. I love the fun piece because I think if I were to randomly stop 10 people on the street and say, tell me what you think about leadership, first thing they do is probably ask me if I was nuts, but fun probably wouldn't come up. And it's, you know, I believe that learning and being exposed to ideas doesn't have to suck, right? Like it could be fun. It should be fun. It could be engaging. It's a higher bar, right? We all remember the professors that we had that were sort of the droning voice of the Peanuts, the teacher on the Peanuts or something. But to make it fun, to make it engaging, to have a laugh over something that's not just, you know, somebody slipping and falling or something like that, that's a bit of a higher bar, I think.

Well, and it takes an element of risk. I mean, you have to kind of, you know, get rid of your ego. You have to get rid of your positions in a way. But leaders that can laugh at themselves and laugh at their own mistakes show a whole kind of bravery. And they help create an atmosphere of risk without fear of reprise. That, you know, if you're strong enough and brave enough to laugh at yourself, you know, then I can do the same thing because then we're going to laugh about it. We're going to find the learning in what we just messed up. You know, and I think—

And it makes you human, right? It's a common denominator. Even though I might outrank you or whatever, there's certain things that everybody as a human being can relate to and connect to on an emotional level. So let me ask you this. Most of your work is Speaking and workshops. So that's hand-to-hand, right? That's, you know, we're selling chip and a couple of flavors there. So let's go backwards and talk about how, how you're finding the work, right? So in the good old days of whatever, 10 years ago, it was largely bureau controlled. Give me a sense of the breakdown of where business comes from and what you're doing that's creative to get, get business in the door and land keynotes and get clients satisfied again?

That's always the big question, isn't it? Where does your work come from? Sometimes— and what's interesting to me is that most of my work actually comes from referrals that, you know, when I go out and speak, I usually speak more, you know, but, you know, landing those initial ones, you know, usually comes from, uh, good old-fashioned producing content. You know, I write, uh, consistent, uh, consistently, you know, and I like your, you know, you know, your thought leadership leverage, you know, think of things about— I For me, I've never thought of myself as a thought leader. I always think of myself as an application guy. You know, I like, I look at things differently and thinking about things differently, but I also like to know what works. And so, you know, that's what I try to produce content on because, like I said, not much has changed in the world of leadership. However, we have a constant churn in that area and people are always learning, you know, needing to know how things work. And I, you know, how do I do this? How do I do that? So, for me, that's the content I try to produce and where most people find me, they like my content.

So let me play that back to you with a little bit of a different twist. So again, this is the business side of content, the business side of thought leadership. So at some level, there's not much new in leadership. And I totally agree with that. There's not much new in most things. A lot of what differentiates someone is the packaging or the little, what you're adding to the conversation, what your nuance, your shtick, if you will. I don't sticks, probably not the right word, but what you can add or differentiate. So if on the one hand I say, oh, leadership speaker, you're a commodity, you're right. If I'm going to hire you, I can go and there's 100 other guys or gals that I can hire. So how are you using the content as a differentiator? You said you're putting a lot of stuff out there in writing. That's more on the branding and lead generation. So, right. Is that— that's— you're not getting paid to do that per se.

No, no, no. It'd be no, no. Just Yeah, constantly, like on my blog, then I repurpose it on, you know, LinkedIn. I might use part of it if I'm talking on a podcast, just kind of depends. So, you know, I'm—

No, but there's some nuggets there that you're fast-forwarding over. So what you said that most people don't do or don't realize is you've got your blog. So your personal blog is a low-risk place. You can jump on your laptop, jump on a plane and, you know, crank out a couple of blogs, throw it on there. Then you say, oh wait, that one's actually more interesting than this one because people are commenting or whatever. It's sort of a laboratory in real time. And then the repurposing. And this is a key. I drill this into my clients all the time, is that many people in the content space, not all, but many don't repurpose. So what they're constantly doing is holding themselves up and putting themselves under this unnecessary pressure of I got to produce, I got to produce, I got to produce new stuff. And I think the reality is if you take a blog and then you can put that on LinkedIn, or for example, we're creating content right now, right? We're having a conversation. It's pretty easy to do. Chatting, maybe some cool things will come from this that I can turn into a blog post or you can turn into a blog post as opposed to staring at that, the proverbial blank sheet. So tell me about how you repurpose and then tell me if you're repurposing into multiple modalities.

I am repurposing into multiple modalities. I know. Thanks for reminding me of that because I very much— what you just said is what I do, you know. So with anything that I write for my blog, I will repurpose that onto LinkedIn, you know, since they opened up Long Form Publishing a few years ago, you know, I, I took all my content, put it on there, which got me— you know, I'd already been on LinkedIn since 2007, since it was pretty much its inception. So, you know, I've got, you know, 3,200 first-line contacts, but then I have, you know, 4,500 people that follow my work, which isn't huge, but it's still, you know, 4,500 additional people that read my stuff. And what's interesting about that is that, sure, you know, I'll get a lot of content and I'll be comments back and I'll be able to build some relationships with people. So if they're looking for a speaker or I can reach out and say, hey, have you thought about doing this? It's one of those things I can do in the same respect.

So wait, wait. So hold on. You're— I want to pause you there because you're fast forwarding to something that is intuitive to you that a lot of people don't do. A lot of people treat the content side as unidirectional. I'll put my stuff up there and that's it. But it sounds like you're going in there and actually monitoring the content, the comments. And responding to them and engaging in the dialog. Touch on that for a moment, if you could.

Well, I mean, it's imperative. I mean, like you said, if it's one directional, one-way communication, they're not going to really know anything about me except what I write. And like with any, you know, sales, it's really about the relationships. If I can, you know, spark up some kind of conversation, it doesn't always lead anyplace. But you never know, you know, 5 years down the road, that person might be in a position where they need a speaker. It's like, hey, you know, I remember this guy here. We, you know, we had a good rapport back and forth on this. You know, it might be the thing that does it. I don't ever go for the hard sell. It's like, hey, bring me in. You know, for me, it's just trying to build some rapport and build some, you know, some relationships online because it's, it's kind of like, I don't know if you remember the movie Mrs. Doubtfire when, you know, he's at the pool and throws a, throws an orange and it was a, it was a drive-by fruiting, you know, so just hits that. It shouldn't be like that on your social, you know, where you just like post something and leave it, you know, like those people that post like the big dramatic things like, I'm so sad and they just leave it. Well, you're leaving me hanging here. I need more. Give me what's going on. I think the same thing rings true with the things that we post content-wise is that you have this piece of yourself that you put out there for content and people might want a little bit more. Maybe they disagree with you. And that's cool. I like those discussions. Like, well, why do you disagree? Because for me as a leader, I'm always in learning mode. So, you know, like—

Sure. And conversation and engagement is a higher level of connection than, you know, I could read your stuff all day and night, but you'd never know it. I make a comment, whether I agree with you, disagree with you, add something to it, and you, you know, respond to that. That's a whole different level of connectedness that we now have. Right. And it doesn't mean that I'm going to book you tomorrow, but you've differentiated yourself. One is you're human. You're not just some robot, you know, putting content up there. Talk about the modality. So you have a great idea.

It's on a blog.

You put it on LinkedIn. What else do you do with it? Infographics, video.

Give me, Well, I'll probably take the same content I have since I started speaking a decade ago. I sent out a monthly newsletter to my list. Anytime I go out and speak, I, you know, I, you know, try to collect people's information and I don't spam them. I don't, you know, sell them stuff, try to sell them stuff. I just like my leadership thoughts for the month. I put them in a newsletter format and I send that out. And consistency, you know, I think is the key for my business is that the things that I do consistently are the things that provide results. Results. So like, I have done that consistently for, you know, every month for like, you know, 10 years. And you know, that some people— like, I last year, I just worked for, um, worked for Sargento. And you know, the woman that brought me in had been on my list since the beginning. I mean, she was, you know, one of the first, one of the first people. But then she finally had an opportunity to bring me in. But because I was consistent in what I was doing, you know, I was still, you know, kind of top of mind. You know, she, you know, was able to follow what was going on, you know, uh, in, in my speaking career a little bit. So I think that that is worth mentioning, that a lot of times we try something really quick and it's like, oh, that didn't work, I'm going to try something else. But, you know, consistency.

Yeah, this is not a get rich quick business. So I love the fact that the consistency— so consistency to me, there's sort of two pieces to that. There's a cadence. So if I'm on your list and I look forward to seeing those and I know that when that pops into my mailbox, it's going to be thoughtful and you're not— you know, it's not the vacuum cleaner hose pointed towards my wallet, right? You're giving me good thoughts. You're sharing with me. It's refreshing. It's good. It's insightful and it's smart. The second piece I would ask you on the consistency, and I think you do an awesome job on this, is there's a certain expectation I have when I see your newsletter coming in. I'm not expecting you to do a review on a restaurant you went to or tell me about your water skiing follies or something like that. Like, you're— I'm expecting insight on leadership. And by the way, you have fun with it. And there's your personalities in there. But I think sometimes what happens is thought leaders feel like they should just be commenting on everything. And I think that focus and the discipline to make sure the core, the essence of what your messaging is ties to what you do. So can you touch on that for me?

Well, for me, it's more of a— I don't comment on everything simply because I don't know about a whole lot of things. So, I mean, my wheelhouse is, you know, leadership and teamwork and, you know, On my newsletter, I mean, anything that I write, I share my experiences because I think that's one thing that separates me from, you know, some other people is that I've been in some pretty big, you know, leadership positions. And so, and it's some of those things where you think you know things and you realize you don't know anything. And then I, you know, for me, it's kind of a mission to help other leaders, you know, bridge that education gap of like, oh, I didn't know that was a thing. I can do that. So Um, so when they do get it, and I get comments every month, uh, emails back from my listener, my readership, saying it's like, oh, I always really look forward to your newsletter, it's always got some good insights for me, or like, hey, I was just thinking about that the other day. So like you said, it's not salesy, it's just, you know, my thoughts, and I try to make it, you know, applicable to whatever, you know, I'm going through, but I figure everybody else is going through as well.

Well, and it's probably more effective from a sales perspective because it's not salesy, right? People know when you're, I call them sort of the yellow highlighter marketers, more the information marketers where every email I get, it's like, oh my God, it's going to expire at the end of this email if I don't call today and it's only $297 and oh wait, now it's $197. If I keep reading, you'll pay me. Like there's no, you know, I think people are smarter than that. And I think there's a respect that you have for people's intellect and not creating this artificial crazy sense, you know, book me today to speak or I'll get laryngitis or whatever.

Well, again, to me, it's, you know, even with my newsletter, it's about the relationship I have with the people on there. Like, I respect the fact that they stay subscribers and that they're loyal subscribers. And I believe that when an opportunity arises because I'm true in my relationship with them, that they'll bring me in. Well, let me— one other thing that I do that I just started, I think goes with consistency. Like, you know, last year I started my, you know, my own podcast. So, and so with that, like you were saying before, I repurpose that information as well. So I'll take, you know, some excerpts from the podcast, put on my blog, I might put on LinkedIn, just kind of another cycle of things. And even with that, at the end of the year, first year, I was measuring like, is this something I'm going to continue?

Not.

And then, you know, it was kind of twofold that I really enjoy it. I really enjoy talking to other leaders about leadership, one, but two, I know that if I stay with it consistently, it will provide results.

Got it. And I think the other piece about whether it's podcasting or video or whatever is experimenting with various modalities. You know, there are speakers tend to be, you know, their most effective communication is vocal, right? You speak. Doesn't mean you can't write, but, you know, some people are more their default sort of mode of communication might be written. Some people might be spoken, some people are fun on video, whatever. And I think, you know, there's so many different ways and so many different tools out there to find something that's in your comfort zone that enables you to create content that's relatively easy for you to do and valuable and able to be purposed across multiple formats. So going back to the time machine for a moment. So you've been at this for 10 years. You're incredibly successful. Lots of folks admire the work that you do and you're making a living at it and you're having a blast and you're impacting a lot people's lives. So right now out there somewhere is Chip Lutz 10 years ago, but he's not named Chip Lutz. He's Chip Lutz 2, right? And give that person 2 or 3 nuggets of advice on how to really make a difference and be successful as an author and a speaker and a thought leader.

That's a hard question. See, if I was going to give myself advice, I would— first piece of advice I would tell people is just to be you. I mean, be true to who you are as a person. That's, you know, a lot of times when you start out, you have people that you admire in a certain venue or business, like, I want to be just like that person. And so you think, well, you know, I've got to be, you know, like, I'm— I like to have fun. I like to have a good time. But then I found myself, you know, all my writing at the very beginning was very, very serious. It's serious, you know, because, you know, these other leadership speakers are all serious. And then I found that it was really stripping all the joy out of what I was doing. And that once I got in touch with, you know, like, hey, this is who I am, uh, I was much more authentic in my writing, which resonated better with people.

And you have to find that, right? So at the beginning, I think what you said is true. You're replicating the greats. So you're putting on this, I am now Chip, the leadership guy, right? Versus developing who you are in a different voice, in a different channel. So yeah. So that's one piece of like being authentic. I love that because there's nothing worse than sort of the You see this more in the motivational stage, like, oh, that person woke up today and thought they're Tony Robbins and they're not.

Right. The second thing I would tell people is that people will tell you these are the things you have to do. You have to do this, you have to do that. And I don't think there is any one clear path on to get into success. And one, we define— everybody defines success differently. So I have a friend of mine that has a job that wouldn't be— I wouldn't define as success, but he's very, very happy. So he's got his own definition of success. Success. You need to define that yourself. However, everybody tell you that, oh, this is the path, this is the path, this is the path. And I would tell you, I would tell myself, you know, don't be afraid to try something different, that there's no one set path on getting there, wherever there is, is that you, you have to, you know, experiment a little bit, see what works for you. And if it works for you, then do it a little bit more. And if that works, you do it a little bit more. Then there's no one set path.

Well, by definition, experiment means be comfortable with failure, right? Right. So you're going to try something, you're going to fall down and go, that was pretty dumb. And then just try something else. It's an experiment.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, at the heart of innovation is our ability to try something without fear and, you know, fear that fear is like somebody tells you this is what you need to do. And then you get kind of scared. It's like, well, that's what I was supposed to do, especially if you grew up in a military environment like I did, you know? So, and the third thing, and it's a piece of advice I got a couple of years in, it was from Jim Ziegler, who's also a speaker. And he said, you know, How did he put it? It was like something more about— I'm trying to think exactly how he put it because it was so eloquent— of, you know, beware of pitfalls disguised as opportunities, something in that vein. That a lot of times, you know, it's one of those things that it's like, oh, this is the best, the greatest, you know, sign up for this, you know, book writing camp or this, there, here. And all it ends up doing is, you know, costing a lot of money and you feel like broken afterwards.

Yeah. So if it's too good to be true, it's probably too good to be true.

It probably is. Exactly. So for me, I just, you know, I look at everything with kind of a critical eye and think, all right, is this supporting where I'm going? Talk to a few other people about it. If— because I get really excited, you know, like a lot of people, I see stuff like, oh man, that seems really awesome. Like my first book. My first book, what a colossal piece of crap that was, you know, because—

Is that the review on the COVID from the author? A colossal—

No, I'll tell you straight out. I mean, I'll be honest about it because, like I said, you know, I believe in authenticity. Is that everybody said you need to have a book, so, you know, I went with this company that was doing like this interview book, right? And I got my thousand— I got my thousand copies with my picture in between Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard, and I was just like, oh man. And then when I got it, I was like, man, This is— so for anybody out there that purchased it, I'm sorry.

Well, apparently, there probably weren't that many people to apologize to, it sounds like.

Right, exactly. I still have a box of them in the garage.

Yeah, exactly. And if you want that, we'll put that comment on the COVID and he'll autograph them. So, okay. As we wrap up, tell folks where they can find you, reach you, hire you, stalk you, whatever you'd like them to do.

The easiest is to email— go to my website, unconventionalleader.com, or email me at chip@unconventionalleader.com. I'm on LinkedIn, Chip Lutz. Facebook, Chip Lutz. Instagram, @ChipLutz. You know, yeah, Twitter, @ChipLutz. Chip.Lutz on Instagram. I kind of don't— although there is a senior golfer on the PGA Tour named Chip Lutz, and if he has a good game, sometimes things could get confusing on Google if you Google me.

So, um, so Nike's sending you gear for no reason or something like that?

That would be— that would be awesome.

That'd be kind of cool. Well, anyway, I want to thank you for for sharing your journey and some valuable insights to folks on leveraging thought leadership. And I appreciate the work that you do, and I am on your newsletter and I enjoy it.

So, well, I appreciate the fact that you thought of me to be on the podcast because I enjoy your content as well. So, I think for your session at NSA, I still think about that a lot of times, like just even with the last book I just wrote, I was thinking, you know, Peter Winick was right. Why does anybody write books? Nobody reads anymore.

I still read 2 books a week.

You're an anomaly.

Yeah, I'm an anomaly. I appreciate everything and it was great to have you on today and thank you so much.

Thank you, the pleasure was mine.

To learn more about Thought Leadership Leverage, please visit our website at thoughtleadershipleverage.com. To reach me directly, feel free to email me at peter@thoughtleadershipleverage.com and please subscribe to Leveraging Thought Leadership on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to get your weekly episode automatically.