Why You Need to Be a ‘Self-Reliant Leader’ with Peter Winick and Jan Rutherford

And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on this extended version of the podcast, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership on our LinkedIn Live. And today my guest is an old friend. Not old like ancient. Yeah, we've known each other for a long— well, that might be true too.

We've known each other for some time.

That's true. So Jan Rutherford. So Jan is, uh, somebody I admire and respect a lot. We'll get into some of his background. He wrote a book called The Littlest Green Beret. Next question people ask, well, why did you write a book called The Littlest Green Beret? He's not— he may be standing now, but I am. He is. He is. When you became a Green Beret, Jan, how— how— what was your— what were your specs, weight and height, sir?

Well, I'm still 5'4 and a half. And I weighed 114 then. I'm about 135 now.

So he was the littlest Green Beret, the littlest person to ever become a Green Beret. Most people, when you think Green Beret, you're thinking, you know, 6'3, 230, and I'm guessing they don't grade on a curve. So, um, although he might look like a jockey, he could kill you with his pinky, I think. And then Jan wrote— so he wrote a book called The Littlest Green Beret. He's got a new book out called Becoming Self-Reliant. He's got a business called Self-Reliant Leadership that we'll get into, does some really cool stuff. And he's been podcasting for 8 years. And, uh, we met about 10-plus years ago, we were just chatting about.

So welcome, Jan. Yeah, thanks, Peter. Yeah, we— you and I met at the National Speakers Association meeting in San Diego, and I told you, I don't know if you remember this, after your session I came up to you and I said This is the session I was hoping I would find. Because I remember you said, how many of you are making 6 figures off of speaking? No hands went up.

Yeah.

How many of you are making 6 figures off your book? No hands went up. And he goes, you got— you— do you know what business you're in? And that's when I knew I needed to, to talk to you. And, and my business was just starting, and the reason I went to that meeting was to find someone like you that would, you know, that was based in reality, that was pragmatic, that understood thought leadership. And, um, you know, again, I, as I said before the show, I, I, I'm so grateful because you got me on the right track right from the, the get-go, um, of what I need to do to create this business. And the business has exceeded every expectation I could have ever had.

I appreciate that. And as sort of the mutual admiration society, I've seen few people execute with the level of determination and consistency that you have because, you know, my job is to come up with great strategies and great ideas. Not that that's easy, but, you know, not everybody wants to do the reps and the hard work to actually get there and persist.

But you were clear, you know, you— I remember your expectations, your direction was very clear, like Hey, we've got some great ideas, but you have to execute, you know, and this is hard.

Yeah.

And as I was saying, you know, the other part is the execution's hard because when you look at the pile of things that went well, it's about this big, and the pile of things that didn't fly was this big. And, you know, the other great advice I got was from my wife who said, the market will tell you what it values. Listen to the market. And, and I did. And, you know, the market didn't value, you know, a lot of things that I wanted to do that other people are successful at. And I—

Stay there for a minute because I think that's a critical piece, is that, A, lots of thought leaders don't look around and do a sort of competitive landscape. Who else is out there? What are they doing? I think that's a mistake, right? Because if you and I were to open a donut shop in Kansas, we'd say, well, what's the market for donuts in Kansas? Is it organic? Is it low price, high volume? Like, whatever. And we'd say, okay, well, what's our niche going to be? Like, what's our differentiator going to be? And you can't just copy what somebody else is doing, right? So I think listening to the market, and I think the other side of that, to your point, is if this much stuff didn't go right and this much did, you can't have a fear of failure. You got to get stuff out there. And I think a lot of times thought leaders are— some that are more academic, they're perfectionists, right? They don't want to put anything out into the wilderness until it's perfect. And that's just not necessary. So I would probably guess, and we're going to get into this now, that a lot of the ideas and thoughts that are in the new book, the first time they're exposed to the wild, if you will, were not in the book. You've tested some of these. So let's work backwards and talk a little bit about the book and how it came to be and what's in there.

It goes really back to when I was a 17-year-old kid in the Army. And Being on patrol training and being absolutely miserable, and what struck me was man, this reveals character when you're cold, wet, tired, and hungry.

Yeah.

As I got in the business world, I was doing leadership development. I'd be in you know sterile environments.

Yeah.

This this doesn't reveal character. Like if I ever have my own firm, my own leadership development firm. I want to get people out in the wilderness. So literally, literally. And and so I did, not because I wanted to make them cold, wet, tired, and hungry. I wanted them to be stretched, not broken. And what I also thought was, boy, I want to get executives and pair them with veterans who are transitioning out of the military into the business world because you know they would have comfort and discomfort in different places. They would be complementary. And I thought—

stay there for a minute. I love the composition because we might have left at the part where you were also a CEO and had a stellar business career. So this concept that you came up with of let's go out in the wilderness with a handful of CEOs and a handful of folks leaving the military, these are for the most part 2 populations that haven't spent a lot of time hanging out together, let alone—

Oh no, not at all.

Hungry. So there's fear of the unknown. There's just Unknown, unknown. There's, you know, uh, so, so I love the 2 constituents you pick, and then you literally take them out on these, these multi-day hikes in the middle of nowhere, right?

Well, that— and it's funny because, you know, you, you can't see what people are thinking and what they're feeling. You, you can't see that.

Yeah.

But as you go through this, and I— we've done 25 of them in the last 10 years, and you get feedback, and we got— we interviewed tons of people for the book. that were participants that, you know, the executives will all say, geez, you know, I'm super intimidated. You know, I'm out there with special operations, tier 1 operators, people that have been there, done that.

Yep.

Multiple combat deployments. And they're really nervous how they show up in front of these guys. And the veterans are really nervous that they don't know anything about the business world. They've lived in a bubble, um, in a real bubble, and they represent 1% of the United States population. Most people aren't familiar with the military, you know, don't know what's involved in the sacrifices and the stories. And, um, you know, especially while the wars were going on, you know, the people that were coming on these trips had really, you know, different perspectives. And it— and, you know, part of that always from the executives was, you know, we're not dealing with life and death here, you know, time and money. Really different.

We're sweating over PowerPoints in a presentation to the board, and literally no one's going to die if it doesn't go perfectly, right?

Exactly, exactly. But, you know, that, that's what we wanted to do was get these folks out there. And what we realized was, unfortunately, it doesn't scale. You know, I can't, I can't put 1,000 people through the crucible every year. Um, I mean, It's hard for people to commit time. You know, I mean, 4 days is really basically a week, you know, from the work world. And, you know, they've got PTO, they want to be with their family. And, you know, we can't do these in, you know, certain times because of school and holidays and all that. They don't scale. So part of— that's one of the reasons we decided to write the book is, hey, for everybody that can't participate, let's share with you what we've seen happen on every Crucible. You know, the patterns, the preparation, the first meeting, the first obstacle, the first fireside chat, whatever it is, and how those stories from the crucible relate to the business world. And, and we, we did this, and this is where you helped me a long time ago. You, you asked me, hey, what are the competencies of a self-reliant leader? And I had written a book and I'm like, gosh, Peter, I hadn't thought of that.

And So stay for a minute though, Jen, because I think that a lot of people do that, right? They write a book based on their experience, their life, their viewpoint, their passions, etc. And they aren't thinking when they write the book that I have to break this down to the competency level because at some point in time, I may want to develop learning programs and such. And if I can't tie it to competencies, I can't build it. So I don't think that's a fault. I actually think it's quite common. I think it's easier or wiser or, you know, call it what you will to say, ah, wait a minute, the competencies of a self-reliant leader are whatever— lifelong learner, grit, whatever those things are. And then it becomes more scalable because if you say, all right, Peter, maybe, maybe there's an assessment tool you can build if you have competencies. So I'll sort of go down a different path.

Oh, yeah. And we've, we've done that. know, based on your, your counsel, assessment, a diagnostic, a workbook. Um, but you know what we came up with after I spoke with you is, you know, part of it— and make it real simple— leading self, leading others, leading the organization. There's a lot of people that have those. I call them, um, you know, the, you know, the 3 pillars of self-reliant leadership.

Yeah.

And what we did in the book at the end of every chapter is This is what it means as far as leading oneself, personal responsibility, grit. This is what it means leading others, creating a shared sense of duty. Here's what it means leading the organization, focus and alignment. And again, I'm abbreviating, but that's what we tried to build. You know, here's the lessons on these 3 pillars. And the executives I work with all the time, you know, we start with managing time and managing people.

Yes.

You know, and then it's, you know, how are you creating this team? And then that third pillar, the organization, is really, can you design an environment where great things happen, you know, and take a step back? And the big takeaway on The Crucible is always you have to slow down to speed up.

Right.

And, and again, that's what you did with me way back when, is you had me take a step back. I made an investment. Both time and money.

Yep.

You know, to take a step back, and it felt like, oh, I should be busy, I should be doing all this. But it was like, I, I need to have things squared away before I can try all these things and figure out what works and what doesn't.

Well, stay there a minute because, you know, you know, I'm lucky in that in my work I'm dealing with really smart people. I mean, some literally like yourself, top of their game in whatever field they're in. They're passionate. They're not lazy. They want to get it done. And sometimes that need to slow down to do more just violates everything they're about.

Yeah.

Oh, I can fly on 3 hours sleep and I can do more. I'm a superhero. If somebody can code X lines an hour, I can do 10, like whatever. I'm dealing with like superhumans, right? But it's like, but you got to slow down to do more because if you don't have a strategy, that gives you that sense of, this is the clarity I need, then you can't prioritize. So in the absence of that, then it's just do more, do more, do more. But are you doing more of the right stuff in the right sequence to get to the right outcome? Which is not earth-shattering, except it is. Not a lot of people do it.

But again, our subtitle is How Grit and Disciplined Duty Forge Indomitable Teams. Well, The grit, you know, is perseverance and determination. And, and the discipline duty is, you know, there's always gonna be fires to put out. That's gonna fill your calendar up. But can you make the time to do things that are important and never urgent, like develop your people, like be strategic? Can you be disciplined to do that? And, and again, what stems from the discipline is sacrifice.

Yeah.

You can't— you're never going to accomplish anything worthwhile without sacrificing, right? You know, short-term for long-term gain.

Well, but stay there a bit because on an individual level, we live in a world of immediate gratification, the dopamine hits and all that sort of stuff. In the organizational world, it's our quarterly bonus, it's reporting our earnings. It's like, so there is a whole bigger-than-ourselves systems and processes and things out there driving this cadence of Quicker, faster, immediate gratification. You know, people don't get comped if you say to your boss, listen, I didn't make my numbers this quarter, but the reason I sacrificed the quarter is because Q4 is going to kill it. Like, that ain't going to work. So how do you, as a leader, you have more leeway, but talk about the inherent tension.

Well, you know, one of the things where my thinking has evolved as a leader is, you know, yes, you have to be clear with expectations. You need to let people know where they stand. There need to be consequences. I get all that. But in this day and age, as a leader, you've got to be humble enough to say, you know what? I've got to negotiate with you. I've got five priorities. You got five. I want three of my priorities to be yours. Maybe you've got a little pet project over here. I let you do it. You you've got to you've got to be willing to negotiate with people and. You know, again, part of that is where I see a lot of executives really run up against the wall is they can't negotiate with their boss. Like, you know, the boss basically promised the shareholders something, and then he promised— and the boss promised 10x, he says, I'll do 15x, he passes this down, and then you got people burned out below you because you haven't effectively managed expectations above you.

So how much of that is really negotiation? And how much of that is giving people the agency? Meaning, hey, here's the game. Here's where we want to get to. I trust you. I respect you. You've got the skills. I'll give you some thoughts on how I might approach it. But go at it. Right? Is that part of a negotiation?

Yeah, but, but again, you have to remember, as a leader, you're, you, you always have to remember, I've got to get results through other people.

Yeah.

And, and again, here, here's my bottom line thinking, um, as far as the future. The leader of today has to personalize their approach to everyone, yet they have to be perceived as fair, right? You know, like, you can't get everybody in a room or on a Zoom call and go, you know, here's what we're doing, and, and thinking everybody's motivated and driven the same way. When you and I came up, it was easier. Everybody wanted to make more money and they wanted to get promoted. That is not what motivates everybody today. It's all very different. So you've got to figure out how do I do that? And so that's the one part. But the other part is if you don't know how to negotiate, if you don't know how to have influence for the powers that be, you are not going to be an effective leader for your people. You're just going to be like a pass-through of stress and, and, you know, all kinds of stuff. You're not going to be able to filter it and really provide what your people need as far as resources and clearing obstacles.

So I want to go in a little bit of a different path for a couple moments, Jan. So when you and I met many moons ago, you had a practice, which meant you've had these— you've got these ideas You had a book, you had a bunch of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, but you needed to be in the room. In those days, there was no Zoom. You were the guy, right? So the business was Jan does X, Jan gets paid something to do X, whether that's speaking, advising, coaching, et cetera, and so be it. And you were very determined on to say, I don't want this. I don't want me to be the constraint. I would argue you have a business. You're an integral part of the business, But they're not synonyms, right? There were revenue streams that you have that aren't dependent on what are you doing this afternoon. Talk about that transformation, that transition, because you're one of the few that have done it beautifully. Because now you really— that's also the talent that creates the IP.

Yeah, that's a really good question, Peter, because it's hard, because it's a service-oriented field. I mean, And, uh, to, to get to that point, I don't think anybody I've met thinks they have enough passive income. I mean, everybody wants to, you know, um, do less about trading time for money. But, you know, I, I remember you and another guy, and you might know Todd Satterston out in Portland.

Yeah.

A publisher. You both, um, had something similar, which was kind of like a graph that said, you know, let's put all your, all, all the components, your portfolio, in this graph of You know, and it was kind of like volume and dollars. You know, what's the thing that you do once in a while that produces the most money? What are things that you know you can do a lot? And so does the business basically have big ticket items, medium ticket items, and small ticket items?

Right.

And that was a really important concept for me to get my head around and and really be intentional about it. And to look at, um, constantly, hey, what's my portfolio look like of customers? What's my portfolio look like as far as, you know, the offering?

And is it there a second?

Because what I want it to be—

Yeah, a lot of folks, and I think you got this, you were coming in at the top of the house because you were a senior executive CEO and all that before. The Crucible is not an inexpensive program, etc., etc. But I think a lot of people, it's a bit counterintuitive to realize that if you can democratize your content And get the cost per capita down as low as possible, you actually make a lot of money. Everybody thinks, oh, you know who makes the money in this business? The executive coach that charges 100 grand a year. I don't know about that. I think the person that makes a lot of money has different things at different price points for different peoples. Because in an enterprise organization, if I met you at a cocktail party 10 years ago, I might say, wow, this guy's really interesting. Green Beret, whatever, whatever. But you didn't have the scalable solutions. So I'm going to call you a brain on a stick and go, well, I'll bring him in to do a little talk and bring him in for this, bring him in for that. But now you come with a suite of solutions, assessment tools, diagnostic training. Now, if I'm a CEO and I fall in love with you, I'm like, hmm, I've got 3,800 people here. Can you design something for the organization? You could say, yes, sir. Right? That's the game changer.

Yeah. Yeah. I, and you know, one of the things when I think about that I've done that I didn't realize at the time, that was probably one of the most valuable things is the podcast.

Yeah, let's talk about that. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, because I think, you know, what, what I find interesting is I look at my competition, you know, colleagues. There's a lot of people that did something 30 years ago and that's all they talk about.

Yeah. Yeah. I was a fighter pilot, you know, um, you know, I call it Al Bundy syndrome, right? The game, that game I threw the ball way back then.

Right. Right. And, and, you know, the podcast has helped me, what I would like to think is stay relevant. We're talking to brilliant people all the time. It's challenging to write the questions, to ask good questions, to learn, to read books, you know, that people are putting out, but really to stay relevant. And the more— and the other thing that's kind of cool that I didn't expect is, you know, based on 10 years of lots of clients and lots of experiences, those are actually more valuable than anything I did 30 years ago in the military. And even The Crucible. I mean, it's, it's kind of like what's happened is the, um, what I do has become the marketing, and the marketing is what I, you know, do. Does that make sense?

Yeah, but, and I would say that you're also someone that is humble and grounded, right? So there's lots of folks that did the thing, whatever the thing was many years ago that nobody else could do. They won a gold medal, they won the Super Bowl, they you know, whatever, whether pilots or Navy SEALs, whatever, right? And then like, that's pretty cool, but that's kind of all there is to the story. And you could learn from that, but to me, that's kind of a motivational keynote speech and you feel good, you have lunch, and then you go home and like, okay, so what, right?

Yeah.

But I think the fact that being a Green Beret is just one chapter in your story, because you can tell, you could look someone in the eye and say, yeah, let me tell you what it took to do that. And You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you can say, you know, the same day, say to that same person, but let me tell you what it was like when I was a CEO and we didn't make our 3 quarters, you know, we didn't make our revenue 3 quarters in a row and I had investors at my back and how I got through that. Not everyone could do that, that had, you know, these rare, amazing life experiences. So I think it is that combo pack that you've got.

Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, and, and again, um, I remember you telling me, you know, hey, you know, here's some goals, you know, like revenue goals with clients, and this is what you want to be shooting for. And I remember at the time thinking, no, you know, like, no way. You know, the other thing is, you know, if you're starting out, you have to, you have to grow into the part where you're confident in your value. I mean, at the very beginning, there's no way you can— well, unless you're a narcissist, I don't think at the very beginning you can think that you're all, you know, that you can be that confident. You have to have some experiences where, you know, like, I produced value. I can quantify that. The client can quantify it.

And well, and that's, that's a key point because there's entertainment, which has a price tag. You can be entertaining, and I mean that in an engaging, tell the stories, do the thing great. And that has one set of values, but the value that you create by unleashing the power of your IP across an organization and you could actually prove that or speak to that or validate that or say, here's 5 other companies I've worked with. Here's the before. Their ROI was this, their profits were that, whatever. Here's the things we did. Didn't happen in a weekend. And then here's where they are now. Then we're never gonna have a discussion around your price because it's like, wait, would I pay a dime for a dollar? Yeah, of course I would.

Right. Well, you know, the other thing that, you know, again, it, it, it's kind of like, you know, the Army, you know, back in, you know, when you're in basic training, they'll put you in an obstacle course, and it's also called a confidence course. You do something really hard and it gives you confidence.

Yeah.

Well, the same thing is in the business world. All these little obstacles that you encounter are, are potential confidence builders, you know, like what doesn't kill you makes you stronger kind of thing.

Yeah. Yeah.

And you know, one of the, one of the things that made me stronger was we, we had a participant on a Crucible. He was the former CEO of Gore, you know, he was in Gore-Tex.

Yeah.

2 months after the Crucible, again, I had no idea if he thought it was cool, if he thought it was a joke, you know, I like, I didn't have a read on, and his name's Jason Field. And two months later, he said, "I want to. I want to fly under self-reliant leadership. You know, I really like the model.

Right?

I believe in you know these pillars. And you know, he's been a coach with me for two years now.

That's amazing.

This is a guy that ran a four billion dollar, twelve thousand person global company during the pandemic. And you know, I mean, I mean, I I was CEO of a little tiny company. You know, Jason, Jason ran the real deal. I mean, a really big company, and it's just you know really cool. And you know again when you know having people like that in your orbit, you know just makes you better. Yeah. You know I mean he's you know he's got such strengths, and you know that's the other thing I'd say. You're not asking me about this, but the other thing I would say to anybody is, you know if you ever feel lonely as an entrepreneur, you're doing something wrong. I have never felt like I wasn't on a team or lonely or I didn't have people around me.

I think that's a critical point. So not just as an entrepreneur, but specifically as an entrepreneur that's a thought leader, because it can be a lonely business for some. You're writing, you're speaking, you're serving clients. Maybe you have early on an assistant that helps you, something like this, whatever. But you've developed a suite, a series of relationships because of the thought leadership and then because of who you are, right? There's a lot of folks, I think the thought leadership community is actually quite generous. And when they hear somebody else is coming in and whatever, it's not like, oh, well, I'm not gonna talk to them. They're a competitor. The pie is big enough for everybody. There's enough for everybody there. But you, like when you and I met 10 years ago, you were really early in the game and did what most don't, was made investments to say, let me go out there and see, I hear about this speaking thing. Let me go go to a place, you know, where there's going to be a few thousand speakers for a couple of days working on things and, yeah, you know, learn and humble enough to learn from others that were like crushing it, doing it for years and years. Um, so talk about that a little bit, sort of the relationship development.

Well, yeah, I mean, I, I mean, I've counted before. I haven't done it lately, but, you know, I've counted how many people, you know, work with me, and, and very few were like on the payroll, like 1099. And it was like 40 people that were in my orbit on a regular basis. But, um, you know, I think, you know, I, I think it all goes back to Drucker, you know, when he said, um, what business are you in and who's your customer? And that's really what you did way back when.

Yeah.

So it was like, well, what business are you in? And, you know, the thing that I'm glad I figured out was that I really like, um, You know, being embedded in an organization and really helping them not come in, fly in, parachute in, and parachute out. You know, to really be in there and get to know the team and work with them and and be have a vested you know interest in their outcome. I've I've really enjoyed that. You know, the other thing I learned was, you know, I I love doing keynotes, but at the same time, you know, the thing I don't like about it is. When you finish, you're, you're kind of like a needy child. Like, you know, like when you're done, you want to be validated. You know, you want validation that, you know, they liked you.

Right.

And that's a really vulnerable place to be, you know, versus when you're embedded in an organization, you're on retainer, you're working with people every day, especially one-on-one and in small groups, and you really get to, you know, improve the business outcomes. You know, the speaking is, you know, there is definitely an entertainment component. You know, people want to be entertained.

And there's different things that validate different people. Like some people love that 2 weeks after a keynote, they get an email from somebody saying, hey, I'm still thinking of that thing you said. And it really, you know, and that does it for them. And then there are others that are like, yeah, that's okay. But you know what? This team I worked with for 4 months that was totally dysfunctional, didn't trust each other, didn't, you know, weren't creative, weren't innovative, they're on the same page now, right? They're really doing some really cool and innovative things.

Yeah.

This has been a lot of fun. I always love chatting with you and always have.

Well, thanks, Peter. Well, thanks. I, you know, I, again, I, I'm not saying this because I feel like I have to. I'm saying this because I want to. I mean, you know, you know, if, if, if any of us are lucky to, you know, have a certain modicum of Success. I you know I you you know it's it's old saying, but you know none of us get there alone, and I'm I'm just glad it you know back ten years ago I found you and and um I was smart enough to you know engage with you and you know um you know I I just um you know the journey has been been beyond all my expectations. I mean. It's literally changed my life. And I'll tell you, the best part of it isn't the financial or any of that stuff. I mean, you know, the second best part is the freedom.

Right, right, right.

But the best part is when your kids tell you they're proud of you. Adult kids tell you they're proud of you, that, you know, they know you're helping people. That's pretty cool.

Well, thank you. I love the work that you're doing and wish you only the best. Thank you, Jan.

Yeah, thanks, Peter.