Ep. 14 | "Yeet or Be Yeeted"

Yes, I am. I thought I was. What's up, guys? Welcome back to the Leaf Fast podcast.

I always shock you at the beginning.

I do. And I like that. I guess it kind of jolts me back into it. My name is Daniel and I'm joined with Tommy Lawford. And we're gonna have a good podcast today. And I know that because today's been a good day. Mackenzie brought me a chicken biscuit. I'm like three zevs in.

We're cranking out these like.

We are.

I have a lot to say.

You do? I mean, in general. Not even just.

I mean, not. It's good. Not all of it's good, but, you.

Know, whatever that is. To be determined, this is episode. What episode is this? 7.

No, 12.

12.

It feels like 45. 13.

Episode 13. I see a little bit of doubt.

Yeah, Just is like just saying numbers. Behind the scene.

Episode of our podcast.

Some later. To be determined, hopefully.

Hopefully. It's in the description. When you're watching it, reading it, listen to it. You don't read a podcast.

How about this? I'll tell you what. We have these boxes, right? So we have these boxes and they're. They're called swag up boxes. Oh, yeah, we have some. We have some lead fast stuff. Like we have T shirts and pins and bottles, water bottles and stickers and all this stuff. Really cool. So tell you what, you comment on this podcast, which episode it is, and we'll pick a winner and I'll send you a swag up box. How about that?

So you can't put the episode on the title.

No, no, no.

You.

You. It could be the title. Just comment because, you know, comments help.

Can I do. This is a good swag box. Like we've. We're killing the swag game. I'm not even exaggerating. This is a good swag box.

Swag is fire. Is that what the kids are saying?

Fire now we're gonna yeet you a box.

We're gonna yeet you a box. Our 23 year old head of PR just walked home. Say less.

Say less, fam.

Oh, man, I feel like I fell into a tick tock.

I don't. This was a. This.

Am I doing the Internet right?

You did every TikTok. Every popular tick tock in one sentence.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Is that how the kids. That's what my six year old does.

Hey, what is this? Oh, did I do that right?

No, you didn't. Can we start over?

No, no, we're too far into this we are way too far into this.

Going on right now.

We have lost control of number question marks, Episode X and. Yeah. So as you guys can tell, this is already gonna be a good one. We've got some stuff to talk about. The thing is, I know what we're gonna talk about. Tommy doesn't so much know what we're gonna talk about. And I am going to start us off with. Don't do a drum roll. Actually do a drum roll real quick.

Buy some time.

A question that sounded like a cat purring in my ears.

Maybe it was.

Okay, here we go. I'm just gonna ask a random question. These are questions that are sent in, by the way. If you're watching this, if you're listening to this, if it's audio, video, whatever it is, we have an Instagram and a facebookeadfastco and you can direct message us. You can. Sometimes we post a little poll where it's like, ask us a question. If you see that up and you have a question, send us your question. If you don't, but you know somebody who might, it can be business related, entrepreneurial related, leadership related, whatever it is. As long as we just don't get into, like, the health topics and medical, because I don't think that's our expertise. We could talk about it. I don't think it'd be good, though.

I grew up in the country. There's no telling what kind of like, salve or plant based voodoo I'm gonna throw at you. My wife's really into essential oils. You know what? I. Basically, it's like voodoo.

Yeah.

It's witchcraft.

It is.

It's. It's.

Let's call it what it is.

It's. Call it what it is. Essential oils. Like, you can't rub peppermint on everything. I'm sorry.

Hey, she did give me a bottle that helped with my migraines.

I do know. I don't care. I don't want Christmas all the time. I'll have a headache.

I do walk around, smell like a candy cane. So. You know what? So send any question you want. We'll filter out the ones that we're not gonna do. Any question you want. I'm just opening up the table for us. I've got a good question right now.

Okay.

For Mr. Tommy over here.

I don't know if I'm ready for that.

You're always ready. Don't. Don't act like you're not when leading. This is sent in by a entrepreneur, okay, by the name of Drew.

All right? When leading, he's like our super fan.

No, Drew's a good guy. And you know what? I would expect people who have questions to have more than one, and that's okay. We did. We just did another Drew question in a previous episode, and it was good. Drew's got some good questions. So just send in your questions, everybody. Drew, keep them coming when leading. I've been told to trust people until they give you a reason not to. Is this smart? And I kind of wanted. I'm going to second that. I'm going to upvote that, because I don't really know. Is that smart?

Well, I mean, it's not. It's not. It's not a question of is it smart or not. It's your option. Like, you know, like, it's not a smart. It's your only option. You have to trust people.

I don't even say that. You're right.

You don't. This. It's not smart. It's the only thing that you can do.

Yeah.

If you distrust people, then nothing happens. Like, there's no progress in life. Like, progress happens through opportunity, and opportunity happens.

I guess. I guess it's more of, like, should trust be earned initially? You know, like, because it's not.

Yes.

The 90 day probation thing, when you.

Start a job, I mean, like, it depends on who you are and what trauma you've had in your life. Okay. That's not who I am. It's not who I am. I trust everybody implicitly, and then I trust everybody implicitly, and then I trust everybody implicitly.

But do you trust anybody implicitly?

Yes.

Okay. Yes.

And. And I continue to trust people. And if you continue to let me down, then that's on you.

Yeah.

You deal with that.

Oh, you're saying even after they've messed up, you continue to trust them.

Yeah.

Okay.

Because that's my option.

And then this goes back to a previous episode, I'm gonna plug that, where you talk about lowering the bar as a leader and when to make the decision. Firing.

So if I lower the bar and I say, hey, I distrust you, I've lowered the bar for you now on. On your level of integrity. Because I give you permission to operate without integrity. Because I've already said I don't trust you, and so there's no incentive for you to act any differently because you already get the punishment. As if you're not trustworthy. So I'm going to continue to trust you. Always, Always, always surprise me and do better. Right. Like entrusting someone and expecting the Right thing from someone is not the same thing. Trust is a matter of opportunity that we talked about. A leader does two things, empowerment and opportunity. Trust is a matter of opportunity. Expectation is a matter of experience. Those are not the same things. Because I expect you to do something, I can prepare for that expected result.

Right.

But I'm still going to give you the opportunity to be who you could be. Right, right. And so that. So trust is a matter of opportunity. Experience lets you have different expectations and prepare for those expectations. If I tell Justin that I need a project done in the last two times, he said, yep, I got it, I got it, I got it, I'm going to handle it. But. But the last two times he hasn't followed through and I haven't. Hasn't met a deadline. Right, right. I mean, you can use that as a hypothetical because it hasn't happened.

So should we tell him?

So but if that, like, so if he misses a deadline twice and so I go back to. I don't go to Justin and go, hey, I need this done. I'm not going to use my time as a leader to keep coming back to Justin and micromanaging and go, hey, I just. You do remember, I need this Friday. I need this Friday. Have you done it yet? Why don't you go ahead and do that? Why don't you stop what you're doing and go ahead and do. Why don't you do that now? And I'll get it on Wednesday, but I need it on Friday. No, I have full trust that Justin understands the expectations. He's completely empowered, and I'm giving him an opportunity. Now, he has repeatedly not made his timelines, and so I may come to you and go, hey, I'm giving Justin an opportunity to do this. He's fallen short a couple of times. So as a colleague, I may need you to be ready to jump in and get this for me. So could you make sure that your timeline on Friday is available? Right. And then if, if you're, if we don't need you, if Justin comes through and he gets his timeline, then you go about Friday and do, you know, whatever you need to do, you can make an adjustment so I can have an expectation based on experience and prepare for an inevitable outcome or an expected outcome and not have to distrust Justin to do it. I can make adjustments and as a leader, I can give him an opportunity and provide for him trust and then also prepare to still make my goals.

Wow.

So I always trust people. Always. It just means that I have to distrust is lazy that's true. Distrust is lazy because it says, I'm going to make sure that you get my thing done so I don't have to do any extra work. Distrust is lazy, and leadership never is.

So let me hit you. This is not real at all. This is what I would call a Daniel hypothetical. We need a segment where it's like a Daniel hypothetical. So we'll just hit a button. This is it. This is Daniel hypothetical. If you trust people. Again, this is not real.

Wrapping my head around it. Go ahead.

If I were to. If you were to come downstairs at the end of the day and you're like, man, my G Wagon is gone. Where is that thing at? But Daniel's Kia is sitting in the parking lot, and you call me, like, bro, where's my car at? And I'm like, well, I decided to drive it home today. I got in the wrong car, but you can drive my car. Would you still trust me to come to work the next day?

Yeah. I mean, that's. Your hypothetical. Is a little broke, but, like, it.

Is a little broke. I just want it. Basically, I'm just trying to set it up because one day I'm gonna swipe your G Wagon. That's all. I didn't really care about the whole thing. I've been thinking about this for a while. I want to film, like, a fake rap video in front of it and all these kinds of things. Just front. Like, that's my G Wagon. It's not much.

You can take it. Why? Heard it.

Why? Y' all heard it.

Why? Still something you could just ask for.

Well, because. You're right. You're right. I just kind of. I guess that was a long way around me asking, can I. Can I shoot a rap video in front of your G Wagon?

I would pay you to shoot a rap video just to watch you rap.

Well, I'm gonna take Mark's rap. I don't know if you know that Mark raps.

No, he doesn't.

Yes, he does.

No way.

We. I heard it yesterday.

Everybody is, like, nodding.

Mark, our intern raps, and it's fire. I'm. I like. I can get behind it. I'm gonna take Mark's video, and I'm gonna do what.

Not possible. This cannot be true.

Yeah, no, it is. I'm not even kidding.

How would he do that and not tell me?

I don't know that. That's my little shocking part was, Mark.

I'm a little offended that they heard you, and we're gonna have a talk.

Sir, I'm Gonna do what the tiger king does, and I'm just gonna overdub. I saw a tiger. But that's what I'm gonna do. Downstairs in the parking lot for in your G wagon one day. And if it blows up, it blows.

Up the G wagon or the. Or the video.

Tbd.

We have totally lost control of the spot guest.

But you know what? We're still on a good course. I can feel it in my veins. All right, so let's. Let's move forward. Here's the topic we're going to talk about. Tommy does not know any. He has no preparation for this.

I feel like we say that like it's a magic trick.

Well, it's magic to me because I don't know how you can.

I've never met you before. Right. This is not planned. Pick a card. Any card.

Any card. Well, yeah. So to me, to my little Daniel brain, it is very. It is very, like, magical that you can. I can ask you a question. I can throw a topic at you. People can write stuff in, and you can just answer it, like, flawlessly. Not like you're just all the way through it, but you just. It's like, you know, how's that go? It's like, you know, like what the topic is. Because, I mean, this is your world. I guess leadership business is your world. So it makes sense. The topic is leadership basic training. And I think this is very important because of all the questions we get. I think a lot of these can be wrapped up in, you know, what I would consider leadership basic training.

Okay, now I'm super interested, okay, where you're gonna go with this.

This is where I'm gonna go. So the topics that you think make a leader. The basic topics, and every leader from every different career path, every different field, you bring them together. What are some core things? Basic. Core things that make up a leader? And I'll say this because I was in the military.

Yeah.

And I went through basic training.

Thank you for your service.

Thank you very much. It was my pleasure. It really was. I love the military. Most people who say that are sarcastic, so I felt like I needed to clear that up. I absolutely love the military. So in basic training, we went through a bunch of different scenarios in a short amount of time, constantly busy. But we learned some, like, basic skills to a soldier. Now it doesn't matter what your job is. You can go and you can be, you know, like a tier one operator, Special forces, Delta group, whatever. You can go and be a combat medic. You can go be somebody who works in a cafeteria. All these jobs exist in the military. All of them are equally as important and they serve, you know, for you, like the mission, all that good stuff. But everybody learns the same stuff in basic training. So you may never go and fire a weapon as a cook, but you're going to know how to do it, because that's the basics of a soldier. And then after you finish basic training, you go. It's called AIT in the Army, Advanced Individual Training. So that's where you get more advanced, specialized. But basics, everybody walks away with the same stuff. Leaders.

What.

What would you say encompasses the basic composition of a leader?

Okay, so for me, number one. So for me, I think number one would be like, being authentic. Like, being your real self. Not pretending not. Because it's exhausting to pretend, right? It's exhausting. Like, so, you know, if you've watched a ton of, like, Gary Vaynerchuk material and then you're, like, gonna walk into your office every day and be like, okay, Effers, let's go. You know. You know, you're just gonna, you know, like. And you're trying to be him. Or if you've watched a lot of Simon Sinek and you're like, you know, today we're going to focus on why. We're going to focus on why. That's Simon Sinek's voice and his. Oh, bro. We're going to get into that later. So anyways, but if you're. If you've just ingested a bunch of people's stuff, right, and it may be good stuff, and you may be able to turn it into something practical and useful in your organization, but if you're trying to be them, you've lost before you've started, you've lost. I think if you are able to focus on being who you are. Like, I really don't. I come in any day and think I have to put on a show for anybody. Like, I. I focus every day on just being me. It's the reason I have a goofy laugh. And, like, we talk about idiotic things all the time. But. And I. And I let everybody be as add as me, and we bounce around. Like, that's why the podcast is the way the podcast is, because it's just me being me, and I'm not. I'm. I'm only going to give answers when I think I have one. But so, like, authentic is number one for me. I think relevant is probably number two. So, like, what I mean by that is you have to be able to Address issues in a way you can't use. Like business practices from the 50s. Right. You have to be relevant. Your leadership style, your leadership methodologies have to be relevant. It means that you have to take into account equality. It means you have to take into account advancement opportunities. And you can't take into account certain things. You know, like, you can't assume gender. You can't like, like, though. And not. I don't mean assuming gender of somebody. I mean taking gender into account. Like I. And how you think about someone and how you qualify them for positions. All those things, like some of the methods of the 50s, 60s and 70s, 80s and 90s even. Yeah, yeah. Are super antiquated now. Like, you know, I. Honestly, some of the people I respect the most, some of my colleagues that I think are the brightest, you know, and for me being. That's a huge. For me to say that you're bright is a huge compliment because I appreciate and admire intellect so much. I have a colleague named Erica that is honestly one of the smartest people I know and has done a lot personally for me to help me advance my thinking on social issues. She's the head of marketing for one of our companies, and not one of my companies, one of the companies I work at. And so she's incredibly smart. Another colleague of the same company, Rosemary, is just business minded as the day is long and understands the nuances of customer relationships in a way that I don't and, you know, is just really mindful of those things. And so I have. So that's. That's a, you know, after you cross the I'm going to be me no matter what bridge, you have to start talking about relevance and being able to respect the time in the space in time. Right. The era and the age that we live in and the acts that you. I'm trying to think of how to, like, place this correctly. This is, this is me being like completely off the cuff. You have to be able to be cognizant of the era that you're being a leader in and be respectful of the privilege and the opportunity to lead in that era. So you have to be relevant to some degree. Right.

Does relevance mean politically correct?

No.

Okay. Just want to clear that. No, but I understand there's. There's a balance to it.

I have, I have never seen someone who focuses on being full of respect have to deal with political correctness.

Oh, there you go. Okay, okay.

Right. Yeah. So I don't take political correctness into account, and I probably say some things that are not Politically correct. The only time I've ever gotten in trouble was when I was purposely being disrespectful.

Right.

Okay. I said something politically incorrect with the intention of harming someone.

So you knew what you were doing.

I knew it. I knew what I was doing when I did it.

So it kind of comes with the game.

I was being a jackass. Yeah. Like that's. And I have like, guys like Daniel tries to make me out to be like, you know, like a great guy, but I can be a first class D bag.

But see, I don't live in that world. I mean, I'm around you a lot.

You'll be around me enough. You'll see it, you'll be the victim of it. But it's, it's. But it is one of those things. So like. But I also don't, I don't hide that I'm authentic. And I'll.

You are very open about it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll get me mad and watch what happens.

Actually, you know what? I back that up because we had. I won't go into details, but a meeting that we were in. Yeah. Me and you with somebody else. Okay. Intentional.

Yeah, So I was intentionally.

I've witnessed it. But it's not like. Don't, don't demonize yourself. I mean, it wasn't. Well, you were standing up for somebody else. So we'll move on.

They're gonna get to see that episode. We recorded it, so you'll get to see it.

Yeah, we recorded the whole thing.

So, so authentic and then relevant and then a level of acceptance. So. So like being accepting of someone. And we always, like in our political climate right now, relevant and accepting means something completely different. It means you've got to take people wherever they are, however they are. And that's not, that's not acceptable. Right. Because that's a demand upon me that I change and that's not accepting of me. It means that you have to be able to take people. Acceptance as a leader means that you have to be able to accept that people aren't always going to like what you say, like what you do. And you have to be willing to have that conversation and willing and ego free enough to change when people are right.

Which is hard. That's very hard to do.

It's hard to do from an ego standpoint, but it's also hard to do from a follower standpoint because that means for them to get their way, they have to argue with you, they have to debate it out. Now I'm a debater like my person. If you've ever not done one of like the 16 personalities, like you go to 16 personalities, calm and take this test. I'm a debater. I really want, sincerely, the very best. I'm a meritocracy, Meritocracy guy. I want the best idea to win.

I don't even know what that means.

It's like being in a democracy where everybody gets a vote. A meritocracy means the best idea.

Oh, okay.

Based on merit. That's who wins.

Merit. Okay.

Yeah. So I'm very much that. So I want the best idea to win. I usually start with the assumption that I have the best idea. Makes me a little bit arrogant. But honestly, if I didn't think I had the best idea, I wouldn't speak up.

That's just confidence.

Yeah, I just think. But I'm also willing to immediately change that should someone go, oh, yeah, I see that, but you didn't consider X, Y and Z. And that's going to make that fall apart. I will immediately go, dad, gummit. Okay, so if we take X, Y, Z into account, what if we do this way and we'll just keep refining the idea? I want the best idea to win. Acceptance means that you're willing to stand up for yourself in an environment of acceptance. And debate an idea. Yeah, and debate it. Even ideology, the framework of ideas, if necessary. And a leader has to make space for people to be able to debate an ideology, to create a culture of acceptance. Right. And that's all that you hope for as a leader. You cannot hope that everybody is accepted because you're gonna have disagreements, you're gonna have ideology, you know, barriers for raising kids that people are gonna talk about and they're gonna get in a fight in the break room and argue about it. And then I'm not gonna like Candace anymore because she thinks she shouldn't spank kids. Like that's gonna crap's gonna happen in your organization, Candace. Yeah, but you've gotta be able to at least say, well, listen, you know, Candace has a viewpoint and she's a great mom and her kids obviously love her, and you're a great mom and your kids obviously love you. So maybe there's just two ways to do that and whatever. Like, you know, so you've got to. As a leader, you've got to breed a culture of, hey, mutual. Mutual responsibility, mutual respect, and mutual acceptance. So those are kind of heavy things like authentic. Authenticism, relevance, acceptance. But I think that a leader's job is those two things that I would say, lastly, you have to be enjoyable.

Like, I can get behind that for sure. If you're just. You gotta enjoy. People's gonna enjoy working for you. They're not gonna work for you. They're not gonna trust you. They're not gonna.

Yeah. Leadership is not necessary for easy things.

Okay?

Like, nobody has to. I'm trying to think of something easy. Like. Like, I'm. I like honey buns. If you ever want to send me a prize, send me a box of honey buns.

Right?

It's.

It's not the. Not the. The clear glazed ones. Not the.

Not the iced ones. Those are garbage, trash, dumpster, fire, honey buns. The clear glazed from Little Debbie's. Is that. That's the way it goes. All right. So back to. Back to this. So it's super easy for me to get out of, like, go fill my cart with gas and walk into the gas station, make a purchase and get a honey bun. I didn't need any leadership to do that.

Right.

It's super easy.

Yeah.

It's hard for me to refrain from that. I need leadership for the thing that it's hard to do. I need a trainer. I need my goals in front of me. I need to be reminded that I'm trying to be healthier, like, those things. So leadership is born for the hard stuff. The hard stuff sucks. I mean, winning, getting a big prize at the end, making that feeling of accomplishments great, but that's temporary, and it's after a bunch of hard work. So for a leader to be effective, they've got to figure out a way to make the hard stuff enjoyable. Right. Growing a company is difficult. Having the conversations about Runway and timelines and all those things and not have that just be stuck in the back of your head all the time is a byproduct of being able to be in an environment where you can talk about joy.

Yeah.

So like we talk about at Lead Fast, we talk about helping people through leadership create environments where winning is the expectation and joy is the norm. That starts with a leader. A leader has to have joy about his responsibility of leading, and you have to be operating with joy. I know I've got a colleague at a former company that is in charge of sales, and he routinely gets very high, like, marks on his employee review. This is the peer reviews for the people who works for him, work with him. But that's because they win a lot because they're a sales organization. The other people that are around him routinely refer to him as a dick. Like, the guy's not enjoyable to be around. Right. And so it's very difficult to be a leader, to be considered a leader that people want to be with if you're not enjoyable. And then the last thing, and this is the thing that is I think we struggle with the most as a society is I think a leader has to be powerful. These are the basics. Right. So you got to get acceptance and relevance and authenticism. Be hard work. It is, it's hard for me to be authentic. And then you, you've got to, you know, really be clued into being enjoyable and making the hard things fun. But you've got to be powerful. And we think that that looks like bravado and loud voices and big gestures and, and, and no, like, some of the most powerful people, like, Andrew is one of the most powerful people I know. Like, but he's, he's powerful in his consistency. He's powerful in his work ethic and his grind.

Absolutely.

And he carries an air of, like, authority. Like, he's very powerful. More so than me. Like, I, I, I'm like Good Time Charlie. So, like, I, everybody, like, I, I carry the air of enjoyable. Yeah. I try to be. I have to work at being powerful. Andrew is just powerful. Like, so that's, you know, it helps balance us each out and it helps add to the sort of mix of leadership here. But in the office, there's not a single person here is like, oh, I couldn't survive disappointing Tommy. But no one wants to disappoint Andrew.

Right.

Because there's, there's an air of power of, of in control. Powers about control. And so there's an air of like, he's unshakable, you know, like that kind of thing. And a leader needs to be able to look danger in the face and not blink. And his people need to see. Yeah. Or her people need to see that. So power is about not about being. Or powerful is, is not about being brash and out there and loud and, and all that stuff and bravado. It's about being steady in the face of uncertainty. And a leader has to have that.

Man, that's good that you separate those two. I mean, that was hard for me, coming out of the military back into a civilian lifestyle. Any job that I worked, being able to lead. But not like, bravado, like what you're saying. It doesn't have to be loud voices and that. I mean, that's still something I'm still working on, you know, like, I don't obviously yell at people, but whenever I feel Like, I need to put more energy on something where I need to lead it, whether it's, you know, with my kids or here at work. I feel that, like, rise up in me, and I'm to a place where I can push it down. But I want my default to be what you're talking about. I want there to be, like, just that command of power that is, you know, based out of the basics that has built you up as a leader. That's really good. That's a really, really good distinction that you put on those. I'm glad you separated those.

And those are all character things. I think there's probably four or five things that a leader does from an action standpoint, and we can cover those on a different episode. Yeah, I would love to, because I think there are, like, five things that every good leader does every day.

Maybe we'll do that on the next episode, which we won't even name the number because we don't know.

We don't. We have no idea.

Yeah. Thanks for listening, guys. That's it, right? We're done. Yeah. Okay. I feel good. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @Lead FastCo. Send us questions about business and this question about leadership. We will answer them here on the podcast. Hopefully, if they're they fit the bill, we will go to our website, leadfastcode.com, get lots of resources, get plugged in, and get content just like this every single day. We put content out all the time.

Hey, we're doing a new thing. If you go to Leaf Fast Co and you sign up and you get part of that every morning, I'm gonna send you, like, five minutes of inspirational audio to listen to. It's gonna be good. Yep.

We'll see you next time. Nailing the head.

Nailing the post.

Dang it. I was so close.