Dr. Diane Hamilton Show - Jason Garner And Dr. Tracey Jones
How do you become a better person during crisis events? Crisis events, like the COVID pandemic, act as clear mirrors. They clarify what’s already inside you. Today Dr. Tracey Jones sits in as a guest in Dr. Diane Hamilton's podcast show “Take The Lead Radio.” Dr. Tracey talks with Dr. Diane about how the COVID pandemic didn’t turn you into a fighter or a coward. It just revealed to you which one you are. Once you have a clearer vision of yourself, you’re now in a better position to develop into who you want to be. Tune in and see yourself more clearly!
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Listen to the podcast here:
Dr. Diane Hamilton Show - Jason Garner And Dr. Tracey Jones
I'm so glad you joined us because we have Jason Garner and Dr. Tracey Jones here. Jason is the former CEO of Global Music at Live Nation. He's the author of … And I Breathed. Tracey is the President of Tremendous Leadership and the author of ten books. We are going to learn a lot about what Jason found in his journey and Tracey did in hers.
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I'm here with Jason Garner who's the former CEO of Global Music at Live Nation. He is the author of … And I Breathed, which explores his journey from a life of matter to a life that matters. It's so nice to have you here, Jason.
Thank you. It's great to be with you.
You are welcome. I was very interested in your story of how you had what some people look at as the success of being a former Fortune 500 company executive to thinking maybe that's not all that matters and what you have learned since then. I want to get a backstory on you to know what led to you getting to this Live Nation position in the first place.
I was raised by a single mom. We grew up very poor, with free lunches at school and all of those things that so many people go through, especially single parents. My whole life, I had a narrative in my head of I wanted to be financially successful. Through that, I would change my story, save my mom, myself and all those things that little boys and girls aspire to do. I worked under this belief that if I wasn't the best, I wasn't good enough and wasn't loved.
Over time, I worked at a flea market. I started putting bans on the little beer patio at the flea market in an attempt to increase beer sales. Through a series of steps, that led me into the concert business. I worked my way up over several years. My last job before I went on the spiritual journey was the Head of Global Music for Live Nation.
What were the highs and the lows of being at that level?
The high is all of these things that we are aspiring to, power, money, proximity to power and rock stars, being backstage, on a private jet or tour with a band. The thing that so many of us are discovering as many of us have lost jobs, life has slowed down or we have been furloughed is that that's not enough, there's still emptiness and a hole inside.
We use these types of things. In my case, it was a sexy job but all of us in our life somewhere is using something to turn away from our own pain and our broken-heartedness. That's low. It's so easy to say, “I made it all,” though while I'm masking as I was in my life, broken marriages, broken heart and all of this pain from my life that I had never dealt with because I always had another show to go to or another artist to deal with.
Crisis Events: If you are efficacious, you are self-motivated and self-disciplined.
You did a lot of shows and dealt with a lot of artists. I was looking at some of them, Coldplay, Toby Keith, Jenni Rivera, Enrique Iglesias, boxing champs, Julio César Chávez. I have been looking at the list. It's a pretty impressive group of people. It's interesting to me from being in my position that I have interviewed billionaires, people in the movies and different things like that. When I have gone to after-parties of the Oscars, it's not what you think it is. When you get back there and go, "This is it." It's not very glamorous, is it?
No. We are all still watching the movies from the '60s and '70s rock scene and thinking we are going backstage to Mötley Crüe or something. They are big businesses and everyone is working. People would send me a note and say, "Could I come to hang out backstage?" I would say, "Only if on Monday I can come to hang out at your office."
It is a different world. It does sound great. It's sometimes better to have that perception of what it is because sometimes what it is, is not as glamorous. It takes its toll on you. A lot of people don't have realistic expectations of the world sometimes. Maybe you get to the point where you thought it was too much and not what you wanted. It wasn't making you happy. What did you do?
My mom was diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer while I was in the middle of my second divorce. I took time off for the first time in my life. My mom died in my arms, taking her last breath. It was at this deep moment that I said, "I need to figure out how to feel happy.” I had done all these things I thought would make me happy. I needed to figure out like, “How can I feel successful? How can I experience this dream that was supposed to come through money and power?"
I did. I took some time away from the business. I went on this spiritual journey that I outlined in the book but I don't think it's necessary to walk away from the way that I did. I was blessed with the privilege and resources to do that. What we have to start to look for is maybe a simple question like, "How am I attending to my heart?" Every day we get up and brush our teeth.
We wipe and wash. We answer emails. We take care of our bosses and our clients. We don't ever look inside and say, "How will I attend to my heart?" I went around the world. I met with the best teachers I could find. I learned so much about how to accept my life, how to hold a bit more than just my job and going all the time.
You learned this and you have written this book but do you also have another job that you do in addition? What are you doing to produce income other than the book?
The book does not produce income. All the book writing workshops you go to, remember, it will not produce revenue. I came back into the entertainment business. I consult with a small group of artists on the alchemy of business spirit and art. What that means is trying to apply the things I have learned to how can they make as much money as they can while honoring their heart and art? It's a confluence of the two big passions of my life, the spiritual meditation path, and then the music business. That's how I spend my days when I'm not walking in the woods, meditating or hanging out with my family.
How much time do you spend meditating? I'm always interested in this because I have had so many people who were meditation experts and that type of thing on the show, talking about different things at work for people. Is this something you spend hours, minutes on? What's your day like?
It depends. One thing that I was clear on is I didn't want my meditation practice to become another thing on the to-do list, another thing where I judged myself or one more area where Jason wasn't good enough to my inner voice, or the world. There are days when things are heavy, where the most I can do is sit down in a chair, close my eyes, breathe for a few minutes and come back to my heart.
I go on retreat every once in a while. Sometimes that's meditating all day long for a week. I don't think there's a right answer. The quest for that perfect meditation formula is one more way that we get lost up in our heads and our thoughts. It's about feeling into our own lives and bodies. If all you can do is take a two-minute walk outside, try to listen to the birds and breathe, that's plenty. You shouldn't be taught that's not enough because it has to be fifteen minutes in a chair in the corner of the room. Other times, a nice long sit is what the doctor ordered. That's perfect, too.
You don't strike me as a hyperactive kind of person who probably couldn't relax. Have you always been calm, that disposition or does this something that you have found from this?
My brain goes a lot. All these things that I have been able to do in my life are partly a product of that overactive brain. What I have learned is, that can be counterproductive. We use this term balance a lot, which I don't like because we are never imbalanced. The way motion is created is something is always tilting one way or the other. What we are trying to do is make sure that we are not choking out certain parts of our lives.
If you sit, meditate all day and choke out business completely, you won't be able to pay your rent. Likewise, if we work, look at the phone and follow election news all day, pretty soon we are not going to be in touch with our heart. We are not going to feel love, compassion and happiness. It's about balancing the hyperactivity that's necessary to fill the bank account with some stillness and quiet, which is necessary to fill the heart.
It's challenging for me to quiet my mind. I noticed that more at night than anything that you do work and then you lay down. I'm one of those people that have maybe ten radio stations playing at the same time. For me, it helps to distract me to get focused on one thing. I know that's what breathing is about to get your focus on something and to keep you in one focused area. I'm curious why the title and how you tie it into what we learned from breathing.
I felt like I had run through my life holding my breath. When I was writing the book, the dominant scene and the sensation in my body was like sitting in my therapist's office and finally exhales then the sobbing came.
Is it more breathe out then?
Yes. It's much more this exhales of, "It's okay." Life's tough. We don't give ourselves credit for what it takes to get up every day. Thich Nhat Hanh, the great Zen practitioner says, "The miracle isn't walking on clouds or water. The miracle is walking on the Earth." There's this sense. I had it when I was writing the book. That exhale of, "I'm okay. It's okay to be me, to be afraid, to be sad and to not know what's going to happen tomorrow."
You could let go. You could feel that even a little let go is lifesaving. It's like what you were saying about your meditation in the evening. You can't make your thoughts stop. That's not the way the brain is wired. What we are doing is breathing and allowing space for our thoughts, and our humanity. That sense of it's okay to be human is a message that we don't hear enough in our world.
I was thinking of what I do in the morning. I have an echo. It pulls it from the Calm app. I'm not sure but if you say, "Play guided meditation," it will play whatever it plays. It's different every day, whatever it is. I started finding myself competing like, "Did I do more now?" That's what you’ve got to get away from. The problem is the app will tell you. It will go, "Congratulations. You have done 3 hours and 57 minutes." I'm thinking, "I’ve got to get three more minutes." I wish it didn't tell you that because that messes with me completely.
We have to love that part of ourselves because that's how we’ve got here. That part of ourselves that's competitive, wants to go out, accomplish something and be good. That's a very useful skillset to have. We also have to honor that tender, quiet and still part of ourselves. I'm not a big fan of apps for meditating and tracking it. I see people posting online. It's cool. If it works for people, that's great. My guess is it's reinforcing this sense of, "I'm not good enough unless I post a couple of seconds longer than yesterday on my meditation app." We start to miss the point. The point is you are okay the way you are. It's safe to stop, sit in the chair and breathe for five minutes. That's a huge learning for a lot of us.
I had a lot of CEOs on the show. We talked about how CEOs all think that people are going to figure out, that they don't know as much as they should know, that fear that they are going to be discovered, even Keith Krach, who's the smartest guy on the planet, who was the Chairman, CEO of DocuSign. He's talking about going back to be the CEO of DocuSign. He says, "I told my wife I'm going to be in a fetal position under my desk for a few nights here and there." He's very honest about how hard it is.
SPARK: 5 Essentials to Ignite the Greatness Within
He doesn't try to pretend like this big puffer fish that I know more than I do. That's an important thing for CEOs, to learn that everybody doesn't know everything. You were working with some very famous named people. Did they all have that sense that everybody thinks that they are better than they think they are? Is this something universal?
If you know our name, it's because we have a big hole inside. The bigger the stage, the spotlight, the bigger the hole. That's what's driving people to be powerful, famous, remembered and legacy. All these things that we talked about are more often than not being driven by a level of pain and insecurity inside. If 10,000 people clap for me every night or I meet my quarterly goals, then I will be good, loved, remembered and cool.
At some point, we start to turn inside, and then we can tend to that pain in a meaningful way because all of the external stuff is a mask. It's an aspirin when you have a broken leg but at some point, we would have to say, "My heart is worth tending to the way I tend to my business." That for me was a big realization.
Think about all the movies you have been making about Queen or Elton John, the ones that you think have everything. You look at the back story. They seem very vulnerable to people taking advantage of them. It almost seems like every one of those stories is someone who gets in and takes some for everything. They are crushed. You probably see a lot of that in what you were dealing with in your life. Do you find a lot of them have this same realization that you have had, that they have gone out and come back? It seems like Elton John has turned his situation around and people like that. Is there always going to be a that big hole as long as you are out there in the public?
No. It's a very universal story. It's the plotline of half the movies we watch on TV. I feel pain so I go out and achieve something in the world, believing that will fill the pain. I learned that that didn't do it. I turn inward, find a teacher, do some yoga, some breathing and go on some kind of journey or whatever everyone's individual path is. We see it everywhere. We see it in business, in some areas of politics, in music, in art where people are realizing that in this go, go, go world.
Imagine we are working from home and we don't even have that to go to anymore. We have to discover the inner home. That is the essence of meditation, which is there is a sanctuary and an okayness inside that we can connect to. It seems so silly. After a life of doing that, the answer is to sit in the chair and breathe for a few minutes. It is that place where we can go.
When we do it with a sense of love, compassion and spaciousness, we start to one, get to know ourselves. Second, we start to accept ourselves. We then can go back to whatever our job is, whether it's a rock star, CEO or wherever we are in the world. We can come at it from a sense of a little bit more wholeness and okayness ourselves, and not be so needy for the world to fill what we haven't felt for ourselves.
Now that you have learned what you have learned, would you want to be a Fortune 500 company executive again?
No. I have a lot of compassion for the people that are running businesses. I look at it and I see people having to make excruciating decisions of furloughs and shutting down businesses. I don't know that I could or would want to do that but it's possible though. That's the thing. We all inside are drawn to certain things, jobs, hobbies and vocations. The issue is not what the job is but how are we going to do it? That's playing out very clearly in our world.
What are you bringing to your job? The answer is that your brain comes but so does your pain and our trauma. When we don't deal with our trauma, then we sit around a conference table like little children arguing about the pain that we had when we were three thinking that we are arguing about negotiation or a pay raise. All these jobs are possible. I don't think there's a ranking of a job that's more spiritual than another.
The answer is what are we doing to tend to our own hearts? When we do that, we bring that to work with us. We are more mature, whole and more okay. Suddenly, the business meeting can be a meeting of two humans talking about a business issue versus two people with unhealed pain arguing about how to hurt they are inside.
There's a focus with the people I talked to who are trying to be the next Apple. They all want to have this unicorn. To have that, you can't be sitting in a yoga position all day long. Is it okay for some people that that's the life they pick? Do they have to have a hole in them if they are a success in that respect? I'm curious if you think that it works for some people but not others.
Everything is okay. I'm not evangelical about what I have learned. I know and have known lots of extremely successful people. To a tee, every one of them at some point has had a moment where they have said, "I've got to turn inside. I've got to care for myself." Everything is possible that someone was born whole, never traumatized, went out and succeeded in the world but for the most part, most of us have learned that we are supposed to care for what's out there but not what's inside.
When we do that, then our quest for the unicorn is fulfilling. A business success combined with emotional, spiritual wellbeing is one of the greatest feelings in the world. What we find is you get the unicorn but then the next day you have the same feeling inside. They have to go find the next unicorn. That's what this thing is doing to us.
Whereas when we do have a sense of inner okayness, we have business success and it's like, "That's meaningful. I can feel it and enjoy it," versus my mind immediately skipping to, "Someone is going to take it away. How do I get the next one?" It's all of these things that most of us experienced. That's what we find inside our heads.
There are always exceptions. I always wondered about the Ron Howards. I've gotten through a lot of people look at as something that most people crash and burn when they get a certain level of success, especially childhood actors and different things. It's interesting to see what works for everybody. I was glad to have you on to talk about what you have worked on. If anybody wants to get your book … And I Breathed, how can they find that? How could they find you if you have something to share?
I have a website, which is JasonGarner.com. I'm on Instagram, which is what I like, @TheJasonGarner. Twitter is also @TheJasonGarner. I post stuff there that sounds a lot like what we talked about.
This has been important. It ties into a lot of the things. I have had Daniel Goleman talk about on the show and others. I enjoyed researching that for my dissertation. It was a huge topic, emotional intelligence. He's in the mindfulness aspect of it. This has been wonderful to have you on the show, Jason. Thank you so much for being on.
Thank you. Big hugs.
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I am here with author, speaker and international leadership expert, Dr. Tracey Jones who's the President of Tremendous Leadership. She picked up the reins from her father, Charlie "Tremendous" Jones in 2008. She has a book that I'm anxious to talk to her about called SPARK: 5 Essentials to Ignite the Greatness Within. I'm very interested in that and how it ties into curiosity. We are going to have a great talk. Welcome, Tracey.
Thank you so much, Diane. It is tremendous to be here with you.
You get to use that probably a lot. I want to know where that came from originally, the tremendous.
That's from my dad. My father's name was Charlie Jones but Charlie "Tremendous" Jones. Whenever somebody would come to him, he said he got it because of a limited vocabulary. People would say, "Charlie, we just had a baby." He would say, "Tremendous." "Charlie, we sold a $1 million policy." "Tremendous." "Charlie, my mother-in-law died." "Tremendous." People would laugh because he always says these mother-in-law jokes but it was all about, “Be careful about what words you use because it will stick with you.” Even if things aren't going tremendous, Diane, if I say they are, they start going tremendous.
I'm getting Zig Ziglar like, "It's great but getting better."
He is Ziglar's dear friend and colleague. They spoke together and shared the stage many times. Ziglar was a very dear man in my father's life.
Tom was on the show. I have had so many great motivational speakers. There are so many, Tom Hopkins and beyond. It's so fun to talk about motivation. You’ve got your PhD in The Theory of Motivation, which I didn't even know. Is that a Business degree? What is The Theory of Motivation?
It's a Leadership degree. The PhD is in Leadership. It was the intersection of Crisis Leadership, Followership and Self-Efficacy. Dr. Hamilton, that self-efficacy is a $1 million research word for motivation. If you are efficacious, you are intrinsically self-motivated, self-disciplined and you own your locus of control. That's what I wanted to study in a crisis organization or crisis event if the leader brought something out in the follower or what happened there. That's what it was but I would say The Theory of Motivation because that's in layman's terms, what self-efficacy is.
You have this event. What you have learned must have prepared you for this but I'm sure nobody foresaw this. How did what you learn to tie into what you are seeing?
It's so interesting because when I was studying the event and the book was coming out so was everything else. I'm like, "How is this going to land?" I’ve got down-toned up talking about, "We have greatness within." It's like, "No. Greatness truly is an inside job." This pandemic and everything going on gave us the opportunity. You either have to own what's inside of you that can get you through anything or not. Part of it was saying, when I was doing my research, I was looking at followers and leaders. Did the leader do something that made you run into the burning building or run out of it? Why did you stay to fight the fight while other people ran away?
What I started realizing was that great leadership is great but for people that are exemplary followers and that are already all in, they are in regardless of what's going on. What I tell people is, "This pandemic didn't turn you into a fighter or a coward. It revealed what was inside. If you were upset with the world, didn't like your job and were scared before the pandemic, you probably still are. If going into pandemic you have this sense of resiliency and adaptive capacity, a crisis always magnifies that in a beautiful way."
Where everybody else is falling behind, ruminating on negativity and the worst possible scenario, you are like, "We’ve got to move on. This is an opportunity to clear the crap out of my life and get focused on what's the comp." I have had such an incredible time despite catching it myself, getting better, kidney stone and eye surgery. Those were rough months but I also had the opportunity to get clear on, "If this is the new normal, what is my new normal going to be?" I'm thankful for that.
A lot of people are asking themselves that question. It's such a challenging time. I had some crisis readiness experts on the show in the past. We never talked about the pandemic as being a potential crisis. You think of other things but everybody has to learn in a way. To me, it all ties into, whether you have a company that's stuck in status quo behaviors or if they are open to learning.
When I talk about curiosity, I often talk about curiosity as the spark. I love that your book is titled SPARK. I have had some motivation experts on. We talk about what comes first, motivation or curiosity, curiosity or creativity and all that. What do you think? What comes first? I want to get your insights there.
I love that you are a curiosity expert because what I would say is the SPARK, my book drills into, you can be incredibly motivated by a lot of different things but unless you dial it in what it is that you are going to be driving toward unless you prioritize and get very singularly focused, you are going to burn yourself out. Trust me. I did it for twenty years. I had to do everything well and in the end I was draining my own self. Curiosity is the seed. That's the point of ignition, the spark where you sit there and go, "Why not me? Why not now? Why can't I develop myself into becoming what I always know is in there?"
Not to be like somebody else. I tell people, "We are not here to mold you. We are here to unfold you." Until you even look in the mirror and say, "Could this be me?" To me, that's the word you said. It's curiosity. That spark if you fuel it, you own it and you feed it with the right combustible materials, then you start glazing into the next level of greatness. Curiosity comes first.
You would be in the absolute majority. One hundred percent of people have answered it. It's interesting to me though, when I researched curiosity, my interest was what inhibits it so that we can move forward. I found that there were four things. It's fear, assumptions, that voice in your head, technology, which is over and underutilization of it and environment, which is everybody with whom you have had contact. Some so many people get discouraged because of people they have been around, their parents have said certain things that have made them think they have to go in a certain direction, their friends did certain things or they are so worried they are going to make a mistake. You did a lot of interviews on the Price of Leadership. You had a series of interviews. I'm curious.
The Power of the Other: The startling effect other people have on you, from the boardroom to the bedroom and beyond-and what to do about it
My dad always talked about leadership is tough. It's glorious but it's tough like life. It's this “bittersweet symphony,” to quote The Verve. It's one of these things that you are going to be victorious even though it's bloody. One of the things is there are going to be times when you are lonely but there's good and bad loneliness. You are going to be wary. There's good weariness like fighting the good fight and bad weariness where you are emotionally exhausted. There's a band in it where you have to get hyper-focused on what you need to think about and not what you want to think about, and the importance of vision.
Where everybody dialed in is not acting soon enough. You talked about why you wouldn't fear lack of resources when they knew intuitively something was going on in the organization but they didn't act on it. That's pretty much the biggest thing that everybody goes to but it's a process, Diane. I look back even years ago at some of the leadership decisions I made and my epic failures. That's how we learned the best from gaining experience.
I had Jim Kouzes on the show before you. He was saying that, "People who think you've got to get it right the first time, it's impossible. There's nothing you did right the first time." We are all going to have a certain amount of failures. People sometimes are so worried about failing that they don't do anything. You interviewed these people and you found out about their mistakes but you also found out about their achievements. I'm curious. What are some of those great achievements you learned from those interviews?
It was about you can't get it right without the right people. You have to set. SPARK is an acronym. Singularity, you have to have your vision. You can't be clear as a leader and attract the right followers until you dial in. It's the old Jim Collins TED Talks principles. "What is your message that the world needs to hear that you can deliver better than anybody else and number three, that you can make a living doing?"
The leader needs to be all in and clear on where they are going and then persist but then you need resources, advocates and knowledge. That's the ARK, Advocates, Resources and Knowledge. Their journey was all about the right people at the right time for the right purpose. Always reading, continuous learning, unlearning what you thought you knew, relearning, The Bowery book. My father always said that you are going to be the same person five years from now that you are now, except for two things, the people you meet and the books you read.
These interviews are content-rich with books that transformed their lives and people that are continually pouring them in and raising them to the next level. That is the common direction. The last one is everybody says that their vision is tied to serving other people. Every leader has said that. They had this altruistic. It's defined but there's a higher purpose for their vision. That's what attracts people to your ministry, to your mission to whatever it is.
I love the acronym because I was looking at some of those. You said Advocates was the A. How do you know who your advocates are? Some people are out there promoting you, saying great things and you don't even know about it sometimes.
This is one of the areas that I was missing for about ten years. I was successful but it was hard, Diane. It was not joyful. I didn't have peace. I kept making the wrong hires, the wrong mistakes and the wrong messages. I'm like, "I'm done." It's not tremendous. Henry Cloud is one of my favorite authors. He wrote a book called The Power of the Other. I read that and I realized I have a lot of quadrants, 1, 2 and 3 people in my life. I need to focus on my quadrant four. When I became intentional about that, they were all around me. I just was blocking them. I wasn't open to receiving.
Sometimes, I try and catch the butterfly versus letting the butterfly land and bless me. I tell people, "Stop looking and start receiving. People are there that want to pour into you but you’ve got to get rid of all the other junk that's time-sucking you and your resources." That's what I did. I was ready to quit. I'm like, "I'm done." It's like, "Tracey, you can't quit because you don't have the right advocates. When you get the right advocate, they want your success more than you. They will help make the connection. They will help carry the load. They will be your champions, your prefects." I'm like, "I knew this earlier but I never needed it."
When you talk about junk though, what are the time-sucking things that keep people from moving forward?
The time-sucking things are when you get clear, you are too open-minded. You are not clear on your vision. They talk about spiritual gifts. One of my gifts was the gift of complication. Every new idea I heard I'm like, "Let's do this. Let's do that." I was incredibly scattered. When you get clear on where you are going, you start knowing who to have conversations with and who to say, "Thank you. I'm not interested." It's getting drilled down and dialed into what you are looking for. You start training and collaborating with the right people. Other time-suckers are I rarely touch social media or the TV. I haven't watched the news in years. These are things that are non-value added.
The other thing is I was looking at groups that I was in, boards and everything. I said, "I know I'm here to serve them but there should be a sense of reciprocity. We should be lifting each other up." I've gotten very shrewd and people like us. Shrewd is a beautiful thing. This is where my nut cutter side, my target because I'm an engineer by trade and I, was in the military. I want to get down and say, "Is this value-added or is this not?" When you abandon the stuff on your plate, you are going to realize there are probably 3 or 4 hours in a day that don't only not just contribute to your success but are working against you. Get very singular, organized and disciplined in where you spend your time and who you are spending your time with.
I'm glad you brought up that you were in the military. I know that you are a graduate of the US Air Force Academy and a Decorated veteran. You served in the first Gulf War and Bosnian War. I teach at different universities. One of them is a military-based university. I have a lot of students there. They always are giving me these great examples that are military-based but I personally have not served in the military. I always love to talk to them about the differences are between military leadership and civilian leadership. I'm curious what you have seen as the differences. How do curiosity and questioning the status quo differ in military leadership versus civilian?
Having been in both, I did twelve active duties, ten in Fortune 100 government contracting and then twelve doing my own entrepreneurship. Critical thinking skills are the same wherever you are. Robert Kelley has a wonderful construct about the bond followership style. It's all active engagement and critical thinking skills. I had been a critical thinker and it's different than having a critical spirit in the military as well as in Fortune 100 semiconductors everywhere. I would always be some people that would be open to hearing it and people that weren't. I don't think that's industry-specific.
The difference between the military is you can get stuff done through the power because there's rank. If people don't follow you, that's insubordination. When you are outside in the civilian sector, it's more influence. What I love about the military is they are focused on trust first. I don't have to like you. We don't have to be unified but we do have to trust one another because I’ve got to know that you've got my back and there's something beautiful about that, whereas we get so wrapped up in the civilian sector about these cultural things that we become all 50 million little separate entities with feelings, motives and desires. We lose this cohesion.
I love the military because they are also very targeted. What I learned in the military was we can't talk about a solution until we are clear on what the real issue is. That's something that I strive to bring my civilian counterparts. If you don't understand and that gets to your critical thinking skills, you are going to be barking up the wrong tree and wasting a lot of resources. That's the biggest difference I saw.
You bring up a lot that I talk about with curiosity, how you get the solution without asking about the problems. That builds empathy, which is a big part of emotional intelligence. When I talk to groups about curiosity, often bring up trust. I'm glad you brought up trust. We know the four factors that inhibit curiosity. The first one is fear. The fear is looking dumb, being embarrassed, having their idea somehow criticized and that could tie into trust. I wanted to get your insight on trust and curiosity.
It's like resiliency in a crisis event. It's something built into you. I think of the space shuttle where the guys took off and saw the panels, the foam that came off the side. If you read that debacle, "I didn't feel I could raise the flag." False. You have to raise it. I'm sorry. I don't buy that because I have been in organizations where I had to stand up as a lone wolf and say, "We can't do this." You can't claim to be all in if you are not.
I’ve got off an interview with retired Rear Admiral Paul Becker. He was talking about the one time as an intelligence officer. He looked at some stuff and he said, "We can't do this." Everybody looked at him like he's radioactive but other people see it. It's not just trusting. It's more courage. The fallacy, Diane, is when we do the right thing and we state the right thing, everybody is going to applaud us. That's probably not going to happen. History is rife with examples of people standing up for the right thing but you do it because first and foremost, you have to follow your conviction. When you do that, whatever fallout happens, happens and it will happen. In a great organization, they will listen.
I'm thinking exactly what you are saying. That ties into that voice in our head, which I call assumptions. What's going to happen if you do it? You tell yourself. You've got this dialogue or a monologue going on in your head of, "What's going to happen if I do this?" That's when you start questioning things. That's where the trust comes in, too.
You have to trust yourself first and foremost. I was in New York City for a book launch party. Mitzi Perdue, Frank Perdue's widow, hosted it for me. She talked about her fundraisers for human trafficking. Someone had given her a 69-carat perfect Ruby to auction at Sotheby's to raise money. It was that thing. I'm not sure where she was but not a sketchy part of the world. They are like, "If they find out we are giving you this and you raise money to fight against human trafficking, the human traffickers aren't going to like it. They could kill you. What do you think about that?" Mitzi said, “So be it. This is where I am." They looked at her and said, "You are the right person for the mission."
When you are curious and not to raise something that you know is not going to be the most popular opinion, true courage happens when you are so affirmed in your convictions and your values that you would rather not be in the organization than be in an organization where we are going long. I only listen to the spirit of truth for so long, especially in America, you can always get another job. If it's illegal, immoral or unethical, you can call the newspapers. You could go get legal. I watched people say, "If I said something. Come on. This isn't a dictatorship. We are allowed to voice opinions."
I'm always very suspect that I know there's going to be a cost. You count the cost but why would you want to stay in an organization that if you raised something valuable would poo-poo on you? Count it as a blessing because you are not long for that organization. You are going to have to sell your soul or smooth over your conviction so you can be one of the crowds. That's a bad thing to happen.
It used to be a problem in my generation where you stayed in. I stayed in one company for nearly twenty years. You don't see people doing that anymore. You didn't want to ruffle feathers if you are going to stay in a company for twenty years but who does that anymore? It's a different world.
I say that to people. I'm like, "It's different. Everybody can work. It's not like your family is going to be destitute if you say I'm going someplace else. Come on. Whatever you sell, make sure it's not your soul. You have to stay true." Once you start doubting that spirit of conviction, which I also tie back to trust and creativity, then you become a cog in the wheel and you get where people get sick on Sunday night because they hate work, they hate their boss and they are disengaged. What is it like? Sixty-eight percent of people are not engaged. We don't want to be like that. We are not made to be like that. It's not the way it's supposed to be.
I have chapters on that in my books on curiosity and perception. The curiosity spark that wanting to know things can align you better with jobs, tasks and things. Maybe people are disengaged because they are not aligned to the best thing. As technology takes over, this is our chance to say, "I don't like doing this anyway." We can do that.
Crisis Events: It’s a fallacy to think that everyone’s going to applaud you when you do the right thing.
You hit the nail on the head in this SPARK Course that we are doing. Everybody like the late 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s are like, "I did that before. What do I want to do? What is the highest version of me?" They are imagining themselves in different roles. That's the beauty that no matter whatever any stage in your life, there is no wall on too far gone. That's on you. The spark of creativity and curiosity burns up until your very last breath. People are more open to going, "What does my life count for? How can I make the best run in this mortal soil on this planet?" I'm so thankful for that because that's what makes the world a more incredible place.
Your book is timely. I hope people take some time to look at this, SPARK: 5 Essentials to Ignite the Greatness Within. There are so many things that we need to ignite to get that spark going. I am very excited about the launch of your book. A lot of people are going to want to follow you and find out more. Is there a website or someplace they can get your book or follow you?
Diane, thank you so much. The best way to reach me is www.TremendousLeadership.com. Our book is there. The paperback and eBook are on Amazon. The audio and hardcover is on Tremendous Leadership. We've got incredible resources, two free weeks of eBooks, webinars and our Tremendous Leadership Podcast. If you go to Tremendous Leadership, you can find me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter. You name it, all that good stuff. You can email me. I will answer you from my global headquarters right in my kitchen with my dog.
What's your dog's name?
I have three. Diane, my dogs write books, too. They write children's books on leadership. They are best-smelling authors.
Thank you so much for being on the show. This was interesting. I knew it would be fun, Tracey. I enjoyed meeting you.
Thank you, Diane. What an honor. Thank you so much for all that you are doing, too.
You are welcome. Thank you for sharing those links. I hope everybody takes some time to take a look at Tracey's work.
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I would like to thank both Jason and Dr. Tracey for being my guests. We get so many amazing guests on this show. If you have missed any past episodes, you can catch them on my site, DrDianeHamilton.com. We are on all the radio stations listed on the site, as well as all the podcast stations, where every podcast airs. There are also tweetable moments. If you find something that you like, tweet it out and let me know what you found interesting about the show.
We get a lot of great guests. You can read it. You can also find out more about Cracking the Curiosity Code and The Power of Perception, the works on the site there. Also, the assessments for developing your curiosity and your perception are on the site as well. A wealth of information, anything that you are looking for in terms of the assessments. If you don't find it at the top dropdown menus, look at the bottom because we have links to become affiliates and all that is at the bottom as well. If you can't find anything, contact me. I'm here. I would love to hear from you. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you join us for the next episode of Take The Lead Radio.
Important Links:
Keith Krach – Take the Lead Radio Past Episode
@TheJasonGarner - Instagram
@TheJasonGarner – Twitter
Daniel Goleman - Take the Lead Radio Past Episode
Tom Ziglar - Take the Lead Radio Pas Episode
Tom Hopkins - Take The Lead Radio Past Episode
Jim Kouzes - Take the Lead Radio Past Episode
Rear Admiral Paul Becker – Previous Episode
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Jim Collins – YouTube
Amazon - SPARK: 5 Essentials to Ignite the Greatness Within