Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Let's talk about Hope first. Okay. Hope is misunderstood.
It's far more than just mere positivity.
Hope is not a Pollyanna attitude. It's not just seeing the glass is half full or wearing a set of rosy colored glasses that taint your view of reality.
It's not denial. It's not sticking your head in the sand and hoping that storms will pass and leave you unscathed. Hope is not a strategy. I take exception to that, and I'd like to dispel that myth because I believe that Hope is actually the foundation of all strategy.
It is your best strategy. I mean, if you think about it, Brandon, from a practical standpoint, if you're involved in an endeavor and the people that you're working with view that endeavor as hopeless, what's the chance of your success?
[00:00:50] Speaker B: In today's episode, I talk with best selling author doctor Randy Ross about his book fireproof, extinguishing anxiety and igniting hope. Randy's worked with renowned brands like Delta, GE Appliances, McDonald's, and Chick fil A. Randy will share the four beliefs that drive hope and how to be the best for the world instead of the best in the world. So why stick around? Well, it's proven that high hope people are more productive, healthier, happier, and live longer than low hope people. So stay tuned.
So, oak, Jake, thanks for joining us on Cultural Leadership podcast, mate. What I want to start with is what inspired you to write this book, Fireproof Happiness.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Well, Brendan, thank you for inviting me to be on the podcast. And fireproof happiness really grew out of the COVID pandemic.
I had a friend when Covid hit and things began to shut down, as you remember, supply chains were interrupted and we had stay at home mandates, and the world seemed to be falling apart. And he said, randy, you know, we don't know how long this is going to last. We don't know how deep this trench is going to be. You really need to write a book on, on hope. And I thought, that's really interesting because I wanted to talk about the connection between hope and happiness, because everybody wants to be happy. It's the, you know, universal pursuit. But what does happiness mean? And how do you, how do you actually attain happiness? There's a very wise man by the name of John Templeton who once said, happiness pursued eludes, but happiness given returns. And so I started looking at all the research around hope, what hope actually was, and saw this dynamic interconnectivity, this correlation between hope and happiness. And so I dug into the research.
I wanted to find scientifically validated, peer reviewed papers that had been published on the efficacy of hope. And that's where I began. And then it really, out of that experience, began to address maybe a larger concern, because back at the end of the cold war, Brandon, the. The army war college came up with an acronym that described world conditions at the time. And you may be familiar with this, but it was. It was Vuca, v u c A. There's actually Vuca training right now internationally. For some of your listeners, they may be familiar, but VUCA stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.
And I thought, man, that's a great descriptor of where our world is now. And quite frankly, it's a good descriptor of where our world has evolved after Covid, and we currently are experiencing volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity. Well, I wanted to turn that upside down or change it, if it were. And so I think you can turn vuca into kavu cavu. Now, that that's a term that pilots use, but it means ceiling and visibility unlimited.
Anybody who's ever taken a commercial flight, you know, in the midst of a rainstorm, understands the experience of climbing above the cloud banks until all of a sudden, you rise above the clouds. And when you do, then it's blue sky, and you can see forever. The horizon is clear without obstructions, and that's a kavu sky.
When a pilot says ceiling and visibility unlimited, that's what they mean. So I wanted to write a book that would help people who were experiencing a vuca world create kavu, a blue sky life. And so that's the genesis of the book.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: I love it, mate. I had no idea the origins of Vuca. I love the play with the kavu and how that's worked out. What I have to ask, though, is, why did that friend come to you or think that you're the man to do this?
[00:05:24] Speaker A: Well, my entire career has been spent inspiring, helping, motivating people, drawing out the very best, helping them find meaning and fulfillment in their work. And he was someone that I trusted who said, randy, seen a lot of content on the market.
That's faith based when it comes to hope. Well, I speak to Fortune 100, Fortune 500 companies, and I couldn't lead with faith as the answer to providing hope, but I wanted to do it from a scientifically validated perspective. And I really found that there was an immense amount of research, surprisingly, that talked about the connection between hope, happiness, health, longevity, productivity, and how it tied into faith as well. And so I combined all of that and really tried to help people understand what hope was, because I think hope is one of those things that if you ask people, they would tell you that it's absolutely essential to sustain the human spirit. But if you ask people to define hope, they have a real hard time doing it, because it's one of those ethereal concepts that sometimes is difficult for us to wrap our head around. And so I wanted to make it very practical, easy to understand, clearly defined, and come up with some practices, as well as unpacking some of the principles that would help people apply it.
[00:06:53] Speaker B: And let's, I will ask you to define hope for us. But also, when you do that, can you define this term, fireproof happiness, just so our listeners have got an idea of what that set the context of it?
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Sure. Well, let's talk about hope first. Okay. Hope is misunderstood.
It's far more than just mere positivity.
Hope is not a Pollyanna attitude. It's not just seeing the glass is half full or wearing a set of rosy colored glasses that taint your view of reality.
It's not denial. It's not sticking your head in the sand and hoping that storms will pass and leave you unscathed. And maybe a lot of your listeners, maybe you've heard this phrase, hope is not a strategy.
Right.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: I've had a guest on this show say exactly that.
[00:07:42] Speaker A: A lot of people banter that about in corporate circles, and I understand what they're trying to say, but I take exception to that, and I'd like to dispel that myth because I believe that hope is actually the foundation of all strategy.
It is your best strategy. I mean, if you think about it, Brandon, from a practical standpoint, if you're involved in an endeavor and the people that you're working with view that endeavor as hopeless, what's the chance of your success?
Very slim.
So every worthwhile endeavor has to be built upon a foundation of hope. So I define hope after kind of pulling together the research and just coming up with a working definition. I define hope as a dynamic motivational system that's tied to inspirational goal setting. So it's a dynamic system. It's a framework.
It's constructed with principles that are transcendent and universal. But there's a specific approach, and that approach is it has to be inspirational goal setting. And I unpack in the book the power of inspirational Goal setting, because goal setting, as we've described it oftentimes in corporate circles, is simply inadequate. It's not enough to have a smart goal, and some people are familiar with that. Acronym.
It's not enough to have objectives laid out that are time bound and achievable. There's a deeper component that I think many goals miss, and that's that they're not values or character based.
And I think in order to be effective, all goals have to be values based, and they have to be tied to the growth of character.
Or one other way to say it is that the metrics don't produce value.
Value is foundational in driving the metrics. And I think if you get one ahead of the other, then it begins to fall apart. And so everything we talk about is foundationally built upon principles that are transcendent and transformative from the field of axiology.
And that's fun for me because I have the chance to travel the country and go around the globe unpacking these principles of axiology and talking about how they can be applied to enhance performance and help people find deeper meaning and fulfillment in what they do.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: Yeah. And I know that we wanted to unpack this term in a bit more detail in axiology, but what I'd like you to do before we go there is can you just give a real life working example around sort of hoop and how it's linked a dynamic system tied to operational goal setting, and then that bit, particularly about the values and character based side of that.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: Yeah, well, let's build a case for hope, shall we?
And so we talked about just sheerly the impact that hope can have.
Some things that are definitely worth considering for any business owner are the fact that hope leads to lower absenteeism, which is very interesting. Matter of fact, there was a study done by James Avey at the Central Washington university, and they did a data analysis of a Fortune 100 company in the high tech space that had 179,000 employees. And they did a swath study of that group. And what they were able to determine is that high hope engineers in that environment missed work, on average, beyond their regular time off paid leave. They missed only three days or less a year in work compared to their low hope counterparts that took off, on average or lost, on average, ten days per year.
And after all the data was crunched and brought together, they discovered that the low Hope engineers represented four times lost productivity of the high hope counterparts.
So, literally, hope was the single greatest factor in determining whether or not someone was gonna just simply show up. And as we know, showing up is half the work, right? That's where everything begins. That's one thing. Another study that was done showed that high hope individuals are 14% more constructive, more productive than their low Hope counterparts. And if you think about that, that's pretty impressive. That just simply means that high hope individuals, if they were to work seven days a week, get more done in six days than their counterparts get done in seven days, also discovered that high Hope students, on average, scored an entire grade higher ten point differential than their low Hope counterparts. And in the United States, Hope was a greater predictor of success in law school even than the LSAT, which is the entrance exam for law school, which, again, is relatively fascinating. But high hope individuals are healthier, they're happier, they're more productive, they live longer. So longevity is a piece of that. And all of this information just proves the business case for the need to emphasize hope and hope. The direct link between hope and happiness, as I unpack in the book, is very, very clear.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: Could it be true to say that hope and belief could be used interchangeably?
[00:13:54] Speaker A: Well, Hope has four foundational beliefs, and maybe it'd be a good time for us to unpack those, because we call them the buoyancy beliefs of hope.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: In the hybrid working world, I've seen too many business owners and their businesses suffer because of poor performing employees, leading to below average results. If you want to improve your employees performance, to deliver consistent results for your business, you have to master one on one meetings. The doors to our master one on one meetings training program are opening soon. I'll teach you how to improve employee performance and deliver consistent results using one on one meetings. To be one of the first people notified when the doors open, go to leaderbydesign au waitlist. Don't wait, sign up now, I guess.
Definitely, let's unpack those. What I just want to say, just as I'm listening to you, and it all makes perfect sense. Randy. Absolutely. And what the research is saying, just looking back, and even when you refer back to the hope, is a strategy. Like, I know that when you take that as a simple statement, what the context of that statement means, but then you being you and the research you've done and uncovered is sort of unpacking that a bit more, that if you don't have hope, and I guess this is where I just came to believe, if I don't have hope or I don't believe in someone or something, then I'm not going to have that enthusiasm or any of that sort of drive to go and get stuff done, am I?
[00:15:33] Speaker A: That's right. I mean, foundationally, essentially. That's exactly right. Because hope is this idea that I have a destination, I have a preferred place that I'd like to wind up, and I believe I can get there.
It has to do with determination. Absolutely.
And so that's an essential part.
If you don't have a goal, if you don't have an objective, if you don't have a desired destination, then there's no real reason to have the motivation to try to get there.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: I guess before we started recording, you know, we got to know a bit about each other and things like that. And you guys have got a fantastic trip. You and your wife have got a fantastic trip plan coming up, but you wouldn't have the drive to. I know it's not you, it's your lovely wife planning all this and stuff like that. But if she didn't have the hope that this is going to be a fantastic trip and it's going to be a great time for us and we're going to have so many memories, why would she bother? So this is where the hope, it sort of feels like me and I've got a bit of a business improvement background hope to me, and how you've explained it, how you're reframing my mindset around it, is that it's almost like the root cause for so much stuff. Like if you can build hope, then you have the energy, you have the drive, you have the resilience, you have the whatever to help take you through to whatever that next step or steps are going to be.
[00:16:59] Speaker A: That's exactly right.
You're spot on, mate.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: That now seems like the perfect time for you to unpack. How do we give people hope? How can you help people become more hopeful, if that's right to say, yeah.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: And there are habits of hope. We might want to talk about some of those in just a little while. But it begins with a belief system, and you're absolutely right. And there are four. There are four foundational beliefs of hope. The first is positivity. In other words, I believe that my tomorrow can be brighter than today, no matter how dark or how bleak today may be. So it begins with positivity. And there's a lot of research that's come out of the school of positive psychology, the University of Pennsylvania, Doctor Martin Seligman, and it's very, very helpful, and I am a big believer in that. But here's the interesting part. Positivity or optimism is not enough to sustain you during the darkest days, which is what the research revealed. And I think that's fascinating, but it is foundational.
So positivity is the first belief.
The second is responsibility.
I'm not a victim of circumstance. I have a say in how my life unfolds. And it's this idea that there are so many things in our environment, in our world, over which we have little or no control. But the one thing we do have control over is ourselves and how we respond to it, and how we choose to emerge on the other side of any challenge. So you have positivity, then responsibility. The third belief system is agility. And agility simply says there's not one single way to reach any desired destination. That if you have a picture of a preferred future, you pursue a path in an attempt to get there. But if that path is blocked, if there are obstacles there that you did not expect, then you can always choose an alternate path. You can choose another route. You can choose to clear the obstacle. Or sometimes you can choose if it's too costly to consider, you can choose to regole and. But the idea of agility means that there are multiple ways that we can get to any desired destination. And through creativity and collaboration, we can make it happen. And then the last one is your reality. You have to embrace the totality of your reality, no matter how harsh it may be, because it simply says that any pursuit is going to be met with certain obstacles. In other words, very rarely when we pursue a goal, is it all clear sailing. It's not always going to be Kavu skies. We still have to rise through the storm before we come out on top. So we have to acknowledge right up front that there will be challenges along the way. So it shouldn't surprise us. But we need to prepare and then have the emotional fortitude to endure or persevere through those. So, positivity, responsibility, agility, and then your reality. Those are the beliefs that undergird a healthy high hope quotient. And when we embrace those principles, then we can begin to apply the practices as well, or what we call the habits of hope that surround those. To be able to accomplish whatever it is that we set our minds on. But the belief system, the buoyancy, beliefs of hope are essential to elevating our hope.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: I love it. Positivity, responsibility, agility, reality. You've defined each one of those. A friend of mine uses the word hope a lot, and she uses it as an acronym in helping one person every day. So let's piggyback off the back of that helping one person every day. Talk us through how you would help me, a business owner who is feeling hopeless. How do you help me have these beliefs? And then we can drive into the habits.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: Okay, well, I love the idea.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: I feel not hopeless, by the way. I have hope, but let's use me as an example. Hopefully, I'm solvable. I hear you.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: I hear you. And that's. That's a great statement to make, because I think there are times that we all struggle with hope.
You know, in our darkest hour, let's just acknowledge the reality that every single one of us faces challenges in life, that the universal thread that winds its way through humanity and puts us all on the same plane level is the fact that we all, as human beings, experience suffering.
Now, your suffering may be different than mine. My challenges that I face are totally different than someone else's. But the reality is suffering allows us to be connected in humanity.
But I think one of the things that happens when we go through challenging times is we have this tendency to turn the focus inward and think about ourselves. Woe is me. Why is this happening to me? I can't believe that this is taking place, to your friend's point, helping one person each day, when we turn that focus outside of ourselves and we begin to focus on doing good for other people, we know psychologically that's one of the fastest ways that someone can rise out of depression.
So to get the focus outwardly rather than inwardly, the first thing I would do for a business owner is talk about the need for him or her to take care of their people, that as they focus on taking care of their people, their own anxiety will be alleviated. Or as they think about creative ways to go about meeting their needs. I love. I love the.
In the book, we unpack what we call the pivotal question. And the pivotal question when we go through a difficult time or tumultuous circumstances is not, why is this happening to me? But here's the question that turns every problem into a possibility.
What does this now make possible?
Okay, so that's eliminated. Okay, so now I've hit that roadblock. Now I'm experiencing this challenge. Okay, but what does this now make possible? Because creativity is what you get when other options are taken off of the table.
And I think by asking that question, what does this now make possible? It changes the focus and takes it away from those things that you can't do and the limiting factors and forces us to begin to think about and explore what might be possible, what could be done, you know, and it opens up a whole new vista and energizes us to think, okay, well, that's. We got to leave that behind, but what does it open up before us? And so I think that helping one person every day is a great way to simply say, take the focus off yourself and begin to think about the vast opportunities that are still present, even though now we're dealing with some maybe limiting factors.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: And it makes, again, it makes perfect sense, the looking outward and even that question, that's a fantastic question. What does this now make possible? You're turning your mindset from a, I guess, can we say a victim mentality into an opportunity mentality. But you know as well as I do, like, all this stuff makes perfect sense. There's just, there are people there that just don't.
They know it. They understand. It's like a norm. It's like a belief. Those things are very hard to, to sort of do thought reversals on, aren't they? Like, it's. I don't. I don't know if you've got an answer for this. Like, if people are there, then they're there. And that's very difficult. There may be some mental health attached to that. I don't know. But how do you, what's the toughest challenge you've had in the, in the work that you're doing in trying to help somebody transform from that victimhood mentality into this positivity and starting to embrace these four beliefs and then turning those into habits to keep driving that into a sustainable action and sustainable behaviors?
[00:25:25] Speaker A: Sometimes I think it's helpful. It's never, it's never good to compare yourself to other people. Sometimes I think it's helpful to hear other people's stories.
And one of the stories that I unpack fairly thoroughly in the book is the story of an individual by the name of Viktor Frankl. And some of your listeners may be familiar, but Victor Frankl was a.
He was a psychologist, a incredible individual who wrote the book man's search for meaning. And Viktor Frankl was. He survived the nazi concentration camps of World War two, but when he was taken out of the ghetto and incarcerated in the prison camps, everything that he had was taken away.
All of his worldly possessions were stripped away. His family members were all taken to the concentration camps. They all eventually lost their lives in the gas chambers. Viktor Frankl himself, because he was a scientist, was conscripted to document the atrocities that the Nazis perpetrated against the jewish people in a lot of their experimentation. And he was forced to endure that. And he saw the brutality that humans could perpetrate against one another. But he also saw in those moments, the incredible grace and dignity of one human being offering assistance and encouragement to another even as they walked to their certain deaths in the gas chambers. And what kept him alive was this idea, Brendan, that he imagined in his darkest hour what it would be like to endure all of these atrocities and yet come out on the other side and be able to offer something of value and meaning to the world. As he talked about, how do you survive the most challenging times in life and still maintain your dignity and your purpose? And what he said was, in his writing, everything can be stripped away from you except one thing.
There's one thing that no one can ever take away from you, and that's your own power of choice.
It's the last great human dignity. The power to choose how you will respond no matter what happens around you. What's more important is what's happening within you. What's happening within you to fortify your belief system, as we talked about earlier. To solidify your value, construct what's happening. To cement and solidify the very character that would allow you to not only face, but embrace life's most difficult challenges and still be able to offer something of value. To be generative in your outlook on life, to not let the world oppress you, but for you to be renewed in your thinking so that it's such an empowerful, empowering act that then you're able to do good for others. And I think that was the motivation that drove him. And for him to come out on the other side and to write a book like man's search for meaning.
In the times that I get down, I get anxious, I get depressed, I think about what he endured and my challenge is pale in comparison.
And then to hear his writing, to read his writing, coming out of that experience is just such an encouragement to me. Because to be a man who is so solid in his own self respect and introspection, to be able to endure those kinds of hardships and that amount of suffering and to come out on the other side so gracious and giving provides for me a path forward.
[00:29:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's certainly. I mean, it's a powerful history and a powerful comparison, isn't it, that there's so much learning and power in some of these historical moments? Fortunately and unfortunately, I guess what I think we're saying, if I can, I don't want to say dumb it down, but just simplify a little bit from the listener's perspective that if you can find something that resonates with you, that there's always a person in a worse situation. If you can find something that a story and the one you shared is absolutely powerful and should resonate with anybody on this earth. But if they find that story that is there, they kick up that boot up when they are feeling down. And like you said, we all feel down. We can all lose hope from time to time. I mean, you got four kids. I've got two kids. And I think sometimes we lose hope with us being good parents and stuff like that and applying different things. So I think that's what you're saying, is that if you can find and attach yourself to a story and in those moments of feeling a little bit more hopeless and situations getting you down and stuff like that, reflect on that story, find that story, think about that story, and then use that as a reframing of your mindset to get back on track.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: I think that's well said, Brendan. And not only to find a story that's inspirational to you, but realize that you have the opportunity to write your own story. And that's where that idea of responsibility comes in. That no matter how dark this chapter may be, I am responsible for writing the next chapter of my life. And as an author, I know that in order for me to write the next chapter, I have to end this chapter. So with every new beginning, there has to be an ending.
And so endings and suffering and challenges are a part of being able to launch a new start. And the idea that we have the chance to recreate ourselves on a daily basis should provide great inspiration and encouragement for all of us.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: And I know we're talking a little bit about future happiness, but this is where your book remarkable came in. And I know. I remember watching something on you, and I wrote something down about. I think it was the end of a keynote you did. And you said something like, choose to be what I was designed to be, or you choose to be what I was designed to be. Can you start to unpack that a bit? Can you unpack that a little bit more for our listeners?
[00:32:17] Speaker A: So, that's at the end of what we call the remarkable manifesto.
And remarkable is not only the name of our company, but it's also the name of the book that I wrote some time back.
But remarkable means that you live life or you do business in such a way that you blow people away, that you exceed all expectations, that you provide world class service, that you impact people's lives in such a way that when they leave your presence, they have this irrepressible desire to talk about you and the good that you've done in their lives. And when people are remarking about you, then you indeed have become remarkable. So it's about how do you impact other people's lives for good? You know, how does that happen and why does it happen? And I just believe that we were all put here on the planet, not just to breathe the air and use the resources for our own good. But, you know, my mother used to be a big fanatic. She raised all of us, and she said, wherever you go, when you leave, it should be better than when you got there.
Meaning that don't leave a mess behind.
Improve upon it. Leave something for someone else to enjoy.
And when I leave, when I depart this earth, if all I did was breathe air and ravage the resources of the planet for my own advantage, then my life will not have left a permanent legacy.
But if I'm consciously thinking about leaving it better than it was when I got here, if I'm thinking about what a positive difference I can make for other people, that's what we were designed to do.
I just believe that God gave us all the opportunity to connect with one another in such a way that we can enhance and improve our existence together. And it's one of the things, quite frankly, our society needs more now than ever before, because there is such a myopic mentality, and individuals and governments and corporations, and there needs to be more conscious capitalism. How do we connect with one another? How do we connect with our communities in organizational life? How do we connect better with our own, our own employees to create a better employee experience?
Because the customer experience is going to grow out of the employee experience.
And how can we create a better community that's committed to doing good in the world?
I think that's the purpose of business. The purpose of business, in my estimation, I may be wrong. It's not simply to make money.
The purpose of business is to improve the human condition, to do good, to make the planet a better place.
And if we do that, we will make money. But if businesses only exist to make money, it won't be too terribly long until people realize that they're only here to make money, and they will abandon their cause. But I have this firm belief, Brendan, that people like to do good business with businesses that do good.
And so I think businesses that do good, they give back. They connect. There's a conscious awareness that they've been placed on the planet to do more than just create a product, but to improve the human condition. Those are the organizations that I've seen have been able to exceed those that are more focused on just making money.
[00:35:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's maybe why that connection with you've worked with a number of industries, but there's certainly a number of industries there that are service focused as well, focusing on others. So probably why they, they resonate with you and you resonate with them. The other point that I'd make, and back to what you said, the power of choice. So all of that stuff you said about remarkable and being remarkable, we all have choice to make about how we make our life remarkable, how we help other people be remarkable, what we do, how we define what remarkable is, don't we?
[00:36:22] Speaker A: Oh, no doubt about that. You know, we talked a little bit about axiology at the beginning of the podcast, and axiology is a fascinating field of study. It comes from, it's a strain of philosophy, it goes all the way back to plato and socrates, and it's about virtuous living.
But at its very heart, axiology is an attempt to define and measure good.
But when it comes to organizational life, what axiology is all about, it's about creating movements of good. And it's creating movements of good that I think we need to be focused on, both as organizations and as a society.
And those principles, as we try to unpack them in our writing and in our teaching, are very powerful, powerful principles that can codify a strong culture, that can bring meaning and fulfillment to life. And a lot of those principles are based around the idea that life, at its best, is about creating value.
It's about value constructs, value creation.
And just foundationally, how can we live lives that are virtuous and give back to others to make the world a better place?
And so that's, that's what we try to focus on in all of our writing and all of our speaking and all of our training that we do. And the impact is, is quite extraordinary.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: So let's get, you know, again, there's always people out there that will roll their eyes about, oh, that's a bit wishy washy and stuff. Let's get concrete. So what's Doctor Randy. Doctor Randy Ross's movement of good? What are you doing to, what's your movement of good?
[00:38:03] Speaker A: Well, my movement of good is very simple.
You may be familiar with the Gallup research about employee engagement. And Gallup has been doing their research for the last 20 years on engagement, not only of the american workforce, but the global workforce. And we know now that less than one third globally, less than a quarter, the workforce is highly engaged, which means that they have very little emotional attachment to the work experience, only 25%, which to me is horrific, because that means that three quarters of the planet wake up, and they hate going to their job.
So, for me, I'm on a mission.
I'm on a mission to help people find deeper meaning and fulfillment and passion in their work, because life is too short not to enjoy what you do. And so I'm on a mission to help organizations, particularly leaders, craft relationally rich environments where people can thrive and find fulfillment in meaning.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: Love it, mate, and underpins all that is making them find hope, helping them find hope. So how do you just back to that point around hope? What are some of the habits that you sort of started to allude to a little bit ago around helping people be more hopeful and finding hope? They've got these beliefs before, beliefs. Now we're getting into the habit side. What do people do?
[00:39:45] Speaker A: So, practically, how do we apply that? Let me offer to you three. In the book, we unpack ten. They're actually more than that, but we wanted to focus on ten habits of hope.
[00:39:55] Speaker B: You're gonna give us the top three?
[00:39:59] Speaker A: I'll give you the top three.
The first one. And this may surprise a lot of people, but you have to have your own personal mission statement. What is your personal life purpose? Every organization worth its salt has a purpose statement, a reason that they exist. They have a mission statement. What are they here to do? But as I ask leaders and just the workforce in general, what is your life purpose statement?
Very few people have one, or at least they don't have one that they can articulate clearly. And everyone needs to have a clear life purpose statement. As a matter of fact, if you go to our website, on the resource page, there's an opportunity. You can get free worksheets to create your own life purpose statement. But everybody needs to have that because it sort of serves as a. The North Star, you know, the Polaris in the night sky.
Brandon, you and I were talking about before we started recording the fact that I'm a certified captain. I love to sail.
Every sailor worth his salt, he knows exactly where the North Star is, because the North Star gives you your position in the night sky. You know, where you chart your course according to where you're in relationship to the North Star, because it serves as a guiding light, literally, to help you find your way. And I think everyone has to have a mission statement, a life purpose statement that does thing. So that's the first thing. The second thing I would say before.
[00:41:39] Speaker B: You go on that, what's yours?
[00:41:41] Speaker A: My personal life statement. Already in my words and in my deeds, I exist to inspire people to be remarkable.
Now that may not mean a lot to you, but every single one of those words is highly impactful for me.
In my words, because I'm an author and I'm a speaker and my words are important. And I kind of pride myself on being somewhat of a communicator. But it's not enough to be in my words. It has to be in my deeds, too, because if my deeds don't resonate with my words, then it's not consistent. So in my words and in my deeds, in my lifestyle, I want to inspire people. I don't consider myself to be a motivational speaker. I'm not trying to get people to do things they don't want to do. I want to inspire them. I want to light the fire within them so that they can pursue their own passion. I want to see that come to the forefront. So I want to inspire them to be remarkable and remarkable. We already unpacked that earlier. What that means? It means to live life in such a way that you blow people away because of the good that you've done. And they begin to remark about the positive impact that you've made in their life. So that's my personal life purpose statement.
But the second thing is, I love it.
[00:43:01] Speaker B: Mike, sorry to interrupt you. I'm being a bit rude, but I love that. And it did make some sense to me, maybe because I've researched a bit about you in preparation for the interview, but. So it resonated straight away and I love it. Just last night, there was something else I was doing around some of my messaging and the work I do, and I wrote something about I exist to create empowered entrepreneurs to connect with family, friends and community.
I know this is not a right or wrong thing, but does that feel good enough to be a mission statement? But this is deeply meaningful for me for a number of reasons.
[00:43:35] Speaker A: Absolutely. And here's what I encourage people to do.
Start writing down.
[00:43:41] Speaker B: It's a pretty powerful place to go, isn't it? Just start.
[00:43:45] Speaker A: Mine has evolved. I've sharpened it, I've refined it over the course of time. Some things that I used to embed within there, I've let go of, and I've latched onto other components. I've crystallized it, I've shortened it.
So just start. Just get a start. Who are you? What are you committed to and what are you here to do?
Because, you know, a life that's not on course, what is it? The unexamined life, right.
It's not going to be a productive life. And so just start and give yourself grace and refine it and make it better as you go. But just get started.
[00:44:26] Speaker B: Great advice, mate. I'll let you go to .2 now if you like.
[00:44:31] Speaker A: So let me see how I'll take. .2. Let's just say this is a very pac, impactful, just do a relational inventory.
In other words, in all of our lives, we have what I call balcony people. And we have basement people. You know, there are some people who stand in the balcony and cheer you on. They're your cheerleaders. They. They applaud your success. They encourage you. They draw you to a higher level of living. They want to see you play your a game. And we need to have more balcony people in our lives and fewer basement people. Basement people. Not people who literally live in the basement. People who drag you down. Those who don't energize you, they deflate you. And so we all need to do a relational inventory and begin to expand.
Hope filled, optimistic people who are influencing our lives and begin to limit those. And we may choose to help a few people who are struggling, and that's great. But if those in your world are more downers than uppers, then you may need to make some changes and put up some guardrails and draw some boundaries to begin to eliminate some of the negative voices in your world. So that you have a chance to emerge more hopeful and optimistic. So the second thing I would suggest is do a relational inventory. With whom would you like to spend more time? And maybe we need to invite more people that are productive and positive into our lives and begin to eliminate people that are a drain on us, to put ourselves in a better emotional state of health.
And then a third one, I would.
[00:46:07] Speaker B: Say is, again, sorry, I've interrupted you again, haven't I? We should just cut these out of these out of the interview. My interruptions. But again, the quote that resonates is that Jim Rohn quote. You have the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So that relational inventory makes a lot of sense. If you're spending time with people who are you feeling like you've just been sapped of all your energy and stuff, then I mean, what I say to people, it's not about cutting your friends out the equation, but just be conscious about the amount of time you're spending with those people. Because if you're spending a lot more time with those people than those that are lifting you up. Again, the basement people versus the. Sorry, what were the elevator people? Balcony people. I love that. The basement people versus balcony people. Spend more time with the balcony people. That's what I say. So I think that's what you're saying, mate. I'm on board with you.
[00:46:52] Speaker A: Well, and your mother, you used to say this all the time, right? That birds of a feather flock together and show me the five closest people to you and I'll show you the trajectory of your life, because they're going to influence where you your final destination. And so it's not a matter of cutting all negativity out of your life. You can't do that. Everybody has, you know, that. That distant uncle, that's crazy. Or that family member, that's a drain. We all, we all have that we can't avoid them, but we can begin to limit their impact and their influence in our lives.
[00:47:29] Speaker B: I'm just hoping that I'm not the person that my friends are starting to think, oh, actually, I need to spend less time with him. And hopefully yours aren't doing the same thing as well, mate.
[00:47:38] Speaker A: Exactly. Exactly. It's probably a good thing to ask, you know, people around you. I hope. I hope I'm not your cousin Eddie.
[00:47:44] Speaker B: Right, exactly. Exactly. Anyway, I'm starting to knock a bit of my own ego here, so let's go to.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: .3 and this is probably one of the most crucial, and I say that the third thing is you need to set values based, inspirational goals.
And I said earlier when we were talking that a lot of our goal setting is ineffective because it's not character based. Let me give you a quick illustration of that, Brandon.
Oftentimes we set metric driven goals for ourselves. I'm going to reach this milestone of success by this period of time. I'm going to make this much money, we're going to grow a company this size.
There's nothing wrong with metrics, but they're incomplete.
Every year after the holidays, first of the year, January, everybody makes New Year's resolutions. New Year's resolutions are goals. What's the most popular, common New Year's resolution that most people make every year? Well, I've eaten a lot of, I've eaten a lot coming through the holidays, so I'm going to commit, I'm going to lose some pounds. Let's just say my goal is I'm going to lose ten pounds.
Not a bad goal. So what do we have to do if we're going to lose ten pounds? Well, there's certain things we have to do. We have to eat well, we have to count our calories, we have to exercise regularly, we have to hydrate, we have to get good rest. But here's where the problem comes in.
Because we're so focused on the metrics and what we have to do, and there's no character foundation to it. What ends up happening is we do that. We eat well, we watch our calories, we exercise for a period of weeks, and then we're beginning to make some progress. And then all of a sudden, we go out to our favorite buffet.
And what happens? We all go through these mental gymnastics. I've been so good that I'm going to reward myself tonight. And so we go back through the buffet line twice, or we hang around the dessert tray too long and we self sabotage, right? Or let's just say we stay on our routine for a couple of months, we finally hit our goals and we've lost the ten pounds, and then we go out and celebrate with pizza and beer, and again, it sets us back, because that's a sheerly metric driven goal. I'm going to lose ten pounds. But what if, instead of that, what if we packaged it differently? What if we infused values?
We talk more about character? So this year, instead of losing ten pounds, I choose to be. It's not what I'm going to do, but I choose to be different. I choose to be healthy.
Now, what's a healthy person going to do? Well, a healthy person is going to watch what they eat. They're going to be cognizant of their calories, they're going to work out, they're going to exercise, they're going to hydrate, they're going to get good rest, they're going to see the doctor. All the things that we do are pretty much the same. But now when I go to that buffet, two or three weeks after I kick this off, I get there and now it's nothing. I've been so good, I'm going to reward myself. But now the question is, what would a healthy person do?
A healthy person makes a good choice. So I continue to eat healthy. So the foundation, the basis of what I'm doing is driven by a value construct. It's not just a matter of hitting certain metrics. And I think organizationally, sometimes we miss this. You know, organizations are notorious for setting high and lofty goals. We're going to be the biggest and the best.
And the question I ask is, who cares?
And the team members are going, who cares? We don't want to be the biggest and the best. It's not about being the best in the world. Here's my question. What if we were to choose to be the best for the world.
What if instead of making more money, we wanted to do more good and we make more money so we can do more good?
So now all of a sudden, all of a sudden, the mentality shifts. And it's not about the widgets and the products and the services that we provide, but it's, we do that because we want to make a difference.
I've got a, got a real life illustration of that. There's one company here in our country that you'd be surprised. They're in the quick service restaurant space.
And I won't share their names. It's not necessary. But, but I make the point very clearly that their mission statement is not what you would expect it to be.
Their mission statement is to be the world's most caring company.
It has nothing to do with the products or the services that they provide, because that's almost irrelevant. That's, that's, that's what allows them to be caring. But they're the, they, they are on mission to be the world's most caring company, to care for their own employees, to care for their clients, to care for the customers who, you know, frequent their, their, their establishments. And as a result of that, here's what's fascinating.
They have surpassed in gross revenue their top five competitors combined. I, and they've done it with one third the number of retail outlets.
And think about it, they have more gross revenue than their top five competitors combined. We're talking about a national organization now. They're expanding globally. It's not a small, local enterprise. This is a national company.
They just cleared $20 billion in gross sales. So it's a pretty substantial entity. And their mission statement is to be the world's most caring company. Now take that down to a mom and pop shop. The same thing applies.
If we do what we do to make a difference in the world, we will make a dollar if we do it with the right attitude, and we do it to serve others. Now, don't get me wrong. This organization has a great product and they've got a great culture, and they deliver with excellence. So it's not just a matter of, you know, being compassionate. You've got to be compassionate, but you've also got to be competent. You've got to be consistent.
But when you get that blend, that mix right, and your commitment is not to be the best in the world, but to be the best for the world. And people begin to sense that, it brings us full circle to the fact that people like to do good business with businesses that do good.
And that's foundational, I think, to any productive enterprise.
[00:54:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I couldn't agree more, mate. If I'm linking everything that you've said in a short statement, it's one of those, it's almost like the hope to be that identity, that identity of caring for people, then that's what drives their actions, their goals, that all that, you know, back to that value based, or that third point, the value based, inspirational goals. They have hope that they can be that organization. Therefore that's driving their activity, whatever activity and whatever that spreads to.
[00:55:27] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, here in the states, our constitution says, of the people, for the people, by the people.
The same thing is true with any organization of the people, for the people, by the people. It's all about the people. It's not about the product or the service. It's not about the economy. It's about. It's about people. At its heart, everything is about how are we taking care of people?
And that's true of our nuclear family, that's true of our organizations. That should be a true of society. Because it all gets back to these principles of axiology. How do we define good, how do we measure good and how can we create movements of good in the world?
[00:56:18] Speaker B: Yeah, spot on, mate. It also answers the question why? You know, there's unfortunately, there are people in this world that have tough lives. And in my experience, ten out of ten times, it's. They always have problem with people. They. They don't connect with people. They don't hold good relationships with people at all. They may be very competent, some of the things they do, but if they haven't got that relationship building ability and that ability to maintain sustainable connections and relationships.
Yeah, the world falls over pretty quick, mate.
[00:56:44] Speaker A: Yeah, it does, it does.
[00:56:47] Speaker B: It's all about connecting with human beings, isn't it, mate? Yeah, we're definitely on that, on that page together. Without an absolute doubt. Let's start to close this out a bit, mate. There's been fantastic value out of this conversation, without a doubt. What would you like to leave business owners with, which is the majority of my base and listenership? What would you like to leave listeners with the business owner types of. Just one bit of advice you would give based on what you've spoken about today.
[00:57:16] Speaker A: I would say pay close attention to the emotional health and well being of your people.
You know, these are times again, Vuca, volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. There are a lot of people that are struggling in silence. And I think when we express concern and compassion when we take care of people, it will produce rich dividends. That's not why we do it.
Fundamentally, we do it because it's the humane thing to do, but making sure that your people are in a place where they can flourish.
This idea of flourishing in organizational life is beginning to take root. We're beginning to see the ROI of care. There's a lot of research being done right now on just the impact of care, caring for people, and what it can do to your organization. But I would say take care of your people so your people can take care of your customers.
[00:58:24] Speaker B: Again, I love it, mate. It's absolutely not rocket science, is it? You just live that, keep that there, and do it every day can make a world of difference.
In regards to your just that. Almost the final question, but in relation to your book, Fireproof Happiness, how do you see that in all these workplaces, things change so quickly? How do you see that either your work or the need to the application of that book evolving over time?
[00:58:51] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate that question, because things are morphing rapidly, whether we're talking about remote work or the challenges that we're facing, you know, economically, politically, relationally, emotionally. But I think that the principles that I unpack in the book are both transformative and they're transcendent, meaning that they are universally true, that they've been around forever and they will exist forever and they will be impactful forever. So the principles that we talk about in fireproof happiness, it really has to do with creating an internal system, a belief system, and a structure where that no matter how intense the circumstances may be externally, that we're always able to elevate above those. You know, my wife and I went on a trip not too terribly long ago to a beautiful. A place in California. It's Napa. It's wine country.
And we had this extraordinary opportunity to take a hot air balloon ride over. Over the Napa and Sonoma valleys. It was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. But when we got there early that morning, Brendan, they were. They were. They were filling these brightly colored envelopes with heat. They had two massive butane tanks that were shooting 13 million btus of hot air into those canvases. And it was enough to incinerate everything around it. But they were able to masterfully harness and capture the heat to the point that those big balloons began to rise and then waft back and forth in the morning breeze. And finally, when they were filled, the basket began to lift off of the ground. We got on board and we ascended. And it wasn't too terribly long as we got off the ground, that all the breeze that we experienced on the ground was gone. Because now we were literally riding with the wind. And it was a very surreal experience, because the wind that had buffeted us on the ground now was no longer a factor, because we were being carried on the wind. And it was an incredible experience that kind of encapsulates everything that we're talking about, because in order for those balloons to rise, they had to capture the heat.
And as individuals, you know, there are things that come sometimes the world brings the heat, so to speak.
But we don't have to resolve ourselves to getting burned.
If we know how we can harness that heat, and we can allow it to cause us to rise to new heights, to the point that we're no longer being buffeted by the wind, but we're being carried by the wind. And the interesting thing is, although we had a flight plan, we had a place that we wanted to go, a desired destination.
The wind changed and altered our course, but it was okay. And we wound up landing in a place that was not exactly where we had designated priority, but it wasn't too terribly far away. We had to rego. But we made a soft landing, and we had the experience of a lifetime. It was a great memory for my wife and myself. And I use that as an analogy to say that life sometimes does bring the heat.
But as we harness the heat, we can rise above life circumstance, so we get an elevated position. We can experience Kavu sky ceiling and visibility unlimited. And we can have the ride of our lifetime. We can't control the wind, and we can't control the weather conditions, but we can determine where we choose to land.
And it may not be where we originally chose to land, but if we demonstrate creativity and agility and we embrace the totality of our reality, then life can be a remarkable adventure, filled with fun and memories and meaning and purpose that we can't find otherwise unless we were hope filled. And that's what I want the book to do, and that's what we want all of our writing to do, is to inspire people to live lives that are extraordinary, live lives that are remarkable.
[01:03:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you, mate. A great, great story to share. What I loved even more was the fact that you said that these principles are timeless. Because I could not agree more. They are absolutely timeless. So, like any good principles and foundations, they are timeless. Right. So, mate, our final question with you today is, in your experience, what's one thing that's helped you develop a culture of leadership?
[01:03:26] Speaker A: The one thing I would say develops a culture of leadership is well, I'm going to say three things if that's okay.
I would say I guess I let you vulnerability, transparency and trust vulnerability is being honest with yourself, about yourself.
Transparency is being honest with others about yourself. And trust is the result of those first truth too. And trust is the commodity of leadership. When we create a trust environment, then great things can happen because we aren't being held back by toxic behavior and trust environments are powerful and much can be done because you're not held back by unhealthy activity, but you can accelerate growth and productivity.
[01:04:21] Speaker B: Love it mate. Vulnerability plus transparency equals trust. Beautiful. Well Randy, I think your mother will be proud mate, you've definitely left our podcast better than how you found it, mate. Thanks for being a fantastic guest on the culture of leadership.
[01:04:36] Speaker A: It's my pleasure Brendan, thanks for allowing me to be a part of this.
[01:04:40] Speaker B: Absolute pleasure buddy. These are my three key takeaways from my conversation with Randy. My first key takeaway confident leaders lead with hope. They inspire their team to believe in the outcome.
This helps create a positive and resilient work environment.
It encourages team members to strive towards shared goals irrespective of the challenge. Hope acts as a foundation for motivation forward momentum. My second key takeaway. Confident leaders own their power of choice. They recognise and embrace their ability to make impactful decisions. By owning their choices, they can navigate obstacles effectively and shape their paths proactively. This fosters a sense of control and purpose within their team.
My third key takeaway, confident leaders are remarkable. They stand out by embodying confidence that resonates with their team. This confidence inspires trust, commitment and excellence, driving teams to achieve outstanding results and fostering an environment where individuals feel valued and motivated to perform so. In summary, my three key takeaways were confident leaders lead with hope, confident leaders own their power of choice and confident leaders are remarkable.
Let me know your key takeaway on YouTube or@thecultureofleadership.com thanks for joining me and remember, the best outcome is on the other side of a genuine conversation.
