IDL20 Season 1: Know What You're For with Jeff Henderson
How do you incorporate focus and balance into your company so that your customer is not at risk? What is the chain reaction between an emotionally healthy leader and a happy customer? Why should leadership and marketing be on the same page?
Jeff Henderson brings forward the 2 questions of what are you known for and what do you want to be known for, and he points out the gap between these 2 answers. Jeff has a way of inspiring people to reach their maximum potential while understanding that it will not only positively impact one’s company and organization but also establish a legacy of healthy growth.
Meet Jeff Henderson
Named by Forbes Magazine as one of 20 speakers you shouldn’t miss, Jeff Henderson has become a trusted voice for businesses and non-profit organizations. His career experience not only inspires groups and individuals but also provides tangible strategies to help them grow. Ultimately, Jeff’s aim is to help organizations build a good name where both purpose and profit thrive.
His best-selling book, Know What You’re FOR, launched a movement in non-profits around the world and has become a focal point for many businesses.
Jeff has worked for well-known organizations such as the Atlanta Braves, Callaway Gardens, Chick-fil-A and North Point Ministries, one of the largest churches in America. While there, Jeff where he led three churches over 17 years and helped launch North Point Online, one of the largest online ministries in the world.
Jeff and his wife Wendy have been married 25 years and have a daughter, Jesse, 21 and a son, Cole. 19.
Visit his website. Connect on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Visit The FOR Company website and sign up for FREE resources.
In this episode we discuss:
Creating a business for customers and for staff
Diving into the book
Don’t lose the focus or the balance
CREATING A BUSINESS FOR CUSTOMERS AND STAFF
In order for you to show up for other people, and in order to be supportive and lead others, you need to show up for yourself.
“I think there is a relationship between being for others and creating a business for others, but ultimately emotional health is really important because ultimately that is what you are going to deliver to customers. If you want to have a robust customer environment where everyone feels valued and cared for … then you got to have an emotionally healthy staff as well. ”
There is a chain reaction that goes down the business where when the leader can show up for themselves and care for their emotional health, then they can lead and care for their staff and employees.
Then, when the employees feel cared for, listened to, and supported by the leader then they can feel ready and empowered to provide the best service and customer support to the clients of the company.
diving into the book
Questions in Jeff’s book that you can and should ask yourself as a leader:
1 – What do you want to be known for?
This question might sound easy to answer in the beginning, but it lies at the core of the company because whatever this answer is will end up guiding how the company completes its work. If there is confusion about what it is that a company does, it becomes susceptible to open-ended work that is not impactful and that leaves customers feeling confused or unheard.
“The leadership team isn’t even clear about what we want to be known for, and if there is confusion in the office space then there will be confusion in the marketplace. ”
2 – What are you known for?
This is not your question to answer because the answer to this question comes from your customers and indicates whether or not you are connecting them to their needs.
“That’s not your question to answer, it’s the customer’s reflection back to you on whether you are delivering on your brand promise [from] question number 1. ”
You need to collect data to see whether you are known for what you want to be known for. You can then develop systems in order to understand how to close the gap between what people know you for, and what you want to be known for.
DON’T LOSE THE FOCUS OR THE BALANCE
“You can’t be known for everything but you do need to be known for something, and what is that? Stay with that … another word for it is focus. ”
By remaining close to and practicing the focus of the company, you can stay on track. However, there is a natural pull to sustain and protect the company but if you are not careful with that natural pull, the protection of the company comes at the sacrifice of the customer.
If you become more concerned with speed and efficiency and product management over whether or not the customer is wanting the products in this way, you risk losing the customer, and then the company is left creating services for an empty room.
There needs to a balance between focus and the customer. Keep making products and providing the best services you can but align those services and products to how the customer is responding to your business.
Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:
Visit Jeff’s website. Connect on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Read his book Know What You’re For
The Impact Driven Leader YouTube Channel
Join the Impact Driven Leader Community
Connect with Tyler on Instagram and LinkedIn
BOOK | Jeff Henderson – Know What You’re For: A Growth Strategy for Work, an Even Better Strategy for Life
BOOK | Simon Sinek - The Infinite Game
About the Impact Driven Leader Podcast
The Impact Driven Leader Podcast, hosted by Tyler Dickerhoof, is for Xillennial leaders who have felt alone and ill-equipped to lead in today's world. Through inspiring interviews with authors from around the world, Tyler uncovers how unique leadership strengths can empower others to achieve so much more, with real impact.
Rate, review and subscribe here on Apple Podcasts or subscribe on Stitcher and Spotify.
that’s what great leadership is: it’s not about what can i get out of people. It’s how can i add value and serve them.
Jeff Henderson
Podcast Transcription
[TYLER DICKERHOOF]
As you've heard, part of this podcast is also doing the Impact Driven Leader round table. I want you to listen to this quick message from Josh, who's part of the Impact Driven Leader round table and the value that he's gotten out of it. And this is an invitation. I want you to come sit at our table. You're going to learn, you're going to grow and you can't help but have a great time with us. So thank you for Josh for being a part of the round table. And I invite you. You're listening. There's a seat for you with your name on it. Come join us.
[JOSH]
Hey, Tyler. Josh here. Hey, I just want to take a quick second and thank you for all you're doing with the Impact Driven Leader, in particular, the book club round table. And when I first was thinking about starting the round table, I was looking at reading one book a month, and this is in addition, I'm a big reader, in addition to the other books, I would be reading plus a busy career, a really busy family. And I thought, "Man, I just don't know if I can do that." But sometimes in life you think, "I just need to go for it." And I made this decision to go for it. I'll tell you what I haven't regretted a single second. I've been able to keep up, it has really pushed me and challenged me to do that, and often in life we think we can't and yet we don't even know our limits and I've been able to keep up.
The conversations have been incredible. In fact, not just the books, but the conversations that we've had at the round table have really impacted me, impacted my thoughts, impacted my actions and therefore impacted my business and the people around me. And I've got a ton of value out. It's been very worth the time, worth every minute. I would do it again if I could and I would certainly encourage anybody who wants to grow in leadership, be connected to people from various industries across the nation to get involved and get going.
[TYLER]
Welcome back to the Impact Driven Leader podcast. This is Tyler Dickerhoof. Glad to be with you again, another episode, and this episode kicks off the book of the month for June. The book is Know What You’re FOR by Jeff Henderson. I'm so excited to share this interview conversation with Jeff. You're going to hear a quick little expert in the beginning, just to give you some background on Jeff. Jeff was first with the Atlanta Braves, hen he worked with Chick-fil-A, he moved into North. Point Ministry, has a background in marketing, but has really kind of answered these two questions. What are you known for? What do you want to be known for? And those are the questions he poses. And I think from a leadership perspective, when we embrace them, and he talks about the gap in between those in his book and in this interview, when we shorten that gap, we drive up trust.
We engage with those employees and customers and the feeling I have is customers are both internal and external. As a leader, you're really trying to serve those in your business just as much as if you're trying to serve sandwiches like when he was at Chick-fil-A. They're serving their customers. Well, I believe as a leader, you're just as much serving the people on the inside. So thank you for being here for this episode, thank you for all of those that are part of the round table and the book club. We've enjoyed some great books for the first half of this year, and I'm excited for this to be the cap for the first six months. And I would love this. If you guys are listening to these podcasts, subscribe, share it with somebody that's going to get value from it. Give me a rating, give me a review, let me know what you think. Send me an email, say, "Hey Tyler, I like this. I would love to know more about that." Jeff has such great information. I'm going to get you guys plugged into. It's going to be part of the show notes and I can't wait for you to listen and I'll be back with you at the end.
[TYLER]
All right, Jeff, welcome to the Impact Driven Leader podcast. So excited to be with you. Before we get going, I want to share something. You don't know this and I think there's only one other person that knows this and it's a mutual friend, Mark Colt.
[JEFF]
Oh, wow.
[TYLER]
And I got to share this because it's very pertinent to this podcast. So I used to host a different podcast tonight, kind of had this wrestle. I enjoyed it. And I heard a podcast that you were on roughly about a year and a half ago and I texted Mark and I said, man, I'd love to meet Jeff Henderson. If I got the opportunity to interview him, I would love to do a podcast again. And that was unbeknownst to you here I am. Now this'll be getting into, I think you're going to be episode 19 or 20 of this iteration in the book club and it's exciting to me because we had an opportunity to meet last fall and that is when at that, I don't think you know this, at that event is when I decided to launch a podcast and it was cool to get to know you. So I wanted to start off with that that you have made a difference in my life and here we get to talk now.
[JEFF]
Well, that's encouraging Tyler, thank you so much. And I should say my pleasure to all your listeners. So thank you. Thank you for doing what you're doing and I'm honored to be a small part of what you're doing. It was great to meet you back in November.
[TYLER]
Yes. So let's talk about your book and really want to get through that your book, Know What You’re FOR, but most importantly, as I read this book and I was so intrigued when I read it and I'm excited for it to be a part of the impact driven leader book club, where we get to break it down and really talk about it. And I want to start with this premise and I think I shared this with you and love this as a kicking off point and for you to just kind of digest it. My belief is great marketing is great leadership. What does that make you think about and lets, I'd love to jump off there.
[JEFF]
Sure. Well I think for many people, marketing has a bad connotation to it and so I think we have to be careful with that word in a sense that we're not saying we're trying to get something out of people. We're trying to add value to people and our mutual friend and hero John Maxwell talks about adding value and that's what great leadership is. It's not about what can I get out of people? It's how can I add value and serve them? And when you do that, when you have a great message, when you have a great product, it does lend itself to communicating what that is and how you can serve the world and that's where great marketing comes in. But it really does begin with great leadership and it begins with not asking what can the world do for me, but what can my organization, whether it's a business, a non-profit organization, as an entrepreneur, as a podcaster and a business leader like yourself; at the end of the day, at the end of our life, we want to look back and see that we added value to people.
[JEFF]
So when it comes to great marketing is great leadership, I think that's true because I think ultimately great marketing is all about adding value to people.
[TYLER]
I mean, as we're talking about this and just making this very conversational, you and I chatting and talk about this, I really think it comes back to the virtue of what you said is if I'm looking to add value to people in my position, my role, and as a business owner, if I'm looking to add value to people, I'm going to do that internally and externally. I'm going to do that for my customers that are partners with me in this journey in our team and I'm going to ultimately do that externally. And I think you can't have one without the other and I really believe in, and as I look at it and you go through and you break it down in your book, that's, what's magical because if you set your mind there is you've had great people model that for you. You're going to create this culture where ultimately you're going to have great leadership, you're going to have great marketing, customer service, product, because you can't have one without the other.
[JEFF]
Absolutely. And ultimately the best gift that you can give your customers is the best version of you. And so there's this symbiotic relationship between I'm going to be for you, but I'm going to be for me in terms of taking care of myself, which has been really hard for all of us in the challenging year that we've had. That's why wellness and health is really, really important because you can't give the best you have to people if you're not taking good care of yourself. So it's the old analogy, Tyler, but it's still true that when, if the plane experiences turbulence, the oxygen masks come down, you first breathe yourself before you hand it to the next person. And so I think there is a relationship between being for others, creating a business for others, but ultimately, emotional health is really, really important because ultimately that's what you're going to deliver to customers. If you want to have a robust customer environment where everyone feels valued and cared for and served and they can tell their friends about it, then you got to have an emotionally healthy staff as well.
[TYLER]
So I mean we hadn't talked about this and you didn't know this, but I've really embraced that. My purpose is to help other leaders get healthy too and I think that's physical, that's emotional, that's spiritual. That's all of those. For me, it was coming to grips with my insecurity. It was practicing more empathy. So as you lay that out, I can't help but think about the two questions that you pose in your book, and it's kind of this whole premise of four is what are you known for and what do you want to be known for? And as you have said, the gap in between there is the area you have to work. Well, as you just said that, to me, that's a red herring for a leader. You know, what type of leader do you want to be? What type of leader are you really? And it's where do you have to fill that gap? So let's first start with how did you come to those questions? Like what was your background where you came to this and like you had to ask these questions?
[JEFF]
I spent a number of years in the business world. I started in sports marketing with the Atlanta Braves. That's a baseball team here in Atlanta that consistently loses and ---
[TYLER]
I'm an Indians fan. I mean, how many movies have they made about the Braves being the laughing stock of the major leagues? They haven't yet. So it's not that bad.
[JEFF]
Well, and ironically, the only world series the Atlanta Braves have ever won [crosstalk].
[TYLER]
Thank you. Thank you. In my childhood pain just bleeds out of my heart.
[JEFF]
Thank you. Thank you for that championship you won.
[TYLER]
Yes. You're welcome. We gave to you because if I recall we were up three ---
[JEFF]
Yes. Yes. But don't get me started on the Falcons losing the super bowl. I'll just ---
[TYLER]
You've made it there. The Brown's have it.
[JEFF]
Oh gosh. Well, that's true. That's true. You can, you know Cleveland always has the upper hand of, I started with the Braves and worked for, in the marketing industry for a couple of organizations, eventually wound up working in a Chick-fil-A, which is a quick service restaurant company. It'll do $16 billion in sales this year. And just explosive growth. I transitioned from Chick-fil-A, long story to work in church world and helped launch three churches in the Atlanta area over 17 years, working with North Point Ministries, which is one of the largest churches in America. And the only reason I say that is I was with a mentor who said, I was telling him, "Wow, look how much I have been blessed to work for these thriving growing organizations." And he said, "Well, it's true, but you have a stewardship responsibility. And that is, you need to tell us how did these organizations grow." And I'm like, "Wow, that's interesting."
Then he said, "If you could boil it down to just a couple of questions or half a piece of paper, that'd be good." So I've been kind of working with these questions for a while, but when he challenged me on that, that really ultimately led to the book. The question is, as you've mentioned, Tyler is number one, what do you want to be known for? And it sounds like a really easy question, but it's simple, but it's not easy. And when I work with organizations and ask them, typically, if it's a leadership team, I'll ask them to write down what they think the organization wants to be known for on a piece of paper. Don't say it out loud, then I'll collect the pieces of paper and I'll start reading them.
And you can start to see the concern on everyone's faces like, "Oh wow. The leadership team isn't even clear about what we want to be known for." And if there's confusion in the office space, there will be confusion in the marketplace about this. And it can't also be a 17 paragraph mission statement that we came up with five years ago on a retreat that nobody remembers. It's got to be portable, it's got to be memorable. It has to be five or six people down the line in the organizational chart, if you will, need to be able to communicate, what do we want to be known for? And Steve Jobs said, "This was your unique dent in the universe." And a pastor, Andy Stanley says, "What do you bring uniquely different that's unique to your organization?"
So once you have that, and that's easier said than done, but once you have that, then the second question is what are you known for? And that's not your question to answer. It's the customer's reflection back to you on whether you are delivering on your brand promise in question number one. And as I observed the career experience that I've had and working with other organizations to see either good seasons or challenging seasons, I began to notice that when an organization has a season or seasons, when the answers to those two questions match with what they want to be known for is actually what they're known for, Then they unlock the most powerful form of advertising the world has ever seen. And that's positive word of mouth advertising. That's how you do that. You create vision carriers.
Back to your point, Tyler, there is a gap in any organization. The goal of any organization though, should be to come to work no matter what your specific job title and responsibilities may be. The good news is we're all doing the same thing. We're all coming to work today to try to close the gap between what we want to be known for and what we are known for that. You've got to get clear about what you want to be known for, and you need to have some data to let you know what you are known for. And then when you have that, you got to begin to develop systems that allow you to understand how to close the gap and that's really what the book is about, how to close the gap between those two questions. But the subtitle of the book I was really excited about because the subtitle is A Growth Strategy for Work, An Even Better Strategy for Life because these questions aren't reserved for organizational life, they are actually even more impactful for you and me.
So if I were to tell you, "Tyler, here's what I want to be known for. I want to be known for being a great husband, a great dad, a great friend, or whatever." You actually have to go to the people in my life and say, "How good of a husband is Jeff? How good of a dad is he? How good of a leader is he?" And you would discover that there are some gaps like there are gaps in any of us. And we shouldn't be afraid of those gaps, but we should be aware of them and once we are aware of them, then we have to have the courage to change that, improve. And as we do, we close the gap between what we want to be known for and what we are known for.
[TYLER]
You know, that's where I see tremendous value and asking this is, you know every business is providing some type of product, product and service. And then in that product, you can ask those questions too. As I mentioned earlier, every single leader, every single person involved in that organization can ask these same two questions like, what do I want to be known for here at this company? But also what do people see me as? It's, like you said so simple, but yet it's not easy because what blinders do we put on? Oh, you know, I there's all these exclusions and I see this as a great tool for not only understanding of business. Like really we, you share in the book, which I love is I hob and I hop and it's kind of like are your pancakes or your burgers? What is it right?
When you confuse people they're lost. Well, as leaders, we sometimes do that too. It's like, oh, I care all about you, Jeff, and your family, but hey, did you hit your numbers because that's, what's important. If you want to go to your daughter's graduation, well, did you hit all your numbers first? And it's like, you can't have that because that gap just starts to widen. And I think you mentioned the book and I think is a great point to talk about it, is that trust, because I would guess I would surmise the smaller that gap, the higher he trust, the wider that gap, the more distrust, the less trust. Is that true?
[JEFF]
Yes. Well, again, our mutual friend, John Maxwell says trust really is the fuel or the oil of the engine of any organization and in the lack of trust everything begins to bog down. To your point, that's why I put, when the International House of Pancakes "decided" to change their name to the International House of Burgers and it was a cute video because they like changed the P to a B, and I get it, but it wasn't really true. They were just highlighting their hamburgers. And it is fair to point out that their hamburger sales did go up for that season, but that's called a marketing gimmick. And if you want to build your brand or marketing gimmicks, it will have short-term gain and it will have long-term, I think, damage to your brand and your customer's trust. Because, and I loved, I put this picture in the book where Wendy's tweeted out, "can't wait to taste hamburgers from the organization that thought pancakes were for too hard."
I could, as Wendy, little chippy there, but you know I just thought that was like, "Okay, that's her perspective. I mean, nobody's getting to say the best hamburger internationally is that International House of Pancakes." And anytime I, let's just stay in the restaurant industry, anytime I go to a restaurant and their menu is 72 pages long, I just think, and I think the rest of us think, you can't possibly do all of this really, really well. You can't source all the best food. You can't train everyone to do every single one of these well. So you can't be known for everything, but you do need to be known for something. And what is that? And stay with that and I think that's, another word for it is focus, but I think once we lose that focus, we begin, in every organization, there is a natural pool to sustaining and protecting the organization.
And if we're not careful, we sustain and protect the organization at the sacrifice and risk of the customer. I see this a lot in restaurants, quick service restaurants, or whenever we would go back to the movies, you know, if you go to movies you have popcorn and they have all the popcorns in the shoot. Well, we know that popcorn is not the fresh one, but they're thinking of it as I'm just get this popcorn out to you as fast as I can. If you create a lot of hamburgers in the shoot and in a drive-through, you can get a through faster, but if you're not careful, the product, it becomes stale and not as fresh. And it might help you from getting the product out, but it hurts the customer experience and that's called insider [inaudible 00:20:05], seeing organization from inside.
So when you're truly for the customer, you have to see it from their perspective. They don't care that there's 72 hamburgers in the shoot to get, I mean, yes, they want to get through faster, but they want to make sure it tastes great and it's fresh and it's healthy. So seeing the business from the customer's perspective is really important. That's why when I worked at Chick-fil-A, I would tell operators, "Hey, I know it's the busiest time of the day, but if you can pull away from the kitchen at lunchtime and stand in the dining room and see what's happening there in the drive-through and see it from the customer's perspective, it's going to give you clues about how to better serve and be for your customer.
[TYLER]
Why do you, or it's kind of a, where, why do you think in your experience now working with many different organizations really digging into this, like what lends to people's struggling here? Is it the fear of, you know if we're too simple, we can't possibly have success. It's, and we've seen companies and you talk about quick serve. Chick-fil-A is pretty simple when it comes down to it and people make fun of them, but they're like, we're so simple work, great at it. In and out on the west coast, they're so simple. They're great at it. And I feel like as I see this, that companies and leaders specifically feel like, okay, we need to start like benefit dumping, enhancing kind of getting, adding that extra page to our menu because that's what our customers are going to endear as opposed to something I don't know where I learned this. It's like, stop, just focus on getting better rather than bigger because if you do that, you will get bigger.
[JEFF]
Absolutely. I think it's the 80/20 rule. And 20% of our products are going to provide 80% of the revenue. But you are saying goodbye to some remedy products, but I mean, yes, I know Steve Jobs had his issues, but I tell you when he came back to Apple, after being fired, the first thing he did was reduce the product offerings. And I think that was a brilliant move because he was saying, we're just going to sell four things right now. And the longer you go on that product line, it extends. And even at North Point Ministries, I mean, early on in the early, early days, we didn't do a whole lot because we wanted to stay focused. Over time we began adding things and that's natural course of any organization, but I feel like understanding that when you add something, it's actually a subtraction of the organization if you're not careful. And when you say no to something, it's an investment because you're saving your margin for what you can do. And I think if we're not careful, this is why I think it's really hard for publicly traded companies to do this because trying to balance the quarterly numbers and trying to get a quick fix, and so we'll do something to try to get a surge of momentum for this quarter. You look up and you've now have 17 quarters in 18 different products and it's that chase for the dollar.
[TYLER]
Well, you start to, you know as a lot of companies do, it's kind of like, all right, well, we made it through last quarter and what do we have to do to get more profits next quarter, what we got to roll out a new product because that'll spur all the sudden this growth. And you're like, are you just caught into the more to solve the problem as opposed to man, we just need to get a lot better at what we provide. And it hearkens in this conversation as we're talking. Simon Sinek's book, The Infinite Game. It's what game are you playing? And I would venture to guess between his book and what you're laying out and what you're trying to do is man, there has to be people speaking against it for the best of people, both customers internal and external. Am I right in that? Am I seeing that right?
[JEFF]
Yes. And I think the other consideration we have to take is the team. You know, if we'll stay on the restaurant analogy you order, you launch a new product. If you've never worked at a quick service restaurant company, let's just stay on that for a moment, I mean, launching a product, making sure you've trained, especially if you've got a franchise organization there's food safety issues, there's sourcing, there's inventory, there's profit margin. There's just so much training that goes into it.
[TYLER]
Don't skimp on the food safety, right?
[JEFF]
Yes.
[TYLER]
That's very personal to me right now, Jeff.
[JEFF]
But you can't do that and at the same time, the business has to keep sustaining. Now I'm not saying you shouldn't launch new products. You absolutely should, but I think the old analogy, the closet analogy often helps as well, that before you bring in something new to the closet, let's take a few things out. And it's easier for an organization to launch new products than it is to kill existing products. Because I guarantee you somebody, even if this product is the worst selling item, somebody in the world, this is their favorite thing and when you kill it, they're going to get really, really mad. A friend of mine, David Farmer, he's over the menu strategy development at Chick-fil-A. They were adding new sauces one time and they took away one of the sauces and killed it. And there was this guy that, I watched his video acting went viral for a little bit. He was like David Farmer from Chick-fil-A corporate killed my favorite sauce. So you're going to have people like that, who will criticize you, but if you're adding it never deleting at some point, it's going to have a diminishing return.
[TYLER]
Well, you get weighed down and there has to beg of the question, and we're going to stick with this idea of the two questions, what do I want to be known for as opposed to what do my customers know me for? And this would be my guess, if you and I are sitting here and we're strategizing, okay, and we have XYZ company, it's like, man, we should probably, I'm just going to guess, I've never worked for Chick-fil-A or in any of those other companies, but I'm going to guess, if I focus on what the customer views us as, and if I continue to innovate and add products along that line, I'm probably going to be more successful as opposed to, if I completely am oblivious to that and just do what I want to do it without consideration of the customer. I'm going to guess that's when people get in trouble.
[JEFF]
Yes. And it's true for entrepreneurs like you and me as well. I mean, if we come up with, many times entrepreneurs, what they do is they come up with an idea and then go searching for the problem. And we need to be solving problems from the very beginning. There's so many ideas out there that never see the light of day because they're not really tangibly solving the problem of the customer. That's why I think in this season right now that we're all in my friend, Michael Hyatt says that even COVID is terrible as it was, with any situation like this, you need to ask the question, what does this season make possible? And again, John Maxwell said, "Hey, as leaders, this is great. Just blame everything on COVID and make changes." Which I think was fantastic. So you got some air cover, if you will, from a leadership perspective to begin to make some changes.
And that's what I've been telling the organizations. I mean, this book came out pre-COVID, but now that I've been able to get back out and travel and these works with presentations, I'm saying, hey, now more than ever, I think this message is true before. It's even now more true than ever because you get a chance to redefine and you may come right back and say, "This is what we want to be known for." But right now you have an opportunity to do that. And don't miss this opportunity. Don't let whatever things, I don't even like the word normal, but when everything's returned to whatever it is going to be, leverage the season. It's not too late to do that. That's why I'm, whether it's traveling or virtual, I'm trying to get this message out as quickly as we can, because I don't want people to get right back into the business world and miss this opportunity.
[TYLER]
Well I'm begged of this is if we sit and wait for that normal, I already lost my hair. I don't have to worry about losing my hair, but I'm just, it's not going to happen. It's, you better take it, you can't wait and it's not going to. Our world will never be the same and so if we're waiting for that leadership opportunity, it's not going to come. And I think that's what sometimes people need that encouragement. Just go do it. As you said, so brilliantly, it's like you have air cover. There's a point of deniability. Well, it didn't work while we're still in COVID, but I tried something and I think that's good and be transparent and all those things.
I want to switch gears because I heard you mentioned this and it got me real excited. I hear you kind of have like another book coming out. It's about a little bit about mentoring and leadership. I'd love to know about that because yes, just put that there.
[JEFF]
Now, I just turned 56 and so I've got a lot of my friends that I worked with at Gwinnett Church, which was where I was from before transitioning to doing this full-time, they were all in their thirties. When I transitioned to the season, a lot of them said, "Hey, we'd like to, you know we get to be your age," which in other words, they were saying when we get to be old, we want to get to that transition, well in a season like that and still have a healthy marriage and healthy kids and all that. They said something to me, they said, credibility is the new cool because I thought, well, "Hey, there's a lot of cool guys out there, cool ladies, you can learn from." And so my 30 something friends said, "True, but credibility is the new cool. We'd like to learn from people who are in their fifties and sixties and tell us what we should do in our thirties."
When I heard that, I thought, "Ah, I think I'm going to write a book on that. So the book's called What To Do in Your Thirties and it's 30 Days to Winning the Most Pivotal Decade in your career. Because if you can win your thirties, your forties and fifties and sixties are going to be very grateful and say, thank you to you for that. That's not to say, if you're listening to this and you're 48 and you're having challenges by the way, we all have challenges, that it's too late for you. But I think this 30 something crew, this 30 something demographic is often overlooked. I mean, we focus on college students and the 20 somethings as we should. But when you come into your thirties, you go into your twenties and you kind of, you're skipping with hope and vision and then life has a tendency to beat you up a good bit and you come limping into your thirties.
If you're not careful, you can begin to settle in and settle down. So I'm trying to tell people in their thirties, you can still keep dreaming. It's not too late and there's so much that happens in your thirties. I mean, so much of wage growth happens in your thirties. Some of the most pivotal decisions in your life happen at 35. So that's kind of where I'm going. I'm trying to be for 30 somethings and I have a symbol, a little group of 30 somethings here in Atlanta that are helping me and we'll see where it goes. But yes, I mean I'm just in the early stages of it.
[TYLER]
Well, when I heard about that, I'm like, "I love it." That's why I'm doing this, is as you mentioned that it's like, yes, my thirties were getting punched in the face and how are you going to deal with this? And then really it was the transformational period for me. I'm sitting where I'm at now because of that journey and I love, when I heard that from you, because I look at myself at, I'll be 42 this summer, I never really thought about finding mentors. I mean, reaching out to get involved with John a couple of years was finding that first mentor. And I think if I were to give anyone 10 years younger or five years younger, those listening, and that's why it's doing this podcast is find those mentors, find those people that are going to walk with you because one of the great things I see, and I think you're solving, helping solve some of this problem is that generation, myself too I call it the 35 to 45.
We are the bridge in leadership right now. We are the bridge from the baby boomers to the gen Z and the healthier we are to go back to the very beginning, what you said, the healthier a leader we are, I had to get healthy too, as those leaders that you're talking about, the healthier they are, man, the better our society, organizations and communities are going to be. And it's really saying, all right, how can we all be good healthy leaders and take the great from the older generation, but understand, hey, those same things, aren't going to work for younger generation, because we've all evolved and that never has worked. You go back through all the different generations. As I've read from different people, everyone always complains when they're in their sixties, about the 20-year-olds. You can go back a hundred years and they were doing it and we're not going to solve from that, but how can we be healthier? This is the way I look at it.
[JEFF]
And I don't want to complain about the generation. I want to help this generation. And it won't be a book of like, look at all my successes. It'll be look at the things I failed at, here's the things I've struggled with, here's what I've learned from struggling with anxiety, here's, but there will be some helpful opportunities for me to share. Hey, I made a big career risk, took a big career risk in my thirties, but here's how I thought about it and here's how I approached it and I think there's some principles that can help you. Because when you get into your thirties, serious adulting happens. I mean, it's one thing to leave a job when you're 24, but when you're 35 with two kids under five and you got a mortgage payment, the stakes are higher, a little different, but there are ways that you position yourself for the opportunity, even if the opportunity has not yet arrived. So I'm very excited about it. I think this generation needs some mentors like you and hopefully we're going to assemble a lot of people that can help this crew because I really feel like if we can help them, they'll help the world.
[TYLER]
Yes. Well Jeff, thank you so much. I mean, it's the friendship that I appreciate from you and mentors like yourself and Mark and John and other guys that you've mentioned and it's really saying, "Hey my desire is to help and be for something bigger than myself." And thank you for being a part of that and being willing to spend time with myself and our audience and man, I loved your book. I'm so glad I said to Mark, now almost a year and a half ago and this day is now here and I appreciate it tremendously. Thanks.
[JEFF]
Thanks for helping getting the message out. It's important to me and to hear your story is really encouraging to me as well. And quick question for you, are you coming to Exchange in Nashville?
[TYLER]
Oh yes.
[JEFF]
Okay, good. I'll see you. Hopefully I'll see you before November. If not, I'll definitely see you then.
[TYLER]
Yes, we will make a point to do something. I would love to. As I mentioned, getting to spend time in Guatemala, I mean the more time I'm around and if somebody asks me, it's like, it wasn't around being with John. John's great. It's being around everyone else that we're all learning together in the process and that mentorship, but yet that inter peer. And to me, that's, what's so important, the round table. Is that transformation table. That's where you grow, man.
[JEFF]
Absolutely. Well, it's good to see you, man,
[TYLER]
You know, I talk sometimes about mindset. I host a Clubhouse room about mindset and one of the things I've learned is just having this selling mentality, meaning I'm going to have the mindset something's going to happen. And as I mentioned in this podcast, when I sent that message to my mentor, Mark Cole and said, "Man, I'd love to have a conversation with Jeff," I didn't know where it would be. And here we are, as I shared and maybe that isn't a big deal, but to me, it's a big deal because I realized the power of thinking, the power of your mindset. Maybe you didn't catch that out of that episode, maybe that wasn't a big thing, but I wanted to just put a star asterisk beside of it. I know that you guys probably got so many great notes.
I mean, I look at the page of notes here. It is littered with stuff and questions and ideas and thoughts. I really hope you're taking a lot away from these podcasts. I hope you're getting value. I hope it's helping you grow to be a better leader, a better leader who leads at work, a better leader who leads at home, a better leader who leads in their community because every leader was made. Every leader was made. It didn't just fall out of the womb and they were leading. We had to grow and as I mentioned in this episode, get healthy, because it's our unhealthiness that usually is the barrier as I've had to learn in my life.
Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for being a part of the audience. I am honored that you spend time with me, honored that you spend time with the guests. Again, check out the show notes, get all the links to what Jeff is doing. The For Company, a man that I just appreciate his heart and desire to serve and give for something bigger. And I believe when we embrace that, man, the world changes and we make an absolute impact. So have a great rest of your day and I can't wait to see you on the next episode.
