Why the Best Leaders Say Less and Listen More | RR371

Hi everyone, and welcome back to this week's

episode of Relationships Rule. What if the most powerful thing

a leader can do for the people around them is actually say

less? My guest today has spent over a decade helping

executives, business owners, and leadership teams build the kind

of loyalty that doesn't show up on a balance sheet, but drives

everything that does. Tim Duma is an executive strategic coach,

a Maxwell leadership trainer, a McKay CEO forum chair by day and

by night, a high school football football coach in the Vancouver

area. He believes that greatness is not something you achieve

alone. It's something you bring out in others. And today we're

talking about exactly how you do that through clearer

communication, deeper trust, and the kind of relationships that

make people want to show up and give their best. So welcome to

the show, Tim.

Pleasure to be with you, Janice.

Thank you. You know, disclosure. I said your

name wrong the first time I tried to introduce you, and that

also made me think that I loved names. And instead of saying the

S on the end of your name, it is silent. So now I'm curious: is

that French?

Is it? It is French.

Yes. Ah, okay. French Canadian or French

French?

No, French from France.

All right. So, did that haunt you during

school?

Ah, it did at times. Yes. Yes. And then you, you

know, I don't get too worried about those kind of things.

Okay. Fair enough. So yeah, there's probably people that

have known me for decades that don't quite pronounce it right,

but in the end, I don't get too excited, worried about that.

Okay, and I think when when I first spoke with

you, actually, I want to just clarify something. I forgot to

ask you before we went online. We met through an introduction

from a lovely gentleman that I interviewed called Coach Jim

Johnson. Correct? How do you know Coach Jim, or did you?

Maybe you

didn't. Well, it was probably it was more than five

years ago. I want to say probably seven years ago. It was

two weeks before Christmas. I'll never forget. And I'm in my

office, and I get a phone call from Rochester, New York. Yeah.

And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if I know a lot of

people there. And it's on the other line. It's Hey, Tim. This

is Coach Jim Johnson, and I had got to know his story, and I

just reached out to him on his website. I said, "Hey, your

story's really cool. We should connect sometime. So it's

literally days later, Coach Jim connected, and since then we've

become great friends. We talk every few months, and he's one

of the best connectors. Also, one of the you know a great

leader and a great leadership story. One of the great leaders

that I know.

So true, because he was introduced to me by

another gentleman from New York who had been on my podcast, who

was introduced to me by someone, and so on. And he was so

delightful. I didn't know his story until I was introduced to

him, but when I did, it was instant bonding because my

husband coached basketball forever, right? So we had a lot

of fun, and he was a guest on my podcast a couple months ago. And

since then, he comments on everything I post. He sends me

articles. He's very good at connecting. You're absolutely

right, and keeping nurturing relationships. So anyone who

knows Coach Jim knows that that's what it's all about

relationships. Well,

he's one of the best connectors that there is. And as

you talk about relationships, isn't it interesting where we

are in society where you and I live less than an hour apart by

car? And Coach Jim introduces us from the other side of the

continent.

I know, and I can't tell you how many times

that's happened to me. Honestly, it's amazing, but nevertheless,

it's wonderful, and I love meeting new people, and

especially people that I have connections with. So it's great.

All right, Tim. So the famous-I don't know if I shared this with

you, but the famous movie line about from the movie that

probably is way before your time, called Looking for mr.

Goodbar with Diane Keaton, Teresa by Day, Terry by Night.

That's what it made me think of when I saw your LinkedIn

profile. Executive Strategic Coach by Day, Football coach by

night. I love it. So you coach executives in the daytime, and

you your football coach, high school football coach by night.

Most people would see those as two very different worlds. So

what do you see when you look at both of them together?

I I think they're you know quite similar worlds

actually. You know, in each of the those instances, you know,

in the boardroom by day and and on the football field by night,

you know, we're you know we're leading and and we're carrying

out leadership. And you know, when I first got into

leadership, you know, soon after university, I got a leadership

role in the company, and I wandered into my first. Meeting

with with the group of people I was leading, and you know I was

ready to wow them with this amazing fire and brimstone

speech, just like an old football coach might. And you

know what? The speech I prepared wasn't wasn't that bad. It was

pretty good actually. But they looked back at me and they said,

"Why why should I follow you? And what I realized at that time

was, even though I kind of knew what leadership was loosely. I

actually didn't know what it was, or really how to define it.

And so I went on a decade and a half journey trying to find out

what the definition of leadership actually was. You

know, you have John Maxwell that talks about it being influenced,

but I really thought there was something more. You have Brene

Brown that talks about it, so the power of vulnerability, and

you have many other people carrying out all kinds of

different leadership journeys in between. But it wasn't until I

met this guy about 15 years in named Alex Hafard who wrote a

book called The Power of Magnanimity, and he said, "Tim,

the definition of leadership is magnanimity, and I hate to tell

you, I had no idea what that meant. Is

this the guy from England?

He's from. He's actually. He's from. He's a

Russian guy that spent half his life in France, Russia, and

Finland. Oh, okay. So his half is is one of his parents is

Russian. One of his parents is is French. So he wrote this book

called The Power of Magnificent. Yeah, that

word. Yes, it's hard to say it. Never mind know

what it means, right?

I've only just learned to say it recently, and

so he defines magnanimity as what I think is the greatest

line of leadership. And the definition of leadership is the

spirit of striving for greatness by bringing out the greatness in

others.

The

spirit of striving for greatness by bringing out

the greatness in others. And you know, if you go back to that

question yet about the football coach by night, you know, in

borders by day, isn't that what we're trying to do in both

areas? Striving for greatness ourselves, because if we don't

strive for greatness ourselves, it's pretty hard to bring out

the greatness in others. Now that doesn't mean we don't. We

have to be great ourselves. Doesn't mean that. It means

we're striving for it because that's always something that we

can continue to strive for and get better and better at, and so

you know the reason why I see there is similar is we're really

trying to you know work on ourselves so that we can bring

out the greatness in others. With my high school football

young men, the the greatest you know the greatest thing you can

ever say to me is that hey coach I became a better human being

because of my time with you, and certainly in the boardroom,

hopefully these companies, you know, have greater

profitability, greater success as a company. But in the end,

hopefully each of those people are just a slightly better

person as as a result of us being together, and that's why I

see them as totally synergistic. We're really doing the same

thing in a slightly different mean.

I would imagine. I don't know if I'm sure you use

analogies in the boardroom from your football career, but I just

want to go back one more step a little bit. I guess I heard you

talk about this on a podcast, and it was about the beginning

of of your path, whether what it was going to be and what it it

ended up not being, based on your time. When did you get a

did you go to school here in Vancouver?

I spent time at Simon Fraser in Vancouver playing

football and going to school, and I also spent time at

Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Right, but you didn't go to high school here.

I went to high school in Vancouver. Oh, you

did. Where did you go?

At St. Thomas More.

Got it. Good football school, big football

school, and basketball, but more football, I think. Right. So I

understand there's a story about when you were at Mercyville that

changed the course of where you were going. Can you share that

with

us? Yeah, so I was I was in my freshman year straight

out of high school, and it's you know it's it's it's the first

few weeks of practice. We still haven't had our first game, and

I'm walking off the field with our head coach, and he's one of

one of the greatest greatest men I ever met. His name's Joe

Kimball. I have a great deal of respect for him, you know, to

this day. We're walking off the field, and at that time he had

two little kids, two little boys, aged about six and eight.

As we're walking off the field, they come give him a big hug,

and and then they ran off as as he was going into a meeting with

me. And as we're walking into the team meeting, he turns to

me. He said, "Tim, I love coaching college football, and

he goes, "I love influencing young men. But he goes, "It

comes at a price. He said, "I leave home every day during the

season before my kids wake up, and I come home every night

after my kids go to bed. And you know, until that moment, I

always thought I'd take this football career thing as far as

I could. If I could play some kind of professional, I'll do

it. If I can, I'll get into coaching, and we'll see what

happens. At that moment, I realized, you know what? I don't

know if that's a sacrifice that I'm I'm willing to make. And you

know, my my dream, if you will. At that time, I was an assistant

coach in college for a couple years after I played, but I was

I knew I was going to go on to work in in other other areas

after that, and really for the better part of a decade, decade

and a half, that dream died. I I bandied around, coached a little

high school football, some some minor football, but it wasn't

until I met an executive coach who I work work with to this

day, named Dean Ritchie, and and he came in and he showed me what

coaching was. I didn't even know coaching was a thing, right?

Until I met him, and then I realized there's actually this

coaching thing that we can coach people both in the boardroom and

both in their personal lives. And I realized that even though

there was a decade, decade and a half in between for where my

dream died and where my dream reignited, that's the day it

reignited. And I realized that my call was actually to coaching

in in the boredom and life and everything, not just on the

football field.

But that when I heard that story about you. It

reminded me of a gentleman that I interviewed way back, and his

name is David Noor. I don't know if you've heard of him. He's out

of he. I think he teaches. He teaches in the MBA program at

Emory University in Georgia, but he's not originally from the

states. But anyway, and he's written a series of books. But

this one particular book, it's called Curve Benders, and he's

all about the psychology of relationships and so on. And I'm

I'm looking at my other screen because I had to put it over

there to remind me. So he talks about. I'm going to read it to

you. He highlights how certain relationships enable a nonlinear

growth trajectory beyond what we can accomplish. They often shape

who we become, and he calls those relationships curve

benders. And he describes in his book who they are, where they

are, how they, how to find and engage with them, but it made me

think of my husband originally, and now it makes me think of you

in a different way. My husband was a curve bender to so many of

his students because they weren't they they were

influenced by him in high school, and still to this day

they say things like like he was a coach first and foremost, but

he was also a teacher, and he he taught accounting. And people

will stop him now and say, you know, I wouldn't be an

accountant if it wasn't for you, you know, and that kind of

thing. So they influenced, and in your case, that coach

influenced you early on, and stayed, you know, really strong

in your life, and then this this coach that you just mentioned

that's still in your life now. So see how special people like

coaches can be over the in somebody's life. It's amazing,

and and I think you're lucky when you have that. I don't know

who my curve benders were if I had any, you know, but certainly

in your line of work, day and night, you can be that influence

on people, which is amazing.

Yeah, you know, as you talk about curve benders, it

reminds me too of one of the most impactful coaching. You can

do this in a retreat or even in a session that I've seen. Is

there's there's a great coaching retreat called the 555 The 555

asks you to think about who are the most five most impactful

people in your life. What are the five most impactful

decisions you've made in your life, and what are the five most

impactful events of your life? And but you have six

kids. We

have six kids. Any twins? For us, there's no twins.

No twins.

Okay, you're in trouble. For us, there'll be

there be six.

But when you really, if you take the time to really

think about that, and really, you know, it's really there's a

lot of self understanding and awareness that comes of that.

You're like, wow. And some of the decisions that are your top

five might not necessarily be a positive decision. Might end up

being positive in the long term. But you might have made a

negative decision together. The events might have been negative

in the moment, and hopefully we've grown from that.

Then,

and even the people, I've heard some people say,

"Well, you know what? I have four out of five are really

really positive influences. One wasn't, but also shaped who I am

today. So as you talk about this, it reminds me of some of

these reflections that help us understand where we can go in

the future through coaching.

Awesome. So I know this isn't where I started,

was going to go, but I I had to. So it's what comes to me. But

okay, your work centers on loyalty, specifically on earning

it rather than expecting it. So in your experience, what is the

most common mistake leaders make when it comes to building

loyalty with the people around them.

Well, I think number one, it's just understanding

what it is. Similar to understanding what leadership

is, when when when I go into boardrooms and we ask, "Hey,

what's the definition of leadership? It's all over the

map. What we get. Right, and some people really haven't

thought about that. It's the same with loyalty. One of the

best definitions of loyalty I've seen, as it relates to

customers, is Ken Blancher's book *Raving Fans* and he

defines customer loyalty as someone that will scream from

the mountaintops, telling other people to do business with you

for no other reason that they want you to receive the same joy

that they receive by doing business with you, you should

drive by five other businesses that do the same thing just to

go to this business. And so you can, you know, you can

paraphrase that to be loyalty in life, loyalty with your

employees, loyalty with anyone. People will scream from the

mountaintops that they should know you. You know, we talked

about Coach Jim Johnson that does that. You know, for you and

I, and for many other people. But most people don't really

understand what that takes to get there. If you think for a

moment, you think, "Hey, how many businesses am I truly a

raving fan of? They'll scream from the mountaintop, say, "You

must drive across town, across the city, across the country to

go to this place because I want you to receive the same sheer

joy. If you think about it, it's very few. It's usually somewhere

from one to 3% of all the businesses we do business with,

and it's not too different for people, right? So when we truly

understand, hey, it's a high bar for us to achieve that loyalty,

and so if it's such a high bar, I better prepare to get to that

high bar to achieve that for my in my relationships, in my

family, with my employees, and and my coworkers, and and my

clients.

Okay, let's talk now about the concept of

executive brevity. I know that this. I. That's why I asked you

if that was someone from England because I understand this is

where this came from for you. This learning about executive

brevity. What? Tell me the story and tell tell my listeners the

story and and what does it actually mean in practice?

So you know, one of the things I've been lucky

enough to do, and how I met you, was is I always look to surround

myself with game changers. Who's a game changer in my life in all

areas? And you know, eat you know multiple times a month, I

try to meet new game changers. And you know, about probably

five years ago, gentleman named Ian Price came into my life from

he lives in the UK, and since that day, Ian and I, Ian and I

talk every couple months, and and I learn learn a ton from

him. He would I'd consider him a mentor and coach of mine. And

one day he asked me a question, and I babbled on with some

answer, and you know probably spent too much time answering

the question. He said, "Tim, you have no idea what you're talking

about, dude. And I said, "What are you talking about, Ian? He

said, "Well, I know that your answer to the question is

inversely related to the number of of words you use to answer it

with. So he said, "If you truly know what you're talking about.

You can rattle it off just like that. He goes, look on

leadership. He goes, you'll rattle off and strive for

greatness by bringing out the greatest in others. You will

rattle off in those few words. And he said, if you really think

about when you go into a boardroom, and you know this is

something I've learned as well from another coach who's based

in Vancouver named Dean Ritchie. He says this all the time. When

you go into a boardroom, the whole key to great leadership is

saying the most in the least amount of time. There's a great

quote by Churchill, and somebody asked him to do a speech, and

they said, "Well, Churchill, when will you be ready to do the

speech? He said, "Well, it depends. He goes, "If it's a

three-hour speech, I'm ready today. If it's a if it's a one

hour speech, it'll take me a week, and if it's a if it's a 15

minute speech, it'll take me a month to prepare. And what he

was saying is, you know, if I'm gonna have executive brevity, he

goes, I'm gonna have to figure out. I gotta be really

intentional with the words that I say and use. So I better I

better hone in. If I have 15 minutes, I only have a few 100

words. I better hone in exactly what I need to say.

That's a great way to to explain it. I love it.

Yeah, and I think that I think that probably also goes along

with the pregnant pause and and you know. Giving the audience,

if you're giving a speech in that in that sense, a chance to

digest what you've said, and you know either if it's question and

answer or whatever, or if it's just moving to the next piece

because you want that space in between. That's so true. I think

when I think about if someone, even like in networking, when

someone comes to an event or even on on Zoom and they say,

"So what do you do? and they realize, I mean, they know they

only have 10 minutes, and there's four people in the room,

and they never stop talking. Right, so there's so much hidden

in in that whole thing. Like I'm nervous, I'm you know I don't

know what I'm doing, so I'm gonna keep talking and whatever.

Compared to the person who maybe doesn't even mention what they

do in terms of themselves, but rather in a question or

something to the other people, and then they don't say anything

else.

What's really interesting is this doesn't get

taught in in traditional sales, but if you're going to a sales

training course, the best sales training that I've ever seen is

about how to ask the right questions to have that person

sell that thing to themselves.

Right. Right. Yeah.

And so often people come into sales are like, "This

is the greatest item. You should buy it. It's a great widget. It

does all these things, but nobody's gonna buy something

because I told them to. Right. But if I ask questions, help

them understand why that might be of value to them. That's

actually the greatest sales technique. Just asking questions

and listening.

Exactly, and oh shoot, what was I going to say?

Gone. It's okay. I'm coming. It's talk about it anyway. Most

leaders I know. No, I'm not going to say it that way because

that's not true. I know that there are people who fill

silence with words because they're for whatever reason they

overexplain, they overjustify, and they overpresent, which is

what we just talked about. What what can that cost somebody

relationally with the people that they lead? And also, I put

a note here because I heard you talk about one of the the great

business leaders in that respect, and that's Jim Collins

from his book Good to Great. And I want to mention something

about that after you've answered.

Sure. Well, you know, often we miss things or lose

things because we're not listening, and it's a it's a

lost art. And when you when you start doing coaching, coaching's

you know about asking questions. Coaching's 80% of the the

coachee doing the talking, so they can help come to the to

that realization themselves. The other thing it is is especially

for me, I typically like to run fast, and I don't mean running.

I mean like in daily life, I like to go fast. But if we

really want to think through something, we need to slow down,

and so it's not natural to me to pause. It doesn't come naturally

when I hear it. It's like almost like nails on the chalkboard. I

want to chime in. I want to say something, but also I know that

that's actually where the magic can happen. And if you look at

extended pauses, another great friend and mentor of mine, Nico

Human, who's who's who's a guy lives in Greater Vancouver. He's

a he's an executive coach as well. He said to me, Tim, the

best two hours of my week, or when I waste time, and I said

that's interesting. No, nobody talks about wasting time. He

goes, no, Tim. He goes, I go to this park bench close to my

house for every two hours. I turn my phone off. I bring a

notepad. I sit there and I stare at the at the park, and he goes,

I just think, and it takes me about half an hour to actually

start thinking, and then in the middle hour I can think, and by

the last out half hour I'm struggling to think again. But

he goes, it's the best time because I'm in silence and I

understand how actually to think. It's the same thing when

we're in a conversation; we always want to chime in and

think about what are we saying next. the The last piece of this

is everybody is different, and we study you know personality

profiles like the disc profile. You realize that there's some

people that need to take longer to process than others, and

that's neither right nor wrong. The reason why they're doing is

usually they're more detail oriented, and they want to

really come up with a good answer, whereas people that are

less detail oriented will just start talking and then we'll

figure it out as we go. So people like that, when we

realize the power of silence and the power of listening and the

power of thinking, that's where the magic really happens.

You know what the the anagram of listen

is tell me

silent. It's like how easy is that, and nobody

ever knows. And I read a book once about listening, and that's

where I learned it. But it's just oh my god, there it is,

right there, yeah. It's magic. Okay, so you chair the it's

Mackay or Mackay McKay. Yeah, I was right. Okay, you chair the

McKay. You are a chair of McKay CEO Forum Group, and I was I

mentioned to you offline when we first spoke that. I just had

sort of a taste of what that is, but peer learning circles where

senior leaders come together to work through their toughest

challenges. I think that's an adequate definition. What

happens in those rooms that doesn't happen anywhere else in

a leader's life?

Well, when when you get to the role of like a senior

leader or CEO of a company, there's fewer people in the

company that you can actually go to to to talk about some of

those difficult challenges. You know, there's the there's the

mantra that's lonely at the top, and ironically, Nancy McKay, the

the founder of McKay CEO Forums, wrote a book just on that very

that very topic. Now, when you come to a peer group forum like

that, and there's multiple types of them, but like McKay CEO

forums, it's really like a personal advisory board for you

personally, as a CEO, and and for you as a human being. And

there's not really that many places in the world that you can

go to get that kind of peer peer shared experience from people

who are dealing with some of the same things in in other

industries, and so that's why there's such a great great value

in in peer learning. That's why there's such a great value in

something like McKay CEO Forum C. In adult learning or peer

learning, we learn by sharing our experiences with others, as

opposed to when we're kids in a in a school, we're we're taught

by people telling us how to do math, how to do how to speak the

language, etc. But as we grow as as as adults, and this is

something I've learned when I'm doing speaking or workshops. You

know, when I first started doing keynote speaking and workshops,

it was often a lot of me that did the talking. The more I

learn, the more I learn that it's got to be you know almost a

majority of the people doing the talking in the audience. So

we're always doing breakout sessions so they can learn,

discuss, chat, because that's really where the learning comes

when we process it ourselves and talk it out together.

So I would think, as somebody new coming to those

those meetings, those those events, I guess you call them

sessions. Do you notice a difference in people being

vulnerable enough to share when they first come versus those who

are more experienced at it?

Yeah, typically yes, but it depends. I think once you

get into the room, and you see the other people sharing that

vulnerability, and that's really you know, you know, Brene

Brown's made that term famous: the power of vulnerability,

right? But when we see others share with that vulnerability,

we realize that even if I run a company with a dozen employees,

or even with three employees, the person who runs a company

with 1000 or 10,000 or 100,000 employees, they put their pants

on the same way you and I do every day, one leg at a time.

Right.

And the first time I ever went to a McKay Forum

group, I realized that when I saw this this person who ran a

massive company, and they came that you know with it put an

issue on the table at the meeting, and I was like, "Oh

man, that's a similar issue to what I have. And so, you know,

when you go through it, you realize that hey, like, you

know, sure, there's some differences based on our size of

company, but when you really boil it down, leadership of any

type is is similar. We can learn from anyone. There was I was

once introduced to somebody by a great connector, and you and I

were introduced by a great connector, and Jim Johnson. But

this great connector introduced me, and initially, this was

about 15 years ago. Initially, I said this person. I said, "Hey,

why would you connect me with this person? I don't think we

have anything in common. Is there anything I can learn from

them? This person shook their head at me and said, "Tim, he

goes, if you're willing to look, you'll find something. So I had

go have a meeting with this person. This person turned out

to be one of the greatest connectors I've met, a great

leader, someone who I seemingly didn't have a lot in common

with, but I went there to seek it out, and I found it. So now,

just like you and I connected, anytime I connect with someone,

it's extremely rare, if never, where I can't find some way that

that person will add value to me, and hopefully, vice versa.

Yeah, and that's such a good point because I was

introduced to somebody a couple of days ago saying this person

referred this person to me because they needed some

questions answered. Some they were stuck on something on

LinkedIn, and I said, "Of course, you know. Anyway, I

talked to this person this morning, and I didn't really

know where it was going to go, or, or I could see you were

talking about the disc personality. Earlier and like

this person spoke, it was a woman and she spoke much slower

than I did and and and she was a different thinker, you know,

different way of it could just tell. So I tried to you know

mirror what how she was and and warm her up by some things that

I said, and the whole point is, I mean, she thought, or the

person who introduced us thought that there was a possibility of

some work for me there, right? But I don't want to jump in on

that. So I mean, it's important how you how you make those first

conversations. You always want to give value, right? So and you

always want to be open and curious enough to learn about

them. So let them talk, ask them questions.

Yeah, and and you brought up doing business

together, and and and you know typically in in a first time

meeting someone, we typically won't wouldn't talk about doing

business together because we need to build a relationship

first.

Exactly,

and so we do business with people. We you know hang

out with people that we have a relationship with, and so you

know if if we really come at it from a place of adding value to

others and from building relationship, good things will

happen. Exactly, as opposed to that hard pressure sales close.

I'm not really interested in that, and the majority of people

I meet, I'll probably never do business with. However, they

might know someone that I might do business with. They might

introduce me to someone. I just know that my life's better off

when I meet more good people.

Exactly, so true. I love people that say things

like that. Magic. So when you bring out the greatness in

somebody that you're coaching, what does it look like when a

leader finally stops getting in the way of the people around

them and starts truly leading through relationship?

I think it's a lot of what you know we've already

talked about. It's a lot about listening. It's a lot about

trust and building that trust. You know, like making sure that

people around them know that I got your back, and that you

know, and that you know, really, you know, failing is is only a

step towards success. You know, if I really had to put it maybe

in in in seven words. I probably put it this. There's a great

acronym, which is leading L E A D I N G, and if we talk about

what does that really look like when someone really shows up to

lead, it's this L love unconditionally, and you know

although love is you know you know Steve Farber talked about

love is just damn good business in the workplace. We still get

sent to HR if we say I love you. Now I want to make sure we know

what that means. Love means I care about you like a brother or

sister or a cousin or or a friend, right? But you know, the

Harvard Business Review also did a study saying people feel more

loved when they feel more loved and cared for at work, they do

better work. Shocking! No one's ever said, "I can't believe

that. Yet in the workplace, we're worried about love. Number

one, love unconditionally. L, E with positive energy, and

positive energy doesn't mean we're necessarily bouncing off

the walls, but we all know that person when they come in the

room that the room lights up just because they walk in there.

So E positive energy, a was steadfast accountability, and

maybe we'll get back to a little more about accountability at the

end. But those, you know, great leader holds people accountable.

If I truly care about you, I'll help hold you accountable to

achieve the things that you want to achieve, and I would have

some difficult conversations with you. Number four, the D is

dream audaciously. I'll support you to achieve your biggest

dreams, and nothing will be too big. If you say I want to, you

know, become the president or the prime minister, then I got

your back to help you get there. But we're going to have to do

some hard things to get there. The I in leading is actually a

one for the 100 zero principle. When I show up as a great

leader, I have I take 100% responsibility. I make 0%

excuses. Jim Collins calls this the mirror principle. If

something goes wrong, I look in the mirror. I don't look out the

window looking for people to blame. I'm always working on

what's the 1% I can work on, and then even if the other person

needs to work on the other 99 the N is for neutral thinking.

Neutral thinking is not positive thinking. Is not negative

thinking. It's being neutral, and the best way to describe

that is through the Apollo 13 mission. The Apollo 13 mission,

they go up in the in in the sky. They're you know around the moon

and they lose all power. Their engines don't work and they

can't get back. If they negatively thought, they would

say we're all going to die, which was probably likely. They

positively thought they'd say, "Don't worry, we have the

smartest people back at Nassau that'll get us home. But they

didn't do either of those things. They neutrally thought.

They said they confronted the brutal fact of where they are

today with unwavering faith they'll get home in the end, and

they did what they need to do day after day to get home, and

they you know worked through that. Another way to describe

that is Jim Collins called it the Stockdale Paradox, right?

Three things of neutral thinking in the Stockdale paradox:

confront the brutal fact we're ever today with unwavering

faith, we'll succeed in the end, and then do what we need to do

to get there. And then the last, the G of leading and how people

show up as great leaders in their organization is actually a

six. It's I got your six, I got your back. If you think about

the greatest leaders you've been around, you've always known that

they got your back. If you screw up, they got your back.

Saying, "Hey, how are we going to overcome this? How are we

going to learn from this? Right? There's never a problem with

failing. The problem is if we fail at the same thing over and

over again, we don't learn from it. Right. Right. So what are we

going to do to get get past it? So in the end, those leaders.

Once we do coaching, those leaders, how they show up is

through that acronym of leading.

That's good. I'll be writing that down when I get

the transcript. That's really good. You mentioned you didn't

mention it in. I think it's when I heard you on a podcast. You

were talking about how, and I just this is just a FYI thing.

When you were talking about Jim Collins' book, and you were

saying that he's not a he's a kind of a quiet guy, kind of not

out there. And I just saw that he's doing an interview, or he's

just done an interview with Oprah about his newest book. You

might want to listen to it. What

to make of a life,

yeah. There you go. Okay, so it sounds to me

like you. I got two more questions. It sounds to me that

you are a voracious reader. So, what are you reading right now?

When I'm reading, you know what? I'm rereading Jim

Collins' BE 2.0, Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0. I just

read his book, What to Make of a Life, his brand new book that's

been out for a couple months, and it kind of got me on that

train again to really think about that because in the

businesses that we work with, his time and you know tried and

true tested principles come come back over and over again. So my

last one was his one, and it got me back on his hit one of his

older ones.

Oh, so that's fantastic that we talked about

that. All right, loyalty, brevity, and courage-all things

that take practice. And for a leader who might be listening or

watching now, and recognizing a gap in how they are showing up

for their teams, where do they start? And in that, how do they

find you?

Well, how do they find me? So you can easily find

me. You can at my website serviceleadership.com. Service

is spelled S-E-R-V-U-S, which is the Latin word for servant,

servant leadership. You can email me through there. You can

also find my direct cell number through there. So you can

certainly call me. I also do a ton of work with with Lawrence

and Company. So if you go to Lawrenceandco.com, Lawrence and

spelled and A N D co.com. you'll find me there. And in Lawrence

and Co, that's where we do strategic planning for companies

across North America and the world, and a lot of that

executive coaching. So the best way to find me is through there,

or reach out to you, Janice, and and you'll find me.

Perfect, thank you. This has been a pleasure.

I'm I'd love to hear you giving your your speech to your

football team before a game or at the end of a game because

that's where it's all there, right? Season is what in the

fall in in our part of the world, right? Yes. How did you

do last season?

Last season we lost in the provincial semifinal.

Went to the championship game two years ago in the semifinal

last year.

Fantastic! Wow, good program. Missed

on the big one.

Yeah. Well, that sounds like my husband's team.

Yeah, but is it? Does that bring you back for the next time?

Yeah. Yes. And you know, in the end, look, we all

want to win, and that's really important. But you know, in the

grand scheme of things, you know, the the goal is, as we

talked about at the beginning is have we made people around us

better? Are those young men that we coached can we better

husbands and fathers, community members in in the next stage of

their life? And if we can say a little bit yes, then you know

what we did was worth it.

Exactly. Are you coaching any of your kids yet?

Yeah, I do. My um, I have a my my third son graduates

this year, so I coached him and I coached his older brother in

the last two years. He's now at university, and then now I have

three younger kids coming up. I'm still playing

football. Is your older one playing football?

Yeah, yes,

awesome. That's great. Thank you so much for

your time, Tim, and your wisdom. And I love that part better.

That we have as we get older, it's great to be able to share

that wisdom with other people. So I I encourage my audience to

reach out to Tim, see about his work. Are you on LinkedIn a lot?

Should they be?

I'm on LinkedIn. Yeah. Also, find me easily on

LinkedIn.

Yeah, and thank you again. And remember that I

believe it's all about relationships, and so it's

important that whatever work you do, that you realize that in the

end, it's we can't do it without people around us. I don't think.

Yeah. So thank you, thank you again, and remember to stay

connected and be remembered.