Latest / Scrappy but Successful [Consultant's Personalities When No One's Watching] / 13. From Social Worker to State Champ: Building Teams That Win with Nick Reich

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13. From Social Worker to State Champ: Building Teams That Win with Nick Reich · Scrappy but Successful [Consultant's Personalities When No One's Watching]

• 0:03
  What's happening everybody? Welcome to Scrappy but Successful. It's a
• 0:06
  show where I sit down with your favorite consultants and we take the
• 0:09
  comedic route through their early life, find out if they're successful
• 0:13
  today because they're sophisticated or because they're a little bit
• 0:16
  scrappy. I'm your host, Jack Tompkins, CEO of Pineapple Consulting Firm.
• 0:20
  With the fun fact of the day, palm trees are actually a form of grass,
• 0:23
  not a tree. Everybody's lying out there. But that's neither here nor
• 0:27
  there. Today I'm joined by my friend, Nick Reich. He's the co-founder of
• 0:30
  Abundant Empowerment. He's a people first leader. He's worked across the
• 0:34
  globe helping people. The list goes on. We're gonna get much more into
• 0:37
  it Nick. We know you're successful today, but the question I have for
• 0:41
  you - do you think you fall more on the sophisticated side or more on
• 0:44
  the scrappy side?
• 0:48
  Definitely on the scrappy side, Jack. And thanks for having me. As a
• 0:52
  Southern Indiana guy, grew up on the West side of Evansville, we were
• 0:57
  definitely scrappy. So yeah, definitely on the scrappy side of that
• 1:01
  equation.
• 1:07
  Nice, I like it. We will see if the data agrees with you. So my first
• 1:09
  question is usually where'd you grow up? We're already covering that.
• 1:12
  Was this like a blue collar family? Did you have entrepreneurs in the
• 1:14
  family?
• 1:17
  Yeah, no entrepreneurs. I'm a first generation college kid. My dad was a
• 1:21
  welder. He was a pipe fitter. My mom worked as a teacher's assistant
• 1:26
  most of my early childhood. No entrepreneurs. My dad's family are all
• 1:30
  farmers. I didn't think really about entrepreneurship until very much
• 1:35
  later in my life and career. Did a stint of consulting where I launched
• 1:39
  my own firm, went back in house for a while, and then coming up on
• 1:44
  another three years of being independent again. Now we're starting to
• 1:48
  grow that team. We've got a full-time staff that just joined us at
• 1:53
  Abundant Empowerment looking at adding a couple more here in 26 and 27.
• 1:57
  So getting beyond the independent consultant work and starting to grow a
• 2:02
  team as we continue to scale.
• 2:21
  I was so similar. I wanted to be Derek Jeter. Shortstop for the New York
• 2:22
  Yankees. I was like, that's the only thing. School doesn't even matter.
• 2:24
  I'm just gonna be shortstop.
• 2:25
  I just aged myself a little bit because for me it was Ozzie Smith and
• 2:29
  the St. Louis Cardinals. So that's early 80s there, Jack.
• 2:38
  Ozzie Smith was special though. He was the guy doing backflips. Yeah, I
• 2:42
  remember him. He was amazing. Farming's a little bit entrepreneurial
• 2:47
  though. Were your parents farmers as part of a larger team? How does
• 2:51
  that work?
• 2:59
  No, my grandparents and a couple of uncles still farm, very small farm
• 3:03
  in Posey County. I am not a farmer. My dad was not out there. I still
• 3:08
  don't like getting my hands too terribly dirty. I did not fit in to the
• 3:12
  mold on that side of the family.
• 3:43
  What was your first job? Did they have you working on the farm?
• 3:47
  No, no, no. They wouldn't have let me anywhere near those things. My
• 3:51
  first job was super random. My junior year of high school, a friend of
• 3:55
  my mom's - her husband owned a tech company. This would have been like
• 4:00
  95. I spent the day researching online dating sites because they were
• 4:04
  investing in a group and they were going to compete. So I was creating
• 4:09
  fake dating profiles and just seeing how things operated. Pre-cell
• 4:13
  phone, pre-app days. I sat at the computer and tried to figure out their
• 4:18
  responses and I would send the reports back so they could build their
• 4:22
  online dating app. That was the first gig.
• 4:27
  You were catfishing.
• 4:48
  Are you quality checking the platform or are you messaging people?
• 4:53
  Honestly, I don't even remember. I think we were just quality checking
• 4:55
  the platform. I don't remember having any conversations.
• 4:58
  No catfishing, okay. Is there any like, did you have a lemonade stand?
• 5:02
  Were you bartering with friends? Did you sell candy at school? Anything
• 5:07
  a little accidentally entrepreneurial?
• 5:14
  No, I don't think so. I came through school, I was a social worker. My
• 5:18
  focus was very much on giving back. It was not about the money side. I
• 5:23
  became a school social worker as my kind of post-grad degree. Not until
• 5:27
  really the consulting side, which came much later, probably about seven
• 5:32
  or eight years in, did a stint of consulting where I launched my own
• 5:36
  firm, went back in house for a while, and then coming up on another
• 5:41
  three years of being independent again.
• 6:24
  Okay, very nice. As you grow the team, I know you're very obviously
• 6:25
  people focused. You've got a book coming out. How do you recruit people?
• 6:27
  Being a people first person. Do you lead with that or do you just let it
• 6:28
  We got really lucky with this hire. We knew we needed someone to lead
• 6:32
  operations. Myself and my partner Andrea both fall very much on the
• 6:37
  visionary founder side. So we knew that we needed someone to come in and
• 6:41
  manage systems and process and operations. We put that out into the
• 6:46
  universe and had someone - we're Indianapolis based - Nicole, our ops
• 6:50
  director is in Atlanta. She had reached out through LinkedIn. Andrea
• 6:55
  knew her years ago. They got a virtual coffee and she got off the call
• 6:59
  and said, we need to hire Nicole. So we did. It is something in those
• 7:04
  conversations that we lead with - what does people first look like in
• 7:08
  action? What are the actual beliefs that we try to hold ourselves
• 7:13
  accountable to?
• 8:09
  Okay, so I love this scrappy way to hire somebody. It's not this long
• 8:13
  sophisticated format, it's just hey, really good feeling, I know this
• 8:18
  person, it's gonna work out. Very visionary, very scrappy at the same
• 8:22
  time.
• 8:31
  I ran myself through the ringer with my own questions. I'm like, man, I
• 8:33
  am just 100% scrappy. I would rather start something and ship a product
• 8:35
  when it's in beta testing mode rather than get it 90% done.
• 8:37
  I always say - is it a hat, a haircut, or a tattoo? If it's a hat
• 8:41
  decision, you put it on, you take it off. If it's not something that's
• 8:46
  going to have a real long-term negative impact, make it quick, see what
• 8:50
  happens, try, fail. A haircut is going to be with you for a little
• 8:55
  while, but it's a month. You can shift, you can pivot, you can put a hat
• 8:59
  on to cover it up. We treat too many decisions like they're tattoo
• 9:04
  decisions when very few decisions that we actually make as leaders are
• 9:08
  actually tattoo decisions. So let's stop the analysis paralysis. It's
• 9:13
  not a tattoo decision. At the very least, it's a haircut.
• 10:09
  I love that. Scrappy doesn't mean a negative connotation, right? It's
• 10:13
  like you're going to do it and you're going to find out. And if it
• 10:17
  doesn't work, okay cool. We failed fast. We're moving on. Now, as
• 10:21
  somebody with real life tattoos, how did you think about those? Did you
• 10:25
  have analysis paralysis before getting them?
• 10:29
  I will say there's not any that I would want removed or covered up. Most
• 10:33
  of them came post 40. So it's very different when you're contemplating
• 10:38
  tattoos at 18. You probably do put a little bit more intentionality into
• 10:42
  a tattoo decision when you have a little bit more experience and wisdom.
• 11:08
  Okay, that makes sense. The 18 year old who does it at spring break,
• 11:12
  okay, maybe should have been a hat.
• 11:25
  Sticking true to that principle, even in real life. Where does the team
• 11:28
  part of you start? Are you a sports guy? Did you ever make it to majors
• 11:31
  and play shortstop anywhere?
• 11:34
  I certainly did not. I did play a couple of years of college basketball.
• 11:38
  But one of the things - I quit my high school basketball team about
• 11:43
  halfway through my senior year. It was a dumb decision. It was after a
• 11:47
  game against my best friend's school. We lost in overtime. I thought I
• 11:52
  had played fairly well, didn't get in much in overtime, and coming
• 11:56
  through the handshake line he whispers in my ear - you got screwed, you
• 12:01
  should quit. And I'm like, you know what, you're right. And I went in
• 12:05
  the locker room and I quit. On Monday you realize, holy shit, what was I
• 12:10
  doing? I didn't really want to do that. So I talked to the coach and
• 12:14
  said, hey I'd love to try to come back. He said, get your dad, come to
• 12:19
  my office, let's have a meeting, you need to apologize. I did all of
• 12:23
  that, went in and said, I'm really sorry, it was a mistake. And he said,
• 12:28
  yeah, no, too bad. You quit. Bye.
• 13:07
  Whoa.
• 13:10
  Right. So fortunately I was still having conversations with some college
• 13:14
  coaches. One gave me a chance to continue to play. I got a chance to
• 13:19
  play a couple years of college basketball at Greenville College in
• 13:23
  Illinois. But that really stuck with me. Fast forward - when I'm a high
• 13:28
  school basketball coach of a team that we're starting from scratch - you
• 13:32
  realize how a mistake at 15, 16, 17 can impact you. I was very committed
• 13:37
  to not be that type of coach and not be that type of leader. Second
• 13:41
  chances, third chances - we all need those in life. Many of the kids we
• 13:46
  were coaching may not have graduated high school if they didn't have
• 13:50
  basketball. So I have to view it from this perspective: it's not about
• 13:55
  whether or not this kid made a mistake. It's about how this is going to
• 13:59
  impact their lives long term and the role that I can play in minimizing
• 14:04
  that.
• 14:56
  How many correlations do you see between coaching high school students
• 14:59
  who are making those 18 year old spring break tattoo decisions versus
• 15:02
  coaching professional teams? Is it highly correlated?
• 15:05
  I would say it's highly, highly correlated. Humans are humans, right?
• 15:09
  The decisions are different, but the impact in a lot of ways is still
• 15:14
  the same. This outdated perspective of keep home at home, keep work at
• 15:18
  work - we've all been in situations where something happened at work and
• 15:23
  we've gone home and taken it out on the spouse or kids or dog. And vice
• 15:27
  versa - dealing with a sick parent that has some level of impact on our
• 15:32
  work. It's just different in what a 17 year old kid's dealing with
• 15:36
  versus what a 47 year old on our team is dealing with. But we're all
• 15:41
  human. The way to approach building high performing teams and cultures
• 15:45
  is highly correlated between the work I did with high school kids and
• 15:50
  the work we do now with organizations around the country.
• 16:33
  How would your son describe you as a coach?
• 16:37
  Hard ass. I coached my last high school basketball game 15 years ago.
• 16:41
  And then I started coaching my son. When we won a state championship in
• 16:46
  2011, my kids were five and four. I was yelling, I was screaming,
• 16:50
  yelling at the referees. I still see referees who probably don't like
• 16:55
  me. But what I also realized is there was so much of those things that I
• 16:59
  learned as a leader and what I've tried to incorporate over the last 15
• 17:04
  years of becoming a better leader - understanding what made us
• 17:08
  successful in being able to coach and build a program and win the
• 17:13
  fastest state championship in Indiana high school basketball history.
• 17:17
  And one of those things is high expectations and high accountability. So
• 17:22
  I yell a whole lot less now than I did then, fortunately for everyone.
• 17:26
  The high expectations, high accountability, people first leadership is
• 17:31
  not soft. I think it's a harder way to approach these things, but it's
• 17:35
  love with standards. People want to be pushed, people want to be
• 17:40
  challenged, when it's done with kindness and respect.
• 18:44
  I want to go backwards. You said the fastest championship - the fastest
• 18:48
  from what, like zero to winning? Is that what you mean?
• 18:54
  That's right, yeah. I joined Indy Met High School, which is a downtown
• 18:58
  Indianapolis charter school, as the school social worker the second year
• 19:03
  of the school's existence. It was January of the second year of the
• 19:07
  school. They were doing an intramural afterschool program, very small
• 19:12
  school. We applied to join the IHSAA, then create a real basketball
• 19:16
  team. The first year of our ability to play varsity sports was a
• 19:21
  probationary year. You could play a varsity season, but not compete in
• 19:25
  the state tournament. The second year we were able to compete. And then
• 19:30
  we won state in the third year competing. So it's the fastest going from
• 19:34
  a school not existing to winning a state championship. Four years total,
• 19:39
  three years competing in state.
• 20:22
  This is amazing. Did you expect to win the championship?
• 20:47
  Gosh, no. And I think that's the thing. If I would have focused on
• 20:51
  winning a state championship, I probably would have been very
• 20:56
  disappointed, right? You don't build the process that way. We were
• 21:00
  successful in 2011 because of seeds that we were planting in 2007. We
• 21:05
  were building a team and building a culture that led us to be
• 21:09
  successful. When we work with leaders and organizations that are only
• 21:14
  focused on an exit or a certain revenue target, we're focused on the
• 21:18
  wrong thing. I believe that when we build the culture and build the
• 21:23
  people, it's going to take you farther than you would have expected
• 21:27
  anyway. Let's build the culture that we want, build the relationships
• 21:32
  that we want, build the people that are going to get us there. These
• 21:36
  metaphorical business jerseys - we treat employees as if they should
• 21:41
  just be honored to wear the name on the front. But the people are the
• 21:45
  ones who are driving results. When you invest in the people and develop
• 21:50
  those humans, they're going to take you farther than the name on the
• 21:54
  front of the jersey ever could.
• 22:38
  Okay. I have a speech about simple steps to implement a data-driven
• 22:42
  culture. You can more easily keep a scoreboard because everything is
• 22:47
  tied to a metric. How do you define success in a company today?
• 22:51
  Basketball, you won the championship. But how do you define success with
• 22:56
  a company? Is it retention? Employee satisfaction? What does success
• 23:00
  look like?
• 23:12
  For me, success looks like what that organization or that team defines
• 23:16
  success to look like. Everything we do is to try to co-create what that
• 23:21
  success looks like for that individual organization. We do pre and post.
• 23:25
  We look at that, but it's different with every single organization. We
• 23:30
  may look at a particular tool or an assessment with one group. We may
• 23:34
  build out a survey based on leadership competencies for another. Some
• 23:39
  may want to look at retention or employee engagement. But one of the
• 23:43
  things I want to come back to - were we successful because we won a
• 23:48
  state championship? I would argue we were successful because four of my
• 23:52
  seven seniors had a chance to go play college basketball. None of them
• 23:57
  were thinking about going to college. We did not have a gym for any of
• 24:01
  the four years that we were there, so we played all road games. We
• 24:06
  rented local parks, community centers, that's where we practiced. And I
• 24:10
  got literally this week a text message from one of my players that said,
• 24:15
  hey coach, I passed my HVAC exam. Those are what make us successful, not
• 24:19
  whether or not we won the game.
• 25:30
  I like that. And if we translate this to business too, people look at
• 25:34
  success because net profit was high. But net profit is the result of
• 25:39
  literally everything else in the business.
• 25:45
  Exactly. When you invest in leadership development, they say a seven to
• 25:49
  one ROI. Revenue is going to be high because of the people. If every
• 25:54
  single person in any organization quit tomorrow, you've got an empty
• 25:58
  building, you've got some lifeless set of core values sitting on the
• 26:03
  wall. But none of that matters because everything is driven by the
• 26:07
  people within the organization. It is about the people that are driving
• 26:12
  things forward, the people that are building, the people that are
• 26:16
  breathing life into any of these teams and organizations.
• 26:38
  Take us to Abundant Empowerment. How does this start? You've got this
• 26:41
  foundation, you've been coaching, you have this mindset. How does it
• 26:44
  start and are you very scrappy when budgets are tight and getting your
• 26:47
  first client?
• 26:50
  So I actually launched a consulting company in the fall of 2023 called
• 26:54
  River and Green. My coaching and consulting work was done through River
• 26:59
  and Green. In the summer of 24, I met my partner Andrea through some
• 27:03
  work related conversations. And then we decided, hey I like the
• 27:08
  conversation, let's go get a beer. And then we started dating and then
• 27:12
  she had Abundant Empowerment. So Abundant Empowerment is Andrea's
• 27:17
  brainchild. She actually bought the URL for Abundant Empowerment in 2007
• 27:21
  with the vision of one day launching her own leadership development
• 27:26
  firm. She's been doing this work for a very, very long time. So as we
• 27:30
  continue to evolve, I took all of the work that I was doing with River
• 27:35
  and Green, including CoLab, which I launched in February of 24, and
• 27:39
  moved all of that work under the Abundant Empowerment umbrella. Her
• 27:44
  name, her vision for building this business and this brand. And I'm
• 27:48
  fortunate enough to get to come alongside from the very beginning and
• 27:53
  help support the mission and build this business. We're partners in all
• 27:57
  things.
• 28:19
  Okay, well let's mix in some scrappy versus sophisticated and next 12
• 28:21
  months. A lot of good has happened. Do you have a celebratory dinner?
• 28:23
  Like are you doing a steak dinner or are you doing pizza on the couch?
• 28:25
  So we're going to a little local restaurant in Fountain Square, downtown
• 28:29
  Indianapolis called Magdalena. Probably not pizza on the couch, probably
• 28:34
  not the steakhouse, but a little local vibe. We're going to go out,
• 28:38
  celebrate, have a glass of wine, some small plates. Definitely go out,
• 28:43
  enjoy that time, toast to a good revenue month or whatever we're
• 28:47
  celebrating. Although if it were me, I might end up at the dive bar with
• 28:52
  a pizza and a pitcher, you know, depends on the day.
• 29:18
  Look, a win is a win, right? Have you ever gotten paid via Venmo? Like
• 29:22
  business-wise?
• 29:29
  I have. Yeah. I would not necessarily recommend it for coaches and
• 29:33
  consultants, but I did have a partner. I was running a 12 week
• 29:38
  leadership program and they were paying via Venmo. The tracking of that
• 29:42
  is not necessarily up to par with full standards.
• 30:06
  The bookkeepers will straighten it out. Don't worry, IRS. Did you ever
• 30:09
  have any fake it till you make it type stuff? Like did you have an early
• 30:13
  client that you regretted because you're like, oh we could totally do
• 30:17
  this, and then you're like, yeah, we haven't done this but we'll
• 30:21
  probably figure it out.
• 30:25
  I mean, we're still doing that, Jack. We're still figuring it out. I had
• 30:29
  somebody reach out and they said, this is what we're looking for. And I
• 30:34
  said, absolutely we can do that because I know we can. We've not done it
• 30:38
  before, but we're going to figure it out. We have a client that we're
• 30:43
  building out a half day workshop that we pitched and said, this is
• 30:47
  absolutely what we do. And we've not done that before. I would say I
• 30:52
  don't know if it's fake it till you make it, but there's also a level of
• 30:56
  - we are confident in the work that we do. We're confident in the
• 31:01
  experience that we have to be able to deliver because it's all designed
• 31:05
  around what our clients and partners need. We're still faking it until
• 31:10
  we make it on occasion.
• 31:39
  There's a degree of just delusional confidence that goes so far. I did
• 31:40
  this the other day. Have you ever connected to this data source? I was
• 31:42
  like, all the time. Never done it before, but I know we can. It's no
• 31:43
  different. I'm going to figure it out.
• 31:45
  Right. And especially early on in doing some of the consulting work. My
• 31:49
  first bout of consulting was like 2013 to 2017. I found myself at a
• 31:54
  couple of tables with severe imposter syndrome back then. Just keep
• 31:58
  showing up and doing the work. And they just kept giving me contracts
• 32:03
  and it's like, they must be seeing something I don't see. Because these
• 32:07
  other consultants I'm working with are just these brilliant humans. But
• 32:12
  I said, I'm the expert in my own lived experience. So just when you have
• 32:16
  that opportunity, just keep showing up.
• 32:50
  Yeah, I've found this too. I've been at so many tables when I'm like,
• 32:54
  I'm the dumbest person here by like 3X. It's not even close.
• 32:59
  Those are good tables to be at, though, right? I mean, if I'm the
• 33:01
  smartest guy at the table, I'm at the wrong table.
• 33:04
  Exactly, that's exactly right. And I realize the other people at the
• 33:05
  table might be thinking the exact same thing. So it's just hey, I'm here
• 33:07
  too and I'm an expert in what I've done in my life. Do you leave
• 33:09
  voicemails or do you leave texts?
• 33:11
  Text me, text. In fact, if somebody leaves me a voice memo, I will wait
• 33:15
  until the transcript downloads and then I'll just read it. So I'm very
• 33:20
  much the text guy, yeah.
• 33:46
  Okay. I'm in the same boat. Do you recommend books or do you recommend
• 33:49
  podcasts?
• 33:53
  I'm a book guy and even when I'm in the car, I'm more audio books.
• 33:57
  There's very few podcasts that I listen to. I'm reading a significant
• 34:02
  amount and if I'm in the car, it's all audio books.
• 34:18
  It's a combination of both. I'm trying to get better at sending the
• 34:22
  calendar links just because I've had some feedback that it makes life
• 34:26
  easier. But I would normally have been in that situation where it's
• 34:30
  like, hey here's a few options for me next week, Monday between three
• 34:34
  and five or Tuesday between 11 and one. And sometimes my go-to now is
• 34:38
  I'll send the calendar link and say, feel free to suggest some options
• 34:42
  that work for you.
• 34:47
  That's a nice middle ground there. I like that. Have you ever given out
• 34:48
  a metal business card?
• 34:49
  No, I've not given out a metal business card. I have transitioned to the
• 34:53
  QR code business cards now, which has varying degrees of success when
• 34:58
  someone asks for a card. And I'm not the most early adopter of tech
• 35:02
  things. I'm trying to get to the little app to share a QR code. And
• 35:07
  they're usually like, just give me your email.
• 35:35
  Okay, you do a decent amount of networking I assume, right? If you're at
• 35:36
  a networking event and the conversation runs its course but the person's
• 35:38
  Yeah. I feel like I'm bad in those situations just in general in the
• 35:42
  networking thing. You see those people - there's a little small group
• 35:47
  and they just walk right up in the middle of it and introduce
• 35:51
  themselves. That's not me. I need a warm intro or once I'm in the
• 35:56
  conversation, I'm good. But usually it's try to go to the bar or go to
• 36:00
  the bathroom, whichever is the better option at that point. It's like,
• 36:05
  I'm going to finish that drink and say, look at that. It's time for
• 36:09
  another drink. So excuse me.
• 36:26
  The amount of times I've drank a beer so much faster than I expected
• 36:27
  because the conversation just wouldn't end. I love it. Okay, what does
• 36:29
  the next 12 months look like for you? You've got obviously the book
• 36:30
  I'm just so excited about this time. The book actually releases
• 36:34
  September 8th of this year. I just got the notification yesterday that
• 36:39
  shipping for my advanced copies left the warehouse yesterday. So I
• 36:43
  should have physical copies in hand here in the next week or so, which
• 36:48
  is really, really exciting. September 8th the book comes out. So a lot
• 36:52
  of the focus now is getting towards the book launch. A lot of the
• 36:57
  marketing, pre-orders, all of that good stuff. So the vast majority of
• 37:01
  the effort is around books. Speaking, podcasting, marketing for the
• 37:06
  book, pre-orders, getting up into the book launch. One of the things
• 37:10
  I've spent a lot of time thinking about is I don't want to limit myself
• 37:15
  around what's possible, especially with the book coming out. So often
• 37:19
  when we think about what we want, we're creating more of something we've
• 37:24
  already had. So I'm also saying I'm open to really cool things happening
• 37:28
  in my life that I can't even imagine. I tell the universe all the time,
• 37:33
  feel free to surprise me. I am open to really cool things happening with
• 37:37
  the business, with CoLab, with the book, with the speaking. Definitely
• 37:42
  open to being surprised by what comes next. But simply it is continuing
• 37:46
  to do the work that we're doing at Abundant Empowerment with great
• 37:51
  partners, great clients that continues to grow significantly and will
• 37:55
  continue to hit the gas in 2026. And then it's all things book through
• 38:00
  probably this time next year.
• 38:57
  This is the most inspirationally scrappy thing I've heard. You're like,
• 38:58
  I've got one main focus, but hey, if something else good comes along,
• 39:00
  I'm open to being surprised. There's gonna be some cool things that
• 39:04
  happen that I can't even express right now and I'm totally here for it.
• 39:17
  I love it, just letting life happen. There's a beauty to that. One of
• 39:21
  the last couple of questions here. Every coach and consultant deals with
• 39:26
  continuously proving value. How do you continuously prove value to folks
• 39:30
  in CoLab and to your clients?
• 39:42
  My philosophy is really around give first. It's one of my core values.
• 39:46
  Give first is the number one of my values. When I am in a place of being
• 39:51
  responsive to the needs of those around me - I have more conversations
• 39:55
  with folks that reach out to me on LinkedIn and say, hey, it's nice to
• 40:00
  meet you, would you like to grab a virtual meeting? I'm like, yeah,
• 40:04
  sure, why not? A lot of that's wasted time, but you never know where
• 40:09
  it's gonna go. But for me, whether it's with a client or partners and
• 40:13
  members at CoLab, it is how can I put myself in a position to give
• 40:18
  first. And that has always been a mentality and a philosophy that works
• 40:22
  for me. From my perspective, by being in a mentality of give first, it
• 40:27
  is not about what I can get from you, but it's also not about how I can
• 40:31
  give you what I think you need. So often we run into consultants that
• 40:36
  say, I have this solution, let me sell you this solution. I've got this
• 40:40
  training, this workshop, this framework. When you have a hammer,
• 40:45
  everything looks like a nail. When I approach a conversation or an
• 40:49
  engagement from an attitude of give first, then I'm looking to explore
• 40:54
  what you need and put myself in a position to respond to that. It's
• 40:58
  about me understanding what you need and being able to try to respond to
• 41:03
  that, whether it's through me or someone else.
• 41:51
  Yeah, I think you do a very good job of meeting people where they're at.
• 41:55
  There's something really cool about the give first, but it's also just
• 42:00
  continuously give too. Like the old give, give, give, give, give, ask.
• 42:04
  Yours doesn't come with the ask at the end, which is awesome.
• 42:14
  Yeah, I appreciate that. And those things are going to come, right? I
• 42:18
  get things, I give things, I ask for things, but it's not directly
• 42:23
  connected to it. So often if we view it from give, give, give, give, ask
• 42:27
  - I'm getting my gives in with the anticipation of the ask. I'm going to
• 42:32
  do these things, so in return, you give me something. If I can
• 42:36
  disconnect from the outcome - not perfect, clearly there's times where
• 42:41
  I'm thinking, what am I going to get? But that is the value that I hold
• 42:45
  most dear is service and it's give first. So if I'm doing that from a
• 42:50
  place of good intentions, then things are going to come back around. It
• 42:54
  is very much focused on each moment done in isolation. It's not about
• 42:59
  give to get later. It's about you in this moment - there's something I
• 43:03
  can do to add value, there's a connection that I can make for you,
• 43:08
  there's a way that I can amplify what you're doing, and then I'm gonna
• 43:12
  do that. And that's an isolated moment and then we'll move on.
• 43:31
  The gift that keeps on giving is going to be the book that comes out.
• 43:34
  Have you said the name of the book yet? What is the name of the book?
• 43:37
  No, the book is titled Every Player is Bigger Than the Program. From a
• 43:41
  coach perspective - someone that grew up playing sports, been around
• 43:46
  lots of coaches, I've heard lots and lots of times, no player is bigger
• 43:50
  than the program. We've got this established system, this established
• 43:55
  program, no player is bigger than the program. And I pushed back on that
• 43:59
  really from the beginning. For me, every player was bigger than the
• 44:04
  program. We exist to serve them, not the other way around. And I still
• 44:08
  believe that's the case for the teams that we serve as leaders. Our
• 44:13
  employees, our teams are not here to serve us. We're here to serve them.
• 44:17
  So for me, every player was bigger than the program. The title of the
• 44:22
  book is Every Player is Bigger Than the Program - a people first
• 44:26
  playbook for building high performing teams. Pre-orders are up now on
• 44:31
  Barnes and Noble and Amazon. You can reach me at peoplefirstplaybook.com
• 44:35
  or abundantempowerment.com. On LinkedIn I would love to hear from folks
• 44:40
  and see how we can support them.
• 45:17
  And folks, reach out but remember he's probably gonna say yes, so don't
• 45:18
  waste his time. Thanks so much for coming on man, I really appreciate
• 45:20
  it.
• 45:22
  Thank you for that. Absolutely. It was fun, Jack. Thank you.
• 45:30
  Thanks again, everybody. Take care.