Greg Voisen
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, host of Inside Personal Growth. And today joining me and I know I just shipped him a copy of my co-authored book. So I should remember the cities in Asia. But tell me again, Dan, where you are. It's Dan Rockwell.

Dan Rockwell
I'm in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, about two hours north of Harrisburg.

Greg Voisen
So he is in PA lovely PA. I happened to watch the series the other night about the undercover billionaire went to Erie, Pennsylvania. I thought that was a fascinating show, actually. Well, for our my listeners, this is the book we're going to be talking about is the vagrant and it's the inner leaders inner journey of leadership parable by Dan and John David man, he's also the best selling author of the Go Giver. So for all of you, we're gonna put a link out to this, this was not a single person writing this book, there was a lot of help from John man in the process. And I want to tell the listeners, Dan, a bit about you. So he's frequently freakishly interested in leadership, to say the least, he has a blog that has over 500,000 followers. He’s working to bring the my best self and service to others. As you said, you can pa Inc, Magazine's Top 50 leadership and management experts, and top 100 Great leadership speakers, the American Management Association, put them at top 30 leaders in business 2014. According to the Center for management, organizational effectiveness, leadership, freak blog, is the most socially shared leadership blog on the internet. And that's a testament to you. He's been at it a while. He started this in 2010. And writing in this blog, he says he helps people change their leadership or they're thinking about live 300 words at a time, which is true. So go check it out at leadership freak, f-r-e-a-k.com. I'm sorry, .blog. And that's where you can find out about him. You also can find out about this book, the vagrant at the same website. So please do go visit that and contact him and more importantly, I'd say Sign Out sign up for the newsletter I did. It's a great newsletter comes out subscribed me email. Good way for you to learn more about Dan and what he's doing. Well, look, this is a parable. Everybody learns from parables, Dan. We all learn because in a lot of cases, it's our own story to where parable, but it is. And the title the vagrant instantly kind of captures everybody's attention. I love the pigeon on the front cover. How does this concept of a vagrant relate to the inner journey of leadership? As you would say, because I'm not certain everybody would put the two of us together.

Dan Rockwell
Well, you know, thanks for bringing it up. And I have to tell you, we went round and round about the bird on the on the cover. And the publishers BenBella who have been fantastic, gave us these mockups and the first mock up the one of the first mock ups had this pigeon, which ended up being the original cover. And I wrote to John I said, I don't know if I'm excited about a pigeon. He said I don't either and we went back and forth. We want a strong bird. You know what I'm saying? An eagle. Oh, that's right, you know And anyway, long story short, after many iterations. We came back to realize that was genius. We love the publisher how they put that together. The term Vagrant, I was surprised to learn. The term vagrant has to do with a migratory a bird that has been blown off its migratory course. And so it fit perfectly with a story with this high potential leader, highly talented, highly successful, who unintentionally gets blown off course.
Greg Voisen
Definitely blown off course poor Bob is the manager at a hospital. He has this. He basically goes to the office and thinks that he's going to get a promotion. Instead of him getting promoted, he gets fired. And then he leaves and he has this encounter with the vagrant in the alleyway. confrontation with words. He's rambling. And then he basically repents over the words that he basically said to them, as they called it the four impediments of the apocalypse. And the ultimate meaning of these words have for Bob. What is that? I mean, that is kind of the story. It's not the whole story. But it's the starting of the story.

Dan Rockwell
It is, and you have this fellow Bob, who doesn't realize that he is engaged in self-defeating behaviors he thinks he's doing well. It is my story. Although this the story is not biographical. The mistakes that Bob made, are I made all of those mistakes, and more. And what we get the feedback we get is that one of the early readers said, I wondered if I was Bob. I mean, that's how

Greg Voisen
We’ve all been involved.

Dan Rockwell
Yes. And that's the beauty of it. And the beauty of a parable like this is that he is actually stumbling over himself, but he doesn't know it. And so that his story, as you mentioned, poor Bob, John David Mann, who was fantastic, said, on one of the podcasts we were on, we just beat the daylights out of Bob through most of the story. And some of us wake up slowly. You don't I'm saying to really kind of break through to be the kind of people we truly aspire to be.

Greg Voisen
What's the human experience? You know, I am relating an empire podcast here this morning about Joseph Campbell's the hero's journey, you know, that story has been told over and over again, no matter how many times I say it, we know what it's about people already know, how do you address this balance between introspection and outward leadership action within the book, because, you know, for

Dan Rockwell
us to change.

Greg Voisen
We have to take an introspective viewpoint, we have to look at our ego, we have to look it up being authentic as an expert, I'm sorry, and sales leader. And authenticity. And being in balance with our ego, are two big things for leaders and introspection. What would be your comments there about this outward leadership action in the book?

Dan Rockwell
Well, first of all, if you're not acting, and if you're not taking action, and if you're not fueling action, then you're not leading, that's just part of what it means to lead. Our challenge is to not lose ourselves to the action, to not lose ourselves to the job. And so I think most of us, Look, we start off truly authentic, when we are born, you don't get much more authentic than that. But then we start pleasing, you know, we start to learn how to please people. And so when you please our parents, and then we please teachers, and then we please a girlfriend or a boyfriend, or then we and then we please a boss, and you know, and after a while, we have to I think we swing back. And that's been my journey, we swing back to rediscover ourselves. So first of all, you have to act, but there is a tendency to slip into or lose ourselves to the action to the performance. And so the story, you know, helps. And at the end, the exercises help people engage in some structured self-reflection

Greg Voisen
questions to show all series of questions. Matter of fact, questions from almost each chapter. But they're all the way at the end of the book, because you tell the parable, and then you give people that on those questions I found to be very thought provoking. Right. In other words, that was the intent, I'm sure. So, you know, leadership comes from a unique set of challenges, right? We all as leaders, and I've been leader, I've owned my own companies, just like you have started your businesses, I had employees. And you're supposed to set an example. What are some of the internal and external challenges that the protagonist faced in the vagrant? In other words, this is Bob.

Dan Rockwell
Yes, Bob's chat.

Greg Voisen
Go ahead, let's beat up on him some more.

Dan Rockwell
Yeah. Bob, Bob's big challenges is ego. And arrogance, if you prefer, or pride and pride these days used to be only a negative word these days, you know, being proud of yourself is, is a much more positive kind of term. But ego is what seems to blind us. And that's what happened with Bob, modeling the way is such a wonderful thing to say. And I think when it comes to this, obviously model the way as far as being a person of action, but also model the way as far as being a person who is vulnerable, transparent, and one of the best things leaders can do to connect with people, is to talk to them about what they're learning how they're growing, the books they're reading, I just discovered this or intentionally seeking specific feedback, not just like needy feedback, like, Oh, do you like me? They like me, you know, am I doing okay? But I mean, very, you know, declare an intention, and then ask them questions around it. So seeking specific feedback, so we're modeling then what it means to grow into our aspirational self.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, you've obviously written this blog for a long time on and you're a leadership freak. And you've owned your own businesses, as you said, you've obviously been a leader. You exemplify it. And thank you for that. You worked with a co-author, John David Mann on the book. And I think that readers might be interested knowing what the experience was like. I mean, I know I just finished a book working with two other people. And in the title of the book is the precipice of life, personal growth and Leadership Lessons from the edge, mountaineers edge, right. And then anything is there is a lot of correlation between somebody mountain climbing as a team to get to the top of the mountain, and leadership. And in this case, you guys had this dynamics of collaborating? How did it shape? The story, the vagrant? And how did the two of you come away from that? Being more enriched by doing it together versus doing it by yourself?

Dan Rockwell
Right. And first of all, thank you, Greg, for your for the book. I do. I do have the book. You sent it to me. And I was stunned by your remarkable penmanship. Thank you for signing. I've made it. I made a commitment never to pick a pen up again. Because your penmanship is so fantastic. So but anyway, one of the things it took me a long time in life to learn is to bring the outside in to it was, I'm sort of like an ox, I just put my head down. I just keep going. I'll get her Did you know what I'm saying? And, and a lot of a lot of folks are like that. And in that, that takes us so far. However, if you really want to exponentially expand your life, bring people in. I had the story in my heart for about 10 years. And I tried to write it a few times, and I write every day. But I didn't write this way.

Dan Rockwell
And so,

Dan Rockwell
you know, I just it didn't work. I wasn't successful at it. And finally, I reached out to John David Mann. I thought to myself, who's the best I know. And I knew John from Bob Berg and the Go Giver series. And I've been friends with Bob, he's wonderful guy. And those books are fantastic. So I thought why not reach? Hi. I sent him an email. I said, I have an idea for a book. Could we have a conversation? Now? You got to know John David men gets a lot of opportunities to do this. He collaborates frequently. He said yes. Which I am thankful for him to get on the phone. I told him the story in a nutshell, main character, some of the bigs change at the end, and you know, just some of that stuff. And he loved it. He said, Let's do it. That's how quickly it happened. And that was about two and a half three years ago. So from them, John took he we had conversations on the phone, we emailed and then he went to my blog and you know, read a lot of material to get a feel for you know, some of the key ideas and we talked about some of the key ideas. You know, humility is an important thing in here self reflection, isn't it? Ford thing. And then John went to work. He's the guy who crafted the narrative was be it was beyond me. And that's I think one of the big lessons of this, Greg, is bring people into your life, don't hesitate. And someone said, Show me, your friends, and I'll show you your future. And, you know, John, I'm so thankful for John and him sharing his talent and his skill. I'll tell you, I'll give you this. One of the things I learned from John, one of the first things I learned from John, is, when someone tells you what you've written doesn't make sense. Or it's not clear. They're almost always right. When they tell you how to fix it, they're almost always wrong. And I thought, let's just fantastic. You know, listen to feedback, but don't let feedback drive your life. It's a, you know, it's a wonderful thing that for me to learn, you know, be confident and yet be open, which is a big challenge. But anyway, John is fantastic. I'm so thankful for him. And he added some characters to the story. That one of my favorite parts of the book wasn't even in my original conception of what was going to happen. It's the encounter that he had with his father in the nursing home. It's one of my favorite parts. And, you know, it's like, that's what happens when we team up with people. It's beautiful. Well, that's

Greg Voisen
the point I was trying to make here, too, is that I happen to be listening to Tim Ferriss about his podcast. It's been seven years since Tim's written a book, everybody knows him for the four hour workweek, right? And he's kind of crazy guy. But what he says is the first time he's ever co authored a book. And he found a co author to write this new book with, he didn't say who it was, but obviously, probably somebody pretty noted. And he said, I never trusted anyone. And he said, even today, I still have a tough time, trusting. And I think if there was one thing that you could learn as leader is you've got to let people in your organization, do what they do best and surround yourself with them. And trust that they're going to do it. Right. It just says you're there to serve them. They're not there to serve you write the Greenleaf school method of leadership. In your perspective, how does the inner journey to leadership impact the legacy one leaves behind? Because this is this is important. And I think for all of us, we look at leaders, I was listening to something another day it was a and you'll get this. No Steve Jobs passed away, Tim Cook took over. I heard that the company's grown 30 times its size, since Steve Jobs actually passed away. Okay, $3 trillion. And I was thinking to myself, whoa, what a testament to Tim Cook as a leader. And every time I see him, I go there's a man that exemplifies obviously, Steve Jobs knew what he was doing when he said, Tim take over the company. Right? Good example or not?

Dan Rockwell
Oh, fantastic. And you know, you're nailing it, Greg, this issue of trust, you know, learning to trust other people in what they're good at what they're great at. Don't hold them back, don't tweak them, don't try to give them too much guidance, just point, you're going to mean, let's just get in the same boat and row in the same direction. That's what we need to do. So John, you know, was like that for me. Steve Jobs is smart enough to you know, get Tim Cook in there. My thing Microsoft, as you know, done so well, since Bill Gates left as well. I have leaders who have struggled with delegating. I just received an email not too long ago, one of my coaching clients, and it was about delegating. And when we get on our call, I said, so how are you with Trust? Because delegating is about trust, right? If you want to expand your life, if you want to expand your footprint, then you have to learn how to trust people.

Greg Voisen
That's so true. Now, we're living in a really fast paced world and people talks about all kinds of forms of leadership. We see it all over there's so many books written around leadership. And what one can do to become a better leader. This parable helps somebody understand what's wrong with their own personality that might be blocking them from being a better leader, considering the rapid changing dynamics of our modern world, which it's all the time, how does the vagrant cater to today's emerging leaders, people that are, you know, coming in to new positions of leadership, it's happening all day long, everywhere, companies all over. But if they were going to read this book, and take away anything, what would you want them to take away as an emerging leader?

Dan Rockwell
Well, in the context of today, in such a turbulent environment and world that we live in, if you don't know who you are, you are completely stressed out. You are driven by every passion, you know, if new things come down the pike and you think, well, that's a great idea. And that's a great idea. What are we going to do about this? There is no center, there is no foundation, you've lost yourself. The first time I learned this was a during a conversation with Jim Parker, who was the CEO of Southwest Airlines, during 911. And I was so excited to talk to him. They sent me his book, and I just was delighted. So we got on the we got on the phone at the time, we weren't using zoom and all of that, and had a conversation. And I finally said, Jim, tell me, what do you love to tell leaders? What's your favorite word of advice, he said, the most underwhelming thing I think I had ever heard. He said, I tell them to be themselves. I had really no good comprehension of that. It took me a while I'm a farm boy, dairy farm boy from Maine originally, we don't worry about beat yourself, you just worry about getting the work done. And Jim explained, and it took me it took me a while to get a real grip on it. But here's the deal. If you don't know who you are, somebody's gonna walk into your office, and they're going to say, this is this, and this is this, and this is a good idea. And you're gonna say, and it will be a good idea. You're gonna say, oh, okay, great. Next meeting, somebody's gonna come into your office, they're going to tell you this, and that, and this is a good idea. And it's going to be a great idea. And it's not going to be the same thing. And you're going to be pulled over here, and you're going to be pulled on over there. You know, to use a Bill George kind of metaphor. You gotta have a true north, you got to know where you're going. And what you're about. You got are met tronics Oh, my word. Exactly. You get blown all over the place. If you don't know who you are.

Greg Voisen
Yeah. And I know, that may sound trite to some people, because you're not like, okay, know who you are. Right? It's, it seems like, Okay, I know who I am. But I think that's the inner journey that you're talking about here. That's the inner journey that Bill said to take, you know, with the North Star, that's any leadership book that's really kind of written out there. And that's what yours is, to the inner journey. What are some of the things that Bob goes through? Cuz I know, we're going to come to the section on reflections and questions and projects that you have in the book, but what are some of the things that Bob realizes along the way of this journey? And awakens to that transforms his character? Yes.

Dan Rockwell
I think the biggest point to emphasize is, Bob has a series of misfortunes, misfortunes, that kind of begin to wake him up. And so first of all, pain can be very useful. It can be a wake up call, when painful things are happening, disappointment, sadness, you know, things happen that you don't expect to happen. But the other part of Bob's journey is, there are several pivotal conversations. And every one of us have had these conversations where someone said something to us that just, you know, we didn't like it. It didn't make sense. It didn't seem in line with reality. But as time passed, and we reflected on it, we discovered they were right. And that's a big surprise for some of us. We, you know, we our perceptions are narrow and we don't always see the full picture and Bob didn't either. So you know, he gets told. Well, Greg, so look, I did everything Bob did wrong and more And I remember I was I used to be told and probably still could be your you can be pushy Dan. And my daughter, as an adult told me, I think you'd like to scare people. And this is a thing, passion can be pushy, but not know it. And, and passion can, you know, kind of like, you know, be intimidating. And I could not hear that. One day I asked my team at that time, you know, for specific feedback. And one of the ladies said, you can be pushy, I've heard that before. And I said, do you have an example? And she said, well, it's kind of hard to think of an example. I said, thank you very much. And you know, we moved on two weeks later, I'm having a conversation with a person face to face like this. She's in my peripheral vision off to my left, while I'm having while I'm having the conversation,

Dan Rockwell
she I see her she's going. That's it.

Greg Voisen
That's what I'm talking about that I'm talking about Dan?

Dan Rockwell
Yeah. And that was the first time in my whole life that I could actually perceive myself as a person who might be perceived as pushy. I'm just pushing it. You know what I'm saying? So, Bob has these conversations and will do well. Also, if we hear something a few times from different sources, we'll probably do well to listen to that too. And maybe dig into it, even though it can be painful.

Greg Voisen
You know, you bring up an important point. Now I'll reflect on it for a second. Because I think anybody in leadership goes through succession where there's a family business, or you work for a big company, and you, you are going to take that point where someone else is going to step in and take over. And having done succession planning, I realized that what mostly people want is they want to be relevant. They consistently want to be relevant. They want to contribute. Right? And you were talking about being pushy, or I should say, passionate, passionate can be misperceived I my personal purpose statement is I exist to serve to inspire passion, which is to move people from a state of confusion to a state of understanding, or at least help them get there. Right. I wouldn't have done this podcast show for 17 years, if that's what wasn't, this wasn't about. And I think sometimes it can be perceived wrong, because people used to say to me, when I had all the companies, you know, leadership is like, you know, you can be pushy, you're kind of uh, you know, you kind of can be a no at all. I was told that, right? Because there are times when you're given that power, that you do feel like you kind of know it all. I mean, hey, look at a lot of the political leaders prior to this came around. So provide the reader with let's go to this part in the book, which is actually in the back of the book, because you're going to read the parable first. And then you're going to get all these questions. And you're going to get these, which includes what I call reflections, which includes the questions and five projects. And I thought those projects were interesting. I don't know how you and John David Mann came up with that, can you provide the readers with some insights on the purpose of that section in particular, because like, look, I just read this great parable about this guy, get it? And now you're going to provide me with a section of the book for reflection. Yes. But you didn't do it along the way. You made it. I got all the way down with the story.

Dan Rockwell
Yes. So the five reflections were our practices that I have learned in I think the one that is the

Greg Voisen
perhaps five projects

Dan Rockwell
in the five projects, right. And I think the one that I like to talk about with folks, is the one that where you tried to involve others in your life in this in your practice. Because self-reflection and isolation leads to self deception. What I mean by that is, and I'm not against quiet self reflection by yourself, I'm all about it, or you know, any sort of meditative practice or anything like that. However, if you recall, Daniel Kahneman wrote this book a few years ago called Thinking Fast and Slow, right? It's filled with all these biases that we have that color our thinking and narrow are thinking and, you know, put, you know, roadblocks. We think we're making honest open decisions. But in the end, there are some Many things impacting us. This is where we need to bring other people in, and listen to them. And not just like I said, being needy. But here's so here's one for you, Greg. Everybody loves meetings, right? Not really. No. And so you say, You know what I have, I have intention here that I want to lead, energizing meetings, I want people to walk out of my meetings, more energized than when they walked in to that, my friend is a noble goal. Does it reflect what you're all about? Do you are you want? Do you want to inspire people, it would reflect what you want to do, too. So you go to a couple people on a team and say, Here's my intention to energize lead energizing meetings. I'm planning on trying this, and this, would you during the meeting, just monitor the energy. Talk to me about it and be prepared to talk to me about when you felt the energy going down, when you felt the energy going up? What did I do that serve that intention? Well, what did I do that actually didn't serve that intention? Well, and then boom, have a conversation right after the meeting, because I have to have the feedback. Like, I'm like a puppy. If you spank the puppy a week after they pee on the floor? They don't get it, I have to.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, they'll do it immediate.

Dan Rockwell
So get some very specific and immediate feedback, which then you can take and go to your own self reflection. Now, how am I going to do? How did I do? How do I want to adapt? What do I want to try next time, but the all these simpe and by the way, we're not talking about spending half a half an hour, an hour, even leaders are terrified of this self reflection being you know, a long time No, just have three or four pre planned questions that you can ask yourself after each meeting, get some feedback, keep monitoring yourself, and make sure that those meetings are really reflecting the kind of meetings that you have secretly in your heart, the way you really want them to be

Dan Rockwell
really good that

Greg Voisen
that is really, really a very good thing to leave the listeners with. Because I don't think many people choose to monitor the energy, right. But if somebody is going to monitor the energy of a meeting, especially with the amount of meetings that we have, and it's your job to come in and inspire, you certainly should have somebody monitor it and tell you when it up went up. And when it went down. It's almost like the same thing, when something happens, as a leader, that space between the time that it happens, and the actual reaction, not, no, not a reaction, we want action. So that opportunity to think about what it is that thing that you just gave us that tip is that space in between before I go, take that next action, because I need someone to assist me and giving me feedback, that energy was high, low, whatever, and then modulate that. down and in. Coming up with this, I think you've got so many takeaways from the vagrant. And again, for my listeners, here is the book, we're gonna have a link to the Amazon website where you can pick up a copy of this book, I'll also put a link to leadership freak dot blog, where you can learn more about Dan Rockwell and the book. There's actually a page there. But in wrapping things up, can you provide the listeners with two significant takeaways, you just gave us one. So maybe you only want to give us one more that could be implemented in their leadership skills, and help them become I want to call it more aware leaders, not just better, but more aware, and more sensitive, and caring and understanding. I think today leadership styles because of the speed at which we move. We have such high expectations of people, but they don't know that we have those high expectations of them. So the message gets confused. And if somebody doesn't meet that expectation, then usually it's the person who have the expectation that explodes. And it's not a good scene. So what would you do to mitigate that? What would you tell people to mitigate that?

Dan Rockwell
Well, first of all, the monitoring energy thing is huge. I've learned to do it in my coaching practice, when I see someone's energy go up in some sort of remarkable way during a conversation So now I'll stop the conversation and say, well, I, you just went bright. I want to know what's going on. So that walking around and just intentionally monitoring people, seeing when they're at their best, having conversations and noticing when they go bright. Don't try to figure it out yourself. Just ask them about it.

Greg Voisen
Don't you go bright is actually saying, Well, no. Well, you're in your case, you have this high degree of intuition. I'm not certain that and I sense that from you, you're very peaceful, you've got a great intuition. There's a lot of leaders that are hard charging, you know, just type A personality leaders, you think intuition went out with them? You know, in their early 1900s, if you know what I mean, it's like they never had it. But the key is for you to be aware, through your intuition that somebody actually has brightened up during a call, that in of itself is a big deal for a lot of suitors.

Dan Rockwell
Yes. Yes. And I think it can't be learned. So if you can, you'll have to take it step by step and just take, you know, very small steps and say, I want to notice when people's language gets more fluent, when they start to speak more freely. And just, you know, because that's more of a up energy experience versus the down energy experience. I want to notice when their eyes open up, I want to notice when they like, look up, or when they look down, I want to notice their shoulders. Do they droop? Right? I think you can begin if you're you know, say I'm just so driven by everything I haven't really been noticing people, is if you do set an intention to notice people, then you can start noticing. And then, you know, on that note, get with someone who was very good with people and say, I'm working on this. I'm working on noticing energy, what suggestions do you have for me, and get a partner because I think we go further together than we do by ourselves. So get a partner but I think in the in the beginning stages, just start to notice body language, the way people talk the eyebrows, you know, I mean, almost always they smile, you know? And so when you see if you see a smile, it is, you know, and don't look for earth shaking things. Greg is like you might stop somebody and say, hey, I just noticed you. You didn't don't make a judgement, like, well, you just got happy. Now, you know, I say no, it's your show. You just You just kind of leaned up and your eyes went bright. And I'm just curious what's happening for you. Don't expect it to be earth shaking every time. But you're noticing people Oh, see how good that is? And not your because you were talking about relationships. I think that helps us connect with people. Well,

Greg Voisen
a leader is about managing relationships. A good leader is about inspiring other to have even better relationships. And I think this book and this story, and again, I'm gonna hold it up for my viewing audience. But for my listener, audience, the book is the vagrant the inner journey of leadership by Dan Rockwell and John David Mann, the author of the Go Giver, please go out and get a copy. I want to thank you for being on inside personal growth, spending some time with our listeners. And again, for our listeners. His blog has over 500,000 followers, I think it'd be a great one to subscribe to. You can also find him on LinkedIn, probably find him on every social media channel there is out there. But go get a copy of the book. Dan, pleasure speaking with you. Thanks today for all your wisdom and insights and opportunity to tell Bob's story a little bit so that people could prevent some of the mistakes that Bob made. So you don't get so beat up in life.

Dan Rockwell
Yeah, thank you, Greg. I'm always cognizant of the fact that someone like you has shared a bit of their credibility by having me be part of their program. And it's an honor. And I hope I honored you and your audience.

Greg Voisen
You certainly did. And namaste to you. Thanks for being on and we'll talk again soon.

Dan Rockwell
Good. Thank you.