Greg Voisen
Well, welcome back to Inside personal growth. This is Greg voisen, the host of inside personal growth, and sitting in Sausalito, California. On the other side of this screen is Damon lembi, and there'll be a thing that'll pop up digitally for us, but the book is called The learn it all leader mindset, traits and tools. And Damien came to me kind of, I think he reached out. But then when I went to the Learn it website, so it's learn it.com website for all of my listeners, he has a wonderful platform for anybody seeking skills knowledge, primarily skip more skills knowledge, you'll definitely want to go there. And who knows, maybe and Damien will give some of our listeners a little bit off if you sign up for the courses. So, Damian, Good day to you. How you doing? Well, Greg,

it's great to be here, and I like to go by Damon. But don't worry about it, because even my mom calls me Damian sometimes. Damon, thanks for having me.

Greg Voisen
Okay, my bad. My bad. You're alright. You're alright. So I'm going to let them all know a bit about you. Damon. He's the CEO of learn it. He actually took the company over from his father who founded it. He's a global leader in corporate training solutions and up skilled more than 1.8 million professionals in the past 20 years. He lives in the Bay Area. As we already said, he's in Sausalito. He loves books. You can look right behind him and see that. And after this green screens off, there'll be lots of books behind me. He likes live music and all of but all of that, and spending time with his wife, kids and Pablo the puggy. So that's cool. I love it when we get a little bit personal here. Now, you know, this book, obviously, is a little bit about your life as kind of being a baseball player, wanting to be a baseball player, I should say, and I wouldn't say you weren't, but you wanted to be pro. We were just talking about Barry Bonds before he came on here tell us a little bit about this journey that you went through in Arizona, actually meeting Barry Bonds, then taking this company over from your dad, and now actually growing this company to a very large company, I think it's a it's a great story, great success story. Well,

thank you, Greg, so yeah, I'm Damon lembi, and I live out here in Sausalito, and I was born and raised in the Bay Area, and growing up for me, it was all about sports and baseball, football, basketball, and by the time I was a sophomore in high school, I realized that if I was going to play in college or pro, my ticket to get there was baseball. So I went all in on baseball. I worked really hard, and it turned out pretty well. My senior year, I was a high school all American, and I had my first really big choice, do I want to go the minor league route? I got drafted by the Atlanta Braves out of high school, and so I had my first big choice, do I want to go to the minor leagues or at the time, I had a full ride to Pepperdine University down in Malibu, and that's one of the first things I learned about leadership, is I went, I went to Pepperdine, and it was awesome because my parents gave me the support. And they said, This is your decision your life. We'll support you in whatever direction you want to go. And the reason I went to Pepperdine was that our coach, Andy Lopez, who's a Hall of Fame coach, he had this crystal clear vision, you know, we're going to win the College World Series within two years. And if you think about Pepperdine, there's only 2500 kids there. So that's a, that's a that's a moonshot goal when you, when you, when you go up against LSU or Arizona state. And so I went there. I believed in what Coach Lopez had to say. I get there, you know, I'm used to being the the best of the best. And then once I got there, everybody was as good as me, right? And so for the first time in my life, I really had to deal with imposter syndrome, because I was like, do I even belong here? Am I good enough? And I was homesick and everything. And really, one point that stands out in my life, and I think this is kind of a great, great, important story is, it's the fall season, and I'm called in for my first meeting with coach, Lopez, like a performance review. And Greg, he sits me down, and he says, young man, when I recruited you here, I did so because I believed in the coaching staff believed that you had what it takes to be a big league baseball player and at least a star third baseman, you know, to hit in the middle of our lineup. And he's like, unfortunately, son, you don't have what it takes to be a division one baseball player. And he and he said that, and he paused, and he crossed his arms, and he sat back, and as you can imagine, I thought to myself, I mean, oh my gosh. How do I get out of here? My dreams were crushed, and I just felt terrible. And before I had a chance to respond, he sat forward, and he pointed at me, and he said, Damon, that's not what I think of you. The problem is, that's what you think about yourself, and if you have, if you have these limiting beliefs, if this is your mindset, and you can't get out of your own head, you're never going to succeed. And that really, that really stuck with me. I'd like to say that I immediately turned things around. I didn't I got hurt, and I left Pepperdine, and I was lucky enough to get to play at Arizona State. Now the the cool thing was, though, Greg, the year I left, they won the College World Series, which is which is amazing. Pepperdine won the College World Series, and so it just showed me right there that you can set moonshot goals, get your team behind you and make it happen. I get to Arizona State. I have a really good career there, but unfortunately, I didn't get drafted. And so here I am at the time, 22 years old. My entire identity is wrapped up in becoming a major league baseball player, and my career was basically over with. I mean, I could have went the independent route, but at that point, I was just kind of struggling, and didn't really know what I should do, and I didn't know if any of my skills were even transferable to the business world, and that's where my business career started.

Greg Voisen
Well, you know, this book is interesting and your platform is interesting because you've come into a business where you're teaching all people all about skills to become better, just like at baseball. Mean, if you don't get up to bad enough times and you don't take swings, you're never going to know what your success rate is. And the book this the learn it all leader, it emphasizes mindset, just what you were talking about. And I've always been curious and learning you even wrote in the book. To me, that's the way you signed it. What inspired you to kind of write the book, and why do you think that the mindset? Because, you know, Carol Dweck is kind of like the the most famous one that talks about mindsets. We've had all kinds of people on here. Guy Kawasaki, he references her. Everybody references her. So why is it so crucial for leaders today to have this, what you're going to call it, basically moonshot mindset, yeah, well, let's

call it. You could call it Carol Dweck, yeah, if you haven't read growth mindset, I mean, you should go out there and get that right away. That's an awesome book. Another one by Angela Duckworth. Grit is awesome, awesome, I think, foundationally for leadership. And this is self leadership and everything. It has to start with your mindset. You know you have to frame things. You need to be able to look at things as an opportunity instead of a problem and and that puts you in the position to be successful and give yourself an opportunity. Because if you don't, if you have a fixed mindset, or what I like to call in my book, a know it all mindset, then you're not going to have the opportunity for growth. So to answer your question, why I think curiosity is so important is that we need to always be continuously learning. You know, the change of pace is so fast these days, Greg, that we have to be open to being adaptable, changing our mind, learning and growing and getting diverse opinions and hearing things from all over the place, because if we're not, then, unfortunately, I think we're, we're going to be left behind.

Greg Voisen
Very good point. And I think in today's world, you have to learn how to connect the dots. I was listening to Rita McGrath's one of my podcasts. And you know, the issue is really seeing how the dots connect in today's world, because we progress so fast. And you know what? I thought was cool, and you and I were talking about it for we actually started talking here on the actual recording, about a pivotal moment, pivotal moment for you with Barry Bonds, when he taught you a valuable lesson. And obviously your whole life was wrapped up in baseball, and then the guy says, You're not the guy. How did that moment shape your approach to leadership and learning? Because here you are now, the CEO of this company that's all about helping people learn and improve skills.

Yeah. I mean, I think life is a wild ride. I mean, never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine I was end up in the learning development world for my entire career. I mean, I went to Arizona State and I, and I, my mom hates when I say this, but I basically majored in baseball, really, right? And I, but I took everything I learned from baseball and moved on. And the story you're referring to that I talked about in my book is I was, it was alumni weekend. I was on in the on deck circle. I was batting third, and the picture was warming up, and I heard this voice behind me, and it's like, hey, number 20. Hey, number 20. And you know, you don't, don't usually turn around, not supposed to turn around. There's 10,000 people in the crowd, but I knew that Barry Bonds was sitting right behind me, right so? And I'm like, is that Barry? So I turned around, I look, and he points to he says, Come over here. And he said, when you're when if the pitcher squeezes his glove, he's throwing a fastball. If he opens up his glove, he's throwing a curveball. And Barry's you know? And so the lesson that this taught me. The funny thing about this lesson is, when I went up to the plate, I was trying to pay attention to what Barry said. I couldn't figure it out at all. I couldn't see what Barry see, you know, he's Barry, right? And so I stopped worrying about that, and I ended up hitting a double. And I waved to him, and he was, you know, wave back. But the whole point about that lesson there is, is Barry is not only is he one of the most physically talented baseball players I've ever seen, but he's a student of the game, you know, and he's not wasting time. So here he's at this alumni baseball game. He's sitting in the crowd, and instead of, well, it was in the 90s, so there was no Instagram, but instead of just wasting time, he's sitting there, and he's trying to make himself better. He's learning, right? He's he's trying to pick up, you know, things that can give him an advantage. And the cool part was that he took the time to share this back with me. So I think that that's kind of this pivotal example for me, that you know, for your listeners out there, every situation you're in, you can learn from people. And if you go to a party, your wife drags you to a party and you don't want to be there, you know, get yourself out of your comfort zone. Go talk to people, learn about different subjects that maybe you're unfamiliar with, because you could learn from people, and it's all part of setting this mentality, Greg, like we talked about, that you're always curious and learning, and hopefully you can also do the same for others, where you can give back and share with them some of the knowledge or wisdom that you have. Well,

Greg Voisen
it's kind of what your dad started when you're giving this knowledge back, and then you took the company over. And I think the key is, you know, you look what you've developed this into, and it's pretty phenomenal, the work that you're doing at learn it. And I think for our listeners, you know, definitely I'm going to plug again. Go to learn it.com. And check it out. There's all kinds of courses on there that you can engage with. Now, you refer in the book The and you distinguish between you. Just said, in a minute, learn it alls and know it alls, you know. And I'm sure our listeners can figure that that, figure that one out. But can you elaborate on the differences between these two types of leaders? Because there's one leader that tells you there's another leader that includes you, right? And when you're a good leader, you're basically include there's an inclusion element. I want to hear your side. I'm not going to just tell you how to do it. I want you to figure out how to do it and do it better than the way that I would have done it, right? So what are those key differences to you? Yeah,

absolutely. I mean, starting off with the know it all. They just come in. They have all the answers. They're not they're not open to other ideas. It's their way or the highway. It's a, it could be even a toxic environment for your culture, if, if you have a leader, and it's all about whatever they say, right? You know? So it's my way or the highway. On the flip side, learn it all. I mean, I have a great story from five minutes ago. I was standing in line having a getting a coffee, and this woman I knew was sharing with me, she was probably reminiscing about her dad, and she said that her father never answered a question for her. He always helped her come to the conclusion herself by being curious, asking questions. And you know, it really helped her with her mindset of, instead of having a leader who just jumps in and tells you the answer, learn it. All leaders. They do that. They create space for people to learn and try things out, and psychologically safe space, where if somebody fails, that that's okay, you know, it gives you the opportunity to learn. And I think that that that type of environment is so crucial for today's world, where, because if you're going to learn and grow as an organization, you need to be able to delegate out and empower people and give them the responsibility, but they need to feel like they can trust you as a leader, that you're not going to jump down their back. So it's not about giving everybody the answers. It's not about having all the answers. It's about being open and flexible that sometimes the fact or the you know what you think is right there, you may need to pivot and go in a different direction.

Greg Voisen
Very, very well said. And I think that, or anybody who's a continual learner, they get that. I mean, you can look at the books behind you, and the volumes and volumes that I've had come across my thing after 11 170 podcasts, it's amazing. You know you gotta, you gotta be a continual learner. And you know, you had mentioned this before we came on to the the podcast about overcoming imposter syndrome and and the lucky curse. How can leaders recognize and break free from these mental traps. And we just had a lady on here who wrote a whole book about imposter I've had several on that have written about imposter syndrome. So first, define what it means to you, and then how do leaders overcome it?

So we talked about two things there, imposter syndrome and lucky curse. You know, Lucky curse that just means growing up in an environment where you're really fortunate. And, you know, I came from a great family with a lot of resources, and sometimes, you know, you get, you get the feeling that maybe you don't deserve it, and but at the end of the day, even with all the resources that you have when you step into the box in baseball, you still have to be the one hitting the ball, right, you know? So you have to get out of the mindset that, hey, you know, sure, I'm fortunate, but I'm not going to be this kid who's got a silver spoon stuck in your in your mouth, and the best way to get through that is just to work hard and lead by example, and you know, deliver on what you say you're going to deliver on. Now, the more common one, like you said, is imposter syndrome, self doubt, limiting beliefs that I think everybody struggles with at some point in our life. Yeah, and if people, but there are people who say they don't, and they're either a sociopath or they're just not telling the truth. And so for me, what I've done is, and it goes back to my baseball days, but I've built a framework that I use to help overcome imposter syndrome, and it starts with if there's something, you know, if I'm if you're somebody and you're you just got promoted to a new job, and maybe you're thinking to yourself, well, do I even deserve this job?

Greg Voisen
I'm not good enough.

I'm not good enough. So listeners, if you're in that situation, it's not your responsibility to know whether or not you're good enough. You were given this opportunity. So other people believe in you just go out and do the best you can do. And for those of you who don't want to apply for a job, because maybe you don't meet all the criteria that's on the on the job posting, if it's something you're passionate about, go for it anyways. I've hired hundreds of people who didn't necessarily fit what it said as far as the responsibilities. So just go for it. If it's something that you want to do, go for it. But getting back to my like, when I'm struggling with imposter syndrome, the first thing I want to do is I want to label my fear like, what am I what am I afraid of? Right? Okay, okay, I'm afraid of getting out, giving this keynote speech that I think to myself, well, what's the worst thing that can happen if it goes wrong? Okay, maybe somebody laughs at me, right? Okay, well, then people move on with their life. Can you can you get through that situation absolutely so once you realize that, hey, at the end of the day, this isn't life or death, this is something you can live through, then then you go for it. And in my three step approaches, number one is work hard. I don't think that Greg. I don't think there's any substitute or hack for working hard. I've always just been the guy like in baseball. When I first got to Arizona State, I had to compete against a bunch of other first basemen. I just outworked everybody. I was the first guy on the field. I was the last guy to leave. Number two is focus and deliberate focus, which I like to refer to as deliberate practice. You know, it's, it's really easy. If something's tough to get, to procrastinate, to look at your Instagram, to maybe, you know, lean towards something that's easier. But if you're struggling with something, put it into deliberate practice and and get the repetitions in, you know, put in the work, get the repetition in, and just make progress in that one specific area, and then move to another area and focus on that. And once you've worked hard, you put in a deliberate practice. And whether you're stepping into the box to face a guy throwing 90 miles an hour for you baseball fans, or you're leading a team for the first time, or you're giving that presentation, then it's time to learn and let go. You've put in the effort. You've focused on your practice, stop thinking about things and just give it your best shot. Now you may crush it. You may fall flat on your face, but either way, Greg, you should pat yourself on the back for getting out of your comfort zone and trying, because so many people are just afraid to even try and pass up opportunities, and if you fail, or if you do mediocre, ask for feedback, because that's where you really learn and then get better. But don't not do something because you're you're afraid of what other people are going to think, or you're so scared of failure that if it's something you could survive, like we've spoken about, then go for it and give yourself a little pack on pat on the back that you actually stuck your NUCCA out there. Because not everybody does that. That's my three step. I

Greg Voisen
like your I like your three step approach. And I think with anything you know, as you said, Work hard, be persistent, have grit, have that growth mindset, all of those things which we know, but the inherent default mechanism for a lot of people is just, well to fall back. It's almost like taking one of your courses. You know, you can procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate, and then after you get it done, you have this sense of achievement, this great sense of feeling you've really got to get into it. And that brings me to this, you know, you've been running learn it now for like, two decades, three, okay, maybe the, maybe the books that holds. So the question is, is, how have you seen the landscape of learning and development change? Because there's so many platforms, right? It's just like plethora of places that you can go, and particularly with the rise now of automation and AI, where are you kind of seeing this? What is on the horizon for learn it? For Damon, you know, I'm sure our listeners would love to know, yeah,

I would say there's automation, right? I mean, there's AI, the landscapes changing the also, what's great, I think Greg, is, there's so many different generations in the workforce these days. There's six or seven generations, and the younger generations, the Gen ZS and millennials, they really demand professional development opportunity, which ties right back to what learn it does. And so that's amazing for us, because organizations now more than ever realize that if they're going to keep top talent, they're going to need to give them the opportunity to grow and evolve, both in their career, but also in their in their personal lives. And so I would say that where things are going, you know, we do mostly live virtual training, you know, kind of like what we're talking about here. We're on Zoom, and we do breakout rooms, but going and taking a two hour class from learn it if that's where your if that's where your education stops. You know, it's very hard to retain content and information, so it's more than just a two hour session. So what we're doing is we're layering it in with micro learning, little AI coaching, and that's really where we've invested heavily in, is some of the I don't think that AI is going to replace live learning. I think it's it's going to be a great supplement. And if, if you're and it gives people other opportunities on how they like to learn as well. I'm a big believer that everybody kind of learns differently. Some people want to learn by listening to podcasts. Some people want to take classes. Some people want to read books. Some people want to do all the above. So I think it's important as a learning organization like learn it is, is that we have, like a holistic approach, where our main focus is, is a live learning, but we supplement it to help give them, like milestones or learning opportunities, to help drive the stickiness, the retention, as they develop into their, you know, into their roles and their careers, to pick up the skills that they need.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, I like the approach that you're taking. And you know, it's, I remember going back and when I actually used to teach Dale Carnegie live classes, right? That's awesome, yeah? Communication class, yeah, yeah. I had a guy that brought me into the financial services business that you will not only take the course, you will teach the course. And Michael Crum, as a result, the grandson of Dale Carnegie, became a really good friend, and still is. He lives on the east coast. But this was the point I was going to make. The whole space repetition learning, giving people time to actually learn what they learn in class and then practice it in the real world is so invaluable. It's just like I remember this this day, because I'm going back 3040, years in those Dale Carnegie classes, they were using that then to actually, okay, here's the lesson for the week. Now you're going to come back and you're going to give us the results of what actually happened in the application to that lesson. And I think it's invaluable. And you know, you in the book, you mentioned how the role of leaders is evolving, and we're talking about it right now, as technology takes over, more of these routine tasks, so obviously less to do sometimes, although it doesn't seem like that, I think the world seems like we're being more is piled on and more is expected of us. What skills should leaders focus on developing? And kind of, as you see it, this new landscape that we're in regarding learning. Because everywhere you go now, I just saw something that, I think it was Phoenix University, get your degree in like nine months or something. So when you look at the space speed at which they've, like, moved that up. I, you know, I saw that end, it was like, wow. It used to take two years to be able to get degree. Now you're telling people they can do it in nine months. Well, it

took some of us seven years. Yeah. Well, one thing I like to say is, you know, I've, my book's called the learn it all leader. And you know, some people are like, Well, is it just learning all the time? Absolutely not. It's something that you said, Greg, which is so important. I want your listeners to think about, whether you're reading, taking classes or listening to this podcast. A great quote that gentleman had told me escapes my mind, but it's learning without doing is treason, right? So you have to put into practice, whether you know, whether at the office or whether at home. But you can't just keep reading and taking classes and not doing any of the work. You need to put it into practice. And so I challenge you, you know, when you listen to Greg's show or you read a book, Think about something that you're going to take away from this interview or a different interview and actually put into practice and maybe even take a couple of notes or journal and track that right? So learning without doing is treason. Now, to answer your question, I look at AI as helping to automate some of the tasks or shorten the time it takes to do things. And so what it should do is, well, first of all, if you're somebody who's got your head in the sand and you're not going to learn how to use chat, GPT or some of these other tools, well you're going to be left behind. Because I don't really necessarily know if AI by itself is going to take over your job, but individuals who become power users in AI will take over your job. And the value I believe in these tools for your team members. The way I look at it is if, and I talk about it in my book, this woman came to me and says, like, is my job going to be automated out? I said, No, what it's going to do is it's going to buy back four hours, maybe a week or more, of your time, and it's going to give you an opportunity to do higher level, level things, to think, to ask better questions, to look at how we can evolve and make learn it better. So that's the way I think AI should be used. You know, enhancing, enhancing and the skills that you know, your original question, what skills do people need? What we're seeing out there, which I'm so fortunate, I gotta see behind the curtains with all these great companies, are adaptability. You need people who could be adaptable. Crystal, clear communication. Now more than ever, it's important to be able to communicate well and to be able to build trust as a leader. And in my opinion, the number one skill, and we kind of talked about this, is learning agility, the ability to know how to learn and even unlearn. You know, get rid of some of the stuff that you've learned before and replace it, you know, with with new new stuff. So a lot of times when we're working with companies, it's one thing to learn these skills. It's another thing to build a culture of learning where people are constantly curious, that they're active listening, that they're trying things, that they're iterating and they're changing. So I really think that learning agility from a leadership perspective, but you know, permeate throughout the organization is absolutely critical today and moving forward in the future

Greg Voisen
and and I'd resonate with all of that, because obviously both of us is doing a podcast show, and we come across a lot of very knowledgeable people who are accelerating the speed at which people learn. One young gentleman, I'm going to bring up his name, Scott Young. And he wrote the book called Ultra learning. And while you were speaking, I was there, he just wrote another one and did a podcast on get better at anything. 12 maxims for mastery. Now I happen to have been old enough to actually sit with George Leonard, who wrote the first book on mastery in his living room in Palo Alto. And it wasn't Palo Alto, it was right near you. Is there in timber on right? Yep. And and George wrote this book on mastery, and it's interesting, when you're going to master something, the the steps in the process, do you have the Damon mastery kind of theory about learning? Because what Scott does is he takes something very difficult and then he learns it really fast, and then he shows you how you can do it right. And I think that's what learn. It does to a degree. It's like, hey, I can take this one course and I can master this particular particular subject, anything from Scott, anything from you, Damon, or learn it that you would like to tell our listeners about mastery? Yeah,

so for me, what I've seen that's really helped when I really want to learn something, what I do is I, first of all, when I'm learning it, I take a lot of notes and but also I find ways I think about how it relates to my work at learn it, or the work I do with coaching individuals, or whatever it is, right? So I connect it to a real world situation. But listeners out there, I think this is key, especially if you lead a team, teach it back to them. Teaching it back, I think it helps you with the it helps you with your attention, and also, at the same time, you're sharing this knowledge with others, and you're getting their perspective on things. So to me, that that's what I I'm kind of lucky, because, you know, we want to, you know, lead by example. Here at learn it. So we do a lot of internal book clubs, or we watch master classes, and a lot of times, Greg, I lead those. I'll go through, I'll read the book, and then I'll, I'll teach it back to our team, and it enhances my retention, and it also helps my team. But I always ask them, I say, when we go through this content, I want you to give it me. I want you to come to me with an example of how you could apply what we're talking about, either in your personal life or to learn it. Now, one other thing I want to say about learning you know, for the if, if you lead a team, or if you don't, doesn't matter, is all your learning shouldn't just be constantly about your job or your work. I think it's really critical to learn broadly, learn different topics. You know, we have like, a stipend for our employees here at learn it, and I let them take classes and whatever they want, right? It doesn't have to be applicable just to learn it. I just want to get again, to get them back in the habit of learning and hopefully retaining and accelerating their growth.

Greg Voisen
Well, as you speak about this, and we've been speaking about the role of technology and how it's almost kind of becoming embedded in so much of what we do. And I have an upcoming interview with tego fuerte, the guy who talks about the second brain. As a matter of fact, he's got a new book coming out in December. What do you think of all of this second brain with being able to use the digital world to keep track of all of our information and be able to have it at our fingertips through these amazing AI note taking apps, which can literally recall almost anything for us, obviously allowing us to do a lot more in a shorter period of time, and able to access that information at our fingertips. I think the whole concept of the, what he calls the P, A, R, A, methodology, is really fascinates me. And I'm wondering what you guys think at learned about all of this, because we all seem to think we need a second brain at this point, because this Front's pretty full

Well, I would say, you know, first of all, there's so much out there that I that you got to kind of cut through a lot of the chaos and just to figure out there's so many AI tools out there. So many of them don't work, but a lot of them do. So I think a great job would be just to have somebody on your team who, that's all they do is they go out and evaluate tools that you know, maybe not the full time job, but they can leverage within your organization. I think that a lot of these tools are awesome, but what I also think is very important is that you still have to, you still have to think, you know, you can't let, you can't let chat GPT or these tools do all the thinking for you, right? So you can't get into that habit now, kind of like you mentioned. I can't remember the name of the tool right now, but I read most of my books these days on Kindles, and I do that because I highlight it's called readwise. What I use? Yeah, readwise, yeah, yeah, readwise. And I love it. So I highlight sections, and then what it does is it prompts me, like, five to seven of my highlights a day. And so I take 510 minutes a day, and I just read those, right? And so, because it helps again, it helps with the retention. So in this situation, that's an example of leveraging, I think the the new tools successfully, right? You know it is.

Greg Voisen
And I mean, when people take your courses, I know it's synchronistic, but is that course then made available, asynchronistic for them to pull the data and or is something like otter AI attached to that to keep the notes? What is it that you're doing there that if I say, Hey, I'm going to spend X on a course, and I want to take it, but I Okay, I passed the course, but now I need to recall something from it. How are you giving us this ability to recall?

You know, that's a great question, and that's a debate we always have, because I'm all about recording the classes and giving people the content. You know, afterwards, in some classes, we don't. A lot of the leadership classes, we don't, we don't actually do that because we've found that people don't want to share freely in those classes, if, if maybe their leader has access to them afterwards, you know. Okay, but some organizations want us to record them, and then we do, and we give them the transcripts and everything. They're all footage they could chop up. What we tend to do is we take our classes and we record them asynchronously, and so that if you take classes that learn it, you have access to a library of content where, let's say you take our giving and receiving feedback class, and six months later, you kind of forget our for growth model. That's the model we've developed. Well, you can go in, you can log into your portal, Greg, and you can watch a like a seven minute video on what the go for growth model is, boom, right before your conversation. So it's there

Greg Voisen
so again. And sometimes we need that recall, you know, it always needed that we're, how do you want to say, you know, yes, the How are neural pathways? Wire and fire is interesting, but I think it's like people say, Hey, Greg, you're like, 70 years old now. And do you recall this? And the question is, it's like, the more you put into the hard drive, like, like a computer, the more challenging it becomes for, literally, you to, like, say, okay, you've the lights come on, you know, like, when you have, I have a max sitting here in front of me, and it'll say, Oh, you're using up more memory than you've actually got, right? So the reality is the memory and then the recall. And the way I look at that is that's really important being able to access that memory and recall from someplace, like, like, just for instance, Google Drive. Like, who doesn't use, you know, so many of these storage systems to say, oh, now I'm going to recall, and then you got to go, oh. But do I have a Dewey Decimal System to really figure out where I put that on Google

Drive on that one? Yeah, because it's

Greg Voisen
like, oh, yeah, okay. No, it's in there. I know I saved it in there. Oh,

so frustrating.

Greg Voisen
How did I actually find it? Well, look, you know, staying in this realm of questioning, you emphasize the importance of creating a compelling vision for teams, and I think it's so important. I've done so much of this work. How can leaders inspire their teams to go in and fully commit to the vision that a company is trying to achieve? I recall this story real quickly, because when guy, Kawasaki was on here, and he sat with Steve Jobs, and he tells this story to draw people in to the book, and he said, Hey, I was sitting there in a meeting. We're doing that campaign, and everybody thought that Microsoft was going to beat up on Apple, and the Apple was going to go, this is in the 90s, like 1998 right? They started that campaign with Albert Einstein. You remember it? Right? Yeah. And there were a couple an ad came out, and here's what he said, because you'll relate to this about fine for a vision, right? This is where this question's going to so they're sitting in this room, the ad guys there, and he has two copies of the ad. He says to Steve, Well, I'm going to give one to you, and I give one to guy. And Steve Jobs says, No, you're not. You're going to give them both to me. And I don't know if you've heard this story. Have you heard this?

No, no, I haven't. This is good enough. So, so,

Greg Voisen
so Guy Kawasaki, was like, Wait a second, I'm an evangelist for Apple. I should be able to get this ad. And he's, is really mad at Steve, right? And he goes, Hey, Steve, why don't you want me to have a copy of that? And he said, Don't you trust me? And Steve says to him, No, I don't trust you, guy. And at that moment, guy says, and during the interview with me, because we've interviewed several times, he said I had to stand up for myself, and they didn't know what the repercussion was going to be. And he said, but Steve, I don't trust you either. Right? That he said, statement custom 10s of millions of dollars. So the point there, though, was about a vision. Okay, so here's the point. Here's this company that's potentially going down the tubes comes up in the advertising campaign. The vision is, is to put this on every desk, right? Just like Microsoft wanted to do, the same thing was put a computer on every desk, but there, as you know, their thing was all about learning, right? So when they used Amelia Earhart, they used Albert Einstein, the Mac was supposed to make you you know better, knowledgeable person, that kind of thing. And obviously it worked, right? It worked really good, because here, here we all are. And so when you really look at learn it, and you look at that story, and you look at the vision that Steve Jobs had for what he had to pull that company together to get it. I mean, at the time they were close to bankruptcy, what I understand, amazing vision. So my go back to your question. You know, when someone has a vision. There has to be inclusion. Now, at that moment in the room, there wasn't much inclusion going on. It was egos fighting one another, and I think you got to remove egos for vision to be met. What's your feeling about that? Damon,

well, I think what you said right there, Greg, first of all, thanks for sharing that story. That's an awesome story. I wonder how guy would have done it differently if I take a chance. So I think the key word you said in there is inclusion. Now I think if you're a leader of an organ, if you're a leader of an organization, a sports team, a family, you have to have your company vision, right, and your goals, but if you want people to get behind it, they've, they've got to be bought into that, because it's gotta, it's gotta be in tune, in aligned with their aspirations, their goals, they have. They have to see how it connects, how their personal goals, I think, connects to the to the vision of the organization. And then, if that happens, right? If so, if my aspirations connects with what learned its goals are. And it can't be all just about profit. It has to be out purpose too. People, especially the younger generations, they want to feel like they belong and they they're part of something that's contributing. And that's why I've always, I've been always so fortunate at learn it to have a great culture is because my team knows that Sure, we might be helping companies, you know, their bottom lines, but what we're really doing is we're helping the individuals in those companies get better, and whether it's getting a promotion internally or becoming more confident as a human being, so they're bought into The purpose of what learn its vision is. And then it all comes back to this vision, connecting it to storytelling. I think that if you want to get your vision across, you got to communicate it, and communicate it often and be very clear about it. And hopefully you can, you can get better at and be good at storytelling and telling your vision through stories, because that's where I think people can really connect to your company vision if they believe

Greg Voisen
that is so true. And the reason I told that story about Guy Kawasaki is because it exemplifies when people start to tell a story, other people listen because they're looking for the wisdom that comes out of the story, whatever it might be, and in kind of drawing our podcast to a conclusion here, I know we're we're looking always through the front of the window of the car versus the back. So it's looking to the future. You've been here 30 years now with learnit guiding and directing this company, growing this company, not without having made mistakes. I guarantee you plenty of mistakes. Mistakes. What are some of the key challenges you see for leaders who are outside of your company and even the leaders inside your company and how they can adapt to this. Learn it all mindset to help them navigate those challenges, versus the know it all. Mindset, no. In other words, I love the whole learn it all. And now what? What is that going to help the leaders out there that you're speaking to, or how is that going to help? Yeah,

well, I think first and foremost, we're leading in a pretty chaotic time. There's a lot of uncertainty, there's a lot of complexity, there's six different generations going on, and there's AI and everything. And I think what leaders need to do is, first of all, you got to retain your great talent and take care of your people, and to do that, help work with them, to develop their skills and give them the space and time to be able to do it. What we see a lot of our leaders are struggling with is just Greg. There's just so many different priorities going on that a lot of times that they lose sight of what's important, you know, for their for their team members, and they're not carving out the space to allow them to continue to learn and grow. And even in a tough labor market like right now, great talent will still leave, and if you can't nurture, maintain and evolve great talent. I really believe that companies grow because their people grow, and so you have to take care of your people. And we work with a lot of companies who say middle managers are stretched so thin, where they need more support and they need some time and breathing room where they can help upskill themselves and reskill themselves to be able to be successful in today's day and age. And so I think sometimes you just gotta slow down, reflect for a second there, and think about, what can we do to take care of the middle of our organization, where a lot of the work really happens to make sure that these people have the tools, resources and time to be successful?

Greg Voisen
Well, you you basically said it all. And for my listeners, this is the book, but go out and get a copy of this book. Okay? The other thing is, we'll put a link to Amazon to that. We'll also put a link to learn it.com which is where you can actually go to find out more information about the company, the resources, the courses, and I'm going to highly recommend that everybody who's listening today who wants to take either skill based course, or, as he said and you were doing courses, live with people directing those courses a way for your company to actually benefit very intently from the work of key experts, right? I'm going to call them experts, but key leaders in the area, or thought leaders in the area, learn it would be a place to go. So go check it out. Check out the subscription to the courses that are there when you go to the website, which I'm there right now. You'll find the classes just by there. You can go to soft skills, business applications classes by skill learning, lab cohorts and On Demand training. That's all there for you to do it. The learn it team is right there for you to take a check out at and look at the overview of it as well. As you can see by his website, a lot of companies are using learn it, including Kaiser Permanente, Visa, San Francisco Travel Association, just tons into it. They're all using it. Dole, you got a lot of great logos up there, my friend.

Hey, thanks, Greg. And here's one thing I want to say for your listeners, if you connect with me on LinkedIn or email me and tell me that you found me on Greg's show, I will send you a code to a free $250 class, whether it's Excel or emotional intelligence. You know, Greg's been so kind to go through and talk a lot about learn it, but that's my gift for you, for listening, is please reach out and I will send you a code for the class. All I ask is that you send me a little feedback afterwards, let me know how your experience is. But I'd love for you the opportunity to experience learn it.

Greg Voisen
What a great offer. And there's soft skills there, everything from communication to wellness and health to personal development, they're all there, so definitely check out the website, a plethora of knowledge, as they say, and wisdom. So Damon, thanks for being on inside personal growth, sharing some of your personal story as well as some of the stories that you around actually learning, which I love, and I think this has been a wonderful session for people to take in some of your wisdom and learn more about your company, you and your book. Thanks so much.

Well, it's been an honor to be here, and I had a great time with you. So Thanks, Greg.

Greg Voisen
All right, take care. Bye, Damon