Podcast 888: Master Mentors: 30 Transformative Insights from Our Greatest Minds with Scott Miller

I recently had the honor of interviewing Scott Miller again regarding his latest books entitled “Master Mentors: 30 Transformative Insights from Our Greatest Minds”.  This is not the first time that I am interviewing Scott, the first time I interviewed him was in July of 2019 for his book “Management Mess to Leadership Success”  He again guested in the show when we discussed  his newly released book  “Marketing Mess to Brand Success: 30 Challenges to Transform Your Organization’s Brand (and Your Own) (Brand Marketing) (Mess to Success)” in May of this year.

Scott’s newest book is the product of insights from 30 thought leaders who shared key learnings in his podcast show “On Leadership”.  In this interview,  Scott and Greg talk about some of the brilliant minds featured in the book like Nick Vujicic, Daniel Pink, Chris McChesney, Dr. Daniel Amen and others.

If you want to know learn more about Scott and his latest book “Master Mentors,” please click here to be directed to his website. 

 

 

THE BOOK

For busy professionals and lifelong learners seeking practical strategies for reaching new heights, Master Mentors distills 30 essential learnings drawn from FranklinCovey’s On Leadership podcast series. Featured mentors include: Seth Godin, Susan Cain, Kim Scott, General Stanley McChrystal, Nick Vujicic, and other top business minds and thought leaders of our time.

 

THE AUTHOR

Scott was raised in Central Florida and began his leadership journey early as the student body president of his high school where he fell in love with  politics. After working on numerous local, state, and national political campaigns, Scott joined the Disney Development Company where for nearly four years he was part of the team that designed and built the famed city of Celebration, Florida (Walt Disney’s original vision for EPCOT Center).

Scott’s professional roles evolved as he became a multi-bestselling author, radio and podcast host, leadership coach, columnist, and global keynote speaker. He continues to consult with FranklinCovey and is proud to continue their collaboration as he expands his own influence through new books, speeches, and coaching offerings.

Scott currently serves as the Special Advisor on Thought Leadership for the FranklinCovey Company and is the host of their weekly podcast series, On Leadership with Scott Miller. Scott also hosts FranklinCovey’s monthly bookclub on Bookclub.com debuting in April, 2021. Additionally, Scott is the prolific author of numerous books, writes a column for Inc. Magazine, and keynotes for clients around the world.

 

You may also refer to the transcripts below for the full transcription (not edited) of the interview.

Greg Voisen
Welcome back to Inside Personal Growth Scott Miller from Salt Lake City, Utah, he's a returning guest. He's been on our show, let's say three or four times and for all my listeners, you probably know him from his smiling face from Franklin Covey from management messes, and the list goes on and on and on but let me just tell you a few of the books that he has written the new one we're going to be talking about is master mentors that just released September 7 marketing messages brand success was another one of the books he was on with management message to leadership success. And if you haven't figured out by now job mess to career success. He's got a whole series of books that he's writing in that genre in that category. So Scott, welcome to you today. You don't need much introduction simply because you've been on the show many times. And I think I'll forego the formal introduction and just get into it because this new book comes from your leadership series, and all the people that you've interviewed over, you know, Aeons and aeons there, but it's called Master mentors 30 transformative insights from our greatest minds and in the introduction you selected 30 And you easily read through pretty tough to probably scan them all down to 30 leadership guests that one on your show but master mentors. Can you tell us the story about selecting the 30 mentors, and why it was so important in writing this book Why did you like bring this book out now.

Scott Miller
Greg, thank you and thanks, by the way for the platform, again, I appreciate the spotlight so as your listeners and viewers might know I am privileged to host what is the world's largest weekly leadership podcast now called on leadership with Scott Miller, it's about 7 million leaders every Tuesday when it airs, audio and video some of the greatest minds in business and industry celebrities actors, some not so famous, but they've had some significant discoveries that we share. And so, it's from this podcast where we had 175 episodes every week for nonstop three years that I felt Greg like there was so many insights that have been shared off air, like you know what happens. Three minutes before we go live or what happens after we click, you know the video off and then they share something really fascinating off air. Yeah, perhaps it was you know in the elevator or something so with their permission. I selected 30 of these 170 guests by the way, there are 10 books in the series so this is volume one Volume Two is just being finished I'm starting volume three so every year there'll be a new 30 coming out Volume Two hits next year, but this was really about me picking 30 people that I thought had something transformative to share about their own journey is very episodic one chapter is about green health the other is about gratitude. Another one is about, you know, your peak your trough and your recovery. It's a very episodic book Fast Easy breezy. I think it will get is going to pick up the mantle of chicken soup for your soul and be the next series like that and so I'm delighted to be here today to talk about any of those, you'd like to,

Greg Voisen
well you have 30 profiled in there and obviously it's hard to select who you want to talk about but I was just watching the video about Nick via check, I think. Yes. And, you know, I honestly have to admit I'd never seen him before. But after I finished watching the 60 minutes report. A young man born with no legs, no arms, literally, an inspiration beyond belief. To see what he's accomplished in his life and how many people he's helped, you know, Can you relay his story a little bit. And what you kind of say is what was being required of him to evolve into what you call a master mentor. He speaks to spiritual groups, religious groups, you know, kind of, in business groups right and business groups, yeah. But again, this, this is a someone who no matter where they spoke would make you think that your problems were nothing.

Scott Miller
It's a great setup. I'll try to keep this succinct, Nick V church as you mentioned was born with no limbs, no arms no legs, like you and I, he has a head and neck of torso, and his body ends just beat his groin is a very small foot like appendage with a couple of kind of small toes on it you can text with but that's about it, no arms no legs. Nick has written several books he's sold millions of copies of these books he's an inspiration to hundreds millions people, because he tried to take his life early on he felt like he was going to be a burden to his parents he tried to kill himself as a child, he was unsuccessful, and he began to discover his mission His purpose for spreading light for spreading gratitude, not for what he didn't have but for what he did happen, it seems like a cliche, but Nick was one of our early guests, he was guest number 100 We interviewed him as our 100th episode. And then you may know that every month, my wife and I, Stephanie, we live in Salt Lake City we're fairly well known now for having these sort of monthly celebrity dinner parties where we fly into an ambassador and a governor, some celebrity rock star we gathered 1520 friends and we drink champagne and learn and listen to them. Nick came to my house one evening for one of these dinners and I didn't know him very well we'd met once or twice we became fast friends. And I was watching Nick sit across from me on a sofa in my living room, and Nick was scratching his head like a cat would scratch their head by like, you know, taking his forehead and scratching it on my sofa. Right. And I looked down and I had a glass of water in my hand and I was just drinking it unconsciously, because I was thirsty. Then later in the evening I was literally watching Nick at the dinner table, no kind of you know, balance himself on his torso is no arms and no legs, he cannot drink alone he cannot eat alone he cannot dress alone he cannot walk he cannot save himself from a burning building, he cannot use the restroom alone. And I was eating a piece of key lime pie. I don't even remember picking the pie up, and it just dawned on me, Greg that age 51 I didn't know what gratitude was I didn't know how important it is to be able to scratch your head or adjust your glasses or get a drink of water, light a candle or any of the 1000s of things we do a day, unconsciously and reflexively and for me, talking to Nick, listening to him build this amazing life inspiring others to be grateful for what you have and kind of ignore what you don't or just create some workarounds and then the big idea in the chapter, although it's titled gratitude is about living your life through the lens of, I have to I ought to, or I get to. And the story I share is, you know, living here in Salt Lake City, it's you know it's winter half the year and typical Sunday evening and December, it'll be four degrees outside will be nine o'clock I ready to go to bed and I realized, I got to take the garbage out and I like urns I'm wrapping the garbage up going down a flight of stairs out to a driveway that is iced over slipping and sliding out to the garbage cans my pajamas, where I realized, finally, that it's garbage day the next day I got to take three massive garbage cans down 70 yards to the street, and it's always been a huge burden. Until I met Nick V church and I realized I have to take the garbage out. I ought to take the garbage out. I get to take the garbage out because Nick Vujicic cannot take the garbage out.

Greg Voisen
So yeah, And the other thing Scott is you don't have to pick up the garbage. I don't have that love the guy that's driving the truck, it's picking up your garbage at

Scott Miller
seven in the morning where it's snowing and icing out exactly you are exactly right. And so for me the transformational insight, and many these are a DA, but you know, I think it was Voltaire that said common knowledge isn't common practice that is to be grateful for everything we have and look through everything in life, whether it's a termination you're facing tomorrow, whether it is a high courage conversation with your child or spouse or neighbor or mother in law, paying 1/10 of your visa bill because you can't afford 10 tenths of your visa bill, I get to fire someone because they hate this job and they're not right for the job I'm going to send them into a new phase of their life. I'm trying to make all of my interactions, every day, moving from, I have to and I ought to, I get to be on at two in the morning, and deliver three keynotes to Dubai clients at two and three and four o'clock in the morning, I don't dread that I get to do that, you get the point, but it's been transformative for me. Well,

Greg Voisen
if any of my listeners now know who he is, let's get Scott's book you can read about him. You can also go on the internet and master mentors. You can learn more about him, most certainly, by just typing in his name. And you'll see all kinds of videos now in chat and in the chapter about Dave Hollis, you identified and ranked three competence competencies required from leaders, and I just did an interview with Jacob Morgan the future leader, I had the guys on from Deloitte, about their book provoke yesterday. And, you know, all of this is around leadership because we're seeing so many changes in the world, and it's happening so fast, and leaders today more than ever need to have a new skill set. They need to adopt and adapt quickly, we know, and COVID wasn't the only thing that brought this on although COVID exacerbated this issue, can you let our listeners know what these three competencies are and why you believe they're so important because you're doing a whole podcast show on leaders.

Scott Miller
It's true, if I remember them correctly they go something like this, I, I profess after three decades in the leadership industry as the Chief Marketing Officer of the largest leadership company in the world Franklin Covey. I've learned a few things I think the number one role of a leader is not mission, vision, values and not system structures and strategies, those are important, you have to do them. I think it's to recruit and retain competent leaders, recruit and retain, because the whole world right now is looking for a job, the great resignation is like the complete resignation. Everybody has been released, generally from their hostage situation the last 18 months, and people are now on the hunt to be valued, to be respected to be engaged to be fulfilled. And so your job is not just to recruit but to retain. I think we spend too much time recruiting and not enough retaining inoculating our key producers from your competition, because if you don't think every one of your top producers right now is in deep conversations with your competition, you're a fool. Every one of them is in conversations with the recruiter right now and is being offered more money, and better conditions and all the things that you weren't willing to have happen, recruit and retain talent, need the second role is to offer people feedback on their blind spots. This is the primary job of when somebody is in the role is to give them the gift of moving outside your comfort zone and discussing the undiscussables about their perhaps communication style or punctuality, or maybe it's their personal hygiene, maybe it's how they collaborate, maybe they're the know at all. They don't know that they're the know it all, is giving this gift to people around their blind spots we all have the bit as a leader, it's your job to have these high courage conversations where you balance courage with diplomacy, and make sure people know what it's like to work with them. And then lastly, I think, you know one of your competencies is boner ability, just like, you know, calculating EBIT da or cost of goods or inventory turns, you have to be vulnerable, you have to be able to own your mess, teach through your mess, speak about your successes and your failures, openly, not good to but Asli not like a confessional, but to have the confidence and the humility to be able to make others comfortable discussing their challenges when people are lying to you in the workplace. It says more about you than it does about them, it means you created a culture where people feel safe to own their mess because you as a leader have not owned yours.

Greg Voisen
So you've said a lot, and then kind of unpack it, really. The reality is everything you've said, are the skills and traits and personality as that leaders need to have today. And I would add to that that a big dose of compassion and understanding, and authenticity. You know, the, the worst thing you can do is tell a lie. Okay, and the lies turn into things that can really have whiplash within you personally and the organization. And so I echo everything you said. I think it's perfect, again, for my listeners, go pick up the book you can read about that. You also can go will promote the channel, and the podcasts, and so you know in in the chapter about David pink you speak about our Daniel, Daniel Pink concept called Peak through and recovery. What advice can you give us, or the listeners about organizing their day in better alignment with their own rhythm and energy using the concept because, you know, every leader. It's about energy management, I just had Jim Lorre on here, right, and Dr. Jim Morris for those as the power of full engagement sold millions of books. But, you know his new book is interesting, it's about leadership. Okay. What I would say is what would you tell people about rhythm and energy and how they can help manage it.

Scott Miller
Yeah so Daniel Pink course right famous author wrote the books, DR and recently wrote a book called win. Write all about timing and he popularized this concept of your circadian cycle, you know, understanding your peak your trough and your recovery and I don't know how I made it to be 53 years old. I'd never heard this concept but this idea is we all have a peak a trough and a recovery, and it made sense to me maybe I'd heard the concept but I never applied it in my life. And after you know interviewing Dan Pink which I've done now several times he's a friend of mine who endorsed my books as well. I realized that my peak every day is about 4am to about 10 or 11 in the morning. I do my writing from about four to six sometimes it's five at four o'clock, I write early my ink column, Mike my blogs, the books that I write my best thinking. Greg is done from 4am to about 10 or 11 in the morning, that's when my genius comes out. And I do have a trough and energy trough between like 11 and one or so maybe it's to where I don't go to sleep like you know a siesta, but I don't do my most critical thinking, and then I have a bit of a recovery from about one to five or so. And the big aha for me was to make sure I schedule my day deliberately around when am I at my best and avoid things are not at my best. Because of my trough I don't schedule meetings with the CFO to review my second quarter budget at New You're doing

Greg Voisen
pretty darn good if you're in a trough right now because it's noon. Well, my cross. That's why I usually schedule my podcasts between eight and 10 in the morning. Yeah, Drew scheduled this one at noon, but so you're doing darn good Scott if you're in a trough right now. Well, technically, you're on the others you're on

Scott Miller
the other side right for me a couple big ideas. One is to sit down and deliberately understand when is your peak. When is your trough and when is your recovery and schedule those most important activities when you're at your best and not at your worst. It also is to communicate that to your colleagues, is a good example and then I'm in the book I read a chapter about, I have a very competent, Director of Public Relations. She works 12 hours a day, but she works like nine to like nine well by nine o'clock I'm five hours into my, into my peak. And so she starts getting into hers like around noon or one or two, And then her recovery comes you know midday, so she started sending me 15 emails my day is done at four o'clock. My day I've worked 12 hours, I'm done. So we had to get on the same page to recognize you know, as the leader she had to kind of align closer to my schedule. I also had to align for her as well. This is not a transformational insight for everyone. Like all 30 of them they're going to hit you kind of where you are in your career where you are in your role as spouse or parent or partner or widow or promoted or divorced or bankrupted or you debt, you name it. This was profound for me because it made me more deliberately and intentionally schedule, not just the things that I wanted to focus on. But when to focus on them.

Greg Voisen
Well sound advice because everybody has a circadian rhythm, that's when they just have to figure out where it is and when it is, I know what mine is. And I know how it works. And like you, I'm not my best probably after like five o'clock, because I get up early. Okay. You know, we just had Jim healing on about the four disciplines of execution as a result of you and Chris Smith Chesney, also wrote that book with him, along with Sean Covey, and they talked about execution and you quoted him and saying that, you know, attaining wildly important goals which you know most corporations teach this I think 4 million people have been through it, including a quarter million employees at Marriott. That's right. And the role of the leader in the business is really execution processes kind of critical. Can you speak with the listeners about these four disciplines because it's something that Covey teaches it's part of their course. It's a covey book, and maybe a little bit of research and why you're Chris as a leader or Jim or Scott, we're all great leaders in of themselves. The authors. Yeah, I

Scott Miller
think the big idea in the book, the book as you mentioned is the best-selling book in the world around strategy execution. The big idea is there will always be more ideas than there is capacity to execute them, that leaders that execute do a couple of things that are consistent, they have a fierce focus and discipline, to be able to say no to the good at the expense of the great, they are expert at goal setting. They understand that the organizational psychology is people generally cannot do more than one thing at a time with excellence that you cannot delude yourself into thinking you can have eight or 10 wildly important goals you're never going to get them accomplish you cannot learn more than one plan at a time. So, they teach in the first discipline if you will, this idea of setting wildly important goals they call the wigs GS and the methodology is from x to y by women every goal you set should have this goal setting theory of from x to y by winning Chad both lead and lag measures a lot of goals only have lag measures, but you also have to have lead measures that are influenceable that you actually can influence and change. Yes, exactly. The big idea I write about in the book is discipline too, which is this idea of create a compelling scoreboard. I think so many organizations have scoreboards but they're in some controllers, Excel spreadsheet in her laptop,

Greg Voisen
and they're not seeing them, and they're not seeing them, and nobody knows

Scott Miller
if you're winning or losing, except for the executive team, every Friday, you know, at three o'clock when the chairman whoever you get the point. scoreboards, which is the great insight in the book needs to be fun and visual and compelling, they should not be in Excel, they should not be in the controller's laptop or the sales vice president laptop, they should be on the wall on a 40 page banner or they should be in crayon or an, you know, paid, they should have, you know, fun engagement that you as the leader should not be creating and your team should be creating them right no involvement, no commitment that people should be able to tell in a moment's notice. Are we winning against increasing customer retention from 48% to 49% by the end of next month. My role in it and how often is this updated by the day by the hour, it can be electronic it can be digital on a wall, it can be just fun things with thumb depressors and broomsticks or you know, you name it, you name it, but your team needs to own the scoreboard, and they need to rally around it, probably with some regular cadence, talk about are they winning are they losing luck, can they change, but scoreboard is all based on the fundamental idea that people want to win the game.

Greg Voisen
It also makes them accountable, let's face it, one of those four is accountability right. I know because I teach this stuff as well. So the reality is getting it but the scoreboard is the most important because that's what's visual that's what people see. And that's what they'll work on and report on, you know, Daniel Ayman and I are good friends. He's been on your show. Yeah, I met him through another author in Oregon, and we've done many podcasts together, and I know he's maybe one of your favorites and you picked him out for this top 30 And you speak about protecting your brain and the brain of those that you care about, you know, brain, Daniel always says the brain is always listening. Right, that's his newest book, can you tell the listeners about Daniel and teachings and share with us this dr oz of the brain because that's what he's kind of referred to, and you know, just so everybody knows his studies started with the average person then went to the NFL, looking at people who were having brain injuries as a result of playing football, and then on to the fact that many of them committed suicide, or had such brain injury so they were trying to figure out what was going on. So, tell us a little bit about Daniel and what you gleaned from him as a leader,

Scott Miller
well you share in common, respect and a love for dinner a man like you is a dear friend of mine and a raving fan of course he is a board-certified psychiatrist brain imaging expert and neuroscientist, he is the founder and owner of nine amen and clinics across the nation. How many of your podcast listeners and viewers know of him from the many books that he's written also he's on PBS like every hour on the hour, helping PBS raise money as well. Daniel, Ayman is probably the first physician in my generation to talk about the importance of caring for the one organ that most of us don't treat, or even be able to, or can't see. And that is the brain and that the big aha I think is that I don't think most people understand your brain is kind of like the consistency of tofu, it's like the jello, your brain is like jello. Yeah, and you've got this really sharp pointy skull, that's protecting it. That's kind of an oxymoron, and that we have got to be noticeably more intentional with how we care for our brain how we protect our brain from energy I have the, I have the privilege of being the dad the frustrating privilege would be the dad of three young sons that are seven nine and 11. And we I'm militant about helmets on anything with wheels. Yeah, cardboard, bicycle scooter pogo stick electric bike. It goes in the garbage can. If I catch you on it without a helmet because my damage as inculcate Damon has data on him and it's inculcated in me is that there are so many people that are you're in my age, older and younger. They've had three marriages, they've had three bankruptcy, they can't keep a job, they have an angry disposition. These aren't bad people. They probably in many cases have an untreated brain injury. A lot of the bunk bed when they were nine, they got, you know, knocked unconscious when they were 12 in a football game, they fell off a bike and they kind of shut it off and in their prefrontal cortex is on fire. And so that just the chapter is about not being the popular dad that when my book is published now, I'll lose all followers in Texas in Oklahoma because I vilify football. My children do not play football, they play tennis, they snow ski with a helmet. They water ski, we mountain bike, but we do all these things like fully protected. When there is very little, you know, hopefully, brain injury we bike on the trails we ski on the trails and I'm really intentional about setting up for success we try to eat well we eat food that is healthy for our brain, we're not we're not militant on this topic right I mean, you know, they've had a coke in their life and there's a bag of Cheetos in here but generally we're eating fruits and vegetables and lean proteins and a balanced diet, we have a snack and, you know m&ms occasionally but the chapter is episodic it's like all of a sudden I go to brain health because I think it's so important, and Daniel has kind of been, as you quote the dr oz of the brain, helping to really evangelize the need for us to become much more aware of how everything in our life in our body is driven not only by our heart but by our brain, and when Yeah, much more careful with it.

Greg Voisen
Well I think that listeners should know as well if they haven't listened to a recent podcast mine with Dr. Wesley from Vanderbilt. Every deep drawn breath that you know when COVID came. We stepped back 20 years in the ICU. And the reality is there is a protocol that should be being followed. And one of those protocol protocols as you're talking about is our brain is connected by our spine, when our spine doesn't move our brain atrophies and then there's delirium, and all these post COVID symptoms are a result of how they're actually being treated in the ICU today because we went and said okay let's incubate them, let's, let's basically put them on Benza benzo drugs which really are the worst thing in the world they could do for the brain, the best thing that could happen I'm saying to my listeners, but this is based on Vanderbilt, 21,000 people studied, if, if COVID came to your family, number one you got to keep the family connection, that's the first thing they took away was that community. Second thing, and I think this is important to actually mention, is it you need to keep those people awake, not asleep, not in a coma. Okay, and you need to, when you can keep them moving. Okay, and, and this new protocol is now in 60% of the hospitals so you know when you talk about post COVID symptoms delirium, you know, people are acting like they have Alzheimer’s disease, it's a result of how they were treated the drugs they were treated with and the lack of movement when they were there. I'm sorry for getting off on that tangent but I thought it was really important I learned from you, you know, in chapter about Bob Whitman, you cited two stories about servant leadership. And I was just talking with the future leader guy, Jacob Miller, and we, and I brought up the Greenleaf school of philosophy in leadership, which is who are you serving. Are your people serving you, or are you serving them. Can you read a little of his stories, and what our listeners can take away from those stories,

Scott Miller
you know, we hear this term servant leadership a lot and I don't know what the definition of it definitively is we've all got a version of that we have a version of our mind. Yeah, but what I chose to do for the book was to talk about it, literally Bob Whitman is the 22 year, CEO and chairman of our company he has, you know. By most estimates significant personal wealth he is, you know, graduated from Harvard he's climbed the Matterhorn he has done the Ironman and Kona, 20 plus times he's invited back every year he's a typical high performing athlete, CEO, a man of an impeccable character and integrity, we fight my father and son right but I loved him and he loves me. I chose to share a story in the book about literally him serving because Bob has about as a chef, Bob has a grounds crew caretaker for his homes, he has a caretaker for his family he's earned it he's earned a lot of wealth in his life because he's worked very hard and he has a team around him personally. But I share in the book as you as you referenced his two stories where Baba literally served his team. One of them was that event we had in Chicago where was that a team meeting several 100 people, the hotel fire alarm went off right before lunch removed 150 people out to the parking lot, took a couple of hours for it to be resolved, and we were you know, money was clicking right. The clock was ticking on a two-day conference with 150 people we'd flown in. And so across the street I spider pizza restaurant. And I said, Bob, what are you thinking he said let's go do it, we went and we put 150 people in a pizza restaurant. And what was interesting is while everyone sat down with their forks and their knives ready to go, including all of the presidents, and the vice presidents in the company, it was Bob Whitman the chairman, the biggest shareholder in the company, who was at the counter with me, ordering pizzas ordering appetizers delivering mozzarella sticks pouring Root Beer running parmesan and red pepper flakes out. Yeah, that's who he is. Yeah, he literally, he was pouring root beer in the mugs of presidents and vice presidents, well as the Chairman and CEO who could have bought and sold the restaurant 1000 times over, not because he's falsely humble, not because he just it's just who he is, He's a servant leader. And so in the chapter I take it a little far accurately by saying you know what, sometimes servant leadership is literally serving,

Greg Voisen
I think, you know people like that, no matter how who it is. They see what needs to be done and they take action, and they do why they're successful, and it's a man of action right and it's important what you just said because none of that is beneath him if you look at everybody we all started from humble beginnings in most cases, unless we were brought up in a family where, you know, there was it we were multimillionaires or something. So, you know, I wanted to touch on this one because in the chapter about Steven Covey, you mentioned that no matter the circumstances pulling the plug Requires Integrity. What advice can you give to our listeners in deciding whether to move forward with full conviction. Pause, Stop, or pull the plug, whether it's a, it's an initiative, or whether it's on something even more important like that like, Hey, I made a wrong move.

Scott Miller
Yeah, I can't prescribe the criteria you should go through on pulling the plug, but as you mentioned, what I can describe is recognizing that it's okay to pull the plug. The master mentor is Stephen Mr Covey the oldest son of our co-founders Stephen R. Covey he wrote the book The Speed of Trust you got to have him on for nine if you haven't, it's the most

Greg Voisen
seminal I had I had Greg link on, you did yeah so he co op. Yeah, Mo world isn't it. Yeah, it's very small.

Scott Miller
I think most people thought that the insight I would share from Stephen, Mr. Covey was around trust right the 13 behaviors of priced, high trust leaders in this book is sold two and a half million copies now. Not too shabby. But I don't I rewind 20 years when he was the president of our firm, prior to Bob Whitman, and he pulled the plug on a very important vital product launch, we were getting ready to launch a new leadership initiative, a dozen plus sales people have sold hundreds of engagements to clients, and it wasn't ready. The product wasn't at the quality that the Franklin Covey company was known for and Stephen Mr. Covey made a very bold unpopular decision cost people all kinds of money, but he had his eye set on the long term. He was thinking about our reputation our brand, our client success the referrals, the satisfaction. He was bold enough to be extraordinary unpopular in the moment, mean, people lost a lot of money consultants lost billable days sales people lost Commission's clients lost faith and commitment in the short term, but in the long term, he built the respect of me and countless hundreds of others, for having the courage to say, is this the right thing for the long term, Is this right for our reputation for our brand. Yeah, we could go get the three or $4 million of business that's been booked. But the expense of 30 or 40 million. No way. Right, very unpopular, the chapter I hope resonates with everyone who is facing a decision of your own, whether to double down with it or quadruple down with a pause and say, What should we do, whether to take perhaps the unprecedentedly popular position to pull the plug and not let the chips fall where they will but just to help pick up the pieces to say, I see something that others don't see and this is my job as a leader is to look around corners, is to be a little bit of a clairvoyant, so to speak and understand the short term gain isn't worth the long term risk,

Greg Voisen
Rita McGrath, seeing around corners Rita McGrath so what I would say is that in adding to what you just said. I look after you take all the analytics and the data on making a decision like that you've listened to all the managers you've listened all the other executives, and you have to pull the plug, or whatever it is decision you're going to make Deep down inside, if you look at some of our greatest leaders, the biggest guide they ever had is their intuition, and you really need to listen to the intuition I bought, I wrote a book on hacking the gap a journey from intuition to innovation and beyond. and it really does take you tapping into whatever you want to say a higher power to hear what that is that voice be discerning, make sure it's not your ego that speaking, but make sure it's this higher voice that's speaking to you that you hear, whether you're auditory, kinesthetic, however it might be some people feel it, and they get a gut feeling and they go nope, I'm not going to do that, it's the wrong thing to do. And I would just encourage my listeners your listeners whoever's listening to this, try and learn how to cultivate the ability to tap into that intuition, it isn't all about the numbers that come off of an Excel spreadsheet, it isn't all about what all the other managers say frequently. Sometimes you have to tap into a higher source. So, if you were to leave our listeners with one or two single points that you'd like to have them take away from this new book, what would it be and how can they integrate this advice into their daily work life because look at the end, you've done hundreds of these interviews I'm on almost 900 Yeah, and the way I look at it is, everybody wants to know, okay guys, you've talked to me for 35 minutes so far. Tell me now what I can do today. Now, tomorrow, right. So I'm asking you that what kind of advice would you give in that direction.

Scott Miller
You know, I may have mentioned this in our previous conversations, but of all of the wisdom I've gleaned from these 200 interviews from working with Dr. Stephen R. Covey for 15 years and all the greats in my career, I've been blessed to be listening to is this idea from Dr. Covey around, understand the difference between being efficient and being effective. It is by far the most profound insight that I've learned, because I think there's a lot of leaders like me more like me than not and that is what has made them so successful is their own productivity, their own efficiency, they just get stuff done. They're just, they're productive they wake up early, they work hard they check things off, they do the right things but they get stuff done and that is that efficiency mindset that when people like me that are naturally efficient and productive when they try to move that into our relationships, it creates havoc. You cannot be efficient with people, you can only be effective. This is a cliche, but it is true. Every company is now a technology company, and every company is now in the same business they're in the relationship business, period. And so if you recognize that your ultimate competitive advantage in your business, are the relationships amongst your employees and your colleagues and your funders and your advisors and your lenders and your clients, your suppliers, everything is about your relationships. So make sure that you're not moving what might be your strength, which is your efficiency into your relationships, Dr. Covey said with people fast is slow and slow is fast, and it's a huge transformation for me because I'm a naturally efficient person. I like to check things off, get things done, move it along I'm uncomfortable silence. I like to always be in motion. And that's not how you build high trust mutually beneficial relationships, slow down, with people.

Greg Voisen
Well, I appreciate you slowing down to take this call for this podcast, and I think that the wisdom that you've imparted on my listeners is great I'm going to direct all of my listeners to go to Scott Jeffrey Miller, calm, that's one place where you can learn about all of his books. You also can go to on leadership.com And that's where you see his show. All right, and it's more than just a podcast show because he's literally taping it and putting it out there. I am too, but not in the same way he's in a studio it's pretty well put together, I love your background. Yeah, it said, but it's nothing like what he's doing and I what I would say is seriously. Scott you've been on three or four times now and every time you bring such enthusiasm to the show. I appreciate that and I appreciate you all you're doing, and you've got more books coming out so make sure that we get back in touch and when these new books, Get out, we'll have you back on again, and we'll keep getting them to our leaders who are out there listening, appreciate you appreciate your time. Now mistake to you, enjoy the rest of your day.

Scott Miller
Greg, thank you thanks for your abundance mentality your, you are the model what Dr. Covey called an abundant leader thank you again.

Greg Voisen
Thank you, recording stopped. All right, well we'll edit that. Thank you sir. Put some nice music to it fill it all in.

Scott Miller
Yeah, have you been, you're doing well.

Greg Voisen
I'm doing really well I i will take some more of your referrals we not that we don't have enough people to interview but I always like to upscale it and I know that I could do that so if you, you and drew want to think through a list and me a subset list and then I can say okay, I'd like to do those introductions. Yeah, um, I know at one point, and I didn't ask you and I, and I won't it's not mandatory. I've turned the show into. As a result of being 67 years old now and thinking through my life. A little different way. We, you know, people would buy ads on this thing we were making money it was paying for production and putting it all together, decided to take it out of my own pocket, and I now have my nonprofit compassionate communications, and 100% of the donations go to. We basically support housing for the homeless. So we're literally giving him the deposit to get into HUD housing. And my goal this next year is to actually put 40 to 50 people into housing and get them off the street and into permanent housing, why and I was in one of the charities yesterday. And so if you want to make a donation, I'll send you the link that's what we do like money, send me yeah you got um, so we're, we're out there doing it, we're. Yeah, this show is our way and and secondly, and I mentioned this to some of the authors have said hey look, let me send you a case of books and I'm working on this just so you know I'm going to make a documentary about the homeless and what got him there I'm asked him the question, what was the defining moment in your life that really made it happen. We're going to string it together in a little documentary we're going to put it on YouTube. More importantly, all the authors who choose to, and this is again it's voluntary. We're saying, if you have some extra books you'd like to land, I'm actually creating an educational thing for them to get them out of where they are. I want them to understand that if they can change their mindset they can move from the street, yes to be significant in their life. Yes, many of them been on drugs, many of them have had tough situations, but we're going to start to profile the success stories, you know, how did we help turn them around so that is my.

Scott Miller
I'm delighted to send you a case of master mentors books, easy,

Greg Voisen
really, you're good with that.

Scott Miller
Totally. By the way, this has to be good because it's like you know it's a really easy breezy Read Write an easy read for someone who may not be a climatized at this point in their life for a lot of reading,

Greg Voisen
you're in, I'll take you up on it and I will tell you yesterday just and I'll let you go because I know you're busy. One of the girls spoke up at the charity I was at on a mental health thing, and she goes, you know, we have a huge group that's doing Don Miguel Ruiz's book. What's the forget ship agreements. The Four Agreements, and I said, Really, and she goes, Yeah, we got literally and I said what if I could bring on Now Scott, this is real. What if I could bring on somebody like Scott, to actually go on a zoom call yeah for 30 minutes to address your population, which is 1000s Yep, to actually hear about picking them up right. Give me some inspiration. Yes, right. And she said we would love to do that we don't have anybody doing that. So we're going to bring it on, you're okay with it.

Scott Miller
Of course, I'm going to make a donation, send drew the link for the donation I'm happy to contribute. Okay, a case of books is like easy breezy send drew that physical address. Okay, okay. We'll get it out tomorrow. No problem, and then when it comes to scheduling, to speak our agency. We work with Father Joe villages in San Diego and San Diego rescue mission. Sounds great. So, well, Drupal, will make it all happen. I'll call number done three things look for up, Look for an invite to be, do a speaking engagement send out a,

Greg Voisen
a, just a zoom call just assume yeah that's

Scott Miller
what I mean that's what I mean, I saw virtual mostly. Yeah, yeah, you got it, man. Thanks.

Greg Voisen
I'll send it thanks man. Have a wonderful afternoon honor to contribute and be a part of it.

Scott Miller
Thank you. thank you. See you, Greg. Bye.

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