Be The One: How Leaders Win by Owning Themselves | Karl Sherrill

24:48If they're actually getting over with you, well, that doesn't happen forever. And maybe they get a grade they don't deserve and maybe they move on. And, but at some point life catches up with us when we do those things. But, but what if, what if this struggle is real and you're the one who did not help them and it was enough to go to the other side of the equation which which let's be honest like you never know where that's going to go with someone and you could have been the one that did that too and and I just got to a point where I said I've seen people impact him and us positively and negatively by being the one person that made a difference and took an interest and I want to make sure that all the interactions that I have I'm fortunate enough in my professional life to interact with tons of people.

25:30And man, what if somebody just needed me to be positive and smile at them that day? Maybe that was the one thing that I was the one interaction in their day that changed the path for them that day that maybe led them to a different place. But what if also, if I'm real with myself, what if I'm the one that was negative to them? What if I'm the one that had a negative interaction? What if I'm the one who fed into what might be self-talk for a person to say, I don't know why I'm here. Nobody cares about me. What's the deal? I don't have any hope. Why am I here? And then you interact with Carl at the airport and he's frustrated already because he's missed a couple of flights and we have this interaction and I don't even know you, but we have a bad interaction and I'm really negative to you.

26:10And then off you go because I've just confirmed the self-talk you already had that there's no reason to be doing this anymore. Everybody's out to get me. And that just became a real moment for me to say, I don't want to be I'm going to be an impact to somebody every time I interact with them I will never be perfect at it but I'm going to try to do the best I can to be the positive influence on people and and so that kind of started me down this path of be the one and I so that's the message that I talked to people about when I was already having an interaction like the message is just getting out but as I talked to people I was saying why don't you be the one that makes a difference though a positive difference like why don't you be the one that and since people would come and complain to me even at work or at home about stuff in a community and I'm like let's just talk through that what if that person just needs you to be positive like you don't have to agree with them what if you just be kind to them today like maybe that changes the environment they're in so so that that started it I put you know I'm an I'm an insurance kind of junkie by trade and so acronyms flow all over the place and I figured out let me take one and how can I talk about that message in an organized pattern?

27:20And so I just kind of came up with own yourself, nurture others and expand your influence, which is the acronym that I use for this story. And I think it's tremendous. And I think the message is timely because of where we are in our society today. We have lost the ability to disagree with each other in a way that doesn't lead or spin out of control. People develop preconceived notions on fragmented information and will interact with you in ways that you don't understand. It's a very odd time to be a communicator and a leader. Odd is not the right word. Challenging, tumultuous. But I think this idea of constant positivity or reasonable and intentional positivity is absolutely what we need and the audience at Lead Loud resonated it certainly resonated with me it's why I was so excited to have you on the show is because I you know I'll get I just gave you an example um I coach my kids baseball and um what I found you know one of the parents came up to me and she was like, you know, my son like really likes playing for you.

28:39She's like, what are you doing? I was like, nothing. I don't know. I mean, I know the game. I love the game. Don't get me wrong. She's like, well, no, she's like, you know, he's played for other coaches that were, you know, whatever, not yelling. I am not a big yeller or whatever. Um, and he's like, but he really, he's like, and I was like high fives. And she's like, what do you mean? I'm like kids high fives. because it makes them feel connected. It makes them feel seen. It's fun. It's energizing. Now, do adults want you high-fiving them as you walk through the office? Probably not. Maybe not.

29:13Maybe they do. But I'm not against it. I look up a good fist pump or whatever. But, like, I was like, for this audience, kids, if you just constantly high-five them, they're in a good mood. Even if they mess up, you just give them a little dap. Dude, you got this. You're good. Bam. You're the man. No one better. you know throw some little thing on it with a high five they could go over three that day and they walk away with a smile yeah and i think and and in the context of little league everyone that makes complete sense oh yep no that makes complete this then we get into our adult world and we're like johnny's not holding up his end of the bargain sally hasn't sold anything the hr team's up my butt about some email i sent or i didn't mean what i you know and now all of a sudden it's pure negativity.

30:00And I guess when, when, when you talk to someone who's dealing with these adult toxic environments, what is like, is the first step just be the one? Is it go get consensus? Like if you're in one of these toxic environments, maybe you enjoy the company in general, but it's got this kind of negative or toxic and you want to change it. How do you start injecting this idea into this idea of being the one, which I love, into an organization so that, you know, you can start to break that negativity spiral down? Yeah, I think, so early on, it's, it's, if you have the opportunity to be really careful about who you join, I think the team that you join, you have to be careful about it.

30:46And so I talked to a lot of undergrads, talked to young professionals, and I remind them to just, this is the time to not compromise. Finding a team of people that is aligned with the way that you see the world and the way you want to live your life and the way you want to be professionally. Again, just to reiterate, the main thing they're usually missing is they haven't even spent time thinking about that. So I've got to get them to go back and do that first. But let's move forward. They've joined a team, and obviously sometimes you do the best you can. You still end up in a team where the environment is not what you expected it to be.

31:16It turns toxic over time. you have new leadership or new teammates, whatever the situation is. But when you find yourself in that space, I think you have to do a couple of things. Number one is I want to make sure I don't want people to think that I'm all rainbows and unicorns. Like I do not think that this is easy. I'm not good at it all the time. It's the desire of my heart. It's not the way that I execute on a daily basis, but it sure is what I want to do on a daily basis. And so what I would encourage people in those situations is be really clear on who you are, because if you're compromising the core value of who you are in a toxic situation, there's no fixing that.

31:52It's probably not getting better. If you can align your core values and you can have honest conversations with people, start trying to find people in that team who you believe are aligned with you and begin to have real vulnerable transparent conversations about what you're feeling and where you're at and how it's going because that's reality for a team and good leaders should be receptive to the teammates coming to them and saying I don't know what's going on but this is how it is making me feel it may just be my perception is incorrect and I may be my feeling I may need to adjust this a little but I think it's important that you and I have a conversation about how this is impacting the way that I operate daily and and then you've just got to kind of find a way to talk through how do I move to a place that I want the team to be?

32:39Now, the other piece of that that I challenge people with, you have an obligation, though, to be the teammate that you want to be, that you want everybody else to be, too. It's very easy for all of us to point to the people around us who are causing the problem without taking a step back real quick to say, yeah, but was I really intentional about showing up today? Did I really do my work today? Did I really show up correctly? Because if the answer is no to that you can't you got to get that square before you go take care of what's happening with the rest of the team um so I think that's where I mean it's difficult when you find yourself and listen there's a lot of people who listen I've been very fortunate in my career very fortunate with people and connections and things and there's people though that are in places where they're stuck that don't have a choice that the choice to leave is it'd be easy for me to answer that question and say well you shouldn't be on that team you should find another team and you should go enjoy that other team.

33:31But the reality is for many of us, that's just not reality, that you can just jump around and be shopping around for some team that makes you feel better. It's just not the world we live in. But I also think you have this incredible opportunity if you can take it on as a challenge and as a project, your own project, if you can absorb the negativity for what it is and then brush it off a little bit and then dig in a little bit, man, if you're the one that changed the culture of that toxic team, what an incredible spot you'll find yourself in, right? Have you ever read the book, No More Mr. Nice Guy?

34:04I have not. I highly, highly recommend it. It's one of my number one recommendations for pretty much anyone really, but particularly men in leadership positions. And what he defines in that book is the difference between nice and good. and this opened my eyes i read this about a year and a half into uh rogue risk when i was developing rogue risk team was really starting to grow and i had i was you know you're bringing people in and you're bringing in teammates that fit in immediately and you're bringing in teammates that have some friction here or maybe you know different personalities and i'm looking at this and i was struggling to pull it all together.

34:47And I didn't understand why my message of like, wasn't resonating as much as I wanted it to. Um, cause I've always prided myself on, on being someone who could inspire humans, uh, captain of every team and all this kind of stuff, whatever. And when I read that book, what I realized is I was over indexing on nice, right? It was nice. I wasn't, I didn't have the hard conversation because I wanted to be nice. I didn't bring two people together and help them talk because I didn't want to create comedy because I was nice. Everything was nice, nice. And what he outlines in this book, and it's very, it's not a long read.

35:26You could, you could get through it in a couple of days. It's, it's, it's really the perfect type of business book. Cause you can, you, it doesn't take you a year to read it. It's not like I'm reading the art of seduction by, by Robert Greene right now. and it's like a college textbook. It's like this big, you know, 12 font. I mean, it's amazing. Let me just give you a little quick side story on this thing. It's weird, but it's legitimate because it's real for me. We were taking a group to London last year. A group of producers was a fun contest reward trip. I wanted to learn a little bit more about Winston Churchill.

35:58So I ordered a Winston Churchill book, a biography. The book came in and it was 1 ,700 pages and it was this thick. And I was like, well, I wasn't expecting that. So I sent it back, exchanged it for another book. The next one came in, it was 1400 pages and it was still this thick. And my wife was like, did you read the description? And I'm like, yeah, I don't know if I, I'm not sure I can get through that kind of thing. So yeah, good. Yeah. Readable book. Yeah. I've come with you. When it's over a certain number, I got to go to audio book. I just can't, I won't get through it. But so this idea of good versus nice.

36:25And what I realized is it kind of comes back. It almost is a more tactical version of what Jordan Peterson talks about with be a monster, right? Have the capability to stand up for yourself, to step into tough situations, but keep that sword sheathed as much and as often as you possibly can in the world. And what it forced me to do was say, the nice thing, the nice thing is to not address this point of negativity because I don't want to cause more problems. That's the nice thing. But the good thing for my team and for everyone is to let's address these problems. What is going on? because a lot of times I've found, and I'm very interested in your take with all the teams that you've led, is that when you do, the negativity spreads, right?

37:15It's contagious, but so is positivity. So oftentimes someone who presents themselves as negative on a day-to-day basis, when you can show them that you accept them or accept whatever their issue is, or you're willing to address their issue and you keep that positive environment, you can flip people back. People would rather be positive. I think most people would rather operate from a place of positivity. They just don't know how to. And you can, it is not a lost cause if you find yourself in one of these negative environments where if, as you said, you live that value structure that you say you want and you actually present it, people will come along for that ride.

37:57Have you found that to be true? I have. And I would say, so number one, I'm an over-indexed to nice guy for sure. I think the place that I have developed into from maturing in my professional career, also led by my personal life, is to be willing to have a very challenging conversation with someone because I'm coming at it from the standpoint of, if we don't talk about it, that's bad for everybody. And I care too much about you to not have that conversation. So that's number one. the other thing that is interesting I also agree like our brains are wired to be defensive and that brings on some interesting personality traits and the way that we interact with each other that are just kind of by design but I do believe that there's not people that get up every day that would otherwise be wired to just be miserable and make your life miserable and so then you begin to think about well if I believe that to be true then I would like to seek understanding as to why they're there.

38:53Like to me, it becomes compassion for there's been something in the life experiences that they've absorbed have put them into a place where that's how they see the world when they get up in the morning. And that's sad. I'm desperately sad for those people because that's not a way to live a life. And so as leading a team, I want to understand why we're there. I want to understand what the experience in your life has been that that's put you in that space where you can't enjoy the moments in life that are really important and then try to help you find a way to get there and enable you to do that.

39:24Look, the reality is if I've got a team of people who can't figure that out, we're not going to be successful together. We'll have small successes and we'll be able to get lucky wins. Long-term sustainable success for a team, when we've got people dealing with that, I don't believe and I don't think history has proven it out either that you'll have long-term sustainable success if you don't help the team be great i had a great mentor who who years ago said to me if if you're not good at home before you get to work it how do you're not going to cut that off it's not going to turn a switch when you get here like so so i think it's i think it's an opportunity for us to really step back and say if i if i believe and i do but if if i believe that people are generally wired to do good things and be good people if they're not something's going on and there is no greater joy in my life to date or in other leaders.

40:16And I think there's no greater joy than to take that really negative person in my life and turn them into something, turn them into a fan, turn them into a person that smiles when they see me. And I joke around with people, listen, if you're rude and ugly to me, I'm gonna probably be okay with it. It might not feel great. I'll get over it. But I also have just accepted that as the challenge to, you and I have a disconnect because if you really knew me, I don't think you'd treat me that way. So let's figure out how we can figure that out first. yeah I completely agree and when you see that light bulb come on for someone oh there's nothing more rewarding because all of a sudden you can take you can take you know I don't love these terms a b c player type of thing that you hear I understand why we use them because you know but I don't love that because I think oftentimes we categorize people as if they're static, right?

41:08He's a C player. She's a player. And it's more like in this moment, in this season of their life and or our business, this is where they fall, but it doesn't mean they're static. Right. And what we ultimately want to do is look at our B's and our C's in the current moment and say, how can I help them elevate to their best level? Cause, cause I also think, and I'm really interested in your take on this. Cause again, I don't love this terminology. I understand why we use it, but I don't love it. And my point is like, okay, I want everyone on my team at their A, not our A, right? They obviously have to hit certain business metrics.

41:50They have to do their job. They have to perform. And we all have KPIs in what we need to do. But if I can just have everyone at their version of A, whatever that is, or as close to their version of A as often as possible. That to me is how you hit true escape velocity in a business and you launch out into the atmosphere because you're not going to have everyone at a quote unquote A level way up here all the time because that might not be, you know, Johnny's A, one, he might be doing a different function and two, his version of A might be, yeah, he doesn't, And he only kind of sells at the minimum requirement each month.

42:31But man, he also does X and Y and Z. And while those don't count in terms of the cash register, man, they really help our business in this way or that way. And it's getting these people up to A. And simply everything that you've talked about so far, it's about raising those people up. And I think that should be our goal as leaders is not to have this team where all our A's are exactly the same, but how many of the people in your organization are operating at their version of an A at that moment? And I just, again, I, I, the way my brain works, I have severely hyperactive ADHD at all given times.

43:13There's like 10 ,000 things going. I don't want to tell you the other thoughts that are running through my brain while we're having this conversation. And I mean, that with no disrespect. Um, but you know, I've had to come up with these reframes and some of these things, you know like just you johnny doesn't have to be the same a as sally sally's version of a is this killer she's putting max revenue on that's awesome he's hitting his a though and that seems good that's good enough that's all he shows up happy he's communicating he comes to the parties he supports people and yeah he doesn't sell as much as her but he sells enough and he's super happy so let's freaking go like why are we gonna knock him because sally's just an absolute sales monster, right?

43:53I mean, there are, but he's operating at his A and I think it's the better way of viewing it. Well, I love the reframing of that a little bit too, right? Because, because if I want you to operate at your best, I need to help you understand what that looks like, right? Not everybody kind of has a view of that. And if we're not careful, again, the outside influence of the world and the environment and the business that you're in will dictate to someone what they should be chasing as their A level. And what I would rather see us do is help them, help them understand what is my A-level that I'm wanting to achieve in life, and let's help you get there, and let's have a real conversation about it instead of chasing somebody else's desire for what you should be in life.

44:31You know, and I think, you know, I know people who don't play sports hate when people on podcasts talk about sports, but I'm going to talk just for a second. You know, coming up, I played football, basketball, baseball. Football was my number one sport until I got three concussions my senior season, and I ultimately ended up having to play baseball in college. I say have to, like, that was a bad thing. I loved it, but, uh, and probably better for my physical health long-term. However, I think about a football team in this way. If you're taking this idea of everyone at their A, right? Uh, uh, uh, a middle linebacker or a quarterback has a very defined A and what they can do.

45:05And they're often highlighted in the respective sides of the field as like the prime time players on those sides of the field. However, don't you also want your long snapper to be an A long snapper because if that guy throws the ball 10 feet over the punter's head you're in a really bad position so you don't need your long snapper to be an A middle linebacker or an A quarterback you just need to get them to being an A long snapper and I think if we think through our businesses in that way it helps us not compare people who shouldn't be compared I think I think comparison is good to an extent but it can also create some of the negativity if we let it get out of hand.

45:45And I also think it can sometimes be, and this is, I'm super interested in your take on this. I think sometimes it can be lazy leadership to just apply everyone to the same standard and, and judge them accordingly as if we're all the same humans because we're just not. Yeah, I think, so I had a coach in my high school career when I was a really good athlete at one thing, right? And so I played soccer growing up. I wasn't a great soccer player, but I was good enough to get to hang out with my buddies who also played. And so I played soccer. So my freshman year of high school, played soccer. Wasn't great, but nobody cared because it was freshman soccer and nobody was great.

46:23So big deal. Go back out and at the end of my freshman soccer season, wrestling started. Well, I had never wrestled. I didn't know what wrestling was. I'd never done it. But I was also a 97 pound, tiny little kid in high school as a freshman. So football wasn't an option. Soccer wasn't great for my size. Wrestling became this thing that had this ability to put you in a category where you're competing with similar people, right? Like weight divisions. And so I went and wrestled, fell in love with it, was pretty good at it my freshman year. The wrestling coach was also the soccer coach, same guy.

46:55And so we show up, I show up my sophomore year to soccer. I go out for the team, I'm at spring practice and the soccer coach comes over to me about two days into practice. And he He basically says, hey, if you want to play JV soccer, most of your buddies are going to be up on the varsity this year. If you want to play JV soccer and you want to sit on the bench most of the year and not play a whole lot, you are more than welcome to do that if that's some experience that you think you want. He said, but also let me ask you, would you consider this? We've got some guys from the wrestling team who are doing preseason work in the fall.

47:24Would you be interested in that? I think you could be a really great wrestler. And so I had a coach come to me and say that uncomfortable conversation to say, hey, here's the reality of it. You want to muddle around over here? You can. That's fine. I don't have any problem with you doing that. So be it. I see an A player over here in this spot. If you want to put the time into that, that's where I think you should be. And I'll give you that option. But you still got to make a decision as to what you want to do. And so fortunately for me, I chose to take his advice and go wrestle and had a really great, fun wrestling career in high school.

47:57but it does go back to we have to put people in a position to be successful again people want to be successful people want to show up to work and do a bad job but if i'm putting them and telling them here's who i want you to be and it's not who they are that dynamic will never work and it actually will stress them out and it'll make the whole environment difficult what a great example of someone being the one for you in the moment that you needed them. What a tremendous example. No doubt about that. That's true. Very, very well said. I got one last question for you. I want to be cognizant of your time.

48:34Our children are often our most honest critics or feedback givers. So when you first pitched this idea of the one to them, when they started hurting, what did you, what was the feedback that you got? Like, do they buy into this? They like, oh dad, you know, what are you talking about now? Or was it like, oh, dad you got something here like i like what what was your what was your feedback on that that's that's great i think um my kids were a little bit older when this kind of began to develop um and and they have always been super supportive you know i get i get a lot of eye rolls from them i try to use words that they use you know i use six seven and riz and all this kind of stuff today to try to do you know what i have no idea what i don't know but i just know what i do this i don't even know if i'm should be saying it quite honestly i don't think anybody knows i ask them all the time.

49:24What are you saying? They have no idea. And so my, my, my daughter and my boys, they roll their eyes at me on a regular basis. Cause I like to be awkward and embarrassing for them. But in, in this topic, you know, we've had a lot of conversations about this general topic and the way that it influenced our family, because it, because when, when you're going through something like this, it was really my son and I, who, I mean, my wife's totally involved, but I was the one struggling with how to help him. And so therefore that caused a lot of tension for us. and it caused a lot of issue within the family dynamic as well.

49:52So my whole family, we've all gone on this journey together. And so when I talk to them about this idea of what I had, they're so supportive of it. And my middle son, especially, who was my main inspiration for this, he's very open and talks to others and to each other. And he and I have very honest, vulnerable conversations with each other about how we grew together through that journey that was very difficult at times, but how we grew together in that. And he wants the story to be out. and we want the story to be out because we believe the impact that we can help. If I help one dad have a better day with one of his kids, then that's good enough for me because I want to just change something in a small level on a regular basis.

50:33So the answer is that they think it's funny. I take selfies on stage when I do talks, and they can't stand that. They think that's crazy. I show pictures of them in my presentations. They're not a fan of that. But as far as this topic and my heart about helping others in this space, we've all lived it and so I've got great support from them they're they're on board fully they're older and so that's certainly helpful they're more mature I mean ideally I would love for my son and I to together tell our stories independent but together because he is as much of this as it is for me yeah that's phenomenal I and you know I will let you know you are not alone my children do like love to bust my chops about the videos and the, and at the same time, they also love it.

51:21You know what I mean? Like they're like, you know, they love it, but they're also, they love, especially when someone gets you with a funky face, like you get a picture and you got like the, you know, a funky face. That's the one that they'll talk about and send me a picture of. And I'm like, really? Of all the shots that came out of that speaking gig, that's the one you're texting me? Like, come on. There's some universal truth in all of that with kids. That's for sure. Well, Carl, man, I could talk to you all day. I think your story is absolutely phenomenal. And obviously, I'm a huge fan, fan of you in the industry, someone I've watched you grow and watched Hi-C grow and a big fan in that regard.

51:57But what I saw on stage was a message that I feel needs to spread. It's why, again, I couldn't wait to have you on the show. People who've heard this, who want to get deeper into your world, who want to follow along, who think that this idea of being the one can help them either in their leadership or how they operate with their family and their children, where can they go to get more of you and the work that you're doing here? The best way would be to connect with me. I'm on social media and I'm out there, so it's not hard to find me. And if you send me a note, probably LinkedIn is probably the best way to catch me.

52:29But my email's out there and you can email me as well. I'm more than willing to be open to and helping someone have more conversation about this topic. So I would love to do that. And it's equal, same to you, Ryan. And I've known of you and seen you and followed you as well throughout our different places in industry. We never really overlapped until just then at that conference. It was really great to see you. Appreciate your feedback on the topic and the opportunity to come here and continue to kind of spread this message that I hope to really get some momentum behind. Yeah, that's awesome. And guys, I'll have Carl's socials linked up, whether you're watching on YouTube, listening, just scroll down.

53:04I'll have those linked up. And I'll say, man, hey, open invitation. If this becomes a book, whatever, love to have you back on the show. enormous fan. And guys, if you put on events and obviously I'm a speaker myself, but, but if you put on events, I'm telling you, um, Carl is a great, great story. This, this is a wonderful keynote. It hits both the personal and the business side. And, uh, just appreciate the hell out of you, man. And glad that you're out there sharing the message. Ryan, thanks so much. I really appreciate it.