Long-Term Leadership Outlasts Short-Term Wins

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1:03Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jance and my guest today is Chris Ducker. He's a serial entrepreneur, best-selling author and founder of Youpreneur, a global personal brand business education company. He's recognized for his candid, actionable advice on entrepreneurship, business growth, and personal brand leadership. He's been on this show before with a couple of his other books, For Sure, Rise of the Youpreneur, I think, shaped countless business owners to scale and lead. And we're going to talk about his latest book, The Long Haul Leader, how to lead and win in the long game of business.

1:39So Chris, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for having me back, John. Appreciate it. So serial entrepreneur, you know, my mind goes to like Frosted Flakes or something, but is there a favorite serial in the UK that we don't have over here maybe? Boy, I don't know. That's a really good question to kick off the chat. I'm pretty sure that we've got everything you've got, and you've probably got about another gazillion other cereals that we don't have, I would think. You've certainly got something drier and tasteless, sir. I was going to say, we generally don't do cereal in our house. So I think the last time I had a bowl of cereal, it was probably something bland and boring like cornflakes or something like that.

2:22All right. So in the book, you take on something you call short-termism, which I guess is obviously the opposite of the long haul. Was there a time in your business? I mean, a lot of authors are really just writing like from the insights they've had over growing their own businesses. When did you realize the long game? Did you have to be in the long game to realize the long game's value? That's a good question. I think that I probably felt it initially, probably maybe 10 years or so ago, when we opened up the doors to Youpreneur. At that point, I'd already had two other businesses that were both doing very, very well indeed.

3:02Uh, funnily enough, both those businesses we've now exited and sold over recent years. So the only business that we run now day to day is Youpreneur. And we've niched that down now to serve business authors and help them not only write and market their book and launch their books, but also to build businesses around their books and the frameworks that live within them. And that's going really well right now as well. So I believe that when we opened up the doors to Youpreneur, there was a lot of kind of membership sites out there teaching you how to market and your business and grow your business, become a creator and all that kind of stuff.

3:39But for me, I remember saying, this is going to be probably like the next 10, 15 years of my life, I think. Like I felt really quite positive and confident on that fact. And the real reason here is that the other factor here is I think that ultimately, particularly as an entrepreneur, we're kind of conditioned to go after those quick wins, right? Those fast wins, those shiny object wins, as I call them. But if you think about how short-term wins are quite loud, you go for something, you grab them, you kind of celebrate it in a loud way. The way I look at long-term impact is really it kind of whispers and whispers until it starts roaring.

4:19And I'm all about the raw at this point. And the real game should be patience and consistency and showing up even when it's not sexy, like, you know, doing the unflashy work behind the scenes and all that kind of stuff. And so, yeah, I think there's certainly something to be said for hustle, right? And hustle culture. There's nothing wrong with a little hustle every now and then. And you will hustle anyway, just naturally by being a business owner, a deadline, a project that you want to get out the door by a certain date or something along those lines. But generally speaking, it's not sustainable to be in that hustle mindset for too long.

4:57In fact, hustle, if you think about it as a season, it's not a lifestyle. And I talk about that in the book, obviously. But help me a little bit. I mean, I get this. I've been doing this 30 years, you know, so I get, you know, what happens is you develop muscles and you develop memory. and that helps you with the long game. Like every year in our business, February is a terrible month and it must have something to do with, you know, the cycle of, you know, what people do in business. You know, it's like everybody wants to close the year and, you know, big time. And then there's like kind of this exhale.

5:27And so younger members of my team are like, oh, leads are way down, you know, business is way down. What are we going to do? And I'm like, it's always this way. Just wait for March. It'll be fine, you know, but that until you've been through it 10 times, you know, it's hard to have that mindset. So how does a younger entrepreneur in this case, develop that long-term mindset without kind of the benefit of hindsight? Yeah, I think, you know, particularly the younger generation, my daughter, Chloe, as I know your daughter's with your company, Chloe's been with us now for six years. She's our COO at Youpreneur.

5:59She's amazing, but she's also quite kind of KPI and kind of target focused. And she wants to kind of chase down the next goal quite a bit. And I, you know, I always say that first and foremost, like leadership in general, leading the game in whatever niche you're in is not about being everywhere. Genuinely, it's not. It's about being where it really matters. So you don't have to worry about being on every platform, chasing down every goal, every verification badge that you can get and all that kind of stuff. It's about choosing your presence with intention and working from a place of non-insecurity, right?

6:40Or no insecurity. The other thing is that I kind of like the idea, like I've been saying this a lot recently, particularly to younger people. My son is 16 now and he's a big music fan and he's kind of creating his own music and he's putting it up on Spotify and YouTube and all these kind of places. and he gets like really, oh dad, I just hit 200 subscribers and you know, I just hit a thousand streams and all this kind of stuff. And I keep saying, look, you don't need more followers. You don't need more followers. You just need more focus, right? You've got to like focus on the clarity. Don't worry about constant content out, you know, you know, every available opportunity, like build that focus, knock out something really good on a weekly or a monthly basis and the momentum will follow.

7:27plain and simple. And so I think overall, the question is, yes, I can respect people want quick wins and they want to chase down those goals. But ultimately, any kind of success that kind of will suggest that you'll have bad health because of it or family or start doing it from a place of non-committal joy, that's pure sacrifice right there. That's not success. And I want my kids to be successful, just like I want all my clients to be successful as well. Well, before we get too much further in the show, the book is built. I mean, as all good books, you give people a, it's not just a concept. Here's a framework.

8:03Here's actually the steps to do it. So you want to, as high level as you want to go, unpack what the steps are in the framework. Yeah. So when I first started writing the book, so this all came about out of 2021. We're in the middle of pandemic. I had a burnout, pretty bad burnout. I was actually diagnosed with anxiety, depression, which I didn't see coming at all. and I had phase three adrenal failure, which basically meant that my adrenal glands, which are two little glands that sit on top of your kidneys, they create cortisol, which is your stress hormone, right? They'd flatline. They weren't creating any cortisol, so I couldn't handle stress.

8:38And the more stress it got, the worse it got and so on. So I had to take a period of time off and kind of recoup and relook at things. And I noticed when I was writing notes down, and I was doing this mostly for me at this point, not for the book, but whenever I was writing notes down or listening to a podcast or watching a video or whatever it was talking to somebody, I noticed that the notes I was taking, the things I was taking away from these discussions kept landing in four very distinct buckets. And they were hobbies and pastimes, which was a big one out of left field. I didn't see that coming at all.

9:13It was love and relationships. It was personal mastery. So upgrading yourself, et cetera. and then the work that you do. Right. And so I sat down and I kind of worked through this and looked at how we could put this into a framework when we actually started planning the book. And that's what we did. We basically put it into this four step. If you imagine a bit of a Venn diagram, it's the only image in the entire book. There's one image in the whole book and this is it. And we've called it the long haul leader life OS or operating system because my mindset was, well, if our phones have got an OS, our computers have got an OS, why can't we have an OS as well?

9:52And so if you imagine where personal mastery and hobbies and pastimes kind of overlap, the time that we spend doing those things represents the balance that we have between our self-improvement and obviously the activities that we enjoy doing. Where hobbies and relationships and love clash, memories, right? The actual memories that we create, they reflect those meaningful experiences that we create, right? While we're pursuing these passions and nurturing these relationships and whatnot. And then going further, where love and relationships and the work that we do or impactful work, as I talk about it in the book, where those actually overlap, then what we're talking about here is like how showing how meaningful work ultimately enables personal freedom, but also strengthens the relationships both at work and away from work as well.

10:46And then finally, the personal mastery side of things and how that clashes and overlaps with the work that we do, it's kind of like excites me a lot is it all comes down to the clients and they reflect the value and the influence that we generate from the people that we work with and how we apply our own expertise into our work. So it's a business book. Yes. and what yeah it's interesting with my publisher we had a pretty long drawn out discussion over like how do we position this is it a leadership book is it a self-help book is it personal development is it business like what we ended up sticking it into a leadership category but ultimately it's a little bit of all of those things and i'm kind of joking a little bit when i talk to friends about it so when it's kind of part memoir part roadmap and that's kind of where we're going.

11:35Well, I've always said that I think entrepreneurship is probably the ultimate personal development. Totally is, if you want to do it right. Yeah. I mean, so, you know, I mean, I think you could rightly call it personal development or self-help even because, I mean, regardless if you're running a business, I mean, everybody, almost everybody has those four areas at some level in their life, you know, even if they're working for a company. Hey, small business owners. Let me ask you a quick question. Is your marketing actually working for you or just working you over? If you're tired of chasing random tactics and want real clarity, it's time for a strategy first approach.

12:13At DuckTap Marketing, we help you build a marketing system you own, one that fits your business and finally puts you in control. No more chaos, no more guesswork, just a roadmap you trust, powered by smart strategy. And let's face it, a little help from AI today. You ready to shift from overwhelmed to confidence? Head on over to dtm.world slash own it. dtm.world slash own it. All good frameworks come with a way to measure. Are we making progress? Are we setting the right priorities? How do you suggest, especially when you start getting into things like hobbies, as you've mentioned, I mean, how do you measure, like, am I doing it right?

12:54Yeah, the hobbies thing, like I said, came out of left field. I didn't see this one coming, but I, through the research that we did through the book, the people that were interviewed for the book and things like that, it was pretty apparent to me that those entrepreneurs, very specifically entrepreneurs, as well as C-suite executives and things like that, but mostly entrepreneurs that we talked to, those that had hobbies were a heck of a lot productive and more successful in their work compared to people that did not have hobbies. And I started looking into this even further and I found that creative hobbies very specifically things like painting or anything to do with music and i think you do painting don't you i'm a watercolor nature yeah yeah yeah and i also do bonsai as well which is quite okay you know creative as well got to keep the things alive first and foremost so the horticulture side of things comes in the play first but yeah so what we found with the creative um the creative hobbies was really interesting so i went down a rabbit hole and i started looking at like are there any famous people that are like in corporate america corporate world who have got like creative hobbies there's one guy we found david solomon who is the ceo of goldman sax david solomon is also known as dj d sol and he is one of the most sought after dance djs in america everything he makes he gives to charity because he doesn't need the money obviously But, you know, when you look at the statistic, and this came out of a Forbes survey, I believe, that if you engage in a creative hobby as an entrepreneur or a high-level executive for a minimum of two hours a week, on average, you're looking at about a 30 % boost on your performance at work, which is pretty telling.

14:42So, like, the overall arching message here is go get a hobby and make it a creative one, ultimately. I mean, did the research suggest why that is, though? It comes down to prioritizing recovery fundamentally. It's prioritizing recovery. And that is what I've personally seen as well in me stepping away from work more often. The work that I do now Monday, because I don't work Fridays. I haven't worked Fridays for many minutes. Monday to Friday, I work 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. So it's not a lot of time, quote unquote, in the office, but I am more productive than I ever have been. And I go out on nature walks almost every day.

15:22I'm very blessed to live in the countryside here in England. So I'm out and about on nature and everything pretty regularly. Become a little bit of a bird watcher, actually. I'm the guy walking around with a big lens now in the morning, just in case something cool pops out of a bush somewhere. But on a very serious note, I have noticed, unreservedly noticed, that I feel more confident in the work that I'm doing. I get more done. I'm hitting my KPIs. My to-do lists disappear almost on a daily, if not definitely a weekly basis. And my team started to follow suit as well. So we're now a no work Friday company.

15:56And everybody loves that, obviously, a four day work week. And there is just something about prioritizing your recovery that allows you to become better at what you do at work. I wonder sometimes, too, if people like us that have their hands on a keyboard a lot of days and we're staring into virtual cameras. I wonder if there's also something, if we want to go down another rabbit hole, to doing a hobby that uses your hands, that is analog, that really gets you away from a computer screen completely. I actually enjoy woodwork. I built furniture. Yeah, I know you do. I always say that all the time.

16:32I mean, there's something about holding this thing that used to be alive, you know, this tree that used to be alive. And I think there is something physical as well as mental about it. There was, I went to a conference, a fair. It was the Global Bird Fair just last weekend. I'll show you something on camera here. So if you're listening on audio, sorry, you're going to miss this. But I bought this. This is a little nut hatch. A little carved nut thatch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I paid, I think, probably the equivalent of about$90 US for it. But I didn't necessarily buy it because I wanted this to sit on my desk, although it does look pretty cool.

17:11I bought it because after talking with the sculptor for 30 minutes, I was invested in the journey. I was invested in what he was all about. This guy was retired, mid-70s. That's about five hours a day in his workshop, pretty much seven days a week. loves what he does and travels travels the country selling his woodwork and making a little money after retirement the was the joy in his face and his words that he when he spoke about doing what he did what he loved and there's something to be said for that you know yeah 100 well we could do a whole nother show on this we better get back to another topic in the book that you cover a lot and again, you use yourself, stories of reinvention.

17:56Is there a particularly painful, people love painful stories or is there a particularly painful one or maybe something that you got through because of maybe taking this long approach? Well, I mean, it's the burnout of 2021. It was interesting because that year, we had a phenomenal year business-wise. We made a whole bunch of money. We served probably well over 300 people within our Youpner programs, maybe even a little more, actually. It was just a great year. And all the work I was doing, like genuinely, John, like I was loving it, loving the work, love the people we're working with, love doing the, you know, everything that we would do of like, you know, turn up and train people and all the rest of it.

18:41It was just a great year. But little did I know deep down, I was just wearing myself out further and further and further. and when you hit a rock bottom like like if you'd have asked me five like seven eight years ago do you ever think you'll be treated like clinically with drugs for depression chris i would have called you mad mad yet there i was on antidepressants for 18 months bounce back from it so it was very much a fish out of water situation for me i didn't really feel it coming all that much and when it It hit me really, really hard. And I did what most kind of quite addictive personality type people do.

19:23And I kind of went all in on it. And I went down the nutrition route, the whole kind of biohacking route. I did a whole bunch of blood work. I started wearing a wearable to track everything from sleep and recovery and the heart rate and all the rest of it. You know, red light therapy, cold plunges, saunas, PT sessions, every other day. all that stuff to, because I'm like, I need to get better. Like I can't, you know, yes, I can afford to take six months off, but my business can't allow me to take six months off like this. And so it was really tough. But the things that I talk about in the book are real, double downing on things like recovering and enjoying hobbies more, spending more time with the people that you love and you respect and want to be around a lot more, focusing on learning new things as well and understanding that in order to lead you have to continue to learn you have to and then really just like the focus of working with the right people that was the big change that i made coming back out from it was that i was done working with the wrong type of people you know when i started looking at things a lot more granularly i realized oh that guy's a pain in the butt to deal with this group i don't want to work with anymore and so on and so on.

20:41And we, we fired a whole bunch of clients, hired a whole bunch of new ones and rejigged a whole bunch of different stuff that we were doing, you know, program wise, messaging wise, marketing language wise, everything. Um, so that was the big, you know, the kind of the big painful story that now I'm happy to say is, you know, we're in a much better spot than we've ever been. One of the things that I think this long haul approach is, and you talk about it in the book is, you know, takes a lot of transparency. People realize it, that you're in the long haul, if you're, I think you even call it leading out loud.

21:12You know, you share the good things, you share the bad things, you share where we're going, get everybody on the same page. How, you know, especially for a leader that might feel like, wait, we don't do that, do we? We don't share the books. You know, I mean, how do you get somebody to realize the value in doing that? Here's the thing. I didn't do it either. I didn't do it. Now, I didn't do it mostly because I'm a stupid man and we have idiot brains, you know, most of us. But I mean, I think some of it was down to pride. I'm the patriarch of my family. We've got four children and an amazing family.

21:53And they look up to me for pretty much everything. And I love that most days, right? And I think part of it was that. The other part very clearly was business because people were coming to me to know how to build their business with balance and their business with profitability and purpose built in and here i am burning out like there's something broken here and i can't let them know that i'm going through this so i have to kind of almost power through it in a way and actually it was last year when we were hanging out in nashville with each other i was sitting down when our time together had finished and myself and my buddy pat flynn were hanging out and he our families are very very close families we spend a lot of time with each other and i haven't even told him we're talking three years after the fact after i was diagnosed and put on meds and all the rest of it and when i was telling him about it finally face to face properly that we hadn't seen each other since the pandemic he started tearing up and he was just like i can't believe you went through all this without telling me like i'm just like it's awesome that you're on the other side of it but like bro you should have told me i think you know like this is messed up we're supposed to be friends.

23:05So I kept it in, John, kept it all in for those two main reasons. And I've hated myself for it. And when I started writing the book, really got into it at around the beginning of last year, it wraps up, we wrapped the editing up in around September last year. But when I really got into the writing, I was like, I can go two ways here. I can continue to kind of put a bit of a cloak and smoke and mirror style here in play and kind of just skate around the edges. or I can really open the kimono up and just, you know, just, just be super vulnerable and, and just give it all, just put it all out there.

23:44And which is, that's what I decided to do. And the folks that I've spoken to about the book, those are, you know, half a dozen or so folks that had like an advanced, you know, PDF version a few months back before we finalized everything. They were like, man, this is like, the fact that you're doing this is huge because people in our industry just don't do this like this is this has the opportunity of genuinely like hopefully changing some lives like for real not just business lives but like lives lives and so i'm glad i made the decision to be a little bit more open about it all well awesome chris i appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the duct tape marketing podcast anywhere you want to invite people learn more about you your work obviously the long haul leader yeah i mean if anybody does want to read the book they can pre-order it at longhaulleader.com the official publication date is September 2.

24:31And if they pre-order before that date, just send us a copy of your receipt. We'll give you a load of bonuses. All the info is on that page. And if they want to connect on me, just chrisducker.com. Nice and easy. Again, appreciate you dropping by and I look forward to seeing you in Nashville soon. Yeah. Right back at you, my friend.

24:59Hey, small business owners. Let me ask you a quick question. Is your marketing actually working for you or just working you over? If you're tired of chasing random tactics and want real clarity, it's time for a strategy first approach. At DuckTap Marketing, we help you build a marketing system you own, one that fits your business and finally puts you in control. No more chaos, no more guesswork, just a roadmap you trust, powered by smart strategy and let's face it, a little help from AI today. You ready to shift from overwhelmed to confidence? Head on over to dtm.world slash own it. dtm.world slash own it.