The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:11 - 00:00:40:20
Kevin Eikenberry
Leaders are in the influence business, and that's our focus today. Influence the practical sources of it and how we can make it a part of our work as a leader, and how that takes us where we want to go. I'm confident you're going to like where we end up today. Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are helping leaders grow personally like you, to grow personally and professionally, to lead more effectively and make a bigger positive difference for their teams, organizations and the world.

00:00:41:01 - 00:01:08:10
Kevin Eikenberry
If you're listening to this podcast, welcome in the future, you could join us for live episode modes on your favorite social media channel and get all of that information that juicy, wonderful, valuable information you're going to get today sooner, several weeks, sooner in most cases. You can find out when those live episodes are taking place so you can join us and even interact with us, by going to our Facebook or LinkedIn groups.

00:01:08:10 - 00:01:37:18
Kevin Eikenberry
Just go to remarkable podcast.com/facebook or remarkable podcast.com/linkedin. And when you do that, you'll be plugged in and ready to go. If you are, excuse me, today's episode is brought to you by my latest book, Flexible Leadership Navigator Uncertainty and Lead with Confidence. It's time to realize that styles can get in our way, and that following our strengths might not always be the best approach in a world more complex and uncertain than ever.

00:01:37:19 - 00:02:02:00
Kevin Eikenberry
Leaders need a new perspective and a new set of tools to create great results for their organizations and teams. That's what flexible leadership can do for you, even in a complex and uncertain world. Learn more and order your copy today at Remarkable podcast.com/flexible. And with that I'm going to bring in my guest. Let him join me on screen.

00:02:02:02 - 00:02:27:10
Kevin Eikenberry
I'd say on set but there is no set. His name is Jake Thompson. He is a leadership performance coach and the chief encouragement officer at Compete Every Day. A brand he started in 2011 by first selling t shirts out of the trunk of his car. More on that in a minute. He has spent more than a decade working with leaders and organizations worldwide on how to get better results for themselves and their teams.

00:02:27:15 - 00:02:53:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Through his entrepreneurial sales experience, client work, and research, Jake has built a proven CSR framework that helps leaders improve their grit, productive habits, and leadership skills to create more positive influence in their organizations. He's the author of Lead Better Now A Practical Guide to Increase Your Influence as a Leader. As promised today. He has been featured in Forbes Inc magazine.

00:02:53:03 - 00:03:14:22
Kevin Eikenberry
He has a podcast with over 2 million downloads and is directly impacted over 85,000 ambitious leaders. He lives in Dallas Fort Worth, the metroplex with his wife Alina and their kids, aka rescue dogs, sugar donut snacks, and pop Tart. There seems to be a theme about the dog names Jake. Well, I'm so glad that you're here.

00:03:15:03 - 00:03:29:18
Jake Thompson
Thanks for having me, Kevin. Yeah. It's funny, the last one. Pop tarts, our puppy. He's about a year and a half old, and he went without a name for a good three plus weeks. As we could not decide. I was trying to go off the sweets route, and my wife is like, we got to stick with the theme.

00:03:29:18 - 00:03:33:12
Jake Thompson
We got to stick with the theme. So Pop Tart is his name.

00:03:33:14 - 00:03:35:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, if it was a she, it could have been Little Debbie.

00:03:35:23 - 00:03:38:22
Jake Thompson
I said that. Could that. Yeah, that's a good one to add in the mix.

00:03:39:00 - 00:03:54:23
Kevin Eikenberry
I could give you a list of what you need more if you need more dogs. Jake. Hey, listen, I'm so glad that you're here. We we we tried to do this earlier. We had a little bit of a, of a delay, so it's been a while since I read the book, but I'm excited to have this conversation with you.

00:03:55:01 - 00:04:10:17
Kevin Eikenberry
Tell us about the journey to a book. I guess we'll say, ss in two parts. Number one is when you were a kid, you probably didn't think you'd be doing what you're doing now. And second of all, when you started selling T-shirts out of the back of your trunk of your car, you probably didn't think you'd end up writing a book.

00:04:10:17 - 00:04:17:18
Kevin Eikenberry
At least that wasn't maybe the first thing in your head. So tell us just a little bit about that journey that gets you right to here.

00:04:17:19 - 00:04:37:06
Jake Thompson
Yeah. So interestingly enough, no, I, I never had any desire to write a book. Growing up, I thought I would be Jerry Maguire and going this sports agent route. The journey to writing a book is actually pretty interesting. So my first book is called Compete Every Day, and I was told for years I should write a book.

00:04:37:12 - 00:04:54:09
Jake Thompson
And this is while I was traveling the country. We were working expos, races, events, selling the merchandise and apparel, working with retailers. And I just kind of put it off, like a lot of leaders, I was going through that imposter syndrome of like, what do I have to say? Like, who hasn't already said it? What's out there?

00:04:54:11 - 00:05:22:09
Jake Thompson
And in 20 1718, we started shifting our business, really going from the apparel and me loosely talking about this mindset and how you cultivate it on blog posts and social media post to really training people and coaching a lot more people in that way. And so as we made that shift and getting into the speaking realm, it just made sense to have a book out there that explained what we believe, how we go about it, what it looks like to compete every day.

00:05:22:15 - 00:05:36:02
Jake Thompson
And so that first book release right in the middle of Covid 2020. So it was great from that standpoint. But then, you know, it's kind of like the follow up. You put a lot of pressure on yourself that the next one has to be better than the first one. And I try.

00:05:36:02 - 00:05:37:00
Kevin Eikenberry
To compete competing every.

00:05:37:00 - 00:06:01:05
Jake Thompson
Day because you compete, right? Yeah. And so I struggled for a good two and a half ish years of what's the next book about. Went down a few paths. Didn't really get excited about it until the story that I open this book with when my wife, my wife walked in my office upset and just kind of devastated of what was going on in her career and not feeling like she knew how to lead.

00:06:01:05 - 00:06:17:00
Jake Thompson
And she was the only one who didn't know how to lead. She'd never been taught it, and she was kind of in that drowning phase of leadership. And as we have the conversation, I'm like, oh my God, this is the book, this is the book. This is the same conversation I'd had with clients. But it's funny. It's kind of like parents, right?

00:06:17:00 - 00:06:35:00
Jake Thompson
Parents will tell their kids the same thing over and over and over again. It goes in one ear and out the other. Some random person out there says the same thing and it clicks. And for me, I'd had these conversations with my clients, even though most of our work was focused on culture, on high performing habits, on mindset.

00:06:35:02 - 00:06:56:14
Jake Thompson
This whole leadership concept kept popping up of struggles with training. And I was like, man, this is it. And so I just kind of dove in into writing this book, and I tell people it's not as glamorous as you think it is. It's 500 to 1000 words every single day until the first draft is done. And that's pretty much the process.

00:06:56:16 - 00:07:17:01
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, I'm glad that you wrote it. And as you know from the title of our conversation that I want to focus on influence, which is obviously one of the key words in the subtitle of the book. But before we go there, one of the things that you say early and often is that it has to be about leading self first.

00:07:17:03 - 00:07:29:03
Kevin Eikenberry
Why? Ultimately, leadership isn't about us, and yet who we are has a big impact on how we lead. And so say more about that. From your perspective, why leading self? Why do you see that coming? First?

00:07:29:05 - 00:07:43:11
Jake Thompson
I mean, how many of us have been in that spot within our career where the person is do as I say, not as I do. And how rough is that experience, right? Feels super hypocritical. It's not the best set up for us. And so we always feel hypocritical.

00:07:43:11 - 00:07:46:09
Kevin Eikenberry
It's like, yeah, the definition very much.

00:07:46:13 - 00:08:10:13
Jake Thompson
And so it's you have to lead yourself because what what we're trying to do, right, when we're cultivating influence with others is we're asking them, encouraging them, coaching them up to a new standard of excellence. And if we're not living at that standard, our words do absolutely nothing. The other aspect of that is it's I would say, impossible to influence people by being just like them.

00:08:10:15 - 00:08:35:19
Jake Thompson
Nobody looks at someone who's exactly like them and says, oh yeah, I want more of that. They look at people who are achieving more, who seem to carry themselves differently, who maybe aren't dealing with battling the same challenges they do. And so that requires us putting ourselves in a position to lead ourselves and continually grow in order to start to really earn that opportunity to influence others in the direction we want.

00:08:35:20 - 00:08:55:07
Jake Thompson
Just the same, there's negative influences all the time, and we see that, but more often that's when people don't lead themselves. And you see that almost cyclical within organizations to where you have managers and leaders. And I use those terms very distinctly because they are you see them fail to lead their selves, and it's all talk. And what you should do in the standard you should have.

00:08:55:07 - 00:09:12:22
Jake Thompson
But me, those don't count for me. And so it creates that negative influence within the organization too. And so everything for us foundationally starts with the idea of competing with yourself, which is the idea of getting better than you were the day before. And then from there, you can start to do the things that actually help you cultivate positive influences.

00:09:12:22 - 00:09:14:01
Jake Thompson
We would say.

00:09:14:03 - 00:09:23:09
Kevin Eikenberry
So you mentioned just now, the difference between manager managers and leaders. Describe that difference for for us from your perspective.

00:09:23:14 - 00:09:43:03
Jake Thompson
Yeah, from my perspective, management is task oriented and it's role specific. You have people that directly report to you. You're responsible to make sure that they get their tasks done. Leadership though is more of a mentality. And it's the idea that I want to help create other leaders. I want to cultivate more people. And so you have you have people that are great on the management side.

00:09:43:05 - 00:10:03:17
Jake Thompson
They're organized, they can stick to task, but they struggle on the leadership side, which is the people side. They struggle having tough conversations. They struggle, struggle to give feedback in a way that actually coaches people up. They lack some of those that EQ and curiosity, they're great managing. On the flip side, you have people with great leadership skills that are not in a management position.

00:10:03:22 - 00:10:28:08
Jake Thompson
They do not have those direct reports in in organizations, though, those people can still lead and influence others, even though people don't directly report to them. I think, you know, some of my work has been as a fractional performance coach within some sales organizations. I don't have direct reports, but I'm still a leader within that organization of how am I coaching and developing different people, adding value to them and helping them do their work and honestly live more effectively.

00:10:28:08 - 00:10:52:06
Jake Thompson
And so we see those differently. And I say that because a lot of people seem to believe once you're promoted into management, you're just automatically a leader and you are perceived as a leader. But it is a very different skill set. And we see a lot of really good managers that are really poor leaders, and that creates issues over the long term of someone's career when they confuse their management skills with their leadership skills.

00:10:52:08 - 00:11:15:21
Kevin Eikenberry
So you mentioned something a minute ago, Jake. Very specifically, you said something about competing with yourself. And there's a lot in the book about that idea. I'd like you to dive into that a little bit more like what does like what does that mean? What does it look like for me? In my daily work as a leader, in what ways do I need to compete with myself?

00:11:15:21 - 00:11:20:03
Kevin Eikenberry
And what are some strategies that I could employ to do that?

00:11:20:05 - 00:11:44:22
Jake Thompson
Yes. I'll step back before we dive into that to kind of paint a scene for everyone. We're in the process right now. My fourth book is is getting ready to launch next year. And a lot of that basis is some of this conversation, even though we get into it and lead better now and compete every day. But what the research shows, and more specifically, a very recent study in the last couple of years showed that people who are intrinsically driven, they're driven to grow, to improve.

00:11:44:22 - 00:12:09:04
Jake Thompson
It's them versus them. It's me versus me every single day. They fare far better mentally and even externally, outcome driven. Their excuse me externally outcomes achieved, right goals achieve process, things like that. They fare far better than the people who are externally driven, the ones who are only driven by the money or the promotion. So the people who are like, hey, I've got to beat you, I've got to take you like take you down.

00:12:09:04 - 00:12:31:07
Jake Thompson
I've got to prop myself up. In the long run, those people perform well, less, achieving in their goals. They perform more poorly when it comes to their mindset, their mental health. Then the people who actually do the work of competing with themselves in elite racing, the top performers in the world are intrinsically driven to compete and push themselves to see how much better they can do.

00:12:31:09 - 00:12:56:05
Jake Thompson
The ones in the mid tier not the best of the best, the middle ground. They're extrinsic driven to beat a competitor or someone else. So they set the stage with that to show. The research shows this idea of every day competing with your past benchmarks, your past records, your past comfort zones is what's most effective. And when we look into the definition of compete, it says to strive to gain or win something.

00:12:56:07 - 00:13:13:04
Jake Thompson
And we often confuse the definition with me versus you and the outcome, the wins. But we know as leaders we don't control outcomes in life. We only control our inputs. And that is that striving every day. So as a leader, waking up to say, how can I compete today is really asking myself, how can I strive to be a better leader?

00:13:13:08 - 00:13:31:13
Jake Thompson
How can I strive to be a better spouse? How can I strive to be a more impactful person within my organization? Because at the end of the day, it's about our intentionality. You can't go through the motions and improve. You have to be intentional and purposeful in your movement. So as a leader, it's asking yourself, where am I not communicating more effectively?

00:13:31:15 - 00:13:54:22
Jake Thompson
Like which of my team members do I keep having to give the same advice to over and over again? Is it my advice, or is it the fact I'm not asking them questions right? Where am I not raising the bar? Where have I found myself comfortable? Right now I feel like I'm just clocking through the motions. What is something I can do to improve how my team works, how I run meetings, how I handle client presentations or prospect meetings?

00:13:55:00 - 00:14:25:10
Jake Thompson
These are just questions every day to ask yourself to go into the day, to be more intentional, to look for those rooms for improvement. And that's what it looks like, right? It's not this overly complicated formula. It's pretty simple, but simple doesn't mean easy to execute. And we get easily distracted. We get, caught in just a rhythm of life, of going through the motions because life is so busy that we fail to be intentional with how we want to go about our day, and intentional with where we look to improve.

00:14:25:12 - 00:14:46:06
Kevin Eikenberry
I want to highlight for everybody something that Jake, he didn't say it directly, but he but he implied it. And that is if we're going to be intentional and and you laid out, Jake, a bunch of very specific things that we could compete against ourself about. But what has to happen in front of that for everyone to make sure that you get this is that you have to be reflecting.

00:14:46:11 - 00:15:07:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Like, if you're not reflecting, you can't become intentional about what it is next. And if you don't sort of know what your current benchmarks are, even even for things that are harder to measure, like how good was my last meeting? If I want to make my next one better, all those things. So there's there's a piece of self awareness and a piece of self-reflection here that has to happen on the front end of all of this.

00:15:07:12 - 00:15:09:05
Kevin Eikenberry
Anything you want to say about that before we go on?

00:15:09:06 - 00:15:26:21
Jake Thompson
Yeah, yeah. So there's two key pieces in our frameworks that we currently work with teams on. The first is is what you talked about. It's clarify the game that you care about winning right at work. What's the game you care about as a leader. What is it trying to be the most impactful leader? Is it developing your people so that they all get promoted and continue to grow?

00:15:26:21 - 00:15:51:20
Jake Thompson
Is it whatever the case is, you want to know the game you want to play, so then you can start to identify what does world class and excellence look like there? Right. We're not basing it off of like what is the best leader you've ever met in your life? What do they do really well? Like, what are the habits and behaviors that they do not to compare yourself and beat yourself up for not being at that level, but to identify if I want to grow, what are the standards they have?

00:15:51:22 - 00:16:12:12
Jake Thompson
The second part of that, and this is where people tend to get surprised, is because my brain is compete every day and they're like, man, you got to be working every day. I mean, no, no, no. There's there's aspects of this, right? You're competing in the workplace. But when you clock out and you go to your kid's soccer practice, you're competing against scrolling social media, your emails or your cell phone or your kids practicing.

00:16:12:12 - 00:16:30:15
Jake Thompson
You're watching like there's intentionality in every venue. But there's a key aspect in our framework of take time to review, reflect, and rest. Right. You have to do that. And the big piece of that is each day we prescribe it, every week an exercise called start, stop, continue. We talked about it in the book of like every Friday.

00:16:30:15 - 00:16:54:05
Jake Thompson
Just reflect back on the week. What something you didn't do. You should start doing next week to be more successful with something you did do this past week that actually hurt your progress, your behaviors, relationships that you want to stop next week. And then what's one thing you're doing well to continue this? This builds our confidence and increases it, but it also puts you in a position next Monday to compete with last week's version by saying, hey, I'm starting this, I'm stopping this.

00:16:54:05 - 00:17:13:17
Jake Thompson
I'm continuing this on a very other end as we talked about a meeting, like, how do I want to run a meeting better? How do I want to do a one on one better? It's just asking yourself three quick questions, and I give this to someone if they're doing sales calls, if they're leading people and managing a one on one session, if they're training a team, regardless, it's just three questions afterwards.

00:17:13:21 - 00:17:31:11
Jake Thompson
What did I do? Well, even if you absolutely bombed, fumbled all over all of your words, what did you do well, about setting up the meeting, preparing the meeting. Open it. Whatever it was you did something good. What do you want to do better next time? What's one specific thing you want to improve on, and how will you ensure you improve on it?

00:17:31:14 - 00:17:50:22
Jake Thompson
What are you going to work on? How are you going to plan it? How are you going to prepare it? If you get into that rhythm of reflection after meetings, after important situations and you career, even after a date night, you take your spouse out on of like, hey, what did I do? Really well tonight? Next time, what I want to do better, I want to be more locked in and notice I was paying attention to my phone instead of putting it on do not disturb.

00:17:50:22 - 00:18:07:12
Jake Thompson
So next time I'm going to put down do not disturb those are very specific tactical things that over time you start stacking those little choices and those reflective moments. Great things can happen over the course of a month, a quarter a year in your career.

00:18:07:13 - 00:18:34:06
Kevin Eikenberry
You just laid out three questions to ask ourselves, and one of the things you you talk about in the book is this idea that we as mostly owners and I, to which I would agree are not very good at giving feedback. Why is it, by the way, that those three questions are pretty good place to start? But why is it that most leaders aren't very good at it from your perspective?

00:18:34:08 - 00:18:51:16
Jake Thompson
You know, there's a couple of things. One, I think most of us haven't been trained on how to give feedback. I think that's a big one. I think another aspect I should say is kind of as a part of that is most of us struggle to receive feedback because we attach our identity so closely to our work and our worth.

00:18:51:18 - 00:19:09:04
Jake Thompson
And so anything that's a critique of how we work, we see is a critique of who we are. And so our ego is in full protective mode at that point. We get defensive, we make excuses. All of those things. The other aspect of it is most of us are just going with what we think or what we've been told, which is the crap sandwich.

00:19:09:04 - 00:19:31:06
Jake Thompson
Right? I tell you something good. I tell you the bad news, I tell you something good. And all of the research shows people either forget the bad and only focus on the good, or they forget the good. Only focus on the bad. It actually doesn't work. What works more effectively is a seesaw. It's balancing the feedback that means to Kevin, if I have something I need to talk to you about that you've not been meeting the standards or there was a mistake made.

00:19:31:11 - 00:19:32:00
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah.

00:19:32:02 - 00:19:53:20
Jake Thompson
I need to also come to you with something very specific. You're doing well, and this is where we miss the mark, because typically it's like, hey, the joke I always make is like, my wife can tell you, 11 years ago when we were dating, something I said on one of our dates that she was like, I don't know if I can date marry this guy, but she paints it like we were on Dallas North Tollway at Frankford.

00:19:53:20 - 00:20:10:01
Jake Thompson
We were at Me Cocina. You just ordered a mambo taxi. Then you said this and I thought, oh my gosh, I can't, I don't know about this. And I call my girlfriend. I talk to like she can paint the picture beautifully, even though it's been over a decade and we do that with our negative feedback, we can tell you exactly where you were, what you did, what time it was all of the things.

00:20:10:01 - 00:20:28:14
Jake Thompson
But when it comes to good feedback, we say, you're doing a great job. We're super vague, super broad, great work. Keep it up versus Kevin. I just want you to know I appreciate your consistency and your great attitude. I know sales have not been going your way, and no, we haven't been able to close deals. But you're doing the right things.

00:20:28:14 - 00:21:02:11
Jake Thompson
And I want you to know that I see it and I appreciate it. Like that's a very specific point of positive feedback. And that's where we miss it. Right? We've just we try to soften it right. We try to go around it. We try to do everything except balance it. And the one thing I'll say on that note, as a leader, the most selfish thing you will ever do is withhold feedback because you're worried about hurting someone else's feelings, because the fear is not hurting someone's feelings by giving them feedback that could help them improve the fears, they're going to look at you differently from a social dynamic.

00:21:02:16 - 00:21:04:23
Jake Thompson
Yeah, and you're more worried about yourself.

00:21:05:01 - 00:21:25:05
Kevin Eikenberry
I wrote about this just today and what it came out today about the difference between being nice and being kind, actually, to give people clear space, feedback on what they're doing well and how they can improve is being extraordinarily kind. Yeah, but being nice is I'm afraid to say that I'm afraid to how they're going to feel or how they're going to feel about me.

00:21:25:07 - 00:21:42:13
Kevin Eikenberry
And like our grandma has told us to be nice. And there's nothing wrong with being nice. It's just that it's not the same as being kind. And we as leaders can give people very specific corrective feedback and do it in a kind way, and have it actually have a much better chance of success. Right?

00:21:42:15 - 00:21:44:08
Jake Thompson
Very much, very much.

00:21:44:10 - 00:22:16:08
Kevin Eikenberry
The other thing I want to say about the sandwich, and I talk about the sandwich a lot as well. The other the other thing I would say is for everyone is listening. What Jake said, like so often the positives on the outside of that sandwich are squishy and fluffy, just like the bread. Listen, the only reason people want to talk about giving that sandwich is because they really want to give the middle, because that's the kind of we don't order a rice in which we order a corned beef sandwich, we order a ham and cheese sandwich like we want to give the middle, and we think we should put something fluffy on the outside.

00:22:16:10 - 00:22:24:01
Kevin Eikenberry
Everything's got to be, specific, clear, meaningful. Then we got a much better chance of success, right?

00:22:24:03 - 00:22:52:03
Jake Thompson
Absolutely. Without it, without a doubt. I mean, the the beauty of it. Right. If you think about a team member, think about being in your shoes. The only way we typically improve is through coaching and feedback, at which point we improve our reps. We get more feedback, we improve our reps, and the majority of people we see are waiting a quarter, if not a year, for feedback on how they can improve how they work, because we think it's got to be a formal sit down.

00:22:52:05 - 00:23:11:05
Jake Thompson
But if we think we want our teams to work better, then why wouldn't we speed up our not only our rate of feedback, but why wouldn't it be one of our core concentrations to improve how we give feedback? And here's the thing all of your employees are different. All of your direct reports are different. Some people love hearing the very positive, specific feedback in front of their peers.

00:23:11:07 - 00:23:32:09
Jake Thompson
Like they really appreciate that some people culturally, personally, their preferences hate it. And so you've got to know your people to figure out what's the best way to let you know what I see and how I appreciate you. I think it's really important to praise peers in front of each other because you're calling signals to what? What's important to our culture, what's important to our values.

00:23:32:10 - 00:23:48:09
Jake Thompson
But at the same time, some of your team members are really going to hate that. And so getting to know, like, how do you best want feedback? Both good constructive should always be a one on one setting. You should never have some of those conversations where it could be embarrassing to the person in front of others, but the positive feedback.

00:23:48:14 - 00:23:53:18
Jake Thompson
Find out how they want to receive it so that it goes even further when you give it to them.

00:23:53:20 - 00:24:09:07
Kevin Eikenberry
And I would say that to your point, when you want to use that as a way to signal for others, I've had people that I know what their first preference would not be for it to be in public. Yeah, I'll tell them. Listen, I'm going to share this about what you've done. I've already given them the feedback. I'm going to share it again.

00:24:09:09 - 00:24:26:16
Kevin Eikenberry
Here's why I'm sharing it. You've now already heard it, in a way. And now in my head, because that's the way I know you'd rather get it. I'm going to share it again. But here's my intention in doing that. I don't want you to take that in incorrectly. I want you to see that as only positive and but make it focus more on what they did than who it was.

00:24:26:19 - 00:24:32:21
Kevin Eikenberry
If you're only doing it once, you're trying to do both those things at once. And that's when people get uncomfortable, right?

00:24:32:21 - 00:24:54:07
Jake Thompson
Very much, very much. One of my coaching clients at a global company was talking about he was he'd praise everybody publicly, and one of his team members was like, hey, listen, like, I don't want that. Like I just tell me I did a good job one on one like this. And he was like, oh, and to your point, he realized, like he was trying to do both of, like reinforce the culture and praise them.

00:24:54:07 - 00:25:08:10
Jake Thompson
But she did not want that type of praise. And so he talked about, okay, cool, I'm going to look for other people doing the same thing that I know love that that I can tie in. But on occasion I'm going to I'm going to designate and praise you in front of your team. But majority is going to be one on one.

00:25:08:10 - 00:25:20:03
Jake Thompson
And to your point, I'm going to tell you why I'm going to do it in front of everybody else is because I want your behaviors to be modeled by more people. And so I've got to show it's important to them. So yeah, I love that from you, Kevin.

00:25:20:05 - 00:25:46:01
Kevin Eikenberry
So we've had a conversation, that I titled Being about influence. And yet we haven't used the AI word very much. And yet, if people have been paying attention, the whole conversation has been about influence. But before we sort of go into the last segment of this conversation, Jake, is there anything else that I missed or that you really want to say about influence specifically before we start to wrap up?

00:25:46:02 - 00:26:09:07
Jake Thompson
Yeah. So influence is kind of that outcome that we don't, you know, we cultivate. It happens. It's kind of like planting seeds for, crops. My grandparents were were farmers out in West Texas, dirt plains of West Texas as a laugh. And and you think about them, their responsibility was to work the land, prepare the soil, plant the seeds, water the seeds, fertilize, try to get sunlight.

00:26:09:07 - 00:26:30:16
Jake Thompson
But they didn't control the harvest. They didn't control how big it was. They didn't control when it came up. They had ideas. Our influence is a lot like that. Most people focus on how can I be more influential and don't pay attention to what are the behaviors and choices I'm making consistently to plant the seeds. And one of the ones that I feel like we often overlook is the importance of relationships and making relational deposits.

00:26:30:16 - 00:27:02:19
Jake Thompson
And we talk about it in the book and in great detail. But your people don't care until they know you care. And if you care about them and you show them appreciation and you show feedback, then you're sending signals that you're valued here, that you're a person and not a number on payroll, that you're part of a team and the research is crazy because between 2021 and 2023, across a few different industries, 70% of people who left their job without another job in hand did so because their manager failed to give them feedback or appreciate them.

00:27:02:21 - 00:27:25:09
Jake Thompson
That's their boss, or they fired their boss. But that's a solvable problem. And everybody that does HR or finance right now listening to this is like, oh, I know how much that cost. Like that's a huge number because of replacing them and recruiting and everything else. And so knowing that the first step to all of this, after you lay the foundation of leading yourself, the first step is making investments in knowing your people.

00:27:25:11 - 00:27:46:16
Jake Thompson
Once you do that, that's where you really start to cultivate that influence, because you're living at a different standard. You're telling people, I appreciate you, I value you. And now when you start to give feedback, now, when you start to do the other things we've talked about, they're going to be more receptive to it because they know you care versus you're just trying to drive me forward to make more money.

00:27:46:18 - 00:27:56:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Speaking of relationship, the last couple things in this conversation are more of relational, in nature. And the first of those is Jake, what do you do for fun?

00:27:56:09 - 00:28:13:06
Jake Thompson
I've got a couple, movies are a big deal in my household. Mainly because it's one of the only places I can kind of unplug my brain. My my ADHD brain's always running. I'm always thinking of ideas. I don't even escape it sometimes at the movie. But my wife and I love to go to the movies once or twice a month.

00:28:13:06 - 00:28:18:07
Jake Thompson
On a date night, we'll do dinner where we can talk, and then we'll go to a movie. The other thing I just like.

00:28:18:09 - 00:28:21:04
Kevin Eikenberry
So you can talk for a while, then you're not talking. Well.

00:28:21:05 - 00:28:38:14
Jake Thompson
We talk for a while. Like you want to have those conversations, because if you just go to the movie, like, you're not really getting that face to face time. And so we'll do dinner and then go. But the other one, I just love being active. Like I work out 5 to 6 days a week. I love signing up randomly for races or events just to challenge myself physically.

00:28:38:16 - 00:28:46:01
Jake Thompson
But but that's what I love to do for fun. And then the last of my wife had a vote. We just travel more.

00:28:46:02 - 00:28:48:08
Kevin Eikenberry
The more dogs, the harder travel becomes.

00:28:48:12 - 00:28:50:12
Jake Thompson
That. And that is the problem.

00:28:50:14 - 00:28:55:00
Kevin Eikenberry
So, what are your, the only thing you knew I was going to ask you is this. What are you reading these days, Jake?

00:28:55:06 - 00:29:12:20
Jake Thompson
So I get to go in simultaneously. Typically I do. I have an audiobook for when I walk, when I travel, and then I have a physical book as well. So my physical book actually sitting right here on the counter, it's called Better Small Talk. I struggle with small talk sometimes, which ironically, you you would think I wouldn't because I have to do a lot of it with my work.

00:29:12:20 - 00:29:33:05
Jake Thompson
But I want to have better conversations. And so I'm reading better small Talk audiobook right now. I'm really enjoying Ryan Leeks How to Work with Complicated People. I made actually made a recommendation. I see you on there, Jonathan. Thanks for chiming in. And watching today. I made the recommendation to one of Jonathan's peers the other day is a great leadership book, about how to work with complicated people.

00:29:33:05 - 00:29:36:19
Jake Thompson
And I think Ryan Lee did a phenomenal job with it.

00:29:36:21 - 00:29:51:12
Kevin Eikenberry
We'll have the links to both of those in the show. Notes will also have the link to Jake's book lead Better now? I'm going to hold this up. Jake, will you tell people where can they go to learn the more about you, the book, where do you want to point people? And I'll just hold this up for a second.

00:29:51:14 - 00:30:06:15
Jake Thompson
Yeah. So easiest place is probably going to be compete every day.com. You can find both our books, my podcast you'll see even some of the merch that we started with way back in the day is still around. But then from there you'll find a lot of my speaking information as well. If you're interested in learning more.

00:30:06:17 - 00:30:19:22
Jake Thompson
That's place on social is right here where Kevin and I connect is linked in. You'll find me obviously tagged in this post if you're listening. Later. Jake Thompson speaks on LinkedIn and Instagram are my two most, active, I will say channels.

00:30:20:00 - 00:30:41:10
Kevin Eikenberry
There you go. So, before I bit, before I bid goodbye to Jake and all of you, I've got a question for all of you. If you've been here before, you know what I'm about to ask you. Here it is. Now what? What will you do as a result of this? Listening is wonderful. Watching is fine. But what matters is what you will do with what you learn.

00:30:41:10 - 00:31:00:13
Kevin Eikenberry
So if you're like me, you took some notes. Maybe you took some notes about the the feedback sandwich. Maybe you took some notes. About that last part as we talked about relationships. Maybe, there are specific things you want to do in terms of how you will compete against or with yourself. I don't know what those things are for you, but here's what I do know.

00:31:00:15 - 00:31:12:15
Kevin Eikenberry
If you will take action on what you learned today, this will have been way more valuable for you than it would have been otherwise. Jake, thanks for being here. It was a pleasure to have you. I've been looking forward to this conversation.

00:31:12:16 - 00:31:18:20
Jake Thompson
Thanks so much for having me. And sorry for the difficulties we had last time, but man, I'm glad we got it working today. And this is great.

00:31:18:22 - 00:31:39:08
Kevin Eikenberry
Things happen. Things happen. You know what, everybody, if you enjoyed today, do two things. Number one, make sure you're subscribed wherever you're watching your listening so you don't miss any episode. And number two, if you really love this, invite someone else to listen. And then you can share with each other that you are now what's and hold each other accountable for those improvements.

00:31:39:08 - 00:31:47:07
Kevin Eikenberry
That'd be a fabulous thing to do. And then you'll be back. You can be back with me next week for another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast. Thanks, everybody.