Leading Every Day w/ Randy Gravitt

What does it take to lead with authenticity and integrity? Randy Gravitt, renowned business coach, author, and speaker, joins us on this episode of the Something Extra podcast to share his insights on cultivating integrity-driven leadership. With over a decade of experience at Lead Every Day, Randy has dedicated his career to helping leaders create clarity, expand their capacity, and achieve growth in both their businesses and personal lives. Discover why Randy views leadership as a calling and how his inspiring approach challenges leaders to aim higher and excel in every facet of their journey.

Guest Links:

• Randy’s LinkedIn
• Lead Every Day
• The Lead Every Day Show

Credits: 
Host: Lisa Nichols
Executive Producer: Jenny Heal
Marketing Support: Landon Burke and Joe Szynkowski
Podcast Engineer: Portside Media

Transcript

Lisa Nichols  00:03
Chromosomes, little strands of nucleic acids and proteins are the fundamental genetic instructions that tell us who we are. At birth, most people are born with 46 chromosomes, but each year in the United States, about 6000 people are born with an extra chromosome, making them a person with Down syndrome. If you've ever encountered someone with Down syndrome, you know that they are some of the kindest, most joyful people you will ever meet. They truly have something extra.

My name is Lisa Nichols, and I have spent the last 24 years as both the CEO of Technology Partners and as the mother to Ally. Ally has something extra in every sense of the word. I have been blessed to be by her side as she impacts everyone she meets. Through these two important roles as CEO and mother to Ally, I have witnessed countless life lessons that have fundamentally changed the way I look at the world. While you may not have an extra chromosome, every leader has something extra that defines who you are. 

Join me as I explore the something extra in leaders from all walks of life and discover how that difference in each of them has made a difference in their companies, their families, their communities and in themselves. If you liked this episode today, please go to Apple Podcast or wherever you listen and leave us a five-star rating. 

I'm delighted to have Randy Gravitt on the show today. Randy is a leadership coach, an author, and the co-founder of Lead Every Day. Well, Randy Gravitt, welcome to the Something Extra Podcast. I am so delighted to have you with me today. I've been really looking forward to our time together. 

Randy Gravitt  01:54
Thank you, Lisa. I'm so excited to hang out with you. Thanks for all you do. It's, it's fantastic. And I'm, I'm fired up to be with you and Merry Christmas. It's got, it's come. We got Christmas coming up, so you're, I hope all of the shopping's done and you're ready to go.

Lisa Nichols  02:10
Yes, and we're gonna talk about that, because I know it's going to be fun for you. With all those grandkids that you have that are four and under eight grands four and under, it's gonna be crazy. Oh my goodness.

Randy Gravitt  02:23
I think we'll get to see them all in the next week or two, so it'll be fun.

Lisa Nichols  02:26
What a blessing you're a rich man, right? Randy, you know, to have all those grandkids. 

Randy Gravitt  02:32
Way more than I deserve, for sure. It's, it's great.

Lisa Nichols  02:36
Well, listen, you and I were introduced by our mutual friend, Tommy Spalding. We love Tommy Spalding, don't we?

Randy Gravitt  02:44
We do. We do. I was, I was excited when Tommy said, You need to meet Lisa. And that's great. So, I'm glad that we're going to get to hang out here for a little while. Tommy's awesome.

Lisa Nichols  02:55
He is. Tommy's awesome. For our listeners who don't know Tommy, go look up Tommy. He's got a lot of great books out there. But also, I told you Randy in a sidebar conversation. Mark Miller is also a friend, and Mark was on the Something Extra Podcast, and when your "Winning Begins at Home" came out, he sent me a copy of that. And so then just probably a month after that, or two months after that, that's when Tommy connected us. So, you know, all the world are colliding.

Randy Gravitt  03:26
Who is this guy? That's great. Mark is awesome. Of course, my partner at Lead Every Day, and couldn't ask for a better friend, really, but partner in the work, and he's, he's pretty amazing, too. So, if you're friends with Tommy and Mark you, you'll be friends with me. That'll be great.

Lisa Nichols  03:47
I know I'm excited about that. Well, you know, we're going to dig into this more, but "Winning Begins at Home", It's a leadership parable, and it really the whole book just walks you through what it means to win at home and coach Willie, it's a parable about Coach Willie. I just love it. So, we're going to dig into that a lot more. I'm going to ask you questions about that, but I want to, to talk a little bit. I'd love to go back. I think it's really interesting. It would be an interesting study sometime, Randy, to just go back to how people grew up. Because I know you grew up in an incredibly loving, stable family. That's not always the case for everyone, but you know, I think your grandparents and your parents were all married over 50 years.

Randy Gravitt  04:36
In that, in that crazy, when you think about it, it is wild. Let me start though by saying it was pretty stable. And I say pretty stable because I don't think there are any perfect families. Lisa, it's just, you know, if you start living with people, everybody's a mess. I mean, we're I'm the first in line as of the mess line. And I tell people all the time, I can't get along myself half the time much, less. Try to get along with my wife. Now, 37 years we've been married, and you know, our daughter, we have four daughters, and all these little grandkids now, some son in laws, everybody's married at this point, and everybody's grown up and, but as I look back, I think just the opportunity to grow up in a what I will call a stable home was just so beneficial, and I dream of a day where more people get to be a part of a really great family. And I know it's not always the case. There are a lot of different situations, but I think the more stable home is, the more it actually is better for us, and it positions us to win outside of home, and all kind of good stuff happens. So, we're trying to help people win, not just at work. I mean, that's typically what we do with our with our speaking and our events and all that stuff. We're helping people chase high performance. But I want to, I want to try to help people win outside of work as well. And it's really hard to find anything for leaders to do that. And so, we thought we'd create this resource and try to help start that conversation.

Lisa Nichols  06:01
I just love that. I love it. Well, you know, Randy, as you were talking, I was thinking, anytime there are people together, whether it's in a workplace, whether it's at home. It's not going to be perfect, because we're not perfect, right? As human beings but you know, I what I love about it, and we'll talk about this more. I think if there's intentionality, I think if you've got tools in your tool belt, you can improve on these things, and there's hope to get better, right, Randy? And that's what I love so much about it. It's not something that is unattainable, and that's what I love about the content that you guys are putting out.

Randy Gravitt  06:44
I totally agree, and we did. When I wrote the book, I did choose, some people ask me, why did you write a parable? And I'm a storyteller. So, I heard somebody say, one time, write the book that you want to read. And so, I connect with stories. And I think people who read this really will connect with the parable part of it, the characters, and they're pretty it's pretty simple. It's about a business guy who's, who's got things going pretty, pretty great at work, but outside of work, he's just things are struggling at home with spouse and kids and, and so I think the story will connect with people. But in the back of the book, Lisa, you saw that we have the 70 page, basically an activation guide that's in the back of the hardback. And it's a, it's an opportunity for people to have, like you say, the tools to build the family that they want. And I'm big on hope as well. You mentioned the word hope, but we always say hope is not a strategy. I think you it's great to have hope, but we behave our way to high performance. And I think at home, it's no different. You've got there's some things you have to do if you really want to have a great family. And so, we tried to give people the tools to walk toward that again, family that they would like to have outside of work.

Lisa Nichols  07:59
Yes, and I love that, and we'll talk about that, but that's what I love about your book, too. You've got this parable, but like you said, there's this activation guide you can and this is a word that Willie, the coach, uses throughout the book, is go and practice. Go and practice. So, you know anything we're going to get better at Randy we have to practice, you know, and so, whether it's our craft or whatever the case may be, but we'll talk about that. We'll dig into that a little bit more. But you know, let's go back to like your family and tell me some of the things that really stuck out to you about growing up and some of the ways that your parents and maybe even your grandparents were really intentional. I know you guys had did family dinners on Sundays, you know, what are some of those things that really stuck out to you?

Randy Gravitt  08:56
Well, looking back, I thought it was, you know, it felt burdensome like, are we going to our grandmothers again? You know? But I grew up in a different time. I mean, it just was, the world was, was completely different. I'll be 60, or I just turned 60, actually. And as I look back on those, I mean, you know, five decades ago, it's just, I'm from the last century, right? And so, it's just a totally different world. But it was, it was not uncommon for my dad to work and get home in the evenings and we'd be out playing ball or whatever, and the next thing you know, mom's calling people for dinner, and I say people because there be neighbors over. And the next thing you know, our, our, our table is surrounded by everybody, and we're all eating together, and you're there's just that check in every day on how'd the day go, and what'd you learn at school, and did you get in trouble? And, I mean, you just couldn't get away with a lot, you know, which was really good. I think it kept us locked in and focused on the right things. And I don't, looking back, I don't think there was probably a lot of. Intentionality to it. It was just, this is just what you do. This is your family. And so, you, you know, you're going to have meals together. 

Randy Gravitt  10:06
At home that I couldn't really find anything to help us, like, what do you do outside of work? And so again, that's a little bit of why we created this, just to give people some ideas and some things that they could do to practice. As you say. I mean, I really do think you practice your way to high performance, and I think you practice your way to a great family as well. And so, all that goes back to those roots. I really wouldn't take anything for that. But anybody listening, you don't have to have had that to start that. It's, it's available to any of us to just start where you are and do what you can. I mean, I love that whole mindset.

Randy Gravitt  10:06
And I think looking back, if I could, if I could attribute anything to some of the success I've had, I would say it goes back, really, to those values of connection, and you're going to work hard, and if you don't, you're going to, you know, you're going to be held accountable to that. And a lot of those values that I learned early on, I wouldn't take anything for that. And so, I think my mom and dad, although they didn't, they didn't have a book that they were reading or any, they just had probably watched that from their parents or whoever, and, and, you know, it just was the environment that we grew up in. And I do think we are a lot of times a product of our environment. And the good news is, for anybody who's listening in your audience, and I know you got leaders from all over the world, no matter if you were handed that, or grew up in a good situation or not, you can actually start that. It really is just a choice to say, I want to invest in the family that I do have, or whatever my situation is, outside of work, again, I think most of us understand how to win at work. We have a lot of times we have maybe we own something, but we may have a boss or somebody who tells us this is the path to promotion, and here's how you grow. And here, you know, I mean we here's orientation, and there's a checklist all that stuff. 

Lisa Nichols  11:55
I do too Randy, and it just reminds me, I think CS Lewis said that it doesn't really matter where you start. It's you can start where you are and end up in a different place. 

Randy Gravitt  12:05
We always say you don't, you don't have to, you have to start where you are, but you don't have to stay there. You actually do get to take steps toward where you want to go. And I love the fact that we mark, mark, you mentioned mark a minute ago. Mark always says our superpower is our ability to choose. And I think that's so true. We, all have agency. We get a chance to make things better. And I think the choices we make are a large part of that. 

Lisa Nichols  12:30
That's so good. I love that, because we'll get into a little bit of love first. And I think one of your principles is you choose to love first, right? So, oh, that's so good. Well, let's talk a little bit about this, education wise, you went to Jacksonville State. Went to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. You spent a lot of your time, your early days in coaching and leadership. In fact, I think you started as a teacher and a coach, right? 

Randy Gravitt  13:00
I did. I actually did. I spent about 10 years as a teacher and a coach. I coached, well, I coached a lot of things, but I was primarily a high school girls basketball coach. And funny story, we started having children, and we started having the girls, and everybody's like, you're going to have your own team someday. And then none of them ended up playing basketball until my baby finally did, but, but my coaching days were over by then. But it was, it was, I loved it. I love those days of being a teacher and coach. It was a lot of fun, but, but those were really looking back, those were days where our family was, was being formed. We did start having children, and I looking back, I think some of the decisions that Laura and I made to, to focus on our family, some and to really make that just something that we were intentional about. I think I have no regrets there when I look back. I mean, I think I wish I would, I say, I think I wish I had done more of that. I mean, it's like, you know, it's almost like you, have you ever felt like you go to the gym, or you go for a run, or say you're going to work out and you get back, I've never thought one time after I did that. I wish I wouldn't have done that. And yet, how many times have I have I thought when I didn't do it? I'm like, I need to go work out. I need to get some exercise, and I don't do it, and I always think I should have done that. Well, I think in a much bigger way, we've got regret on the line here when it comes to our family, if we don't do what we're supposed to, we get down the road and we look back and, man, the time goes so fast, doesn't it, Lisa? I know you, your kids are grown as well. It's just so fast. And for those younger listeners, I know people say this all the time, usually old people like me, but it just you blink. Kenny Chesney said it right, just don't blink. I mean, because it just goes so fast. It's it really does.

Lisa Nichols  14:56
I could not agree with you more. I could not agree with you more. And you know, we not to beat ourselves up, but you know, because I don't, you just don't want to live with a lot of regrets. And just, you know, and we'll get into that, you can win at work, but if you lose at home, you've lost. And that's just, reality.

Randy Gravitt  15:15
And that's just, that's what we say in the book. We say all the time, if you win at work and you lose at home, you still lose, and I fundamentally believe that. But let me say this, I want people to have a great work life. I want them to win at work. I don't want you to just to win at home. That's not the goal, either. It's I think an integrity-based leader is one who understands that I want to win at work and I want to win at home. I want to win with my skills. I want to make sure I have the right character. I want to be the same in public as I am in private, or vice versa. And I think that integrated life is really important. We talk about that a lot. It's just a fundamental in the way I think about life. It the word integrity goes back to our old math word integer, which is a whole number. And I when I get my head around that, that makes sense as I think about, you know, the different sides of our lives. But unfortunately, too many of us are disintegrated or blown apart. You know, it's we're fractional however you want to say that if we don't pay attention to some of this, and I think so many leaders, especially, I'm guessing you got people who are listening. They're knocking it out of the park at work, and yet something's just not right at home and, and, and I believe if, again, if you're winning at work and you're losing at home. It's just not that's not what that's not the goal. And so, we're trying to help people win in both places.

Lisa Nichols  16:37
I love it. I love that you are doing that well in 2014 you founded what is now called, it wasn't called that originally, but now it's called Lead Every Day, you are the CEO, and I love this. You are the chief encouragement officer. I love it. I was on, someone was on the Podcast recently and I'm, I'm blanking right now, but they said, you know, Chief empowerment officer, you know, it could be all kinds of things. They said, I really don't like this chief executive. It's chief encouragement, chief empowerment officer. But what really inspired you, Randy, to kind of go that route with leadership development and coaching after you had been a teacher?

Randy Gravitt  17:23
Well, about, I guess we're going on 11 years now. I thought I want to see if I can help more people. And at the time, it was crazy, because I was going to be what, 50 pretty soon, and we had two of the girls were in college, and a couple of them were in high school, and it just made no sense in any universe to quit my job and to try to do that. I was like, What am I doing? And yet, my wife and those girls were so supportive and even prodding a little bit I had written a book a few years before that called "Finding Your Way," which was a book about living into your sweet spot. And it really for a next generation kind of book for younger leaders and, and we were helping them and, and my own kids are like, Dad, you're telling, you're telling everybody else to live into their sweet spot, and you're not willing to, you know, you're not willing to do this yourself. And lot of courage was on. It felt, it felt, at the time, it felt like this is crazy, like, what am I doing? 

Randy Gravitt  18:26
And, and I gave and I'll, and I'll tell this story real quick. I gave myself this talk, which was kind of wild. I was. I was thinking about, you know, someday I'm going to be 80 years old. That was kind of my in my mind, and it's 30 years down the road at that point. And I thought I'm going to be an old man someday, possibly, if I live that long. And I will, and I will literally have regret if I don't give this a shot, if I do give it a shot and I can't pull it off, I'll be disappointed in myself that I don't have what it takes to do this, but I won't have any regret. And Lisa, I told myself, I can live with disappointment. I don't want to live with regret, and that's as simple as I could make it. But that's, that's what I that's what I said. But I mean, we all have disappointments from time to time, but I think if we can live courageously. And so, I'm a, I'm a Bible reader and, and I I'm looking for the verse in the Bible that says, Be ye comfortable. I mean, it's like if your audience and don't waste your time reading it, if you're looking for that verse it is not in there, you're exactly right. But if you read the Bible, you know, it says over and over again, be courageous. It's just like we need to be reminded over and over to step out in faith and to take a risk and to not be, you know, so cloaked in fear. I mean, it's, I think so many times we get held back because we're, we're afraid of what might happen, and we're looking for certainty all the time. And really, what we need is clarity. And the best clarity I can give you is the best leaders are courageous, being courageous. They're not they're. Not. They're not comfortable being comfortable. They're, they're actually comfortable when they're courageous. So, that's probably a better way to say it. 

Randy Gravitt  20:06
And so, I was like, I'm gonna give this a shot. And I had no idea what would happen, but I'm like, can I even do this? You know? And, and within just a few months, it was pretty obvious that this, I'll say it this way, God had been waiting on me to take a step, and so it went crazy, and it, you know, just exceeded all of our expectations. And then we ended up hiring a guy, and we grew that like crazy. And now we just had a retreat a couple of weeks ago, Mark and I, and our team, I think we had 14 people here that are helping us coach and train and do all this stuff that we're, we're doing, and another dozen people that are on the media and all that side of everything we've got going on. So, there's 25 or so people now. Well, if you told me, you know what, 11 years ago, you got 25 people to help you with all this. It feels like that decision would probably have been a lot easier to show courage at that point. But that's the cool thing. You don't really get the whole deal until you take this step by step. It's almost like the, I mean, it's almost like the old, I've heard people say before, it's like the, the headlights on your car, they only show you how far you need to go, and then when you get there, there'll be more. And so, you know, I'm rambling there, but that's kind of the way that all happened. And, you know, here we are.

Lisa Nichols  21:22
That's so cool. Well, I think there's a lot of reasons for that. Randy, personally, I think you know, because you are a man of faith, it's like keeping your trust and the one that is trustworthy. And so, if you, if you had the whole thing, you would just go right? And you wouldn't need to trust as much. There's so much good stuff packed in there. I love your distinction between disappointment regret. That's the thing we don't want to live with regret, but the disappointment. Sometimes we're going to try things and they, they don't go well. I was talking to a good friend yesterday, and her dad built a very, very profitable, very sustainable business here in St Louis, and her dad has now since passed, and she was telling me, her dad always used to say, it takes, to start your own business and to start something. It takes guts, it takes courage and it takes conviction. Randy, like, when I think about your girls and Laura speaking into you, they had the conviction that there are people that needed what you had to teach and how you, you know needed to coach other people. I think they had the conviction that this is going to be good for other people.

Randy Gravitt  22:43
No, that's, that's so true. I mean, I was back then, like, no, no man wants to have his daughters, you know, tell him to man up, or call him a sissy, you know, so to speak. That's probably not the way to say it, but, but they were just like, you can do this. And, and they were so encouraging, and it was great. And really looking back, I didn't think about it really this way at the time, but, you know, can we go to school, and are we going to be able to go to school, all that stuff they didn't even think about that. They were just like, you need to, you need to do, I mean, they saw stuff in me that I probably didn't see at the time, and, and which, which is cool, I mean, to have that support system around you. But let me say one other thing, there's still going to be disappointment. I mean, I don't want to make this sound like it was easy. It's been, in some ways, it's been a rocket ride. It's been great, but there's been every season of it. It's just like, it's, it is labor, it is work. It is like, oh my, it's a grind. I mean, you know, it really, you know? I mean, you know this. 

Randy Gravitt  23:40
Somebody asked me recently. I think people ask us questions as we get older, but how did you, you know, how did you make all this happen and everything? And I'm like, Well, if in 40 years, you can be an overnight success, you know, kind of so to speak. And I, and I think we live in this microwave world of young people that, and you can go viral real quick, but I'm not interested so much in that as I am in in being sustainable and, and is my soul healthy along the way. I've got a I've got a good friend, mentor who, who always tells me, don't write checks with your mouth, that your soul can't cash. And I think so many times we, we end up doing all this stuff. And if we're not careful, we don't have the we don't have the stability, the emotional health, the mental health, the physical health, all that stuff to help sustain what it is we're trying to do. And then we end up just drained, and I'm not sure that's, that's great for anyone, especially us. And so, I think it's a holistic way to think about it, but that steady march feels, it feels better to me. I mean, everybody will have to decide what they're trying to do, but.

Lisa Nichols  24:48
Agreed. That's, you can be successful. But, you know, it's a 40 year. 

Randy Gravitt  24:56
Exactly. 

Lisa Nichols  24:56
It's the crock pot, not the microwave.

Randy Gravitt  24:59
I mean, it really. Yes. I mean, it's, nobody wants to hear that. But and I think you can find joy in getting up and learning every day and taking steps every day toward your passion. You know, to me, that's, that's a, that's a more fun life anyway, than you know, trying to hit the lottery, so to speak, with your career. I mean, if you kind of, you know the way you're wired up, and if you can get in an area, even if we have to start out as a volunteer or an intern or whatever, but you can get into work that's meaningful, that that you're passionate about. It's just can be so life giving. 

Lisa Nichols  25:31
Absolutely. Could not agree with you more. Well, you see a lot of leaders, Randy, I mean, you coach leaders. You're, you're running these retreats and seminars and things like that, going into companies and coaching. What do you believe is one of the most common challenges that leaders are facing today, and what can they do to overcome those challenges? I mean, there's a lot of things I think some leaders are facing what you just talked about, the burnout, you know. But what are some of the common challenges that you see with leaders?

Randy Gravitt  26:04
I'll put it in a, I mean, there's lots of things like you said, but I'll put the one that I feel like is possibly systemic in into the bucket that Mark and I call leadership quicksand. I think there's leadership quicksand out there, and it shows up in many different forms, from, from the noise in the system. I mean, there's just success sometimes causes us to get into quicksand, because we get complacent. There's email noise and there's details, and it's just we've got meeting, the meeting and you may be in an industry with supply chain issues or technology challenges or, or just technology, you know, just the, the noise that that makes, and it can help cut through all that clutter. But it also we can find ourselves what we what we call, buried in quicksand. And it's not that we've forgotten how to lead. This is not this is, this is a leader. This is somebody who's really successful, and then all of a sudden, we find ourselves in this malaise, and there's just this mundane I've got to get up and grind again and, and it just there's just not enough, maybe capacity to go around all that stuff. 

Randy Gravitt  27:12
And so, when we get in there, I think the this goes a little bit back to that conversation Mark and I had about the superpower being our ability to choose. And we think that really wise leaders, the ones that lead on the high ground, they're able to make these four Smart Choices real quickly. They confront reality that they're like, they really know where they are. There's a, I'll say a word about that. There's because I think this is the one to start with. It's just like, where are you? I'll borrow that question. Actually, I mentioned scripture. It's the second question that was ever asked in the history of the world. Where are you? It's a question God asked Adam and Eve back in the Garden of Eden. And if anybody's not familiar with the story, I mean, you've heard of Adam and Eve, whether you read the Bible or not, you know, first man, first woman. They've eaten a forbidden fruit, they're in trouble. And they decide it's just them and God, basically, it's what the Bible teaches. And they decide, we're going to try to hide. Let's hide from God. Now, if there's a God, he's not lost Adam and Eve at all. He knows exactly where they are, and he comes with this question, where are you? 

Randy Gravitt  28:18
Now, I tell people sometimes Laura and I lost, you know, a couple of the girls I thought you were picking her up from practice. No, you're supposed to go get her. And I'm driving back to the school. We had a couple of them. We kept trying to lose they kept coming back. God has not lost his kids. I mean, he, you know, we try to lose ours sometimes, but he knows exactly where they are. He shows up with this question, where are you? He needs for them to admit where they are. And anybody who's listening, who feels like they're in that quicksand right now, I would encourage them to ask that question, Where am I and, and not just, where am I? Because the you know, Lisa, the tendency is, how you doing? I'm doing fine, and we take this little fly by, and everything's good.

Randy Gravitt  28:57
I would encourage leaders to take what I call a makeup mirror look at how they're doing. It's one thing to look yourself in the mirror, but my daughter's explained to me, Dad, this little bitty mirror is way more powerful than the big one. It's the makeup mirror, and it's got five times the power of the big one, maybe small, but it's but it's very impactful. And so, and a really good make makeup mirror, you may notice, if you flip it over, it's 10x I think leaders need to spend some time right now, especially going into a new year, reflecting on how are you really doing? Not just how are you doing, but how am I really doing at a at a heart level, at a soul level, at a emotional level, at a can I sustain what I'm doing if something doesn't change? And so that confront reality is the first step. And then real quickly, the other three are, I've got, I've got to grow my capacity. Once I understand I don't have the capacity need. I may need some new people. I may need more habits, different habits. I may need about, Peter Drucker always said, you can take about a fourth of your schedule and take it off, and nobody would even know. So, am I? Am I doing the things that are high, the best use of time, you know, those, those kinds of things. 

Randy Gravitt  30:03
The third one is to fuel curiosity. What am I doing to grow me? Growing leaders. Grow stuff that's, that's as simple as I can say it. But if something's plateaued, it's probably because I plateaued. And then the fourth one is, is to make the choice to create change. Ultimately, you don't need to do something different if what you're doing is working. I'm not saying that we don't need to change for change sake. Different is not always better, but better is always going to be differently. So, we if we want something better, we're going to have to do something different. I always say you’re your, your current systems and structures, your team, your habits, your behavior, whatever it is, perfectly designed to give you your recurrent results. So, if you really want something different, you'll need to do something different. So that choice to create change is, is, you know that's going to help get you back to the high ground. 

Randy Gravitt  30:54
And then once you do, you can lead with perspective. But if you're just in the weeds all the time, and you never pull up and take time to assess and to think about growing your capacity and creating change. I think you can stay, you know, you can stay in quicksand for a long time, and we all know we don't get in quicksand on purpose when we're there. We we're we got a couple options. We can, we can just give up and die. I mean, I don't mean literally die, but your dreams die, your team dies, your family dies, all the stuff around you just begins to wither if you don't take care of this stuff. Or you can, you can swim. And if you try to swim, it's just exhausting. I mean, just imagine trying to swim across a pool that's quick, saying that that's not sustainable. And there are people who listening who are just done right now, going into a new year, you're not excited, you're just like, I'm overwhelmed. Or you can make those four choices and get back to the high ground. And how cool would it be if a bunch of listeners made those choices and just had the best year they've ever had? And I believe that's possible. So, that's a lot, but I'll, you know, hopefully that's helpful.

Lisa Nichols  32:01
That was amazing. Seriously, I'm excited about going back, at the podcast I'm gonna be re listening to this segment many, many times, Randy, I can just tell. But we do need to take a quick break, and we'll be right back with Randy Gravitt on the Something Extra Podcast.

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Lisa Nichols  32:50
Well, welcome back, everyone to the Something Extra Podcast with Randy Gravitt. So, Randy, you've written at least three, four books that I know of. We've already kind of talked about "Winning Begins at Home," and I'm going to dig into that a little bit more, but you've done "Finding Your Way," Win the Heart," "Winning at Home." Tell me on you know, what advice would you give to our listeners who are trying to build this culture of engagement? Because I don't know what Gallup says right now, but I would imagine the engagement scores, you may have that on the tip of your tongue. I imagine the engagement scores are pretty low right now.

Randy Gravitt  33:28
The last, the last I read, it's, it's around 25% in the US workforce is engaged. Mark wrote a book called "Win the Heart," and he and I did a bunch of resources around that, and I'll help with that project. And what we learned was engagement is we think it's a workforce issue. It's typically Lisa, a leadership issue. Its people don't leave organizations, they leave leaders. And if you think about it, there's nothing worse than your people leaving you, except they leave you and they don't tell you. They actually stay on your payroll. And that's what's happening. I mean, three the statistics would show that three out of four people really don't care about what the boss cares about. And I think that's actually on the leader. And so, when we wrote that, when Mark wrote the book, and we did the resources around that, we, we gave people some we learned there really some cornerstones of engagement. And I can give you a couple of them. 

Randy Gravitt  33:30
The first one, really, though it may be the most important one, it's, it's connection. If you can keep people connected to the vision, to the to the customers and to each other, engagement just goes up if you feel connected. Isolation is so dangerous. When we get isolated, and it can happen at the top. I mean, you can own the business. And I have leaders tell me all the time, it's lonely at the top. It's only lonely at the top if you go to the top by yourself, it's the goal is not to get to the top. The goal is to get to the top together. And I think the best leaders are the ones who, who create that connection. But let's use the example of the vision, we talked about that, it's so easy for us to have a business that's successful, and if we're not careful it, it's like the God or the man or woman driving down the road who likes to drive fast. The faster you drive on the on the highway, the harder it is to read the signs. You know, things get you know, I can miss my exit, so to speak, it's just I'm going so fast, and it's almost like the vision gets fuzzy. And I, and I always tell leaders, if it's fuzzy to you, it's most likely blurry to the people who are following you. So, I think we've got to make sure that we keep people connected to what are we really trying to do, and why does it matter? And specifically, if you're talking to somebody individually, what is their role, and how does that contribute to the overall vision? So, when people are connected, engagement goes up. 

Randy Gravitt  34:28
A couple more. Affirmation was a big thing that we discovered. Like, if people, you know, a lot of times we say, I don't need to thank people. I thank them with a paycheck. That's not that, that's not the right mindset. We want to make sure that people feel affirmed. People need to be I tell people all the time, people need to be validated more than they need to be tolerated. You know, a lot of people listening like I have to work with all these people. I love being the chief encouragement officer, because I get to remind people this is amazing, that you get to do this, and then I get to work with you, and we get to work with each other. And if you can keep people affirmed, most people just need somebody to see them and, and to acknowledge them. They're trying to do great work, not anybody listening. The people on your team are not coming to work every day thinking, I hope I can mess this up and make my supervisor miserable. They're not doing that. So, many times the people on my team who struggled, it's been because I didn't train them, or I didn't hold them accountable, or I didn't resource them. I mean, it's again that goes back to me. And so, that affirmation is big. 

Randy Gravitt  35:50
And then I'll mention one more for the sake of time, responsibility. We think sometimes if I give somebody responsibility more responsibility, they're going to back off the opposite. Actually, the research would show that opposite is true. When you give people responsibility and ownership of something, they actually their engagement goes up, not down. And so those are some of the things that that we see in companies when they start to build that mark. And I did all kind of resources and best practices of how to do that stuff, but I think you can create a culture of engagement, if you focus on it, and if you don't, you know, we always say, no organization drifts to greatness. It's got to be led there. And so, it's this is this might be low hanging fruit, though, for somebody who's listening. 

Lisa Nichols  37:33
That's good. I mean, that is really good. Those are some really key points right away that somebody can take and really kind of assess where they are and maybe start to implement these with the affirmation. And I have a CEO friend, Randy, you're gonna love this that leads an organization of about 70,000 people, and he told me the other day he's in the process of writing love letters to his like, you know, to his inner leadership team or what not. And I'm like, Wow, that's incredible. You talk about affirming to people you know. So, so that's cool.

Randy Gravitt  38:14
A quick little side story here. I've got a friend who owns a, it's a billion-dollar company, but he's he doesn't have near that many employees, 2500 maybe 3000 they have. And he has his new hires write the address of their parents on their emergency contact. And not everybody does it, but he says he'll the ones that do, he actually writes notes to the parents of his employees. And he said he, he's had a couple times at his annual meeting, somebody will come up at the you know, who's 50-60, years old, and say, I'm so upset with you. And he's like, why are you upset with me? You wrote my mom, who's 85, let's say, a letter, and told her what a great job I'm doing. He said, Well, why is that a problem? And he said, one time, a lady said I was thinking about quitting my job, and my mom said, you can never quit this job. You got the best boss in the whole world. So, I thought that was great. 

Randy Gravitt  39:04
But I love the idea of, here's what here was the point the guy said. He said, If I'm an 85-year-old sitting at home, and here's this CEO who's thinking about people's parents, are you kidding me? And he said, if I'm, if I'm that person, nobody's coming to see him a lot. Nobody's probably, you know, they may be living alone or whatever. How cool would it be to get a note from your kid's employer saying, Hey, your 45 year old is doing a great job. You know, they got a trophy when they were 15, but now it's like to get that note. And he said he can't, he can't tell me how many notes he's gotten back from people who, you know, just thanked him for seeing them. And you can't do that for everybody if you've got 70,000 people or 2500 even. But there's an old saying I love, do for one what you wish you could do for everyone and everybody listening here, you could affirm somebody today, and I just encourage you to do that. I think that's so powerful.

Lisa Nichols  39:54
That's so good. I think that was an Andy Stanley quote, if I recall.

Randy Gravitt  39:58
Andy's the one I heard say that. That's exactly right.

Lisa Nichols  39:59
I love that I love that. Well, let's dig in a little bit to "Winning at Home." Because I really, I love that you just, you gave some gold away there, Randy, and I appreciate that you just gave that to our listeners. But let's talk about "Winning at Home." This is a strategy from five to nine. There's so much praise for this book. You know, I hope our listeners will go out and get it. Dr. John Maxwell, who most of us all. If you've read any leadership stuff, you've read Dr John Maxwell's. He says every leader needs a reminder and a strategy to win beyond work. Thankfully, Randy Gravitt gives us both in at "Winning at Home." This book is a blueprint to building a great family. John Gordon, a lot of our real listeners have probably read the energy bus and some of John Gordon's work. Here's what he says. Randy Gravitt presents a simple strategy to help you win where it matters the most. When you win at home, you are a winner if you care about your family, read this book. I love it, and I love Randy, that you dedicated this to your dad, Lee Gravitt. And one of the things that I want you to talk to our listeners about this, you said one of the things he taught you was how to bunt. So, those listeners who may not know this is a baseball batting technique, but what it means? How will bunting help you win?

Randy Gravitt  40:07
Okay, so that, that's a crazy story. So, my dad, he's a big baseball fan, and the book, by the way, is a parable about a business guy, but a lot of the setting happens at a little league. He gets roped this guy gets roped into volunteer coaching a little league baseball team, and meets, will you mention Willie? And so, there's a, the setting is a baseball field. And so, when I was a kid, I'm guessing 12 years old, 11-12, years old is this time of year. I got a, I got an aluminum baseball bat, Lisa, for Christmas. They had just been invented, I don't know, three or four years. Maybe before that, my, my small hometown, the first one I saw was, I guess, in maybe 1976. We get these aluminum baseball bats. And I was a little guy and but I was going to be the oldest guy in our baseball league to come you know, it was my last year in the Little League, so to speak. And, and I was so excited, because this baseball bat, this aluminum baseball bat, where my brother and I are out in the backyard with this thing and, and we're hitting the ball. And it's like a cheat code. I mean, the ball's going a lot further. This is going to be so good. And so, I'm fired up thinking this is going to be the year man, I'm going to hit some home runs. You know, it's going to be awesome. 

Randy Gravitt  42:35
And that was the spring. A couple months later, my dad said, hey, I want to, I want to teach you how to bunt. Now, for the people who are listening that don't know baseball, probably a lot of people do. But Bunning basically just means that when you come up to bat, pitcher throws the ball, you got the bat, and you just basically turn around, you square up and, and you just basically, I'll use the word tap, you bunt the ball right out in front of the plate. Basically, what's going to happen is you're going to make an out on purpose. You do this when there are guys on base, maybe first or second base, and there's less than two outs. It's a strategy. You're trying to move the runners up on the base path, so the next guy behind you gets a hit, and it drives those runs in, and you can score more runs. My dad's explaining all this to me, and I'm thinking, you have lost your mind. We've got this we've got this great bat. We've got an opportunity here to hit these home runs. And you're wanting me to bunt? Are you kidding me? This makes no sense to a 12-year-old. 

Randy Gravitt  43:31
But what I learned later, as I got older and we started, you know, I got married and we started having kids, was my dad was not he we, by the way, we did win a lot of games that year. It was great, but he wasn't worried about baseball. He was worried about me being a man who understood what it means to sacrifice, frankly. And I, you know, as looking back, I remember how generous my dad's passed away now, but I remember how generous he was and how just, he was always out there coaching us, but he's working. I mean, it's like this guy was just, seems like he was engaged. And I'm sure it was really hard to stay and get I mean, I know it is. It's hard for all of us to just keep our foot on the gas and not lose heart, and my dad knew there was going to come a time where he didn't know it at the time, but he knew you'll grow up someday and you'll probably have a family of your own. Well, in my case, you know, I got married, had these four daughters, and there would be tuition payments, and I'm gonna have to buy flowers a lot of times and say I'm sorry more times than you know that I'm care to admit and just, I mean, all the stuff that we do when we get if we're, if we're going to be adults, that are going to add value, sacrifice is going to be a part of that. 

Randy Gravitt  44:48
And so, in the book, we talk about those fundamentals, and one of them is, is to live last. It's, it's, is to have that mindset that I'm willing to go to the back of the line, and it's, it's, it's the idea of a servant leader. I think servant leadership has such a bad rap these days. People, I don't want to be a doormat, and that's not what sort of servant leadership is about. It's about helping the other person win. It's about helping that other person move up on base. Or it's football season right now. We got the all kind of playoffs about to start. I like, when I think about football, most people think about, about quarterbacks, you know, and if you ask people name a football player, they always name a quarterback. Nobody's ever talking about the left guard for, you know, the Seahawks or the right tackle for the Missouri Tigers. I mean, they don't know who these people are, and yet, those are the people who show up game in and game out, and they move people out of the way so somebody else can score. And that really is what a mom or a dad or a husband or a wife, it's if we could just get our mind around, we have an opportunity, even at work in business with our team. If we focus on helping other people win, I think that's what makes us winners. And so, it's a lesson my dad taught me in a kind of crazy way, but I sure am glad he did. And I'll just say this, it's a lesson that I'm still trying to learn. 

Lisa Nichols  46:12
You're still practicing aren't you, Randy?

Randy Gravitt  46:13
Because, truthfully, I love me some me, I mean, I love me some me. I have no I think we're all human. We have no problem thinking about ourselves. It's the old, I'd love to have a conversation with Jesus about this, because Jesus said we need to love our neighbors as we do ourselves. I think in some weird way my brain works like he knew we were going to love ourselves a lot if we love our neighbors as much or more than we love ourselves. I think the world would be a lot better. Now, I think Jesus would say, that's not what I was trying to say. You don't need to love yourself as much as you know. I don't think we need to think less of ourselves, but I do think we need to think of ourselves less. I'll say it that way. And so, it's, that's the lesson. I mean, it was to me, that's what it's about. And anybody listening, there's every single day, we have a chance to help somebody else win. And to me, the most impactful people in my lives, in my life, have been the ones who have constantly been the ones who serve. They're the ones who are always, constantly looking for ways to help other people succeed. And I mean, I just have so much respect for people. I want to be that way. I mean, it's, it's, you know, that, to me, is the goal.

Lisa Nichols  47:23
Oh, that is so good. Let's all bunt more, okay?

Randy Gravitt  47:27
We need to bunt more. I need to get a shirt that says, bunt more. I like that. 

Lisa Nichols  47:33
I know, you do, you do. I love it. Well, I love this, because you talk about love first, live, love first, live, last. But sometimes we get it mixed up. You know. We live first, love last, right?

Randy Gravitt  47:50
I think sometimes we love last. I think sometimes we get the order reversed and it doesn't. Well, you know, every time I've, every time I've loved last or, or not given somebody that benefited it out or not been willing to have a, a conversation when I need to, or whatever, or and every time I've lived first, like I'll put myself first, it just doesn't work. And so, I've given up on that. I'm, I'm trying to love first and live last. And I'll give your audience a question to ask themselves. I think this might be helpful, the question I ask myself this question all the time, how would I live my life in such a way that the people who know me the best actually love me the most? Too often, I've probably had the people who know me the best have I don't know that we love you. I mean, we love you because we're supposed to, or we have to, we're obligated to, but we don't maybe like you very much. I mean, you really want to push yourself live, live in a way that the people who love you are supposed to love you actually like you as well. And I shared that with a with a group, actually, with Tommy. We were with a group a few weeks ago, and I shared that with that group. And there was a guy who came up to me afterwards, and he said, Man, I I'm just not giving my wife very much reason to like me in the last few years. And he went and, you know, had a phone call with her and came back and said, I was just moved to tears with our conversation and, and I'm and I'm going to do, I'm going to do something different moving forward. And so, I think all of us, we have a chance to make some change here. And again, I'd love for everybody to have a great year coming up. I think a lot of it could, could hinge on us putting those fundamentals of loving first and living last, embedding that into our family. That's a great place to start. 

Lisa Nichols  49:31
Oh, it's so good. I'm getting a little teary eyed, just like hearing all that. But just listeners, the book is great. It is chock full of just so much wisdom. I mean, one that just pops in my head, Randy, as you were talking, is abrasive is not persuasive, and sometimes we can be really abrasive with people. We can be abrasive with our family, and that is not persuasive. It's it diminishes. It diminishes that intimacy.

Randy Gravitt  49:59
That's so true, Lisa, it's so true. Laura always tells me, saying it louder doesn't make you more right. I get so passionate about she's like, Okay, hang on there, and I need to be reminded. But I think that's so true. You may have a, you know, a 14-year-old, and you're thinking, I'll just say it a little more firmly and, and truthfully, you really are never persuasive when you're abrasive. I've never been motivated. I mean, think about this, Lisa, have you ever had a time where somebody says something in a harsh way and you thought that really motivates me to change. Not even in any universe would we think that. And yet we think, when we're doing the communicating, I'll just make my point. And I'd rather sometimes be right then get it right or be right with somebody else. And that's so dangerous. I've honestly, I say dangerous, because I think that's where we end up down the road going. I've got so much regret because I didn't approach someone with gentleness or the way I would want to be approached. And so, I think we all, you know, again, there are no perfect families. We've all got progress to make there, but let's make progress. Let's take some steps. 

Lisa Nichols  51:01
Let's practice, let's practice and make progress. We're not going to be perfect, but that's not the goal. It's progress, right? And getting better. So have a little quick lightning round for you. You've authored a lot of books. What books have you read that have made an profound impact on you? And so, I know the Bible is one of those, but is there another book or two that has real I know you love to read. Has there been one or two that's made a profound impact on you? 

Randy Gravitt  51:33
I'll mention a couple. One I read in the last couple of years was a book called the ruthless elimination of hurry, and it's by a guy, John Mark Comer, that's exactly right. And it's just such a great practical book on eliminating some of the noise in our life. And the way I the way I think about this is, and I mentioned it a little bit earlier, with the quicksand, but noise makes it onto our schedule, Lisa, whether we schedule it or not, it's just packed with noise. I mean, we just had all this election noise a few weeks ago and, and, but there's new noise now. There's, there's media noise is constant, social media noise, there's email noise, and we mentioned detail noise, and there's just noise in the system. But quiet really doesn't make it onto our schedule unless we schedule it. 

Randy Gravitt  52:19
And I think one of the things that most people need more of most leaders, is they need more quiet. They need more I said earlier, the goal is not to be alone, but I think you need to be alone more than you are probably more alone time not lonely. That was what I was saying, I think. But I think there needs to be times on your calendar where you say, I'm gonna take some time to assess and maybe look at that makeup mirror a little bit and adjust and think and plan and strategize. And I think we're much more productive if we have some of that margin time built onto our schedule, not time to check our email and, and scroll social media, but I'm talking real active work to make sure that we're, we're thinking strategically, and we're locked in on the vision, and we know what we're trying to communicate and what we're really trying to accomplish. And if we can stay locked into that, it just gives us better clarity.

Lisa Nichols  53:13
That is so good. And I'm just going to piggyback off what you just said there. It is work.

Randy Gravitt  53:19
It is work. It is work.

Lisa Nichols  53:24
It's kind of that, I don't know you hear shadow work. You hear that, that term a lot, but it's not easy to work on yourself, because you do have to take a look in the mirror. And sometimes you see things that you really, it's not always pleasant to see, right? But taking that time, I think that is so good. And I'm just going to encourage our listeners, we're coming up on this time hopefully, you know, our listeners will have some time off, a little time off between Christmas and New Year's. That's always a great time. 

Randy Gravitt  53:51
That'd be a great book to read that week. 

Lisa Nichols  53:53
That would be a great book to read. A great time to reset, you know, and get ready for your best year yet. So, I could not agree more.

Randy Gravitt  54:01
I mentioned one more Mark. We mentioned Mark Miller. Earlier. Mark just wrote a book this last year called "Uncommon Greatness," and it outlines the five fundamentals of leadership. And so, if you've got a young leader, even a seasoned leader who's really never been taught to lead, that book lays out really a great model to help you be a leader, who's got, who's locked in on the fundamentals. We think about a sports team, football, we mentioned blocking and tackling. We know that at home, love, first, live last, those are fundamentals. We a musician understands chords and scales. I think leaders so many times we don't what are the fundamentals, and that that model, that Mark unpacks in "Uncommon Greatness" is powerful. So, I'd recommend that book as well. It's fantastic.

Lisa Nichols  54:43
That's good. Buy, buy books. Buy "Winning at Home." Buy the John Mark Comer book, it's like "Relentless Elimination of Hurry." Is the name of that book. "Uncommon Greatness," by Mark Miller. Grab those books.

Randy Gravitt  55:00
I will mention "Winning Begins at Home" If anybody's looking for that book in bulk, you can get that at leadeveryday.com. We do have some bulk pricing there. And I know a lot of people are trying to start that conversation in their workplace. And we've had companies that give it to all their leaders and, you know, all their other employees. Frankly, it's, it's a great resource there. So, we can help you with that, reach out and you can get it wherever you get your books as well, if you're if you just want to get a copy of it, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon, and there is an audible version, which is, is was fun to do. 

Lisa Nichols  55:33
But you can get the bulk pricing. If you go to Lead Every Day.

Randy Gravitt  55:37
Leadeveryday.com, you get a better deal. 

Lisa Nichols  55:39
Well, Randy, this has been so much fun, but I have to ask you, this is called something extra. What do you believe is the something extra that every leader needs?

Randy Gravitt  55:50
I think I can I say two things? Because I want to, so I think if I had to say one thing, it is a it's an integrated life, and we use, we use a picture of an iceberg. We think the, the top of the iceberg represents our skills. But I think the character of the leader is the is the weighty you know, what is the iceberg? 90% is below the waterline. And I think the part that is underneath. People may not see it per se, but they do see it. They feel it for sure, if we have the character that we need. And we always say, if your heart's not right, nobody really cares about your skills. So, I think it starts with the heart. I think that's such a, an important part. And so, if I could say anything, it would be, it would be that, that that to me, that's the something extra, that's what makes a person a leader, that I want to follow, not that I have to follow. But I've, you know, you've got people. We probably all do that we would run through a wall for. It's, it's typically not because they could lead meetings or build teams or solve problems. It was their character, their belief in you. Maybe sometimes they believed in you more than you believe in you. But that's, that's, that, that weightiness of that character. 

Randy Gravitt  56:56
But the other thing I would say is, I'll shameless plug here. It would something extra to me is to win beyond work. I mean, it's, it's winning really does begin at home. And you mentioned a minute ago the five to nine. We always back in the day, we talked about the nine to five. I'm not sure there is nine to five anymore. Everybody just kind of works when they work. But I think the outside of work that five to nine, what happens from five to nine, to me, is what maybe positions us to win from nine to five, which maybe not, not our motive there. I mean, we want to win at work, but what happens outside of work really, to me, that's where the quality of our life is determined, and that's where a lot of regret lies. I mean, it can, it can be there with your career too, if you don't do your best at work, but if we don't get it right at home, things are just not right. And I'll just say it the way we said it earlier. If you win at work and you lose at home, I think you still lose. And so, to me, that's something extra. Is don't just focus on these great leadership careers. You got people listening from again, all over the place who are very effective. They're making a huge difference. They got big plans, big goals, projects, all kind of stuff that are going to happen this next year. But let's don't do all those things at the expense of what matters most. And to me, home is Home is where it starts. It's, it's winning really does begin at home. 

Lisa Nichols  58:17
Yes, oh so good. Well, Randy, thank you so much. This has been so much fun to spend this time with you, and I just wish you and Mark and the team just the best. Keep doing what you're doing, making a difference, and I appreciate you. 

Randy Gravitt  58:33
Thank you, Lisa. I appreciate all you do, and let us know if we can ever serve you, any of your audience we can serve you. Reach out info at leadeveryday.com. We'd love to help you any way we can. 

Announcer  58:43
Thank you for listening to today's show something extra with Lisa Nichols as a Technology Partners Production Copyright Technology Partners Inc. 2019. For show notes or to reach Lisa, visit tpi.co/podcast. Don't forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you listen. 

*Please note, the preceding transcription has been automatically generated and should be used for informational purposes only.