286. From Autopilot to Driver’s Seat: Intentional Leadership with Rand Selig

What does it mean to truly thrive as a leader? Rand Selig, veteran investment banker and founder of Selig Capital Group, shares how he left Wall Street to design a firm—and a life—built on intention. By limiting his clients to five at a time, he created space to be present with family, serve his community, and still build an award-winning company.

Rand highlights the difference between management and leadership. Management is about efficiency, but leadership ensures the ladder is leaning against the right wall. Leaders articulate the “why” that inspires people and then step aside to let talent thrive. His four career sabbaticals also reconnected him with purpose and prevented burnout.

True leadership means living by values, not external expectations. Are you climbing the right wall? Do your people feel they get to work or that they have to? Thriving personally allows us to create the conditions for others to thrive as well.

🌐 Connect with Rand:
• Website: https://www.randselig.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/randselig/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rmsinstat/

📚 You can purchase Rand's book on Amazon:
• Thriving!: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJHH49MQ

Chapters

• 0:00 Are You Climbing the Right Wall?
• 9:12 Service Philosophy That Compounds Trust
• 16:07 Values-Driven Leadership
• 24:42 Roles of an Effective Leader
• 33:04 Thriving: Creating a Balanced Life
• 40:25 Key Takeaways and Life Lessons

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:01

Are you climbing fast, but up the wrong wall? Do your people feel they get to do the work or that they have to, and if you held the gear shift of your life and work, what would you change today? Today, I'm joined by Rand Selig, veteran investment banker and founder of the Selleck Capital Group, who spent a decade on Wall Street before deliberately designing a different kind of firm and a different kind of life. In today's conversation, we'll discuss how a client, first service philosophy, compounds into decades of trust and results, and that the leaders primary jobs are to set a clear vision, build the culture and communicate the why. So people bring their best stick around to the end for a powerful framing borrowed from Covi that will change how you think about success and make you check which wall your ladder is leaning on. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Rand Selig. Rand has had a decorated career in the financial investment world, and was the leader of a group called the Selleck Capital Group. He's learned a lot about leadership over that time. We're going to be talking about that. What are the differences between leadership and management? What are the roles of an effective leader and the qualities of a great leader. We're going to be talking about that, but he's also the author of a new book called thriving, how to create a healthier, happier and more prosperous life. And one thing is for sure, as leaders, if we're not looking after our own life, it's very difficult for us to lead others and look after others. So that's what we're going to be digging into today, some life lessons from a lifelong leader and how his book thriving could help you to make sure that you're looking after yourself before you look after others. So Rand, without any further ado, I'd love it if you would introduce yourself to the audience and tell us about that decorated career and some some of the snippets of what you've learned about leadership along the way?

Rand Selig: 2:07

Well, thanks, Mick, I'm delighted to be here with you, and I hope what we're going to talk about today is of value to your listeners. You know, I've had a very long, terrific career as an investment banker, I started on Wall Street and spent 10 years with very big firms. And that was that was good that was good learning. It was good training. And one of the things, the very important things I learned, was that I was an entrepreneur, and I didn't want to go to meetings. I didn't like meetings, and I didn't really particularly like to have a boss. The best boss I had was one who said, What can I do for you? What resources do you need that I can get for you? So I started my own firm more than three decades ago. Took me a while to do that, because I need to really focus on what we were going to be doing as a primary service. I wrote up five principles that have guided my company all these many years and very successfully. Last year, my company was named the best sustainable investment banking firm in the San Francisco Bay Area, and this year it's been named the best M and A firm in California. So we earned that. It's a nice feather in our caps. And I think the heart of what led to our success as a company was our service attitude. It wasn't about us saying, How can we make money? How can we close this transaction? Transaction as quickly as possible? It was much more about, what is our client thinking about? What is what are their objectives? And how can we meet or exceed those objectives? And we did that again and again and again over 250 transactions in my career. And I'm very I'm very pleased about that that career and it it also was a platform for me to build a life. When I started my own firm, I said, I want to be able to live and work in the same place, in the same town, so I didn't have a big commute. I wanted to be able to have my hand on the gear shifter to decide just how hard I wanted to work. You know, I decided that I would have only five clients at a time. These are complicated transactions, so they need a lot of attention, but that decision allowed me then to be very involved with my young children growing up, it allowed me to become a scout master and a little league coach. I've been on board since I was in my late 20s. I've been on 18 different boards, and so gave me time to do that, because I could just say, Okay, I'm saying no, I'm stopping for the day. I'm taking care of myself and. To rest, and I need to before going to, you know, a meeting tonight, I need to have dinner with my kids and my wife. So it's been a very intentional process, and it started with a deep dive into who I was and what really mattered to me. It was my company's based on values, and I've continued to evolve, and it's been good. And as you were talking about Mick, my book goes into a lot of what it takes to be that kind of person. You know, we live in a world that is very much occupied about doing things, about defining success in a certain way. And I I really think that it's very important for people, especially as they're high achievers, to be really thinking about who they want to be, not just what they're doing and what they're accomplishing, but who they're being as a person, as a human being on the planet.

Mick Spiers: 6:00

Really good, Rand, I'm picking up three very interesting things there for me. First of all, when you're talking about yourself as a follower, and what is also true for for many others, is whether people even want to be led in the first place. And bear with me on this one, that everything you you're screaming at me in my head is very much aligned with the work of William Glasser and his work called Choice Theory. And in choice theory talks about five fundamental needs, the need for survival, need for love and belonging, the need for some kind of identity or power, like a ego or an identity thing, the need for fun, we sometimes forget that which is important, but the key one is freedom, the freedom of choice and the freedom from oppression. And if we forget that psychological need you spoke about, you wanted to hold the gear shift. You wanted to be the one that was making decisions that impact your life is. That's what others want to. That's what others want to. How does that sit with your own?

Rand Selig: 7:05

Yeah, yeah. No, I think you're right. And you know, a lot of the best managers just get out of the way of motivated employees. The leader sets the stage for talking about the vision, which can be, if it's you know, the job is to articulate that and invite people in to add more color and texture to that, that vision, and then the manager, the operation. Whole process is about just getting those resources to the people, the team that's going to be responsible for carrying it out, and not getting in their way, not over managing them. And so this is, this is part of freedom. I think people want to be seen. They want to be listened to. They want to be given a chance to do the best they can. And that's a nice recipe for building a good organization and getting good products and services and and a good culture built.

Mick Spiers: 8:04

So setting that vision, thinking about, you know, this is the direction that we want to get, inspiring them to want to get up that mountain. Whatever that mountain is that you've pointed towards, you're inspiring them that it means something. So they want to, they want to feel seen, they want to feel heard, like you said, but they also want to feel like they matter. And mattering starts with purpose. So there's got to be some kind of purpose that you're inspiring them towards. And I love what you said, Rand about then just inspire them, get them motivated, then get out of their way because they are talented. Maybe it's not just get out of their way, but also help them remove any obstacles that are in their path so that they can have the best shot at having an impact. The second thing I picked up ran was a lot around values. So you when you're starting your company, you wanted to know who you are, who you serve, what problems you help them solve, but also what are your values, what's meaningful to me and to us as a company. But then I was picking up that that wasn't just your company. That was you ran salek as well. You as a leader, understanding what was important to you tell us more about values and what it means to you, Rand?

Rand Selig: 9:14

Yeah, absolutely, you know, I think it's absolutely essential for anybody who cares about their life? I think a lot of people do, and rightly so, is they understand who they are. You know what they stand for, what they won't stand for. This boils down to their values. Are you standing up for being kind and a good listener? Are you respectful? Do you want to make this planet a little bit better in your your brief time here. How are you going to have that manifest so these are values that come from the inside out. I don't think they they come by you watching somebody drive down the street in a fancy new car. I think they come from you saying, this is this is how my heart beats. This is what gets. Me excited. This is something that matters to me. Those are all very personal decisions, and that's good, because what we need is all those different cells in the complex of the of humanity on the planet to contribute all that cellular structure. So values is absolutely bedrock important to any enterprise, human, organizational or otherwise.

Mick Spiers: 10:26

Really good, Rand, so I'm going to say this is our first bit of homework for the audience. Think about this. Think about the questions that Rand just asked. And do you know the answers to those questions? Is my first homework, which is, who are you and not who? What is your projected identity, or how you project yourself on the world inside out, like Rand said, Who are you really? What gets you riled up, what makes you so passionate? Is there an injustice in the world that always gets you on your edge of your seat, right? So who are you? What do you stand for? Listen to the next question, What won't you stand for? And my second question to you then is, have you communicated that to your team? Because if you can, if you can communicate with clarity who you are, what you stand for and what you won't stand for, that gives great clarity to your team about who you are and what matters to you, and if they then align with your vision of these things, they're going to become a follower. They're going to go, oh, that Rand, he stands for the things I stand for. He doesn't stand for the things that I don't stand for. So you're going to start, just going to start getting people following you that believe in the things that you believe. How does that sound, Rand?

Rand Selig: 11:42

Well, I think that's spot on. Mick, you know, we had these questions that are asked. There's a sort of traditional journalistic questions, the who, what, when, why, how and where. And there's a terrific TED Talk. If your listeners haven't come across it, I recommend you reach out Simon Sinek, and he's talking about, start with the question of, why not, how? But why? Because, when you when you talk to your your team, when you talk in the organizational world, about why are we here? We're here to do A, B and C, and because we're here to do a b and c, then the way we're going to do it is through X, Y and Z. That's a road map of bringing people in with their their humanists, with their with their talent as well. And they say, Okay, I really am, as you were saying, Mick, aligned. I'm aligned with with being here to do for this why, and a lot of magic can happen with that. And you know, frankly, people who are not aligned with the why, then can either say, I'm not going to join the company. I just not interested in that. It just doesn't mean anything to me. Or if they later discovered the why is not compelling to them, maybe they can, you know, move to another place where they can find that, because that is, that is vitality in life. It gives you so much energy to be a put puts a smile on your face when you're aligned with the why you you do that. We spend a lot of our lives working on something so why not work on something that really matters to you? Where you are saying the why is so much a part of what I'm excited about. I want to talk to everybody, even when I'm not there. You know, working with my fellow teammates. I'm talking on the weekend, I'm talking with my friends and family about it, because it's so cool. It's so important to me.

Mick Spiers: 13:50

Yeah, really good,Rand I'm really glad that you point out Simon's TED talk there and also his book Start With Why the Golden Circle. It really does matter. Here's the thing is that when those people then have that powerful purpose, it does bring them energy that you, like you said, but also it brings out the best in them, like a highly motivated, purpose aligned individual. And bear with me, because of the story is going to build the individual all of a sudden does their very, very best work. But then you get a collection of individuals that then have purpose alignment. Now you got a bunch of people in a boat that all rowing in the same direction. You can dominate any industry, and you can achieve that purpose together, because by doing it together, you can co create something that's much greater than any of those highly motivated individuals could have done. Now we're talking leadership.

Rand Selig: 14:46

And this taps into a really critical thing, which is culture, if you're doing these things, which you're setting up for, is a culture where people say, I'm questioning myself. Yes, I am. I'm aligned or I'm not clear about so I need to ask some questions. I want to be clear about it. I want to be as aligned as I possibly can. And then it also leads to Okay. I need to manage up for me to do the work I'm assigned to do. I need more of certain resources. I need more of something. I need more explanation. I need I need more teammates. I need something. And that process of you going to, you know, maybe the people who have those resources call them the bosses, or maybe in your team meetings, you're saying, Okay, here's what I need from you. Is that possible? Is that something that we can talk about more so that I can get that I want to do the very best job I can and to do that to for me to do that high quality work, I need something. I need these. And be specific, that's a fabulous conversation. I tell people, This isn't restricted just to the work, the work you're doing at the company or in your nonprofit. This is at the home where you invite you can invite your kids to do that. Say, Hey, mom, dad, you know, for me to be the better student, or to, you know, behave better or something. Here's what's missing for me. Is that something we can, you know, work on, is that something you can help me with? That's a lovely conversation.

Mick Spiers: 16:33

Yeah it is. That's a powerful dialog as well. And then then we're getting clarity in both directions. Okay, now, yeah, now we're getting somewhere in the third thing from your intro that I picked up on this is really interesting. You said about from the inside out with these values of who I am, and I was picking up something that you're saying that not relying on what you think society's expectations are of you or I'm playing the role of and that type of person should do this. It's getting rid of the should and go getting to the inside. How do we do that? Right? How, in your experience, how do we let go of what might be an external expectation, to then get back to the grounded center, to go, No, this is who I am. This is what matters to me. This is what I stand for. This is what I don't stand for.

Rand Selig: 17:28

Yeah, well, I think goes through several phases the important chunks. It starts with, who are you? You know, what is important to you? You know, I I've not met too many people who genuinely want to have more material goodies. That's just a way of getting somewhere else, recognition, attention, proof, social proof that they you know, they made it or something like that. But at the end of the day, what they want are other things. They want, relationships that matter. They want to have the freedom to spend time in a certain way. They want the freedom to make choices that empower and enrich their lives. These are internal barometers and yard sticks. And you can look around and maybe say, I like that or I reject that. But it all really comes down to what's floating your boat. Who are you? What's important to you? Now, once you sort that out, then you might have to face some headwinds and swim against some tide. So everybody is saying, Oh, the cool thing to do is whatever. And you say yourself, that's not interesting to me. So at that point, it could be, you've heard that since you were a little kid. Maybe your parents are big about that. Maybe your friends talk about it all the time. Maybe co workers do and so on. So it's it could be a very common kind of thing. Make a lot of money. These kinds of messages, you have to then say, I have something that's more akin to who I am. It's more powerful for me. And so I'm going to do that instead. I'll give you an example of this in my busiest part of my career and busiest time of raising my kids, we took four sabbaticals, then that's a term that's often reserved for academic people. But we took four separate they were about five years apart from each other, four months, and worked on a project outside the United States. We went went to work in South Africa. We went to Jamaica and help build out the first two ever national parks. We went to work on a reef conservation project in in the Caribbean, in Mexico. These were sensationally important things to do. It was reduced. Fascinating. It avoided the burnout. It reconnected me to who I was and why I was doing the work I was doing. It wasn't just working to make money so I could go do these other things. It was work that mattered to me, and we took time as a family, that was so, so valuable. Like, you know, my kids still talk about it, how important, and they want to build a life that way too. The freedom to be able to say, Okay, I'm going to plan that. I'm going to do that. This was non trivial. Here. I'm running a company. I had to go to my clients and say, I know you want me to start September 1 or something, but I won't be back until October 1 or, you know, we need to work really hard for the next three weeks to get this finished, if it's possible, because I'm going to be leaving, and I really would like to leave without having delays in What I'm contributing and running for this transaction. So all of my clients said, I'm so excited that you're doing this. Yes, we'll, we'll wait for you. Or yes, let's double down right now and speed this up and get the closing to go a couple of weeks earlier than we thought. So the management of that enterprise, based on a huge commitment to go and work on these projects was, was of enormous value. But I was driving the bus, you know, I like to say to people and pull up this little you know bus, say, you know that the English double deckers. And I say, okay, who's driving your bus? If you're driving your own bus, then you're deciding how fast to go, and you're deciding when to stop, you're deciding when to turn right or when to turn left. You're deciding who to invite on your bus, and very importantly, you're also deciding who to invite off your bus. People, who are, you know, have, you know, created some toxicity, or, you know, just aren't creating the kind of relationship with you that's going to be the relationship you need, and you're not contributing to them. So these are important things. So you can, you can design your own life. And then my story about sabbaticals is an example of that, starting your own company, running your company a certain way. These are all very powerful. They were enormously powerful people, more powerful than a lot of people realize.

Mick Spiers: 22:27

The people that you're inviting off the bus there ran, they're the people that aren't aligned to your values. They're the ones that may be fit into the category of the things that you won't stand for. For example, the things that I'm hearing you ran, first of all that you're role modeling the behaviors that you're talking about, which is always a beautiful thing. But I'm also say that you know you're really taking that time to make sure that you're not on autopilot. So you're you're talking about who's driving the bus. I'm going to ask the audience again Now, second bit of homework, check in with yourself. Are you on autopilot, just going through the motions every day, or are you got your hands on the wheel? Are you the one that's driving the bus? And when I say on autopilot, are you living by other people's expectations of you, or are you living by your own expectations of yourself? They're hard questions, but if you don't take the time to stop reflect, think about it, you'll stay in autopilot. It takes action to stop and think about these things.

Rand Selig: 23:26

What you just suggest to your listeners, Mick is a real gift, and I really hope that people do that. It's not not simple. It's not obvious whether you're talking about values or things that are important to you in terms of how you define success in life, and who you are as a person, and what kind of person you want to be, they're complicated things, in part because there are these messages around all the time that may not really be the messages that fit you. So I suggest to people that you pay attention, that I for me, I have to write it down. I have to write down this, and I have to revise it. I have to go back to it. Doesn't have to ever be perfect. In fact, it continues to be fluid. In some ways. It leads to a statement of life purpose. It leads to a statement of, you know, legacy. What kind of legacy do I want to be creating? Once you write that down, then you can start living that. Now you don't have to wait till you're kind of like, you know, death's door. No, you can start living that now. What a what a great thing to do.

Mick Spiers: 24:30

Yeah, live, live the life that you'd be happy to live. Very, really good. I think we're going to come back to that when we talk about your book. I have a feeling as well. The other thing we discussed in the intro was the primary roles of an effective leader. We don't often think about this. So what does that mean to you grant primary roles of an effective leader?

Rand Selig: 24:49

Well, a leader is different than a manager, so a leader's job really fundamentally starts with creating a vision, a vision for we're here and we're going to go there. Mm. Not the Necessarily, the how to do it. It's that we want to get to this place and be providing these kinds of benefits to our customers and clients. It's critical that that vision is articulated so a leader is articulate. He can talk about the vision, and they're open enough to say opens. The question is, are there questions about this? Does anybody want to add or contribute to this vision in the way is worded, or the way, you know, this isn't a wordsmith kind of thing, but to bring other people into the conversation, very, very good part of that is a way of talking about creating culture. What kind of culture are you? This is a leader's job to really be fostering culture, and that's another way of getting into motivation. If people can be aligned with the vision, they feel included. They feel part of the culture, and the culture fits them. They feel listened to and seen. They're going to be motivated, and the benefits of being involved, which are, you know, title and money, are certainly part of the equation, without any doubt, but they're not necessarily first and foremost. It kind of shifts the whole ingredient of why people are there and what they're doing. They're not saying, Well, wait a minute, I already worked my X hours this week, so I'm not good for anymore. No, I'm not gonna do that. Don't want people to say that. Do you want them to be contributing with boundaries? And the leader has to lead by example. So you can't just be saying, Oh, this is the great thing to do and then not do it. You have to be that person. You have to be the person that is talking about all these things people see that they follow the leader before they follow the vision. So these are really critical ingredients, of course, you have to be a good listener, and you have to be able to ask questions. And by asking a sincere question, you're opening up to some things you may not have ever thought about before. That's a little bit of humility, and you're also opening up yourself to some risk that you may get some feedback that what you're talking about isn't completely finished yet, and you've got some more work to do to articulate that vision, craft the vision. So there takes some strength to be a leader. Is not essentially thing to do, and for a lot of companies, especially in nonprofits that are not large, they really don't have a person really running the job of leader. What they do is how they have somebody who's a manager, who is really the Operating Officer, who's talking about accomplishing goals, you know, in some efficient way. I really love I want to share this fantastic quote. It actually opens the chapter in my book on leadership and management. This is a quote by Stephen Covey, the great Stephen Covey, management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success. Leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning up against the right wall.

Mick Spiers: 28:19

Yeah.MReally powerful, Rand, and that's a great way to book end it there at the end, there are you? Are you climbing the right wall? It's a really good question to ask yourself and to and to break down some of these characteristics that Rand is talking about. So we're setting the vision. We're articulating it with clarity. We're fostering the culture, starting with ourselves, right? So if you if you want to say what your values are, you better make sure that your behaviors are aligned with those values, and then you're going to start seeing a culture to be able to be set around you, the listening skills couldn't agree with you more. Rand, and there's a double whammy here, or maybe it's a triple whammy. But certainly there's a double whammy here that when we're listening to others, other people have got absolutely fantastic ideas, and you're going to co create something that is better than what you could have just invented yourself if you used a blank sheet of paper. So you are listening to these great ideas, and the people close to the action are going to have the best ideas I'm going to tell you. And then what you said before about people want to feel seen, they want to feel heard, they want to feel that that matter. There's no better way to show that when then that you truly listen to them. And I'm, I mean, really listened, not just you gave them a chance to talk. You truly listen, and then you used your curiosity to go, Oh, tell me more about that. That's interesting. How would we go about that to asking better questions and being a better listener? They'll feel seen, they'll feel heard, they'll feel valued, and you will walk away from that conversation with better ideas than when you went in. How does that sit with you, Rand?

Rand Selig: 29:54

Well, Mick, you're, you're singing my song. This is, this is exactly right as I. It's a great summary, and I guess just for sense of completion, because, you know, leaders are, there are fewer leaders there than there are managers in any company. There might be, you know, 10, 2050, times as many people in the management side of the house as they are in that leadership function which I just described. So let me take just a quick minute and just highlight what some of the key components of being a manager are. The manager plans the work, they organize the teams, they assign and direct the work, and they monitor the results and they make adjustments. These are critical. You're not going to get stuff done without the management of it. You can't just have the vision. The vision needs to have some traction. It needs to go someplace, and that's where the manager steps in and does their critically important work. But it's okay to be a manager. You don't have to say, Oh, I'm a leader, you know, I'm not making a big point of this difference in the wording. The reason why I'm really pushing on this is because the roles are so different that if people can really understand what they're contributing in either of those two dimensions, they'll do a better job. They'll be clear about making the contribution that the organization needs and bringing their best selves forward. So in my case, I am a better leader than I am a manager. I learned early on, actually in high school, that my my leadership, my vision skills, were really good, and I continued to exhibit that throughout my my life. But my management, I need to continue, and I still need to continue to work on, you know, it's the human qualities, you know, I'm not naturally empathetic. I have to keep working on that. I'm much better listener now than I was even 10 years ago. I want to hear what people have to say, and I'm a little more humble and a little and a lot more confident. So I can, I can be a better listener, and I can be a little more mindful.

Mick Spiers: 32:06

Really good, Rand. I'm really glad that you said it, because this is called the leadership project, and we talk about leadership and the difference between leadership and management a lot, but it's not leadership is good, management is bad. You You need both. Otherwise you're not going to get to the destination that you that you're trying to get to. So I'm really glad that you said that. The other thing listen to Rand, who is a leader three decades of leadership and still working on his craft every day, leadership is never you're never finished. You can always fine tune your leadership as you go. So you always need to lean in and think about, what are you learning? How you're adapting, how you a better leader than you were last year. Like, keep on moving forward, you never finish the craft of leadership. All right. Rand, I want to take us to your book now, and we tease this in the intro to say that if we're also not leading ourselves, if we're not curating our own life, we can it's very hard to lead others. So your book is called thriving, how to create a healthier, happier and more prosperous life. And Rand is holding it up for those watching on the on the video podcast, tell us how does this fit into the role of a leader before we start helping others.

Rand Selig: 33:23

Well, I think that if you're doing great job again, whether you're a leader or manager, whether you're leading yourself group, a whole organization, if it's going well, there's something called thriving going on. It's a flourishing it's a glowing kind of sensation. It's not it's not risk aversion, it's not hiding. It's being honest and expressing vulnerability from time to time. It's a great place, and it's not a static thing. Thriving by definition, is akin to the climate. It's an average over time. It's not the weather, because any given day the weather things could not be so good, either for yourself or, you know, the group you're working with. So thriving is the condition, which is the average over time. I think that helps people to understand that so they don't have a bar that's so impossibly high to set or get disappointed with themselves because they're they are having a bad day. Thriving is a marvelous place, and if you really understand what's going on in your life, that leads you to thriving, that's really great, because if you fall out of that for some period of time, you can sort out what's missing and get back onto it, which is very important.

Mick Spiers: 34:43

Yeah, I like this average overtime. I think that's a good thing for us to remember. And sometimes we do forget that, particularly in the heat at the moment, we certainly can forget. And what I'm going to throw to your end is that someone that does have a thriving life is very. Resilient. And when you have that bad day, you bounce back, you just dust yourself off, and you go again the next day. Whereas someone that's not working on their resilience will go, oh, well, I've blown it now, and they go into, they go into a spiral. So it's not the I'm a high performer, and therefore I I'm a high performance individual every single day in my life. There's not a single person in the world that ever does that, but the ones that truly thrive are the ones that learn from a bad day and come back out the next day. How does that sit with you?

Rand Selig: 35:34

Yeah, it's totally, totally right. And since you mentioned resilience. Mick, I want to share an image that I have about resilience, and it's the rubber ball. The rubber ball, if you watch rubber ball in slow motion, you'll see that when it hits the ground, it decompresses. It's no longer a round ball anymore, and it makes that that plopping sound, and then it bounces back. And when it bounces up again, it regains its shape. That's the resilience. It's nice, nice and round. It's very different than, let's say, a metal ball, a cannon ball or something. You drop a cannon ball on the ground, it doesn't bounce it's going to go plop, it's going to make a dent in, you know, wherever it's landed, and then it rolls away, does not come back off the ground. So resilience has a rubber ball. To me, that image just makes it very abundantly clear is what we want to have, and to have that there's got to be a series of emotional things associated with it, the confidence that it'll, it'll, is going to work out, the the humility that whoops the ball is dropping, the desire that it's going to plop back up and go someplace, that it's not going to just stay deflated. So you know, having courage to drop the ball, having confidence, you know, are all part of this resilience phase. And I think all organizations benefit by having as an organizational model and as individuals, resilience, because things change. Things change a lot, and all the time people do and the world around us changes. Resilience is a big tool to have in our our little arsenal.

Mick Spiers: 37:29

Like, three kind of things that I'm taking away from there, like, like, the humility and, yeah, the ball is dropping, it's gonna drop, it's okay, the confidence that it's gonna bounce back. And the third thing is just knowing in your head that everything is always temporary, that this too shall pass. The good times, guess what? This too shall pass. And if you don't know that, you're going to be in for a shock one day when you have a bad day, and on the bad day, this too shall pass, tomorrow is another day. You get another chance to to go again tomorrow. So so there's a temporal aspect here, of making sure you know that this is just a moment in time, and then have the humility to go, okay, yep, that didn't work today, the confidence to go again tomorrow.

Rand Selig: 38:10

This is a very akin to being a lifelong learner, which I talk a lot about in my book and with my clients and just everywhere anybody will listen to me. Being a lifelong learner means you are learning from mistakes that you are curious. I mean, if you're curious in life, life is so much more fun. So when we're back to our organizational selves, being a lifelong learner means that you know next year or next chapter of whatever we're doing together. We're going to learn from the past. We're going to learn from mistakes. We're going to be better at the new thing, and we're going to be better equipped to take on something that we have never experienced before.

Mick Spiers: 38:55

Really good, right? Okay, so I'm going to, I'm going to kind of book end this a little bit here, and summarize. So, so some of the things that we've covered today, team and you've got some homework here. You've got some homework listening to Rand and his experiences. Hear about Do you know who you are? Do you know what you stand for? Do you know what you won't stand for? Do you have a vision of what you're trying to create in the world? Are you able to articulate those things with clarity to other people? Who you are, who you serve, what problem you're trying to solve, what you'll stand for, what you won't stand for. Can you articulate that to someone else with with clarity? Are you on autopilot, or are you the one that's driving the bus? Have a think about that. Are you driving the bus, and if you're an auto pilot, just going through the motions every day and living by other people's expectations? When was the last time you connected back to who you are? So that's some of your homework. And from here, you can then become a leader that can set a vision, that can create a culture and foster a culture, that can be a great listener to others and to make people feel seen and heard and make people feel like they're valued. And then you're well on your way to becoming a great leader. And I'm going to recommend the book thriving, that if you haven't done the work to look at your own life to almost give yourself a score card, is it a healthy life? Is it a happy life? What actions are you taking to create a prosperous life? If you're not looking after yourself, it's hard to look after others so red, I'm going to take us to our Rapid Round now. These are the same four questions that we ask all of our guests. What's the one thing you know now? Rand Selig, that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Rand Selig: 40:32

How to be mindful, You know I was in in my 20s. I was a hard charging, charging guy. I was an A type personality, and you know, I would, I would set the instructions for my team. They'd come back and they didn't get everything done on my list, I'd chew them out. I would be abusive about it and express a lot of disappointment. I did not get the best out of the team. We did to get the deals closed, because I'm relentlessly persistent with stuff and and then I had a good team, but it was a lot more unpleasantness, a lot more stress on me than was necessary. Had I instead been a lot more mindful and said, Hmm, you got half of what you what I asked you to do. What could I have done differently. Is there anything I can explain? Is there more I can do to help you? You have any questions, and by the way, thank you very much for the work you did do. It would have been a very different kind of environment all the way around.

Mick Spiers: 41:34

Yeah, that's a powerful lesson for us all to think about. Okay, well done, right? What's your favorite book?

Rand Selig: 41:39

Besides my own. Can't answer that question that way, but I would have to say emotional equations. It's hard, because in the back of my book, I have a paragraph about 75 different books I've read that that really impacted me, but based on the conversation we've had so far. Mick, I'm going to pick that one, as opposed to any number of the other amazing books there Positive Intelligence is all about the saboteurs. In fact, the subtitle of the book is why only 20% of people and teams reach their potential. And the answer is, because we're surrounded by saboteurs, everybody has the one, the king of the saboteurs, is judgment. And then the book goes through and helps you clarify who your accomplice is. You always have a second one who helps the judge get get about its job. And so that was amazingly helpful for me to read. It came at a time when I was getting a lot of stuff done, but it was also very judgmental and was not enjoying and I think a lot of other people were not enjoying me as much as they might otherwise have. The other part of the book is so valuable and powerful is there's another part of our brain called the sage side. So he gives us techniques to get away from being a judge and one of the accomplices, and moves us into this other part of ours, which is the sage self, where you gotta get on fluidly and well without those saboteurs at work. Great book, Positive Intelligence.

Mick Spiers: 43:21

I love it, Rand. And I'm going to say to people in in the audience on this one, to do some research into this, whether it's in the in the book or not. Going to quote Seneca here and say that we suffer more in our mind than we do in reality. So these Saboteurs that we have, we're working against ourselves. And half the half the stories that we tell ourselves in our own mind aren't even true, this fear of judgment, the story I sometimes talk about here Rand is people walk down the street, or they might be on the bus, the tram, whatever they're doing the train, and they're sitting there worried about other people judging them because they forgot to polish their shoes this morning. And there's two more likely scenarios than the fact that they are actually judging you. This is what I want people to take away with. The most likely scenario is they're not thinking about you at all. They're thinking about what do they have to do today? What's on their grocery list? They have to remember to pick up that birthday cake they're worried about their life. That's the most likely. Know what the second most likely is, Rand, they're sitting there worried that you're judging them.

Rand Selig: 44:28

Oh, Mick, that's so good. I'm borrowing that.

Mick Spiers: 44:32

Yeah. So everyone's walking around the world worried that other people are judging them. And it's for most people. It's not, I'm not going to say that there aren't people out there that have had judgmental of course there are, but that's the that's the minority. Most people are just going about their life, and if anything, they're worried about you're you're judging them. So please remember this. Okay, Rand, what's your favorite quote?

Rand Selig: 44:55

Well, that's another hard question. Mick, my book is filled with quotes. I. Just love quotes. I've been collecting them since I was in high school, and every chapter starts with a quote. Every section has quotes. There are quotes within the chapters. So I'm going to pick this one again, because I think it aligns with so much of what we've been talking about today as a quote by a great guy, Levi Darby, who I know life is like a grindstone. It will grind you down into grains of sand, or it will polish you like a beautiful gem. It all depends on what you're made of.

Mick Spiers: 45:33

That hits art. I love it. Thank you so much for sharing that. What are you made of? It comes back to who you are, and what are you going to do with those abrasions in the life? Are you going to help that craft who you are, or are you going to let it erode you away? I love it. Very powerful. Finally, how do people find you? There's going to be people that are really curious about thriving in the book, but also you personally, Rand, how do people find you?

Rand Selig: 45:58

Well, for the book, I say, go to my book. Website, www.randselig.com, randselig.com, lots of information there. You can download my favorite quotes by chapter, amazing testimonials. You can connect with me. You can certainly buy the book. I'm close to having an audio book available, so there are materials for the audio listener, which is different than than the reader. So all those things there at the book website, and I you can connect with me. I'm hoping people will say, hey, Rand, I want to hear more. I have a question for you. Please come to our living room for our book group, or come to our company for a talk. I'm doing talks all around the world, and you know this is my mission, to engage people around these themes. So that's one thing. You can also go to LinkedIn, that's my primary social media thing, and just connect with me there and read some slightly different other information. That's cool.

Mick Spiers: 47:04

All right, brilliant, Rand. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your time today, for the gift of your time, but also the gift of your wisdom and for inspiring us to connect back to ourselves. So who are we? What do we stand for? What won't we stand for? I think we need to get off autopilot. We need to grab hold of the steering wheel of that bus and make sure that we are taking the time to connect back to ourselves. So thank you so much.

Rand Selig: 47:28

Oh Mick, my pleasure.

Mick Spiers: 47:30

What a powerful conversation with Rand Selig, let's land this with a quick recap. Rand showed us that exceptional results follow when leaders put service before self interest and obsess over clients true objectives do the real work of leadership, vision, culture and the why, not just the busy work of management when they honor core human needs, especially freedom and autonomy so people feel trusted and inspired and when they live their values and legacy now, not later. So here are a few self reflective questions for you today. Do you know what you stand for and what you will no longer stand for as a leader? Where is your ladder leaning this quarter, and who helped you choose that wall? And what freedom can you return to your team this week, whether it's decision rights, flexibility or fewer approvals, what can you do to give them more autonomy and freedom to make their own choices? If this episode marks something with you, share it with a leader who needs to hear it, and please do subscribe. Leave a review and join this conversation. Tag me with your biggest takeaway on LinkedIn or YouTube, and as always, let's keep building workplaces where people feel seen, heard, valued and inspired to do their very best work. Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project, mickspiers.com a huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP. Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo And my amazing wife Sei Spiers, I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.