What If It Did Work?
What If It Did Work?
The Leadership Paradox
Every leader faces the paradox of choosing not between right and wrong, but between difficult options where neither is perfect. As healthcare executive Cory Geffre reveals in this thought-provoking conversation, "Leaders rarely are just choosing between right and wrong. We're usually choosing between a cruddy decision and a little bit less cruddy decision."
This episode dismantles popular misconceptions about leadership. Forget the idea that some people are simply "born leaders" – leadership is a developed skill requiring intentional practice and persistence. Like mastering sales or any complex skill, leadership excellence comes through repetition, failure, and growth. The most successful leaders aren't necessarily the most talented, but the most consistent.
Self-awareness emerges as the cornerstone of effective leadership. Geffre describes needing "painful levels of self-awareness" – understanding your triggers, recognizing when your ego is engaged, and having the discipline to pause before reacting. This internal mastery prevents emotion-driven decisions and allows leaders to maintain perspective during challenging situations.
We explore the danger of confusing effort with results, the importance of setting crystal-clear expectations, and why many organizations suffer from revolving door syndrome. Geffre shares his practical framework for leadership development and explains why implementation trumps knowledge acquisition every time. His personal journey – including writing down income goals decades in advance – demonstrates how consistent action toward clear objectives yields results.
Whether you're leading a healthcare organization, managing a small business, parenting children, or simply taking charge of your own life, this conversation offers actionable insights for improving your leadership effectiveness. Subscribe now and join our community of developing leaders who understand that leadership isn't about popularity – it's about performance.
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I never told no one that my whole life I've been holding back. Every time I load my gun up so I can shoot for the star, I hear a voice like who do you think?
Speaker 2:you are all right. Everybody. Another day, another dollar, another one of my favorite episodes of my favorite podcast, because I'm biased. What if it did work? Got with me. This is going to be a compelling story. A fellow author always love speaking of fellow authors, corey.
Speaker 2:Geffrey he's a healthcare executive, he's an author, he's a speaker on a mission to help highly engaged leaders because we need more leaders become their best so they can help their organizations achieve operational excellence and improve quality experience, experience and sustainability. Drawn from nearly three decades of healthcare experience and over a decade of developing and implementing leadership and operations operation models, jeffrey has guided numerous organizations both inside and outside the healthcare industry. I mean I can go on and on. Enough of the intro How's it going?
Speaker 3:How's it going, corey? Oh man, thanks for having me. I'm super excited. I listened to that introduction and every other word just sounds like man. Maybe this guy is a nerd and I am a nerd. I love leadership, I love healthcare, I love helping other people. So I'm excited, and hopefully you'll be able to do that with your listeners today.
Speaker 2:Well, man, you're all about being in service, and people don't understand. To be in service, you have to be a leader. You know everybody's like oh, I want to be like Jesus. Well, jesus means to be a Christian, means to be more Christlike, to lead, exactly, exactly. And you know, one thing that I believe is that we have a lack of leadership, because it's always easier to be in the backseat, you know, it's always easier to let others lead and follow and then complain when their lives aren't going in the right direction.
Speaker 3:Yep, the backseat is a comfortable place when you're trying to evaluate leadership, because you know a lot of things. One of the things kind of core things that people I think misconceive about leadership is leaders rarely are just choosing between right and wrong. We're usually choosing between a cruddy decision and a little bit less cruddy decision, and ultimately we have to pick one of those, and no one's going to like either choice. But yet there's been tons of discernment to choose the one that's going to have the least amount of negative impact on people, the one that has the most positive impact on the organization, and so you're right, it's easy to judge, but there are really at the executive level, there are no easy decisions left to make. Those have already been made. Nothing but the tough stuff left.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, everybody can be a critic man, but it's tough. Leaders always have to do decisions based on the outcome, not based on popularity, not, you know. I know we live in an Instagram world, where you know, social media, where we want the cyber hugs, we want the accolades and the hugs, but that's not true leadership. It wasn't like Winston Churchill put up, you know, social media back in the 40s. What do you think we should do with the Germans? But that's the way people operate now.
Speaker 2:And it's crazy because it's like, how do you with all the books that are out there? Because nobody is born a leader. Leaders are created, just like nobody's amazing in sales. It's just something that you have to declare and you have to practice. And, yeah, you can't be fearful of failing, of backwards, of taking a step too behind, because that's life. Nobody's perfect, nobody's going to be the best leader, I mean, granted, but that's people like, oh, I can't do that, sure you can. You just do it over and over, just like selling. And you know what, not everybody's going to buy, not every decision is going to be made, but just keep on.
Speaker 3:It's great you said something a couple minutes ago. I often tell my team I said remember, leadership's not a popularity contest, it's a performance competition, so act accordingly, and that's really unpopular. I love the term cyber hugs, I can't wait to use that. And yes, we can't take polls on every critical decision. Sometimes they have to be made just in real time, and so I think you definitely connected to one of the things that's a little bit misunderstood about leader and one of the reasons that's scary for someone to step into leadership, because it's not going to be the same as it was when you were side by side with all the colleagues. And it's not because you think that you're better. It's because the work is dramatically different than maybe what you thought it was going to be.
Speaker 2:Well, the leader. It's all about going forward, climbing to success, and it could be the dynamics of a family, the leader, the head of the household. Hey, can we eat dessert every day? Cookies for dinner? No, because you have to have some rationality. No, you cannot Just like hey, can we in an organization? Is it okay if you know it's laid back Fridays and we can wear shorts and we can show up at whatever time and you know, maybe we hit our goals, maybe we don't, as long as we all have fun? No, that, that, that. That that is as stupid as when you hear well, we had this, we're having this league where we're not keeping score because we want everybody to feel good.
Speaker 3:There's, there's, yeah, there's not a business or a corporation in the world that's healthy enough and wealthy enough to give everybody that works for them everything that they want right.
Speaker 2:Like it would be pandemonium, it would be chaos. And clearly the reason why successful organizations publicly traded whether it's Apple, whether it's mom and pop, any is because you have systems in place. You have discipline in place. You know even Hershey's Chocolate, which is a publicly traded corporation. It's not Willy Wonka. I don't think they're giving out everlasting gobstoppers and the ghost of Milton Hershey's not dancing around throwing candy. Ultimately, in order to survive, there has to be profitability, there has to be goals and there has to be repercussions if you don't hit the goals. That's why, when I hear people saying, yeah, I've got my kid in this league, we're not keeping score, well then, you know I can't wait until you, your child, grows up and tells the boss hey, did we hit our goal? No man, but we all had fun, we were all competitive. I give me the gold star because I was the salesman of the year, even though I didn't make any sales.
Speaker 3:It's so. You know, there's a couple of things that you said there that really just triggered some old memories that I was having Worked for a Catholic health care organization at one point and we were having to do some really tough stuff. We had a conversation with the sisters, or the founding nuns that made this and said, look, we're going to have to let about 100 people go and we're really having a tough time with that and they said something super profound. They said stop thinking about the 100 that you're letting go and think about the 2,000 that are staying employed in jobs that are now more secure. And that's really a flip, especially coming from, you know, just people who are just, you know, at the pinnacle of a Christian faith, to say sometimes we just get so focused that we can't make any decisions that negatively affect people, and that's just impossible.
Speaker 2:You just can't lead that way and you have to be sure that you're doing it with honor, and that's something definitely the sisters did there's casualties sometimes it could you imagine the allies, like you know, they're planning the day and they're like well, is there any way we can storm the beaches in france? Win-win, we, we've got. We got no casualties, and the germ Germans just retreat. We don't kill any, we just shoot. It looks like an A-team episode where guns are blazing, 5,000 rounds are fired, nobody even has a cut. There are no casualties Like that. No, you have to. There's always casualties and it's like when, oh, oh, my gosh, a layoff. This is so the billionaires can buy extra jets and this and that. No, sometimes you have to do a layoff, you have to do a couple steps back in order to save the company.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you have to be sure that you've got you know parameters and expectations. I spoke with a business owner one time who I said hey, you know how do you evaluate your high performers, middle performers, low performers? He's like, oh, we don't do that. We only rate people on effort. If someone's trying hard and not doing a good job, they get to work here forever. And my jaw just dropped. I'm like that's not a real world model. That is just completely disassociated from reality. You don't have to be mean and ruthless to them, you just have to say look, is. You don't have to be mean and ruthless to them, you just have to say, look, this isn't going to work out. You need to find a future somewhere else. But trying hard and not getting results, that's not. That's not going to cut it anymore.
Speaker 2:That's, that's, that's beyond failure, that's like that. Well, cory, I'm growing up on, you know, I'm vertically challenged, I'm five foot eight, had zero athletic ability. That that's why I decided to become a journalist, because those that can't play, hopefully one day, you know, announced and so I'm five foot eight, zero talent. So I should have played basketball then, because I love this, I love watching the sport. I remember Larry Berg, mj, you know the heyday. So then clearly, the Miami Heat or somebody should just pick me up. You know I'm five foot eight, I'm slow, but hey, my efforts there. You know I try hard. I'd be there every, every game. I'd, I'd come dressed up. Who cares about the results? Who cares about, like, the 30 turnovers and and the 10% shooting and, like you know, zero assists? So yeah, but that is so flawed.
Speaker 2:That was like when I know they did away with this a few years ago, but Stanford, because they said they wanted to be more about learning and there was no grades. So you know you can't learn if there's a grade. Well, so should I just take. I was horrible at math and you know I got an F. I would have gotten an F, but you know I passed because there's no grades For starters. Could you imagine going? You know you have open heart surgery and there was something like that. You know, med school we didn't do grades, just as long as everybody had a positive attitude, as long as everybody just learned and enjoyed. No man, if you want to fly the cross country, you want a skilled pilot. You don't want somebody that that's feeling good or you know he was. He'd never had any experience, but you know what man he was really good at that flight simulator.
Speaker 3:He'll get you there. He tried hard. You definitely have to be able to get results at some point along the way, and you can do that. You don't need to leave a trail of carnage or scorched earth, like there's a way to be able to balance this. But you just hit the nail on the head that you have to be able to get results, and if you can't get them individually, then you have to be sure that you're building a team that can get them for you. But yeah, it's a great point. When he told me that, my jaw just dropped and I'm like I don't think that we have anything else to talk about here today, because we don't have anything in common.
Speaker 2:Well, how can you consult? You could give them your book, lead your people and it would be like reading a completely abstract foreign language. It'd be like you know, okay, it was like if it was in Latin, you know.
Speaker 2:I saw it. It's white and it's got red. You know red cover. It looks good and it would be a waste a waste of your time and waste of his time. And the best part about it is, even if you tried to, I love it when people are like, well, I can fix. You can't fix something like that, oh, I can turn it around. At the end of the day, he would blame you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. And you know, part of the thing of of a leader is in this, and you can't do this with everybody. You know, if you are five, eight and want to play in the NBA, uh, there's a there. That that would be a stretch. But part of the thing as a leader is to find ways to tap into people, to help them become better versions of themselves. And a lot of people, I think people finish their educational journey, whether it's high school, college, somewhere along the way. Then they just stop. They're like, okay, I know it all. You know I'm good, I've been through the educational system, and you know, we know that we're constantly learning every single day, trying to become better, that I'm nowhere near the best version of myself. I have a long way to go, and that's not discouraging, that's extremely encouraging. And so how do you help somebody who's maybe stuck? You know, get going and help them find new ways, so they aren't standing at the fry basket in 30 years wishing that they would have had someone lead them along the way.
Speaker 2:The fry basket saying why am I not making a hundred thousand? Why is this the minimum? Why is this a starter job? This should be like. You know that old argument that you hear from me. You hear the guy well, he stayed at Burger King for 40 years. It's like, well, why did he do that?
Speaker 3:One of my very first jobs was at McDonald's. I learned a lot about operations at McDonald's and when I worked at McDonald's it was in the late 1900s, as my daughter refers to it, and everybody, every person that started everyone started on fries. I use the fry basket. I talk about it a lot. Everyone started on fries and there were people who were on fries for three days. There were people who were on fries for three years and people on fries forever. I was one of the fortunate ones. I was on fries for about an hour and a half and then I got moved off and moved on to something else.
Speaker 3:But, man, I've taken that into my roles now and I'm always like what is the fries of the healthcare industry? It's really, really complex, but what is the fries of it? Can we be able to determine where people are at, not necessarily if they could work here or not work here, but how is their ability to process new information and turn it into results? And that fry basket man, that was the teller. There was a gentleman who had been there for dozens of years and everyone else just went right through there and for him he was amazing at it, but that was it, couldn't add things on top of it. He was able to be maximally useful for that organization. But you can't have everybody. You can't have 50 people who only know how to do FRIs. You're going to have to be able to use that as the determinant of where you go from there. So love that way of evaluating talent.
Speaker 2:So then it wasn't like Louis Anderson. The guy couldn't. One day I was just like you working in fries, and look at me now. That's always great.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Coming to America? Yeah, that is a good one.
Speaker 3:I'd forgotten that reference. But yeah, unlike some people, I really did have a job at McDonald's when I was a teenager growing up. But, yeah, learned a lot there. I actually wore a tie to the interview and the manager's like no one's ever showed up with a tie for a McDonald's interview before and I was like I really want this job. And she's like you got it and ended up being there for several years and loved nearly every minute of it. There were some forgetful times, but I enjoyed most.
Speaker 2:But, believe it or not, you learn that there was leaders, even at McDonald's, even working minimum wage the bullshit lie that people tell themselves. And these are people that lie their whole lives. You know, this is a bullshit job. I will work, I'll, I'll get serious when I get a job that pays more. And they get a different job and it's the same. It's the same person that, oh man, yeah, I'll study, I'll get good grades when. When I go to college, go to community college, oh, you know what this is bullshit. When I to a university, that's when I'm going to buckle down.
Speaker 2:It's always, you know, later, later, and I noticed that, like you can tell who's going to succeed at a fast food environment. I owned quick service restaurants. You know high school, college kids and I, I knew right off the bat and I was like 90% right on everybody. If I'm like, oh, that guy's, that person's lazy now, oh my God, they're going to struggle. Well, here I am 20, 25, 26 years later and I, I was right, like on 90% of the people, because you people will only change when they realize, hey, you know what this, this is my life. A lot of people, though you know the the future reference, which can you imagine these people never be leaders? Oh yeah, one day, one day. Well, that one day is called a road to no day.
Speaker 3:It's interesting because I remember I was 21 years old. I remember the moment when I really kind of had a new thought to say you know, I can accomplish anything I want, and you know, I've heard that. You know, people tell you you can be anything you want to be. But I realized there was one limiting factor to making that happen Me. There was one limiting factor to making that happen Me. That's terrifying. If I don't hit the marks that I want to hit, then it's on me. And it was actually two years later I was 23 years old.
Speaker 3:I actually wrote my income goals from age 25 all the way to retirement and like I showed them a few people and they're like you're like, like you're nuts. I missed two of those along the way, but I'm 51. Actually, on Friday I turned 51. Happy birthday, yeah, thanks. The goal that I set for 50, I hit, missed 40, missed 30, but I got 50. Missed 30, but I got 50. And I don't think I would have hit that target had I not set it so long ago. That is something that people miss. When you realize that you're in control of all of this, things will come along the way. You'll get curveballs thrown at you. Man, just set it out there and then go for it if you can.
Speaker 2:Oh, completely, you need to have goals, just like how you said you have to keep on. So many of us, I mean, I didn't grow. I was dying right after getting my master's degree because I was, oh, I don't need to read anymore, I've got a piece of paper. So, what man, you're either growing or you're dying. And I was stagnant. I was dying because I felt that was it. You know success should come to me, because you know, like God was going to shine down in the heavens and go oh my God, you have a master's degree here. You know, have success, have happiness. But that was the silly thought in my head.
Speaker 2:And when it comes to goals, people always. I remember I would have my a meeting with my general manager and he, we were sitting there and then there would always be a customer or two that would smirk and laugh and go, ah, you guys are having goals at smoothies or sales. It's like, yeah, goals and everything. And people don't really. If you put your paper, your pen to paper and I don't mean, like some, let's buy the secret and just put tall boys and mansions and hot chicks on a poster board, if you have realistic goals, even if those are but you write down your goals, why you want it and an action plan, and do it on a consistent basis. A guy like me, no talent, wrote two books, had a TEDx talk, but I wrote pen to paper. I needed to do that. I had short term goals. I had midterm goals. When people ask me now, do I still have? I laugh and I go um, I turned 52 in two weeks. So it's always like, well, I don't know about that, because who knows that the Grim Reaper might come visit, but I don't have a tenure goal anymore. But, yeah, I need to know where I'm at. Because the problem is, though you're going to laugh, corey, and a leader will never do this A person's like oh my God, it's January 1st, I'm going to change my life around, because you know everybody else is.
Speaker 2:Or the oh shit, corey, I'm turning 50 or 40 or zero or fives, I don't know what it is, but you know everybody has that come to jesus moment. They're like I, I've done absolutely jack shit my life, but but all, all of a sudden, you know I'm gonna turn around my life because it's a birthday and it's like but why? Or hey, this, this is the best. You know my life sucks, but you know it's, it's the middle of the year. I'll wait till you know. I'll wait to jill, I'll wait till a new year, I'll wait till 2026. And it's like, are you serious? And these and they're, they lie to themselves because I don't know if they're trying to bullshit themselves or bullshit other people. And you know, uh, now a leader will try to knock some sense into these people, but you, you know, you can hit them with the two by four and and they still have their head up their ass. I don't know whether it's because they they're streaming netflix.
Speaker 3:you know, power, power streaming like 20 hours a week or whatnot, but delusions and delusions of grandeur 20 hours a week or whatnot, but delusions and delusions of grandeur Just just just grind, like you know, in if you treat it every day like January 1st, like what, what, what does that look like? Or even you know, the first through the fifth, when people actually do get after those what? What are the other weird things about me, omar, is I'm a guy who spends so much time in his yard Like I'm in the pursuit of a perfect lawn, and some neighbors walked by last night and the wife said you know what's your secret to having a great lawn, to having the best lawn in the neighborhood? I just said well, I just spend more time on it than everyone else. And she laughed and I was like no, that's just it. I spend four to five hours every night, from spring through fall, in my lawn. That's why it looks better.
Speaker 3:I'm not more talented. I don't have secret fertilizer, I don't have special water, I'm just going to work, work, work. And it was the one thing that my, my father kind of put in me. It's like look, don't, you don't have tons of talent. I was the same way. I was actually six one playing basketball. I didn't have tons of talent. But my dad said, there was one thing in basketball that doesn't require talent Rebounds. Rebounds are about strategy and hustle, and so I just made myself the best rebounder. I was never going to be outworked in rebounding, and once you kind of get that and it's not working harder and 20-hour days, we're not talking about that. We're just talking about every day putting in the work, and when I'm out in my lawn, that's where I'm getting all my new leadership information. It's effort. You're right, omar.
Speaker 2:Well, think about it. Okay, we're literally a year apart. When it came to rebounds, dennis Rodman wasn't the tallest. Also Charles Barkley playing power forward at like 6'4", and I don't even know if he was 6'4", 6'5" or if they just lied about his height, but it was because there was effort. But people want the results, people want the Z.
Speaker 2:It's like why do I need to become a leader? Why do I need to lead your people? Why can't I just become successful? People don't understand. It's about the effort, it's about showing up. It's about showing up from day one.
Speaker 2:You didn't become successful. You didn't hit all those goals because you did the poster board, you did jack shit. That's what you wanted. And then you woke up one day and everybody was like well, cory, here I, here's a check. Here you, you're we. You want to become a health care leader? Here, here's, here's a title. No, you, you. Nothing is ever given. Everything's, everything in life is earned, even the quote unquote, lucky people, because you know we love to say it's luck or oh, that guy must have inherited, you know, inherited what most, most people that you know. If you inherit anything, those are usually the fuck ups that die because they didn't have to earn anything, and they're the ones that. But we come to this conclusion oh yeah, that guy was born his biorhythms, he was born on the right day with the right sign and he was. He inherited a billion dollars. No, no man.
Speaker 3:I had a surgeon tell me one time he just said, money that people don't have to earn ruins them and he told me that 20 years ago and man, you just watch it happen. People they can make whole shows about how people lives get wrecked by winning the lottery. It's fun working for it because then it's yours, you earned it they don't have the muscle.
Speaker 2:If I gave, if, if you just spent all your time watching, streaming, uh, living in the section 8 house, but you bought a scratch off, I don't care if it's 20 million dollars that money's gonna go up in smoke because you didn't build that muscle, you didn't earn it you, you didn't. You, you didn't expand your mind, expand your vision, everything. So, yeah, somebody that. That's why, yeah, all those stories of people that inherit money you see the OD at 20 or 30, or they've done nothing with their life it's because they've never, they've never had that hunger, they've never had the desire. It was like always oh yeah, here, here's, here's. I mean, if you're given everything that you know, what motivation do you have to to do anything?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's super, it's super tough and in you know that motivation can't. You know motivation is external, extrinsic. It's that you know that that when someone's telling you what to do, like that just doesn't work. You have to find a way, you know, to get yourself inside.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's the tough thing is people, I don't think, tap into that. It's why there is still you know the years that we're in 2025, there's still unlimited opportunity because so many people haven't maxed out their own potential. That's why there's opportunity everywhere. Just tap in, find something, try something, fall flat on your face, get up and just say hey. At the end of the day, the worst thing that can happen is it might cost me a few bucks and I'm going to have a great story to tell and learn a great lesson. That's the downside to most of these adventures. It's not, you know, being homeless and your family starving and having all these things Like. There are a few things that you can do that are that level, but most of these things, most of these opportunities, chances, trials they are not as high risk as we try to make them in our head.
Speaker 2:No, that's. We always go for the worst case scenario. Yep, that you know, know, everything's dead. Even if you have this fear of rejection, oh, if I ask out that woman, or if I ask for a promotion, or if I ask for the sale or I ask for anything, you know it's going to lead to death. No, it should. It's just temporary, it's just no shit.
Speaker 2:If you, you asked a prospect, they're going to forget anyways that you asked. You can just ask them days later. They're not going to be like oh yes, I remember. But our egos too, because, man, people forget like that. They're into their own world. It's not like they're like oh my gosh, I wonder what Omar's doing. I wonder he asked me exactly two days ago for a sale. I'm thinking he might do that sometime in the near future. I wonder what is what's going on in his life? Why does he need more sales? Why does he need more money? But that's the stupid thing people think of. No man, we're. That's like when people look for the cyber hugs and they post drama on their story. My relationship's complicated, you'll get a cyber hug, buddy, but that person's in their own world. They're not going to be thinking. Well, you know, I wonder if their life, their relationship's not as complicated four days later.
Speaker 3:It's all ego, right. Four days later, it's all it's all ego, right. So a lot of these things, if you want to take a risk, if you want to do that, your ego you got to set aside. The scariest people that exist to me are people who say like, oh, I don't have any ego. No, you have an ego, You're just not connected to it and you don't know what it looks like and you don't know how it manifests itself. Everyone has an ego and it's good to know yours and it's good to just leave it at home, put it in the side, put it in your top drawer for a few hours while you work through some stuff, because it's pride and ego that get in the way.
Speaker 2:But it leads your. That's when your emotions kick in. Man, what, what amazing decision was made when somebody's all bent and twisted or somebody's pissed off, or you know it's like no, a leader has to. You know things can be turbulent and or things can be like going topsy-turvy, but you still have to come from a place of making a decision, a sound decision, not some irrational decision based on somebody blocked you on social media, or someone cut you off, or the woman at the drive-thru of McDonald's forgot your order and messed up. Mcdonald's forgot your order and messed up. That's why, yes, you have to know your ego and you have to know when your emotions are getting to you, because that's your ego. That's when you have to take a step back and go hey, am I going to touch the hot stove again, or this is my ego? Let's back off and let's just cool off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, let's just take a break. If you know, pride and ego is super expensive. It's important that you help your people identify their potential triggers and you have to do that in a time that's not in flame to say you know, hey, I noticed, john, that in these certain situations you have a tendency to respond like X, like do you know where that comes from? And very few people will be like yeah, my dad used to say that, like they'll have a good reason, but most people will be like I, I don't, I don't know what you mean. Like, like, how did I act?
Speaker 3:And I'm like oh, wow, you get really defensive or snappy or whatever in these certain situations and I always think that the single most important characteristic of a great leader and I think probably a great human being, but a great leader is painful levels of self-awareness. Know yourself so well that parts of it make you uncomfortable and you need to know what that is to say hey, I know what the trigger is. As an executive, I stand in front of large groups of people at times and people do what I call throw rocks at my head. Right, they try to ask a real inflammatory question that they know I can't answer, that they know I don't have the answer for in front of a whole bunch of people, and that's something that really tries to trip my ego like I want to be like really seriously, you're gonna ask that, of course but but that their whole intention.
Speaker 2:There's two things to either try to throw you off or I'm gonna get significance by making this, by making this guy stumble it's and's true.
Speaker 3:And I know that I feel my ego go from my toe to the tip of my head and I usually have to say, hey, that's a great question, Thanks for asking that. It's a fair question to ask. Let's take that offline or I need to process that a little bit and I'll get back to you. But for me I have to have that response because my body is just screaming and contorting, and usually it's the same. You know half dozen people that do that, regardless of the meeting. But those are the things that I'm glad. If I didn't have tapped into my ego or was self-aware, I know what the 25 year old version of me would answer those situations like, and it resulted in me updating my resume and looking for a new job because I didn't have the filter or really the awareness that I do now of my own ego and what sets me off.
Speaker 2:In my fraternity they would call me Raging Bull, jake LaManna, because I would let the emotions get the best of me and my room in the fraternity house was in the second floor, so they would say, oh, he's having a bad day. If they saw my phone slash answering machine outside and they'd be like that's, that's the raging bull, or people would know how to set me off and throw me off my game. Now you and I have had that quality, but if you don't, if you have awareness and don't work on it, then you're're fucking crazy, because that's your kryptonite and people will see it and people will attack you. You just have to grow out of it, because if not, you can never be a leader, because there's always your competitor will know how to throw you off your game. Your people beneath you that don't want to see you succeed will try to throw you off your game. So the thing is is you always have to be just a better version every single day and work on that. And yeah, I don't, I don't do. Do I have a temper? Yes, but I I do know when like that, like if somebody wanted to, or just just stupid stuff, because I remember that this was like two years ago I did the TEDx talk the whole nine yards. I riffed like the last 45 seconds of my speech. Who cares, it wasn't word for word, so they, they came down on me.
Speaker 2:The guy calls me up on thanksgiving now. I thought maybe some one of his relatives died or who's he's like. This might get rejected and you might not. It might not air on the youtube channel. It's like, dude, in the grand scheme of things, you know, know, life goes on. Are you going to throw me off my game on something stupid like that? I don't know whether he thought I was going to beg or you know. Oh, please, no, I'm like you know what.
Speaker 2:At the end of it was growth because, yeah, 30 years ago, oh my gosh, that guy. You know I would have made him regret calling me on Thanksgiving, for starters, and for saying anything stupid like that. But you know, I took a second to think about things and I'm like you know what? At the end of the day, I was on that stage. People saw me on that stage. Can't take that away from me. You can't take away that experience. What happens happens and he was shocked. I said that it went through. You know, life goes on. Nobody died. There was. It wasn't like, it wasn't like. Oh my gosh, omar did not say word for word. And now there's bombs being dropped on Somalia, mom's being dropped on Somalia.
Speaker 3:It's interesting. So I'm a little biased to this and it sounds like you might be, but there's something about people who intrinsically have a fire in their belly right Like you strike me as a fire in the belly kind of guy. I'm a fire in the belly kind of guy, or looking for a leader, or looking for people.
Speaker 2:one of the things that I look for is that fire, because it's so much easier to turn that fire down than it is to start one or turn it off. Oh my, there's no fire. The problem is people, and this is leaders too. We think we can turn on a fire that's never there. We don't live in a small town like in Footloose. You can find a replacement. You're not Zig Ziglar, you're not Tony Robbins. You're not here to motivate and inspire. You're here because you have a company and you need to get results in everything, whether it's the healthcare industry, whether it's a sports team. It's not like that. I hear that all the time. Oh, I can change him.
Speaker 2:Why did you hire the person to begin with? Oh, he had an amazing story. Well, you could have. You could have had that. You could have heard that amazing story over a beer. But yeah, it's like your book lead your people. And it's the same thing with my book People's. Does it work? No, it doesn't fucking work. You have to implement. You have to read it and implement it you can't just buy it and go.
Speaker 2:Oh, I read it, like like you know those people that, oh, I, I read two personal development and business development books every month. It's like, okay, well, why is your life sucked? Oh, because you haven't implemented. You have to put in the work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's man. I know a guy that reads them like holy smokes he should write reviews on and his life is just in shambles. And for a while he would always ask me. And then finally he's like what should I read next? I'm like, well, these books are fucking boring. Why are you doing it? You don't implement crap. Read something that you'll enjoy, Watch a Netflix movie that you're going to enjoy, because all these things are boring. You know, yeah, lead your people, Read the book, take notes, implement over and over and do it over and over on a consistent basis. I'm more impressed with a man that has read only two books, has notes, has the whole book highlighted and he keeps on doing it over and over, then saying, well, I've read everything that Grant Cardone wrote and Brendan Burchard, and this and this and that. Okay, well then, why are you still living in squalor? Why is your life still sucked? You're the second coming of Zig Ziglar. You shouldn't be doing that.
Speaker 3:That's a great point. I read a lot of stuff in stoicism and one of the things that says is like stop reading new books. You have all the information that you need to be successful. Exactly Reread the books that you've already read and then get to work like don't just keep getting ready to get ready to get ready to get ready to get ready to go.
Speaker 2:Just start go, go, go, go go and you'll figure it out along the way well, cory, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna read lead your people and I'm just gonna. I'm gonna read it one time and I'm going to ask for cyber. I'm going to get cyber hugs. I'm going to post that I read the book. I'm going to have a picture of the book with a highlighter, cause that's going to get, that's going to get like, but that's what. That's how people operate and it's like man.
Speaker 2:And you know, yeah, I, I love leadership books. I, you know, yeah, I I love leadership books. Uh, you know, and just just by our conversation, you're not john maxwell. I, I love the guy, but out of the 100 books, he just rearranges the fucking chapters and it's the same stories and over and over. I'm a slow guy. It took me like five or six of reading different ones. I'm like holy smokes, why? Why do I know this? Oh, I, I know this story because I read it six times already. You know, I could have just bought one of his books and read it over and over and implement it, but you know, he changes the cover and all that, and that's great. People buy it because it's john maxwell, greatest selling guy. When it comes to you, you would think, cory, we don't need to read your book, because all his books, all the millions man, this country doesn't have a leadership problem. We've got more leaders than Indians. No man, people buy. Oh, john, I have to go buy it and then I'm going to put it on my shelf.
Speaker 3:It's so interesting because there probably are only about 20 to 25 real leadership principles. You're just looking for your evangelist, right? You're looking for someone who speaks your language, who you can connect with. Because, yes, as again, tens of thousands of books probably more than that written on leadership and people still manage to do it poorly every day. Heck, I still manage to make poor decisions, and I wrote a book on leadership because it is imperfect people trying to lead imperfect people to try to get near perfect results. That equation is a disaster. That's why it's so difficult.
Speaker 2:Well, corey, it's leadership too. Sometimes you know the answer and you know what needs to get done, but you bullshit yourself and you avoid it because you don't want to be the bad guy. It's like we all know how to lose weight, but if we go to Barnes Noble, there's like freaking two aisles of freaking weight loss books. You have cookbooks and all that. You have new books coming out and you have people waiting for a new book, a new fad, and it's like, well, it's common sense. Maybe if you don't eat frigging pizza every day, or maybe you drop the six-pack, maybe you don't eat the Krispy Kreme, but everybody's like oh yeah, my genetics, my DNA.
Speaker 2:No, the DNA says you're lazy as hell man, you're not going anywhere. But yeah, we lack. People know the answers inherently, but we don't follow through. And that's why, yes, we are all. There's two. Everybody is a leader. You're either leading in the right direction or you're the captain of the Titanic.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and all of us, whether you've got the title or not, we're we're the captain of our own ship. So so, so, take, take control of it. If you've got a family, if you're fortunate enough to have a family, you're also, you know, helping steer them at times, regardless of what your role or title is. And so, yeah, leadership isn't something that people be like. Oh, that's for other people. I mean, we're all called to lead in one way or another, and so you might as well figure out how to become better at it.
Speaker 2:We're. Both of us are fathers, we to lead our kids. We can't be like, oh well, hey, that's you know. Oh my gosh, like, like the parent that, oh, I, I never realized my, my kid just shot up the school, or I didn't realize that's because 101, that's all on you, buddy. Yeah, what do you mean? You don't know what your kids are doing.
Speaker 3:That is the challenge. And then you get to our age. I don't know the ones that you have, but you know mine are all have flown the nest now. So you really get an idea 20 and 18. 20 and 18. So I have 26, 24, and 18. And so now you're realizing like all right, like I got better at this as time went on, I maybe got worse at this as time went on, but, yeah, you work on those birds for 17, 18 years and then you let them fly.
Speaker 2:Leadership here, family leadership, that parent that still has that 40-year-old kid still living at home. That's not the kid's fault, that's the parent.
Speaker 3:Your lack of guidance, your lack of leadership wanting to be the good guy and a lot of that is almost an overprotection aspect. Like you don't want them to fail, like I know that there were times where my mom was wondering where my next meal was going to come from, and I'm kind of glad that it didn't come from her refrigerator. I'm glad it came from me figuring it out, because that would have been just a little bit too easy. Now I knew, and she knew, she wasn't going to let me starve, but was she going to let me be hungry? Yes, and that's helpful. So, yes, you've got to be willing to not only fail yourself, but sometimes you got to let people stumble that you're leading and let let let them learn the lessons the hard way. Nobody learns how to ride a bike because they never crashed you. Really, riding a bike is all about crash avoidance. That's why you, that's why you stay upright. You just don't want to fall over anymore.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a difference too. People don't understand when you said you just said it Hunger and starve. There's quite a difference. The problem is is that it's it's like the kid that falls down and you, you don't let them get back up because, oh my god, they might fall again. And are they hungry? Because we all need to be hungry. We all need, we all need to be. We all need that hunger for success, for love, for to chase. You want to be the hunter, you don't. You don't want. There's a difference. People think, well, they're going to starve. No, they're not. Nobody is a born, just like nobody's a leader, nobody's a born salesman. Nobody's born a fuck-up. It's plain and simple. And literally that person, yeah, you could be that for 10, 20 years, you can turn it around. But if everybody is like like saving them or not wanting them, you know you, you sit on the sidelines. You know success or business or whatever, this isn't for you, that's for other guys.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, that's why I think you just came up with the title for your third book Omar. Nobody's born to F up.
Speaker 2:It's got a nice ring to it.
Speaker 3:It is true. You know that's funny because I've never thought about it that way. I believe people aren't born leaders and people aren't born salesmen, and I've never really thought about the fact and some point along the way, either themselves or the people that they get influence from convince them that their destiny was mediocrity or less, and you know that's unfortunate. That's one of the things as a leader, that I want to be sure. I want people to be sure that, after they've worked with me, that they believe they have more potential than they did when they were before, before they were.
Speaker 2:Well, corey, it's like oh, you know what, I'm sorry, you're just unlucky and love, or you're unlucky in business, or you're unlucky, no man, you're doing an amazing job. You're consistently doing the wrong things, so at least there's some consistency. So maybe if you learn your lesson and you're not insane and you just pivot and you shift, you're not going to be that title that you give yourself I'm unlucky in love, oh, I'm unlucky in this. No, you're batting a thousand. At least you know. You're not mediocre, you're not. You know all over the place, you just need to. You're making the wrong choices on a consistent level. So let's turn that around. And that's why, yeah, I I never asked you know cause you know not? Not that your publicist said ask this stupid question Cause I would never ask.
Speaker 2:Oh, people born leaders? No, man, nobody's born. Born a leader. You become one. We're all leaders, even the Unabomber. Even if you don't have a family and you live out in the woods, you're still leading yourself. You're your own universe. And when people say, oh, you think you're the center of the universe, everybody's the center of their own universe. I'm not the person reading the weekly rag to see what the king and queen of England are doing, or their kids, you know, or what celebrity like some of these people. Or let me go look at TikTok, let me see you know what such and such. No man quit worrying about that and worry about your own stuff. Worry about your own choices, worry about becoming a better leader. So, corey, how do we get the book we know it's called Lead your People.
Speaker 3:How do we find it? Yeah, the best way to find it is Amazon. That's the easiest way for everyone Just search, lead your People on Amazon, it'll pop right up there. If people would want to have more of a discussion with me, coreygeffreycom, there's a website there. There's a website. There is a form that you can fill out. I just love talking to people about leadership and I loved our conversation today and would really love to be able to help someone with the framework that's in the book, the five-part framework. That again, as we said, doesn't do the work for you, but it kind of gives you a roadmap of how do I lead. What does leadership look like?
Speaker 2:What I like. You just said it. There's a roadmap, there's structure. The problem with a lot of books on any self-help book, on leadership, on how to be a better investor, how to be whatever there's no framework, it's just like well here and it's like, well, what, what a lot of people need. To me, a framework is a map, it, it and a lot of leadership books, a lot of personal development books don't have that. It's like me buying a book on how to, how to cook italian and it has beautiful pictures of the results and I'm you sit there and that's a lot of times. Not that that's the reason why people aren't successful, it's because, you know, a lot of times people need a cookie cutter, people need A, b, c, d. So, yeah, a framework, five components.
Speaker 2:To me that if you're still talking shit, it's not the book, it's you. It's like what I told you earlier when some oh, does my book work? No man, it's a piece of crap, it just sits there. Oh, does my book work? No, man, it's a piece of crap, it just sits there, it does nothing. I've read all these books. They're just books with stories. Now, if you take notes and you implement and you take action, and, oh my gosh, how about if you fail? Well, it's like the Wayne Gretzky saying you miss on every shot you don't take, so take it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. Just get up, get after it, be sure that you're not the most negative influence in your own life. I talked to a lot of people and I'm like, hey, who's the most negative influence in their life? And they started thinking. I'm like, but is it possible to you Like, are you you'd mentioned this earlier are you putting labels on yourself? Are you saying things that aren't positive? Like don't, don't say that you're the best that ever was, but you can just say, look, I've tried hard, I failed and I'm going to get back up and I'm going to continue to try hard. Those are the stories you need to be sure you're telling yourself.
Speaker 2:Well, people are their own worst critics and people keep on replaying the past and sometimes they create a nightmare out of something so inconsequential. But they keep on, whether it's a friggin job that doesn't serve them, whether it's a relationship hey, you know what she left. Who cares? She did you a favor, man, don't don't. Don't. Don't play the the titanic theme song and live your life like that. But so many people create regret. Regret is like you never went out on a date with anybody and you just died. Move on, man. Move on with everything. And, yeah, the way to become better in anything is you just keep on, man. You keep on. You get to the Hall of Fame in baseball at only a 30% success rate, so swing away.
Speaker 3:Yep, go for it. Get up every day, even when you fall down. What's the worst thing that could happen? It's probably not near as bad as you're telling yourself, so get up.
Speaker 2:No, man, you're not going to die. You're not going to Now, unless you go to Afghanistan or you go somewhere stupid, but trying to sell someone something, trying to ask someone out on a date, creating a company and being the leader of that company, yeah, you're not going to die and you're not going to go to debt. This is another one. People think that there's a debtor prison, like way back in the 1700s. They're going to torture you because you did bad. People think that there's a debtor prison, like way back in the 1700s. They're going to torture you because you did bad. No, man, it's not. Nothing like that is going to happen. You're not going to fail. Failure is not trying. But as a business person, yeah, it's called learning. Lessons cost money. Your book costs money. That's, you know, having a bad quarter, having bad employees, because you're not a leader, you're not the right leader. You know what. Thank you. That's like going to college. That's a lesson. You know the best lessons cost money and time. That's a lesson. You know the best lessons cost money and time.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of times that I've had to learn lessons by getting a second job to help pay for the lesson. But, to your point, in nearly every case it was less than a semester of of college tuition.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I learned a lot. You learned Right. It was absolutely. You realize that was a hot stove. You're like, okay, that's a valuable lesson. Then you learned, you grew from it and that's what people need to do Now. Corey, I know you're a healthcare guy. Now do you give coaching?
Speaker 3:to people that just want to become better leaders, that want to be on top of their game. Yeah, you know I've done a little bit of this and it's usually just kind of virtually online. I don't have a program right now. I'm responsible for over 1500 people at the place that I work. I've got about eight leaders that work for me, so it keeps me occupied. But, man, I love to give somebody. If I can just give somebody, you know, a little nudge, or if I can help somebody solve a problem, man, I just absolutely love doing that.
Speaker 2:Look at that man. You're like modern-day Vanilla Ice. If there's a problem, you'll solve it, I'll solve it.
Speaker 3:That's right, that's another 90s reference. Omar, you're like five for five on those and I got them all.
Speaker 2:Oh, dude, I'm all about it, my books, my, yeah, man, I'm, yeah, that's. I shoot from the hip man. That's why, like when people are like, well, is there a set of questions? No, man, because even if I had a set of questions, you'd be like, well, where's this guy coming from with some of this stuff? Just have a conversation. Exactly, man, and this is the one thing. Exactly man. That's what, and this is the one thing? It took me years, because, owning a business for over 20 years, for the longest time, you know those stupid questions. Where do you see yourself? Five years, you know, give us your worst attributes, your best man. People lie. You get to know a person by just having a simple conversation, yep, yep. And you, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. When's the interview we just did? We had a conversation, buddy, and they were like well, you didn't ask me anything. Yeah, sure, realize you're lazy, you're an introvert.
Speaker 1:Get out of here.
Speaker 2:I would never tell anybody like that, but in my mind I'm like, yeah, I'll give you a call.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we'll be in touch.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I was always, and this was a horrible leadership quality. For most of the time I knew the right decisions and all that. But I would either if I needed someone fired I mean, you'd really have to be like Ted Bundy and I'd fire you but if not, I would get like a manager or get a good employee just to make that person miserable to quit or I wanted to be liked because of my limiting beliefs and all that. So I would have my ex-wife. She was like the enforcer, so everybody and it wasn't people didn't understand. I was the one that you know, hey, you know, unleashed my business partner at the time, my ex-wife. It was just that. So literally outsource things that you're not good at and that's what. And here this is the final question, because I loved our conversation Please go on his website, learn something or two or three or four.
Speaker 2:Buy the book. We all need a book on leadership. Oh, I'm not a leader. We all need a book on leadership. Oh, I'm not a leader. Or when somebody tells me they're not in sales, I'm like you, fucking liar. No wonder you're mediocre. Well, I work in corporate America. I have a salary job. You lied to someone to get that job and you have to sell them on keeping you in that position and you had to sell your girlfriend or wife to commit to you. So we're all in sales.
Speaker 3:We're all in sales Omar.
Speaker 2:So, by the book, we need more leadership. That's something that this country everybody, in the grand scheme of things is lacking. But this is the final question, Corey what would you have to tell the person that they have an organization? I mean, it's like the Miami Marlins or any horrible organization. They have a revolving door you need to print out like a new sheet of new employees and they're like you know what I don't know what it is, man. It's just not like how it used to be. Employees now. They're horrible, they suck man, and I know it's not my leadership style because I was just killing it with people that really want to work and really want to be there. What should?
Speaker 3:I do. Yeah, well, first thing, the whole world changed after COVID, for sure, and you could probably make the argument that it had changed before. But one of the things that people are too scared to do is to draw the hard line in the sand. Set crystal clear expectations and go out and find those people. If your expectations are well, I just got to take what the market's going to give me you need and go out and find those people. If your expectations are well, I just got to take what the market's going to give me. You need to go out and find people. They are out there.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of people who are being really, really hard on the next generation of workforce. I'll tell you that they have. They connect to causes, give them a cause, and that needs to be again crystal clear, clear expectations. Get out there, hit the reset and, you know, flush. You may need to purge the entire organization over to get through this and you might have to stage that out over six to 18 months, but the best thing that you can do establish crystal clear expectations. I've worked at three different hospitals and the very first thing that I do is I provide my leadership team crystal clear expectations. Here's what you're going to get from me. Here's what I need from you. If you don't think that this is going to work, let's have a conversation about a way for you to transition to another department or out of the organization, and I haven't had anybody leave and have been able to build three great teams across three great organizations by having published crystal clear expectations.
Speaker 2:It's all about having expectations, but you have to have expectations for success. You have to have expectations as a parent, as a business owner, as a healthcare leader. If you don't have the expectations, then then, man, you're in a world of hurt because you're. None of your dreams will come true, because no expectations means there's no discipline, so everything goes that that only works in the land of make-believe and fantasy land, and fantasy land is only in Anaheim and Orlando, so you can visit it. Don't live in it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, Omar. Great Been fun talking to you.
Speaker 2:All right, brother. Thank you for the hour. Thank you for wanting to be on my show man. We had an amazing conversation, Learned a lot about leadership. We learned that everybody's a leader. We learned your book if you implement, you take notes. And this is crazy work. We all hate it, we all want just the success and accolades, without putting in work. If you work at it, you'll be an amazing leader. You'll find that success in your life. You'll live the life on your dreams and on your terms. You are the master of your life. You are the creator of your destiny. Thank you, Corey. Have an amazing night with whatever it is that you're doing, and thank you for your time, brother.
Speaker 1:Thanks a lot, Omar. Inside of your purpose. What if it did work? Right now you can make the choice to never listen to that negative voice no more. The hardest prison to escape is our own mind. I was trapped inside that prison all for a long time. To make it happen, you gotta take action. Just imagine what if it did work. You.