Byron Gega: Empowering Others to Do Great Things!

What transforms a talented but rough-edged professional into an emotionally intelligent leader? In this deeply personal conversation, Brian Bosley reunites with his friend of nearly three decades, Byron Gega, to explore the leadership journey they've shared since 1998.

Byron reveals how his immigrant grandfather's simple wisdom - "We have a brand, so don't mess it up" - established the foundation for his work ethic and determination. From his challenging first year at American Express Financial Advisors making just minimum wage while cold-calling prospects, to eventually becoming an award-winning field leader managing multiple states, Byron's career demonstrates the power of running toward difficulty rather than away from it.

The conversation takes an illuminating turn when Byron explains his "puppy love" leadership approach - finding people doing things right rather than focusing on mistakes. This concept, borrowed from dog training techniques used with his black lab Henry, completely transformed his leadership effectiveness. "If you find somebody consistently rewarding them for good behavior, even little stuff, that builds their self-esteem. Someone with high self-esteem will take way more risk than somebody with low self-esteem."

Perhaps most poignant is Byron's hard-earned insight that "you can't coach desire." Through a touching story about his son's disinterest in basketball but passion for fashion design, Byron illustrates how authentic leadership involves recognizing where true motivation lies rather than imposing our own vision on others.

Whether you're leading a team, building a business, or developing your own leadership capabilities, this conversation offers powerful frameworks for understanding the delicate balance between IQ, emotional intelligence, and technical skills that create extraordinary leadership outcomes. As Byron explains, "EQ is the software that runs the hardware of IQ" - a principle that could transform how you approach every relationship in your life.

Transcript

Introduction to Byron Gaga

Speaker 1 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Bamboo Lab Podcast with your host, peak Performance Coach, brian Bosley. Are you stuck on the hamster wheel of life, spinning and spinning but not really moving forward? Are you ready to jump off and soar? Are you finally ready to sculpt your life? If so, you've landed in the right place. This podcast is created and broadcast just for you, all of you strivers, thrivers and survivors out there. If you'd like to learn more about Brian and the Bamboo Lab, feel free to reach out to explore your true peak level at wwwbamboolab3.com.

Speaker 2 0:41

Welcome everyone to this week's episode of the Bamboo Lab Podcast. As always, I'm your host, brian, and we have a really fun special guest on today, someone who's been in my life now for almost 28 years. So many of you have heard my story from the previous shows that I left American Express Financial Advisors back in 1996 to start this coaching and consulting firm that I currently have, and the first year was tough. I don't think I made like $12,000. Didn't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out, so to speak.

Speaker 2 1:16

And I got a call from a gentleman by the name of Frank Mossett and many of you long-term listeners probably remember Frank in one of our previous episodes, as well as his daughter, sarah, was on one of my shows and both did a fantastic job. Frank was a field vice president in Portland, oregon at the time for American Express Financial and he called me and said hey, we'd like to talk to you about coming out here and implementing your marketing program. And I instantly said yes, and it was a godsend. It was a blessing to my career, it was a blessing to my practice and my business and it was a blessing to me as a human. And while I was out there, I was working with 10 people and we had to select these people. They went through the process and we selected 10 to go through my program.

Speaker 2 2:00

There was one guy who wasn't in the program because he wasn't interested or didn't need to be or whatever it was, but he was this guy that I kept walking by his office a lot, going down the halls, and he was always on the phone. He was always grinding it out and I'm like who the hell is that dude? And Frank said that's Byron Gaga. And Frank said that's Byron Gaga. Byron was pretty young at the time, pretty fresh, but he has had an established, successful career in the financial world. I won't read his bio because I want him to tell you who he is, but he has been a friend of mine for now 28 years, close to 28 years. So, my friend Byron, welcome to the Bamboo Lab podcast.

Speaker 3 2:44

Thanks, Brian.

Speaker 2 2:45

Do you remember that day I came in your officeboo.

Speaker 3 2:48

Lab podcast. Thanks, brian. Do you remember that day I came in your office? Yeah, I do. Actually, I have a different memory of our first conversation because back then, you know if you were a successful first-year advisor, which I was at the time, I think I was, you know, top 20, maybe top 10 in the company in total weight of production, twp and uh, you know, so frank, obviously, was short leaders because of of you know, hand-sleeving and uh, so he tapped my shoulder to go ahead and, you know, take over leading and developing, I think three or four advisors at the time and I was just just horrible, like I was just like you, horse leader and I ended up having a run-in with one of the vets. It was like 7.30 at night, it was like late at night, you know, and I remember seeing walking out of the office. After that you saw me. I think you were leaving, maybe to cross the street to that little hotel. You were staying at the phoenix center or something like that and, uh, you're like, hey, how's your day going?

Speaker 3 3:50

I told you and you're like, so, somebody gave you, put you in charge of the airplane. Huh, I was like yeah, and you're like, well, how's that going? And that was like your favorite line that I like that is like your quote all the time. Well, how's that going for you? And I was just like not good. And you're like, well, did anyone teach you how to use the controls or where how to set the flight, or anything like that. And like no, I go, do you want to learn?

Speaker 3 4:17

how to do it and I was like sure, all right, maybe at six, 30 in the morning I'll start working on it and I go where and you're like in the lobby. I was like OK.

Speaker 2 4:28

The lobby of the Phoenix Inn.

Speaker 3 4:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I, that's what I remember, that was my first OK, so I remember you might have come into the office before.

Speaker 2 4:38

But yeah, that conversation was probably more preplanned than it looked.

Speaker 2 4:41

It looked random, but it probably was planned, because I remember the reason I really did connect with you, even though I did see you down the hall, you know, was I walking by and you were always grinding it out was when Frank pulled me aside one day, and I'll never forget this, and he said and you know what I'm going to say, because we've talked about this he said hey, brian, I know this isn't part of the contract we have for you, but I could use your help on something.

Speaker 2 5:04

I said yeah, you know, whatever, they were paying me very good money to coach, you know these 10 individuals and their marketing and sales. And he said I've got this guy. You've seen him in the hallway and you've seen him in the office, byron Gaga. And he said he is highly talented, highly driven, but he's a bull in a China store. And he said can you work with him a little bit on leadership? If we could just soften the edges on this guy, he's going to go places. And so, lo and behold, I probably waited outside, maybe a little bit, or maybe I timed it when you were walking out, when I was walking to the hotel to run into you. But well, the rest is history.

Speaker 3 5:42

28 years later, brother, yeah, yeah, so that was my memory.

Speaker 2 5:47

I like yours better. Yeah, I do remember those mornings though. So, folks, so Byron would come into my home, and I don't know if it was a couple of times a week. I don't remember how often it was Byron, do you remember? I don't remember either.

Speaker 3 5:57

I don't remember either. I was actually. I think it might have been just twice a week. I don't think it was every morning, but it was 6.30 every morning because we would do it, and then 8 o'clock was when we started the first year program, so it had to be at 6.30.

Speaker 2 6:13

I remember sitting in the lobby going through the infamous book Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun.

Speaker 3 6:18

Yeah, yeah. I remember the very first meeting. You said, uh, so you watch hockey? And I was like, not, not a lot, but you know what hockey is right? Like, oh, yeah, I know hockey. Well, there's actually two players, two types of players, that play hockey. I was like there's the czech player and the finesse player. Which one do you think you are? I go, uh, czech player goes. Yeah, you don't need to check everyone against the boards we gotta learn to skate a little bit too you're like, that's exactly what you said.

Speaker 3 6:50

We gotta learn to skate a little bit.

Speaker 2 6:51

You need to be a little bit more gratsky you know, byron, I look back on those days though, and I wasn't much a better finesse skater than you were, but that's crazy, I mean.

Speaker 2 7:13

I mean, there's so many stories that we, you and I have shared over the years. But let's start off with I'd like the audience to know out there, the Bamboo Pack members out there, to know a little bit about yourself. Could you share a little bit about yourself who you are, where you've come from, your family and who or what inspired you growing up? Those are the kind of things I'd like to start off with.

Early Career and Inspiration

Speaker 3 7:34

Yeah, so I'll just start in the beginning. I grew up in Portland, oregon, born and raised there Actually a fourth-generation Portlander, which is kind of unique. My great-grandparents had moved there in the 20s from Croatia. I met my wife there, aubrey. We're going on gosh, 16 years now. That long, yeah, 16 years. And we've got two children, briella and Gavin. Briella just turned 30 this year and Gavin turned 25. And then Briella has my grandson, asher. He turned nine this year.

Speaker 3 8:18

I started with American Express Financial Advisors pretty much right out of college. Had planned on becoming a lawyer and so my major was US history, with an emphasis in 19th century constitutional law, and I did an internship at Smith Barney and during that internship the top broker told me, you know, or convinced me to you know, get into financial services. He was a former lawyer, kind of walked me through everything and basically wanted to recruit me and hire me. And I was super impressed and went home or went to have lunch actually with my grandfather and told him the story and he was like, well, you've got to interview with three people. Three is the magic number. You can't just talk to the first person and, you know, do something. And I was like, well, you've got to interview with three people. Three is the magic number. You can't just talk to the first person and do something. And I was like, oh okay. And so I got an interview with Payne Webber, got a job offer at Payne Webber, and then I got a newspaper, which you know who does that anymore? And I opened it up and you know there's the first ad American Express Financial Advisors Career Day. So I was like, well, I'll go check that out. I've had America Express card for a couple of years now and it seems like a good company. And went there and checked it out and they were the only company that was dumb enough to let me do it on my own. And so I was like, all right, I'm doing this.

Speaker 3 9:39

And so, yeah, a few months later got my Series 7, and you know 63, life and health, and got started, ended up being a top performer in my first year, so jumped into leadership for the next couple of years. There was a platform shift at the time at American Express and I went back into just being a practitioner for a while. And then there was an opportunity with a good friend of mine, ed Kelly, to do some kind of consulting with the employee channel at the time for American Express. So I kind of felt the buzz or need to do some leadership, so jumped in on that and did that for a few years. And then Neil Taylor convinced me that I should just get rid of my practice and become a field leader for him. So I decided to do that and for the next three years I was a field leader on the employee channel side and twice got outstanding sales leader of the year for the company.

Speaker 3 10:34

So then they put me in charge of the region for the independent side and so I had the states of Utah, montana, idaho, washington, oregon and Alaska. It was basically like if I was my own broker-dealer I would have been in the top 10 broker-dealers in the US. So I did that for about four and a half years. I had success. But all that travel just was not my thing. Being away from home, being away from my kids, was just too much. So I got back into just personal practice. So I moved out to Spokane, washington, with my wife. That's where she was originally from. There's an opportunity to kind of take over a practice out here and I took that opportunity and fast forward. Here I am today.

Speaker 2 11:18

Well, yeah, you've had a pretty storied career so far at Ameriprise. Or just in general, was there a person or a book or an event that inspired you when you were younger, byron, to make you so driven uh?

Speaker 3 11:31

it was my grandfather, yeah, so you know, like my grandfather um probably got that from his grandfather, his dad. So you know, immigrant, you know coming over, you know trying to make it happen in the us, you know, and they ran a very successful uh restaurant in in downtown portland which was not a fancy restaurant. The success of it was basically the connection to the community. So they were down in the industrial area of portland and had made really strong connections with the telephone company and esco and a lot of those people just would, you know, have basically breakfast, lunch and dinner there. And so that was his success and he taught me just hard work where you know it was.

Speaker 3 12:16

You know, I remember, like here's an example I remember wanting to go to Kevin Duckworth camp. So Kevin Duckworth was kind of a big, big deal in Portland at the time, portland trailblazer and I was, you know, like Jerome Kruse was going to be there and Terry Porter and I was like it was like in seventh grade. He said, well, yeah, I'll, I'll totally do it. All you have to do is, you know, work on the different properties for them. I remember clearing out blackberry bushes at one of the properties and one of the tenants came out and she was like are you old enough to be doing that? And I was like I don't really know, I'm just trying to get money for Kevin Darkwood camp. So I'm just trying to get money for Kevin Darkwood camp, so I'm good. And she was like, well, I don't think you're old enough to be doing this.

Speaker 3 13:12

And who hired you? I'm like well, john Gaga hired me. He's your landlord and I'm sure it's fine. And she's like, oh, okay, and she was quiet. But it's just like you know, I probably would, maybe if I was bloody, I don't know, from the back, break pushes or something. But that's just, that was the mindset. You just jumped in and just you just got it done, yeah, so that's just yeah. That's what I remember and he's always. You know, that was always my inspiration from him.

Speaker 2 13:42

When did he pass?

Speaker 3 13:42

away Byron 2006. Ok from him. When did he?

Speaker 2 13:43

pass away Byron 2006. Okay, you know, what's interesting is so many there's. There's two common themes that I see on the that I didn't expect in doing the show here is. One is and you don't qualify in this one, but a lot of there's a lot of very successful people from small towns. But then there's also a lot of very successful people who have grandmas and grandfathers who are their role models, who inspired them, and I see that a lot.

Speaker 2 14:06

I didn't expect the small town thing and I didn't expect the grandparents to be such an inspiration for so many successful people. There's obviously a tie there. I mean, there's something to do with having that. I think small town is that kind of communion, that community that you have, jumping in, helping others. And then I think having a grandfather or grandmother who's an inspiration is more of a there's a there's that legacy aspect. You know they're really trying to, they're trying to push things on you and teach you things, because they kind of realize, you know, eventually their time is running out and they want to keep that, that gene of driven and being, you know, of drive and discipline and hard work, going in their family lineage.

Speaker 3 14:43

So well, that's totally true. I remember my grandfather saying you know we have a brand, so don't mess it up.

Leadership Lessons and Perspective

Speaker 2 14:53

Oh, I like that. I've got to write this down, all right, so just give me a time frame. I don't care if it's the last year or two, but in the recent past, what?

Speaker 3 15:07

is one of the greatest learnings you've gotten Recent past. Greatest learnings, I mean gosh one of the. I'm reading a book right now. I think I mentioned this to you before. It's called a noticer and it's more of a reminder than, I guess, a new learning, but it's about perspective and just knowing that your perspective is your perspective, but it's not the only perspective and going into communication or just any type of event and having the perspective that I have a perspective right now. I'm aware of my perspectives. However, there's multiple people in the room that probably have a different perspective than me. I'm just seeking to make sure that you understand what that perspective is.

Speaker 2 15:54

And that's by um. Who is that? Andy Andrews.

Speaker 3 15:59

Uh, andy Andrews, yeah.

Speaker 2 16:00

Do you know you re? You referred me to him or recommended his book. I think it was the Traveler's Gift. Oh yeah, probably 10 years ago or 15 years ago.

Speaker 3 16:09

Yeah, that's a good book too.

Speaker 2 16:10

That's a great book. I think Aubrey might have Did. Aubrey read that too.

Speaker 3 16:14

Aubrey read that too. So, she might have referred it to you, because I know you did some coaching with her too, so it might have been oh, at that I did, didn't I?

Speaker 2 16:25

yeah, one of you guys did so. Well, so when you're looking at that, looking at your perspective and understanding life is all about perspective. And you know, remember the um hyrum smith, the guy who started the franklin planner company, when he talked about the belief windows we all carry in front of us I don't remember that, but I'm uh, I mean, it makes sense, yeah yeah, that we have that plate glass window he described it as and we don't really see life as life truly is.

Speaker 2 16:49

We see it through the lens of our belief window and that's things always in front of us at all times. We see through it and we have these belief and expectations and wisdom and experiences and prejudices and and values and principles written on that. So we kind of filter things through that and that's why two people can look at the exact same things and come up with a completely different perspective, and I think that that'd be a really good book. I think I'm going to order that book because I think, especially in today's society, it's when there's so much divisiveness and or at least, oh yeah, I don't know if there's more divisiveness than there ever has has been, but definitely it's exposed more because we have a lot of fringe people and we have this corporate media that likes to keep people separated. So we definitely do see more of it, we notice more of it, but it's really good to understand other people's perspective, probably more so now than any time in my lifetime anyway.

Speaker 3 17:38

Well, and it's just walking into a situation and being self-aware. So you know, you think about successful people and you know one of the things that you know I got taught by you and other leaders was just you know, going into a situation and just you know, pausing and making sure that you take reference of what's actually there. And you know, don't go in with your agenda and I even teach that to leaders a lot today where they're like I have this great agenda for this meeting or this great agenda to bring up with the staff person and I'm like I want to go in with an agenda. Oh no, this is, this is perfect. I'm like I don't know if that's going to be perfect and I might want to just go in and seek to understand you might want to just go in and seek to understand.

Speaker 2 18:28

Do you remember when, when I was out in Portland oh, my goodness, I would maybe 15 years ago I wasn't even working with you at the time? I think it was Portland, I don't I maybe it was. It must've been Portland. I was doing something for work out there for a while and you and Aubrey had me over for dinner and we played Apples to.

Speaker 3 18:46

Apples yeah, that was in Seattle.

Speaker 2 18:48

That was Seattle, okay.

Speaker 3 18:49

Yeah, I think you were doing something for Neil Taylor.

Speaker 2 18:51

Okay, maybe so. Yeah, but that's when you interviewed me. I was there, we were having some drinks and we played Apples to Apples and had dinner, and then you were like, dude, have you ever watched this band of brothers?

Speaker 2 19:04

I'm like I don't know what you're talking about you're like, we're like, we're like four yeah, you guys are like three or four episodes into it and you said let's watch. It was on hbo, I think, and we sat and watched that episode. I'm like let's go through another one. And I fell in love with that. That's my favorite to this day. That. That is my favorite all time movie, film, show, whatever. It's a miniseries, obviously. But I remember I was flying back and I remember getting to the airport. I think I flew into Denver on the way home. I could be wrong, but anyway, at the airport I bought the book and read it by Stephen Ambrose and that's still. I watch that series at least once every year. So anybody out there who wants to just watch it fantastic World War II movie. It's about 20, 25 years old, so it's not like a black and white probably the most realistic war movie of all time and just learn leadership and life lessons Go, buy or go to I think it's on Netflix or Amazon Prime now.

Speaker 3 20:07

I think it's yeah, I think it is. And so, yeah, it was. Yeah, who was it? Tom Hanks? And uh, yeah, they did saving private Ryan. And then they found out about this airborne group. They got scattered in the wind behind any lines and, like so many of them survived and they're like what the heck? And it's like this easy company. And uh, they found out it was it was. It was the leader. The guy gets promoted and they knew they had a short window where they could interview these gentlemen and then play that next clip about what had happened, because it's based off of true story. There's probably fictional components to it, but it is really, really truly about leadership and it's about you know that, my, you know, I just love watching gosh. I can't remember what his name? Captain Winters.

Speaker 2 21:07

Yeah, he would give a major Dick Winters. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 21:10

He starts out with 10, he becomes captain, becomes major all through the conflict and you just see why, and like even his, you know people, who you know he led, said we don't know how he survived because he always led from the front yeah, and he went on to have a storied career in the korean war as well, and I think he did.

Speaker 2 21:30

He died not that many years ago yeah, I think so.

Speaker 3 21:34

So that was yeah, it think so. It's a great series and I do believe it's on Netflix or Prime or something like that. I'm sure you can find it for free somewhere, because it is 20 plus years old at this point.

Speaker 2 21:47

And the soundtrack's amazing to that movie it's haunting. Oh okay. Have you seen the Pacific, as well as the other one, the newest one?

Speaker 3 21:58

You know I watched a few episodes of the Pacific. I just never really got into it.

Speaker 2 22:01

I've watched it twice. I just never connected with it, and the newest one is about the Air Force, or I guess it was Army, air Corps or whatever they had. It's good, it's good, but nothing's been the same. And it's good it's, but they've just they've nothing's been. This and it's the same. It's a hankson spielberg for both of those two. It just didn't make the same connection as band of brothers did they? They tried too hard to mimic it, but it was.

Speaker 3 22:25

That was so perfect I don't think they could ever they everything from there was going to fall flat, or at least well, I think I think the interviews, uh, of the, the real, you know, the guys that were actually there, you know captain winners and the lieutenants and all of these guys actually interviewing them and then showing, you know, baston and then showing that scene, and it's just like you know, and hearing them talk about it, hearing them weep and you know, and uh, just the emotional connection to that, I think, was what makes that really interesting. But also just the leadership. You know it's like the one leader, uh, you know, always is missing and you know, like me and my son used to joke, oh, I gotta go make a call because you know he would just leave the front lines, go to the back and make a call. Like who the hell are you calling? Like we're surrounded Norman Dyke.

Speaker 2 23:16

It was Norman Dyke yeah.

Speaker 3 23:18

Yeah, yeah, which is not a real character I found out later. They comprise like a Several different leaders that are like that and cause they didn't want to wreck somebody.

Speaker 2 23:29

I just watched an article or a YouTube special on Sobel. Remember Captain Sobel? Yeah, played by David Schwimmer from Friends. That he was a lot like that. But yet they really over-dramatized the negative side of him as well, because a lot of those guys to this day say, other than major winners, sobel was the reason why we survived the war, because he was so hard on us during training. Yeah, but they had to have a villain, so they had to villainize him a little more.

Speaker 3 23:58

So yeah, yeah, byron, this is one of the sirs. Yeah, it's a great one what.

Speaker 2 24:04

This is a um question. I ask everyone that's. It's kind of a good heart question, I guess is what would you say is one of the most difficult things you've ever gone through in your life? And then, how did you, how did you break through that and scale the wall of that challenge?

Speaker 3 24:21

um, hardest thing that I went through is like so many hard things. Um, yeah, I don't know if I have a specific thing that I could point out as the hardest thing. There's been a lot of hard things. Give me one. Yeah, your first year starting with American Express, it was such a hard year. Who would do that now? Who would start at a company, get paid minimum wage?

Speaker 2 25:02

$19,000 a year is my salary.

Speaker 3 25:04

Yeah, and get access fully. So if you did better than that, you'd get paid. But you were paying expenses the whole time. So you had your bars program. All that stuff was being expensed to you and your leads and everything. Then you just had to, you know, call these car leads which were, you know, people who had been mail solicited and had requested further information, and just, you know, getting getting that all down and having the you know strength to get up every day to do that, you know. And to you know, have a check after two weeks it was $150 and be like, okay, I really need to, I really need to make this happen, I need to get more. You know, initial meetings in and and, uh, you know how many people would do that. Well, I, you know I don't think many people would do it at all now, even if there wasn't a do not call list.

Speaker 3 25:54

I think that that you know it's. You know there's a level of um commitment that you have to make, like there's a motivation. I was definitely motivated to help people. I was motivated to, you know, make money. I was. All of those motivations occurred. But to get up every morning, show up at eight o'clock, stay till eight o'clock. That's just required immense amount of discipline. Um, you know, and I just you know, year and a half later you're kind of through the storm of it, right, and then you're, you start to say, okay, now I can start to see that this is building. But at first you just you're, just you know, like you're going week to week yeah.

Speaker 2 26:38

Well, it's one of those things where I think it's in life I've talked about this and, as you know, this idea, but the concept that cows run away from storms and buffalo run toward the storm I think when you do something difficult like that, like you did it, I did it Well, it was IDS financial services back when I started, but that, taking that first year, and, like you said, you're there at seven or eight and you're there till seven or eight every night, and it's not like when you're at work you're doing a lot of fun things, you are on the phone, cold calling or dialing these leads on a consistent basis.

Speaker 2 27:10

I think when you start your life off by running toward the storm like that, it's a much better life than those people who start off and run away from the storm and avoid those difficult things and I think there's a lot of in the financial industry now. I think there's a bit of a gap or there's something missing where there's not for the new people coming in, there's not that acid test like there was then. There's not that almost a self-hazing routine where you have to put yourself through. You know it's like hell week, but it's like hell year, uh, for 12 to 18 months and you you know. But when you do that, when you run toward the storm and go through that hell like that man, does it change your life? Eh, I mean, can you imagine if you hadn't done that?

Speaker 3 27:49

Uh, I can't imagine if I hadn't done it, but I can't imagine doing that again either.

Speaker 2 27:53

No, I can't imagine I would never do that again.

Speaker 3 27:56

You know it's, it's like, uh, I probably see, we'll say the same thing, like, yeah, I'm glad I went through SEAL training, but I'm never doing that again. Not that this is SEAL training, but it's definitely one of those things where it's emotionally trying, it's physically trying, um, it's uh, you know, you face so much rejection, like I think that's like one of the things that you just, you know, like people can say whatever they want to me and I just don't, it doesn't, doesn't faze me, you know, I just doesn't. I mean, I remember people telling me you know this isn't right. You know I don't want to do this. I don't know why you're calling me all this stuff and getting like all you know, angry. And I was like. I was like whoa, whoa, whoa, brian, you've got a pretty good understanding of what I do, though, right. And they said well, yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you do. Oh, great, great.

Speaker 3 28:45

So you know, I'm just trying to help people get in a better financial position, correct? Yeah, yeah, we totally get that. Okay, great, yeah, we totally get that Great. So who should I be having this conversation? And I just paid $7.50 for that lead. I was getting another lead. That was my only goal. Can I get another lead? Get a name and number, call them up and say hey, brian told me that I should give you a call If you're looking at your finances, I wanted to see what I could do now.

Speaker 2 29:18

I don't think I ever used that technique. I forgot those leaves were $7.50 a piece and then they went to $10 like inflation. Back then I was out of the game by then?

Speaker 3 29:26

Yeah, and then you know, Mossel would recycle them and charge us $1.50 for them, that guy.

Speaker 2 29:33

He started selling placemats when he was about 17 years old. Didn't he Remember that? Yes, so, folks, we're talking about Frank Moss again and go back to one of the previous episodes he tells the story of he started off his career when he was young, selling customized or advertising placemats that you see in some diners and things like that. Anyway, yeah, he was a good guy to teach you how to manage money and how to make money.

Speaker 3 30:02

Yeah, yeah, no, he's a pen pincher for sure.

Speaker 2 30:05

One of the most effective leaders. I've ever had the chance to opportunity to work alongside, so I was glad to work with him too.

Speaker 2 30:12

Yeah, yeah, I mean, when you think about that, look at the connections that you know over the years 28 years of knowing each other. I think about how many connections we have that are like from people who are no longer with the company people who went off and started their own companies to people who are currently with the company or retired or doing coaching or whatever. I think when you go through a mutual challenge, like we did back in the day at American Express or IDS, even if you weren't alongside that person, even if you were a year or two or five years before them or after them, you share a bond because you understand, you can relate to what that first year was really like for everybody who went through it. I don't care, nobody got through that first year without a lot of scars, a lot of thick skin and some bruised knuckles yeah, and and that's other things.

Position Power vs. Personal Power

Speaker 3 31:02

You just you saw a lot of people leave too, like that was like one of the hardest things with you they ring the bell. Yep, and got out, yeah yeah, you just see them with their box and walking out, you're like can I have your leads?

Speaker 2 31:31

my office? I think at the time, after the first four to six months, I was number 29. I was ranked number. I was the bottom of the bottom and I remember thinking, okay, how many weeks do you have to work to draw unemployment? And this is my first job ever. I've never quit a job, I've never been fired, even to this day. Oh, I guess I quit American Express to start this. But I remember thinking I asked my brother, he goes, you don't get unemployment. If you quit, they have to fire you. I'm like, oh shit.

Speaker 2 32:04

So I remember literally like within that timeframe I had read something by Dwayne Dyer in one of his books, erroneous Zones or something like that, and he said a common quote that I've heard a thousand times it's never lonely along the extra mile, or something like that. And one of the things I didn't like Byron, was that I was 29 out of 29 advisors, so everybody was focused on me, the managers. They wanted to sit my appointments, they wanted to do extra role play with me, and so they kind of really, and I hated that. I'm not a guy who likes that extra. Like, leave me alone is my thing, but leaving me alone didn't work.

Speaker 2 32:36

So they did the right thing. But I didn't feel comfortable with that smothering and I remember shaving one day and that quote came to my head and I thought, all right, so if I don't want this attention, I want to be left alone, then I need to be. I need to go further than anybody else. I need to pick up my game and study this. I got to study this career as if it's a science and so I started reading books on sales and leadership and personal development and marketing and I just started. I jumped into it headfirst and that's really what you know saved my career and got me to today. But I was almost that guy with the box walking out the office, probably more than once.

Speaker 3 33:17

Yeah, you know it's interesting, I never doubted myself. I doubted myself when I got into leadership. That definitely happened. But as far as a practitioner, I was like I was born for this. Yeah, some people are Not trying to be like egotistical or anything like that. I just knew inside my soul that this is what I was supposed to be doing.

Speaker 3 33:42

Yeah, part of it is you've got to figure out what your calling card is and I love that exercise and I remember going through it and my calling card got pulled and it was empowering others to do great things and I've just always hung my hat on that Like, okay, every day I got to get up. My job today is to empower others to do great things. So if I'm communicating with Aubrey, what am I doing to empower her to do great things today? If I have a conversation with one of the kids, what am I doing to empower them to do great things today? Running across staff, different people, every interaction, just having that as your filter. You know you talked about lenses and so just putting that on as a lens and that that's really helped me a lot.

Speaker 2 34:21

You know, that's such a simple I'm going to call it a model, for lack of a better word to live by and I've talked to. I was talking to a couple of clients already this morning on, for the one was for their business and one was for their life. I said we all aspire for something. I mean, I believe this and this is basically from Marshall Goldsmith, who I think is the goat of my industry, you know he talks about.

Speaker 2 34:47

You have to aspire to be a certain person. Then you have ambition to accomplish certain goals, then you act on the whatever you need to your lead measurable activities that you do daily to accomplish the things you have an ambition for and to become the person you aspire to become. And I think to have any of those, you have to have some type of a like you have, you know, empowering others to do great things. Today, you know, mine is inspire the world to strive, love and live. And when you have that as a base point and as a lens or a framework from which to watch and to observe life and to impact life, when you make decisions based on that, life just turns out better, because we walk through life. I think, anyway, most people do. It's kind of like they're on cruise control and they're seeing life through their lens, but they can't really. A lot of people don't really take the time to not judge but to evaluate what they're seeing and why they're seeing and what they're doing and why they're doing what they're doing.

Speaker 2 35:50

And I think when you have some type of framework like that. That's kind of what I do. Everything I do is predicated on empowering others to do great things today. Dude, when you do that and keep it that simple, it's kind of hard. It's pretty fail-proof.

Speaker 3 36:05

Well, it does two things. It creates self-awareness, which we know is a paramount principle to being successful. You know whatever you're doing, you have to be self-aware. But then two's, a grounding point, right, so, as things get thrown at you and you know distractions, so to speak, or just you know whatever you want to call it, communication, things like that, if you're grounded and you have that root system already in there, you're just not going to get ripped out of your soil and you get tossed around. So you're going to, you're going to have that. You know principles. You know your principles, values and beliefs are solid, and so you're, you're in alignment, you're facing that true North, and so you're, you are, you know, trying to act as your ideal self.

Speaker 2 36:48

I like that. I like that. That's at 35 minutes into the show. I think I'm going to pull that one out and study that one a little bit more. When you look at right now your life, where you're at, I don't even know how old you are anymore. Byron, you weren't that much younger than I was. I was only 30 years old when I was in the room.

Speaker 3 37:14

I don't know. You must be 50? I'm 51 right now. I'll be 52 in December. My years are always weird because I think, oh, I'm 52. No, no, no, no, no, no, you're not 52 until the very end of the year.

Speaker 2 37:27

You know, a good thing to do is I do this six months. But right now I turn 58 in March. Sometime in the late summer, probably more early fall, I start calling myself 59 already. That way when my birthday hits I'm like I've been 59 for six months. It works really well. But age isn't really. I don't really think about age in that concept. So, like right now, you look at your life right now, at 51, 52 years old, what do you consider to be a win for you? What do you when this happens, or you do this or you observe somebody else doing it?

Speaker 3 38:03

what is something you can say, hey, that's a win. So, like right now, I'm in charge of coaching and developing our newer advisors and so when they message me back through Teams and say, hey, that prep that we did for that meeting was awesome, and explain it to the client just the way that you'd walk me through it we did for that meeting was awesome, explained it to the client just the way that you walked me through it, I totally thought it was awesome. Now I'm moving forward with the recommendations or doing planning or whatever. That always fills my bucket. It feels good. It's even greater with your kids If Brielle or Gavin says, says that it's just like, like tenfold more. You know, aubrey's the same Right, so you know it. It just you know that's what's. That's what I mean, that's what's empowering others to do great things. I mean that just yeah, yeah, that's what it is.

Speaker 2 38:58

Well, when you see the light bulb go off in someone and you had a part of that light bulb, there's, there's, there's something magical about that, there's something transformational and I'm sure you, the people, the clients you've worked with, the people you've coached and trained over the years you're, you know your kids and obviously Asher um, you probably learn as much from them as they learn from you, because if you're observant and you have that self-awareness and you watch the people you're developing and helping develop and helping to grow, you almost pick up more than they do sometimes.

Speaker 3 39:30

Well, that's one of the tricks you taught me. I call it a trick, but you taught me. You know, if you want to really connect with somebody, have them teach you something. Yeah, have them teach you about something. So I've done that with Asher. So I've now become proficient at this game called Fortnite. And I don't do it because I'm, you know, like wow, I really need to play Fortnite, but I just wanted to be the best teammate I could be for Asher and so that he would want to play with me, that it could be for Asher and so that he would want to play with me.

Speaker 3 40:01

And it's interesting because, you know, I played video games, obviously growing up, but I'm in the Gen X generation, like where video games got transformed to the point where we're, like, you know, totally different but, you know, still the same. And so, first, shooter games aren't new to me. But still, having him teach me everything and explain to me how this is working, or do different things, I can feel that connection happening with him. And it's also, you know, he's distant from me. He's, you know, five hours away, so he's over on the west side of the state and I'm on the east side of the state.

Speaker 3 40:28

So it's also a connection point where now, because of the technology you know, I can log in on the Xbox, he logs in and we're able to actually talk to each other. And so you have this time where you're actually, you know you can't see him, but you can see him in the game, but you still have that connection and you know that's. You know, part of what I try to do with him is just really make sure that I have a really strong relationship, because at some point you know you, you know this, being a grandparent now that you're going to have to deliver a tough message and if you don't have that relationship bucket, you don't have that connection, you don't have all that stuff. Then it's just, it's just not going to work, it's not going to go over. Well, right, you're not going to be able to do anything.

Speaker 2 41:10

Right, that's. I didn't know you could play video games like that. So you see his avatar, but you hear his voice, correct.

Speaker 3 41:20

Yeah.

Speaker 2 41:21

Yeah Well, jack, my oldest grandson's only four. He'll be four in two months, so he's not quite playing Fortnite yet. But I remember Dawson played Fortnite. Maybe he still does, I don't know. Yeah, probably.

Speaker 3 41:31

I mean it's been around for a bit. It's been around forever. Yeah, it's been around for a bit. Yeah, I mean originally when we had downloaded the game, I believe gavin was playing it. So uh, yeah, we've had it on our system for a while. I just, you know, just started recently, maybe the last year or two, because he got into it and made that connection. Even I was like gosh, I want to learn how to play, but I just hate it because I'm just not very good at it. So she but she knows she can see that connection where he'll text his mom and say, hey, asher wants you to get on and play with him if you have time. I was like, oh, of course I will.

Speaker 2 42:05

That's a modern day of connection. Right there, I mean without the ability to connect on a daily basis face-to-face. That's a really good secondary choice.

Speaker 3 42:15

And that is probably like one of the biggest failures I see with a lot of leaders is they fail to make connections but still want to lead people. That's what I did when I first started 1998. Just driving the numbers and trying to drive people to do stuff, but didn't have a connection with them. How well did that work? Well, it turned out okay. Well, I mean, it didn't until I got taught to make the connection, you know. And so we talked about I think I've talked about this before with you but that concept of you know, relationship tension versus task tension.

Attila's Leadership Secrets

Speaker 3 42:53

And you know, so many leaders just want to increase tax tension to get people to take action and to, you know, move forward with whatever the agenda is that they want to move forward with, it'd be, you know, more appointments or more sales or whatever, but they don't have a relationship. So there's this relationship tension that exists. It's like they're the leader and I'm the, you know follower or you know subordinate or whatever you want to call it. And until you break that down, until you break down that relationship tension, make that connection, whether it be having them teach you about something or just getting to know them better or doing something outside of work, you're just not going to have the ability to really influence their behavior because you just simply do not have that relationship connection, and so that tension is going to exist, and that tension exists, that person's not always going to be truthful with you and honest about the things that they're struggling with.

Speaker 2 43:40

Well, do you think that's? Has that changed over time? I mean, I know, back when, like you and I were in our careers, we were there was a different style of leadership that no longer works anymore.

Speaker 3 43:50

Yeah, I don't think it's changed though, because even then, you know, even being a hard you know hard ass, it didn't work as well as when I started to create, you know, relationships. I mean, I remember taking over the Seattle office and you know, basically being told that I was taking over Beirut, and I was like, okay, that's a neat analogy. And going in there and the advisors were all isolated, they were all kind of just doing their own thing. There's 30 plus advisors at the site. And I remember doing Monday morning meeting and people asking me is it required for us to go to the Monday morning meeting? I said it is not required for you to do anything. And they're like what? No, we're not doing that.

Speaker 3 44:39

That didn't work before, so what we're going to do instead is I'm going to provide value. If you don't think I'm providing value, then don't attend the meeting. And so, like the first meeting I did, I think I had probably four advisors. The next week, 12 advisors. The next week, 20 advisors. The next week I had everyone and within four weeks, I had everyone showing up to their one-to-ones. I remember you telling me this too, Like if someone doesn't show up to your one-to-ones, it's because they don't find value in the meeting.

Speaker 2 45:10

Who is? Where was that office?

Speaker 3 45:14

Uh, it started out in the PI building and then we moved to Stewart street so and I was only there for a year and a half, but it basically went, uh, from, you know, one of the worst offices in the company to the top office in the company. You know Rethke was my, my, my right hand and company. You know rathke was my, my, my right hand, and you know, just, super good guy, love that guy. Oh, you too. Uh, yeah, he was, you know, super instrumental in all that too.

Speaker 3 45:38

So I don't take credit for all of it, but it was part of it is just culture. I remember, you know, learning very early on that when you can change the culture and the culture goes from authoritarian to relationship-based and value-based, you just you can't be angry about it. And no one was required to be there, no one was required to show up, no one was. I just took away all the requirements. Now it's all about your. You're making that choice, so you can't blame me anymore, and that just completely changed the culture and it was just really great. All of those I mean a lot of those advisors are super successful now. So that's one of the things that I'm very proud of what happened with that office.

Speaker 2 46:25

Was Dave Dick in that group?

Speaker 3 46:27

No that was the Vancouver office when I met Dave. Oh, okay, yeah, Justin Samples, Dave Dick and Eric Griff were my leaders. They're all fantastic guys.

Speaker 2 46:36

Oh, they're great guys. Yeah, I forgot. Yeah, justin was part of that group. I remember when I first. It must have been in Vancouver then, because I met Dave and I think I met Justin. I think you brought me in to do some work. It must have been Vancouver, because I remember the day I met Justin and Dave Well, dave picked me up from the airport.

Speaker 3 46:55

Yeah yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 2 46:56

I would always send him to do stuff like that he did, and he brought his wife and three daughters with him and they took me to lunch before I even met, before I even came to the office.

Speaker 3 47:04

Yeah, he's super good dude, justin's super good dude too.

Speaker 2 47:08

Yeah, justin, dave's been on the show twice and Justin's been on the show, did a great job. Yeah, justin's an awesome guy. So I was talking to Dave this morning and he mentioned something you taught him. He called it puppy love.

Speaker 3 47:44

Can you explain that a little bit to the member out there listening? Well, where it came from was more of the work on personal power versus relationship power. You're more focused in on rewarding people for doing the right thing. So with a position power, you know, if we think about somebody like Captain Winters, he was the captain, right, so he had that position. So in you know, in the army, that position carries a lot of weight, right. So if I tell any subordinate to do a task or to, you know, to do an order and they fail to do it, they could be court-martialed. So it's. You know it's probably more severe position power kind of extreme versus somebody who's a manager or a leader in an organization. But still people use position power all the time and that doesn't work.

Speaker 3 48:40

The reason Captain Winters was such a good leader, I believe, was that he used personal power, so he created a connection, and so what I talked about a very simple example was when I was training my dog, henry and teaching him to first go to the bathroom. I was working with a dog trainer and she taught me to reward him and find him doing things right, versus trying to find him doing things wrong, and so it's really hard to find people doing the right things. You've got to work at it. It's not an easy thing to do. So take him outside, put him on the grass. You got to work at it. It's not an easy thing to do. So, you know, take him outside, put him on the grass, say, you know, henry, go potty, henry go potty. And so finally he goes potty. Boom, he gets peanut butter. And he's a black lab so he enjoyed the peanut butter. You know, next day or maybe later that day do it again. A little bit of time he figures it out peanut butter again. Eventually it's like go outside potty that guy. He's peeing on command, getting the peanut butter. He's so good that at one point he was faking going to the bathroom. The dog trainer said reward it anyways, but give him that peanut butter because he's doing what you want. You do not want him obviously going to the bathroom in the house. He never went to the bathroom in the house, only dog. I've never had that issue. It was so rapid how quickly he learned.

Speaker 3 50:02

What I realized and this is a training I gave Dave and everybody is that if you're going to teach people to do the right things, you have to find them doing the right things. When you find them doing the wrong things, it doesn't help them figure out what the right thing is. They just feel, you know, you know shame. They might feel, you know, let down, but it doesn't build uh, doesn't build their self-esteem. And if you think about what do you need to do to get somebody to take risk? You have to have a high self-esteem. And so if I find somebody just consistently rewarding them for good behavior, even little stuff, then that starts to build their self-esteem. Maybe I'm the only person that's doing it, but praising them in public and giving them little cards saying saying, hey, great job this week, you know, but you know, pointing those things out on a consistent basis lets them know that they're doing the right things and then that builds that self-esteem.

Speaker 3 51:01

Somebody with high self-esteem will take way more risk, way more risk than somebody with low self-esteem. And if you think about, what you want from your team or from people that you're working with, is you want them to think outside the box, you want them to come up with new ideas, you want them to challenge the thinking, and you want them to do that so that they're taking some risks. Because if they don't do that, they won't be successful for you, and so I think that's what Dave's talking about. When I met him, he had a military background, very successful military career, very good leadership, that core leadership skills, but very much position power, and I had to get him to stop being a check player and this is how I taught him how to be more finesse was to build those relationship skills. Go with the personal power.

Speaker 2 51:51

Well, it's definitely worked for him, that's for sure. He's done some amazing things out there. So I want to stop for a minute. I want to share with the audience real quickly. When Byron and I were just met each other, we were working together a little bit in the Phoenix Inn. One of the books that we went through in fact the only book we went through was a book called Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun probably the premiere, in my opinion by Wes Roberts. Dr Wes Roberts a book that talks about. It's really, I think I don't know, byron, we both have read a lot of books on leadership.

Speaker 2 52:20

I still consider this the Bible of leadership for me, and when I work with an executive or a leader in leadership capacity, that's the first thing I have them do is go buy this book and I go through that with them. I don't go through every chapter. I spend a lot of time on the introductions. I think there's a lot of value in there. So before we started airing today, folks, byron and I were talking and I said I'm looking over at my bookshelf and that book, the original book from 19,. Well, I can tell you, byron, it was 1998, because I have it doctored or written in here and Byron said guess what's on my desk right now? So the same copy. Now my copy is, the front page is coming off. I have it taped and the inside looks like a Swiss watch because there's so many words and diagrams.

Speaker 2 53:01

But here, byron, I'm going to share at the end of the introduction. This is chapter learnings from Byron Gaga, 11-9-98. November 9-98, we sat down and I had you say what are the learnings you got out of this introduction. Here are your learnings that you got that first-year advisors are loosely bound when they arrive here. They're not a tribe, yet they're loosely bound. Number two you need to always choose your battles wisely. That was your second learning. Number three was Attila gained respect by working in the trenches. He was not an ivory tower or field general. Number four Attila stayed humble. Number five we always have to have an eye for detail and practice swift justice. Number six we have to give our people a clear and precise direction. And number seven even Attila got discouraged at times and that's okay. And number eight Attila was a Czech player and a finesse skater. He had both courage and consideration.

Speaker 3 54:04

These are literally your learnings that you told me on 11-9-98. Courage and consideration.

Speaker 2 54:07

Courage and consideration.

Speaker 3 54:08

Gotta have the courage. I forgot about that Courage and consideration. That's one I haven't used in a the courage I forgot about that Courage and consideration.

Speaker 2 54:13

That's one I haven't used in a while either. I got to pull that back out, but that's funny, because every time I do coach somebody on this book which is quite often every time I recommend it. I think of those days at the Phoenix Inn sitting in the lobby just going through basic stuff, man, stripping it down and building it back up again.

Speaker 3 54:30

Drinking some nasty coffee Drinking some nasty coffee.

Speaker 2 54:33

That was one of the best hotels I was there, for I think I lived there for six or seven months, so I was there so often that I would rearrange the furniture because they had it where. They put me in a suite that had a bedroom and then a living room, and I liked it. The opposite, I didn't spend a lot of time in the bedroom, um, or no, I spent more time in the bedroom, but I had a better view or something. So I had the tv and everything like the bed, moved out in the living room and and had it all rearranged and they did everything for me. Almost every month I won um guest of the month. Well, yeah, of course I did. I was there every day, you know, of course, and they'd bring a basket of, you know, like coffees and chocolates and you know, stuff like that to me.

Speaker 2 55:13

But this is my favorite question to ask Byron, and that is I call it the time machine question. If I were to fly out right now to Washington and you and I were to jump into my time machine and we can go back to any time in your future or, I'm sorry, in your past, and you're going to sit down and you're going to talk to that younger version of Byron Gagin. I'm just going to sit back and observe and take notes.

Speaker 3 55:45

What advice would you give yourself or what words of wisdom would you share with? Concept that I didn't learn until later in leadership was that you can't coach desire. So there's some people that just don't have the desire. You can motivate them for periods of time, but you can't. They're not interested.

Speaker 3 56:17

An example that I think of is I'll call it Gavin. He'll probably end up watching the podcast or listening to the podcast later, but there was this time where he was into basketball and he was a good player, good shot, had all those things, but I could tell that he just didn't quite have the desire and I would talk to him about this quite a bit. I'd be like you know, when I played in high school and whatnot, I, you know I would shoot nine. Like I would just go outside, I would shoot in the rain, and you know to the point where my dad would try to get me to stop shooting. So he'd pull the car out of the driveway and kind of block the part of the you know area where I could shoot. I'd shoot anyways, I just would make sure I didn't miss, or I would hustle and, you know, tip the ball over the car. So I didn't hit his car, but I still was out there. That's just where it was.

Speaker 3 57:09

And then he goes well, I have that, I go. Well, I need you to start to practice on your. Show me that you have that desire. And so he buys his basketball program. I can't remember what it costs, we'll just say it was like a hundred bucks and he's like I'm going to go do this program, I'm going to show you that, but I need you to, I need you to give me $100 to pay for this program. And I was like I'm not going to do that. I go, but what I will do is if you go out there for the next two weeks and you practice at least six times, I'll pay you the $100. He goes done, fair, totally good deal.

Speaker 3 57:44

Two weeks go by, how many times do you think you went out there? I don't know. Zero, zero, I don't know. Zero, zero just wasn't, didn't have a desire. And I told him that. I said hey, you just don't have the desire. This is not what. This is not what. That's not your thing, it's okay. It's okay for it not to be your thing. It was my thing. Just because it was my thing doesn't mean it has to be your thing and you know, fast forward.

Speaker 3 58:11

You know he gets into, uh, making ties. He wants to make these seven full ties and there's nothing that I could do to stop him from learning about how to make seven full ties. Like, we drove him to this little sewing shop place with these 60 year old grandma so that he could learn how to do these certain stitches and and how to work these certain machines, because that was a sewing class that he wanted to go to, right, you know? And now you fast forward. And here he is, graduated from central st martin's in london, which is one of the top, you know, design, fashion, design schools, and you know he's making it happen in in london now and I never I don't have to call up and be like, hey, are you going to get up and get that going?

Speaker 2 58:54

So he found his place in the circle.

Speaker 3 58:58

Right. Yeah, that's my example of that, but that's one of the things that I just wish I would have learned earlier in my career. I used up too much of my time on people that just didn't deserve it.

Speaker 2 59:13

Yeah, well, you know, one thing that we've always been taught I think you have been as well is that you know to accomplish a true set or a skill set, you have to have knowledge, skill and desire. You have to have the knowledge of what to do, the skill and how to do it, and you have to have the desire, the why to do it. And you know you can teach knowledge. You can teach knowledge, you can teach, you can train skill, but you cannot give someone the desire. You can inspire them a little bit, but typically when you do that, they're going to say, yeah, you've inspired me, but the skill set I'm working on or the task I'm working is not what I have. I want you to got me to do one that you trained me, but not to do this thing. Now you inspire me to do this thing over here, like you did with Gavin.

Speaker 2 59:52

I remember I don't know what year it was, but watching that TV show, grimm, and Gavin was on there. I remember that I took a picture of the TV screen. I told Dawson hey, I know that guy. I think I sent it to you and Aubrey saying look who I just saw on TV.

Speaker 3 1:00:06

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:00:07

That's cool. What's next for you?

Speaker 3 1:00:16

Good question. I just I think I'm in a good spot right now where, you know, there's an opportunity for me to use a lot of my leadership skills in Aubrey's business. So she took over a really well-established salon in Spokane and, you know, making a lot of cultural shifts there and things, and it's just I can feel the energy changing already and it's good to be. It's fun to be a part of that. It's also fun to be a part of it with her right. So it's even more rewarding to do that with her involved.

Speaker 3 1:00:49

I don't know what's next for me. I mean we talked I mean I've talked to you about this before. I've talked about, like you know, writing out a short little book. That's really basic and just, you know, maybe just having that and giving that to Briella and Gavin and like they're the only ones to get copies of it and then eventually they can give it to, uh, asher. But it's just kind of all these little tidbit leadership learnings that I have in my head and different things I've learned from you know Mossad, or from you, or from you know Ray Kelly, or you know Ed Kelly, or just different people that have, you know, taken the time to pour into me over the years and kind of, maybe I'll just do something like that.

Speaker 2 1:01:24

I know I've kind of messed around with that a little bit, but I haven't done much with it so you told me about that, probably not this past time when we talked, but I think a year or so ago when we talked yeah mention that to me yeah, it's something like that.

Speaker 2 1:01:36

I think that would be good I think that's a great idea, because going at it with not with the lte expectation it'll be published and the masses will see it will help you to put your heart into it and really speak more truth in your true experiences. And I think that's when a book could become a really incredible seller, when you just write it for a select audience, in this case your family, your lineage. Yeah, what does Asher call you?

Speaker 3 1:01:59

Calls me Dita, so that's Croatian for grandpa.

Speaker 2 1:02:02

Dita. How do you spell Dita?

Speaker 3 1:02:05

D-E-D-A. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, that's what I call my grandpa too.

Speaker 2 1:02:10

D-E-D-A. I like that. Yeah, that's what I called my grandpa too. D-e-d-a. Dita. Yeah, I'm going to start calling you, dita. I'm going to put you on my phone as Dita.

Speaker 3 1:02:18

That's fine. I think everybody should call me Dita. I'm trying to convince Gavin to call me Dita, but he's not doing that. He probably calls me Dita like half the time, maybe a little bit more than that.

Speaker 2 1:02:28

That's a good name. You don't look like Adida, though.

Speaker 3 1:02:32

Not, yet you look like a Gega.

Speaker 2 1:02:34

You look like a Gega. You remind me that you act like a Gega. That name fits you perfectly.

Speaker 3 1:02:39

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:02:39

Kind of a little rough around the edges.

Speaker 3 1:02:42

Every time you say that, I think of Mossad Gega.

Speaker 2 1:02:46

Come over here, oh man. So okay, this question is kind of a net question. It catches anything that we might not have covered. But is there any question, byron, that I did not ask, that you wish I would have, or is there?

Speaker 3 1:03:07

any final message you want to leave out there with that listener who could really use some wisdom. Um, I you know if I think about like, just like some stuff that we have uncovered, um, like one of one of the big things that we always talked about and you know this is not like a new saying but the concept of a equals a. I think that's something that is really important right now and, you know, not letting people make, uh, reality into something that it's not, and you know, facing reality as it is not, as as you wish it were, I think that concept is something that we need more of. Um, I used to say let's not make weirdness happen, let's keep a equal to a, um, because you start to drift off that path and it has a lot of problems with building self-esteem but also just executing the direction that you want to go. I think another concept that we haven't really talked about is just when you're working with somebody that you're trying to leave and develop. I always used to have three components that I was trying to work on with them and I was trying to figure out which one needed the most work, and you know it was IQ, eq, and then I called it basketball IQ, but it's basically your technical skills, your technician skills.

Speaker 3 1:04:31

Somebody could be really smart with a really low emotional intelligence, but good technical skills, and not be successful. And you have to, you know, be able to look at this, because a lot of people say, well, that guy's you know the gals that gal is really smart, she's got really good technical skills. Why is she failing? Right, I can't figure it out. It's most likely their emotional competency. And so you got to go in and you know, figure out, okay, the training that I really worked on with a lot of leaders, because a lot of leaders get promoted because they're really smart and they were really good at the previous task or the previous whatever leadership deal that they were in. They were definitely winning. And then they got put into a new role, but that new role required a higher level of emotional intelligence than they currently had, but currently have. And so you've got to work on that piece and so and that's true of all of us Like you know, I spent a lot of time working on my emotional IQ, because I, you know, when people you know react to me, you don't want to react.

Speaker 3 1:05:51

You want to stimulus, pause, response and have something that's very articulate and very calm, and you know, and that's what's going to help them, you know, become a better person, and so you know, empowering others to do great things is that piece there too, and so that's a concept that you know. I don't think it's talked about a lot because I'm not sure why, but there's lots of books about increasing your technical skills in all sorts of areas. Even you mentioned it when you were first starting how to be a better salesman, how to do this but how many people read a book about how to be more emotionally competent?

Speaker 2 1:06:28

Very few, half a percent maybe, if that I mean, it took me years until daniel goldman's book emotional intelligence came out before I even heard of the concept. Right, you know, right, yeah. So when you look back at your career starting off from, like, the days in portland oregon, lincoln center to today, which one of those three have you developed the most in yourself, do you think?

Speaker 3 1:06:51

oh, it's definitely the emotional, yeah, yeah, emotional intelligence by far. I mean you know whether it was going through. I mean you know, literally going through leadership secrets of the tiller hunt is is that will build that um, plus your technical skills, you know. But yeah, you know, uh, goldman had a harvard business review article about what makes a leader and it talks about you know the different types of emotional intelligence and trying to figure out which one you might have a gap in and how you can develop that, and it's something that's much more developable than IQ, right, I kind of make a joke like the IQ is the chip in the computer, the EQ is the software that runs it. So really good software will always trump a chip. So there's that concept of Apple's chips always not being as good as the chips that were in the Dell computers, but the software was so good that it was still faster.

Speaker 2 1:08:12

But the software was so good that it was so faster it was less cumbersome because it didn't have all these little things to allow other things to obviously connect to it. But that always resonated with me when I saw Steve Jobs. He's just an incredible person in that sense. This is why he did this. He realized that the IQ-ism is as important as the EQ. Well, yeah, you think about how many success or how many incredibly intelligent people have tried. Let's go with financial services. I've been a financial advisor who failed out or they never quite reached their potential. You know, they may have struggled through the industry and stayed in for 20, 30 years, but they were always. They performed much further or lower than their true peak level and it was because of eq. I mean, how many there were people at in uh lincoln center? There was a guy that had a degree from yale. I remember I didn't coach him, I didn't train him, but I remember there's a guy from yale and harvard.

Speaker 2 1:08:45

We had two of them, okay I'm like, wow, I'm not saying that they didn't become successful, I don't know. But, um, they didn't. What's that? I didn't want to say that, but I, I was based on what I knew back then. I assumed that, um, you got a guy from central michigan university over here with a barely got through the c average. And I'm trying to tell them because I remember I didn't, they weren't part of my team but I did work with them on a couple things.

Speaker 2 1:09:10

But, uh, at that, you know it goes back to what you said earlier you can't train the, you can't train the desire, you know, you can't train that, that passion, that that uh, that, that's that. Uh, that the drive, I guess, uh, to learn and to grow. Um, then you get people like you that you're just, you know, even though you were a bull in a china store, you were just ready to learn and to go to the next level. And that's an interesting aspect when I look at the lineage that we've had in the time frame that you know, obviously I was with Ameriprise for less than five years or American Express I'm sorry, but that company has put out some of the most incredible leaders I have ever seen in my life.

Speaker 2 1:09:50

Maybe it's just because that's my wheel well, that's my mothership and I know a lot of people but I don't even think that's the case. I think the training program that was there when you were there, when I was there, when Rethke and Dave, dick and Justin were there and some of those original advisors I think that Tony Mazzelli is a good example of that that people who just went off and have been doing some amazing things, but based on the home that we all established within American Express, are now Ameriprice Financial. So there's something that's to be said about that hive of that organization, at least back then, and I think today it's a different organization with different training, but still the same concept. You bring some of the best people out from that organization.

Speaker 3 1:10:33

Yeah, I mean for sure and I remember when I started the equation was your personal growth plus your income is your total compensation.

Speaker 2 1:10:47

Who did that come from? You know who that came from? I have no idea. Frank Mossett, was that Mossett? That was Mossett, and the reason I know that is because he brought that up on the podcast a couple of years ago when he was on it, and I think that was his own deal.

Speaker 3 1:11:00

Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 2 1:11:01

I think Hans, when Hans sent Frank, when Frank and I were kind of in a management group together at American Express, I was in Livonia running that office and he was in Toledo running that office and I think that was the sales pitch I think that Hans made to him. Actually, that is a total compensation package your income, your paycheck plus your personal growth, and you're going to get a lot of personal growth.

Speaker 3 1:11:26

Yeah, yeah, yes yeah. I think Mosset sold me on that one a couple times too. That dude could sell anything to anyone but I still think it's a great concept. I brought that up with people at the salon that I said here's our goal. Our goal is to provide you personal growth plus your income. That's going to be your total compensation. So, whether or not you stay with us or stay with us for 20 years, I hope that after that time frame, your personal growth has just been immensely changed.

Speaker 2 1:12:01

Well, you can't take your income with you and you can't guarantee income in a next position or next phase in your journey, but you can always take that personal growth with you. It's a lifelong pension, it really is personal growth with you.

Speaker 3 1:12:15

You know it is. It's a lifelong pension. It really is. Was it you or someone? I feel like it was you that mentioned to me one time because we were reading a bunch of books. And you're like, well, you probably haven't read this many books since you're at the university and I was like, actually, yeah, I'm doing a lot of reading. You're like, do you know, most people don't read after they go to school. Yeah, I think it was you that told me that, like there's study or something. Yeah, through one of those weird studies that you do.

Speaker 2 1:12:35

Sometimes I just make them up to tell me the songs. No, I think the study is and I'm not sure if this I think it's the average person after college reads three books for the rest of their lives three to five or three to 10. It's, it's. It's, it's less than 10. I know that it's either three to five or three to 10 or something like that, so it's 10 or less, but I think it's three to five. It's insane. And and you know what?

Speaker 2 1:12:58

I hear this so often, byron, I still hear it. It just gets under my skin. I don't have time to read. I'm like, oh geez, but I can look at your calendar and I could watch how much time you spend on social media or how much time you spend watching TV. I can see what time you get up in the morning, what time you go to bed. If I could really dissect someone's calendar and their activities, they could read 50 books a year if they chose to, and I get it.

Speaker 2 1:13:19

Some people don't like to read, but you know, with today's options, with podcasts, audiobooks, get on and watch a TED video you can learn from so many multiple sources just through your phone. It's carrying with it every single day. There's infinite wisdom and knowledge that you can get from just your phone or your laptop or your iPad. I mean, there's no excuses anymore and I do believe that real learning comes from hands-on. I believe that, but you have to have a basis and you have to have. By reading or listening to books or podcasts or audible books or watching videos of you know Ted I call them the TEDx talks or Ted talks you definitely get pieces of you get little lessons that connect the things that you learn while you're doing in the field work Like okay, now I understand what that is Like. When you even said today exactly.

Speaker 2 1:14:08

Personal power versus personal power. I knew exactly what you meant, but those two words connected with me, like Personal power versus positional power. I knew exactly what you meant, but those two words connected with me, like now I have words to put to that concept and that's, I think, what a lot of learning is and a lot of reading comes from. Can I ask you right now, before we wrap up, is there a book right now that you're reading that you would recommend to the audience, or one that you've read recently?

Speaker 3 1:14:29

Well, I'm reading the Fountainhead and I would obviously recommend the Fountainhead. I think it's a great story. Howard Rourke is one of my absolute favorite fictional characters, amen. I resonate with him on a lot of different levels and I wish I could be more Howard Rourke sometimes. So that's what I'm going through right now. I'm doing a little book club with Gavin and Aubrey on that one. So it's a little accountability to to make sure that we do that. I've read the book before, but it's more of like.

Final Thoughts and Book Recommendations

Speaker 3 1:15:00

This is one of the things I think people also fail to do is they read a book and they feel like, oh, I've already read that. It's like well, when you read it again, you're, you're in a different space and you're in a different space, you're in a different time, you're in a different. You know different concepts come out, and it's, you know, reinforces old concepts, but new concepts will come out too. So I think that you know, rereading books is also something that I do quite often. I don't know if you taught me that or somebody else did, but I, you know, I'm the noticer, I've already read it. No-transcript interactions so much more powerful.

Speaker 2 1:16:06

Well, yeah, a hundred percent there. And there is no, there is no downside. It's one of the few things you can do in life that there is literally no downside to doing it. There was only upside. Now you might read a book and you feel like it was a waste of time, but there there was probably something you get, you learned and you got in there that you might not think is valuable now, but sometime in your subconscious it'll come out to your conscious level. Um, because we don't really forget anything. We read or learn it, just it gets buried in there. Yeah, hans always taught us that every fifth book, every fifth book, reread a book you've already read.

Speaker 2 1:16:38

Now, I haven't followed that to a T but I definitely, I do it quite often. I mean, I've read the Fountainhead, I think, five times, I think Atlas Shrugged three or four times and that book's hard to swallow once yeah no-transcript.

Speaker 3 1:17:26

it it was uh, because back then you'd get the newspaper right and it, just, you know, would come out every I don't every few days or every day. I'm not sure how the concept worked, but I remember reading about it and I believe it was in New York times and you know it was a, you know, the daily read or whatever, and then eventually it got published into a book.

Speaker 2 1:17:45

Um, I didn't know that. Maybe I didn't, I forgot that.

Speaker 3 1:17:48

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:17:49

Well, I have my original copy here from 30 years ago and I literally opened it up in my pages. The first, I don't know 100, 250-some pages are out and I opened it up and I wrote this is another one like Atlus, or like Attila the Hun, where inside of it there's diagrams and words and highlights, and I wrote on the page 125, I wrote on the margins. Sometimes you have to let them see a side of you they never want to see again.

Speaker 3 1:18:11

Sometimes you have to let them see a side of you they never want to see again. Yeah, I'm looking at my desk right now and I've got you know, I've got working with emotional intelligence on my desk over there. The Fountainhead Execution 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership I got that one out too. Failure is Not an Option.

Speaker 2 1:18:31

I didn't read that. That's Gene Kranz, right, yeah, yeah, I have that option. I didn't read that.

Speaker 3 1:18:33

That's a Jean Krantz right? Yeah, yeah, I have that, but I didn't.

Speaker 2 1:18:35

I've never read it.

Speaker 3 1:18:36

Yeah, leading change financial intelligence by uh Lennox.

Speaker 2 1:18:41

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:18:43

So, that's a good book. Everything Doug's read written as good I. The only book I is writing I do too. I haven't, uh, read him, chuck wackendorfer's um newest book yet I I have to order that because chuck was on the show and he said, well, it came out in january. Doug was on three years ago this summer and hopefully coming back on because we're trying to get I'm trying to get him scheduled to come back for a second. Um, those two, those guys you know, like ray kelly, chuck, you know, um art dolorenzo, um doug, mean, those guys just have so many years of just intense wisdom wrapped up in their brain. Yeah, there's so many incredible lessons they have.

Speaker 3 1:19:23

If you get Doug on, ask him who's ordered the Cellogenius more me or someone else?

Speaker 2 1:19:30

Well, you know, I got on Amazon, I think it was, and it was incredibly expensive, and I think he this was three years ago, I think it was Doug or somebody sent me like seven copies of it and I gave them out. I think during the podcast I actually gave out, you know, first five people who write in what they liked about this show or rate this show or whatever, get a free copy. And so I've got my original copy, which is up on my bookshelf right now. Then I've got one left over that I'm just waiting. I want to keep it so I can give it to, and that's Simple, genius you. That's a simple genius book. Yeah, that one is just. It's another one. You open it up and inside of it, just words that I wrote on the side because it's such an incredibly profound, prolific book, but yet a prophetic book, but yet so simple, and he wrote it when he was like 28 years old.

Speaker 3 1:20:15

Yeah, I just ordered some. If you go to, if you go to uh, um think, to perform and order it there, you can actually get an autograph. Oh, it's like half the price of Amazon.

Speaker 2 1:20:27

Yeah, amazon was outrageous for it. So well, my brother, my friend, time to wrap up here here. This has been amazing. I've been waiting to do this for quite a while with you and it's it's it's funny that we you know, we we've always stayed in touch. We haven't had a long conversation, a deep conversation in a few years like this, but it's fun to do it actually on the show like this, so other people can hear what you have to say. So it's fun. It's fun, man, it's fun. Uh, anything else you want to say?

Speaker 3 1:20:56

I think the next time we should probably do it in person and we could do like what uh Rogan does we can have some scotch out, some cigars cigar and scotch I can do that A little bourbon man, I'm a more of a bourbon guy, but I'm a bourbon guy too.

Speaker 2 1:21:09

I'm down with that would do that, bring a couple microphones out and and, uh, I'd like to come out to see your. I'll tell you guys, I haven't been out to the pacific northwest. I think. I did a. I did a training for uh samples, um, um, uh, clients. We did a uh like a how do you call it? A vision board exercise.

Speaker 2 1:21:29

We brought a bunch of bunch of clients, came into this really cool micro brewery that he had rented a room in and I got up and did a talk on vision and creating a vision, and then that was probably my goodness seven years ago, and that's the last time I've been out there, I think. So I got to get out there, all right, brother. Well, hey, thanks for coming on. You've been an amazing guest and obviously you've been a great friend of mine for the past 20, since what? 11? Since 1998 anyway. So, whatever that is, 20, 20 couple days ago, seven years ago, and you are no longer that bull in the china store, I'm happy to say you have learned to skate very well, you are not gretzky yet, but not gretzky yeah, we're still more of the bobby proberts in us, but, uh, we can get a little Gretzky, a little Stevie Eisenman in us at times.

Speaker 2 1:22:15

So all right, brother. Well, thank you so much for tuning in. I really appreciate you. Byron, can you stand for just a minute?

Speaker 3 1:22:20

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 1:22:21

Thanks you, bro. I appreciate you, man. Hey everyone, I know this is one of those episodes and I've shared this a lot. When this I think this is 143 or 144th show. I can always tell in my bones that what episodes are going to really do well and are going to resonate with you. I know this is one of them. So I'm going to ask a favor of you Please share this episode with three to five people you care about, who can really learn from Byron's wisdom and his 28 years experience in a very challenging world, professional world. Please rate us, smash that like button, rate us, review us, share us, and I'll talk to you all in one week. In the meantime, please get out there and strive to be and give your best to others, show love and respect to yourself and to the world, and please live intentionally. I appreciate each and every one of you. Bye-bye.