Visionaries vs Integrators, Career Changes, & Leadership Styles

In this episode of On the Surface, Seth sits down with Jeff Hotop and Blake Lingle for a candid, wide-ranging conversation about career paths, leadership development, and the roles that shape how organizations grow and operate.

Jeff and Blake share how their careers unexpectedly led them into finance and banking—starting with small-town roots, early jobs, and moments where natural strengths began to reveal themselves. From Jeff’s transition from the banking world into a CFO role in a construction-adjacent business, to Blake’s progression into senior lending and leadership, they unpack what it really means to evolve professionally and take calculated risks along the way.

A central theme of the conversation is the distinction between visionaries and implementers, and how both roles are essential to a healthy organization. They explore how visionaries think long-term and focus on direction, while implementers translate those ideas into actionable steps. Through real-world examples, they highlight how self-awareness plays a key role in understanding where you fit—and why high-performing teams need both perspectives working together.

The discussion also dives into mentorship and leadership, with Jeff and Blake reflecting on the people who shaped their approach—both good and bad. They examine the differences between managers and true leaders, the importance of trust and autonomy, and how leadership styles must adapt to the individual rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach. From servant leadership to people-first leadership, they share how their philosophies have evolved through experience.

Together, they also explore how relationships and culture influence performance, why working with the right team matters as much as the work itself, and how authenticity plays a critical role in leading effectively. They share personal insights on accountability, growth, and the mindset shifts that come from stepping into new responsibilities or environments.

It’s an honest, thoughtful conversation about taking risks, understanding your strengths, and growing into leadership over time—one that reinforces a simple truth: careers rarely follow a straight line, and the most meaningful growth comes from learning who you are and having the courage to act on it.

Thanks for listening!

Check us out:

deltacos.com

Instragram

LinkedIn

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome back to On the Surface. I'm your host, Seth Stevens, and this week I sit down with Jeff Hotop, CFO with Easy Equipment Zone, and Blake Lingle in commercial lending with the Bank of Missouri, and we discuss their career backgrounds, visionaries versus implementers, which is supposed to be integrators. We misspoke through the whole episode, mentoring and leadership styles. But first, let's talk about feedback. If you haven't already, please go follow, rate, and review our show on whatever listening app you're using. And share it with your friends on social media, tagging Delta Companies or any of us individually. We really want this community to keep growing. All right, let's get into the conversation. Well, Jeff, we'll start with you. Tell us about like your background and career, how you wound up in that career, and um just different positions you've had along the way.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I um graduated high school, went straight to college, went to SEMO, graduated um from SEMO with a finance degree. Yeah, and like most things in life, uh, the finance degree chose me. I didn't really choose it. Um I was, you know, kind of just floating around out there in college, didn't know what the heck I wanted to do. And a buddy of mine took it, a buddy of mine and I took a finance class, we sat in back, we goofed off, and as the professor was handing out test results, we were getting like 95, 98, like we were killing it, and everyone else was freaking out and like failing the class. I was like, hey, maybe this is a sign. Maybe there's a gift here, maybe there's something this this this isn't easy for everyone, apparently, but it is easy for us. And so uh pursued the finance thing. Uh, whenever I I decided to pursue finance, um, at the time I was working at a feed mill, and so I was working the the late shift, uh making feed and buying grain and doing inventory reports, and it was uh I still say it's probably the hardest job I ever had, like unloading trucks and all the stuff. So um as soon as I decided finance, like well, finance and uh and agriculture, I guess there's a world there that makes sense, but it didn't didn't feel like a future. So I I found a bank that was hiring and got hired as a bank. And so I literally went from uh being covered in you know all the fun agricultural uh smells to uh you know wearing wearing slacks and yeah, you know, ditched the hat for slacks, whatever. That's cool. And so graduated, stayed in the banking world. So I I spent uh 22 years um in the banking world. I worked for uh four different banks um over the last 17 years, uh just with with two. Um was everything from uh a teller um on the retail side, commercial lender, well, credit analyst commercial lender. And then for the last um, I don't know, seven or eight years or so, was leading a commercial lending team. Um it was a really good team, minus minus one person. He was kind of a jerk.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Um but at least may or may not be at the table.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

May or may not be at the table. But no, had had a had quite a blessing there to to be able to lead a team and and learned a ton along the way. So um after 20, 22, 23 years of banking, I made a change. And so I'm currently in for the last seven or eight years, or seven or eight months, excuse me. Not been eight years.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Like, man, time flies.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

I think time flies. For the last seven or eight months, I've been the CFO for a company called Easy Equipment Zone. So uh left the the banking world completely, still in the finance world, and now um in a uh what do we call it, a construction adjacent industry? Construction adjacent. So construction adjacent. So currently uh, you know, working for a company that that sells heavy equipment um day in, day out, and it's it's been awesome. A learning experience for sure.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Yeah. Would you act would you say it's construction adjacent? Because when you describe it as selling heavy equipment every day, it doesn't sound very adjacent. I think it's full on. So I may have misbranded it.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Yeah, I mean adjacent, I think is is right. I think we're we're not uh at the end of the day, we're not building anything and we're not operating in the equipment. So you know, I I can't I can't say I don't think we're in the construction industry, but it's something we we're suppliers, so it's it's a in its industry we watch very closely and know a lot about. How about that? So I think adjacent's the right term.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Good. So um a few things on your career path. One, similar experience in in finance in school. I think somehow a lot of people wind up there. Yeah. And uh a v I think a very high percentage of those people also wind up working at banks for some reason. Uh I worked at a bank in college. It may or may not have been the same one that you guys worked at.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

And um uh had a similar experience. I just got out of banking quicker than you did. You found that smarter. I found the construction industry faster.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Smarter than me. And definitely we're both smarter than Blake. I'm the lone survivor here. Yeah. Uh I think it's natural because whenever you um whenever you start thinking about finance and you're looking in your local economy, like what's the first thing you see? I mean, there's banks everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 5:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

It seems obvious everybody needs that service or at least some sort of service that the bank offers. And so it feels like that's an easy entry point. And maybe maybe it takes time, took time for me, takes more time for a guy like Blake to realize like there are all kinds of companies that actually need finance people and accounting people and people who understand the numbers and can do it. But you know, for some of us it takes longer than others.

SPEAKER_04 5:46

Also, okay. I also I also think it's this is a corny plug for like what I know you guys know because you work there, but like community bank, yeah, shout-out plug, whatever. They're typically so ingrained in like wherever you live or grow up that very true. It's like, wow, they're doing something beneficial and they make money doing it.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

So brand aware brand awareness for banking is very high, especially community banking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's true. Um okay, so Jeff, you're you worked a long time in banking. You gradually had more and more responsibility and more leadership roles. What kind of drew you to the CFO job out of banking? Because that's a big change.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

It was a big change. Um several things. One, um at some point I decided I I I just I was ready for a different challenge. I think I think I I came to a reality that I could stay in banking for the rest of my career, and it would be a uh rewarding, fulfilling career. But I also kind of saw myself at the end of that road looking back. I would probably have some self-wonder. Maybe not regret, but I'd wonder like was there another path? Was there something else I could have done? Like, what what would I have been able to get to retirement? So like I achieved everything I was capable of. And so really I saw it as an opportunity to to take a risk, take a leap and say, okay, sink or swim, I'll take the risk, right? I might fail at this, that's okay. Yeah, but I I want to get I want to be in a spot in retirement where I can look back and say, hey, I'm really proud of all the chances I took, and you know, even if they didn't work out.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Yeah. Um what would how would you like describe that feeling? Like, because I almost lean towards saying that self-awareness, but I'm not sure it is. It's like uh future you you're thinking about future you and what you may or may not regret in life. And so I've thought about this myself as like um you put it very you described it like more tightly than I would have. It was a better sales pitch. Like uh like I'd rather regret trying something than regret not doing it at all. Right. Right. Because you can always come back to the safety. Right. For some reason you have this false sense in your head that like if you leave your job, that's it. Like you're totally right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

And and I think for me, for whatever reason, I met a lot of people um along the way, but even more feel like recently who are you know just men who are in that 60 to 65 year range who have retired, recently retired, or it's like in the next six months, and and um seeing their struggles and kind of listening to their stories. And very few of these men that have encountered or are getting that retirement and they're like, uh, I'm retired. This is awesome. I think they get there through transition, but picking some of their brains, it really helped me um focus on on that future version of me and to say, okay, when I'm when I'm 60, when I'm 62, when I'm staring down the barrel of the finish line, right? Most most people think of the retirement like that's the finish line. When I'm there, what do I want to look back and say? Like, because I'm hearing these guys articulate their past careers. And in, you know, one guy in particular comes to mind, he was with the same company for 40 years and it was very rewarding, and he did a lot of great things, but I can tell there's like this sense of wonder. And it's like, okay, well, that's gonna be a tough place for me. If I'm if I'm staring down the finish line and I'm looking back with a sense of wonder, that's not that's just not where I'm comfortable, right? I like, and that's why I kind of got that point. It's like I would rather try something and fail than than be, you know, just sort of learning that lesson from this gentleman. Like, I don't want to look back with a sense of wonder. I don't want to say again, it's not regret, it's just like what could I have done? Yeah. What could you do? If you took some risk, what could you go do?

SPEAKER_04 9:54

So I could I I I'll give my version of the answer for Jeff. Something you'll hear throughout this is like I right, wrong, or indifferent, hate better friends, whatever, but grown very close to Jeff over our decade of knowing each other now. And initially that was just as a work friend and mentor, and then it really turned into a like a true friendship, somebody that we push each other in a lot of different directions um in a super healthy way. So three things really stood out to me on Jeff's kind of transition, and I was blessed enough to kind of there were many other than knew before me, but blessed to kind of walk through that. Front row seat. Yeah, just not so much as any other reason other than just our true friendship, I feel like, and and have being a sounding board that we trusted. But it seemed like from my optic, it was three things. Like one, uh something we talk about a lot, like our faith. I th I feel like Jeff is as grounded and rooted as anybody that I know in his faith. So I feel like that made a transition pretty easy that could make something pretty tough. Two, something that stood out in our combos, probably like the life cycle of your kids. Yep. That was probably that seemed to be like another just like, hey, now more than ever. And three, the place that uh that we worked at, that I currently still work at is like you have the opportunity to influence as much as any other bank that I know of and be could be part of, to my knowledge. And there's still limits to that. And like Jeff has the personality that if there's something inherently wrong, either culturally or functionally or just like ground level, uh, it's like, let's dive in and figure out a better way. And in an organization, you probably know it even with yours at Delta. Um, like in any organization that you don't physically have the right position or opportunity or ownership at, like, there's gonna be guards to your ability to change stuff. And I think, you know, you changed a lot of things for the great. And then that probably seemed like another from my perspective, another maybe factor in your are three of those are those three things kind of relevant.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Yeah, I think Blake's done a great job. I'll I'll volunteer him to take all of my questions here on No, just wouldn't no no, but Blake nailed it. I mean, we we've known each other for a long time. Email him at uh no Blake has been my mentor many times and uh uh it's it's been awesome. Awesome friendship, appreciate you, brother. But yeah, that that's definitely part of it is um working for a company now with you know 14, 15 employees, the amount of influence that I have on a daily basis, if there's something about our culture that I think could be changed for the better, it can be changed, I won't say overnight with that group of people, but it doesn't take long, right? There's something we want to we want to implement, it's it's all within my control. And it's it's I'm learning it's all I'm on my shoulders sometimes too. Yeah. Which is which is another interesting dynamic. But uh yeah, maybe maybe it's a control thing to some degree. I don't know. But there's a lot of things, a lot of things aligned for this to be able to happen and for now to be the right time.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. So howdy, uh what's like a high level summary or description of like what you do now for Easy Equipment Zone?

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Yeah. Well, um, what I do now, I wear a lot of hats, a lot of roles. Um, it's what we do in small companies. And so in my primary role as a CFO, I am um measuring and monitoring all of the the dollars that flow through our organization, um, measuring future cash flows, understanding what the the levers are. If we want to, you know, if we want to try to prioritize profitability, there are different ways we can do that, and there's different levers we have. And so how do we how do we formulate those, be able to measure those, and then and provide um my leadership team, my co-leaders on really the ideas and understanding. So if we pull one lever, what what happens? There's a financial uh impact to it, but then there are it might also be, you know, impacts to the customers, impacts to our team. And so um that's that's really where I spend the most of my time is is business strategy and putting um financials and data behind the strategy. That's that's the big piece of it. Um the rest of it, you know, I talk to clients from time to time. We have certain clients that, you know, they feel comfortable talking with the CFO about the business, about you know, certain questions they have. So, you know, talk to clients all the time. Love that piece of it. Um, I lead lead our team, so as is as well as with the uh CFO role, the chief operating officer or sorry, chief financial officer. I also roll wear the COO hat, so our chief operations officer. So um operations, surprisingly, is something I enjoy. I thought I I when I got into this role, I thought I would would dislike the operations. What I'm learning is I love the operations. I love to know how things work. I love to know how to just like the the strategy and with the financials and things, I love the levers and the strategy behind making our operations better, making our client experience better, uh, streamline streamline some things. Um we're working on some automation now to to kind of fix some bottlenecks in our process, which that stuff I absolutely love. And that's the biggest surprise I've had is I didn't think I'd like that, and I love it so much. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Plus, you have you get the natural like ability from your background and the roles that you're in to immediately understand like the dollar signs that are affected by the operational decisions you're making. Right. Uh no, that's super cool. Super cool. Um Okay. You've been talking. I didn't actually introduce you, but Blake Lingle. Hello. It's your turn. Same question. How'd you pick your career? What has it looked like? How did you make it there? Floor's yours.

SPEAKER_04 15:38

Yeah. Um from Advanced Missouri. Um Advance Missouri, man. Uh, shout out to Advance. Um get heckled for the Advance. Uh that's hometown pride right there. It is, man. Best I think the science says friendliest place on earth. So go check it out. Boomy Metropolis. Uh graduated 28 folks. Um, just for size relativity there. So um how many? 28. Wow. Yeah. So um grew up again, kind of like my preface comment of like you're just Were you in the top 20 in your class? I was fortunately. Good for you. I was sweating. Came in 19 hot. No. Um no, uh really had a passion early on, which was crazy. Um, love the game of basketball. Thought I was gonna be a basketball coach. Um, knew I was an athletic or good enough to be um anything other than that in the field. Uh, but also some family friends of of mine and my parents who I had the opportunity to grow up around and uh be next to, owned and operated a bank in in my hometown. And uh quite frankly got to see them and the things they were doing, the community, their job, you know, they went on vacations with us, stuff like that. So it was like, man, I have a pretty cool lifestyle and a pretty cool, consistent job. So banking was kind of always there, present in front of me for a different reason, just by proxy. Um I remember I was like 18, uh, 17, 18, had basketball camp. Um next morning, my my stepdad is a you know general contractor, heating air, all that stuff. Getting up at 3 a.m., going to roof a house and um carrying tabs of shingles for the for a very brief moment. I really wanted to like take over his business and help him out with that. I love you know fixing stuff, that kind of thing. And uh carrying tabs of shingles up on a on a roof, it's like 103 degrees outside. And he's kind of convinced myself, like maybe I don't do college, maybe I just do this and hang out. He looked at me dead in the face and was like, College sounds pretty good, doesn't it? I'm like, Yeah, it does. So um made a very quick uh pivot change. Um parents are entrepreneurs, so kind of did that thing. And then really my high school coach uh started out at CEMO. Um my high school coach got fired for, you know, long story short, or not fired, but kind of removed, whatever you want to call it, for in my opinion, kind of air quote, doing the right thing. Um, and in my mind, I was like, that's kind of the style I would take. He got fired. I'm like, maybe banking's the gig. So fell back on that. They had a they had a spot for me. I was kind of already working there part-time, um, had my school paid for because of uh some testing stuff.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

And um Well, 19th in your class. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:29

ACT scores, that kind of stuff. Had some school paid for and I remember 20. Yeah, that's right. That's right, baby. Um, and I remember walking into them and being like, hey, what do you like, what does a banker go to school for?

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Wait, did you tell them you were in the top 20 or the top 19 in your class?

SPEAKER_04 18:43

Small town, they knew where I was at. They knew where I was, you know, they knew they knew what what level I was at. They had a ranking in their in their uh in their boardroom. Yeah. Well, you were the you were the uh guy that got drafted in the subway commercial, but uh we'll take you. But no, the uh started working there for them part-time. Um the college decision, you know, I wanted to go to CEMO uh because it was paid for. Um they're basically like, you know, you're gonna get majority of your training at a bank, you know, here at on the job. You you pick what you want. So I did business management and accounting. Um got some decent enough insight through that, had some really good uh teachers through that, and then just really started my career, did seven years there, starting when I was 18, uh, worked till about 25, and then got the opportunity at the Bank of Missouri. Actually, funny story, got declined at the Bank of Missouri about a year prior to that. Uh, they did not hire me. And then an analyst position came out, and uh funny enough, I was in a boardroom with five or six of the um influential people at the bank, if you will. And they asked me, I remember them asking me the question, like, you know, what do you want to do here at the bank? And like a stubborn hillbilly, I looked at him and I said, Well, I've all due respect, I'd like all your jobs. And uh I didn't mean it that way. Fortunately, they didn't take it that way. They took it as like, hey, he'd like to be here a long time. So started my career there. So basically done everything in a bank um up to a certain level. And then now, um, after we've shed some dead weight at the bank.

unknown 20:20

No, no.

SPEAKER_04 20:21

May or may not be at the table.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Yeah. No. Can we go back to the boardroom? I I I imagine I wasn't there, but imagine Blake walks out of that boardroom and they all look around each other like he was the top 19 in his class.

SPEAKER_04 20:34

You know, uh I that wasn't on my resume. Um I didn't I didn't highlight that.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

But sorry, I'll quit telling that joke once it gets old, but I don't see that happening today.

SPEAKER_04 20:43

You know, I think I was I think I was the the third in my class, if that's if that's where you want to be.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

So almost top 10%.

SPEAKER_04 20:50

And had two brilliant people ahead of me, way more, way smarter than me myself. So yeah. That's brutal, dude. Yeah, small sample size.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

That's right. Yeah. Third in this class and barely made the the top quarter, top 25%. Congrats. No, I'm just kidding. All right. It's old now.

SPEAKER_04 21:08

Trust me, I went 10 years working with You might have to rebrand this as a comedy podcast.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

The roast Oh yeah, business comedy. The roast of Blake Lingle. Vizcom. I'm done.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

I'll I'll stop.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

No, I probably not.

SPEAKER_04 21:21

We like the comedy. I'm used to it. Uh, but yeah, worked there, done the analyst position, um, had a former bank president that ran a Scott City market down there, uh, retiring, uh, got to jump in and kind of help out with that market. And then around that same time, um, Mr. Hotop got hired at the bank um about my first year and a half in, I'd say. And uh total side note to what you asked, really cool opportunity where we had a team of about eight or nine people that still, with the exception of Jeff, uh recently leaving for a great opportunity, are still all together. Just kind of a A little bit of magic in a bottle and um something we speak for him, but pretty fortunate to be part of as far as like take the work stuff out, like it's banking, it's a job, whatever. But uh had another competitive banker come up to me one day. He's like, Man, it's really cool that you guys like seem like you hang out on the weekends and like actually enjoy your company outside of the work. And that's like the best compliment I've ever heard of a of a job of any sort of because I've for the most part pretty well filled that. So yeah. But yeah, that was kind of the role. Now I am a senior lender for the bank. Um kind of help dabble with some of our mergers and acquisitions, and uh now lead a couple couple lenders that are uh extremely proficient and it's kind of strategy.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Yeah. Um going back to one of the last things you said about working with a fun group of people that's been together for a while, we talked about it on a recent podcast, just like how cool and important it is to like work with people that you enjoy working with with good attitudes. Like it's uh, you know, at the end of the day, like you said, it's just a job like that's providing for your lifestyle. But there's a lot of other things that are going to be on your headstone rather than like uh yeah, this dude worked hard, right? Right, yeah, was a banker for 25 years. Like, I don't know. Yeah, that's true. Hopefully, yeah. You would like to live your life that way. Um so yeah, it's all it's the quote that was brought up by Brad was Um, you know, I'd rather crawl with people that I enjoy being with than run with people that that are a total drag every day, right?

SPEAKER_03 23:41

Right.

SPEAKER_04 23:41

Yeah, I couldn't agree. And honestly, I think inadvertently, whether it's intentionally or not, like the work part comes pretty easy when you kind of enjoy the people because if someone has a bad day, you naturally want to pick them up or you have a bad day, like that was kind of the beauty I had with Hotop is um, you know, if I had something, I remember something pretty dramatic happening um you know, kind of even my life, and we're in the middle of a work day and he just nabs me, we pop out of the bank and uh went and did something special to us to kind of, you know, reconnect with our faith and that kind of stuff. So like that stuff go makes that's not why he did it, but it makes me more engaged in my job because I know they care about that. And I think that goes at any level, any position, any group, like that's pretty it's really high culture.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Really high good culture. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:32

Yeah, it starts with really good people, you know.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

That's right. Yeah, for sure. For sure, yeah. Um so transitions that you made would have been, you know, like from one bank to another and then taking on more responsibility. What was driving what's driven you over time to desire this extra responsibility and like want to be out in front leading teams of people?

SPEAKER_04 25:03

Uh I don't think I realized it initially, but I've always, whether it's been sports growing up or getting a group of people to ride a bike somewhere to go do something as a kid, like whether it's personality, whether I should or shouldn't have, like I always just kind of jumped into being the one that kind of like rallied people to do stuff. Um through a couple really good leaders uh that I've worked with or been around, I've realized that that's like kind of a gift, uh, you know, like something you're kind of blessed with at a certain point, and it's also a lot of responsibility, you know, how you do or don't use it. So um I recently had a conversation um with um my current boss, and it's like, you know, like the lending thing's fun. I love being challenged on that, but like something clicked over the last two or three years um that I just like at any form of it, the gratification of taking somebody's idea or goal or whatever they want to do and being part of helping them get there. Um I don't think that's like anything that I do for them. It's just like I think a people struggle with a lot of things, like self-doubt or oh, I can't do this or I don't have the tools, and just being part of like that empowerment thing, uh, whatever that is. I I really get a lot of gratification out of it. And right now in my phase of my career and stuff, um I think that has been that became more and more rewarding. Being empowered by leaders, uh again, kind of like this guy to you know, lead wherever you're at. Like that's kind of a message everybody, like you don't have to have I care so little about a title now because of that, probably empowerment of like you can lead people through any effort where you're at, like what you're doing. So I don't know. I think that kind of strove, you know, strive the opportunity to initially it was just like, hey, I wanna, I wanna have a voice in whatever we're doing, like I want to make it different or I want to do whatever. And now it's like I get the opportunity to help people make more money if that's their goal, or lead people themselves, or change something that they think needs to be changed. And that's that's pretty cool to me.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

So do you are you uh this will be a question for both of you, do you like do you think that you're drawn more towards the like operational side, like the you get a goal, carry it out to the end, or uh visionary?

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Oh, I so I'm definitely operational. Okay. So I've I've learned um through a couple of great books, also through a lot of experience. I want to be next to a great visionary, and I want to help that visionary implement the strategy. I'm a backup. I want to help that visionary refine the strategy first. Okay. Um, and then I want to help them implement the strategy. Yeah. And so so I think there's uh um, you know, there's visionaries and there's implementers. I don't know if that's the right right title. I like that better than what I said. I think those two I think those two people in tandem. Yeah, exactly. I think those two people in tandem um are are always uh dynamic together, uh, if it's the right two people and the right personalities. And um, I had that at the bank and and had a wonderful team at the bank, and you know, it was the that was the biggest risk and the hardest thing to leave was the team and the people and the relationships, because just like Blake explained it, I mean it was awesome. I mean, we were we were a big family, and here I'm I'm the jerk that had to break up the family. Um, but at the other side of it, you know, I was ready to take on more risk, and I also knew that there was another visionary that was standing out there without the implementer. It's just like, okay, that that opportunity sort of drew me in too. It's like, okay, here's here's the opportunity to kind of work in tandem with another visionary. So for me, I'm not the visionary. Um, I don't, I don't pretend to be, nor do I want to be.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Um, but I thrive having a strong visionary next to me that I can I can help strategize with and then and then I go implement, I go do the things I'm really good at. He goes and does the things he's really good at, and it's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

When did you become self-aware of you were an implementer?

SPEAKER_00 29:11

That's a great question. I think I think the first time I really became aware was was actually working at the Bank of Missouri and having a leader that was a true visionary. I don't think I'd ever worked with a true visionary before. And when I worked with one, it's like, ah, yes, that's a skill set and a talent I don't have. But there's also a skill set and talent that you know the visionaries don't have. And so we I've always found this nice balance. So as I as I encountered that for the first time, like was it was just super visual and in my face and obvious. So then I started kind of walking backwards. I'm like, okay, well, the the times where I feel like I was most productive and most alive and most like really engaged with my job and what I was doing and and being the best version of myself, it was when I had a strong visionary that I was partnered with.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

Mm-hmm. What does that look like for people who may not understand?

SPEAKER_00 30:07

Yeah. But the the way I would articulate it, or at least what what may became very obvious to me is one, um, I think about tomorrow, next week, and maybe two weeks from now.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

The visionary is always thinking about three years and five years, and probably not too far ahead these days with all the craziness happening. But they're always thinking so far down the road. I'm like, I don't know, I just want to survive till next week.

SPEAKER_03 30:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

And they're they're thinking about what's gonna what it's gonna look like in three years from now. Uh so that was one of the biggest differences I noticed.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

And then um, how and that's real quick to clarify, that's like everyday thoughts for them. Everyday thoughts. It's very hard to think about checkers, yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

They're always thinking about what I'll call the long-term future, and I'm always thinking about you know, my short-term goal, whether if I have a monthly goal or a quarterly goal, whatever it is, I'm always focused on that. And they're already thinking, like, well, if you're if your goals X today, well, that means in three years your goals, you know, yeah, it's crazy. So so they're always thinking about the future. Um, but then how they approach conversations are always different. I think it's it's sort of a maybe a little bit of of overlap there, but you know, I'm trying to have a conversation whether it's with a client or a coworker or whatever. Like, I'm just trying to get resolution for whatever we're talking about, whether it's a challenge or a goal or you know, an idea. Like, I'm I just I need resolution in the moment so we can move on with our lives. Not the visionary. The visionary is again with that long-term term mindset. Whether or not this gets resolved today isn't isn't their focus. It's like, how do we all grow from this and how do we all get better? And how do we how do we, you know, raise the tide, not the boat type of concept. And so those were the things where I was encountering them for the first time, and I still struggle to articulate them, I guess. But when I was encountering them for the first time, it was like, this is 100% a different mindset. I know it's why I come home and explain to my wife at times, like, how is work? I was like, I work with someone who has the complete opposite perspective on almost everything, but we're trying to get to the same goal. So it's kind of fascinating. We think of like two sides of a clock or something, like he's going one way and I'm going the other. Yeah. We're we're going to the same destination. And when it works, it works. And when it it it's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

Well, you're um I mean Swiss Army Knives have different tools in them for different applications, right? So that's kind of the same thing, like going back to your example of handling this uh issue or something that needs a a present day solution, like a visionary person is not the person to handle that. That's that's like that's what you that's what you would be required for. Yep, that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Yeah, that's exactly right. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Okay. Blake, you had lots of time to think. So Well, no pressure.

SPEAKER_04 32:54

The final the final thought on that was like they're both the same end goal. It's just like the visionary thinks of it in reverse. I'm thinking like Okay, yeah. Whereas like Jeff's mindset is like, what are the four steps to get us to that goal? The visionary is like, okay, here's the end goal. I don't really care how we do it, if it's one step or five step, we just know we have to get there. Yeah. And the other piece of that on the visionary thing that stood out with the, you know, kind of general theme of the one we're talking about is like not being a self-proclaimed visionary. Stood out. Like there's uh, you know, you see a few in the world that are like, oh, I'm a strategy thinker, it's long play. Well, that's it can just be cover for like lazy talk because they don't want to deal with it. Uh you kind of feel it out by practice. But I would say I've shifted. I used to be more of like the the visionary person, and then the job and the gig kind of turned me into the opposite, which is the more uh what was the other option? The more implementer. Yeah, the more implementer short term. Um I also think the the culture that I work in uh demands that if you want the long-term change for things, you've gotta do the short-term intermittent things. Uh right, wrong, or indifferent. That's just the world that it lives in. Uh so I've changed my mentality a little more to that. Um again, working with the same team. But I also think if I look at myself probably in five or eight, ten more years, I think I would then have the opportunity by you know, role, whatever it might be, that you kind of shift back to maybe a different visionary. If I was thinking, like forecasting uh in my life where I want to go, what I want to do as far as leadership, I would think that eventually it will be less the day-to-day implementation type strategy and more of the visionary strategy. So I think it's an ebb and flow, but right now I think I'm probably more in the implementation. I'm a probably a little more old-fashioned. I'd like to rip the band-aid off on conversations. Um, it sometimes doesn't bode well, but I'm more of a let's rip it off, knock it out, and then you know, the less time you have to fester and let your mind let your mind do the work. Um the the better. And it's it's worked okay in my personal life, so I usually just translate that to work life, whether that's right, wrong, or different.

SPEAKER_03 35:16

But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

I was gonna say there's some truth to that. I mean, you're naturally gonna do what you're called to do, right? I mean, you you you have a natural ability, and I think you want to hear Blake articul articulating, he has a natural ability that might lean more visionary, but the reality is his day-to-day maybe requires a different skill set right now and a different focus and a different mentality. And so, you know, it I think it's something that comes with time. You you start to kind of figure out what's more your natural tendencies versus kind of just what your day-to-day demands require. Um, but we're all, you know, anyone who has a job, I mean, the reality is you have to fulfill your day-to-day demands, otherwise you don't have a job anymore. Um, but it's sometimes also interesting to step away from that or or to get a different perspective and say, okay, if if uh if I use Blake, for example, if I said, okay, Blake, you're gonna keep working in the place you're working, but for the next month, like you have no, you have no client contact. You're gonna step away from your role and we're just gonna, you know, let you be you for 30 days. Like the the reality is his natural tendency would be more thinking about the long-term impacts and he would be thinking about ideas and things to improve his organization for the long term, how to pour into his team, how to pour into people. That's where his mindset would go naturally, because I know Blake. Um, but when you're when you're surrounded by the day-to-day demands, like that's you you have to kind of react to that at times. So it's uh it's a challenge. I mean, I I I know where you're coming from there, but I think that's the reality of our lives is you know, we have to we have to make sure we are aware of what our natural tendencies are and in it's not it's not always where we get to spend our time, but we need to have a plan to get back to those. That's where we're most most successful.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

Yeah, you already kind of played into and answered a question I was thinking of as Blake was talking is whether those things are natural abilities or they can be learned skills.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

Yeah. Yeah, it's a good question. I think that there are definitely natural abilities. I think the uh tendencies of a visionary, for example, I've now been fortunate enough to to meet and be around several people. And I think to Blake's point first and foremost, if somebody introduces themselves to you as a visionary, um run. Just just save save your you know hour-long conversation and just just leave. Uh, but no, I I think there's uh those people, those visionary type of mindsets, uh, I'm sure it's something you could you can always force yourself to stop and think long term, right? It's something I think everyone has the innate ability to do, but do they have the God-given talent that that's their natural disposition? No, I think visionaries have that natural disposition to always be thinking about future, big time risk, big time reward, you know, what's the world gonna look like in three to five years? I think that's a natural talent. Um, yes, anyone can take that mindset, but the true visionaries, that's just where they naturally live.

SPEAKER_04 38:12

Yeah, you can learn and pick up some of the stuff, but like in our situation, I I learned that the person was a visionary by like I noticed myself thinking differently after having conversations with them. Like I'd take them in a problem, let's just say, and I'm like, here's my three or four solutions, like fix overnight. And it's like, okay, but what's that gonna do in a year or two years, or are you gonna have to readdress the problem? It's like I think it's a healthy balance, like like Jess said, of the ebb and flow of like short and long term, and you have to have both those people. But I think you can learn it. I don't think you you are naturally gifted one or the other, in my or none at all. Um, but this podcast isn't probably for those people. But the uh but if you're uh if you're a fixer, oh boy, if you're kind of a fixer or yeah, the hillbilly. Um if you're a fixer or like a visionary in this class, ladies and gentlemen. Okay, there we go again. Um if you're one or the other, I think you can pick up some learned traits from it. But sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:15

Well, you can that's like a other. You're almost talking about like a learned um application or um approach to your problems or questions, right? But it may not be your natural tendency to approach it that way.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

So, Seth, where do you sit on the spectrum? Well, I don't think I want to get into that. Sorry, let me re rephrase that. Where do you sit on the conversation of visionary versus implementer?

SPEAKER_01 39:43

Uh it's a good question. I'm not sure that I know or can relate myself to that currently. I'm thinking through that as you guys are talking. And um I think that I would lean towards long-term thinking. Uh I'm shaking my head profusely. Blake is nodding heavily. But I um but I think that my job regularly calls for implementation. So I think that I fall more into Blake's category of like, well, my demands around me and stuff are very implementer. But um my natural tendency would be to plan out into the future, like if we're making a budget or something at work or a forecast. Um yeah, the current year is like important, but it's not like most of that stuff we already know. So like let's forecast what trends are actually going to hit us into the future and like uh take a stab at what that looks like on paper, right? Right. Um, so I appreciate you guys helping me work through that.

SPEAKER_04 40:54

Well I feel like as a I mean, I'm on a nonprofit board with you. Something I admire about you is like I'm a whether you call it an implementer or like I consider myself a fixer just to a fault. Yeah, yeah. So like I'm I don't want people to fester over a a problem, so I'll be rather quick to respond. Yeah. Um, through some of the stuff we've worked through together mutually, I've kind of admired your your slowness to respond. I think that's a pretty good trait of a visionary mind is that you know, you don't always get the immediate response. Now you're always available if I need immediate response, but like it's nice, it it's a different perspective of mine when we have very similar mindsets on the end product or how we fix it. But yours is a little more articulated and well thought out because of a little bit of that time. And it's not like a delayed, like, wow, where the heck is he? And his response. But it's very much a it's like, wow, he he put a lot of time and effort into forming his response. Where if I'm being honest about myself, it can be like, wow, did he just hurry up and type that and respond?

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Yeah, sure. It's processing time, which that's learned over time because I've I mean, I think everybody has, but I for sure have had a lot of foot-and-mouth situations. Even though it may be the same answer in the end, uh I've learned to take time and think through the answer, articulate it a little more clearly, and maybe uh address some of those long-term effect questions to myself so that I can make sure that the answer I'm about to give is actually what I want to say. Like you just did. Yeah, I guess. That's why I asked you guys questions. I'm just building my own. Thanks for joining Dev and I's podcast. We'd like to ask you some questions. Oh gosh. Flip the script.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

We're we're we're bankers, we're naturally trained to ask questions. Right. Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 42:51

That's true. I've never been on more annoying meetings in my life. Than what your than our current tech. I knew I shouldn't have done that.

SPEAKER_00 43:05

We can wipe all this. That's so funny. It is interesting coming from that world and now being on a lot of calls with bankers is just like, oh, come on. I know what you're trying to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

unknown 43:13

Right.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

Yeah, that's funny. Uh okay. How have different mentors affected your life? I think it's easy to say career, but it's really life.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Yeah. Yeah, it's a great question. Um I I think mentor and leaders, I mean, I'm gonna start start there. So I've I've worked for leaders or bosses, I guess a better way to term term it. Managers. Managers. I like to say yeah, I worked for a lot of managers that I learned what not to do.

SPEAKER_03 43:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

And so I think, you know, from a from a leadership standpoint, what I learned about leading people early on, a lot of what I learned was seeing a lot of things I know I would never do. Um so just you know being being treated like like you can't you can't you can't lead everybody if if you're leading 10 people on the team, you can't lead everybody the same way. And I think that was the first thing I noticed is I had people I had a a boss leading everyone the same way. And it was all it was very like it was very pushy and demanding and like sort of like you know, if if if if you watch the Kentucky Derby recently, it's like you know, you go to the whip, you start, you start big beating the horse, you know, you get them to run faster. And that's the that's the management style where if I'm in that environment, I do the opposite. Like if you want to beat me into running faster, I'll just I'll just slow down because I'm stubborn like that. Yeah, you know, I you're a mule. Exactly. I I naturally look to find balance. Different name for that. Yeah, that's right. I've been called a lot of things, that especially. But but uh but I I naturally seek balance, right? So if someone wants me to go fast, that's a that's a flag for me to slow down. If someone wants me to slow down, that's probably a flag for me to speed up, right? I'm just always trying to find the right balance. So with managers, um, what I've what I've always worked with the best and what I always looked for was someone who would just who would let me come in, do my thing, do my job, do it my way, trusting that I'll ask them when I when I need questions, when I need help, when I see something that feels big, I'll reach out. I'll let you know. But for the most part, I don't need much guidance, I don't need much oversight. And I start to shut down or I start, I I will move slower. The more the more you want to look over my shoulder, the less I will do. Yeah. Right. And so so I learned that pretty early on that um you have to lead everyone differently. Uh so so then I then I gravitate to the couple leaders I had that were that I really enjoyed. And frankly, I probably already articulated it. The the reason I enjoyed and respected them and would work as hard as I I possibly could for them, I'd run through a brick wall for them, is because they let me just show up and do my job.

SPEAKER_01 46:09

Yeah. They let you be you.

SPEAKER_00 46:10

And when when there were obstacles, I'd like, hey, here's the obstacle. If you need my help figuring out, let me know. Otherwise, you figure it out or let me know what you need from me. But I'm just letting you know, here's the obstacle I'm dealing with today. You need to know this. It's now on your plate. Um, that's that's the environment that I thrive in. And so um that's what I really uh appreciated about um a couple of the mentors I had in banking. And and so you asked about life. And what's interesting about that question, Seth, is whenever I I wrote a I wrote a letter to uh one of my mentors once, and you know, it was this kind of a thank you note, but but it was, you know, thank you not for being a just a great mentor and a leader, but for changing the trajectory of my life. And I think that's the impact that leaders can have. Um, it's not the impact managers can have, it's the impact leaders can have. And so um I kind of forgot your question now. Where were we going with this?

SPEAKER_01 47:07

It was well, you kind of answered you answered it because you talked about how well my question was how have different mentors like affected your life. But I think that you answered it in not directly addressing the question about way. You brought up a yeah, you brought up a lot of good points because we've often talked about the difference in managers and leaders. Yeah. It's very tough to find leaders in the workforce, especially to operate that the way that you want to be led, like you individually, because not all people would want to be led that way. Correct. Uh, and that's probably the rarest form of leader in my experience is the person that can handle that, like you as their employee.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

I agree. I'm a lot to handle. No, I hear you. Hard to handle, baby. Being being versatile as a leader, I mean managing someone like me, but then having someone on the opposite end of the spectrum from a leadership perspective who wants that daily coaching or that that shouldn't say daily, but but wants that um almost constant coaching in in direction. Because I have someone on my team like that now, and that that's a challenge for me to handle because my my mindset is so opposite.

SPEAKER_01 48:32

Like, well, some people want to learn through shared experiences with the leader. Right. Like, hey, I don't know this. I want to learn it from you. Like, let's do it together. I want you to show me how to do it because I don't want to make the mistake. Whereas I think I would lean more towards what how you are. Like, I'm gonna mess up. Just let me go, and I'm gonna figure out my best approach to it after I mess it up. Yep, exactly. So you just have to give me some room for error. Uh, and I think your analogy was great about the Kentucky Derby, plus it's also timely. Like a true leader would look at that as I can't just crack the whip and get somebody to work harder. Like you have to step back and say, okay, well, if we want to go faster, what's like our underlying problem? Right. Right. Like, how are things at home? How's your life? Are there obstacles at work? There's all kinds of stuff that can lead to people moving slowly or uh acting differently than usual or whatever. So I think you answered the question in a different way, but I think almost more you answered the question that I aspired to ask. How do you like that? Man, I love it. Greatest moderator.

SPEAKER_00 49:51

Uh Blake. Tough to follow. No, I've had wait, hang on. Which question does Blake have? The one you asked or the one you aspired to ask?

SPEAKER_01 50:00

Well, the one I aspired to ask is still not out there in the ether, but good luck.

SPEAKER_04 50:06

Man, uh if I remember the question. Um I've had really good uh mentors and really good leaders. Um there is a difference, I think. You know, mentorship. I would agree. You know, not to get too crazy. I'm not, I'm not a there's some that find leadership in books and stuff. I that's not me. There's people that learn education in book, that's not me. I learn um go ahead and say it to you up. There's some people that know how to read, that's not Blake. There's some people that know how to talk, that's not Blake. Go ahead and say it. What number was I? Oh, were you top three in your class? Here we go. Um, just had to let you get that out. Um what I guess I mean more by that, functionally speaking, is I had two really good leaders that made it super clear to me what I needed to do to do the thing that I wanted to do in the long run, which is lead people. Um, that was first and foremost. Uh, and that was get really good at whatever you're doing. Like simple thought, right? Like just get whatever role you got, whatever thing you're doing, just get really good at that. But also proactively unannounced with no gain allowed me to be in rooms and situations, scenarios, meetings, opportunities that, like, quite frankly, I had no business being in. But just let me see their working style or other people in the boardroom's uh mannerisms and how they operate. Um, that to me is why I will always call those people some of my best like mentors um in the in the business field. Um, one of which is both to me a very good mentor and leader in that sense. Um, you know, get the I'll I'll do this one time, I'll make it short and sweet. Uh, but but Jeff has been really influential in my career, but also as a person, um, really challenged me. One thing I admire about him, you know, he he allowed me to kind of figure out some leadership styles through him and other people and challenged me to do that. Really empowered me to lead, kind of no matter what my role or title was, because he kind of seen that I like to naturally do that, uh, right, wrong, or indifferent. And then also like was able to judge, um not judge necessarily, but push each other on um like our faith and our our marriages. And and fortunately for me, that's something that side note, you and I get to do on not enough. I'd call monthly basis. Um and it's super important. Those are probably the people I admire most because there's no real gain in in it, but through those raw and real interactions, those are the people that I've really gotten good leadership um from both in my career and kind of in my life. Um and then the other portion of that, he he talked about uh I remember uh uh Jeff used to say, like, hey, you know, like what motivates you in banking? You know, what was your one-liner? It's like bad bankers motivating. Oh. Because he knows that's not how he wants to lead. Yeah, yeah. So that's I've kind of taken that on. Um, but also I've had I had some really good leaders at my at my prior bank um that did the banking thing at just an extraordinary level and like carried themselves um in their communities. And, you know, me as a young kid, you know, I thought they had the world and they and just the way they carried themselves and uh the way they treated people was just top-notch. So just kind of always admired that. And I think that probably turned into hope, who I hope that I am or how I hope I operate. Like it's it's more I think most of my traits and leadership and how I hope I lead it at a bank and at church or in a nonprofit or anything like that to me is really like how people operate, treat me, and treat others like outside of the profession. It naturally coincides. Like they're dealing with the same person sometimes in the office as they are outside of it. But yeah, that's kind of always meant more to me. I mean, that's that was kind of my opening kickoff for the people I'm leading, is like I really believe that if they're mentally where they need to be, not what you had for breakfast in a fight, you know, that you had at home. I also want to be able to be there and be there for that person and let them know that. But yeah, I think that the person and the people are are right. Like I'm just such a more people um style leader than I am the the job focus, I think, in this phase of my life. Um but I picked up whatever leadership styles I had. I mean, I've picked up through a couple of my more recent leaders in my career. Um, but also very aware I'll probably do it differently. Um run that differently with and that's not like a bad thing, but like No, it's not. And some of those I'd say, like, oh, I definitely don't want to do it this way because I didn't like how they do it. That's not necessarily the case with the the two I'm referencing. It's just I think I will have a more like born, given different approach to it.

SPEAKER_00 55:29

It it has to be authentic. For sure. Because people will see through it. If you're trying to be something that you're not, people see through that immediately.

SPEAKER_04 55:36

Like that self-visionary, like, yeah, I'm a I'm a visionary, like yeah, I I'm me on the personality. I think both of you have heard my tyrant on this, my tirade rather, of like I hate the self-proclaimed, like I'm doing this and I'm doing that, and you know, create your own early. And I Oh yeah. I it just drives me nuts. So that like authenticity, and to me, that's something that that's something that I think the Lord's blessed me with being able to pick out of people relatively quick. Um I love those people. No, and that's and that's what I think that's what's drived me in my leadership style. Like picking up that the people are investing in me for like no true gain other than they hope I'm yeah doing well and I hope I lead that way as well.

SPEAKER_01 56:25

What was interesting is that's a whole different style, is like you specifically enjoyed and remember exposure. So you're not even like working through a problem with somebody together, you're just watching like the I'm a doer. Like I'm a learn through repetition of doing it. And I get really bored like watching it and being exposed to it. But that's a whole different type of, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 56:54

So so that's true, but the people that let me jump in and join those meetings instantly knew I think my working style was to jump in and want to do it. And yeah, I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that sometimes they handed me stuff that I'm like, whoa, I shouldn't be doing this. And I figured out. Yeah. And I got the opportunity to figure out and build self-competence, yada, yada. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

Um uh how what advice sticks out to you lately?

SPEAKER_04 57:21

Has nothing to do with work. Um this probably contradicts um my like fixing mentality I just talked to you about. But um two really good advices was more home life stuff rather than um at work. Um it was just to find a way to either write down or conceptualize, not meaning you desp you necessarily have to fix it, but whatever whatever thing it is uh before you lay down at night. Um instead of laying in bed and kind of festering over it and dragging into the next day, all of a sudden you've wasted twelve hours on something. Um, find a way to to get it out of your head into a space um has been pretty good advice.

SPEAKER_03 58:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:06

Either through prayer, writing it down, talking it out with your wife, laying in bed, you know, whatever it may be. Um that's been pretty good advice. And then my wife kind of gave me the second piece of that, which is um I'm a fixer by nature. Uh I like fixing things. And uh she kind of more eloquently said, like, not every problem needs you to fix it. Um and that's that's hard for me, but it's good advice for me as well.

SPEAKER_01 58:35

So it's tough for men in general, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 58:39

No, no kidding. Yeah. Well, faith could or Blake and I could probably turn this into a faith podcast in a hurry. But uh no, I mean, in all seriousness, best advice. I mean, it I don't know where or when or how how I picked this up, but at some point along the way, it was just kind of having the the bigger picture of life in mind. I mean, yeah, no matter what happens at work, no matter what happens, you know, the stresses of the job, the stresses of life, I mean, there's a there's a bigger picture in play. Um that's that's my personal belief. And it's just, you know, anytime that I feel stress, I feel overwhelmed, I feel like I'm not good enough or smart enough to do my job. I mean, that's something I've struggled with a lot with this transition. It's really just stepping back and saying, okay, like it's not about me. It's not about this. Like this is, you know, this isn't this isn't coming from a good place. And and there's a bigger picture in mind, there's a bigger plan in mind, and that's that's what's most important, and that's the mindset to take.

SPEAKER_04 59:32

So Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:34

For sure.

SPEAKER_04 59:34

Here's another decent one. Here's another decent one for you that I've I've gotten beaten to my head rather recently from a couple different people. It's like busy is all relative. And it's made me hate hearing people say, like, oh, I'm so busy. Busy is like the most like, what are you busy with? Like just busy is relative. You sit there and think about it, like we're not splitting atoms. At least I'm not. Um, reading words on a page sometimes tough. No, I mean, busy's all relative. That's I don't know that's necessarily advice, but it's uh good food viewpoint.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:13

Yeah. What you were talking about leadership styles. Uh what how would you summarize like the leadership style that you're practicing currently?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:24

Currently, since um it's more direct and like on paper and like functional, that I am the leader by title. Yeah. Is um really it's really fresh. So great question. Like in the last like three days, I've been having these direct one-on-ones of talking about my leadership style and being asked about it. And it's really what I said earlier, just making sure that I know your challenges, your goals, and and like what you want to be, um, either here or off the campus of work, um, and finding a way to meet people there. Like that's like I said, I I think if we can put people in positions to be happy every day with what they're doing and feel successful, they're naturally gonna figure out how to make X dollars for the bank or go out and talk to X amount of people or do what I mean relay whatever job you got, but finding out the hurdles and what they succeed at, what they think they succeed at, and really empowering them to drive off of those ramps pretty hard. I mean, I think that's that's kind of my current style is just diving in, being, you know, leading wherever they're at in the moment and trying to get them to that next step is kind of my personal attempt. I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:52

I like it. So authentic and collaborative. Yeah. I yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:59

I I'm I mean I love how you sum up ever what he says in two words.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:03

Yeah. Well, he was talking about that earlier.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:05

I know, I'm just picking.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:06

Oh, you're it's a common theme, Jeff will Jeff will let me have it. Sorry, Blake. I mean, he knows my he you you know my style second hand.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:16

I don't Yeah, but Blake's one of the most naturally caring people I've ever met. Yeah. And so he naturally cares about people. And so, you know, when when I think about Blake in a leadership role, it's gonna start with with really caring about the person, really caring about what challenges they're facing, where they're trying to go, and he's gonna he's gonna pour into them in a way that probably as a leader I'm unable to, um, probably more fully. Um so so I think, yeah, that they're lucky. They're lucky to have have someone like that that's got that caring personality to to lead them.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:50

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:52

I agree. That's the nicest thing you said on this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:55

Well, after giving crap about being the third in this class out of four, I figured I better do something. What about you, Jeff? Um, so it it's it it it's evolved. Um so I've I've taken a servant leadership approach for the last several years. Um, and I think, you know, the way I would articulate that is, you know, as a leader, my goal is to talk to every single individual on my team, find out what the hurdles are, what the challenges are, why whatever's what's standing in the way between that person and their goals or whatever they're trying to achieve, and then eliminating those barriers. That's been my my mindset um for the last several years. I've taken that same mindset, and this may sound bad to say, um, but I've I've tweaked it a little bit. And so I still I'm still there. That's still the main focus. But I've also had to shift a little bit in this in this current role as an executive on a smaller team in the business I'm in. I also can't allow anybody on my team to hold us back. And so there's also a a little bit of a maybe maybe a slight emotional disconnect. So I want to be a servant leader, I want to help them attain what they want to obtain, but there also has to be this other side of it. There has to be this like, hey, you don't get an infinite amount of chances to get there. You don't get an infinite amount of time to to reach the goals that we have for you. There, there's limits on these things. Um so luckily we have a good team where I'm at today, and I haven't had to, you know, haven't had to let anybody go or anything. But I think there's a reality there of, you know, my commitment has to be to our business and to what we're trying to obtain. My job is to get everyone on board. But if someone's stubbornly not getting on board, then I have to be willing to make a change.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:40

Well, you could approach that still from a servant leadership aspect where certainly this I'm looking out for your best interests and it's not on this team.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:51

Yep. Right. I totally agree. And I think that is the mind shift that is hard for me, um, because I think I'm capable of getting everywhere that everyone where they need to be. Yeah. Um, and that's that's uh not reality. Yeah. And it it it that's it's a challenge. It is still servant. It is you're not alone exactly from the sake of the thing. I think most I think most good leaders probably would. Yeah. That's gotta be the hardest thing to do. But there is a reality there. But there's a reality of personal dignity to say, okay, well, if you're struggling in this job or in this role, like maybe this just isn't your calling. And to to be the person that delivers that news isn't the fun thing, but in the long run, maybe that's the best thing for that person, and who knows what they go find, and hopefully they go find their calling, right? For sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:34

That's the toughest part for me. That's something you I know it's a struggle for you as well, but something that you uh brought awareness to me at my last role was I can't you can't I can't save everybody, you know? Like and I think uh the visionary mindset, something I learned is like uh allowing people to uh not coast but put enough pressure. On them and expectation on them to let them drive themselves out of the position has kind of a been a neat neat undertaking or a neat change in my mentality of it of like, oh, we either need to change them and make them perfect or we need to let them go. It's like you can let them have a little bit of a front row seat in it all. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:21

All right. So tradition on the podcast so far with guests is for the previous guest to leave a question for the next guest.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:31

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:32

So both of you get the pleasure of answering the same question like you have been this whole time. And the question left was what is your biggest failure and how did you handle it?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:47

Wow. That's a great question. I don't know if I've ever failed before. That's a lie. I fail daily. Next, I fail daily. That's a funny one. Not funny enough for this. Should I tell that story? No. No, you shouldn't. Oh, are you gonna tell that story?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:11

No, I won't.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:13

All right. I'll I'll take the first stab at this, but you tell me if you think this is a bad example.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:19

All right. So so my in my new role. Bad. No. I just cared too much. I just cared too much. I tried too hard. All right, go ahead. In my new role, I um in December, toward the end of the year, we made a strategic decision to make a large purchase. And it was the first purchase of its kind. I don't want to get into too many details. I was just saying it was the first purchase of its kind. It was it was brand new. It was um in the eight-figure range. So it was a lot of money. And there was a very tight deadline tied to it. So it's like we either we either uh made the decision and and bought this asset this day, or we have to wait 60 days to buy it because it won't it won't be available again. And in 60 days, likely the price goes up like 20 or 30 percent. And it's a big purchase, so it's that's you know, 23% is gonna be a lot of money. So my role in all of this was simply to send a wire. Pretty simple stuff, right? Especially for a former banker. So you talk about mistake, that's pretty bad. So uh, you know, it's 10 o'clock, wire sent, not a problem. Um, I get a call like two o'clock from the person who's trying to receive or supposed to be receiving the wire uh in the seller, and the seller's like, hey, haven't received your money. I'm like, that's bogus, whatever. We sent it, like it's gonna hit, just be patient, whatever. Don't worry about it. Three o'clock, he calls me, he's like, no wire. Like, ah, maybe I should look into this. So I look and um I have miscoded the wire in our banking system. So I put the routing number in twice, which means for those listening, the wire won't go. The money left our account, but it's not gonna get to where it's gonna go, where it's supposed to go, because I didn't give them an account number. And now I'm working on a deadline. What I didn't realize is that the seller was also on the east coast, so where I thought I had time. Um, I didn't because their their cutoff was four o'clock. Of course, I said he called it at three, it was like 245. And it's now it's you know, 345 on the East Coast. I now have 15 minutes to either talk my bank into somehow resubmitting that wire, getting a new wire out, and uh it was a lot of money. And it was like, it's gonna be hard for us to send a new wire without recapturing this money back. So the first thing I did is I called our CFO, our CEO. And my exact words were, you need to fire me. And he had a similar response. And I was like, no, seriously, um, remember that purchase. Uh, I screwed up. I don't think there's a way out. I'm gonna try, but I just need to know if this doesn't work, you probably need to fire me. Um, and then I I made uh I don't even know, probably like 10 very frantic phone calls over the course of the next 15 minutes. And somehow, by the grace of God, we got the wire to go through. Like I I would promise you we had literal seconds. It was coming down to the seconds. Um, so it would have been about a it would have been, you know, probably a four or five million dollar mistake had uh had we not been able to make the purchase and had to make it 60 days later. Yeah, I was feeling a huge amount of responsibility for that. I think I was literally like my whole body was sweating, even though it was like 20 degrees in my office. And it's just like that was that was uh that was terrible. But I do remember specifically calling uh it wasn't how we got it resolved, but I do remember specifically was calling my CEO immediately, but hey, dude, I screwed up. Here's what's happening. I want you to hear it from me first. I'm trying to resolve it, but in case I don't get resolved, like I do expect you to fire me tomorrow. That was my response to it.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:02

That lines up with your what you said earlier about how you like to be led. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:08

Yeah, leave me alone, let me make the mistakes, and hey, when I make a big one, I'll just I'll just fess up. Like I'll just take fire me. You probably need to get rid of me.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:16

Um outside of the massive risk and money on the line, did you enjoy the adrenaline that came with the 10 minutes?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:28

Um I would say I I could look back and say I enjoyed it only because it had a good resolution. Yeah, sure. No, I hate you.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:37

That's totally different.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:38

No, I I hated it. I mean, you talk about you know feeling like you need to throw up. I mean, just all the all the bad feelings, like all the negative thoughts. Like I'm a former banker and I can't even figure out how to send a wire. Like, just I'm bad at that already. Like, I already kind of beat myself up. But you talk about all of the bad things you could physically and emotionally and intellectually experience, those are the things I felt in that those 15 minutes. Yeah, that's tough. But I will say, the conversations I had with with the people that I need to have with to get quick resolution, those conversations started with complete transparency and almost like I won't say like I was begging them for help, but it was just like, hey, Seth, I screwed up majorly today and I need your help to resolve this. There's a lot on the line here. Can you help me? And some people very quickly said, uh, you need to reclaim a wire that size. Like, I can't help you with that. Go talk to this person. So there's a lot of like passing around. Yeah, but finally I found the one person that's like, I can try to help you.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:41

God bless you.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:42

Yeah.

unknown 1:12:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:43

You just say my job. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:45

Yeah. But but I wasn't, I was, you know, I mean, I wasn't gonna try to go in and bully people around. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. You know, in 15 minutes, you don't have time to try to push people to do what you want them to do over force, right? I mean, my approach was um it's not really a good approach in general. Not a good approach in general. So my approach was my cards are on the table, my wrists are on the table.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:07

Like whatever you want to do, I just begging you for your help right now. Yeah, yeah. And so luckily found found a couple of the right people that that made it happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:16

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:17

Good. Blake?

SPEAKER_04 1:13:19

I will sum my cornucopia of mistakes up into from taking the prior position that I had at a at a smaller bank. I had made the jump to our bank, um, to my current bank, and had a much larger responsibility, uh, book a business, um, people I report to, uh, that kind of thing. And just as a whole, went through probably a two-week span uh where I kind of just dropped the ball, either being through inadvertent actions, uh, stuff that was kind of acceptable at my last job, uh, in my young, dumb mindset. Um, and then th, you know, just general timeliness and general, like I had, you know, I mentioned earlier I got invited to a few meetings that really I had no part of being in, but they thought enough of me to have, you know, to let me be part of those. And albeit that I could always almost like air quote justify what I was doing at the time or my thought process on it, process on it, it wasn't right in the scenario. Um so took some pretty heavy uh mental and uh uh at the time I thought um work and career hits um from those, those were early very early on in my career. And I think the way it what it did for me, like I would never have said this in the moment, but looking back, like quasi glad they kind of happened, um, because I took a wildly different ownership perspective in my own day-to-day job. People are counting on me. Um, people have different opinions than what you know, maybe a a smaller little group of people that I grew up with and happened to work with would have. Um if someone thought enough of me to invite me to a meeting, like I better get my tail there. Um so it it that little three-week or month span, whatever it turned out, the the compound of two or three things uh to me at the time were very major. Um because they were I I probably that was probably the biggest turning point into me becoming a someone that has uh responsibility and um a little bit of weight at the at the at my current employer. And I just it they were all simple changes. And then I kind of was able to use that as like probably another way through my actions that I can talk to the youth at our bank or at any career and be like, there's a time, and I can't tell you when it is, but there's a time to like turn it on. Yeah. And and that's what I learned from it. I just young, dumb, immature, given a lot of freedom and responsibility, and you don't really know what to do with it, and then you kind of learn through that uh scolding process of how to how to move forward and and get a little better.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:29

If y'all enjoyed the episode, please rate our show and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and check out Delta on all social media platforms at Delta Companies and our website at DeltaCOS looks like deltacos.com. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.