--:-- Carl Sherrill: I'm going to be an impact to somebody every time I interact with them. I will never be perfect at it, but I'm going to try to do the best I can to be the positive influence on people.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Why don't you be the one that makes a difference, a positive difference? Like, why don't you be the one that...
--:-- Carl Sherrill: And since people would come and complain to me, even at work or at home about stuff in a community, and I'm like, let's just talk through that. What if that person just needs you to be positive? You don't even have to agree with them. What if you just be kind to them today? Like, maybe that changes the environment they're in.
--:-- I'm an insurance junkie by trade, and so acronyms flow all over the place. And I figured out, let me take one, and how can I talk about that message in an organized pattern? And so I just kind of came up with own yourself, nurture others, and expand your influence, which is the acronym that I use for this story.
--:-- This message is part of kind of what I've been trying to lead to in my life, and also the way that that carries over into how I lead my teams and how that's been a development over time is kind of the big idea. I mean, it's a function of how it carries into every single thing that you do when you get to a point where you understand. I no longer, being a leader for me becomes the big idea, which is I'm just who I am. I happen to have been blessed with experiences and life experiences that have allowed me to fail miserably and to succeed very well.
--:-- And all of that mix, I would say much of my years when I was growing was how do I hide the failures? How do I get by over the failures? How do I defend against the failures? And then how do I embrace my success and get more success? And then the secret became that chasing those two different things was more stressful and challenging than just being really clear about who I was and what I wanted to be and then let that just carry over into how I lead.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: What was the catalyst to create that reframe in your brain? Because I think a lot of people never reframe it the way that you did. They get caught in this constant loop of hide my failures, overemphasize my success, and try to chase more. And I think we both can say, and I would completely agree with you, there's no happiness in that down that path. Certainly no long-term happiness. So what was the catalyst for you to reframe that idea in your mind?
--:-- Carl Sherrill: I think more than anything, being a father. My fatherhood and leading at home had lots of ups and downs over the years. As you grow and you have kids, nobody tells you how to do it. Then you look around and you see people that are doing it well and it all looks like success. Obviously with social media and other things, it puts that in front of people. You just kind of wonder sometimes when it's not what you see, that everything else is defined by the world as success, you start to question how you are leading at home.
--:-- As my children grew, I began to see things like silly examples of just being so caught up in how they did in school at an early age and how important I thought that was during that time and going through middle school. Then as they reach high school, the whole everything in middle school is about getting into the right spot for high school and how high school is all about college. There's a whole other tangent we could go on about higher education in today's environment, but how all of that pushes you to lead differently than maybe how your heart feels.
--:-- My heart was saying when I had young children was, I want them to be healthy, I want them to be happy, I want to enjoy that time with them. And I certainly did, but every once in a while you would let the world creep in to say, well, yeah, but they need to be doing this, and they ought to be doing this, and they need to be playing more of this, and they should be doing. So the world began to dictate how I thought about the way I wanted to define success as a father, as a family for my children.
--:-- As we got into the middle school years — I have three children, I've got a 24, 22-year-old and a 19-year-old, my two boys and my daughter at the end — I had especially one of my sons who began to have some health issues that we couldn't figure out, and they were impacting him significantly. There's no playbook for that as a dad. That's not what you talk about with other dads. You talk about what travel team they're on. You talk about what sports they're playing, how they're doing in school, what grades they're making. All that's the normal conversation amongst dads. There was no normal conversation when I would go out with friends in the community about, hey, my son's really struggling and we can't figure it out. I want to help him and I don't know how to help him. So that began to reframe things for me.
--:-- Then there was another seminal moment during COVID where I found myself, as many of us did, home. Couldn't go to the office, wasn't allowed to go to the office. I'm a people person, so that wasn't healthy for me. I got home, and I've got three great kids. I've got a beautiful bride. We've had a great marriage. We've got a beautiful home. My job was going really well at the time. I was with Marsh. Things were great. So I'm at home, and I'm miserable. I look around and I'm like, I'm doing great in my career. I've got a great family, got a neighbor across the street I'm hanging out with during COVID. We've got it. It's kind of like you got it licked and yet I was not happy.
--:-- I began to look at it and say, you know what? I'm not in control of my situation. I'm letting the world dictate to me what is going on. My oldest son was a senior in high school and COVID was taking all that away from him. All the senior celebrations, 13 years of school to get to that senior moment, to have senior breakfast and have mom and dad come over for the breakfast and to have prom and to have dances and to have graduation live and all of those things that he had worked so hard for, to watch it be stripped away from him. And I realized that in the grand scheme of things, he's 18 years old, he's got a lot of life ahead of him. This is a moment in time. And I was letting myself look at it and say that's defining how I feel about the world. I felt out of control and I was not myself.
--:-- Had good friends and mentors in my life who said to me, man, you don't seem like yourself. What's going on? That helped me to step back and say, I've got to take control of the situation. So the reframing for me was twofold. One is that my priorities completely shifted. I have a child who is incredible. He's one of my heroes in my life. He has challenges that many people will never face in their life and he overcomes them on a regular basis. So whether he did his homework or not, I could care less. I really could care less because his health and his happiness was the primary focus. A middle school science assignment, a middle school calculus test was pretty small in the grand scheme of things. I wanted to make sure that he knew that as a leader, as his dad, as his leader, I wanted you to focus on what mattered. That was you being happy and healthy. We'll worry about that other stuff later. Tests come and go. We'll figure that out. So that was probably the beginning of the reframe of how I began to look at the world, which changed the way that I operated on a daily basis.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think your self-awareness and I'll say humility to actually step back and look at those things is incredibly admirable and something that I think we all should strive for. It comes in moments, maybe waves. We have waves of self-awareness and waves where we're maybe a little filtered in our view. But I do believe in having done this podcast for as long as I have and spending as much time with people — very people person too — I think a lot of people struggle with this.
--:-- I did a TEDx talk back in February on status and the impact of status in our life. When I did my self-awareness journey, I could almost pinpoint decisions that I made based on the status that I thought I would accumulate from that decision versus the decisions that I made because that's what I wanted to do with my life. I literally colored it green for when it wasn't based on status and red for when it was, almost to a T. I think this is very difficult for us because the world — social media in particular, even if you're not there — still plays this role. People look at you, they expect things from you.
--:-- So if someone's out there listening to this going, I find myself in a similar place to where Carl was before he kind of reframed, how does someone break down or start to organize some of the mental clutter around the ego or the status or that living a life that they didn't choose that so many of us deal with?
--:-- Carl Sherrill: Sure. I'll tell you how I did it. The way it worked for me, and I would recommend it, but for everybody, they'll have their own way. I began to read and chase after people who had a philosophy like mine. I would look at different authors and different books, and I would read. I've always been a reader, and I began to reshape what I was reading. Because guess what I was reading? Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I was reading the books that the world said you should read if you're a good leader. But that wasn't feeding what I needed.
--:-- I went back and started looking at things like, I need to get myself in order. Who are some people writing about that? Who are speakers that I've heard at different conferences who I feel like spoke to me? I need to go back to that. The beginning step for me was I literally sat down with a book by Roger Seip called Train Your Brain for Success. I've handed it out to a lot of people. Roger spoke at a convention that I was at years ago. It was a big eye convention in North Carolina. It was a little speech, and probably most people in the room, I don't know if it impacted them or not, but it just stuck with me. It was years later before I went back to that book.
--:-- In there, there's some chapters that really stuck on me. The very first one that I grabbed hold of was about what are your values. Have you sat down and done an exercise where you come up and look through and put seven words together that are the things that are the most important to you? Have you done that exercise? I hadn't. Everybody could probably tell you what they value, but I had not sat down and spent time with that. So I dedicated time to go through the exercise of putting a bunch of words on paper and then narrowing them down.
--:-- The neat thing about the way that exercise played out was you go through a lot of words. He has like 100 and some words on a page. You go through the words, then you cross off the ones that are similar, and you narrow it down to whatever it is, five, six, seven. There's no magic number. For me, it was seven. Then you go in and define yourself, not the dictionary. What does that word mean to you? You write that definition out. Then you start looking at what are the things that I value. For me, it was faith, joy, influence, and a couple other great comments in there. I went back and defined those. That set me on a path of, okay, well, if those are the seven things that I say are non-negotiable for me, let me look at what my calendar looks like every week. I calendared that, and that was very eye-opening. I wasn't feeding those things. My calendar wasn't reflective of my values. So I began to change that.
--:-- The other piece of the puzzle that happened, not just from that book, although he talks about it and a lot of people do — The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod is another great one that I gleaned on to. I realized that for me, if I just woke up every day and tried to live that out, it wasn't going to happen. The world had many times successfully derailed me throughout my career, throughout my life. That's when I said I've got to own myself in the mornings and then during the day. So I sat down and worked on a routine that I was going to commit to on a daily basis of things I was going to do to put me in the best position to defend myself from when the world came at me.
--:-- Getting clear on those values and actually writing those down and then starting to come up with a routine that would allow me to listen. I'm not 100% successful. I'm not 100% of my routine. I fail still on a regular basis. But my routine gave me the best chance of success every day. At that time too, Ryan, it was I can take a chance because of what I'm dealing with to try to help my son get through what he's dealing with. It's one thing to let my team down at work. It's one thing to not sell another insurance policy. It's a whole other thing to take a chance on the way my day goes when it impacts my son and my daughter and my other son. That became how I began to move in that direction.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: You use this term "defend yourself against the world, the universe." I think habit, routine, we'll put all that in a bucket of preparation — mental, physical, daily preparation. We're not taught this. It's one of the reasons that I do this show. I'm so incredibly curious as to how everything works. This show would be more commercially successful if I was like the leadership guy for bub, bub, bub or whatever, but I'm just so interested in how we do so many different things.
--:-- This particular idea that's come out of this — this is where I'm trying to get to from talking to so many different people, everyone from the first licensed psilocybin clinic in the United States to billionaire investment bankers to content creators — this idea of preparation is one of the keystones of all of their success that I have found. Everyone prepares differently. But here's where my question comes up. I think everyone can get behind that. You find a routine, you do it daily. Okay. But the world's going to punch at you. The universe is going to punch. I tell people all the time, the universe doesn't give a shit about you. It does not care. You have to intentionally prepare yourself. So when it hits you hard — something happens, God forbid something with your kids or work, something happens at work that just throws the whole ship into flux — how do you not spin off the rails? How do you come back in?
--:-- Everyone's going to have those moments. Maybe it takes a day or two to get back on track. But where I see the difference between highly successful individuals like yourself and those who do not reach goals or do not reach places that they maybe are proud of is that when the best get punched in the face, they're able to recalibrate themselves and get back on track. So many others are not. How do you do that? How do you get yourself back on track when you get knocked off course?
--:-- Carl Sherrill: The way that I frame that in my mindset over the last — really very recently, but I think I've been recently able to kind of describe and define how I was doing it before. I can equate it to being in a boxing match. You're in a boxing match with the world. If you think you're getting into a boxing match and nobody's going to throw a punch at you, that's just insanity. You are going to get punches thrown at you in the world.
--:-- What I have learned as I began to study and read a little bit about boxing, which has been fun to do — I don't really follow it, I mean I know Tyson and Muhammad Ali, but I don't know the science of it. I started reading some books on that. Some of the most successful fighters and trainers is because they learn how to take a punch, not necessarily avoid a punch. They teach you how to dodge and move, but nobody ever says you're not going to avoid every punch. How you absorb a punch, you actually have to think about it. You have to be prepared. It's something you train about — how to take a punch, how to be absorbing of something.
--:-- What I look at now is I try to take it as an absorbing of some experience. When negative comes at me, and it does, man, I get knocked down. I'm in a season now where I've got some stuff going on that it would be easy for me to just say, this isn't right, this isn't fair, God, why are you doing this? That all exists in my life at this very moment. But when you know it's coming — it's not that I live in fear of when it's going to happen, like when's the other shoe going to drop — I just kind of accept the fact that there's going to be something coming in my life. When it does come, I'm going to absorb that punch.
--:-- How do I absorb it? I've got a partner in life and my wife who we are aligned and we see the world the same way. I can go to her and we can share with each other. We don't have conversations that very often are like, it's going to be fine, don't worry about it. We have conversations which is, yeah, this sucks. Sorry we're dealing with this. I'm sorry you're dealing with that. But this is what matters. This is what we know matters. Let's focus on that. Let's stay clear to that.
--:-- Whether it's at home or at work, I've got great mentors and friends throughout the industry, throughout work, who I can also lean on to say, man, remind me why we're doing this. You get that reminder and it helps you to absorb. The other thing I think about too is I fully believe all that negative stuff that comes at me from the world. Every time I get punched by the world, if I can absorb that and then look back at it, I can learn from it and I'll be better the next time I take one of those punches because I'm going to keep coming. We don't get a life free of punches. It's just going to happen.
--:-- I think framing it from a standpoint of I want to absorb the experience for what it is. The interesting cool thing about that for me is I'm very much in the moment on the good stuff too now. I fully absorb that stuff too because in the back of my head I'm thinking, it's not every day that it's going to be good like this. Let me be in this moment. My wife and I joke around. We've got three kiddos and throughout life all three of them have had their ups and downs. They're growing adults trying to figure this world out that even a grown adult doesn't have figured out. We call it the trifecta when all three of them are in a good spot. We kind of high-five secretly. They're out of the house now, we'll have phone calls and texts with them. If all three of them are really good, we're like, hey, I talked to him, he's great, she's doing good, oh, he's good today too. It's a trifecta. We high-five and we celebrate little wins. They're just all three having a really good day right now.
--:-- I think the combination of absorbing the punch, knowing it's coming, being prepared for it — listen, I still get knocked down a lot. It still happens and it still sucks. But I've got a couple of people around me that are not going to allow me to lay on the mat and complain about getting punched in the face.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I love that. A reframe that I use all the time is this isn't happening to me, it's happening for me. When things happen that I didn't expect or aren't exactly what I want, it's easy to go, why is this happening to me? I'm a good person. I pay my taxes. I love my kids. Why is this happening to me? What did I... And it's like, no, it's happening for you. This thing that you didn't like, how about you go put your adult pants on and go solve the problem? Go figure it out, learn from it. It's happening regardless. You can either wallow in it or go figure it out. That mentality in the second half of my more mature side of my career, not the super early days, has really helped me get through that absorbing of the punch.
--:-- I think these kind of reframes as much as we can build them into our life really help. They're aphorisms or whatever, they're just little ditties, but man, they can be really powerful. I often caution people, some people can think they're trite or like, ah, I don't need that in my life. And it's like, dude, you just got punched in the face. If a simple reframe can help you think about it differently, isn't it worth doing it? So I love that stuff.
--:-- Carl Sherrill: I think too, Ryan, for a lot of folks, there's some people that don't have that happen a lot, or they already naturally handle it well. For me, I'm like, good for you. That's awesome. If you don't need it, I hope you live a life where you don't have to worry about what I've got to worry about. I would love for that to be your life experience. But the large majority of us know that that's not the way it works.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So for the audience, so they know, I was at Mick Hunt's Lead Loud series down in Greenville, South Carolina. Tremendous event. Highly recommend you go check out his Lead Loud series. He has them quarterly or so. Wonderful events. You were one of the speakers. I was really captured by this idea of "Be the One." Your leadership philosophy that you extend, and you used examples extending outside of just business into how you lead your family. I love this concept because, again, speaking to the reframes and stuff, it's a simple, understandable concept but incredibly powerful. I'd love for you to talk through the genesis of where this idea started to come and then start to break down for us what this philosophy is that you're out there teaching.
--:-- Carl Sherrill: Thank you for that, Ryan. I second that with Mick Hunt and that Lead Loud. It's an amazing time together with a lot of leaders really chasing the same things. The thing I like most about it is it's chasing the personal side of it to be professionally better. That's most of what you hear at the conference.
--:-- I came up with an idea probably four or five years ago about how do I get the message out about what I and my family went through in helping my son to be successful, be happy, and be healthy, even though he's facing health situations that are out of his control. What it really came to me was there were a number of people along that journey who at moments in time at the exact right time when needed were the one person that showed up in that moment. As I look back on our journey, there was always this moment where a person showed up. Because that one person took interest to make a difference and have an impact, it significantly changed the path that we would have been on.
--:-- As that began to happen and as I look back at that journey, I started to think about there's so many people out there. For example, teachers don't know how to deal with this. They haven't been trained properly. There's a whole thing to this. I'm not saying that all — I've got a long line of educators in my family and I teach as well — it's nothing about that. It's just that when you're dealing with something like he was dealing with, that's not evident. The other thing is, he played sports, great football player, student body president, great student, smart kid, super smart kid. So from the outside, everybody loved being around him. From the outside to a teacher, to people around him, they had no idea the struggle that he was having.
--:-- When we finally talked to some people and they realized it, you had a couple different reactions to this. I think this happens professionally too, by the way, but in this situation, this was the genesis. There were the group that would think, well, I don't know if I believe all this. Maybe this is just some manipulation. Maybe this is just a kid trying to get over. Then you had a couple of people that took an interest enough to say, well, maybe not. Maybe this is a real struggle and how can I help?
--:-- On both sides of those coins, I began to make the argument with everybody that, listen, at the end of the day, let's say you're right. Let's just say you're right. Let's say that you think they're trying to get over on you with whatever their situation is. Let's say you're right. What is the worst possible case scenario that could happen? If they're actually getting over with you, well, that doesn't happen forever. Maybe they get a grade they don't deserve and maybe they move on. At some point life catches up with us when we do those things. But what if this struggle is real and you're the one who did not help them and it was enough to go to the other side of the equation? Let's be honest, you never know where that's going to go with someone. You could have been the one that did that too.
--:-- I got to a point where I said, I've seen people impact him and us positively and negatively by being the one person that made a difference and took an interest. I want to make sure that all the interactions that I have — I'm fortunate enough in my professional life to interact with tons of people — man, what if somebody just needed me to be positive and smile at them that day? Maybe that was the one interaction in their day that changed the path for them that day that maybe led them to a different place.
--:-- But what if also, if I'm real with myself, what if I'm the one that was negative to them? What if I'm the one that had a negative interaction? What if I'm the one who fed into what might be self-talk for a person to say, I don't know why I'm here. Nobody cares about me. What's the deal? I don't have any hope. Why am I here? Then you interact with Carl at the airport and he's frustrated already because he's missed a couple of flights and we have this interaction and I don't even know you, but we have a bad interaction and I'm really negative to you. Then off you go, because I've just confirmed the self-talk you already had that there's no reason to be doing this anymore. Everybody's out to get me.
--:-- That became a real moment for me to say, I'm going to be an impact to somebody every time I interact with them. I will never be perfect at it, but I'm going to try to do the best I can to be the positive influence on people. That kind of started me down this path of "Be the One." That's the message that I talked to people about when I was already having an interaction. The message is just getting out.
--:-- As I talked to people, I was saying, why don't you be the one that makes a difference, a positive difference? Why don't you be the one that... Since people would come and complain to me even at work or at home about stuff in the community, I'm like, let's just talk through that. What if that person just needs you to be positive? You don't even have to agree with them. What if you just be kind to them today? Maybe that changes the environment they're in. So that started it.
--:-- I'm an insurance junkie by trade, so acronyms flow all over the place. I figured out, let me take one. How can I talk about that message in an organized pattern?
--:-- Carl Sherrill: And so I just kind of came up with: own yourself, nurture others, and expand your influence. That's the acronym I use for this story. I think it's tremendous, and I think the message is timely because of where we are in our society today. We have lost the ability to disagree with each other in a way that doesn't lead or spin out of control. People develop preconceived notions on fragmented information and will interact with you in ways that you don't understand. It's a very odd time to be a communicator and a leader. Odd is not the right word—challenging, tumultuous. But I think this idea of constant positivity, or reasonable and intentional positivity, is absolutely what we need. The audience at Lead Loud resonated with it. It certainly resonated with me.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: It's why I was so excited to have you on the show. I'll give you an example. I coach my kids' baseball. One of the parents came up to me and said, "My son really likes playing for you. What are you doing?" I said, "Nothing. I don't know. I mean, I know the game, I love the game." She said, "No, he's played for other coaches who were yelling, and he really likes you." I said, "High fives." She asked what I meant. I said, "Kids high fives because it makes them feel connected, seen, and energized." Now, do adults want you high-fiving them as you walk through the office? Probably not. Maybe they do, but I'm not against it. I'm good with a fist pump. But for kids, if you constantly high-five them, they're in a good mood. Even if they mess up, you give them a little dap and say, "You got this. You're good. You're the man." They could go 0 for 3 that day and walk away with a smile. In the context of Little League, that makes complete sense.
--:-- Then we get into our adult world and we're like, "Johnny's not holding up his end of the bargain. Sally hasn't sold anything. The HR team is up my butt about some email I sent." And all of a sudden, it's pure negativity. When you talk to someone dealing with adult toxic environments, what's the first step? Is it just "Be the One"? Is it go get consensus? If you're in a toxic environment, maybe you enjoy the company but it's got this negative spiral, how do you start injecting this idea into an organization to break that down?
--:-- Carl Sherrill: I think early on, if you have the opportunity, be really careful about who you join. You have to be careful about the team you join. I talk to a lot of undergrads and young professionals, and I remind them not to compromise finding a team of people aligned with how you see the world and how you want to live your life professionally. The main thing they're usually missing is they haven't spent time thinking about that. So I have to get them to go back and do that first.
--:-- But let's move forward. They've joined a team, and sometimes you do your best but still end up in an environment that isn't what you expected. It turns toxic over time—new leadership, new teammates. When you find yourself in that space, you have to do a couple of things. First, I don't want people to think I'm all rainbows and unicorns. I don't think this is easy. I'm not good at it all the time. It's the desire of my heart, not the way I execute daily, but it's what I want to do.
--:-- What I encourage people in those situations is to be really clear on who you are. If you're compromising your core values in a toxic situation, there's no fixing that. It's probably not getting better. If you can align your core values and have honest conversations, start finding people on that team who you believe are aligned with you. Begin having real, vulnerable, transparent conversations about what you're feeling and where you are. Good leaders should be receptive to teammates coming to them and saying, "I don't know what's going on, but this is how it's making me feel. It may be my perception, and I may need to adjust, but I think it's important we talk about how this impacts my daily operation." Then you find a way to talk through how to move the team to where you want it to be.
--:-- The other piece I challenge people with is that you have an obligation to be the teammate you want everyone else to be. It's easy to point at the people causing the problem without stepping back and asking, "Was I really intentional about showing up today? Did I really do my work? Did I show up correctly?" If the answer is no, you have to get that square before you take care of what's happening with the rest of the team.
--:-- It's difficult when you find yourself stuck. I've been very fortunate in my career, but there are people in places where they don't have a choice. It would be easy to say, "You shouldn't be on that team. Find another one." But for many of us, that's not reality. You can't just jump around shopping for a team that makes you feel better. However, you have an incredible opportunity if you take it on as a challenge and a project—your own project. If you can absorb the negativity, brush it off, and dig in, and you're the one who changed the culture of that toxic team, what an incredible spot you'll find yourself in.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Have you ever read the book "No More Mr. Nice Guy"?
--:-- Carl Sherrill: I have not.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I highly recommend it. It's one of my top recommendations for anyone, particularly men in leadership positions. The book defines the difference between nice and good. I read it about a year and a half into developing Rogue Risk, when the team was really starting to grow. You bring in teammates who fit immediately and others who have friction. I was struggling to pull it all together. I didn't understand why my message wasn't resonating as much as I wanted, because I've always prided myself on being able to inspire humans. When I read that book, I realized I was over-indexing on nice. I didn't have the hard conversation because I wanted to be nice. I didn't bring two people together to talk because I didn't want to create conflict. Everything was nice.
--:-- The book outlines this clearly. It's not a long read—you could get through it in a couple of days. It's the perfect type of business book. It's not like reading "The Art of Seduction" by Robert Greene, which is like a college textbook. Let me give you a quick side story. We were taking a group to London last year, and I wanted to learn more about Winston Churchill. I ordered a biography. The book came in at 1,700 pages and was this thick. I sent it back. The next one was 1,400 pages and still this thick. My wife asked, "Did you read the description?" I said, "I don't know if I can get through that." So yeah, I'm with you on readable books. Over a certain number, I have to go to audiobook.
--:-- This idea of good versus nice is almost a more tactical version of what Jordan Peterson talks about with "be a monster." Have the capability to stand up for yourself and step into tough situations, but keep that sword sheathed as much as possible. What it forced me to do was say, "The nice thing is to not address this negativity because I don't want to cause more problems. But the good thing for my team is to address these problems." A lot of times, negativity spreads—it's contagious. But so is positivity. Often, someone who presents as negative, when you show them you accept them and their issues and you keep a positive environment, you can flip them back. People would rather be positive. They just don't know how. It's not a lost cause if you find yourself in a negative environment. If you live that value structure and present it, people will come along for the ride. Have you found that to be true?
--:-- Carl Sherrill: I have. I over-indexed on being a nice guy for sure. Where I've developed through maturing professionally and personally is being willing to have challenging conversations because I come from the standpoint that if we don't talk about it, that's bad for everybody. I care too much about you to not have that conversation.
--:-- The other thing is that our brains are wired to be defensive, which brings on interesting personality traits. But I believe people don't get up every day wired to be miserable and make your life miserable. If I believe that, then I seek to understand why they're there. It becomes compassion. Something in their life experiences has put them in a place where that's how they see the world when they get up in the morning. That's sad. I'm desperately sad for those people because that's not a way to live. As a leader, I want to understand what experience put them in that space where they can't enjoy important moments in life, and then help them find a way to get there.
--:-- The reality is, if I have a team of people who can't figure that out, we won't be successful together. We'll have small successes and lucky wins, but long-term sustainable success requires helping the team be great. A great mentor once told me, "If you're not good at home before you get to work, you're not going to cut that off. It's not going to turn a switch when you get here." I believe people are generally wired to do good things if there's not something going on. There is no greater joy than taking a really negative person and turning them into a fan—someone who smiles when they see me. If you're rude and ugly to me, I'll probably be okay with it. It might not feel great, but I accept it as a challenge. If you really knew me, I don't think you'd treat me that way. So let's figure that out first.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I completely agree. When you see that light bulb come on for someone, there's nothing more rewarding. I don't love terms like A, B, C players because we categorize people as if they're static. "He's a C player. She's an A player." But it's more like, in this moment and season of their life or our business, this is where they fall. It doesn't mean they're static. What we want to do is look at our B's and C's and ask, "How can I help them elevate to their best level?"
--:-- I want everyone on my team at their A—not our A. They have to hit business metrics and perform, but if I can have everyone at their version of A as often as possible, that's how you hit true escape velocity. You're not going to have everyone at a quote-unquote A level way up here all the time. Johnny's version of A might be that he only sells at the minimum requirement each month, but he also does X, Y, and Z that help the business in other ways. Getting people up to their A is about raising them up. Our goal as leaders shouldn't be to have a team where all our A's are exactly the same, but to have as many people operating at their version of an A as possible.
--:-- I have severely hyperactive ADHD, so there are 10,000 things going on in my brain. I've had to come up with these reframes. Johnny doesn't have to be the same A as Sally. Sally's version of A is being a killer who puts up max revenue. Johnny hits his A though. He shows up happy, communicates, comes to parties, supports people. He doesn't sell as much, but he sells enough and he's super happy. Why are we going to knock him because Sally's an absolute sales monster? He's operating at his A. It's a better way of viewing it.
--:-- Carl Sherrill: I love that reframing. If I want you to operate at your best, I need to help you understand what that looks like. Not everyone has a view of that. If we're not careful, the outside influence of the world will dictate to someone what they should be chasing as their A-level. I'd rather help them understand what their A-level is in life and have a real conversation about it, instead of chasing someone else's desire for what they should be.
--:-- I know people who don't play sports hate when podcasters talk about sports, but I'll do it for a second. I played football, basketball, and baseball. Football was my number one until I got three concussions my senior season and ended up playing baseball in college. I think about a football team with this idea of everyone at their A. A middle linebacker or quarterback has a defined A, and they're often highlighted. But don't you also want your long snapper to be an A long snapper? If he throws the ball 10 feet over the punter's head, you're in a bad position. You don't need him to be an A middle linebacker. You need him to be an A long snapper. If we think through our businesses that way, it helps us not compare people who shouldn't be compared. Comparison is good to an extent, but it can create negativity if it gets out of hand. Sometimes it's lazy leadership to apply everyone to the same standard and judge them accordingly, because we're not all the same humans.
--:-- Carl Sherrill: I had a coach in high school. I was a good athlete at one thing. I played soccer growing up—I wasn't great, but good enough to hang out with my buddies. My freshman year, I played soccer. At the end of the season, wrestling started. I'd never wrestled. I was a 97-pound tiny kid, so football wasn't an option. Wrestling put you in a category with similar people through weight divisions. I went and wrestled, fell in love with it, and was pretty good.
--:-- The wrestling coach was also the soccer coach. My sophomore year, I showed up for soccer spring practice. Two days in, the coach came over and said, "If you want to play JV soccer and sit on the bench most of the year, you're welcome to do that. But let me ask you: we've got guys from the wrestling team doing preseason work. Would you be interested? I think you could be a really great wrestler." He had that uncomfortable conversation to say, "Here's the reality. You can muddle around here, or I see an A player over there. If you put the time in, that's where I think you should be. But you still have to decide." I chose to take his advice, had a great wrestling career, and it goes back to putting people in a position to be successful. People want to be successful. They don't want to show up and do a bad job. But if I tell them to be someone they're not, that dynamic will never work. It will stress them out and make the environment difficult.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: What a great example of someone being "the one" for you in the moment you needed them. Very well said. I have one last question. Our children are often our most honest critics. When you first pitched this idea of "Be the One" to them, what feedback did you get? Did they buy into it, or were they like, "Dad, what are you talking about now?"
--:-- Carl Sherrill: My kids were a little older when this began to develop, and they've always been super supportive. I get a lot of eye rolls. I try to use words they use—six, seven, rizz—to connect. I have no idea what I'm saying half the time. I ask them, "What are you saying?" They have no idea. My daughter and boys roll their eyes regularly because I like to be awkward and embarrassing for them.
--:-- But on this topic, we've had a lot of conversations about how it influenced our family. When I was going through this with my son—my wife was involved, but I was the one struggling to help him—it caused tension and issues within the family dynamic. My whole family has gone on this journey together. When I talk about this idea, they're so supportive. My middle son, who was my main inspiration, is very open. He and I have honest, vulnerable conversations about how we grew together through that journey. It was difficult at times, but we grew together. He wants the story to be out. We want it out because of the impact we can have. If I help one dad have a better day with one of his kids, that's good enough for me. I want to change something on a small level regularly.
--:-- They think it's funny that I take selfies on stage during talks. They can't stand that. I show pictures of them in my presentations—they're not a fan. But on this topic in my heart about helping others, we've all lived it. I've got great support from them. They're older, more mature. Ideally, I'd love for my son and I to tell our stories independently but together, because he is as much a part of this as I am.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's phenomenal. You're not alone. My children love to bust my chops about the videos and everything, but they also love it. I catch them when someone gets a funky face in a picture—that's the one they'll text me. I'm like, "Really? Of all the shots, that's the one?" There's some universal truth in that with kids.
--:-- Carl, I could talk to you all day. Your story is phenomenal. I'm a huge fan of you in the industry—I've watched you grow and watched Highstreet grow. What I saw on stage was a message that needs to spread. For people who've heard this and want to get deeper into your world, who think this idea of "Be the One" can help them in leadership or with their family, where can they go?
--:-- Carl Sherrill: The best way is to connect with me on social media. I'm out there, so it's not hard to find me. LinkedIn is probably the best way to catch me, but my email is out there too. I'm more than willing to have more conversations on this topic. Same to you, Ryan. I've known of you and followed you throughout our different places in the industry. We never really overlapped until that conference. It was great to see you. I appreciate your feedback and the opportunity to spread this message.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I'll have Carl's socials linked up—whether you're watching on YouTube or listening, just scroll down. And Carl, if this becomes a book, love to have you back on the show. I'm an enormous fan. Guys, if you put on events, Carl is a great storyteller. This is a wonderful keynote that hits both the personal and business side. I appreciate the hell out of you, man. Glad you're out there sharing the message.
--:-- Carl Sherrill: Ryan, thanks so much. I really appreciate it.
