Ep 141 When Fear Masks Your Talent

00:00:00: Well, your self-esteem can't be as high as your last victory

00:00:03: or as low as your last defeat.

00:00:05: It's gotta be constant.

00:00:07: Hi, and welcome to Lead Well!.

00:00:14: My guest today is Alen Weiss, a consultant, speaker, and author who has

00:00:19: worked with more than 500 organizations, including GE, Merck, and Mercedes-Benz.

00:00:24: Alen, you have written more than 60 books.

00:00:26: I, I'm in complete awe here.

00:00:29: In your forthcoming book, The Courage of Your Talent, you ask how

00:00:34: we can trust our judgment and our abilities without making our worth

00:00:38: depend on every success or setback.

00:00:41: Alen, welcome to Lead Well.

00:00:43: Thank you, Christine.

00:00:44: I appreciate it.

00:00:45: So it's, it's a really interesting conversation because when we think about

00:00:50: our talents and our confidence that we are good enough, so many people lack that.

00:00:57: So when, when you have this conviction and this confidence in yourself, so

00:01:03: when you walk into a room where you're about to meet someone powerful and

00:01:09: know that the conversation mattered, what do you suggest to do in the

00:01:15: minute before we walk in there?

00:01:18: It's a little too late then, Christine.

00:01:20: I mean, I, I think what you have to do in the minute before,

00:01:24: to answer your question, just erase your mind and be calm.

00:01:27: Think happy thoughts.

00:01:29: And at that point, it's going to help you.

00:01:30: I, I'll give you a quick example.

00:01:32: I was working for State Street Bank, and I was doing a lot of work with them, but

00:01:36: a big global project came up about…

00:01:38: would've been about $350,000 for me, and they said, "You have to meet the CEO

00:01:44: because we can't approve this." I said, "Fine." So the CEO had an office about

00:01:48: the size of a football, football field, and he had awards all over the, the walls,

00:01:53: and he had stuff hanging from the ceiling.

00:01:54: He had been an army officer, very prestigious and very

00:01:57: respected in the industry.

00:01:58: And I sit down, and he said, "So you're the consultant?" I said,

00:02:01: "I am." He said, "Listen, tell me something." I said, "Sure." He said,

00:02:04: "Over the last five years, we've had 22% annual compound growth every year.

00:02:08: Why do we need you?" Now, if I had said, "Oh, well, you know,

00:02:12: I'm Mr. So-and-So, if… I can certainly help, but you have a…"

00:02:15: I'm out of there, right?

00:02:16: So I said to him immediately, because my mind was empty, I was just waiting, I was

00:02:19: in the moment- … I said, "How do you know it shouldn't have been 34%?" And he

00:02:22: looked at me, he said, "You're hired." I turned around and walked out, and I

00:02:26: was a third of a million dollars richer.

00:02:28: And so ironically, you can't be thinking of a script.

00:02:31: You can't be thinking of what you want to say next.

00:02:33: You have to stay in the moment, and so you empty your mind.

00:02:36: No nerves.

00:02:37: It's not the end of the world.

00:02:38: Nobody's shooting at you.

00:02:39: I found, if I, if I may, Christine, I found that when I was working with Fo-

00:02:42: Fortune 500 companies, 85% of the time I was asked in, it was to validate.

00:02:48: The top team had good ideas, but they just wanted an outside opinion.

00:02:51: Didn't quite trust their judgment completely.

00:02:53: And when I made the transition to entrepreneurialism about 10, 15 years

00:02:57: ago, the same thing with individuals who are making six, seven figures, had

00:03:02: wonderful clients, but they weren't sufficiently sure of themselves.

00:03:06: So I decided with this book I would look into that.

00:03:09: Okay.

00:03:10: Now I, I do have a question because, yes, I know that a lot of people

00:03:15: are kind of suffering from imposter syndrome and don't think they're

00:03:20: as good as they think they are.

00:03:22: But then I've run into quite a few people also where I would

00:03:27: suspect the Dunning-Kruger effect, where their ego was probably a

00:03:31: bit bigger than their talent was.

00:03:34: Right.

00:03:34: So how do you go about this, situation?

00:03:36: Well, let me say two things.

00:03:37: First of all, you're exactly right.

00:03:39: The, the, the imposter syndrome is when you have tremendous talent but not

00:03:43: enough self-esteem, and the other one is when you have all this sort of ego

00:03:47: but you don't really have the talent.

00:03:48: We, we call that the empty suit.

00:03:50: In Texas they call it big hat, no cattle, right?

00:03:53: So let me make some definitions here.

00:03:54: You started with confidence.

00:03:55: Confidence is the, the God-given belief that you can help other people.

00:04:01: Arrogance is the belief you have nothing left to learn yourself.

00:04:04: And smugness is arrogance without the talent.

00:04:08: And so when you begin to separate things, ego is an external construct.

00:04:13: It's what you wear, what you, where you live, how you act, what you

00:04:17: drive, and you create this so that you create something that people

00:04:20: see, and it can be shattered.

00:04:22: Somebody comes along and says you're wrong, you make a bad

00:04:24: error, but egos are fragile.

00:04:26: Esteem is different.

00:04:27: Esteem is internal.

00:04:29: It's a feeling of self-worth.

00:04:31: If I don't get the sale, I'm still a worthy person.

00:04:33: If I don't get, win the game, I'm still a worthy person.

00:04:36: By dint of my humanity, I'm worthy.

00:04:39: The problem here is that unlike ego, which is external, since esteem is internal,

00:04:44: it's destroyed by neglect, and we don't do enough to build our own self-esteem,

00:04:50: and consequently we become very uncertain and we don't trust our own judgment.

00:04:55: But do I need a series of success to really build my self-esteem,

00:04:59: or what if I lacked a success?

00:05:01: How can I still build that, that self-confidence and self-esteem?

00:05:06: Well, your self-esteem can't be as high as your last victory

00:05:10: or as low as your last defeat.

00:05:11: It's gotta be constant.

00:05:13: And so we have self-worth, as I said.

00:05:15: By dint of our humanity, we have self-worth, and so we cannot

00:05:20: take a loss, a setback, some difficulty as lowering our esteem.

00:05:26: We're still worthy people, and the resilience, which is important today,

00:05:30: I think it's one of the two or three most important traits of a great leader.

00:05:33: Resilience is about bouncing forward, not bouncing backward and

00:05:36: saying, "Let's defend ourselves."

00:05:37: About bouncing forward.

00:05:38: So consequently, you have to have this innate belief that you're

00:05:42: worthy, but if, if a defeat brings you down, your self-esteem, you're

00:05:47: gonna be less effective next time and you're in a vicious negative cycle.

00:05:51: Hmm, yeah.

00:05:53: And so- I just have to kind of convince myself that I'm worth it.

00:05:58: Well, fortunately I have ways to do that.

00:06:01: Okay.

00:06:02: I mean, you don't just convince yourself or everybody have high self-esteem.

00:06:05: No, it- you-- we have to avoid the negative loop I talked about

00:06:08: and create a positive loop.

00:06:09: So I'll give examples of… We have to learn to isolate negatives

00:06:12: and generalize positives, 'cause we usually do the opposite.

00:06:15: In other words, we don't get a sale, and we say, "God, I'm a lousy marketer."

00:06:20: So now we've generalized this negative.

00:06:21: But instead what we should say is, "In this place, at this

00:06:24: time, with this person, I didn't make a sale." We isolate it.

00:06:28: If we do make the sale, we don't say, "Well, I got lucky." We say,

00:06:31: "I've become quite a marketer."

00:06:33: Now, if you wanna see the real damaging effects of doing this incorrectly, if

00:06:38: you think of children or kids, if you say to your kid, "You know, watching

00:06:41: your game, you're really awkward out there. It's, it's kind of embarrassing."

00:06:45: Kid's gonna shy away from sports, right?

00:06:47: But if you say, "Don't worry about that missed kick.

00:06:49: Nobody could have made that kick," now you've isolated the negative.

00:06:54: The kid comes back with a, you know, first year in high school, first year

00:06:57: in college, whatever, 100 on a test, you don't say, "You got lucky," you

00:07:01: say, "You've become quite a scholar." So first of all, we have to do that.

00:07:05: The second tactic is in the morning when we get up, we have to say to

00:07:08: ourselves, "Here are three things I'm gonna do today that are very

00:07:10: positive, personal and professional."

00:07:12: And we have to be realistic.

00:07:13: I'm not gonna clean out the garage.

00:07:14: I'm gonna clean out three shelves in the garage.

00:07:16: That's doable, right?

00:07:17: I'm gonna provide some help to somebody who needs it.

00:07:20: I know they can't pay me.

00:07:20: I'm gonna do this pro bono.

00:07:22: At the end of the day, you know, and that takes 30 seconds, at the end of the day,

00:07:26: we reflect back and we think of three things that we did that were positive.

00:07:30: They might not be the same things we talked about in the morning, but we say,

00:07:33: you know, I attended a meeting, held in the city here, and I provided some

00:07:38: good input in terms of what the, youth league should look like and so forth.

00:07:42: And the reason for this, building up first thing in the morning, last thing

00:07:45: at night, these positive thoughts, is that I believe people get up

00:07:48: in the morning in one of two ways.

00:07:51: They either get up saying, "I have bills to pay.

00:07:53: I gotta make a very difficult call to somebody who owes me money.

00:07:56: I have to attend this event that my spouse wants me to attend.

00:07:58: I don't want to go." That's a long, slow crawl through enemy territory,

00:08:01: right? And it colors your whole day. Or they wake up saying, "What a

00:08:05: beautiful day, full of opportunities.

00:08:06: I wonder what I should do next." Those are some things you can do

00:08:10: to build your esteem, and your esteem has to be built up by you.

00:08:13: You can't count on other people 'cause other people lie.

00:08:16: Okay.

00:08:16: So what about feedback?

00:08:18: I think you also say that people should not take unsolicited feedback,

00:08:22: so what's your take on that?

00:08:24: Well, y- people sometimes mistake what I say here.

00:08:26: You shouldn't accept feedback from people you didn't ask because

00:08:29: it's always for the sender.

00:08:30: You know?

00:08:31: It's always for the sender.

00:08:32: But you should have people in your life who you trust, and you

00:08:35: should take feedback from them by asking them, "How did I do?

00:08:38: What did this look like?

00:08:39: What do you suggest?" And you should give it to them, too, when they ask for it.

00:08:43: And that's a big difference because if you, if you are damaged by unsolicited

00:08:47: feedback, which is for the other person, not for you, you're gonna

00:08:50: be a ping pong ball here, you know, just smacked around back and forth.

00:08:53: And the real damage is… You know, I've seen people, say, get up, make a

00:08:56: presentation on stage, and everybody say, "You were great. You were

00:08:59: great." But they weren't great, and so they have no chance to improve now.

00:09:02: Very damaging.

00:09:03: So pick, pick the people to whom you want to listen.

00:09:06: And how do I find those?

00:09:08: Well, you should develop friends.

00:09:09: You should develop people who will do that, and I would suggest that you

00:09:12: think about people perhaps who are in clubs you belong to, who you meet at

00:09:17: places because you belong to the same organizations, who are friends of yours

00:09:21: that, sometimes you socialize with.

00:09:23: They don't have… you don't need 40 people.

00:09:25: You need three or four people.

00:09:27: Often they could be an advisor.

00:09:28: They could be, say, a financial advisor you have or a designer or someone like

00:09:33: that whose taste you trust and who have given you good advice about other things.

00:09:37: Could be somebody like that.

00:09:38: But one of the problems we have today with our esteem is that we treat it as ego,

00:09:43: and we allow it to be battered by people who tell us things that aren't accurate.

00:09:47: Okay.

00:09:48: And so we listen to them more than our inner voice.

00:09:50: That's right, because we don't trust our judgment.

00:09:52: Goes back to that issue.

00:09:53: Mm. Now, the other concept that you're working on in your book is accountability.

00:10:01: So I, I used to work in an environment where quite a lot of leaders had a lot

00:10:08: of responsibility, but not a lot of power to change things or to really

00:10:15: have an impact on, for example, who got hired, how the teams were set up.

00:10:20: So what, what do you suggest in this environment, such an environment?

00:10:24: That's another good point, and that is that there's a difference

00:10:27: between accountability and authority.

00:10:28: And so when I work as a consultant or advisor with people, I tell them, "Look,

00:10:33: I have accountability to you here.

00:10:34: I have to create, or solve or promote what I tell you I will,

00:10:38: and, I have to do it within the confines that we've agreed upon.

00:10:42: However, I'm going to need you as my partner 'cause you have

00:10:45: the authority to move things.

00:10:47: You can change people's positions, you can reward them, you can punish them,

00:10:50: and so forth." And sometimes that's necessary because if I just tell them

00:10:52: to do something, there's no then.

00:10:55: In other words, there's an if, but no then.

00:10:57: But if you tell them they have to do it or suffer the consequences- If you're

00:11:01: a leader without authority, you're gonna have a very tough time in life.

00:11:04: I find that most leaders, who feel they lack authority don't really

00:11:08: lack authority, but they're afraid to use it because they wanna be liked.

00:11:13: They want affection and not respect.

00:11:15: And what I talked a- about the traits of really top leaders earlier, the, the

00:11:19: key to a leader is to be able to make decisions that might not be popular

00:11:23: but are necessary for the business.

00:11:24: When they asked me to take over the ballet here as president of the board

00:11:28: from the outside, I said, "Look, I, I'll do it, but I'll run it as a business."

00:11:32: They said, "Well, we're going out of business, so we need

00:11:33: you." The debt was terrible.

00:11:35: They had exhausted their credit loans, and I realized that the,

00:11:38: the 23-year artistic director, who was a friend of mine, had to go.

00:11:43: Very tough decision, but he had to go.

00:11:45: When I left three years later, they had a million dollars in the bank,

00:11:48: and they were a business, and they were a very esteemed arts group.

00:11:51: You have to be willing to be unpopular, you know?

00:11:53: If, if you need affection, get a dog.

00:11:55: I have two dogs over here laying on the floor.

00:11:57: Get a dog.

00:11:58: Okay.

00:11:59: But, but what about… Because at the m- at the beginning, you also said that

00:12:03: self-esteem and my own worth is based on that I am doing good for others.

00:12:09: This could be seen as a bit of a discrepancy because if I'm making hard

00:12:13: decisions, also I'm letting people go, is that not counter really being caring?

00:12:21: We are not employment agencies.

00:12:23: We are not in the, in the… We are not evangelists in terms of a, of a

00:12:27: spirituality or religion or an ethic.

00:12:30: We are looking out for the best interests of a wider group of people.

00:12:34: And so I deal with executives, I deal with entrepreneurs

00:12:36: who affected a lot of people.

00:12:38: And I will tell you first that firing someone often does them

00:12:43: more justice than keeping them.

00:12:45: If they stay, you know, they're a pariah.

00:12:47: If they stay, they're unhappy.

00:12:48: If they stay, there's no future for them.

00:12:50: If you terminate someone with a good package and with the, the best possible

00:12:54: conditions, they find something else.

00:12:56: And this is gonna happen more and more with AI, you know,

00:12:59: as we look to the future.

00:13:00: However, if we try to make people happy at the cost of the organization, at

00:13:05: the cost of the customers, at the cost of the investors, that's a crime.

00:13:09: Okay.

00:13:10: And- I guess not every decision that a leader is taking or that you have been

00:13:17: taking in your life was a good one.

00:13:20: So what's your take on admitting mistakes and changing your mind?

00:13:25: Well, you admit mistakes, and you admit them as fast as you can.

00:13:27: You don't try to stonewall.

00:13:29: I love people who say, you know, they're in big trouble for something they said,

00:13:32: and an apology about three weeks later.

00:13:34: They said, "It's me." Of course it was you.

00:13:37: That was you.

00:13:38: I recognize you.

00:13:39: Yeah, that was you.

00:13:40: So when you make an error, either advertently or inadvertently, when you

00:13:45: offend someone, when it's your fault, the first thing you do is recognize it.

00:13:50: The second thing you do is you apologize, privately or

00:13:53: publicly, whatever's appropriate.

00:13:55: The third thing is you fix it if you can.

00:13:57: You atone for it if you can.

00:13:58: You provide a free service.

00:13:59: You return money.

00:14:00: You build something new.

00:14:02: But of course, you can't always do that if the other offended party

00:14:04: is deceased or has moved away.

00:14:07: And then after you do all that, you move on.

00:14:09: And the key to self-worth is that you know you're still a worthy person.

00:14:14: You made a mistake, but you're still a worthy person, but you

00:14:17: move on, having learned a lesson.

00:14:19: That's the accumulation of that.

00:14:21: You learn the lesson, you don't repeat it.

00:14:22: But I'll tell you something I've learned, and that is pain is

00:14:26: real and pain is unavoidable at times, but suffering is voluntary.

00:14:32: And so if you apologize, and atone, and learn, and move on correctly, you can't

00:14:38: erase the mistake, but you could have learned from it and perhaps atoned for it,

00:14:42: and then you move on with an empty slate.

00:14:46: You don't let it bother you forever because guilt masks talent.

00:14:50: Hmm.

00:14:50: Say more.

00:14:52: Guilt, stress, and fear mask talent, so if you feel guilty, if you have

00:14:56: high stress, which are, you know, accompany each other, or if you fear

00:14:59: things, you know, your, your talent, your true talent will never come out

00:15:03: because you're always on the defensive.

00:15:04: You're always worried.

00:15:05: I don't wanna repeat that.

00:15:06: I wonder what they'll say about me.

00:15:08: What if I'm wrong?

00:15:09: Okay?

00:15:09: Again, it's a judgment issue.

00:15:11: And, you know, we talk about flight or fight a lot, but there's also fright.

00:15:16: And, you know, the deer in the headlights, which is the metaphor

00:15:20: we always use, it's not gonna fight.

00:15:22: It can't fight a car, and it can… Flight is possible 'cause it can run like

00:15:26: hell, but it's so frightened sometimes it stands there, and it's damaged.

00:15:29: It's killed So we have to get rid of those things, and the way we get rid of guilt

00:15:35: is by trying to make it right, recognizing it, but not prolonging the suffering.

00:15:39: And, you know, in, in the major religions, there's always a

00:15:42: period where you mourn a death.

00:15:45: The Jews sh- sit shiva, and, Christians have a wake or a viewing they call it.

00:15:50: The Muslims have something, I'm not quite sure what it is.

00:15:52: And then you, y- you move on after that.

00:15:54: You've, you've mourned.

00:15:55: But too often we carry the pain way too long.

00:16:00: I'd liken it to people who don't go to the dentist 'cause they don't like the

00:16:04: idea of a, of a needle in their gum and a drill, so they have a prolonged toothache.

00:16:09: But if they just go to the dentist and get that done, they're healthy.

00:16:12: For some people, it's a, it's a, it's a relationship, it's a marriage, and

00:16:17: they don't want the pain of a divorce.

00:16:18: The pain of a divorce is very real, but if you, if you face the pain,

00:16:23: you're not gonna have a long-term horrible marriage for the next 20 years.

00:16:26: Hmm.

00:16:26: So the avoidance is causing more pain, you're saying, that the

00:16:29: actual… than the actual fact?

00:16:32: That's right, and if you, if you take a look, procrastination is a form of fear,

00:16:36: and people don't finish things because the fear of being blamed for not finishing

00:16:43: is less than the fear of finishing and, and making an error with your

00:16:47: finished product that people critique.

00:16:49: Hmm, okay.

00:16:50: That's an interesting, interesting way of looking at it.

00:16:54: Now, let me bring two things together that you just said, because you talked

00:16:58: about the, the freeze state where you, we cannot even move forward, and at the

00:17:02: beginning you talked about a situation where you walked into a CEO's room and,

00:17:07: well, with no agenda, but, you, you had a very, very swift response there.

00:17:12: Some of us, they are just going blank in such a situation.

00:17:16: So what can I do as a usually talented person if I am in a

00:17:21: situation where I'm like- Well, okay.

00:17:24: I'm-- it's, it's as if my brain has stopped working because I no

00:17:28: longer have any idea of what to say.

00:17:30: That's, that's very valuable.

00:17:31: My father volunteered in 1940 for the first parachute regiment ever

00:17:36: formed in the United States Army.

00:17:37: Volunteered.

00:17:38: And of course, next year was Pearl Harbor, and he wound up jumping

00:17:41: into enemy guns in New Guinea.

00:17:43: Survived the war, lived to, lived to just about 100.

00:17:45: And, you know, I asked him once why he did that.

00:17:47: He said, "Well, I, it seemed like a good idea at the time." Now, when Coney

00:17:51: Island was open in New York, he took me on something called the parachute jump.

00:17:54: I was five or six years old, and I was screaming my head off.

00:17:57: Just frightened out of my mind.

00:17:59: You're way up in the air, people look like ants.

00:18:01: He said, "Stop crying," he says as we're going.

00:18:03: I said, "Dad, for God sakes, look, they're gonna drop us." He said,

00:18:07: he said, "I did this," he said.

00:18:11: I said, "Yeah, but you were a paratrooper."

00:18:13: He said, "Yes, but nobody is shooting at you." And what I wanna

00:18:16: say in reaction to your question is when you walk into an executive's

00:18:19: office, nobody's shooting at you.

00:18:20: You're not gonna come out with less money than you walked in with.

00:18:23: You're not gonna come out damaged.

00:18:25: The best you can come out with is a nice project, and at worst,

00:18:29: no project, and you'll learn something because you didn't get it.

00:18:32: And so when I say you have to empty your mind, you need to

00:18:35: focus on what you're being told.

00:18:37: Nerves prevent that.

00:18:38: It n- masks talent.

00:18:39: You know?

00:18:39: Fear, stress masks talent.

00:18:41: Remo-- I tell people before they speak on stage, listen to music that you like

00:18:46: or listen to a comedy routine you like.

00:18:48: Do not chat with people, okay?

00:18:49: Somebody will say, "Oh, the guy yesterday was terrific. You'll never beat him."

00:18:52: You know, you don't wanna hear that.

00:18:54: So you want an empty mind, and you wanna focus on what the other person is saying,

00:18:59: and you use that to find the pivot point.

00:19:02: So if s- if the buyer is saying, "You know, I s- I played golf yesterday

00:19:06: and I, I really had a good day.

00:19:07: I read the green correctly, you know?

00:19:09: And it-- that's not easy to do." I s-- And I would say, "You know something?

00:19:13: I bet it's not easy to read the talents of your employees either and know who

00:19:17: to promote and so forth, you know?

00:19:20: And that's what I'm, that's what I'm really expert at." And then

00:19:23: we have a conversation, see?

00:19:25: Now, I didn't know he'd bring up golf, but I can take anything like

00:19:28: that and turn it where I need it to go because I'm listening to

00:19:30: what the other person's saying.

00:19:32: And so we have to listen to what they're saying and turn it into a

00:19:36: route that matches both our interests

00:19:40: And use it as an example for something that we wanna bring across

00:19:43: I'll give you an extreme example.

00:19:45: I walked into a room and the guy says to me, "Look," he says, "Figure…"

00:19:49: "Look," he says, "I'm meeting you out of courtesy, but this company's

00:19:52: never hired a consultant, and I'm not breaking that rule." I said, "You know,

00:19:57: I'm glad to hear that 'cause I can't tell you how many of my best customers

00:20:01: started the conversation the same way."

00:20:02: So I reframed the issue.

00:20:05: His frame was, we don't hire consultants.

00:20:07: My frame was, everybody who says that becomes a client.

00:20:11: So it's easy to do because nobody's shooting at you.

00:20:14: They… You… Nobody is marking your, your performance.

00:20:18: Mm-hmm.

00:20:18: Mm-hmm.

00:20:19: Yeah, and as you said, there is nothing to lose.

00:20:21: There is only th- something to win.

00:20:23: That's right.

00:20:23: So if you have, if you have strong, s- high self-esteem, you know that

00:20:29: you belong there, you're worthy.

00:20:30: A lot of people walk into that room you're talking about and they

00:20:32: say, "Oh, this is a large office.

00:20:34: You know, he's got a $40 million budget.

00:20:36: She's got 200 employees.

00:20:38: You know, what am I doing here?"

00:20:39: And now you're in trouble.

00:20:42: Yeah.

00:20:43: Sure.

00:20:44: Wow.

00:20:44: Now out, out of your years of experience, what would you say is the biggest learning

00:20:50: that you've taken away from your career?

00:20:53: The biggest learning from my career, if I had to choose one… I'll

00:20:57: give you- I'm gonna give you two, but here's the one, the first one.

00:21:00: This is a relationship business.

00:21:02: In, in 1984, Megatrends came out by John Naisbitt, and he said,

00:21:05: in 1984, high tech, high touch.

00:21:07: Now we have higher tech than ever, right?

00:21:10: Now we need higher touch than ever.

00:21:11: And I realized when I went out on my own in '85 that this

00:21:15: is a relationship business.

00:21:16: So it doesn't matter what your age is, doesn't matter what your

00:21:18: background is, your ethnicity, your gender, none of that matters.

00:21:21: What matters is can you create a relationship and provide value to people?

00:21:26: And the second thing I would tell you is that it's all about value.

00:21:30: Anybody who's basing fees on time units, hours, days, so what, is, is just silly.

00:21:36: They're underachieving.

00:21:38: It's the… We shouldn't talk about what we do.

00:21:40: We should talk about what we create for others.

00:21:43: That's the value.

00:21:44: Wow.

00:21:45: That's a big sentence to end an interview.

00:21:48: Thank you so much for sharing all your wisdom.

00:21:51: Well, not all your wisdom.

00:21:53: Tiny part of your wisdom, I guess, Alan.

00:21:55: It was great to have you on this show.

00:21:57: Thank you so much.

00:21:59: Christine, thank you.

00:21:59: I really enjoyed it.

00:22:00: You ask great questions and, it was, it was a nice conversation.

00:22:03: Thank you.

00:22:04: Thank you.

00:22:06: This was Lead Well!

00:22:08: Now what is the one thing that you're taking away from this episode?

00:22:12: Please share in the comments below and do share the podcast with your friends

00:22:15: and family, but only if you like it.