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1:03

You're listening to the Elevate Podcast and I'm

1:06

your host Robert Glazer. Join me

1:08

as I talk to world -class performers about how

1:10

they build their capacity and reach greater heights in

1:12

leadership, business, and life and how you can do

1:15

the same. Welcome

1:20

to the Elevate Podcast and we're back

1:23

with another edition of Weekend Conversations. Each

1:25

week we'll take a deeper dive into an

1:28

article or interview that I published and joining

1:30

me as always is Mick Sloan, producer of

1:32

the Elevate Podcast. Today we're

1:34

going to dig into this week's

1:36

Friday Forward titled Bad Misses. So

1:38

the kickoff point here is about

1:41

the many professional forums that you're

1:43

in. And you're in a lot

1:45

as someone who knows what your

1:47

calendar is like. So these forums

1:50

have pretty strict rules about attendance

1:52

and rescheduling. Can you talk about

1:54

those forums and those strict rules? Sure.

1:57

And, you know, this is... There's

1:59

a bunch of different groups that use

2:01

this format, but I've been in

2:03

sort of EO and YPO forums

2:05

for different forums for a few

2:07

years now. And you're talking about

2:09

five or six CEOs or entrepreneurs

2:12

kind of getting together once a

2:14

month and having sort of a

2:16

mastermind best practices board meeting. And

2:18

these are all busy executives. So

2:20

you're likely to have lots of

2:22

things going on, a baseball playoff,

2:24

coaching this, that. If

2:27

everyone starts kind of trying to change

2:30

the meetings, it all falls apart. So

2:32

there's some tenets and there's constitutions in

2:34

the well -run forums that actually stay

2:37

together. You tend to pick the

2:39

meetings a year out. Put them

2:41

on everyone's calendar people know that things

2:43

come up if you have a conflict

2:45

you actually have to go Check new

2:47

dates with everyone change it and move

2:49

it and you get kind of one

2:51

free miss a year and most groups

2:54

either have a policy like on the

2:56

second one if you miss the retreat

2:58

you're out and on the second one

3:00

Sometimes you're automatically out or you have

3:02

to be unanimously voted back back in

3:04

and you know when people start in

3:06

these groups they they have

3:08

a lot of angst or all kinds

3:10

of like scenario discussions. Well, what's going

3:13

to happen at this and this and

3:15

this and like, look, like if your

3:17

kid is in a car accident or

3:19

something, obviously, like no one's,

3:21

but that is not where the problems

3:23

start. The problems start with you book

3:26

another meeting too close. You forget, you

3:28

know, about some practice and, you know,

3:30

maybe, yeah, you're coaching the little league

3:32

team, but you got to take that

3:34

one off. And that's what that. that

3:37

misses for, right? That misses sort of

3:39

a totally free get out of jail

3:41

card. And it's

3:43

hard for people to kind of

3:45

understand that, but the standard I've

3:47

always tried to explain to new

3:49

members or people when new group

3:52

is formed is kind of a

3:54

board meeting, right? So if

3:56

you had a board meeting, obviously, if you

3:58

have some medical emergency going on, you're gonna

4:00

skip. Right. But you are not going to

4:03

tell someone 10 minutes before the board meeting

4:05

that you're going to be half hour late.

4:07

You're not going to walk out of the

4:09

board meeting to take an hour call in

4:12

the middle of it. Like somehow we don't

4:14

have the same agitas about a board meeting

4:16

where you're so worried about the world falling

4:18

apart in terms of committing to a board

4:21

meeting. Right. And these happen monthly for a

4:23

lot of companies. So that's the principle. I

4:25

mean, I've been in some groups. I haven't

4:28

missed in. six years, you know, in one

4:30

of those groups. But

4:32

that's otherwise the groups that don't

4:34

work. basically get into

4:36

this slippery slope. And I was in

4:39

one where I really liked the people,

4:41

but I could see it starting, hey,

4:43

I'm late for the meeting. Oh, I

4:45

forgot I'm coaching this practice. And the

4:47

other person's like, I gave up a

4:49

speaking gig today. Like, you know, or,

4:51

and you start sort of, it starts

4:53

lowering the bar rather than raising the

4:55

bar. And then the forms devolve pretty

4:57

quickly because you're comparing that person's commitment

4:59

to your commitment. So well, it sounds

5:01

egregious, like. Again, that's sort of one

5:03

mess. And as we'll

5:05

talk about, I think the mistake is

5:07

on sometimes how people choose to use

5:09

that. It's a form of a social

5:12

contract, really. And you said someone in

5:14

your forum gave up a speaking engagement

5:16

to make room for a meeting. You

5:19

can you can site yourself here i know

5:22

that there are dates and speaking dates we've

5:24

had to either decline or we've had to

5:26

really like deal with the client to like

5:28

change their event around. Because there are these

5:30

forums are so important and can't be missed

5:33

and it's exactly for the reason that you're

5:35

saying anytime you have a group of people.

5:38

If there is someone who misses

5:40

something for you know if they

5:42

say oh like i forgot i

5:45

booked a flight for. Three

5:47

o 'clock and you know I could change

5:49

it to six o 'clock, but I that

5:51

would be I'd have to pay a change

5:53

fee and be difficult, etc And then everyone

5:56

else in the group is thinking well look

5:58

there are things that I could have wanted

6:01

to reschedule this or miss this because, but

6:03

everyone has to show up because that's the

6:05

only way the group works. It's that

6:07

collective thing. And it's about,

6:09

I would think honoring the responsibility you

6:12

have to people. Yeah. And after, after

6:14

more than a decade, you

6:16

know, in these groups, it's super easy to

6:18

spot the trends. So here's what a good

6:20

miss looks like. There's sort of a two

6:23

by two matrix of really important and really

6:25

urgent. A good miss looks like my wife's

6:27

appendix ruptured this morning. Right. And I'm not

6:30

going to be able to make it. Or,

6:33

again, if you're paying attention, hey,

6:35

I know we laid out the, look,

6:38

busy executive exchange. We, I know we

6:40

laid out, you know, September and it's

6:42

July, but like our industry conference just

6:44

got scheduled for that day. And I'm

6:46

the keynote speaker. And this is like

6:48

our core industry conference. Well, so again,

6:50

the responsibility shifts to you to go

6:52

to everyone and move it and find

6:54

a new date. Right. So, so I

6:56

always say like these, the,

6:58

the, the urgent. But not known

7:00

thing, maybe it's urgent and known

7:02

as the two by two. The

7:05

urgent and not known should be

7:07

a real medical emergency. And

7:10

not like I have to coach the game. That's

7:12

what you have assistant coaches for. Again, would you

7:14

tell your board of your company that you couldn't

7:16

come because you had a little league game at

7:19

night? No, if there's 14 of them, you miss

7:21

one of them. You don't bail on the board

7:23

meeting. The really bad

7:25

ones, as you said, there were

7:27

just who didn't pay attention. So

7:29

they forgot that they didn't schedule

7:31

to be home or they forgot

7:33

some conflict or they and they

7:35

just didn't look until the day

7:37

or two before and now realize

7:39

they have a problem These were

7:42

all and this is where patients

7:44

grows. Look, these were all foreseeable.

7:46

You just weren't paying attention and

7:48

again How how would that have

7:50

showed up in the board? boardroom

7:52

context. Again, I've seen all

7:54

people so stressed about this rule around,

7:57

what about this emergency? And of course, if

7:59

you're selling your company and you're closing the

8:01

deal on that day, like everyone's gonna understand,

8:03

like you're not gonna do something stupid. But

8:05

generally, how many board meetings do

8:07

you attend that you miss out of an

8:09

emergency? So there's just more. And

8:12

again, the bad ones are it was

8:14

urgent, but not important. And in most

8:16

cases, you weren't paying attention. And because

8:18

you weren't paying attention, there's

8:21

now a problem for everyone else. Yeah, in

8:23

addition to that two by two matrix, a

8:25

good litmus test that you lay out in

8:27

the post is these kind of two bullet

8:29

point questions. And the first one is, am

8:32

I missing this because it's actually impossible

8:35

or is it just inconvenient or difficult?

8:37

And then the second one is, if

8:39

I was on the other side of

8:41

this and another member of this group

8:43

canceled for the reason that I'm canceling

8:46

for, how mad would I be? and

8:48

being honest with yourself about that. And

8:50

again, to the point of the impossible

8:52

versus the inconvenient, just using you as

8:54

an example, again, I've had

8:57

to work with, you know, Jen,

8:59

who manages your calendar to like

9:01

really do crazy like flight planning

9:03

to make sure that you are

9:05

either getting out of town to

9:07

like a conference on time or

9:09

you are getting back in town

9:11

for forum and, you know, you

9:13

have to do like a latent.

9:15

flight the night before to make

9:17

sure you're back in time. And

9:19

it's that inconvenience versus that impossibility,

9:21

I would think, is the distinction

9:23

between a good mess and a

9:26

bad mess. Yeah. And we'll talk

9:28

about this. And inevitably, it's sort

9:30

of a karmic thing. And

9:32

I've seen, and we could tell

9:34

a story about a friend that

9:36

we kind of had to vote

9:38

out of a form where The

9:40

problem is when you take a

9:42

bad mess and then inevitably you

9:44

have a real thing come up.

9:47

And people are sort of very understanding

9:49

about the real thing, but they kind

9:51

of tend to look back and say,

9:53

this would have been a good use

9:56

of the one mess. The

9:58

one before was really just

10:00

unnecessary. And it's really hard.

10:02

You become friends with these

10:04

people, but having The difference

10:06

between a highly productive forum

10:08

and the commitment and not

10:10

is it is a slippery

10:12

slope. So you start missing

10:14

for one reason and then someone starts

10:16

comparing the sacrifice that they made to

10:18

your sacrifice and you start having discomfort.

10:20

And I was part of a group

10:22

that just tried to form recently. They

10:27

talked about sort of the hygiene was terrible

10:29

people were canceling five minutes before they were

10:31

saying I have a client in town that

10:33

day the day before like again You knew

10:35

this a month ago, you know, they were

10:37

jumping off the ticket and and that it

10:39

didn't even last like three months and People

10:41

weren't sort of trained it. I just you

10:43

know, and that was the note I said

10:45

to the center the group and when I

10:47

left and I think I said you

10:50

know, my experience is this just won't work.

10:52

Like this level of commitment won't work. And

10:54

this sort of, you know, amount of bad

10:56

misses, it just to people who are committed

10:58

isn't isn't going to work. Well, because when

11:00

you're in, I would think when you're in

11:03

this type of forum or this group where

11:05

there's a lot of trust and continuity, it's

11:08

just it's really important to the fabric

11:10

of the group. If everyone is there

11:12

all the time, because then someone is

11:14

talking about like If someone's presenting a

11:16

problem at one of these forum meetings

11:18

and someone else refers back to you

11:20

know at our last meeting when Bob

11:22

was going through this like we talked

11:24

about this and. You don't

11:26

want one or more of the people

11:29

in the group to not have that

11:31

shared understanding because. it probably deadens the

11:33

conversation at least a little bit, right?

11:35

Yeah, if you're out of it, you

11:37

miss something and, you know, if you

11:39

go, if you have four

11:41

meetings in a row and you're missing

11:43

someone every one, there's just

11:46

a, there's a lack of continuity.

11:48

Again, it's like board meeting and

11:50

board members missing. I just find

11:52

that such an When

11:54

I say it in that way, people understand

11:56

the standard. They're like, no, I would never

11:58

walk out of a board meeting and take

12:00

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14:11

So there's a couple of things that are good to

14:13

dive in on. And the first thing I want to

14:15

hit is the idea of what you were just talking

14:17

about. You get one miss a

14:20

year. And if you have,

14:22

so the second miss, it's like two strikes,

14:24

you're out. And so if someone has a

14:26

bad miss like they you know they have

14:28

to coach a game and they didn't plan

14:30

for it. And then the second time they

14:32

have like a medical emergency and they miss

14:34

it and they might come to you and

14:37

say look I know that I had this

14:39

is my second miss but you know it

14:41

was pretty clearly unavoidable and I really you

14:43

know I deserve some slack there. i

14:46

would assume you're probably thinking yeah well

14:48

except if you had managed your priorities

14:50

and your schedule properly this would have

14:52

been your first miss and it would

14:54

have been in bounds because you wouldn't

14:56

have missed the first time if you

14:58

had managed things better right yeah and

15:00

i've been part of these discussions you

15:02

know i've been part of the votes

15:04

and and generally people are understanding and

15:06

lenient there'll be some discussion of that

15:08

but there'll be sort of a like

15:10

hey like This is the last time,

15:12

you know on this but but there

15:14

was one where we actually decided to

15:16

remove a person and and They had

15:18

they had a bad mess. That was

15:20

a totally logistical thing and they didn't

15:22

they they didn't realize they were in

15:24

a different time zone and while it

15:26

wasn't a super important check -in it

15:28

was sort of virtual They they and

15:30

this person was friends, you know with

15:32

everyone they they You know they they

15:34

sort of just kind of I can't

15:36

make it work at the last minute

15:38

and they they could have they just

15:40

could have stayed up at that time

15:42

and done the call and been on

15:44

it But it just was and then

15:46

the next time they wanted to schedule

15:48

something after we had planned a specific

15:50

kind of strategy for the next year

15:52

and it was a Important conference they

15:54

want to go to and everyone kind

15:56

of got around and was like, you

15:58

know, like this this isn't gonna work

16:00

This is the third one technically this

16:02

year. Some of them were just check

16:04

-ins but but and I understand this

16:06

one's important but the other two and

16:08

so that was a case where Actually,

16:11

it was unanimously, and it was hard. People

16:13

said, look, this is just not what we're

16:15

seeing is not a priority when there's conflicts.

16:18

And so that person was voted out,

16:20

even though everyone really liked the person.

16:22

So I've seen this kind of. Play

16:25

out first hand in that in that

16:27

sense and as we talked about i've

16:29

seen it play out of my in

16:31

my own family too when i try

16:33

to use it as a as a

16:35

lesson yeah well i would think that

16:37

it's a really good example of almost

16:39

a social debit and credit system. And

16:42

everyone wants to be in the position where

16:44

if they go to a group because they

16:46

need leniency or they need help or stuff

16:48

like that they want to be considered. A

16:51

good like a good credit risk

16:53

essentially yeah and and if there

16:55

is a person you know if

16:57

someone has an emergency. And

17:00

they come and say sorry I

17:02

have to miss this meeting but

17:04

this person has you know just

17:06

not prioritized it they like miss

17:08

every year for bad reasons and

17:10

stuff like that people no matter

17:12

how unavoidable the circumstances. I

17:15

think as you're saying. It's

17:17

pretty understandable to hold both and say,

17:20

look, I understand that the situation was

17:22

out of your control, but seeing how

17:24

you have handled situations in your control,

17:26

it's just it's difficult to give someone

17:29

a break. Whereas if someone never ever

17:31

misses, they're reliable, they show up. Even

17:33

if you take it outside of a

17:36

forum setting, which we can in a

17:38

second, if you have an employee

17:40

who always shows up to work, never misses

17:42

deadlines, like does good work, if

17:44

they need a break, you're

17:47

going to give it to them because

17:49

they have built up that credibility and

17:51

that credit. 100%. And

17:53

look, I've won these groups I haven't missed

17:56

in 10 years. If I missed two, they're

17:58

not going to vote me out, right? I

18:00

mean, they've seen all the, it's just, it's

18:02

that credit. And you think about this, even

18:05

goes to the, what's the problem when people

18:07

start poorly at companies, right? They start in

18:09

a deficit. They start in a trust deficit

18:11

where they screw some things up. Now they're

18:13

working twice as hard. Now people are caught.

18:16

It's really hard to work your way out

18:18

of trust deficits versus trust surplus. You have

18:20

equity on the balance sheet and you can

18:22

use it where you need to. And

18:25

so that's why when we show up

18:27

to these things and look, the bad

18:30

miss has a much greater connotation to.

18:33

You know, not showing up being

18:35

late to a meeting just kind

18:37

of weak excuses and doing that

18:39

from a place where you have

18:41

credibility or don't have credibility. There's,

18:43

you know, bad example, but

18:45

they're sort of like a Chinese social credit

18:48

score, you know, attached to some of these

18:50

situations, just not in a dystopian way. Yeah,

18:52

but it's true. I mean, it's contextual and

18:54

there are certain people, we all have people

18:56

who we work with or who we have

18:59

in our personal lives who. We're

19:01

willing to give them a break. And

19:03

frankly, I bet, I

19:05

know this is true for me, there

19:08

are people, I would give

19:10

more leniency or understanding to

19:12

a super reliable person with

19:14

a slightly less good excuse

19:16

than to an unreliable person

19:18

with a really good excuse.

19:20

Yeah, the trust isn't

19:22

there. And that's why, again, if

19:24

you are starting a job, if

19:26

you are starting a client relationship,

19:29

I think it's Stephen Covey who talks

19:31

about that it's it's the two by

19:34

two matrix of that that Character incompetence

19:36

right is sort of trust right like

19:38

did you trust the character of the

19:41

person do you start the the competence

19:43

you can like your account manager But

19:45

if they missed the first three deadlines

19:47

it and it's it's it's really hard

19:50

to work out of deficits that start

19:52

early are really hard to work against

19:54

we had a we had an example

19:57

years ago where we started working with

19:59

a new and they sent us a

20:01

really bad. bill for the first month,

20:03

like really wrong and overcharged. And

20:06

we had sort of an operations person on our

20:08

team who was very detail oriented. And they spent

20:10

the next four or five months going through each

20:12

bill line item by line item that that person

20:14

sent. And the CEO of the vendor called me

20:16

and said, look, you got to call off the

20:19

dogs here. Like this isn't going to work. This

20:21

person's like, I was like, look,

20:23

you guys created this problem. You over billed

20:25

us the first month dramatically. The trust is

20:27

damaged. And so now they're going line item

20:29

by line item through the bill. That's sort

20:31

of just, unfortunately, how

20:33

it works. And conversely, if you start

20:36

off earning that with that credibility, you

20:38

probably get trust that you don't deserve

20:40

later on. I was thinking about this

20:42

because it ties into an episode and

20:44

a Friday forward from a couple months

20:46

ago. I think at this point, the

20:49

one about future self and present self.

20:51

And basically, if you have a bad

20:53

miss, no matter whether it's a forum

20:55

meeting or a work deadline, or even

20:57

just a friend who you keep canceling

20:59

or rescheduling plans on, you

21:02

are shifting pressure and cutting margin

21:04

of error for your future self

21:06

when you do that. And

21:09

in terms of whether to take a bad

21:11

miss or ask for that extension on a

21:13

deadline or stuff like that, I do think

21:15

it is really important to think in the

21:17

context of Am I going to

21:20

need this person who I'm asking to give

21:22

me a break now to give me a

21:24

break again later? Because that's

21:26

it's gonna really affect your future standing

21:28

more than you would expect. Yeah, it's

21:30

back to this balance sheet that am

21:32

I am I am I you know

21:34

am I creating a future liability for

21:36

my future self by doing this and

21:38

in the moment it just seems Look,

21:40

and, you know, well, we can get

21:43

to the personal example, but some, you

21:45

know, you're tired. It's a bad day.

21:47

You don't want to do it. Like

21:49

it's very hard. And I think if

21:51

you're younger to sit back and as

21:53

you're older and more mature, you're

21:55

able to sort of judge that current and

21:58

future state, I think, better than someone who's

22:00

younger and a little more impulsive. Let's jump

22:02

into the personal because you brought it up

22:04

and then we can talk about the professional.

22:07

I can say from personal experience, so I

22:09

had a friend who always Whenever

22:12

I would make plans with them, I

22:14

would almost expect to get a text

22:16

about five hours before saying, hey, sorry,

22:18

not up for it today. And

22:21

I will say I used to always

22:23

show up and be reliable for that

22:25

person. But when they started chronically canceling

22:27

or rescheduling with me, it did get

22:29

to the point where sometimes if I

22:31

had plans with them and I just

22:34

was tired or had a long week,

22:37

I wouldn't feel bad about saying, hey,

22:39

I can't do this. They lowered the

22:41

standard and you're meeting it, right? Yeah.

22:44

And so do you think that

22:46

that's fair or do you think

22:48

that it is better if what

22:50

I should have done was be

22:52

direct about it and say, look,

22:54

I'm not doing this today because

22:56

you've canceled on me five times

22:58

or should I have been? I

23:01

don't know. I guess you could call

23:03

it passive aggressive what I was doing.

23:05

I'm curious what you would. think about

23:07

that situation? mean, ideally, you'd be direct,

23:09

or you'd let people know the consequences

23:11

of their actions. I'm sure that person

23:14

knew, because then you're both sort of

23:16

just devolving the relationship. But it's harder

23:18

to do that stuff in the moment.

23:20

And this is where I've tried to

23:22

really get all my kids around showing

23:24

up and bad misses. And

23:30

I've just

23:33

tried to you know, instill that and

23:35

look at my son, the one that's

23:37

home, he had a couple cases of

23:39

this and some bad misses. And,

23:43

you know, where he was tired or

23:45

cranky and he's had, you know, has

23:47

a couple of activities that have all

23:49

been overlapping. Unfortunately, you know,

23:51

the spring and what happened is, you know, when

23:53

you have some bad misses and then you have

23:55

the overlap, you get stuck. And

23:57

I remember one week he took a really

23:59

bad miss and this was a group that

24:01

had a certain commitment level. And

24:03

then our dog ended up dying at

24:05

the end of the week. And obviously

24:07

he was too distraught to go, you

24:09

know, that day, but he had to

24:11

go make it up over several days

24:13

the next week. So I ended up

24:15

sort of costing him. And I noticed

24:17

a few times kind of karmically that

24:19

when he takes a bad mess, there

24:21

is then a real conflict later. And

24:23

I'm like, look, like, I don't

24:26

blame the coach for not starting you. Like,

24:28

you don't deserve it. Or, you know, really

24:30

trying to kind of point that out to

24:32

him. well because i think

24:34

that when you make these types of decisions

24:36

and again this is the tie -in back

24:38

to the future self thing i don't think

24:41

that you think about the fact that there

24:43

are always going to be things out of

24:45

your control and that emergencies don't come at

24:47

a convenient time and so yeah you know

24:50

to use your son as an example you

24:52

know i could understand in his head thinking

24:54

well i'll miss this and i'll just i'll

24:56

make it up like i'll never miss again

24:59

you know no matter what like i'll even

25:01

if i'm even if I have like the

25:03

sniffles, like I won't miss work next time,

25:05

you know. And I

25:07

think that people sometimes lack the foresight,

25:10

or I think that they know that

25:12

there could be a reason in the

25:14

future that could force them to have

25:17

to miss something, but they're just, they're

25:19

kind of afraid to engage with it

25:21

in the moment because they don't want

25:24

to talk themselves out of skipping, right?

25:26

Yeah, and it, you're younger and I

25:28

think you have less, you have less

25:30

Impulse control and less reasoning and less

25:33

sort of future, but it's really hard

25:35

in this moment You think I'm tired.

25:37

I'm whatever like, you know that this

25:40

is that there is no future and

25:42

so like this is a good Decision

25:44

right now. I'm tell a kid. They're

25:46

not sick or whatever But this is

25:49

no different than the workplace like they're

25:51

sick and then they're sick, right? So

25:53

there's having sniffles and it being a

25:56

little uncomfortable. And then there's

25:58

like the flu where, you know, you're a

26:00

mess and you can't get out of bed.

26:02

And I guess I, you know, my sort

26:04

of approach is, uh, you know, there's, if

26:06

it was multiple generations ago, it would probably

26:08

be too far the other way. Like if

26:10

you're, if you're not dead, you know, you're

26:13

showing up, but my, my sort of, this

26:15

is a metaphor, but more like you should

26:17

show up with the sniffles because if you

26:19

have the flu, I'm going to tell you

26:21

to stay in bed, right? Yeah. So this

26:23

is. a couple of things I want to

26:25

jump in on there. First, when you're talking

26:27

about, you know, when you're younger or say

26:30

when you're earlier in your career, I do

26:32

think a really important part is experience matters

26:34

here because You really don't understand

26:36

the damage to credibility until you've been on

26:38

the other side of the table and until

26:41

you've been the one who've been let down

26:43

by someone's bad misses before so you know

26:45

it'd be again yeah i know we're talking

26:47

about your son a lot but just some

26:50

unnamed person who like misses a lot of

26:52

sports practices i bet that in the moment

26:54

they think well it's not that big of

26:57

a deal. If that kid

26:59

grows up and is a coach of a

27:01

youth sports team and there's a player who

27:03

just never comes to practice, I bet that

27:05

they're going to be pretty annoyed about it.

27:07

And they're probably going to look back and

27:10

say, well, now I feel differently about my

27:12

own tardiness. By the way, you would expect

27:14

this of any kid. I think

27:16

even more like the like, then you're not going to

27:18

start, right? And then you're not going to play and

27:20

you're going to be annoyed. You're like, I'm not playing.

27:22

I don't want to go to practice. And you're like,

27:24

and then you're having this chicken and egg argument between

27:26

you're not playing because you didn't go to practice. So

27:29

I look, I expect that this

27:31

is harder on, you know, teenagers

27:34

to understand than adults. But I'm

27:36

seeing a lot of the same

27:38

behavior, you know, in the workplace

27:40

and people and sort of. Bad

27:42

misses and bad excuses and you

27:44

look you should you should show

27:46

up and it just because it's

27:48

a little hard doesn't mean you

27:50

shouldn't do it. And I think

27:52

if you haven't had a really

27:54

hard situation right then then you

27:56

know you had a rough weekend

27:58

or something otherwise and you know

28:00

great but like. Then someone dies

28:02

and then you really need that

28:04

time off and you want that

28:06

time so I think that the.

28:09

There's some societal pressure here

28:11

that's correcting for an overcorrection

28:13

of, you know, too rigid

28:15

to now say, if you

28:17

don't feel well at all

28:19

or mental health, like take

28:21

a break and don't show

28:23

up. And that's all very

28:26

nuanced. Again, it's I can't

28:28

like the the the. Definition

28:31

of mental health has been very much

28:33

diluted. I brought about this written about

28:35

this a lot to a point where

28:37

I think it's actually detrimental to people

28:39

who have. Real mental health issues you

28:41

know and and you know it again

28:43

if you're injured it's screwing up the

28:45

definition like if you said like someone's

28:47

injured right you'd say oh like they

28:49

broke their arm right or something like

28:51

that not they have a. you know,

28:53

a cut on their pinky nail like

28:55

so now I think we have the

28:57

same problem with mental health where it's

28:59

really hard without saying this is a

29:01

grade one issue or a grade three

29:03

issue to sort of define when that

29:05

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performance. Talking a bit more deeply

31:46

about that, and I want to dive

31:48

into the self -care, the way that

31:50

our conversation around mental health, even physical

31:52

health has changed and affected this. But

31:55

I did think it was interesting because

31:57

when I was researching for this, I

31:59

found a career builder survey that said

32:02

73 % of employers claim to value

32:05

dependability over technical skills when

32:07

hiring. Do you think

32:09

that this is a sign that dependability

32:11

is truly becoming a premium and that

32:14

people just are expecting the average person

32:16

to let them down in the workplace,

32:18

for example, when they hire someone? Yeah,

32:20

we look I this this not to

32:23

say, you know, the kids these days,

32:25

but but I think the parenting philosophy

32:27

or the school philosophy and overcorrection of

32:30

the last 20. Years is just is

32:32

a lot of permissiveness up. You don't

32:34

feel you feel a little bad. Don't

32:36

show up, right? I mean my is

32:39

okay your thing hurts go to practice

32:41

and stand there in your clothes and

32:43

show the team that you're there and

32:46

if you can't participate you can't participate

32:48

different than not going I think there's

32:50

been a lot of permissiveness or hey,

32:52

you know you and don't go and

32:55

and I you know These are these

32:57

are team commitments in a lot of

32:59

cases like perfect example like And I

33:02

don't think parents reinforce it. But

33:04

your kids hurt. You should encourage them to

33:06

put on the uniform and go stand there

33:08

and support. Is that fun? Like,

33:11

no. But you should

33:13

show up and you should be

33:15

there. And yeah,

33:17

I think people are less committed.

33:19

I think they're more selfish. And

33:21

I think that their personal decisions

33:24

for what's best for them personally

33:26

have been reinforced by their parental

33:29

and educational systems to the point where

33:31

I think it's a lot harder. And

33:33

I would be vetting pretty hard

33:35

for a commitment. And look, they're

33:37

reading an article this morning on

33:40

the Atlantic and why college jobs

33:42

are so difficult. And AI was

33:44

one of the reasons. If you,

33:46

you know, if you have a really

33:48

hard working, engaged person who shows up

33:51

and whatever, you're like, great. If you're

33:53

fighting to get people to show up

33:55

and excuses and whatever, you're going to

33:58

say, how do I automate this? And

34:00

I don't have to deal with this.

34:02

So I don't, I think particularly if

34:05

I was a young 20 year old

34:07

today going into traditional white collar work

34:09

that's finance, administrative, legal, administer, I would

34:12

be. working my ass off and learning

34:14

because I am competing against software that

34:16

has none of my flaws in terms

34:19

of reliability or or need to or

34:21

only want to work a certain amount

34:23

of hours, etc. And so I don't

34:26

I'm not sure people are fully aware

34:28

of the who they're really going to

34:30

be competing against in the workforce. Well,

34:33

so I think that what you're you're

34:35

getting at something good there, which is

34:37

I think there's two core facts

34:40

about especially for younger entry -level

34:42

employees in the job market and

34:45

in the workplace. One,

34:47

it's not fair, but I do

34:49

think that you need to assume

34:51

that you're fighting against this expectation

34:53

for flakiness and that if you

34:55

are a 22 year old fresh

34:58

out of college, you might be

35:00

treated with more skepticism than maybe

35:02

is necessarily fair because there's undeniably

35:04

a generational There's a

35:06

generational label on Gen Z and I'm sure

35:08

it will apply to Gen Alpha. I

35:10

think that's what they're calling them too. We

35:13

get replies to Friday Fowards about this

35:15

type of showing up reliability with people

35:17

saying, you know, I have employees who

35:19

are younger who don't feel like they

35:21

need to say when they're not coming

35:24

into work and they just don't show

35:26

up. And so I think

35:28

it's an uphill battle. But

35:30

at the same time, and to

35:32

the point of the career builder survey, It

35:35

is a real premium to be dependable

35:37

and to always show up and do

35:39

a good job and do stuff on

35:41

time that it's a good differentiator it's

35:43

a good way to stand out and

35:45

i think that you're right to what

35:47

you were saying earlier. If you can

35:49

start this stuff on a really really

35:51

strong footing and establish credibility that can

35:53

really carry you a long way i

35:55

would think right yeah i i and

35:58

and you get more you get more

36:00

credit if you get. We

36:02

talked about timing matters. And what

36:04

happens early is disproportionately good or

36:06

bad in terms of whether you

36:08

get more credibility than you deserve

36:10

or you get less credibility you

36:13

deserve. But it's just how human

36:15

nature works. I have Mick Start

36:17

and I have Sarah Start. And

36:19

Mick shows up and he's super

36:21

friendly. And what can I do?

36:23

And Sarah's a little late and

36:25

whatever. Very quickly, I start. discounting

36:28

Sarah and double and down on Mick.

36:30

And that's a very natural response. And

36:32

so I, if I was giving anyone

36:34

an advice, I would say start really

36:36

well, start building that credibility early. Well,

36:38

yeah. And, you know, as a very

36:40

savvy and Machiavelli and professional, I'm standing

36:42

around the water cooler whenever you walk

36:45

in and saying, yes, Sarah is not

36:47

here today, but I'll do all of

36:49

her work for her. You know, don't

36:51

worry about it. We told the story

36:53

recently about the mom, right, writing into.

36:55

Brittany Hodak, you

36:57

know, on that interview to tell her, her daughter wouldn't

37:00

be coming to work that day because she went to

37:02

a concert. Like, I don't

37:04

know. There's just

37:06

not really a lot to say

37:08

to that. So I do, I do

37:11

want to get a bit into the

37:13

roots of where this lack of reliability

37:15

problem came from. And I do think

37:18

that you're onto something with the permissive

37:20

parents, you know, I, I definitely

37:22

noticed. Probably around

37:24

when I was in middle school, that was

37:26

when the mental health days started to catch

37:28

on as a real thing. And that's not

37:30

to say that every mental health day is

37:33

unwarranted, but it definitely became a buzzword. I

37:36

think there are two culprits

37:38

that I think are important

37:40

here. One, I think that

37:42

COVID really possibly permanently, or

37:44

at least for people who

37:47

were alive during it, may

37:49

have changed the idea of

37:51

unless you're really sick go to work. Do

37:55

you think that that has changed the calculus

37:57

at all? Yeah, I think that was part

37:59

of it. I think you didn't have to

38:01

show up. You got to do your own

38:03

thing. But it was a very different part

38:05

in time. I think people have clearly had

38:07

a hard time coming back to accountability and

38:09

group work. And there's a whole separate discussion

38:11

on whether there's I think there's good reasons

38:13

and bad reasons to come back in the

38:15

office. But I think that's been part of

38:17

it. I do think there's been a lowering

38:20

of standards and a lack of accountability. I

38:22

think people are very uncomfortable holding people

38:24

to to standards these days.

38:27

It feels, you know, not like

38:29

gentle parenting. But but to

38:31

me, that's the tough love stuff that people

38:34

need, which is I can support you and

38:36

hold you. I can love my kid and

38:38

tell them that that was a really stupid

38:40

mess. And I don't agree with it, right?

38:43

Those things are there. They're mutually exclusive. But

38:46

I think we've lost that ability to

38:48

sort of hold that duality. Yeah, I

38:50

think and also a really big part

38:52

of the problem is Social

38:54

media content is designed to make

38:56

people feel better about not honoring

38:59

their commitments to other people. And

39:01

that there is a real rise

39:04

of influencer content that's saying you

39:06

know. The company is

39:08

exploiting you so you know don't show

39:10

up to work if you're not feeling

39:12

it or they're saying you know don't

39:14

worry about this commitment you made to

39:17

your friend because you have to like

39:19

self care matters and. I

39:21

think that that is. dangerous

39:23

because I do think that we are already

39:26

wired to a certain degree if we're thinking

39:28

in the moment. Do I really have to

39:30

do this thing or can I bail out

39:33

of it? We're already thinking about

39:35

us, right? We're thinking about me, not

39:37

we. We're already lying to ourselves in

39:39

those moments. The example that I was

39:41

talking about earlier, if you're sitting there,

39:43

you will save yourself. Well, look, I

39:46

won't go to work today, but I'll

39:48

just, I won't miss work again for

39:50

months and months. And next time I

39:52

feel this way, I'm going to power

39:54

through, but today I'm just not feeling

39:56

it. And we're already lying to ourselves

39:58

a bit and being dishonest. and unrealistic.

40:02

And then we have this wave

40:04

of people coming at us very

40:06

authoritatively validating that instinct. What

40:09

do you think about that? Yeah, and

40:11

I think it is it is very

40:13

much of this mindset of it's my

40:15

truth in my world and my reality

40:17

when that's just not how things work.

40:19

We're all intertwined. You could

40:21

say, look, I feel not great today. And

40:24

I'm like, yeah, but you have a team

40:26

and a practice and you have a game

40:28

on whatever. So you should walk through. I

40:30

think it is an excessive focus on oneself.

40:32

And I know, I know we'll get the

40:34

quote a week, but someone actually a friend

40:36

just emailed me in relation to the Friday

40:38

forward. He sent two quotes that I think

40:40

are interesting. He said, I think you'll like

40:42

these. And it was a It

40:44

was someone on a plane who said

40:46

it to him 20 years ago and

40:48

he remembered him And so the first

40:50

was the world is run by people

40:52

who show up Which I think is

40:54

a good quote and then he said

40:56

the second was it in and this

40:58

is an adaption of a Churchill quote

41:00

But if you're going through hell don't

41:02

stop, right? I think there's an interesting

41:05

connotation of even merging those, which is like,

41:07

sometimes the thing to do is like, just

41:10

keep going and get, you know, it's been

41:12

a really bad week. Like, do you want

41:14

to sit there and wallow in your sorrow

41:16

or sort of just keep going? So I

41:19

think this notion of just, maybe that should

41:21

have been the title of, but generally better

41:23

to show up than not show up. You'd

41:26

rather show up, like I said, show up

41:28

injured or show up sick and let people

41:30

see that you're there. And you

41:32

can't contribute fully, but you're there, right? I

41:35

think that's the essence of showing

41:37

up. Yeah, well, I remember this

41:39

was especially true at my previous

41:41

job, which was a lot of

41:43

travel and a lot of in

41:46

-person events and stuff like that

41:48

and trainings and such. And

41:51

at some point, someone asked me, what do

41:53

you have to be? What do

41:55

you have to be to be successful working

41:57

here and the thing that came to mind

41:59

first was mental toughness you have to be

42:02

tough you have to be able to push

42:04

through things because this was an organization for

42:06

entrepreneurs that was how you met. Those

42:09

people in particular really respect people who show

42:11

up and and that quote you know the

42:13

world is run by people who show up

42:15

is really good one and did you say

42:17

that someone. told you that they heard that

42:20

from someone on a plane who was sitting

42:22

next to them. Is that right? Yeah, they

42:24

said they broke into a conversation on a

42:26

plane and they were going back. It was

42:28

a guy who was between a Buddhist and

42:30

a Christian and he said, you know, they

42:32

had this whole conversation. You didn't remember. It

42:35

was 10 years ago. He doesn't remember anything

42:37

from the conversations except two of the comments.

42:39

He said, this guy said to me,

42:41

stuck with me for decades. And he

42:44

remembered these two, two quotes. You just

42:46

go on a plane and someone just

42:48

imparts this incredible gem of wisdom for

42:50

you. That's wild. The only thing people

42:52

say to me on planes is, uh,

42:54

this is my armrest and I need

42:56

to get up. Can you move? Yeah.

42:58

So that's great for them. Yeah. And,

43:00

and, and I think showing up extends

43:02

to. This is in person,

43:04

right? Are you a Twitter armchair

43:06

quarterback? Are you out there trying

43:08

to get involved? And so how

43:10

do you know, because I do

43:12

think that being a chronic canceler

43:14

or slipping into unreliability, either overall

43:16

or in a specific context or

43:18

a specific relationship, I think it

43:21

sneaks up on people. So how

43:23

do you know if you're sliding

43:25

into the danger zone and need

43:27

to start rebuilding that credibility? I

43:30

think you... Start to find you

43:32

start to find that you're you're

43:34

losing opportunities would be I think

43:36

kind of probably You're not starting

43:38

on the team. You're losing projects

43:40

people seem to be like Dancing

43:42

around you because they question your

43:44

reliability. I think that's probably a

43:46

good a Good early warning sign.

43:48

Yeah, I think another good one.

43:51

I would think is if people

43:53

It's not It's not guaranteed that,

43:55

like, if people are always canceling

43:57

on you and not showing up

43:59

for you, you could just be

44:01

in the wrong group. You could

44:03

have the wrong friends, stuff like

44:05

that. But it also could be

44:07

a sign that people don't necessarily

44:09

think that you're going to return

44:11

the favor. Yeah, exactly.

44:15

So the quote of the week is from

44:17

Peter Gallagher. To stay on the map, you've

44:19

got to keep showing up. Do

44:21

you know who Peter Gallagher is and what

44:23

he's famous for? First question. I

44:26

don't think I do. Okay, so

44:28

this is as much as as much

44:30

as you say that I am like

44:32

the same age as you in some

44:34

ways because I'm an I'm an older

44:36

soul. This is a differentiation between us.

44:38

Peter Gallagher is Sandy Cohen from the

44:40

hit show the OC from. Oh,

44:42

yeah, I know Peter Gallagher. I'm not looking at

44:45

me. I know who he is. I just didn't

44:47

put the name in the face together. Wow, he's

44:49

a lot. He's older. Yeah. Yeah, still distinguished looking

44:51

though. So why you pick this quote? Uh, I

44:53

think it's similar. Look, if I had had that

44:55

other quote, I would have, I would have picked

44:57

it, but, um, yeah, I

44:59

think about all these opportunities from

45:02

work to soccer to organization. Like

45:04

if you're not there, you're just

45:07

not on people's radar. Um,

45:09

and, and I actually think you

45:11

might get more credit from being

45:14

there, even though you're clearly impaired

45:16

in some way than, than, than

45:18

not being there. And so

45:20

if you want those opportunities, you got to

45:22

be there for when they open up. I

45:24

think it's just that simple. Yeah, it's really

45:27

well said. And that other quote, just to

45:29

repeat it, the world is run by people

45:31

who showed up. All right, everyone, thanks for

45:33

listening. If you want to check out the

45:35

posts we discussed, go to robberglaser .substack.com and

45:37

look for the post titled Bad Misses. We

45:39

also link to it in the show notes

45:42

on your podcast app. Keep your eye out

45:44

for future edition of Weekend Conversations, which will

45:46

be in your feed on Saturday mornings. And

45:49

if you haven't yet subscribed to the

45:51

show, follow or subscribe on your favorite

45:53

podcast app. Until next time, keep elevated.

46:04

You