Feeling stressed AF as a leader? Juan Alvarado Jr. gets it. This former soldier battled his own demons with PTSD, but instead of letting it sink him, he used it to build a unique leadership style.
In this episode, we'll dive deep into Juan's story, unraveling the secret sauce of communication that keeps teams tight and explore the age-old question: are leaders born with a silver leadership spoon, or can anyone learn to be awesome?
By the end, you'll walk away feeling empowered to lead with authenticity, inspired by Juan's journey and your own leadership potential, and most importantly, connected to the power of intergenerational wisdom and building strong teams. Plus, your host gets real about personal growth and the magic that happens when you embrace diverse perspectives.
This episode is brought to you by Premier Ridge Capital.
Sign Up for our Newsletter and get our FREE E-Book where you'll learn everything you need to know about creating financial freedom through multifamily syndication.
Visit www.premierridgecapital.com now!
Introducing the 60 Day Deal Finder!
Visit: www.MartinREIMastery.com
Use the Coupon Code: WEALTHYAFfor 20% off!
This episode is brought to you by Premier Ridge Capital.
Build Generational Wealth As A Passive Investor In Multifamily Real Estate Syndication!
Visit www.premierridgecapital.com to find out more.
Feeling stressed AF as a leader? Juan Alvarado Jr. gets it. This former soldier battled his own demons with PTSD, but instead of letting it sink him, he used it to build a unique leadership style.
In this episode, we'll dive deep into Juan's story, unraveling the secret sauce of communication that keeps teams tight and explore the age-old question: are leaders born with a silver leadership spoon, or can anyone learn to be awesome?
By the end, you'll walk away feeling empowered to lead with authenticity, inspired by Juan's journey and your own leadership potential, and most importantly, connected to the power of intergenerational wisdom and building strong teams. Plus, your host gets real about personal growth and the magic that happens when you embrace diverse perspectives.
This episode is brought to you by Premier Ridge Capital.
Sign Up for our Newsletter and get our FREE E-Book where you'll learn everything you need to know about creating financial freedom through multifamily syndication.
Visit www.premierridgecapital.com now!
Introducing the 60 Day Deal Finder!
Visit: www.MartinREIMastery.com
Use the Coupon Code: WEALTHYAFfor 20% off!
This episode is brought to you by Premier Ridge Capital.
Build Generational Wealth As A Passive Investor In Multifamily Real Estate Syndication!
Visit www.premierridgecapital.com to find out more.
This is Wealthy AF, your ultimate guide to understand what it truly means to be Wealthy AF. And today's topic is about leadership. And we have a special guest here today, Juan Alvarado Jr. And. Juan is a Gallup-certified strength coach and a revered leadership expert, drawing from his extensive experience as a US Army war veteran who trained thousands of soldiers in high-pressure scenarios. Beyond his military service, Juan travels and speaks to leadership teams and their staffs to enhance team leadership and their staff engagement, yielding heightened staff understanding of their value and importance of their intentional engagement with each other. Juan uses his trials, fighting through PTSD, and shares how he mended and strengthened his marriage, his relationship with his boys and how he now teaches intentional leadership to people across the world. Juan, thank you for coming on the show. Really appreciate you, brother. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Hey, let's dive right into this. What makes you a leadership expert? You teach and train on leadership. Tell us what earns you the right to teach this topic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, like in my intro and in the bio, over 10 years of leadership within the United States Army. So being trained by the best doing intel, counterintelligence, things like that where you're being trained by the world's best right how to think strategically for not only our own military, but how to think in regards to how our enemy thinks right. So it's a lot of strategic thinking. You're dealing with people from different backgrounds. You're dealing with different age groups, different ranks. How do we get everybody on the same page for the same mission and vision and go through and cut through the BS of, you know, maybe, certain people's belief systems or what they're going through that day so that we can execute on the mission at a high level, working with high performance, leadership in that aspect. And then I worked as a it wasn't on my bio, I kind of don't want to forget about that part of my life. It was still. It was still a pivotal part of my life.
Speaker 2:But I was a police officer for two years and, uh, you know, dealing with and leading people who might have a uh an out, uh out thought and outcome of what a police officer is or what they represent, right, so dealing with people that maybe not see eye to eye with the police department.
Speaker 2:How do I get you to think, how do we get on the same page right, even though some people might have a certain outlook on police officers and then working 11 plus years, 12, 12 years in the nonprofit space, where I had close to 200 people that were under me, where I was mentoring 30 leaders, 30 managers daily, where I was able to get them not only in a good path to leadership and leading their staff, but getting them promoted either within our own organization or coaching them, mentoring them to leave our organization so that they can become bigger and better, and those people going on to bigger, better things, getting paid double, triple what we were paying them right To put them on the right, get them on their feet, and then having a family and right, having a, having a wife and and being married for 17 plus years and having three boys just turned 16, 14, and 11, being able to lead them and having.
Speaker 2:You know not to be big headed or necessarily pat myself on the back, but I think I have a really good, darn good marriage and relationship with my boys that most parents or most husbands don't have that type of relationship with their family. Parents, or most husbands, don't have that type of relationship with their family. I think I'm skating on cloud nine right now because of the great relationships that I have with not only my family, but with those that I've led in the past.
Speaker 1:Outstanding man, that's amazing. Drawing from your experience as a US Army war vet, what leadership qualities do you find most essential for high pressure situations?
Speaker 2:So a couple of different things. I would say, um, high, high value communication. Um, I think a lot of times in, not only in the military but in high pressure situations at home or in in the office spaces um, we tend to tell people just follow my lead, like I'm in charge, follow me. You don't, don't say anything, just follow. Follow like, get, get in line, know your position on the totem pole, follow me. That's not the. That's not the case.
Speaker 2:Um, I think a lot of people miss the not just the what, but the how and the why behind it. And if I can communicate the how and the why, people are going to fall in line to to follow you. They're going to be willingly wanting to follow your lead. When you can communicate so high pressure situations, we need to communicate the not just the what, but the how and the why. But I think every person, every employee, every person that follows your lead, wants four things they want honesty, they want to know that they can trust you right. They want to know that you're competent, they want to know that you're forward-looking and they want to know that you're inspiring. There's studies that are shown that every employee, no matter who their boss is, they want those four aspects. So if I can trust you, if I know that you know what the hell you're doing, I know that you're going to inspire me and you have a plan for me, I'm going to follow you.
Speaker 1:Can you give us an example, maybe share a story of how you use that in your leadership in the military? Or maybe you could share a story of how maybe you were leading a group of men, women and you had some differences of opinion, and you use these four qualities to get them to kind of follow your lead?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I have a pretty good example of that. So when I got hired as the director of programs for the nonprofit that I worked in, there was a couple of different people who purposely volunteered to be on my hiring panel. My hiring panel usually a hiring panel or interview panel is two, three, four people, maybe six people tops. I had 11 people on that interview panel 11. And two of them purposely went in and volunteered to be on that panel so that they can say no, I don't care what dude has to say, I don't want him to be our boss. And in that interview process, being authentic, being honest and having that forward looking plan won those people over.
Speaker 2:It's funny because one of those people ended up opening up for me at one of the events that I was speaking at and she had no idea that she was opening up for me and she goes. I saw the name on the bill, didn't know that this was the dude. She's like I was on his hiring panel. She goes through the whole story of I hated this guy, did not want him to be my boss and after the interview I was sold in I need to give this guy a chance. And so I ended up getting that position, but for the next four or five years she ended up coming under my wings and mentoring her, and we're still friends to this day. I don't work for that organization anymore. She doesn't work for that organization anymore, but I still look out for her in that sense where I was able to help her out in moving up and elevating herself and letting her know about a position that was hiring, and she went from making $68,000 a year to a little over $120,000 a year, so almost double what she was making, because she was prepared for, because I helped her prepare for her future, and that's part of the whole forward looking piece. Right? Hey, I understand how valuable you are. I understand that your gifts and your talents. Let's mold and shape those gifts and talents for something that's bigger than you.
Speaker 2:And so she ends up working for a school district now, but she's way better placed than where she was before because she understood hey, I have to be able to open up to my thought process, which is great because you have somebody who was closed off and I tell people all the time you can learn people from that are older than you and you can also learn from people younger than you. You can learn from people who are new to the game, and you can also learn from people who are veterans in the game. From people who are new to the game, and you can also learn from people who are veterans in the game. Um KRS-One old school rapper right, says that if only young people and old people communicated better together, they would have more success.
Speaker 2:If younger people hung out with older people and listened to older people, they would become wiser amongst the younger people that they hang around with, and if old people listen to the young people, then they would become faster than the older people than they hang around with, and so it's a win-win. And so when you, including myself, are open to learning, no matter who it is male, female, older, younger, veteran or new in the game, it puts you in a better position to learn. So always being open to to learn in that case, um helps me in those situations.
Speaker 1:I love that you said that with KRS. You quoted KRS one and KRS man. He has really. I don't know how old you are, but I I'm going to assume that you you from that same genre as I am. We know KRS grew up in New York City listening to KRS. He turned out to be a really wise guy If you listen to some of his quotes. But I like what you said about if you're hanging. I never heard that before. If you spend the young people, if they spend time with old people, they'll get wiser amongst their peers and old people. Young people spend time with young people, you'll get faster. That's really, really good.
Speaker 1:I want to ask you about leadership. Is a leader born or can one become a leader? This is a question that I remember kind of grappling with that question as a young man, right Like when I was in junior high. You have some people that are just charismatic. They have a charisma about them where people follow and it's like follow them and it's like they have that. Is that something that I can get? How do you become a leader? Is that something that people just you know, people just gravitate to some people? Can you, can you break that down for us?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, um, I used to believe that leaders were born. Um, however, taking that statement literally, I just did. I did a post on this not too long ago on my Instagram page where I said a doctor does. When you were born, the doctor didn't say, oh, it's a boy and it's a leader.
Speaker 2:Leadership is not born, right? Do people kind of have that quote, unquote, natural act to lead Absolutely, but it's taught, right. Leadership and lessons are caught, not taught, right you like? Same thing with anything in this world, like racism is taught excuse me, is caught, not necessarily taught. Like people see that stuff, people hear jokes, people see or hear certain things, right. So lessons even from children to parents or parents and children is again, it's caught, not necessarily taught.
Speaker 2:So leadership in that sense, when you see those people are charismatic and they kind of naturally gravitate to that leadership position, they've seen that right. Their environment helped them to see and understand opportunity, that internal fight in them that says, hey, no one's stepping up, let me step up. We get that a lot in sports. I think there was a statistic that we just put out that said something like 92, 93% of women in CEO positions played sports growing up, specifically in high school. So leadership in the business aspect of things is caught in sports. Right, it's your environment, you're given opportunities to do so.
Speaker 2:And not everybody needs to be a leader, right, if we had everybody be a leader, there'd be no followers. Our world needs followers, our, you know. Our world needs people who are high in organization, organizational skills. We need followers. And then we also need leaders. And so you know, can it be, can it be taught or caught.
Speaker 2:In that sense, absolutely Right, we are great because of the, because of our, our learned lessons and our mistakes. Right, I can, I can make, I can get a dub. Right, I can get, I have a W and I have wins. But then I also I can also get an L. But I tell people, l's aren't necessarily meant for losses, l's are meant for learned lessons. So those people in leaderships the difference in the average Joe and a leader is the average Joe will take L's as a loss. A leader will take that L and turn it into a learned lesson. And we're great because of the mistakes that we made, not because we're perfect, because nobody's perfect, right, so we are great because of the learned lessons that we've made in our mistakes.
Speaker 2:It's the thought process of just because I made a mistake doesn't make me a mistake and just because I fail doesn't make me a failure. How do I continue to move forward in this? And that's where leadership is made, and the lesson within that is taking ownership. If I can take ownership whether I feel that you're 100% wrong or excuse me right excuse me 100% wrong and I'm 100% right If I was to take 1% ownership of your mistake, but I own 100% of that 1%, then I have true ownership.
Speaker 2:The quick example that I'll give you is my son got detention one day at school 100% his fault. I wasn't there at all. What he said got him in trouble. Those weren't my words, however. I had a text message to prove it that. I messaged him. I said I take responsibility for that. I have to take a hundred percent over my one, over my 1%. I dumb his thing down to 99%. I add up 1% of blame and I say I had to ask myself where did my son, where did I go wrong?
Speaker 2:Where my son thought it was okay to say that he's following my leadership? Great question, right? So how do I take 100% ownership from my 1%? I wasn't in that classroom, those words weren't mine. But as a father, as a leader, as his leader, I have to say where did I go wrong? Where my son thinks that it's okay to do that, and same thing as a boss. Where do my employees think that it was okay to do that? Or come into work 10 minutes late, take an hour and a half lunch when they only allowed an hour? So where did I go wrong? And people will say, like even parents or even you know bosses, they know better. Well, if they know better and they didn't do it, apparently they don't know better. And then ask yourself this who is their teacher? And if you're their teacher, maybe they didn't know better because you're you're not getting busy in teaching them the lesson right, so we need to take ownership. So, um, that's the the other piece of that.
Speaker 1:That's really really great, great information you just shared, because I I'm of the same school of a great leader is someone that A learns right Learns from their mistakes we're not perfect and B accepts responsibility for the good and the bad. Right, I'm taking my and we rarely win. We rarely learn when we're winning. We usually learn when things are not going so well. That's when we're forced to think and we're forced to strategize and figure out how we could get better and how our decisions have gotten us to that point. That's put us where we are at that moment.
Speaker 1:What advice are you giving to someone, juan, that is listening to us and is saying I want to develop my leadership skills. Maybe they're not born to be the CEO, but they want to be a better father, they want to be a better man. They want to be. We all got to lead, even ourselves, right, with discipline, the times we wake up, our rituals, the things that we do and how we conduct ourselves. What advice one, two, three things you could tell someone that they can start doing to work on themselves to become better leaders?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, um, right out, right out the gate, I would say, uh, um, a cheap, easy one is to read right. Um, read things that are going to push you or pressure you into certain, into tough situations. What I mean by that is um learning under John Maxwell. Uh, he taught me that, um, as leaders, we should contradict ourselves. And I was like I don't agree with that. I wouldn't want to follow somebody who contradicts himself. And so I started to marinate on that for a while and I'll give you a quick example of how I've contradicted myself and how I try to consistently contradict myself.
Speaker 2:I was a big believer in spanking my children right. Growing up, I got spanked. I kind of said, hey, mom, I'm glad you spanked me because it made me, you know, more disciplined today, but at the same time I didn't like being spanked Right. It was like I didn't, I didn't like to get it. And then, in hindsight, I'm like, was I spanked or was I like beaten? Like you know, my, you know your mom would walk around the house with a chancla in her back pocket and the belt, you know, wrapped around her neck and it was like when she, when it came time to, she'd throw that thing across the room and it freaking smack you around the corner, right, but I didn't like getting. I didn't like getting spanked. So why am I going to spank my kids when it comes to discipline If I didn't like it?
Speaker 2:There's better ways to communicate. So I contradict myself in the thought process or in the parenting process. I parent better now because I've contradicted what I've said. This is the way to parent. And I'm like, ooh, maybe that's not the best way to parent, maybe I should parent this way. And so now I parent completely different in leadership.
Speaker 2:Hey, in the military, here's a totem pole. You're below me, I'm above you. Do what you've been asked to do. I outrank you, do it. That's not how the real world works. Right, has to do, I outrank, you, do it. That's not how the real world works, right? Parents, right. Going back to parenting, because I said so, because I'm your father, do it. That doesn't communicate very well to your kids. I can get my kids, anybody's kids, to work better, faster, stronger, by communicating with them better, right?
Speaker 2:So, um, reading has taught me a lot, and I hate reading, but, dude, just right here, within hands, grips the compassionate samurai been going into this book, um, rereading this, the seven habits of highly effective people, and then this other book that I have here, um, by, uh, a guy named Jeff Henderson, for it's about basically saying we know what we're against, but do you really know what you're for? Maybe you should start leading in what you're for than telling everybody what you're against and um, and so just read, read and said so to me. That's it. Yeah, just called for F? O R. Yeah, I know what you're for. Um, a growth strategy for work and, even better, strategy for life. Um, yeah, so it reading is one strategy for life. Um, yeah, so it reading is one.
Speaker 2:I think the biggest piece um to becoming a better leader is to listen. Um, this is why you know, I've been told and I believe, that God has blessed us with one mouth and two ears right, talk less, listen more, and in one of those four things that I told you, that every that every person wants from their leader forward-looking is one of them. The other one is inspiring. So how am I supposed to lead you if I don't know where you want to go? I have to ask better questions, and if I ask a question, then what comes? What's the very next step? To listen. So I need to find out from you where do you want to go, what are your needs, what are your wants, what are your desires, what are your goals, and then I can lead you. But if I don't ask that question and I don't bother to listen, how am I supposed to lead you?
Speaker 2:And why would you even follow me if I don't take time to listen, so to my spouse, to my kids, to my employees or people that I do consulting with? I spend a good three quarters of the time listening, and the one quarter of the time, or the first quarter of the time, or the first quarter of the time is asking really good questions. And so if you want to lead somebody, you got to know where you're going and you got to know where and how you're taking them, and you have to have a strategy. Well, I might have a strategy, but if I don't know how or where I'm taking you, then why would you even follow me? I don't even know where to take you if I don't ask those questions, right? So listening is a huge component of that. Just listen more actively, listen.
Speaker 1:You mentioned John Maxwell. I'm a big, I've read a lot of his stuff Big, big follower of his stuff. Have you read his book the 21,? The 21 laws of irrefutable leadership?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's one law. I read that book, I don't know, eight years ago maybe or 10 years ago and there's one law that sticks out to me and that's the law of the lid. I don't know if you remember that one where the lid if you're what he does is he grades leaders from scale of one to 10, but let's say you have a leader that is and this is for you guys listening maybe you have a boss and this applies to you. Maybe one can give you a strategy on how to manage that. Let's say you have a leader that's a six, right, but you're eight, but that's your boss.
Speaker 1:What the law of the lid says is that you cannot surpass your leader. You can only grow in leadership up to the number that your leader is. You can only grow in leadership up to the number that your leader is. But if you're an eight in leadership and you're being led by a six, how do you navigate that in the corporate world? Because that's sticky right. What advice would you give to someone that is feeling a little bit stuck in that situation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me ask you this question when do you go to go buy your groceries Supermarket? I mean, yeah, you don't go to go buy your groceries Supermarket. I mean, yeah, you don't go to. You don't go to a Home Depot, right? No, because they, because they don't have, they don't have groceries. You might be able to get a cleaning, a cleaning product there, right, you might need some, you know, a floor cleaner that they might sell, or some like sticky goo remover or whatever that they might also have a grocery store.
Speaker 2:But you can't get mad when going to a Home Depot a six and get mad that you're not getting a 10 groceries when you go to Home Depot right, why would I go and put my learning aspect to a boss that is a six when I know that I'm an eight? I can't get mad If I know that that person is a six and they're not leading me anywhere, then why would I again? Why would I go to a Home Depot to go buy groceries, right? And there's a lot of people that say, like in work, they want validation, they want happiness and they're looking at it from their boss, but yet they have employees that are telling them thank you, you're amazing, you're great. I come to work every single day for you and that's where you should be getting your happiness from. But you're looking to get your happiness from your this one person, your boss, right, and they're not giving it to you. Then you need to go to a different. Well, you're trying to squeeze water out of a sponge that has no water left in it, so you have to be able to say, okay, where do I, where do I need to get my happiness or my excuse me, my leadership from? And if it's my boss that I don't and they're not giving that to me, I need to go somewhere else. Is there, do you have a? Is there a different man or woman father, mother, friend, pastor, mentor? Like, if that's your only person that's growing you, you're in the wrong business of leadership. Like, right now, I have mentors that are better than me in marriage. I have somebody else that's a mentor for me, for my finances. I have somebody else that I go to for leadership. I have someone else that's better than me as a father. Someone that's better than me in marriage. Someone that's better than me as a father. Someone that's better than me in marriage. Someone that's better than me in not just finances, but in taxes or tax strategy. So I have five, six, maybe even eight different people that I go to.
Speaker 2:You're going to leadership for just one person. You're in the wrong. You can't get mad at your leader. That's a six and you're an eight, like I'm sure you didn't become an eight by being under a six. Where did you, where were you going all that time?
Speaker 2:So stop trying to find, stop trying to find your joy or your leadership from one source. Again, there's all kinds of different quote unquote shops. Bro, you're getting mad because you're going to home Depot and they don't have any groceries for you. Well, you're in the wrong spot, right? And so I need to be able to go to those different people to get different types of leadership, because they're going to be someone that's going to be able to teach you how to navigate difficult situations, but that same person might not be able to help you navigate growth in your own personal life. I might have to go to someone else. So, basically, don't put all your chips in one basket, right, don't put all your eggs in one basket. I have to have different avenues of approach when it comes to my happiness, to my leadership, to my goals, and so that's one piece. So expand your thought process or expand your reach when it comes to people that lead over you. The other thing would be is if you're looking for that specific piece and that person is a six and you want to navigate just that directly.
Speaker 2:Again it goes back to communication.
Speaker 2:I tell people, go over the three expectations and I think Maxwell talks about this too the expectations that I have of myself, the expectations that I have of you.
Speaker 2:And then I have to ask the questions what are your expectations of me?
Speaker 2:And then what I do is I grab those expectations that you have of me and then I add them to my list of expectations that I have of myself.
Speaker 2:So if I have expectations for myself A, b and C and then I have expectations of you, and then I say, hey, what are your expectations of me? And you give me one, two and three, I have to add that to my list. So now I have A, b and C my expectations, and one, two, three, your expectations of me. So now I have a new list. So if we can do that on the flip side, now I'm talking to my boss and I'm saying these are my expectations of you I want to learn how to do these things and I'm looking at you as my leader to teach me those things. Now my boss or my six, if you will has to say either I know that and I can teach that, or two, I got to read, I got to hang out, or I got to put the right people in the right position to help this staff out or this personnel, and so now they're going to work and if I can push them to learn or resource that well, then maybe they're growing themselves as well.
Speaker 1:Got it. That's really good advice. Beyond the military, who are some of the leaders that you admire and why?
Speaker 2:So Maxwell is one. There's a gentleman by the name of Preston Morrison. He's got a podcast called the Leader's Cut and he's a pastor, a bald white guy, and just the way he speaks on in his podcast about how being cut right, a surgeon goes and cuts those things out from you that you maybe that are harming you, and then sews you back up so you can be better. Like, his whole thing is like leaders need to be cut on and remove those things and how do we get better as leaders. So it's a great. It's a great uh, leadership but yet spiritual podcast.
Speaker 2:Um, but him, um, trying to think of of um, who else I have again, I have other leaders I look up to content wise, like how do we create content and stay relevant in the content world? Is a gentleman by the name of Omar Altaquari. Um, which is why my setup um here kind of looks crispy in that sense, cause he's taught me how to do that. Um, business wise, uh. Rory Vaden um, he's helped me level up my, my income business wise, from uh to six figures and now pushing, getting ready to push past that. You know my father, my mother, and then a lot of lessons, honestly, that I've learned and I'm a big student of this is what I've taught. What I said earlier today was learning from people younger below you. I learn from my three boys all the time. There's great lessons in leadership that I've learned from my own kids that are way younger than me, because I allow myself to find the lesson in the things that we talk about or they tell me about.
Speaker 1:What are some common mistakes leaders make when it comes to strength-based?
Speaker 2:leadership that they know everything. I don't know. I know a lot about a little. I can admit that I don't know everything. There's no way anyone's able to know everything. So there's a saying, and I'm sure you've heard about it before fake it till you make it. There's a lot of these out there that are faking it, and I think it's Eric Thomas that says you confront like you're a lion, but until you get into the jungle. Now you got to act like a lion and people, people are going to expose you, right? So admit that you don't know everything. That's a. That's the honesty part that we talked about. Again, those four things that first one is honesty and competency. You know what? I don't know that. Let's go learn it together. I'm being honest and I'm and I'm starting to be competent, or learning to be more competent. So I think a big, a big mistake that leaders make is pretend that they know everything, the lack of listening, right, which is why I said to listen more.
Speaker 2:Here's the other thing that every conversation has to end right there, and then we have a meeting, you and I talk. The conversation doesn't have to end there. We don't have to come up with a solution right there and then, hey, let's table this Great conversation. I heard you today. Let me marinate on this for a while.
Speaker 2:I don't know how I want to answer these questions yet. Or your situation let's come back tomorrow, or let's come back in two days Gives me enough time to think about it, to access my mentors, to ask those questions, and then we'll come back and we'll finish up this conversation. But conversations don't have to end that day. Solutions don't have to come that day. They can come tomorrow or the following day. But because I'm being vulnerable enough to say you know what? I don't know all the answers, let me think about this Because I might have a difference. Again, going back to the whole contradiction thing, I might contradict what I'm about to tell you right now, but in a day or two later I might think, ooh, maybe this is a better solution, right? So yeah, I think that's a lot of a lot of mistakes that that leaders make is they think I can come up with a. I have to come up with a solution Now. We have to and we have to finish this conversation today.
Speaker 1:It doesn't need to happen that way In today's workplace you got many teams that are virtual or hybrid. What are some strategies leaders can use to build strong teams in this type of environment? Because I know that's kind of challenging where you have people working in, not in the office environment, so that requires, I think, a little bit of a different skill set. What are some of the strategies you're recommending?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So Gallup has a study that said between two and seven two is where you start to see the influx on the graph, but seven is at the peak but connections per month for someone to feel connected, right. So it kind of even goes back to business and business. It says that somewhere between seven and 19 different connections before people will buy from you or that you will buy something from somebody, right, you're getting hungry, you see whatever a Chick-fil-A commercial and then you see a coupon and you see a billboard, and then finally, when you get hungry, you're like, oh, I've had so many what we call touches, right, Nine, 10, 19, 27. I think the number's starting to go up.
Speaker 2:But touches before we want to pull that trigger on to buying something or from someone. It's the same thing in the workplace, where we have to build relationships. There's so many hours of connection before we feel that we have a relationship. So when you're in a hybrid situation or a remote situation, there's got to be constant connection with that person for them to feel a part of a team. So it's hard to feel part of a team when we're remote or in a hybrid situation. So having those meetings or connections with people, those touches, if you will.
Speaker 2:Gallup shows that about seven is where the height is. In that connection, managers, bosses, might say I don't have enough time. I have 300 employees. I have 60 employees. How am I supposed to do seven touches per person? I don't have enough time in the day to do so. Don't kill the messenger. That's what the graph shows. You can do two.
Speaker 2:But here's the other thing too is not all conversations have to be work related, like if I was to ask you like hey, how's your spouse? Or how are the kids? Or you left early yesterday because you were going to go to your son's soccer game. How do you do? I don't have to talk about work. Not all meetings have to be work related, right?
Speaker 2:So the other part was forward looking out of those four pieces, I always try to go back to those keys. Forward looking hey, you have a goal to buy your first home. How is that coming? Hey, we're going to get, there's going to be a new raise or whatever. I want you to work towards a bonus that we're getting. That'll probably help you on your down payment to your new home. Like, how do I make the connection with my staff that, yeah, sometimes it is work related. But it doesn't have to be work related and if I'm forward looking and inspiring, I want to help you reach your your goals. So if we are talking about work, cool, but if we're not talking about work, how do I feel like I left my staff 1% better than when they came into the conversation?
Speaker 1:Seven touches, right. Seven touches two to seven is what you said. The Gallup goals right. We all face setbacks as leaders. How can leaders stay motivated through challenging times, right, such. We just came off a pandemic right, those were challenging times and, as leaders, we had to look at our teams, look at our staff and tell them you know, whatever, whatever your company, decided to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so a couple of different things. Just like there's a secondhand smoke, secondhand high, there's second high motivation. If you're not being motivated, I would ask you what is your, what does your environment look like? If you've fallen out of motivation is probably because you're not being motivated yourself or you're not in, you're not in an environment that's very motivating. So there is a such thing as second high motivation. I think the other thing too is we get lost in. I need motivation. Motivation comes last. There's action comes first, then momentum and then motivation. So if you're looking for motivation, you probably don't have no momentum, which means you're not taking any action. You're probably sitting on your hand somewhere. So, um, get up and move, do something somewhere. So, um, get up and move, do something. That would be, that would be the. The first thing. Um, the other thing I would say uh, when it comes to how, how do we stay motivated? Um is to understand the, the process of change.
Speaker 2:You talked about the pandemic and COVID and stuff like that. Um, every um, another Gallup, another Gallup poll talks about this, and I even want to say that Maxwell used it in a study that he did not too long ago, but that we have to unlearn, relearn and learn our position every three to five years. So think in 2019, you were good, right, you were golden, you were skating through right, even 2018. And then 2020 comes, covid happens. You had to unlearn how to do your job, relearn how to do it and learn what are the new things that we do, right. So now you've you figured it out 2021, 2022. Now we're back at at work, either all the way or a hybrid or still remote. Now you have to figure out how are you going to do it. So now you have to unlearn what you learned in COVID, relearn how to get people back into the process of things, and learn your position.
Speaker 2:Then I would say, things also change, right? So in three to five years, you might not be in the same position. You might have new employees. You might not even have a new boss. You're going to have to work with these new personalities and these new talents that you have or people that are above you or below you. So every three to five years, you're going to have to learn again, unlearn, relearn and learn your position.
Speaker 2:Same thing I'll go back to parenting and even being a spouse. In three to five years, your kids are going to go from, you know, depending on their age, but they're going to go from being a kid to an adolescent, you know, to a teenager, to an adult Three to five years. Think, if I have a five-year-old, in five years they're going to be 10. I can't treat my 10-year-old like a five-year-old anymore. And guess what? And in three years he's going to be 13 or she's going to be 13.
Speaker 2:Now you're getting to adolescence. You can't talk to your 13 year old the way you would talk to a 10 year old, and they're going through something different. So now your kid's 13 and in five years you're going to be 18. Bro, you have to understand that things change. And if things change and you stay stagnant and you stay the same, you're not going to be able to lead those people, even your own kids, right? So, whether it's your kid, your spouse or employees, every three to five years things are going to change. And if we know that things change and you're not.
Speaker 1:You're in a world of hurt. How can leaders cultivate a culture of continuous learning and growth within their organization?
Speaker 2:and or team. Yeah, so, yeah, so we, we, um, we go through a thing called CQ, right, continuous quality improvement, right, how can we get bigger, better, faster, stronger? I'm going to show you something right now that I have um, you've seen cups like this, right, starbucks cups, stuff like this. Right there, on these straws, there is a little notch, there's a little tiny notch. I don't know that, you can see that, but there's a little notch right here and I ask people where do they go, where? But there's a little notch right here and I ask people, where do they go? Where do you think that little notch goes?
Speaker 2:There's people, a lot of people, will say that it goes inside the cup, it goes on the bottom, and I ask why does it do that? And they say, because it's so the straw doesn't fall out, so cool. But who's walking around with the full cup, starbucks cup like this? Right, for those people who who hear this on the audio version of this podcast, it's like those tumbler cups with a straw and it's got that notch in it. But who's who's walking around like this with their cup? No one walks around with their cup like this, right, but when you go get a refill, right, you got to do this. You got to take this off, and then you got to grab the straw where your mouth was and you ask for a refill. Right, you got to do this. You got to take this off and then you got to grab the straw where your mouth was and then you ask for a refill, and then you got to put the stuff back. But what if that notch goes on the top of the lid? So now you're drinking, you're drinking, you're drinking, and then when I go for a refill or I take it out, now the straw does not fall out.
Speaker 2:So the lesson behind that is just because that's how you were taught and just that's, and just because that's the way you've always done it doesn't mean that that's the way it needs to still be done right. And in the workplace people you ask um, why do we do this way? I don't know. We've just always done it that way. Just because you've always done it that way doesn't mean that that's how it's supposed to be done or that it still continues need to be done right. So when we, when we talk about getting better, or how do we navigate culture? Whatever your culture is going to be what it is, not what you say it is.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of organizations that say, oh, it's a family environment, bro, families fight, families tell each other off, and I don't want my workplace to be like my family. I want my family to be my family and I want my workplace to be my work. Right. But even families don't function correctly and workplaces don't function correctly. So, uh, you know, culture is what it is.
Speaker 2:I tell people ask a new hire, somebody who's been there for six to nine months, somebody who's been there for a year and someone who's been there for more than five years or who's a veteran. And if you have the same correlating things, oh it's BS. Here, people gossip, they'll talk about you, blah, blah, blah. No one cares about the employee. There's your culture. Your culture is not what you say it is. Your culture is exactly what it is, what your people say it is. And so I think there's a disconnect between people and the boss's position, and so there's a lot of miscommunication miscommunication there.
Speaker 2:I think the big piece in it is challenge the status quo. Just because you've always done something that way doesn't mean that that's the way it needs to be done. And then it goes back to communication. Right, a lot of organizations have exit interviews, what you know. Why are you leaving? What can we do better? But why are we trying to? Why are we trying to tap into somebody who's leaving when we should be tapping on the people who stay there? So, instead of having exit interviews, start to have stay interviews. Why, why do you stay? What are we doing? Well, I mean, it goes all the way back to one of the first things that I said and have a heightened sense of communication.
Speaker 1:What are some of the biggest misconceptions about leadership that you encounter, Juan?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that leadership is easy. It's not easy. That leadership is great, it's not. You get walked on especially middle management, right. You get pulled from your staff and you get pulled from the people that are over you, and so you're stuck in this piece of getting pulled left and right. But I think the big misconception is that it's easy, I can do it. Right, you see your boss doing something like that's easy, I can do it. Until you get into a position You're like oh damn, there's a lot of work that needs to be done. And that the other misconception I think is just because you're good at your job doesn't mean that you're meant for leadership.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people are like oh, I'm good at my job, but then leadership is about being with people. So cool, you can push paper and you know what to do on the ground, but leadership is about leading people. If you don't know how to lead people, if you don't want to communicate with people, if you don't know how to listen to people, then you're not going to be a good leader. So I made the mistake in my leadership journey bringing people up in leadership positions who are really good at their job. And just because you're really good at your job doesn't make you a good leader, and so it sucked. We lost people, we had production go down because who I thought was really good at their job could be a leader, and it didn't transfer over. So I think that's a big piece.
Speaker 2:And then I think people get into leadership for the wrong reason. Oh, I get paid more and I get all these extra benefits and I get this vehicle right. They're going to move me closer and so it's all about the perks. But do you really understand what leadership is right? And leading and leading people. So I think the big misconception is that you get all this cool fancy stuff of bigger, better, you know, faster, stronger, um, and that's not necessarily the case.
Speaker 2:Leadership is definitely not for everybody. Um, and you're it's almost like you're putting out fires more than you're doing anything else. 100% yeah, if you're not, if you're not careful, leadership should be a place where I'm growing my staff all the time. Yeah, I might need to put out fires here and there, but if you're constantly putting out fires, that means you're not communicating as a leader. As a leader, you should be able to grow your staff pretty much every day and maybe hear them out and do X and do Y, do Z, but if you're putting out fires all the time, you're not leading. You're a firefighter, you're a problem solver, you're not a leader.
Speaker 1:Correct, correct, it's the same thing. I have the same philosophy that you just said, but it pertains to people that want to go into entrepreneurship. Just because you're a good plumber doesn't mean that you're going to be a good business owner, that you should go into business as a plumber, because being a business owner requires a different set of skillset marketing, communicating, sales, right. Just because you're good at your job doesn't mean you can go and be. It's going to require a different set of skills. Now, like you said earlier, someone could be good at pushing papers and they're good producers. Can they grow into the leadership role? Yeah, but they have to have that basic, fundamental understanding that they that that's a skill that they have to grow into.
Speaker 2:They got to read Right. Is that fundamental skill of I don't know? So either let me find out, figure it out and learn so I can be that position, or let me let me hire somebody to do that and empower them to doubt you know, to delegate that that piece? Yeah, cause entrepreneurship, like you said, you can be a good plumber, but are you organized Right? It's tax season. Are you organized, you know, with your to get your to do your taxes right? Um, or can you market? Can you do uh?
Speaker 1:sales and you talk to people. Yeah, customers service experience, yeah, you go into people's house so that you have slob.
Speaker 2:But you don't be like okay, you could like, yeah, entrepreneur. Yeah, entrepreneurship is 50 different jobs. What's that? That one uh meme that was going around for a while. It was like I was tired of working my nine to five so I became an entrepreneur and now I work 24 hours a day. Yeah, I've seen that one.
Speaker 1:That's exactly it. Yeah, I've seen that one. That'll be it. Yeah, I've seen that one. My question before my final question is looking into the future, with the world of AI and everything else that's happening with technology, what leadership skills will be the most important in years to come in your opinion?
Speaker 2:Anything goes back to communication. We get excited for AI, right, I can write this email, let me put it through. Let me put it through AI so I can communicate better. Well, if you nothing can outdo, I don't care how smart AI gets, nothing can outdo actual human interaction, right. So we get all excited for AI. But how about HI, the, the human intelligence piece? Again, I can go to chat GPT and say, hey, you are this, uh, you are my marketing director and we want to do this and we're trying to find all I need five emails that are going to help all.
Speaker 2:But what's even better than that is an actual marketing director or, you know, expert that can do that, who knows the feeling or can talk to the pain points of of someone or of of, uh, of what your avatar is, or whatever. Right, talking, speaking business-wise. So, as much as AI is great and I think that we can use AI, use AI to cut up, cut up my podcast, so whatever. But there's still stuff that I do Like when I put a podcast through Opus Clips, right, and Opus Clips goes and cuts all my stuff together and it gives me my short form content, but there's pieces that it misses. There's parts where I see where it wants to cut out gaps. Right. Ai wants to cut out gaps of silence in the podcast, right, but some of those gaps might be somebody getting choked up with tears and it's quiet because you can see and hear them getting emotional. Ai cuts that out and I'm like bro, I got to go back into my Premiere Pro and grab that piece myself because it does not understand the human interaction or the human emotions of things.
Speaker 2:So I think in the future, yes, ai is great, but nothing can trump the human interaction or that human heart tugged feeling of again, I can send an email out to you but at the same time and I can, I can do all that, but you lose a family member or something like that Me sending flowers or me showing up and saying can I just give you a hug? Ai can't do that, no way. I love you, bro, like I appreciate you. Ai can't do that. So I think the big piece again goes back to the human connection and communicating not just through verbal but visual. Um, I think that's that's, uh, that's a big piece that will always be there, no matter what. Is there anything?
Speaker 1:that you didn't share, that you should have shared, or I didn't ask? Maybe something I didn't ask that I should have asked, that would bring a tremendous amount of value to the audience and myself.
Speaker 2:I've been going around the United States doing a keynote and I think that I think it's valuable for your audience to hear is no matter where what we do whether we're in entrepreneurship, whether it's financial things, family work, whatever it is we have to understand who is in front of us or who's behind that door. So before you go into any boardroom, meeting room, bedroom, living room, you have to ask yourself who does the other person need me to be? And we wear different hats, like right now you are. Who does the other person need me to be? And we wear different hats, like right now you are.
Speaker 2:you are wearing the hat of a podcast host, but your friend but your friend that needs you doesn't need you to be a podcast host and asking podcast questions. They just need you to be there for them. If you have a spouse or a kid right when they're done and they're like dad and you're like hold on, I'm busy, no, you're still wearing the podcast host hat on. You need to take that hat off and wear father hat, right. Who do they need me to be?
Speaker 2:And so there's the acronym that I've come up with for hat is H how do I handle what I hear? A how do I give attention with the right attitude? And T how do I transform the temperature? If I can figure out, who do I need to be? How do I handle what I hear? Who do they need me to be? How do I give attention with the right attitude, right. How do I give them support, empathy, whatever they need? And then T how do I transform the temperature If they're sad? How do I make them happy? Or how do I bring laughter to them If they're scared? How do I bring motivation, inspiration, right? So how do I wear the right hat that they need from me? And my closing line here is when gaps are not filled with intention, then by default they're going to place you in tension, and then that's where we get burnt out and stressed.
Speaker 1:Repeat that again when gaps are not filled with intention.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when gaps are not filled with intention, then by default it will place us in tension.
Speaker 1:Good, stuff, brother. Good stuff, man. If people wanted to connect with you, juan, how do people find you? Where do people connect with you? If they wanted to bring you on as a keynote, or they wanted to bring you on as a coach, or yeah, so website is we raise the barcom, raised with the Z, so R-A E the barcom.
Speaker 2:So we raise the barcom, uh, on Instagram it's just the same spelling, but raise the bars, uh, ceo. Uh, linkedin is a little bit different. Rtb for raise the bar, um dash one and um yeah, instagram LinkedIn website. And then uh, oh yeah, the podcast is called the relevant development podcast, and the reason why it's called the relevant development podcast is I used to hate going to to listen to podcasts or just going to um seminars and trying to get better personal or professional development and then it not be relevant. So I want to make sure that your development is relevant. So the relevant development podcast.
Speaker 1:Outstanding brother. Thank you so much for coming on, really really appreciate you, juan, and, um, the listeners make sure you guys connect with Juan. I mean, you really gave some really good nuggets here. I learned a ton from you and I gotta tell you, you shared. You shared a bunch of things and one of my biggest takeaways is the thing you shared as a leader.
Speaker 1:You learned learning from everybody, and for me and my podcast, this is the one thing I love the most about doing this. As you know, this is not something that that pays a ton of money. You know I do this to serve and to empower people. It's part of my purpose in my life, and one of the things that I have learned to love about my podcast is to have guests like you where come on and I'm just learning, right. I'm learning from people like yourself just a lot of really, really good stuff, man, and I'm continuously learning, and that's one of the things that podcasting has done for me. Juan is actually has allowed me to create not to create but to develop and strengthen my empathy muscle, because I hear so many different perspectives and I learned from so many different people and so many different, different stories and different walks of life. So thank you, brother, for coming on, really appreciate. You, really learned a ton from you here today. Thank you, I appreciate you.