524 | How To Push On The Leaders In Your Life

Joel Fortner 0:00
How to lead up influence and create change when you're not the one in charge that's coming up next.

Chris LoCurto 0:16
Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.

Joel Fortner 0:27
Well, welcome back everyone to the Chris Accardo show. This is once again not Chris liccardo This is Joel Fortner on Chris's team. So glad to be back with you. And Brian, so glad to be back with you. As always my illustrious friend and Italy. I've missed

Brian A 0:43
you. And I've missed hearing how illustrious I am. I still have not figured out in what way anyone would find me as illustrious. But I'm glad that you do.

Joel Fortner 0:55
I'm searching for it as well. I thought if I just keep saying it. I'll eventually find it.

Brian A 1:01
If we wanted those, they will come. Yeah, okay. I got actly.

Joel Fortner 1:04
Yeah, you were like a baseball field in a cornfield. My friends.

Brian A 1:08
Field of Dreams right here, my friend.

Joel Fortner 1:10
Yeah, absolutely. But enough about us. Let's talk about you. Yeah, let's talk about everybody else. Oh, man, what do you think about us? That's great. That's great. I think we're great, Brian. All right. Well, so guys, on today's show, we're talking about what's really a very difficult topic and very challenging topic for many leaders. And that's this whole idea of leading up or influencing a leader in your life, you may be a leader, you may be, you may be the one who's being led at home, and oh, yeah, I've got that smell, definitely control. I'm trying to influence my leader at home or whatever it may be. But it's how do we it's we're talking about how do we do that? Well, I mean, primarily, I mean, we're talking about the business organizational context today. But this can be such a challenge for so many leaders when you're not on the same page, and you don't share the same maybe the same values or, or even morals or beliefs about how leadership should go or you don't maybe you have differences of opinion of what the priorities of the company should be, or the or whatever it may be. It's where we have the gaps where the problems really present themselves.

Brian A 2:30
Yeah. And I'd love to see if we can tease out a little bit of, you know, your relationship with Chris there you know, since Chris doesn't find himself on the show today, let's, let's just have a go about him. Let's talk about him. And hopefully, I don't know if he listens to his own podcast and probably doesn't have to because he's on it 95% of the time. But that said, you're in, you know, you're in a role now over the last year as the president's new title, and then Chris is still the CEO and all of that. So, you know, I'd love to see where that kind of rubs you you guys have worked together so long. Now you can almost finish each other's sentences. And you pretty much know where Chris's mind is going to go about anything. But I imagine there are still times where you have a different perspective or, you know, a different way of approaching things, then Chris, and Chris needs that. And I know that he's open and receptive to gaining perspective, but not everybody finds themselves in that kind of situation. And so yeah, I'm looking forward to kind of teasing some of that out today. But you know, just to kind of set the stage, you're probably familiar with the phrase, it's lonely at the top, talking about leadership. And that's because there are very few organizationally, who can be in that, you know, leadership, the main leader of an organization in that position, and so most people probably find themselves under another leader, even if you are at the top, you still have other people, hopefully speaking into your lives for accountability for, you know, perspective gaining for you know, mastermind groups, all of that kind of thing that happens. And so, you know, whether or not you're in that top spot doesn't really matter today, what we're talking about is being a positive influence. And I want to say, you know, I think I want to underline that just for a second that when we're talking about influencing others, it's not to manipulate them to do what you think needs to happen.

Joel Fortner 4:41
Oh, well, right. Okay. I thought we're gonna teach them the wrong way. I'm so sorry. So this is an honor to be on the show anymore.

Brian A 4:51
All right. Well, Joel is off. So let's just talk about let's just know, right? I mean, we got we got to, we got to point that out. I mean, that that's probably obvious. as to you know, most of the listeners, but we need to underline that we're not just influencing in order to have our way correct, we're trying to be a positive influence on the leader in our life, fill in the gaps, be supportive, add value to the organization, and positively propel the culture forward towards the vision and the mission of the organization. That's what we're talking about within those confines. I think all of that is, it needs to be said though, right? Okay. So

Joel Fortner 5:36
yeah, cuz it wasn't, you're right. You're we're not talking about your selfish desires, we're, we're so to take it to kind of go back a little bit. You know, as people we can struggle with control. And it's easy to sit in a leadership spot at times and be like, oh, yeah, Joe. And Brian, I know you're talking about I work for a leader that super difficult, and I don't agree with them, and they make bad calls and you stay, it's, you know, you have to be careful standing back in judgment. And this is where you do have to gain perspective. And you have to also look inside yourself and be like, gosh, am I being judgmental? Am I being controlling, in terms of, well, my opinion is better, my perspective is better, I'm a better leader, I make better judgment calls, I would have handled those people differently, and that back kind of thing, and you and you can sit back and struggle with control or self-righteousness or pride. And we have those cautions, we're not talking about a lot of that today. But we have to be cautious with our view of who is another leader is that we have to approach it with great health. And we have to acknowledge, we may be off about some stuff. Or we may make making some assumptions about what our leader that leader is doing, that we may or may not be right. And so that's where we've got to really go after more quality communication. So just before we get any farther down the tracks here, I just want to speak about that and bring that into the light First of all, we really have to operate with self-awareness.

Brian A 7:13
Yeah, no, I think it's worth saying it's a great disclaimer here. And we have to approach it, as you said healthily, and with humility, to understand, hey, look, you know, leaders are people too, they are imperfect. They're fallible, limited. And they're emotional creatures, just like we are they are, they are like us, we are like them. And you're never going to be able to change your leader. That is not your role. And I mean, if you know, we could talk about that also, in a marriage context, we're never going to be able to change our partner, our partner can choose to change. But we can't do that for them, what we can do is bring a level of influence, and that's leadership, we're going to be able to supplement some things and find ways to be supportive. But you know, again, they're imperfect. We're imperfect. And so where do we fit into all of that? I guess that's kind of the discussion today. I mean, everybody finds themselves in an unfavorable situation, from time to time with the people that they work with probably right now, most people are thinking that oh, yeah, I know, that leader. And, you know, it doesn't matter if you love your leader, or get along perfectly with them, or there's no rough edges to sort out. The problem is, I think, and correct me if you see it a different way. The problem is, is that we're not accustomed to thinking about helping the people who are over us in leadership, most of the 20th century, if we, you know, if we're a leader, we're thinking, you know, our focus is how to, and Chris says this all the time, how do I make my team successful? Right? How do I set them up for success, make them successful? And in fact, it can, it can almost be to where we, we kind of shrug off the idea of influencing the people above us or even on a colleague level of pure level, saying, well, that's just not my job. I you know, that's their problem. But, you know, John Maxwell would remind us that leadership is more disposition than position. It's influencing others from wherever you are in that sphere. You know, he talks about that in a book he wrote a long time ago. 360-degree leader, Leadership isn't always top-down. It's exerting that positive influence all around you for the greater good, and that includes the people that are over us, but I think that we forget, we're just not accustomed to seeing it that way or doing that. Yeah, I think

Joel Fortner 9:50
I think there's a lot of truth in that for some people. You know, it's like one of the things I appreciate about our culture is that Chris taught us long ago Oh, in our culture that you know it, because he's not, we're not shy about talking about stuff like this about, hey, you know that, you know, Heather and I are the business owners. And with that come to say, hey, take care of us also, as the owners, let me be very clear about what I'm saying, this is an honor thing. This is a respect thing. This is a, they're two of my best friends, but they choose to allow me to work on this team. They're the business owners, they own this thing now, is that and I mean, are we here to it's because it's all about Chris and Heather Lo Curto? No, it's not. This is about God. And this is about the team serving who's most important, who is our clients, and also the people that follow this show that we're trying to influence in a positive way. So this is such a wee thing. But there is an honor and a respect that I will carry even as a best friend to Chris and Heather, that they are also my leaders, and they own the point main group. And I think for me, I think I have an unfair advantage, Brian, because when I think and I think you may you can relate to this, that even though we served in very different military capacities I can speak for myself, and no, I had a healthy respect, that I was reporting to people who were quote-unquote, above me, I have no problem with that relationship. I was taught, to take care of your leader, take care of the commander, take care of that, Colonel, take care of that general take care of that secretary, who I'm talking about, like Secretary of the Air Force working in the Pentagon environment, that was just in me in my culture for so long. And I think even in my family, though, you know, that my mom was a very strong and dominant personality and leader, that it was like an Okay, Mom was the more vocal of all of our of the leadership in the home dad was very high s&c Mom was very high D high more extroverted, dominant, and would be like, This is what we're doing. And this is where we're going. And so I think my whole life, that's why I think I have an unfair advantage. I think people that don't have aren't accustomed to this, are they can find it more difficult to kind of where do I fit in. And how do I adopt this mindset of taking care of who I'm actually reporting to? Or who's in charge? Or who was over me, however, we want to turn this, but I'll tell you that it's a worthy pursuit. Because if you want to go further in influencing your organization, treat your leader like your customer. Yeah, I'm not talking about you having to be married to them. We're not talking about we've got to agree. And we've got to be, you know, have found a great level of marriage like Unity, every day at work, I'm talking about man, meet them where they're at, try to find where you have common ground, try to find, what do they care about? What are their priorities? What's on their agenda? How can you help them get those things done, if you will adopt that mindset and find success, and you will go farther in your career?

Brian A 13:13
Yeah. And I imagined some of what complicates this, for some people out there. I mean, you know, I'm just thinking about like gravity, for example, you know, lifting up is harder than pushing down. And, you know, from a positional leadership standpoint, it's really easy, in some sense, and to do it poorly, to manage or lead from that position and expect people under you to do what you say. But when we think about leading up, we're going against the grain a little bit in what, you know, a lot of companies are set up to do. And so that's one thing, it's a little bit against the grain we're unaccustomed to thinking that way, just like you're saying, and I think that is an unfair advantage. But it's a mindset we should probably adopt. But then, you know, to make matters worse, it can be further complicated when that leader is insecure when they're immature when you know, they're leading from that positional standpoint, instead of a servant leader. I mean, it makes it complicates this whole thing to where I mean, gosh, you know, the objective would be I need to find ways to support add value, encourage them in the right direction, towards the culture that we're trying to create as leaders in the mission and the vision and the values that we've established. That's the direction that we're trying to push things. But, you know, if I don't know my leaders, and personality style, I'm going to further complicate things, and it's a huge advantage when we learn how to both communicate and relate to and do things in a way that leans into their style of either personality or leadership. I mean, that's one way that we start to get an advantage or our heads wrapped around the situation. That can really be complicated.

Joel Fortner 15:10
Yeah, you bring up a lot of really good points. I mean, this, this whole idea can be very difficult when you've got, say, a difficult leader. Let's just assume for the sake of conversation that you're a leader guys, too. And you're your say, You're the healthier one. Let's just say that. And you report to a more insecure, immature, or just more toxic leader, it's like, shoot, how do I navigate that? You know what, it's going to be hard. It just is. There's no like, oh, waving a magic wand and making this perfect. You know that this is why we also coach and train leaders at the CEO president, you know, Senior VP level, to become phenomenal leaders, because it has everything to do with retention, and has everything to do with not losing you a healthy leader who's listening to this right now. So there's only so much you can do here. But do it, find where that person's like, you know what all this stuff drives me crazy. You know what, you may not make it long term in the organization you're in, because your leader is just too difficult or too unhealthy, you know, that it is what it is. And that's unfortunate if you're in that situation. But as you said, Brian, it's like you can't change your leader, what you can do is the influence I'll tell you, it's like, I'm 44 years old now. And I feel like I'm finally getting to a place in life, where I have enough life experience to look back and say, what are some two real truths here that like hold out, or I'm starting to get enough gray where I can say stuff to be like, Hey, this is a thing you should do. And I'm very, very certain about it. It's like, I'm now entering into that, like, it's a phase in my life. And so this is one of those things, like I have done it enough in my own career in my own life I've seen and I've coached others and seen them do it as well, that if you can empty yourself, have a little bit more of yourself. And be like, You know what, I don't like this stuff. I don't like this leader. I don't really, but it's, uh, you know what, I've got to take care of them in the best way that I can. I've got to find common ground, I've got to look for where can I build greater trust and rapport. Are there things that they don't like about me that I need to be like, Hey, no need to open the door on find out? Like, how can I better serve you? How can I better you know, lead, you know, help you? How can I better align with what matters to you and your priorities and where you're trying to take stuff? And you're just you're scrapping for just stuff on where you can actually connect. So there was something there was a guy, I find myself talking about him all the time. But when I was in college, there was a guy named Joe Martin. And he's a motivational speaker. And he's the first guy who introduced me to this whole concept called purpose in life. And it lit me up. Like I remember how excited I was about this whole idea.

And like, you can see the good work of God back there in terms of like what we do in this business today, like on the next level, life side. And anyway, this whole idea lit me up. Well, he taught he also really targeted and help teachers and he help students be successful. And one of the tricks of the grade has he called it and I think he has a book on this is he said on day one of your class, you be the student that goes to your professor, you stick out your hand, you introduce yourself, and you strike up a conversation? He says, Why is that so important? Because most students will listen and they will walk right by the professor and walk right out the door, moving on to the next class, you will stand out. But if you so take that idea and extrapolate it, if you do all kinds of stuff like that, to build trust and rapport with that, quote, unquote, Professor, in this case, insert your leader into that leader, what difference might that make? If you put yourself out there in that kind of a way? Might you be the one that has a better relationship with that difficult leader? And actually, it may go easier for you, you may get your priorities moved forward, you may get your agenda, and you may get their ear more. And everybody else is like, Man, I don't know how you're doing that. I'm not because you're practicing the tricks of the great types of examples.

Brian A 19:28
Yeah, I love that. We're getting into some of the practical sides of this because that was going to be my next question how does all this get fleshed out in the workplace? And I love that we're teasing out what is the wrong motivation or mindset to bring to the situation when it comes to influencing leaders and what is the right motivation and the mindset and I think you just answered part of this for us. You know, if somebody finds himself under a leader, who either doesn't want their input or doesn't, you know, solicit their perspective on things being that one who presents themselves in a positive way? Hey, you know, how was your weekend? And you know, how's it going for you? Okay, great. What do you need extra today? What can I do? I mean, they're, they're volunteering. above the norm. There's that standout feature that if I were the leader in that position, I would be looking for people on my team like that, that I could go, hey, you know what, let me ask you a question. What did you think about this situation over here? How could we have done this veteran, as a leader, my guard starts to go down a little bit. Even if I'm that, you know, the immature or the insecure leader, I begin to feel that rapport growing, that this person is here to serve me as a leader and the organization where we're going, and they're not going to, you know, do something purposefully to jeopardize that or, you know, get us off course. So I'm going to begin opening up as a leader, I think that's one of the ways the positive influence that maybe you find yourself there in the leaders that are around you, there are some steps, and measures you can take to present yourself, you know, especially if you're frustrated with the leader over you right now, there are some things that you can control. Again, you can't change your leader, but you can change your response, you can change how you re-wrote the report that you have with them which is absolutely within your control. And not that we want to end up being a suck-up, or you know, somebody who's just you know, showing them around like a puppy dog. Yeah, yeah, we're

Joel Fortner 21:50
not talking about being a suck-up, or being a people pleaser. You know, we're saying so I was listening to this podcast the other day, then I heard this story. And this person, I forget what she does exactly. But she said in her career, that she was serving this client. And it was a very, very difficult client. And it was one of those clients that would email her. And what she did in order to cope was that she would then gossip and judge that, that that client, to her co-worker, and be like, Oh, my gosh, Brian, like, here's so and so. And she's, oh my gosh, here she is, again. And here's all this stuff near Sal, she's being and then she would actually type up. The response that she wanted to send to the client that she had sized up is this super difficult kind of toxic person. So she typed up her response, and then she'd always delete it. Well, guess what, you see where this is going? She sent it. She sent the reply to the client. And then she was like, I mean, all of a sudden, all the fear and stress hit her, she goes to her boss and says, Hey, this is what I just did. And her boss said you have to go apologies. And she was like, Oh, my gosh, can I just please be fired? Can I just be fired instead? So if you feel like you have to go apologize. So she goes and buys this huge bouquet of flowers, shows up with his bouquet of flowers and hat and hand goes into this client's office. The first thing the client said, when the client looked at her was the client said, why didn't you just tell me? Why didn't you just tell me? So where am I going with this? We size people up? You may think, Oh, I know, my difficult leader. I know him inside and out. Don't be so prideful, you may be wrong. You may be wrong about some stuff or misjudging their character because you've sized them up. And you just what have you decided to do? I'm not going to share anything with them. I'm not even going to attempt to give them any feedback on how I experienced them.

That would go horribly. I already know what's going to happen. You're making assumptions. Now, I already know how difficult this is. This is high conflict zone we're in right now. This is fear inducing. It's stress-inducing. My point is, there are always more options that you may think are available to you because go back to the story. What if she had just gone to the client and said, Hey, I'm so sorry. But I just need to talk with you about some things because there are some things I'm really struggling with in our relationship. And I don't want this to be confrontational, but I just want to I want to do a good job for you. And I'm just finding myself struggling. Can we just talk about that? That person by that response she gave her before tells me they probably just could have talked about it. And that client would have actually received some feedback on some things that she wasn't aware of. She wasn't aware of how she was coming across. And she needed the accountability and the feedback of just somebody to say go eyes that may be your leader. No one ever tells him, no one ever goes and says, Hey, you're this is where you're kind of difficult with other people. This is where I struggle with you. I just want to talk with you about it. I don't want to attack you. But this is just some stuff I just want to talk about. Maybe it's me, maybe there's some stuff you see, but it may be worth it at times to have that conversation.

Brian A 25:22
Yeah, it's amazing how much good healthy, you know, and a good dose of humility, kind of conversation, and communication, like we talked about around here, high levels of quality communication. It's amazing how far that will go to defuse and de-escalate situations, when done rightly, with the right motive with the right mindset. It can completely turn around situations where, you know, maybe my tendency because of my personality, style, leadership style, might be to abdicate authority or leadership might be to isolate myself might be to prejudge. But, you know, I forget, I think it was Seneca who said, We suffer more in imagination than in reality. And sometimes we build these air castles in our minds of how other people are and how they're going to respond. You might, you know, coming back to your relationship with Chris, you might have a tendency, or he might have a tendency, because of the years that you guys have worked very closely together to pre-judge something. But I imagine that every once in a while he surprises you. And you surprise him and that communication needs to happen regardless.

Joel Fortner 26:41
Yeah, exactly. And you're, you're right, those, it's like, there's a lot of predicting how Chris is going to respond. And he loves that. I mean, we even teach to be a predictable leaders. Don't leave your team always guessing or being like, you know, taking your temperature to have to figure out where you are, you're trying to find consistency. Why? Because you're the leader, and people look to you for approval, and they look to you to have their needs met. You know what, it's just part of the job, you may not be asking for that. But it tends to just be part of the job when you're the leader, you're the manager. So there's a great thing and having a predictable leader, but you're right, sometimes, Chris will all of a sudden be like, Oh, that's not what I was expecting. And then I have to recalibrate and be like, Okay, where is he right now? And why does he view the thing, the way that he views it? Or Wow, he has an objection to something that I didn't expect. I wonder why he has that objection, it's become a learning opportunity. But because we've logged a lot of time, there is a lot of predictability. And he will tell me, it's like, I basically know how Joel's gonna do it and how he's going to respond. But from time to time, something will be like, a little bit off, or it'll be like, Oh, that's not what I thought, or I'll have a perspective that he simply wasn't thinking about. And Chris operates most of the time, Chris operates really well. And just tell me what you think. And what do you think? And what is your opinion? And what is your input on that? So we can ultimately make a better decision. It doesn't have to be my decision. It doesn't have to be Chris's decision where there's pride in that. It's let's just make a good decision. And then let's move forward.

Brian A 28:27
Yeah, I love that. So as we're kind of starting to wrap up a little bit here, what are the things that that you know, are coming to mind, no matter who your leader is, where they are on that, that health or maturity spectrum, you know, bearing in mind that we no matter where we are in the organization in that hierarchy, we're influencing all the time, we're exerting influence, and influencing also the culture, with our words and actions, it's our attitudes, right? And we're bringing that to the table every time I come to work every time. You know, we sit in a meeting, every time that we're communicating to those leaders, we are influencing and so bearing that in mind, and I am reminded, again, we sat healthily, and also the humility side of this, that is going to turn things in a favorable outcome, you know, the moment that we come in, in an unhealthy way exerting influence in order to manipulate in order to get to, you know, our point of view or our desired outcome, and not for the corporate good. That's a problem that's going to crop up and so, you know, changing the culture for the good is something that has to be that on the motivational level and that means sometimes I have to let go of my perspective because my leader decided to do something else other than what I had suggested. And that doesn't mean that I'm not valuable. It doesn't mean that I need to just go, Okay, well, he doesn't listen to me or she doesn't listen to me. So I'm going to abdicate, I'm going to step back, I'm going to isolate myself, No, it means, okay, in this particular context or situation, they had to make the decision, and they made it, you know, but my role is not to manipulate that outcome, my role is to find the way to support to influence and be a positive, you know, asset in the company, especially on their team as much as I can.

Joel Fortner 30:36
Yeah, I agree. I agree. When it comes to influence, it starts with you. It's typically we worry about how are other people going to respond to stuff, and then we stress and we get fear, and we get self-protective and ways and, what I would offer everyone listening is who are you? And how do you influence other people? It totally depends on how healthy you are in the choices that you make. And the choices we make come from how healthy we are. This is what I love about personal growth, and learning hard things about ourselves of being willing to see like, Oh, I'm not I stink there. Well, I'm toxic there. And I never realized actually how toxicity is toxic. It's such an ugly word. And we want to avoid stuff like that. But we've got to look for like, gosh, where am I selfish? Where do I judge? Where do I make assumptions? Where do I put things on people? Where do I guilt people? Where do I where am I condescending? Where do I talk down to people? Where do I just convince myself of things and not gain perspective? And it's like, it's got to be my way? And where do I fight to be right about stuff and, and all these things that we need to really pursue growth on? Because then you can more healthily influence people around you at work, or at home. And as someone who teaches this stuff, and I'm a next-level life facilitator, you will never and I teach people how to I mean, how do you do life better? And this isn't from a place of Oh, Joe's got it all figured out? Chris, has it all figured out? No, we don't. We fail at stuff all the time. We learn new things all the time that we then go on to be better at what we do. My wife and I just hired a parenting coach people a parenting coach, that sounds weird or sounds crazy.

Well, that's what she calls herself. Why did we do that? Because we are where we adopted two kids, our foster kids, three years, we've had to beat Unnati for over three years. And we reached a point of difficulty, where it's like, you know what, we're out of information. And we're tired of responding the ways that we are, that aren't good, and we don't like about ourselves, or we're like, you know what, we need help here. Because it's how we greatly influence our child who has trauma, who comes whose brain doesn't operate, like, like our older two kids, his needs are different. And so we know what we know. And that works for our older two kids, it doesn't work for him. So our influence on him as his leader at times isn't what it needs to be, we need a new set of keys.

And so we've hired a person that after two coaching sessions, has been a game changer. We've seen so much change in him in the last two weeks more than we've seen in a long time now because we're now leading and influencing him because we are allowing ourselves to be influenced by an expert when it comes to leading a child with trauma. And this is how influence works it ripple effects. So who is that? Who are you today? It's like and who do you want to be? And where do you see gaps so that you can pursue the information and that you can pursue whether it's like coaching with an organization like ours, that helps you to see things and learn and grow to be a better influencer and a better leader, and for the people around you in your life, and to achieve bigger goals, to improve the success of your team or the success of your business. It all hinges on you, and what you choose to do so I just this is why I so strongly encourage people is to get help read books, praise God, you're listening to podcasts like this that are hopefully helping and influencing you in a positive way, so that you can be the better leader whether it's at home with your divvied with my son, or whether it's your team or whether it should the leaders that you're leading every day. It's like what kind of influence do you want to have on people and then are you willing to reach out and actually get help and make it a priority? already to then implement what you're learning?

Brian A 35:04
Yeah, no, it's really helpful. Man, there are so many good things there, I just want to come back around and underline something you said a few minutes ago about the consistency. It's that's so huge. Being a predictable leader, and being the predictable employee wherever you are in that hierarchy. You know, Chris said this, and I think we've still got the blog post on our website, you can probably just go to Chrislocurto.com, hit the little search bubble, type in the word influence, and you'd see a blog post on how to influence your leadership. He said, the key to influencing leadership or the leaders in your life is by example, it doesn't matter how much you want to make a difference. If you're not living the culture that you want to see, nobody's going to care when you present it as an idea. You have to show every day that you believe in a better way, if you want a culture of no gossip, then you need to tell people who are gossiping to stop. People need to be able to anticipate what why and how they're going to do something. So they know where you stand if you want leaders in your life. So that that blog post is up there on the website, I think you'd be able to find it if you want leaders in your life, to drop that guard a little bit. Be open to your point of view and perspective, you've got to have that consistent predictability. And you've got to be living out the culture that you as a leadership team are trying to create in the business. And you've got to be setting the example. And I think that's, that's a huge key for somebody out there who may be frustrated with their role in the leadership team, and whoever's over them, leading by example, with consistency. Having a healthy and humble attitude is going to propel you forward in that relationship and that rapport with that leader over you, you are already by doing those things already exerting a positive influence on your leader.

Joel Fortner 37:17
Well, leaders, folks, it was great to be with you today. I hope this episode has been helpful, I hope it's been beneficial. So take this information and apply it and take hopefully, there are one or two takeaways you get from today's discussion that you can start to practice today. That high performing people tend to move immediately on nuggets of information that they learned, and they start putting them to practice. So if something resonated with you today, put it to practice today find someplace to apply it, and start practicing these new things. And if you have a question about it if you have a win, and a success or like a wow, this is really cool. We would love to hear about it. Just email us at podcast at Chrislocurto.com. Again, any questions, or episode ideas you'd love for us to cover in the future? Just reach out to us we'd love to hear from you. podcast at Chrislocurto.com and please rate and review this podcast wherever you listen, it we loved having the feedback and it helps other people find the show as well. So that is all of our time today. I hope this has been beneficial and helpful and we will catch all of you all soon.