What is lovable leadership? Jeff Gibbard, host of “Shareable” Podcast, shares in this episode the steps necessary to create his philosophy of leadership – “Loveable Leadership”
On his Linkedin headline, he is The World’s Most Handsome Social Media and Content Marketing Strategist. Though Jeff Gibbard is rarely described as humble, he is a champion for building extraordinary company cultures, growing the leaders of tomorrow, and using empathy in all areas of life including technology.
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Mike Domitrz: Welcome to the Respect podcast. I’m your host, Mike Domitrz from mikespeaks.com where we help organizations of all sizes, educational institutions and the U.S. military create a culture of respect. And respect is exactly what we discuss on this show. So let’s get started.
Mike Domitrz: This week’s guest, on his Linkedin headline it says, World’s Most Handsome Social Media and Content Marketing Strategist. Though Jeff Gibbard is rarely described as humble, he is a champion for building extraordinary company culture, growing the leaders of tomorrow and using empathy in all areas of life including technology. Jeff, thank you so much for joining us.
Jeff Gibbard: Mike, I am thrilled to be here with you today. Thanks so much for having me.
Mike Domitrz: Absolutely. And for our listeners to know, you’re also the host of the Shareable podcast, which I was just recently on, so I loved being interviewed by you. Thank you. That was a great time together.
Jeff Gibbard: Yeah. It’s really cool that we get to turn the tables on each other. Before, it was me behind the mic asking you the questions. Now we get to swap it.
Mike Domitrz: Yes. For a little bit of fun we’re going to start off because you said you lead with empathy. I can see some people going, but wait. If his title says most handsome social media and content marketing strategist, doesn’t that put others below him. Is that empathetic, or is he testing humor out with, see if you find that to be offensive, you might not be the right fit. How do you answer that?
Jeff Gibbard: People that know me know that I am a pretty laid back kind of guy. I’m like to poke fun at things. I don’t take myself too seriously. I don’t take the world too seriously in general. I try to make sure that we’re all having fun. Obviously I do still really deeply care about how other people react to things. I’ve had people that have come up to me and taken issue with it. I apologize and let them know I’m really not meaning to be conceited here. The goal is that it is so ridiculous. To be it’s a little bit like satire. It’s such an absurd headline. The key point of why I do that is that there are basically two different things that really proceed me.
Jeff Gibbard: One is that people know that I wear bright red sneakers all the time. The other is that people will refer to me as the world’s most handsome social media and content marketing strategist. They are saying it tongue and cheek as well because they’re in on the joke. It’s absurd. To me it’s about standing out, getting noticed and having something that proceeds you as a jumping off point for conversation.
Mike Domitrz: Absolutely. I appreciate that. Thank you for that. Obviously we talk about respect. Who is someone for you that really has inspired you, or you look up to, you have an immense amount of respect for?
Jeff Gibbard: The first person that comes to my mind, outside of my father who I have the world of respect for, if I’m looking who I look at and say, if I could be like anybody in business, who would I want to be like? I always look to Seth Godin. I’m currently listening to his book, This Is Marketing. I get so little out of the idea of marketing, just to sell more stuff. When we really take it back to what’s important to people and their lives, and how we as businesses can serve those people, and how we can help to alleviate pain in their lives or make their lives happier, or just satisfy an itch that they have, that’s when marketing makes any kind of sense to me, or business makes any kind of sense to me.
Jeff Gibbard: When you look at the work of Seth Godin, he’s asking those hard questions. He’s holding people in businesses to a higher standard. I really look at that, and I respect that. It takes a lot of courage to not just say we’re going to play the numbers game, and get X number of impressions, and a percentage of that will convert. Instead, he’s really trying to take a quantified approach, rather than … or, I’m sorry. A qualified approach rather than a quantified approach.
Mike Domitrz: How did you get here? What took your journey to where you are today?
Jeff Gibbard: Oh, man. I’ve really followed passion my entire life. That has led me down a number of different roads to failure, but each of those failures has been a stepping stone and part of the pathway to get me to where I am today. I wanted to be a professional basketball player at 13. Then a world famous film director. Then a photographer who would travel the world taking pictures. Every time, it was about me finding something that really made my heart sing, and made me excited to get out of bed and go do whatever it was. That’s how we found our way here.
Jeff Gibbard: It was sometime in 2004, 2005 where I had really taken passion about as far as it could go. I realized I wasn’t going to make much of myself if I didn’t round out my brain so I wasn’t so right brain heavy. I went back to business school. That’s when I came out with a different perspective, and a more balanced perspective. That took me on the path here where I started my agency in 2011. I ran that for seven years, and then got acquired by an agency called From The Future where I now do a whole lot more things that I’m really interested in.
Mike Domitrz: Your agency, what kind of marketing were they doing?
Jeff Gibbard: My agency is a social media and content marketing agency. Social media, content marketing and influencer marketing. That was the work that I was doing for approximately eight years in my own agency. When we got acquired, the work that I’m able to do now extends beyond just doing the marketing work. A lot of what I’m accountable for these days is, what does our client experience look like? How do we communicate with the people that we serve, and how do we communicate with each other internally?
Jeff Gibbard: We’re really trying to build a company culture of … and I’m not saying this just because it’s the name of your show … but of respect where we really appreciate what everybody bring to the table. We have the empathy and compassion to allow people the space to be good, to be bad, to do their jobs well, and sometimes falter at their jobs, but that we all support each other and help each other grow. That’s a lot of what I’m focused on these days is really the people aspect more so than the work itself.
Mike Domitrz: All right. The work you do, obviously, social media heavy by everything you’ve described repeatedly. How do you help people understand, or avoid the pitfalls of social media? You’re trying to use it to positively impact people by helping them find resources that can truly serve. How do you, in that process, help people avoid the manipulation?
Mike Domitrz: One of the books you have on your list is Influence by Robert Cialdini. That book is fascinating, but it can be used for good or bad.
Jeff Gibbard: Absolutely. I feel like anything can be used for good or for evil, depending on the person that’s wielding the weapon. I’ve always seen it as my responsibility. I’m a huge fan of Spider-Man. The whole, with great power comes great responsibility”. I think of myself as a leader, as a business person, as a human being that if I have the perspective that no matter what I’m going to try and do the right thing to make the world a better place, then I’m going to approach everyone of my endeavors with that mindset.
Jeff Gibbard: When I got into social media, I approached it super bright eyed and busy tailed and thought, this is going to be a technology that changes the world. We’re going to connect with each other across time and geography. We’re going to be able to appreciate employees and customers, and really hear and listen to each other, and have the opportunity to be vulnerable, and connect and blah, blah, blah. That was how I saw the world. I thought for sure, that’s what we’re going to do.
Jeff Gibbard: Fast forward eight, ten years and look at what we’ve become, and all the different problems we’re having with hacking, and trolls and all that, the divisiveness online. In terms of how I stay true to it, I just try to bring myself and remember what it is I set out to do in the first place. An epiphany I had recently was that I was never particularly interested in the tools of social media. What I always looked at is, I thought social media were a series of technologies that could amplify what I already was.
Jeff Gibbard: If you had a great organization, social media would naturally show that you were a great organization by way of how you’ve interacted publicly, or how your employees chose to go online and talk about their work. I really saw it more as a reflection more so than a tactical advantage to utilize these tools to tell a story. I thought that the tools would be used, and would just tell what the story was. I try to focus on, instead of helping companies to use these tools to accomplish something, I instead think, how do I help the organization to accomplish what it’s trying to accomplish and us the tool set of social media.
Mike Domitrz: I think that’s a great question for each of us to think of every time we go on social media. What am I here to amplify? If I’m sharing something, I’m amplifying something. What do I believe I want to amplify in the world? If I’m going to share tons of negative energy, then I’m amplifying negative energy. I think that we can all that that on a personal viewpoint of, what do I want to amplify? When I go on Facebook, am I being intentional about amplifying what I want to amplify.
Jeff Gibbard: 100%. One quick thing to add to that is that I think you’re seeing in usage patterns of social media that peoples’ behaviors are starting to change. We’ve been manipulated for a very long time by these networks to use the networks more, to post more, to do all these different things. I think that we’re starting to hit a point of diminishing returns, and where people are making a u-turn and thinking, what am I really getting out of this? Why am I doing it? What’s the benefit? Hopefully, we’re being more selective about what we choose to share from our own lives, and we’re being more selective about what we choose to engage with based upon the one part being, what shows up in our feed based upon what we engage with. Two, what does it do to us personally? How does it make us feel when we engage negatively online versus when we go there to be supportive, and amplify things that we believe in.
Mike Domitrz: I think that’s the key. It has the possibility within the same minute to do both. One minute you can be loving a positive thing. Another one being sunk with this negative energy somewhere shared. They meant well. They were trying to create awareness. It becomes this, I don’t know about you, but I know about me. Because of my high energy level, when I’m around positive I can soar. But when I’m around negative, I can also dive deep into that tunnel. It can sink me quicker because of my energy levels. Facebook, social media, Instagram, Twitter. All of them have the capability to do both within seconds. You could be on a positive, then suddenly in a negative.
Jeff Gibbard: Absolutely. It’s just a matter of the choices you make. You know that I’m a huge fan of the work that you do. I think we could probably agree that there’s a similarity in all of the different conversations, whether it be how we interact with each other on social media, or how we gain consent in a romantic relationship, or how we show respect in the workplace. It’s all about the choices that we choose to make. Really, if I take all of the work that I’m involved in, and I take it back to the core, it’s about installing mental frameworks and ideas around, what is ideal look like? What does a great company culture look like? If we can build that then we can start to see how that amplifies out to social. If you look at, who do you want to be in the world as a company? What kind of a change are you trying to make out there? You’re going to conduct yourself and talk about things differently when you go online, or even when you go to a networking event.
Mike Domitrz: Right.
Mike Domitrz: Right, exactly. I mean I always tell people when you post a negative post let’s say, you make a really negative statement, would you do that standing in front of five people? The answer is like well no, of course you wouldn’t do that, because somebody could be offended, which is such an interesting perspective, but online we’ll share it, so I love that we’re having this conversation.
Mike Domitrz: Let’s take it to the end person, because you love talking about leadership, it’s a passion of yours, you’re writing a book on it right now. How would you define your philosophy of leadership?
Jeff Gibbard: So the philosophy of leadership that I’m trademarking, I’m coining … I haven’t trademarked it yet, but I will. Nobody out there trademarked this, but it’s called lovable leadership. So the name of the book I’m writing is called The Lovable Leader.
Jeff Gibbard: It comes down to the idea that you’re not a leader because of the title that you were given. You may be able to have the hierarchical status to be able to tell people what to do, but you don’t earn people’s respect and admiration by force and by title. You do it by the actions that you take on a day-to-day basis, and how you make people feel about themselves, and how you inspire them to work for themselves, how you help them to grow, how you support them.
Jeff Gibbard: So my entire leadership philosophy … There’s this whole idea of like service leadership, and then there’s like command and control leadership. There’s all these different philosophies. I call mine lovable leadership, because what I’m trying to do at all areas of the company is to inspire a situation where people really love and respect each other. Obviously love can be displayed in a number of different ways, some appropriate, some inappropriate.
Jeff Gibbard: But it’s more about … Really coming back to what you talk a lot about, it is respect. If you respect someone enough to allow them the space to be who they are and you give them the support that they need to do what they need to do, and as a leader you look for every possible way to grow them and be in service of them, all of those things combined I think help you to be a lovable person, and then people are going to naturally work harder for you.
Jeff Gibbard: Now inside of that leadership philosophy … You mention the book by Robert Cialdini, Influence. There’s a lot of concepts that I pulled from all over the place, from How To Win Friends and Influence People, from a book I love called Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff, Influence by Robert Cialdini.
Jeff Gibbard: All over these places I pulled these different things, and a lot of those pieces of advice, all of those recommendations, they can be used for exceptionally nefarious purposes, but I choose to use them in a way that serves the people that I lead, and in the same way seeks to grow them as leaders.
Jeff Gibbard: And when you have a company full of people who know how to communicate with each other respectfully and supportively, I think you’re going to have an organization that is primed for success.
Mike Domitrz: I love that. So what are precise steps people can take to install lovable leadership?
Jeff Gibbard: I have one that I love to tell people about. There are really two different things that are related that I think are kind of hallmarks to what I do in my role as a leader, and they’re two related concepts.
Jeff Gibbard: The first is one that I call sitting on the same side of the table. I think that if there’s nothing that anybody else takes away from the things I say here or that after you read my book you take away nothing else away, I think it’s this, is that too often in leadership roles we sit on opposite sides of the table, if you can think of that kind of in your head, what that looks like.
Jeff Gibbard: That means you’re talking at someone, right? You’re saying I’m coming from over here and I’m telling you something over there. You’re giving a directive. You’re explaining why someone was wrong, et cetera. It’s kind of a mental framework.
Jeff Gibbard: But if you sit on the same side of the table with them, you’re saying we’re in this together. I’m here to support you. A concept that goes right along with that is I always … I’m very, very careful in the language that I use when giving any feedback to my team, or even when I’m talking to a client, to remove any sense of wrong, any sense that would … Any statement that would put the other person on the defensive and have them try to justify their action or explain why they were in fact right, I find that that is an impediment to a productive conversation.
Jeff Gibbard: So instead, I sit on the same side of the table and I talk about where we are going together. I talk about the goals that this person has that I’m with and how I can help support getting them to where they’re trying to go. So even when I’m giving feedback about something that didn’t work, I’m still sitting on the same side and being in the trenches with that person and being their partner in getting to where they’re trying to go. So sitting on the same side of the table and taking out the wrong are two of the really big ones.
Mike Domitrz: All right. So that’s two major ones. So now you are taking out the wrong, you’re trying to be their teammate. What are some of the key traps people have to be careful of falling into? Like I can think of one on the top of my head where you’ve predetermined the way you want them to do, so even though your listening, you’re not really, because you’ve got an agenda that is stuck in your head no matter what they’re saying.
Jeff Gibbard: Yeah. I’d say that that’s a pretty common one. I think the other thing is people in leadership positions too often speak from their own self-interest. One of the things that … You can accomplish what you want, what your objective is as the business owner or the leader, but the only change you have to make is you have to understand … You have to tie it to what the person you’re talking to already wants.
Jeff Gibbard: So you can’t assign meaning or goals to somebody if they don’t believe in it or buy into it or give you their kind of … You know, if they don’t buy into the idea.
Jeff Gibbard: So what I try to do is I first understand by asking what is this person trying to accomplish? Where are they trying to go in their career? What are they trying to accomplish short term, long term? What inspires them? What motivates them?
Jeff Gibbard: So when I can gather that information, I can then take all of that information and tie it back to what I want to have happen. You can hear that and say oh, that’s manipulative. Well, it’s not. I’m actually looking for the overlap. If you think of it as a Venn diagram, there’s what I want, there’s what you want, and I look for the place where those two things overlap so that we both get what we want. Again, it’s sitting on the same side of the table, looking for common goals and working together to get there.
Mike Domitrz: I love that idea of the same side of the table, because even when you’re sitting at a small little coffee table and you’re across from each other, it can feel like a sales pitch to people, like I’m being sold or I’m being interviewed.
Mike Domitrz: But if I’m sitting next to you, it feels like a partnership, right? When you go to dinner and you’re a couple, and you often sit next to your partner and the other couple sits across from you, so you’re partner to partner. So I love that you’re creating that in the corporate atmosphere of this teamwork setup.
Mike Domitrz: What are some meaning well tactics people have that can get into trouble? Like, all right, I’m sitting next to them, here’s how I’m going to do … Like you said, find out what they want. I love the Venn diagram concept. What are some mistakes people can make accidentally?
Jeff Gibbard: I think that any of the mistakes I’ve seen is that … You know, there’s a lot of leadership concepts that I have, that I buy into, that I’ve borrowed from elsewhere, that I’ve recombined. I think the reason why they tend to work for me is because at the core there’s a foundation that is built upon around really deeply caring about my people, deeply caring about where we’re going.
Jeff Gibbard: The mistakes I generally see is the people that will look at a book like the one I’m writing, or the advice that I’m giving, and they’ll think oh, that’s a good tactic. That’s a thing I can use. If I say these words right, you know, it’ll work. So they think of it more like a script rather than a mindset.
Jeff Gibbard: So there’s always like the how do you give feedback thing, right? A lot of the times when you’re giving feedback to someone, the advice is you say a good thing, then you say the bad thing, and then you say the good thing, the classic sandwich. Sure, that works, but people see right through it. And then also even if you’re doing it that way and you’re doing it as a tactic, it comes off very cold and calculated rather than deeply caring.
Jeff Gibbard: One of the fundamental principles of lovable leadership is that you actually deeply, truly, really have to care with every fiber of your being about what happens on your team and about each of your people, because if you don’t it’s just going to come through as hollow.
Jeff Gibbard: The way I see it, a lovable leader … There are kind of three ways to look at leadership, and it’s actually all three. Leadership is your burden, your privilege, and your responsibility. It is all three at all times. I think that a true leader, when they approach any of these conversations, they are going into it with this mindset of what their role is in growing this person, as opposed to, you know, if I follow this formula I’m going to get the best out of my people.
Jeff Gibbard: So I think the biggest well-meaning thing is that people will read these books, not just mine, but anybody’s books … They’ll read that, they’ll watch YouTube videos, or they’ll listen to podcasts and they’ll think okay, I’ve got a bunch of different things that I can say and I can do now.
Jeff Gibbard: They’re well-intentioned, but they’re not first going back to the start and saying why am I in this? Like who am I as a leader? What am I trying to accomplish? Who do I want to be in this world? And until you have that locked in, everything is just a tactic and you don’t really see through to the end.
Mike Domitrz: I love this. Now we’re speaking about … To the individual trying to connect with others. What do you think stands in the way of building better, more respectful, inclusive companies as a whole, or organizations, associations?
Jeff Gibbard: Yeah. I mean I think one of the big ones kind of is very similar to the answer I just gave, which is like the reason that you’re doing it. So a good example, like what is diversity? Is diversity like okay, I have a checklist and I need to have two of you and three of you, and I have four of these, so I need to get two of those? If that’s the idea behind diversity, then I feel like it’s missing the point entirely.
Jeff Gibbard: It’s not about creating an ideal headcount based upon some ratio of ethnicities, right? But if your goal through diversity is to insure that you have a variety of different points of view so that you can better understand your customers, so that you can better create a workplace where you’re being inclusive in how you’re developing that company for scaling, that’s a different way of going about it, right?
Jeff Gibbard: So, again, I think it comes back to leaders who are building a culture of respect, because it starts with respect. It’s not … Respect isn’t the end goal. Respect is the starting point. So you’re starting with respect, and then everything that follows from that point on allows you to build a company of diversity and inclusion because you respect other viewpoints. You respect other people for being human beings, not just because they happen to have a different color of melanin in their skin.
Mike Domitrz: Absolutely. When I’m doing programs or keynotes for corporations and associations, one of the things we talk about is the slope of respect. Disrespect is in the far left corner and the slope is going upwards to the upper right corner. I say, “What’s the extreme opposite of respect,” and people say, “Disrespect.” “What’s the extreme opposite of disrespect,” and people say, “Respect,” and I say, “No, no.” Respect is only halfway up the slope. Respect’s the bare minimum of the positive half.
Mike Domitrz: So what comes once you have respect, then what follows? When you get all those things on there, that’s the extreme opposite of disrespect, so it allows you to have a different perspective. Instead of thinking we just got to get to respect, that’s such a low standard. That should literally be the bare minimum. Now, once we have it, what can we do, which is what you’re talking about. I love it. I love how much that aligns.
Jeff Gibbard: What’s your answer there? What is the opposite of disrespect
Jeff Gibbard: … Respect is at the middle point.
Mike Domitrz: Yeah, well, here’s the cool thing. Every organization then gets to define that for themselves, so they’ll have loving, caring, loyal, empathy, and they’re adding all these words, and now respect has an image that’s above it. This is what we strive for, and if we have all these things, respect will naturally be there together. Any one of them does not guarantee respect, though. I could give you empathy, but then keep you in a position of where I have power over you and I manipulate that, even though I treat you with empathy, but if all of them are there, respect has to be present.
Jeff Gibbard: Yeah. No, that’s makes perfect sense. I dig that because I was thinking once you get past respect, what’s beyond, because I agree with you. Respect seems like that’s … You should just have that for other people, and when you get past that, my first thought was love. Okay, when you love your people, when you really actually care what happens to them, like you’re really, really truly honestly concerned with their growth and with them being the best that they can be, that seems like, for me at least, that’s how I would identify as like the opposite of the disrespect.
Mike Domitrz: Yeah, and what’s neat about it is if you think about parents, and they love their children no matter what, a loving parent is unconditional love. If you treated your employees, your teammates, your colleagues that way, imagine how that changes everything. Now, people go, “What do you mean?” Well, let me give you an example. They’ll say, “But I’ve got an employee who’s acting totally this way, goes against everything we believe.” Well, if you have enough kids, you’ll get that at times, so those things can happen with children. The difference is even if it’s an adult child or a younger child, as a parent, you still love them and you look for the positives, and you find a way because that’s your child, to find the positive in those moments. At least you try to. Well, what if you did that in the workplace? “Man, I can’t stand that they do five, six, seven, and eight, but I love that one, two, and three, those traits. I love that about them.” If we could treat our colleagues, our co-workers, our teammates like that, our employees, it is leading with love.
Jeff Gibbard: I love that, man. That’s great.
Mike Domitrz: Very cool, and that’s why I love this idea of lovable leadership. I think it’s so powerful what you’ve got there. Jeff, if you could correct any deficiency or problem in today’s business environment that would end up resulting in more respect by making the correction, what would it be?
Jeff Gibbard: The first thing that comes to my mind as being like the thing that is lacking is I think what’s lacking, and it almost feels corny to say it, but I really feel like empathy is the thing that’s often missing. I think we get so trapped in our own perspective, we look at other people, we judge them for not getting the work done, and we often forget that these are human beings in our work environments, that they have lives outside of the office, that they have potentially problems with a loved one, a spouse, a sibling, one of their parents or something. Maybe they are struggling with mental health issues or any number of different things.
Jeff Gibbard: I think so often we take what we see at face value, we judge it, we make an assessment, and then that becomes our reality. We start to see people through that lens, and it deteriorates our relationships very quickly when we begin to think that we understand who somebody else is. “Oh, I know who they are, they’re this.” They’re lazy or they’re whatever, instead of treating each individual with the respect to have their good days and have their bad days.
Jeff Gibbard: If you really do care as a leader, if you really do want to show that you’re not just somebody who makes these snap judgments and you actually take the time to get to know someone, figure out what’s going on in their life and see how you can support them through it because if you’re part of a team, you’re only as strong as the weakest link in your team, so you should always be looking to support every single link in that chain. I think the biggest thing is, I don’t know if there’s such a thing as empathy training on a mass scale, but I would love to see more of that.
Mike Domitrz: Yeah, I agree with you. I was once doing a program out in the Pacific in Hawaii for the military, and an admiral said, “What’s the one trait you’ve got to have as a great leader?” and people were saying loyalty, confidence, trust, and it was empathy. He said it’s empathy. It’s looking at someone and saying how’s your day going and listening, and having compassion, which is just so powerful. I love that, Jeff.
Mike Domitrz: Now for our listeners, I want to make sure they can find you. That’s jeffgibbard.com, G-I-B-B-A-R-D, just like it sounds so that’s nice and easy, dot com, and of course, we’re going to have in the show links all the links to you because there’s several. They can look at your agency, From the Future, your sharable podcasts, we’re going to have all that available to you.
Mike Domitrz: You have three books you really love, and we’ve talked a little bit about one of them today, that’s Influence, so let’s talk about the other two. Pitch Anything, what do you love about that book?
Jeff Gibbard: Oh God, that is my secret weapon, so anybody listening, that is undoubtedly one of my secret weapons in life. Pitch Anything is essentially a book that uses a concept known as neurofinance, and it’s this guy, Oren Klaff, who’s pitched billions of dollars in deals, and essentially he teaches a concept know as frame control. Frame control is this idea that if you understand in every interaction you have with another human being, there’s essentially your perspective, your frame, and somebody else’s frame coming into collision. You’re going to deal with people who feel that they’re the dominant power frame, and then you’re going to deal with people who are more analytic and they’re looking for details. By understanding the perspective that somebody else is coming from, the frame that they’re coming with, and what frame you need to use to essentially counter that to be able to have a productive conversation, then you’re going to be more effective.
Jeff Gibbard: So as somebody who does a lot of business development, and obviously I oversee a large number of people in different teams, it’s essential that I understand how to appreciate the frame that somebody’s coming with and be able to present them with an alternative so that they can hear what it is that I’m saying. I found that it’s just a super helpful book in my career in being more successful in sales and in leadership.
Mike Domitrz: Love it. The other one we’ve mentioned a lot on this show, that’s Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friend and Influence People, and so what do you love about that book?
Jeff Gibbard: That’s the bible. That is the core book that every human being should read. I read it every … probably like three to five years I’ll read it just because it’s a reminder, and it teaches you so many valuable concepts. A lot of concepts that I read in that book are things that have made their way in some form or another into my leadership philosophy, but I’ll give you one really salient example is that the greatest desire that a human being will have is that to be acknowledged. We’re social creatures. No matter whether we say I care what people think or I don’t care what people think, everyone wants to be acknowledged, to be validated, to be understood, to be heard.
Jeff Gibbard: When you factor that into the way that you approach life … There’s the saying in the book that says, “You’ll make more friends by being interested in other people than you will by being interesting.” When you factor all of these things into the way that you approach your relationships, whether they be romantic relationships, whether they be business, personal, sales, colleagues, whatever it might be, and you try to be more interested in the other person and acknowledge and validate other people when you have the opportunity to, you’re going to go exceptionally far in life. It’s from cover to cover probably the most important book I’ve ever read in my life, and I cannot go far enough in expressing what an important book it is and that everybody should read it.
Mike Domitrz: I love that enthusiasm. Thank you, Jeff, for joining us, just great today.
Jeff Gibbard: Thanks, Mike. I really appreciate it. I had so much fun talking with you, and just like when you came on my show, I feel like we could do this for hours at a time.
Mike Domitrz: Oh, absolutely. You’ve been a great guest, so for everyone listening, that’s Jeff Gibbard. You’re going to find everything in the show notes at mutuallyamazingpodcast.com, and for our listeners, you know what’s next. That is Question of the Week.
Mike Domitrz: Before I answer this week’s Question of the Week, I’d love to ask you a question. Would you please subscribe to this podcast, the Respect podcast with Mike Domitrz? By subscribing, you can make a huge impact. Now, you might be wondering, “Mike, how does my subscribing to your podcast make a huge impact?” Well, here’s how. For every person that subscribes, it raises the rankings of the show on the search engines, so for people who care about respect like yourself, when they’re doing a search for podcasts, they’re more likely to find this show, thus providing an awesome opportunity for us to spread more respect around this world, and all you do is hit subscribe under your podcast. Plus the second benefit is, by subscribing, you automatically get every episode right into your phone or whatever device you’re listening to the podcast on. It happens automatically, so subscribing also makes your life easier.
Mike Domitrz: Now, let’s get into this week’s Question of the Week. Oh, and by the way, you can always ask your questions of the week by joining us on Facebook in our discussion group. It’s called the Respect Podcast Discussion Group. Go there on Facebook and ask whatever questions you would like me to answer and/or address in this segment of the show, and then listen to each episode to find out when your question is included.
Mike Domitrz: This week’s Question of the Week is, “Mike, what is one of your favorite books?” and for frequent listeners, you know we include this about once a month, once every two months, I add in a book that I’ve read that I’ve never heard a guest mention that I found to be powerful. This time, I’m going to share the book, If the Buddha Got Stuck by Charlotte Kasl. Kasl is K-A-S-L. If the Buddha Got Stuck. Really powerful simple concepts that really make us think about how we’re walking through life each day and what decisions we make.
Mike Domitrz: Do you know what I would love? I would love to hear your answer to this week’s Question of the Week, so would you please answer what your answer would have been if you were asked that question today on the show? All you do is go to our Facebook page. We have a special group where we have these discussions called the Respect Podcast Discussion Group, so the Respect Podcast Discussion Group, and share with us what would your answer have been to this week’s Question of the Week, and if take a moment, post us a new question for future episodes. What questions would you like to hear me answer on an upcoming episode? That’s all done on Facebook in our special group, which is the Respect Podcast Discussion Group. Can’t wait to see you there.
Mike Domitrz: Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Respect podcast, which was sponsored by the DATE SAFE Project at datesafeproject.org, and remember, you can always find me at mikespeaks.com.