Wake Up Eager Workforce 
Episode 101 Transcript

Suzie Price: [00:00:00]

Today we continue my conversation with Ron Price, talking about Growing Influence and Understanding How We Think, Feel and Make Decisions. I hope you enjoyed part one. This is just as powerful. I'm glad you're back. Can't wait to share it with you. Michael. Hit it!

Intro/Outro: [00:00:17]

Welcome to the Wake Up Eager Workforce Podcast, a show designed for leaders, trainers and consultants who are responsible for employee selection and professional development. Each episode is packed full with insider tips, best practices, expert interviews, and inspiration. Please welcome the host who is helping leaders, trainers and consultants everywhere, Suzie Price.

Suzie Price: [00:00:47]

Hi there. My name is Suzie Price and you are listening to the Wake Up Eager Workforce Podcast, where we cover everything related to helping you and the employees in your organization. Build a high commitment, low drama, wake up eager workforce. Bottom line, we want to help you create a wake up eager life. Wake up eager work. Wake up eager workforce. Be a wake up eager leader. Build a wake up eager team. If you think about it, waking up eager. I put my feet on the ground. I know where I'm going when I get up, and I'm happy about it. I'm involved. I'm enthusiastic. I'm engaged. I'm committed. That's all that we are focused on. We want people to bring the best of who they are to everything that they do. And we talk about some of that today in this episode where we're talking about the ripple effect, we become the best version of ourselves, the influence that that has around the world. And it goes on for years and years and years. And we talk about that with one of our common mentors today that Ron and I both had through the Axiology,

Suzie Price: [00:01:49]

Dr. Dave Medford. So you're going to enjoy this episode hopefully as much as you enjoyed the first one. I enjoyed the conversation so much and I'm so glad to be able to share it with you. This is still episode 100, but it's part two and I'll take you there now. One quick reminder the show notes can be found at pricelessprofessional.com/growinginfluence. Pricelessprofessional.com/growinginfluence. Don't miss the end of this. I'm going to recap some of the key points and put my own spin on some of the things that were shared, and so that you can kind of capture key information from both episodes. And then I'm also going to talk a little bit about the 100th episode and the podcasting journey. Let's go to this episode now.

Suzie Price: [00:02:37]

Any tips about debriefing TriMetrix? Or when you're sitting down with someone and reviewing their results and you see that a lot of people here that are listening are either reading results and sharing them with others. What are some advice you would give to being an effective debriefing person with someone?

Ron Price: [00:02:56]

That's an interesting question. I think one thing I would encourage is that you're always learning in the process of debriefing, so never think that you've got it all figured out because they're going to say something that's going to give you another insight when you talk to them. I do think that one of the things that's important is to understand what the purpose of each conversation is, and not to apply the same practices or patterns to every purpose. So I think of four very distinct reasons that I might use a TriMetrix HD report. The first would be for hiring, and when I was advising executives, I almost never interviewed the person, so I was very careful in how I analyzed the report, and I would paint with broad strokes, and I'd be careful not to say anything that was too absolute. Usually I was giving them insights that might help them with the interview questions that they would have. The second purpose is if I'm just helping somebody reflect and develop deeper self-awareness, and I think the best practice there with debriefing is to develop a good set of questions to ask, and then let those questions guide you with the follow up questions. Because you're really not sharing what you think with people when you're doing it well, you're helping them to think. And your questions are helping them to process their experience and their perspective on life and things like that.

Ron Price: [00:04:17]

And then the third purpose is when people say, well, I want to grow my capacity. I want to become better at understanding people, or I want to become better at my role awareness. And in that case, then I think great debriefing is thinking of things they could practice. So if I want to get better at understanding people, what are the different exercises that I could practice that would help me? I don't coach anymore, but when I was coaching, I had an engineer who asked me about how he could develop a better understanding of people, and I suggested that he go interview three people for 30 minutes each and try to do it without making any judgments, but just trying to see how deep he could go in understanding them. And I said, the first person I think you should interview is somebody who's on the opposite political spectrum from you, and your goal is to not to try to fix them or to have this self-talk where you're telling yourself why they're wrong, but you just want to understand them. It doesn't mean you agree with them, you want to understand them. The second would be that they have very different beliefs about religion, and your goal is to understand them, not to fix them. And the third was somebody who's coming from a very different economic background from you.

Ron Price: [00:05:25]

And so in his case, he went and interviewed a homeless person for 30 minutes. That's an exercise you can do that's going to develop your skills and understanding others. Or for instance, if it's role awareness, one of the exercises that we would do is let's list all of your roles right now. Now let's put a score of 1 to 10 next to how clearly do you understand this role? Do you really understand what superior performance looks like in the role of being a husband or a father or a salesperson? And then we would say, now give a score of 1 to 10 of how happy you are in this role. And so through that exercise, we begin to develop ideas of something that they could work on to get better at that. And so there are exercises for all of those. And then of course, the third purpose or the third use of it is in teams. And when you think about debriefing it for teams, it's about recognizing each other's strengths. So what is it that you're better at than me and how could we leverage that? How could we give you more of that kind of work? Or how could you teach me because you're better at that than me? So a lot of the debriefing depends on what you're trying to accomplish, what you're aiming at.

Suzie Price: [00:06:34]

Excellent. Wonderful sharing. Let's move to a little bit more of you and talk about your communication style and your top drivers. What you're most interested in and what you're least interested in. Can you share with us how you score on the DISC and the Motivators, and then what impact that has had and how you use it?

Ron Price: [00:06:56]

I will start with my behavioral style, and I say that I'm an unusual combination of what I call an outgoing introvert. So that sounds like a contradiction. But if I have an agenda or a purpose, I'm very outgoing, very optimistic and trusting. If I don't have an agenda, then I tend to fade into the corner, and so I'm not. A lot of times we think of somebody who has a High I score, who's outgoing as being somebody who loves parties and things. I really have to force myself to go to parties unless there's an agenda. So for me, the agenda is I'm going to meet somebody new and try to discover what makes them unique. Then I can go to a party and have fun, but just to go to a party, just for going to a party, it was very uncomfortable for me. So my I score is actually 75, and over the years it's moved around a little bit. But I take the TriMetrix HD report again every year because I think it's a great self awareness exercise to go through my other three scores. My D, S and C are all what we call situational. So for the D, I can either be direct or reflective depending on the circumstance. It's very much contextual. For the S, I can either be steady or dynamic depending on the circumstance, depending on the context. And for the C, I can either be more precise or more pioneering depending on the circumstance.

Ron Price: [00:08:18]

And they've always been that way. They've always been situational. So it makes it harder for people to watch me and map me out because of the fact that in those three dimensions, I don't have the distinctiveness of a behavioral trait that most people have. It's a little bit different when it comes to my driving forces or my Motivators. My number one Motivator is Utilitarian. It's 70 and that's out of 100. And so that's pretty strong, and for me it doesn't reflect itself in a lot of focus for money. It reflects itself in a focus for efficiency. I don't like to waste time. You put me in a doctor's office or I have to wait for half an hour. The only way I maintain my patience is if I have my phone with me, and I can work on my task management while I'm there, or I can read my email, or if I'm not doing something productive, then I get frustrated very fast, and that's how my Utilitarian shows up. My second highest is my Individualistic, and that score is 67. And for a lot of Individualistic people, they like status or prestige. It's not true for me. Because I'm an introvert by nature, I actually don't like being in the spotlight, but I like taking responsibility, and I like being able to take on the role of leadership in order to get something done, because I want to be able to do it according to my value system, and I inherited this from my dad.

Ron Price: [00:09:45]

It's very clear my dad worked in a Pontiac factory for one summer while he was in college, and the union steward came up to him and told him that he was working too hard and he had to slow down because he was going to make everybody else look bad. And my dad made a vow. He left that summer and said, I'll never work in a factory again, because I'm not going to compromise my values like that. My dad was an entrepreneur his whole life and he was never in it for the money. He was always in it so he could do his work according to his values. And I inherited that from him, and it shows up in the individualistic score. And then my lowest score is Traditional, it's 28. And what that means is that I'm always interested in new ways of doing things. I'm always interested in, could we recreate this system? Are there new ideas or new things we could do? And I get a lot of satisfaction out of being able to explore the status quo and see how we can make it better. So those are my behaviors and my Motivators.

Suzie Price: [00:10:41]

The Traditional isn't low, it means it's just you're least interested in that, focusing on the rules and the procedure. You're making new ways of doing things. And I loved how you talked about I need an agenda when I'm doing things, and so that you could see that in Utilitarian and your Individualistic, and we always are reminding folks, hey, whatever drives you, whatever puts gas in your tank is driving your behavior, so you can just see that evidence of that. And then the Utilitarian and Individualistic that's your whole career is that, running businesses, being entrepreneur, new ideas. You can just see it play out.

Ron Price: [00:11:18]

And to be able to understand it better because it was always there. But I couldn't see it without the use of these reports. These reports helped me to see and understand it.

Suzie Price: [00:11:27]

And again, it goes back to that self-awareness and other awareness and just learning to appreciate. I was with a group yesterday and somebody said how do I enjoy people who have it as their favorite thing? They're most interested and it's my least interest. You'd say, with this context, you'd say, ooh whee, this is exciting. I love that you love that as opposed to you're focused on something I don't like. Without the language to understand it, we might push against it without awareness. But with awareness, you can go, oh, yippee, this is great. You bring a focus that we didn't have.

Ron Price: [00:12:06]

That's right. We compliment each other. And the world would be terrible if we were all the same. We need that diversity.

Suzie Price: [00:12:13]

Yeah. We can each use our strengths and then help other people cover our overdues or our blind spots or whatever you want to call the thing when we overdo a little bit of what we really love too much. So that's fantastic. Okay. So who's most influenced you in your life and career? We've heard of a lot of people. Dave Medford, your father, wife, anybody else? 

Ron Price: [00:12:34]

So I'm going to start by saying that, especially as I get older, I get clearer about this, and I do it with great respect for people who may not have the same view. Matter of fact, some of my greatest friends are people who have very, very different views from me. But for me, without a doubt, the person who's influenced me the most is Jesus. I made a commitment. I came to believe that he was the expression of God on August 4th, 1971, and I made a commitment to learn what it meant to be a disciple or a follower. And there's no question that that changed the whole trajectory of my life. Now, along the way, I've had wonderful relationships with Buddhists or Hindus or very dear friends who are Muslims or people who don't believe anything at all, and I find all of them fascinating, and I have fallen in love with many of them. But still, this is really the anchor. This is what's made the biggest difference. My grandpa, who was a minister who was very passionate about his faith, told me stories over and over and over again. And at the time I didn't see the significance of them. But they stick with me. He's been gone since the mid 90s and I still hear his stories over and over again.

Ron Price: [00:13:49]

There's a guy named Charlie "Tremendous" Jones, who mentored me for a while. He was a motivational speaker, kind of a crazy guy, really funny, and told a lot of jokes. I would laugh at them but not really understand the value of them. Those jokes or those stories come back to me over and over again. I say, wow, that's full of wisdom. He was hiding all his wisdom in those stories, and so he had a big impact. My dad, my mom, in her own way, my folks split up when I was ten. It was not an easy situation and my mom was a preacher's kid. So in 1965, this was the worst thing that could happen to her, and it really made her have suicidal thoughts, and she had nobody to talk to. So I was the person that she talked those things through with. She wasn't looking for my advice. She was just looking for my ears, but that shaped me a lot. It made me care about understanding other people by listening to her. So sometimes the people that influence us, it's not because of the way they taught.

Ron Price: [00:14:50]

It's the way they taught us something. And the list just goes on and on and on. You know, Peter Drucker, you mentioned Stephen Covey. I think most of what Stephen Covey wrote about was not original with him, but how he shared it was so easy to grasp that he has impacted millions and millions of lives. Our team has been reading his book, The Eighth Habit, which is a wonderful treatise of everything that he learned in his decades of learning and teaching, so I will tell you that what I'm looking for, because I think I've been a bit deficient in it, is more influence from women. I don't know if that was a problem of mine, but I've intentionally gone out looking to read women to be more influenced by their thinking. So Brene Brown, I've read all of her stuff and it impacts me a lot. Frances Hesselbein who ran the Girl Scouts. She was an amazing leader. Peter Drucker once said she was the most impressive leader he ever met, and she could run any corporation in America successfully. So I've intentionally worked at being influenced more by women because for whatever reason, that didn't come to me naturally.

Suzie Price: [00:16:05]

Interesting. So who you were exposed to and such at the time, and perhaps it's interesting that your book Growing Influence is about promoting or having women find their own voice of influence. So you balance that out.

Ron Price: [00:16:19]

Whether men or women, whether you do it in the home or you do it in the workplace or you do it at your synagogue or wherever you do it, everybody's a leader, and none of us have the idea of the kind of influence that we're going to have. Think about Abraham Lincoln's mother. Did she have any idea what kind of significance she was investing in him when she was raising him? No, but she did it to the very best of her ability for what she was given and created one of the greatest presidents in American history.

Suzie Price: [00:16:49]

There's a lot going on in the world right now, and I know some people feel a lack of hope, but I just feel so hopeful. I just see it. I see how my life has turned out. And it was not anything that was forecasted in the environment that I was in and such. And then you just see so many people impacting other people, and I just don't think that will ever stop. And I feel like it continues to grow. And the other the bad or the it is real, but so is the good.

Ron Price: [00:17:20]

It is easy to get discouraged because we see a lot of divisiveness and people not seeking to understand each other. But I remind myself regularly of the metaphor and I choose to believe it. I could be totally wrong, but I choose to believe it. That in a pitch dark room, the candle shines brighter. So no matter how difficult things are around us, the more that we can be the best version of ourselves, the greater impact we can have.

Suzie Price: [00:17:50]

When you think about Anne Frank? There's just so many stories like that and all kinds of levels. So there's a lot of hope for the world. And, and I love that you have had so many mentors and they're just so numerous. You know what I always encourage people about? People don't always need to even know that they're your mentor. They can just be your mentor. I mean I have adopted so many people. I've got a long list that I would say they mentored me, but it was because I took the time to find out who they are and read their material and try to apply it. They don't need to officially be your mentor, they just are. But your willingness.

Ron Price: [00:18:24]

Some of my greatest mentors don't even know who I am.

Suzie Price: [00:18:26]

Yeah, right. Exactly, exactly. There's so much good out there, so wonderful. And I love that. All the influences. So what was the guy's name?

Ron Price: [00:18:35]

Charlie "Tremendous" Jones. And if I have a personal YouTube account, if you go to my personal YouTube account, I posted one of his speeches that he gave. He passed away a number of years ago. He called me one day and said, Ron, I was just diagnosed with cancer and they gave me hormone treatments and it actually made the cancer spread. Would you give a dying man a wish? And he wanted me to go on a cruise on the Mississippi River with him. So I said, sure, Charlie, I'll do that. So we did it. And then he called maybe 18 months later and he said, Ron, the cancer's gone all through my body. It's in my bones. Would you give a dying man a wish? And I said, of course, Charlie, what do you want? He said, I want to come to Boise. I want you to organize a group that I could speak to. I said, of course, Charlie, anything for you. He called me a year later. I said, Charlie, you got to come up with a different close. But he, right to the end, he was giving to people and he was such a saint. He did so much good for so many people and he went through tremendous hardship. But he turned all of his hardship into making himself a better person that he then gave away to others.

Suzie Price: [00:19:39]

Oh yeah, I knew we circled back to him for a reason. Plus the beautiful name of Charlie "Tremendous" Jones. So we'll put a link to the show notes to your video so people can see Charlie, and he continues to live on, as we say, you know, ripples in the pond. We reference a little bit about waking up eager and wake up eager life, wake up eager leader. Building a life that you love and just staying conscious about that all the time and I think I know some of the things you might say about mind, body, spirit that you do for yourself, like your discretionary time and such, but talk a little bit about the things that you do, because every time I see you and it's not all the time, but like we did a five day workshop that you led, you were consistently energized the whole time, and you were so level and so present. And all of that doesn't just happen on that week of that program. There's a lot that builds up to that through your life. But what are the practices that you do every day? Mind, body, spirit.

Ron Price: [00:20:36]

I'll start with the body. So my goal is to walk at least five miles every day and spending most of my time in Scottsdale now I get to hike hills. I also have a new artificial intelligence bike that gives you high intensity training in a very short workout. So it's a ten minute workout that gives you the equivalent of a 45 minute run. It's really great for me because of my schedule. I also am very careful about what I eat. I have a very well defined diet that's based on my DNA and my blood type, and I'm very careful about what I eat and I supplement my diet with high quality supplements, drink lots of water, don't drink any soft drinks. I really enjoy a glass of red wine, but I've pretty much quit that. I might have two glasses a month at most because I enjoy it so much. But when I learned about what it does to your brain, I decided I don't want that happening to my brain. And then sleep, of course. My wife and I both track our sleep and we compare our scores every morning. 

Suzie Price: [00:21:40]

Very good.

Ron Price: [00:21:41]

She's so funny. I have an aura ring that tracks my sleep and I have a watch that tracks it. And then sometimes I use an app on my phone that tracks the noise so I can tell if I'm snoring. And if I am, how much am I snoring? I really love all this data to help me stay on track physically. And yes, it creates accountability for me. And it's fun.

Suzie Price: [00:22:04]

If you're talking about the circle of influence that you talk about, your control, you feel like you're controlling what you can control. Circle of influence is what Ron talks about in the book Growing Influence. But yeah, it's like it's very empowering and gives you a lot of confidence when you take control of this physical piece of our apparatus. And we can do that, and we don't have to not do it, but a lot of the world doesn't. So yeah.

Ron Price: [00:22:31]

I would say for all of these, my body, my emotions, my intellect, my spirit, it's not like I never fall off the wagon. And sometimes people need to be encouraged because you try and you fall and say, you can't change the past, but you can start to build a new habit for the future. So ever since 1978, when I started doing this, I haven't been consistent every single day. But whenever I caught myself not doing it, I got back on. I started again, and I said, I can build a different future, but I can't change whatever's happened in the past. So for me, spiritually, I get up each morning and I've discovered that one of the keys to humility is one of my values that's most important. And the problem is the person who says they're humble probably isn't. And so it's an elusive trait. So you have to develop ways to protect yourself against arrogance or pride. So I start every morning with building a list of what I'm grateful for that happened the previous day. I think gratitude is one of the ways that you protect yourself against arrogance, because when you're grateful, you realize it wasn't you, it was other people or other situations, or you were just fortunate to be in this circumstance that you are. So I start every day with that. And then on Sunday mornings I build that list all week long, and on Sunday mornings I read the whole list of what I've built during the week, and it really gives me a great sense of joy for what each week has accomplished. Then for me, again, because I'm a Christian, I read four chapters of the Bible.

Ron Price: [00:23:59]

I'm on a Bible reading program where I can read the Old Testament once a year, and the New Testament and Psalms twice a year. It's interesting. It only takes 15 or 20 minutes a day. When you have that discipline things begin to make sense that didn't make sense. There's lots in the Bible that's confusing. But over time the puzzle pieces start to come together. And I can't tell you how many mornings, it's not every morning, but how many mornings, I just feel inspired by something that I've read, a story that I've read, or recognizing the struggles that all people have. And then after that, I have a prayer list. And because I've got a big prayer list. I pray for a different group of people every day, and that's really meaningful to me, because it's my way to send out good thoughts for people, and I believe that I see answers to it. I believe that I see things happen. So that's how I take care of myself spiritually. Intellectually, my commitment, I don't always stick to it, but it's to average at least 30 minutes of reading a day from something that's going to help me develop my thinking skills better. And sometimes it's two hours in a day. Other times I didn't get to it at all. And what's really helped me with that is to also use audible or audiobooks, because now I can combine that with my workout.

Ron Price: [00:25:20]

And so I get more time out that way. So that's how I take care of myself intellectually. Then finally emotionally, which I attach to spiritually but the emotional is partly also how you discipline your mind. So I do meditate, and I believe in learning how to be quiet and still your mind, but it's also making sure that I'm investing in relationships and that I'm staying connected with people. The best way to stay connected is to find out how to love them. To care enough about them, to want to understand and know them. And so intentionally putting myself in circumstances where I can engage people that way, my family and also friends and coworkers as well. I think it's a great privilege to be able to work with people every day. There's a treasure right there in front of us, and I don't want to get stuck. Really? You could say it's another form of objectifying them, where you just think of them as a worker and you don't think of them as a unique human being that has something to offer, something that you can learn from, or that you can at least appreciate. So those are the things that I do on a daily basis. It's beautiful.

Suzie Price: [00:26:22]

And I think if someone's not spending a lot of time on their own inner world or the mind body spirit every day to not be overwhelmed by Ron's program because it's a powerful program. But to be inspired by it and start with, if it's just five minutes a day and then that's probably where you started at some point?

Ron Price: [00:26:45]

This is years of building habits and you build little habits on top of each other. But in growing influence, Emily just starts with 15 minutes.

Suzie Price: [00:26:52]

That's it. We want to remind you of that. And we talk about that a lot. About 1% a day and in 70 days you're twice improved. So exponential growth principle. So 1% of your day is 15 minutes. 

Ron Price: [00:27:05]

And honestly at my age I don't have much time left. So I have to invest more in growing myself.

Suzie Price: [00:27:11]

To me, the more responsibility you have, the more you're responsible to spend time on showing up centered, showing up ready. To me, that's always my top value is showing up ready. I don't know if I've ever verbalized it, but that's what I like. I'm going to do the work so that when I'm with a group or having a podcast interview, I've done as much work as I know how to do to be present.

Ron Price: [00:27:35]

I agree with you completely. And the more responsibility you have, the more good you could do, but also the more bad you could do if you didn't show up. Right. 

Suzie Price: [00:27:44]

That's why we talk about this in every episode, because I want everybody to be thinking about what am I doing to show up aligned and ready for myself. So okay, here's a couple more questions. You've been so wonderful to give all this time. What advice would you give your 25 year old self?

Ron Price: [00:28:00]

Probably the most important thing would be to slow down and take a breath and realize that it's a marathon. I think I had too much of a sense of urgency, and I think the things that you go through when you're young, usually most of us are struggling with our finances and we're building relationships. Don't worry about those. Don't do anything foolish, but recognize it's a season that you're in and you'll eventually move into another season. So just don't do anything that's really going to dig a big hole for you later on, and realize that everything you're doing right now is building toward something in the future. I think that's the most important thing for me. I'm very fortunate, Suzie, in that I didn't go through a huge wilderness in my life where I was making bad decisions. I think I could have always made better decisions, but there aren't too many disastrous decisions that I made. I'm grateful for that. But I think as if I was talking to my younger self, I would say, you know, just relax. It's all going to work out.

Suzie Price: [00:29:01]

It's all going to work out. And you know what? That's something that I think people need to hear. When we're helping and coaching and thinking about the young people in my life, a lot of times I'm trying to either if I'm not saying it, I'm trying to share it, which is it's going to be okay. We need that. I can't remember when I was younger that I was hearing that very much. And so there was a lot of internal pressure. And I made it okay. That's why I'm so determined. But, you know, sure would be nice if we remember that and help younger people hear that.

Ron Price: [00:29:29]

I think especially today, because younger people today are exposed to so much more stress than at least I experienced. So yeah, it's going to be okay. Make good decisions, keep learning. It'll work out.

Suzie Price: [00:29:42]

And expressing your belief because basically when you're saying it's going to be okay, you're talking to your younger version of yourself saying it's going to work out. You know, we can see that for others. If you could put a billboard anywhere for the world to see, I can't wait to hear what your answer is to this. Where would you put it? Maybe everywhere. It's your story. You get to make it up how you want it and what would it say?

Ron Price: [00:30:07]

Okay, so I'd put it on everybody's browser. So when they open up their internet they see it. And what I would say would be, whatever you think, there's always more.

Suzie Price: [00:30:19]

In other words, you're wanting people to see what or think what when they see that?

Ron Price: [00:30:23]

We always see a small part of what's possible. We always see a small part of ourselves. Whatever you think, there's always more. And if we do that, that puts us out on a journey of discovering what that more is. Whatever you think, there's always more and I still say that to myself each day.

Suzie Price: [00:30:44]

Reminds me of what you said Dr. Medford said to you. What did he say something about in the spring of contentment or something like that?

Ron Price: [00:30:54]

You look like you've been to the mountaintop. He said, that's okay, as long as you don't want to grow.

Suzie Price: [00:30:59]

That kind of ties back to that a little bit too, right? You know, continually, you know, and then whatever you see in somebody like if somebody's really struggling, there's more to them. I mean there's so many ways you could apply that. Beautiful I love it. I think it should be on everybody's browser. That's the first time someone's come up with that. That's an excellent answer. Perfect for our 100th episode, we are charting new territory here. And so we are going to close with the last bit of advice or wisdom about influence, about life, anything that you would like to say, and you can say several things, but what would you leave us with?

Ron Price: [00:31:34]

I think it would be don't ever think that you're not a leader. No matter what your position in life, you are a leader, so decide to become a great leader because it's great leaders that change the world. How do you become a great leader? Well, you do it by developing your thinking skills so that you can be a clearer thinker. You can make good decisions by being a person of action, where you take action on your decisions, and they don't just sit on the shelf. And being a person who strives to see the greatness in others and devoting yourself to help them discover and pursue that greatness themselves, which is really the greatest gift of love that we can give to anybody else. So if you do those things, it's not that complicated, but it's a life full of learning to think clearly, to take action, to help other people become the best version of themselves and know that there's Axiology.

Suzie Price: [00:32:31]

I was just about to say it. Think, act, help is all in Axiology. So if you didn't catch that, go back and listen again or call me and we'll talk about it. Yes, I was just about to say that's excellent. Yes it is, it's everywhere and it's in everything. And it does order your thinking and how you share and you hit all aspects of what makes a good leader. Or how do you get to be a good leader? Yes. Wonderful. And how do you get to a great episode? You have Ron Price take time out of his busy schedule, and it's no wonder that we connected all those years ago, and it seems to me that I remember being on a bus from the airport to the TTI conference, and I think you were on that bus, and I think you said it was your, I don't know, had a vision of that in my mind. It was 2004 and I think that was my first conference. I'm not sure, but I think so, or maybe 2005. But anyway, you were on that bus and ripples in the pond.

Ron Price: [00:33:32]

That's right. We had no idea what was going to come after that, nor do we have an idea of what comes next. 

Suzie Price: [00:33:38]

Whatever you think, there's always more. So we'll close with that. Thank you, Ron.

Ron Price: [00:33:46]

Oh thank you Suzie.

Suzie Price: [00:33:48]

All right I hope you enjoyed that episode. I hope you're feeling inspired and you're feeling influenced with good information. I want to talk a little bit about some of my favorite quotes and things that Ron shared. Also want to mention the show notes? You can find them at pricelessprofessional.com/growinginfluence. That's all one word and it's all lowercase. Pricelessprofessional.com/growinginfluence. Go there and you can get a transcript. You can get the links to all the things that we talk about. We talked about his books. I share different podcast episodes that are related to Axiology that are mentioned in this discussion. And pretty much everything that we talked about is available on the show notes page one more time. It's pricelessprofessional.com/growinginfluence. So we did start out talking about Axiology and I hope you have a better understanding of that. Now if you want to ever have any discussion about that, feel free to give me a call. And some of the things that he talked about is a wonderful way to become more aware of how our mind is working, both in how we see the world and how we see ourselves. So one thing that everybody that starts to follow and learn about Axiology, once they start getting into it, they start to have these revelations about how it shows up in their life, and Ron certainly talked about that. Another thing that he said is what he realized as he was learning Axiology and many of us have, have kind of felt it this way.

Suzie Price: [00:35:16]

He's such a good orator and he's so good at saying things clearly. But he said, I have been reading and studying business in particular for decades, and suddenly I saw what looked like an organizing framework that worked no matter where I went. He said that he found this framework gives us the tools to be able to go deeper and have a richer experience and understand ourselves and others in the world around us. Powerful stuff. Axiology is powerful and I've heard similar expressions from all of us who have clients and colleagues that have taken the time to study and learn, TriMetrix of people who actually get certified with us through the TriMetrix expert analyst. That's where you dig into Axiology and all say the same thing. It's just amazing the clarity that it can give us, us as the teachers, and then, of course, our clients and our friends and our family and the people that we use, the use the science with and from our discussion, from his book Growing Influence: A Story of How to Lead with Character, Expertise and Impact. One of the things he talks about. Here's a quote from him. The most important thing that I hope people get from this book is to recognize the tremendous potential they have inside of them to develop their influence, and that the greatest source of influence comes from how you grow yourself.

Suzie Price: [00:36:36]

I really do recommend that book. The main character starts focusing on her own development and what she is in control of, as opposed to what she's concerned about within the organization and you see her influence grow within the organization. He gives some great leadership advice in the book. And of course, we talk about it. That's how he applies this. And one of the areas is to lead with logic, follow with emotion. And I wanted him to expand on that. That's one of the bits of advice that show up in the book with the main character. Here's what Ron says. It's understanding how to put yourself in the best possible position so that you're going to get the response you want. And in order to do that, you want to lead with logic, but you don't leave emotion at home, because sometimes emotion is an important thing to express, but you don't want to start there. You want to let your emotions support your logic that you're sharing. So that is a key element there, learning how to manage our emotions and understanding that we even have emotion and how to deal with it, and how to move through the emotion is a whole nother level of learning self awareness. But having this idea of okay, I need to be in a place where I can lead with logic and follow with emotion, and Ron ties this with other factors that determine our ability to persuade others.

Suzie Price: [00:37:56]

So you've got to lead with logic and follow with emotion. But in order to be persuasive, this is what he says. And I think of persuasion as being a combination of three things. The first thing is what credibility you have before you even open your mouth. It's the reputation that you've built through your behaviors and that either helps or hurts you before you ever say anything. And then the next thing is how rational or logical is the point you're trying to make and the way you're trying to influence somebody so that you build a good framework of logic. And then emotion is is the third part, because you can feel energized about something, but you want to make sure that you have the other first, you have the credibility, and then you're being logical in your framework, and then you're bringing the passion with it and not getting that flipped around where it's all passion or you haven't taken time to build the credibility. So very, very good framework for him to share and for us to remember. And another bit of wisdom that comes from the book that we talked about is the statement that you should aim for people to feel energized and heard after interacting with you. Energizing others shifts the way you engage. So think about that. What if you're in your next client presentation and you decide that you want them to feel energized and heard after being in that presentation with you, rather than you go in thinking, I want to make sure they hear everything that I have to say.

Suzie Price: [00:39:22]

That's a great mind flip and I know years and years ago I used to teach at Kimberly-Clark some sales training skills, and it was always about trying to get the folks who were sales reps in the medical device world to flip their thinking so that they wouldn't be in there about, okay, I'm here to sell something. I'm here to find out what this person needs. So it's the same thing that we're talking about here. The goal is, no matter what you're doing, how do I help people feel energized and heard after they've had an interaction with you? Some more words from Ron about how to leave people energized means we can take this back to the expression of Axiology by seeing the person as a unique individual who has, from our perspective, at least, infinite possibilities, and falling in love with that idea with every person you meet. So he's tying together this idea of leaning into other people, looking at other people as interesting and Axiology teaches us that the intrinsic, the people side is expansive and it's massive and there are infinite possibilities. And so when you understand that, that's why the people dimension has a higher value, even though we need to balance it with people, tasks and systems, we're always going to put people first. And so that statement, you should aim for people to feel energized and heard after interacting with you. It flips everything. So it's like I'm going to put people first.

Suzie Price: [00:40:50]

I've still got objectives, which is the systemic, and I've still got things I need to do to reach those things, those objectives. But I've got to do it through people. So let me see the person in front of me. Let me connect with this person. And that is a lifelong journey for all of us, because we all have pressures and things we need to focus on. But when we put the person first, no matter if it's a sales thing or if it's a conflict situation or it's a team, anything that we're doing or a family member, we put them first and we stay interested in who they are and what they need and what we're trying to understand, who they are and what they want everything changes. Another comment that Ron made that I liked was talking about discomfort. We've all had levels of discomfort. I think about so many things in my life growing my consulting business, my personal life, my professional life, this podcast. I mean, there have been many moments of discomfort while doing this because it's kind of vulnerable to put yourself out there with some of this stuff and you're not sure if it's hitting the mark sometimes and just all kinds of things. But I love what he said about discomfort and how that's helped him.

Suzie Price: [00:41:57]

And I'll just restate something he said. I've come to believe that almost all growth comes from discomfort. So if you want to keep growing, you have to be willing to embrace some discomfort in your life. Now, you don't want to be all caught up in an undertow where you get buried in panic, but you want enough discomfort that keeps you going. And that's where I've come to love challenges and problems, because they provide that discomfort that keeps me growing. So again, that's another mind flip. In other words, oh gosh, I'm feeling uncomfortable. I need to be less uncomfortable or oh gosh, there's a problem. I'm going to get stressed out about it or I'm going to get flipped out about it. If we can embrace it and say, okay, this is an opportunity. Look what I'm going to grow and what am I going to learn, and how is it going to help me become a better version of myself? And how does that help other people? And speaking of that, we talked about the impact of development on our own development, how it impacts everyone around us. And we talked about our common mentor, Dr. Dave Medford. And here is some of the verbiage directly from Ron's comments. He says, I'm afraid that if we're not careful because of the modern age that we live in, that we will lose sight of the fact that our life is meant to be rocks dropped in a pond to ripple out to everybody else's life.

Suzie Price: [00:43:14]

And when we think about satisfying ourselves or making ourselves happy, of course we all want to be happy and we want to enjoy life. But the reality is, the biggest part of our life is what influence we have on others. And we can think of those efforts because we think about David Medford, how he passed away a number of years ago and he's still influencing people today. There are many people in the TTI Success Insights Network, and probably outside the TTI Success Insights Network that were influenced by Dr. Dave Medford, who was one of the founders of the Robert S Hartman Institute. You can go look at that if you want, HartmanInstitute.org. I was the president of it for a couple of years and very active in that organization. It's all people who follow Axiology. But you think about the work that he did, and Ron talks about how much time Dr. Medford spent with him, and then the ripple effect of that of how where Ron is today and the impact he's having. And we still are talking about Dr. Dave Medford. So our life is meant to be rocks dropped in a pond to ripple out to everybody else's. So we do influence others as we grow. I like what he talked about, about appreciation. I'm a big fan of making notes of appreciation. I do it every single day and sometimes 5-10 times a day.

Suzie Price: [00:44:31]

It just depends. I have an app on my iPad on Day One. It's called Day One App, and every day at least if I just do it once a day, it's always at the end of the day and I write down what I appreciate, what happened today that I feel good about and it's just a wonderful way to recap, because I'll forget how many great things happened. And it seems like the more you write, the more that comes. And I love that Ron says that doing that can help keep us humble. So he says, here's how he goes about this appreciation. So I start every morning with building a list of what I'm grateful for that happened the previous day. I think gratitude is one of the ways that you protect yourself against arrogance, because when you're grateful, you realize it wasn't you, it was other people or other situations. You were just fortunate to be in the circumstance that you are. So I start every day with that. And then on Sunday mornings I build that list all week long, and then I read the whole list of what I built during the week. And it really gives me a sense of joy for what each week has accomplished. That's the ticket, to be reflecting back on what you have accomplished. Sometimes we just get caught up in the big old laundry list of things that have to be done, and we never stop and even take five minutes to look back and say, wow, look how much that has happened, and we can ride that energy or that wave. When we do reflect like that, there's an energy that comes from appreciation. It's the energy of love. It's an energy of spirit. No matter what religion you're in, when you're in a state of appreciation, you're in a new space, a higher space, a more loving space. And from there you often become inspired to what's next. That's why I often appreciate it so much, because sometimes I'm not sure what to do next or what the right next thing is to do. And if I sit and write a list of appreciation, it usually comes to me regardless.

Suzie Price: [00:46:24]

I feel better and I'm working with a clearer frame of mind. So appreciation. Love it. I love what Ron does, and I love the idea that he goes back and reads what he's written all week on Sundays. He's got a lot of great routines in his life, and you heard that in our message today. And as I come to a close with the last couple of things I kind of want to highlight, there were so many good things expressed. So I'm highlighting a lot of things. It's just a reminder that he shares that everybody can become a leader. You don't need the title, and the way to do that is to create a life full of learning.

Suzie Price: [00:46:57]

And then he lays out a path on how to and it's an Axiological path. It's the dimensions that we talk about in Axiology. He says, if you want to be a great leader, whether you have the title or not, you need to learn to think clearly. You need to be able to take action, and you want to focus on helping other people become the best version of themselves. And then he says, and he and I both laughed at this. Oh yeah, we're using that through Axiology. So Axiology, if you're familiar with the dimensional balance page and the six dimensions, what he's talking about is thinking clearly is systems judgment. And that's when you're working in the world. And then to take action is practical thinking. That's a dimension in the TriMetrix and the Axiology or acumen. And then the last is understanding others, valuing others. And that's to help others become the best version of themselves. So Axiology is expressed in that statement. But those are the dimensions of how we think and feel and make decisions. And we have them for the world and we have them for ourselves. We have one mind, but we think in these two areas we think about how we work in the world, and we're measuring that, and we think about how we see ourselves. And then within that we have six areas which I just hit on the three in the world. So think clearly, take action, help others become the best version of themselves.

Suzie Price: [00:48:16]

And that is going to be a rich and full life. I like what Ron said about life and what he chooses to believe and he said, I choose to believe that in a pitch dark room, the candle shines brighter. No matter how difficult things are around us, the more we can be the best version of ourselves, the greater impact we can have so things can look dark. And what I often think about is another analogy that I use in my mind sometimes when I see someone who's really making poor decisions or really struggling to activate my empathy and my compassion, and make sure that I'm living from that place, or seeing and being from that place, I think about, okay, there's a fog and I have had fogs around me many times. I probably still do often, but there's a fog around this person, and what I want to do is I don't need to take them all the way out of the fog right now, but I do, it's that pitch dark room of being the candle. I need to shine a light to a possible path out of the fog, so I'll shine the flashlight and they may follow the light. They may not. But I'm going to be patient. And that's what I need to do. Sometimes when I don't see things clearly, or if I'm upset about something, I need that kind of patience. I need someone to say, okay, you're there, you can come out of the fog.

Suzie Price: [00:49:35]

In a pitch dark room, you can light a candle and it becomes brighter. So that's always like expressing hope, seeing someone's goodness, seeing their capability, and knowing that there is a way, a path out and just trying to help them find it for themselves, and by prompting and appreciating and valuing, we can do that. So the last thing I want to share, which I really enjoyed, was the fact that I always ask the question about what billboard would you put? I love that, he said. I would have it in everybody's browser and I'm like, okay, that's a first time for that. And then it's a very simple statement, whatever you think, there's always more, whatever you think, there's always more. And you could say that about Ron's life. You know, when you look at his bio, if you look at his LinkedIn profile, you'll see he was the president of other organizations. He was working in China for a while, and that seemed like, okay, that's that's whatever you think. Well, that's a really big deal. The things that he was doing, he had his own consulting business that was growing and very influential there. Whatever you think, there's always more. And so there's always an opportunity for more growth. And so now. Now he is the president of TTI Success Insights. There's more. There's always more around the corner.

Suzie Price: [00:50:48]

There's more capability. There's more calm, more to learn. Never getting complacent, never feeling like you've reached the mountaintop and you're done. And so I love that. And then on the flip side of that, that's all positive. Whatever you think there's always more, there's another way you can say it. And it's something that I like to say a lot is you can't get it wrong because you're never done. So that's also the way of thinking about there's always more so you can't get it wrong. So I failed at this or I had a problem with this, or I messed up on this episode or it wasn't a very good interview. If we're thinking about the 100th episode, or I could grow strong here, or I didn't do something right or I got in trouble. You can't get it wrong because you're never done. So having that mindset is also helpful. So whatever you think, there's always more or you can't get it wrong because you're never done. Things are always evolving, always growing, always have the potential to become something better, always have the potential to become something more. So as we wrap up the 100th episode, I want to just say a few things about podcasting. I was listening to podcasts. I was doing audio interviews way before people were doing it... They weren't podcasts. I was just putting them on my website. And I still have some of those audio interviews.

Suzie Price: [00:52:11]

That's how it all started. I was doing Toastmasters and speaking, and I had my business. I started my business at the end of 2003. So this is 20 years that I was just wanting to communicate ideas, share ideas, learn, share anything. I was learning, share things I was interested in. So that's how it all kind of started. And I started listening to podcasts that talked about how to create a podcast. So that's when I kind of got the idea after I did some audio interviews that I was just putting on my website, like, yeah, podcasts are becoming a thing. So eventually, after I listened to enough podcasts about podcasting, I bought some equipment and I just did it all myself. Tried to figure out how to use the equipment. I set up a little room in a closet with moving blankets, so dead in the sound. I struggle with sound mightily. I found podcast editors because I couldn't figure out how to edit. I created interview questions and I just jumped in. And so you can see some of the initial episodes are not great. And I think I have heard before that the average podcaster, a lot of podcasters stop before they even get to ten episodes. So I'm thrilled that I'm at 100. I'll never stop because I just enjoy it. I don't believe I'll ever stop. We'll see. But along the way, I mean, you talk about the thing whenever you think there's always more and you can't get it wrong because you're never done.

Suzie Price: [00:53:36]

Certainly sometimes the quality and the sound was not great. The show notes weren't great. I don't know if I ever lost any episodes, but certainly had challenges, and I'm glad I kept on going. And what I really honor or think about was I remember just being interested in this and excited about it. And when I talk about it, even today when I was talking about it back then, especially when I was clueless about how to do all of this, I was excited, I was interested, I wanted to study it, I wanted to spend my time doing it. And those were all signs that you're doing something that matters or something that's important to your being. And oftentimes I see people very excited about something and then they stop turning towards it. And maybe it's the lack they get the discomfort of not knowing or fear of failure. I'm not sure what happens, or maybe it just changes and it wasn't their thing to do. But oftentimes when you get excited or energized, you're doing something that matters to you. It's important to you. It usually lines up with something that is of interest, and it ties to Workplace Motivators, often you can usually see a tie to that, but what I suggest, or my advice is always to follow the interest and just see where it goes. Over these 100 episodes, I've learned so much.

Suzie Price: [00:54:54]

I've gotten to meet interesting people. I've gotten to share ideas, I've gotten to take the work that we do and put it in episodes so that clients can go back and use it. And often it thrills me so much to have clients say, hey, I listened to this and it really helped me. And so oftentimes I'm a coach of coaches, so I love sharing the insights that will help people go on and use the information, talking about the ripples in the pond. And then early on when I started the podcast, I ended up being asked to give a talk where all my colleagues are. I don't know how many 400 or 500 of my colleagues from all over the world go to these TTI Success Insight Conferences. It's an international conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, and I did a talk on podcasting for profits and long term loyal clients and why I podcast. And so that information, while a lot has changed since 2018, that information is still relevant today. So if you're interested in podcasting and you want to see what I shared there, I've got a web page and a link to that here in the show notes at pricelessprofessional.com/growinginfluence. And so anyway, all kinds of interesting things like that talk were interesting. It was nice to kind of codify what I had learned up to that point. And today doing the podcast still makes me happy. I like to think about it.

Suzie Price: [00:56:09]

I like to do it. I mean, I have hobbies, I'm big into fitness and I have a lot of friends and do a lot of things, but it's become kind of like a hobby. It's related to my work. PricelessProfessional.com pays for all the work that's related to the podcast, but I also spend a lot of time doing it, so it's becoming like where other people might be golfing or taking art classes or doing tennis matches. I'm doing the podcast, so it's more than a hobby. It supports my business. I love it when I'll go meet with clients or new clients and they'll say, hey, I listened to your podcast. We feel like we know you. I mean, it's just been so many benefits. And it's interesting since 2018 when I did that talk to my colleagues in Arizona, there were at that time 75 million people listening to podcasts, and today it's sevenfold. It's grown sevenfold, 465 million people listen to podcasts. So, I mean, it's a great way, a lot of people are learning and listening, and there's a lot more podcasts out there, and I don't really think about the competition. I focus on what I can control, what I'm most interested in, and just focus there and enjoy every step of it. So thank you for being along for the ride. I'm going to leave you with a favorite quote and it is a reminder if you have something, maybe it's not a podcast, maybe it's something you want to venture out and do you want to do some more photography? Or you want to start a new business, or you want to be a leader of a new team, or you want to get a new work opportunity, or you're going to start some more education, but it's a Martin Luther King Jr quote that I really like, and it sums up really well this 100 episodes.

Suzie Price: [00:57:53]

And that is, "If you can't fly, then run. If you can't run, then walk. If you can't walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward." That is the essence of waking up eager, having something that you're interested in. You really can't run. You maybe can't even walk or crawl yet, but you're going to do something to keep moving forward. And as you keep moving forward, you start getting better at crawling and then walking and then running. So such wisdom from Martin Luther King Jr, and I see that for you and for whatever interests you, I want to make sure that you subscribe to the Wake Up Eager Workforce podcast wherever you get podcasts. And if you have enjoyed any of our episodes, it would be a great favor to me if you would take a few minutes and write a review. Send me a message that you wrote a review and we will send you a complimentary Workplace Motivators Assessment.

Suzie Price: [00:58:48]

It's a 24 page report, and we have some online resources that you can access at your own pace. And so that's a nice value. You can use that assessment for yourself or for a family member or a friend or colleague. And so if you would like to leave us a review, send me a note when you've done it and we'll send you that free link for that assessment. If you're not sure how to leave a review, go to pricelessprofessional.com/review. And I've got a little mini tutorial there on that. Check out all the episodes at the Wake Up Eager Workforce podcast at WakeUpEagerworkforce.com. We've got some great conversations. I just had a great conversation with a senior leader of a large organization in learning and development and sustainability that's coming up. We're doing a lot of another leader in a large organization who is going to talk about leadership and so much more, more personal and professional development episodes coming your way for the next 100 episodes. And just thank you for being along for the ride. Thank you for being a colleague and friend. Thank you for being interested in waking up eager and being the best version of yourself, and just appreciate you very much. If you have anything that I can help you with or any questions, call or reach out. Suzie@pricelessprofessional.com. And then my phone number is (770) 842-2669. Check us out. Come visit and we'll see you in the next episode. Take care.

Intro/Outro: [01:00:22]

This episode of the Wake Up Eager Workforce Podcast was brought to you by Priceless Professional Development. Thank you for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's show, head over to Pricelessprofessional.com to gain access to more professional development resources.