Wake Up Eager Workforce 
Episode 130 Transcript

Episode Preview:

In this episode of the Wake Up Eager Workforce podcast, host Suzie Price sits down with Chris Garner, Chief Sales Officer and longtime SEC college football official, to explore the surprising parallels between sports and leadership. Drawing on decades of experience from the football field to the boardroom, Chris shares how preparation, feedback, and accountability drive success in high-stakes environments.

From the pressure of making split-second calls on the field to coaching sales teams toward peak performance, Suzie and Chris unpack what it means to lead with courage, clarity, and commitment. Through candid stories and actionable wisdom, they reveal how consistent preparation and intentional listening can turn even the toughest challenges into opportunities for growth.

If you're a leader striving for excellence or someone eager to boost performance and build stronger relationships, this episode will give you the practical mindset tools to lead with heart and results.

Read the transcript for Episode 130 below to discover how showing up prepared—and human—can transform your leadership impact.

Transcript

[00:00:00] SUZIE PRICE: what does a SEC football official and a top tier sales leader have in common according to Chris Gardner it all comes down to preparation presence and people today we're exploring leadership principles that transcend industries and that are rooted in accountability gratitude and the power of investing in relationships our guest is going to share how lessons from the football field have shaped his business career and how he cultivated a high performance sales culture and why listening with intention is the most underrated leadership skill you're going to walk away with practical wisdom inspiration and a renewed belief in the power of showing up prepared every day so you're gonna wanna tune in if you want to strengthen your leadership presence you wanna know how to build accountability with heart you wanna learn how sports and business share the same playbook if you want to understand or interested in understanding how embracing gratitude as a strategy and that it's not just a sentiment can help you invest in relationships that drive performance great discussion I just listened to it again and I just felt so good about it and about what Chris is doing and I cannot wait to share it with you Michael hit it

[00:01:15] INTRO: 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

[00:01:43] SUZIE PRICE: welcome to the wake up Eager Workforce podcast where we help leaders build a wake up eager life and a high commitment low drama wake up eager workforce this episode is sponsored by Priceless Professional Development I'm your host Suzie Price and the title for today's episode is whistles and Wisdom Life and Leadership lessons from Chief Sales Officer and SEC College Football Official Chris Gardner and this is episode 1:30 of the Wake Up Eager Workforce podcast now we have some good show notes today that'll give you a link to how to reach out to Chris it'll give you a link to the book and his book that he's written called whistles and Wisdom Lessons on life and leadership from an SEC Football Official it will also give you links to I have links to other podcast episodes that will dive deeper into some of the topics we cover so the show notes for today tied to Chris's book it's priceless professional dot com forward slash whistles and wisdom priceless professional dot com forward slash whistles and wisdom and you want to do whistles and wisdom all one word lowercase so that's how you get the show notes so we're gonna talk about how preparation isn't optional that is actually everything we're gonna talk about how leadership begins with listening and empathy and how gratitude and accountability create a winning culture it's all about leadership but it also this interesting look into this world of football officials and all that's involved in becoming an official this is no lightweight thing and the and the challenges that they face so I found it fascinating as someone who's doesn't really follow football I'm more of a NASCAR fan I know football but I had never really understood that and I will never look at an official the same now after having Learned this from Chris and I think you're gonna enjoy that too so let me tell you a little bit about his background for 25 years he's was a chief sales officer in the corporate sector and executive leader of sales teams across the country and he now owns his own sales consulting and leadership company Gardner Leadership and he talks about his journey which began after high school when he enlisted in the Navy and he talks about gaining invaluable insight and experience into leadership and management from military officers following his military service he earned a degree in risk management from Ohio State he's an accomplished keynote speaker and he shares his expertise peace on effective sales strategies and leading from a positive perspective and you will feel that today when you listen to him positive good energy just the right kind of person you want to be around he has a strong commitment to personal development which you'll also see he I went on to pursue a master's degree specializing in negotiation and leadership and since 2001 he's been officiating college football and currently continues that in the Southeastern Conference now how he does all of this with the role that he had as a chief sales officer that's how I began to know him he I got to work with him in setting up hiring and templates and you know when he was debriefing Trimetrix assessments how he did all that he did in his high profile role and also did this is another could be a whole another episode about how did he manage his time but his energy is so high you'll see that there and he's a really good match to what drives him his motivators which we cover in this episode really are a match to what he was doing and of course in both roles so when we're a match to things we have a lot more energy the book that he recently published whistles and Wisdom Lessons on life and leadership from the SEC Football Official is out also it does charitable work with Decca and where he's preparing leaders emerging leaders and entrepreneurs for future success you'll see that as a theme in the conversation today about leaders being good mentors and then you can see here where he's also mentoring outside of work and outside of his speaking a man of service and then how he received mentoring he he mentioned several of his mentors in this discussion he and his wife Anna reside in Opelika Alabama along with their two golden doodles we're gonna hop into that episode now I know you're gonna enjoy it we did miss a couple of minutes at the opening so when we start it will you will hear Chris talking about what it's like to be an official for the SEC and what it's like to have everybody paying attention to all of your decisions so we'll jump right into the interview and the discussion let's go there

[00:06:15] CHRIS GARNER: now why we're going in the direction that we are imagine if you're sitting at your desk Suzie and for you and for all your listeners and the people who watch your podcast imagine if every business task you were working on is watched by 100,000 people you have at your desk you'd have four TV cameras from four different angles you know putting you in millions of other business people who just want to watch how does your business operate and how do you make the decisions you know it's late January early February you're about to do employee evaluations what if all that was broadcast live of how you coach employees and fellow coworkers through what they're doing great what they're doing not great the advice you give the direction imagine if all that was broadcast to 3 million people and you gotta be very comfortable with what you're doing and how you're doing it to be successful which you know kind of brings us in our next question that you asked of you know how do you stay focused yeah calm and decisive with all those people watching you know it can be intimidating if you're not ready and so for us it's all about preparation on the football field we have an extremely long list of things that we have to do every single week to get prepared for that game coming up on Saturday and remember this is another question I get a lot this isn't our full time job right so we do everything that we do at our regular job you know 8 to 5 whatever it is and then after that and if I handle my schedule correctly Suzie you know maybe I can start it at 3:00 on on Sundays but you know every single day I have to put well we have to put in several more hours of work of how we're gonna get ready for that same game coming up on on that Saturday everything that you see on a football game by the officials everything that you see on a Saturday afternoon

[00:08:14] SUZIE PRICE: or whenever the game is played trust me when I tell you we have reviewed rehearsed practiced talk through when I tell you 100 times in that same week leading up to Saturday that's probably underestimating it everything let me interrupt real quick what are you practicing are you cause it always seems it's so in the moment so are you all like looking at the team that's coming and past like some of their history is that part of it and then the actual stadium or I don't know how you prepare how do you prepare yes just revisiting the law the rules

[00:08:49] CHRIS GARNER: yes all of that so OK so it it really starts on Tuesday morning we get a grade card from last Saturday's game and so we review the grade card what and we get graded on every single play I have a position coach who does nothing but look at me and grades me on every single play you know I mentioned earlier those 175 plays I get a grade card with it could be as many entries of you stood in the right spot you were looking at the right thing you called it the right way there was this odd action but you were smart to lay off of it

[00:09:27] SUZIE PRICE: hey here's another play where a lot of feedback you're getting a 3 60 feedback every game

[00:09:34] CHRIS GARNER: my position specialist people who game day evaluators who are at the stadium whether we like it or not the instant replay crew has some yeah subjective input into it there's a team of people back in Birmingham with eight TVs on the wall watching all eight games at the same time they have input into it and my supervisor of the conference is sitting there with them watching it all going cut that clip of Chris Garner we need to watch that again there's something that doesn't look right there all that goes into our grade sheet on Tuesday we go through all that what did we do great that we need to keep doing what did we not do great that we gotta stop re evaluate adjust and make better I watch the last several games of both teams I we have a couple of video uh pieces of video software where we can watch every game from every team in the country and I will use that I'll watch the past several games of both teams I'm gonna have that way by Saturday the way they line up the personnel they bring in I'm about 95% sure what they're gonna do and how they're gonna do it before they even snap the ball so that takes a couple of days our supervisor will send us what's called a training video from around the conference it's 20 plays here's 10 great plays that I'm very proud of how we're doing here's 10 plays that are okay but think about maybe doing them better wow that we gotta review excellent you mentioned tests every week we get a rules test that we have to work on and complete and we go over that on Friday when we get to the game site and then we meet as a crew and we talk about how we're gonna officiate the game and things that are going on and coaches send in plays from the other team they're like we don't like how this team blocks our defense this way and we gotta watch it and we go through it so and I'm just scratching the surface you know we only have an hour here Suzie I can that's a good I can go on for four more hours about all the things that we that that we gotta do but those are the big rocks every single week leading up to a game that we work on so the officials do not just show up

[00:11:52] SUZIE PRICE: I assume there were some you know like you had to study and such but I had no idea that you get that much feedback and if you think about that if you correlate that to work I mean think about I'm a fan of if they're done right 360 feedback where people get feedback how are people experiencing your behavior and giving you feedback about what they saw you know what it meant to them how it impacted them I mean you're getting your own version of that in megadoses so y'all are at a really high level

[00:12:20] CHRIS GARNER: here's another fun fact the coaches after every game the coaches and their staff will send in plays to the conference office of hey we don't like the ruling here and then sometimes the supervisor will call us directly and go hey coach called in about this tell me what you were looking at and what you were thinking so it's real time talk me through your leadership skill set of why you did this this way and luckily for me and most of us 99.9986% of the time our supervisor says I agree I like what you did I just need your comment so I can go back to coach and they need feedback there's nothing like a person making $10 million a year wanting to know why you did it the way you did it

[00:13:11] SUZIE PRICE: you really have to be on your game

[00:13:13] CHRIS GARNER: the accountability is extremely high in what we do but you know again just to close that out you know that's another reason why I wrote the book I wanted to share with people you know just some of the core leadership fundamentals that we have to employ every single Saturday and through the week leading up to the game for us to get it right when we know so much is at at stake and so many people are watching it unfold in real time

[00:13:39] SUZIE PRICE: I love what you shared about preparation too because I always tell people who were newer in consulting I'll say it takes longer than you think and be okay with that oh yeah and and and you know I'm not you know perfect by any means but if I sign up to deliver something yeah I go crazy in the preparation and more of that is just worry about I wanna be lined up when I get there cause there you know earlier on my career maybe I showed up and I wasn't all pulled together and I didn't like how that felt and how it came across and I survived and the audience survived but I don't ever wanna feel like that again so I go nuts I mean I'm like my husband will be like oh my God she's on a project again because I'll I'll just be up early I'll say you know do all the things so that when I actually show up it looks effortless but only can do that people will say how is that good when I do do something really good how is that so good it's like well okay let me back up and give you about you know 10,000 hours of life that made that look effortless which is exactly what you're describing and so sometimes people are hard on themselves or they give up too quick because they think well maybe you know other people doing it is easier it's like probably not they probably just did all the things that you're doing to make it look good

[00:14:54] CHRIS GARNER: I was so lucky early in my career I had a sales mentor just randomly tell me when I was starting to do a lot of presentations in front of people I did one you know it went very well and and the person said to me he goes wow you're really good at that you must practice four to five times the length of whatever your presentation is so if it's an hour you rehearse it at least five hours and I remember thinking yeah that's about right and it's probably also the bare minimum so whenever I teach a class a sales class or I'm coaching people and you know a lot of times it comes out when we're teaching value prop of what do you tell a prospect or someone you're speaking with about what you do and how you do it and I give a mine and typically someone in the class goes wow that sounded so smooth how do you do that and I I say cause I've done it 10,000 times yeah and that's what you have to do and here I am 30 years later and I still tell the sales people I coach every sales call I go on is practice for the next one and if you go into any of these situations and you say something to a prospect or a customer and it's the first time you have ever said it you are destined for failure it's gonna be clumsy it's not gonna sound right you're gonna wish that you would have said it a different way Suzie there's just no substitution for preparation practice and and rehearsal many many times yes

[00:16:24] SUZIE PRICE: yes oh what a great point and and just remember if you're listening that's the gift I mean so that's what makes it good and that and that that's more normal even though people aren't doing it and then when people are doing it they think something must be wrong with me cause this is so hard like nope you're right on track right right you know and the other pieces is you just have to jump in too you know at the same time you need to be prepared but then sometimes you just have to do it because the only way you're gonna know whether it works or not or how you show up or what the gaps are is to do it

[00:16:57] CHRIS GARNER: my first ever college it was a junior varsity in Ohio some of the smaller schools actually have junior varsity college teams I don't know if I've ever been more scared in my life and I had a buddy of mine he said he goes hey you're ready we were dressed we're getting ready to walk out of the locker room I just looked at him I'm like I don't know if I'm ready for this and he literally spun me around and pushed me in the back out the door and he goes he said there's only one way to learn and you gotta jump into the deep end of the pool and and do it and you're so right

[00:17:29] SUZIE PRICE: both sides are true prepare prepare prepare and then you know just trust yourself and and the only way you can learn to trust yourself is to jump in the water

[00:17:37] CHRIS GARNER: that's right that's right

[00:17:38] SUZIE PRICE: and do it or go out and do the JV football thing how did that go do you remember

[00:17:43] CHRIS GARNER: it went fine cause I had put in the work and that's the key I had put in the work to get to that point now you just gotta go out on the field or you gotta walk into the boardroom or you gotta walk into the prospect's office and just whenever I'm nervous I always tell myself I've put in the work I know more than the person on the other side of the table actually knows about what I'm getting ready to tell them I say the the phrase I just need to uncork it I just need to open it up and and and let it all out I've done the work now it's time to share it with the person who's waiting to hear it self talk is so important it really is

[00:18:21] SUZIE PRICE: and we can't rely on other people to give that to us I had somebody ask me recently about something they did and they said did anybody tell you it was good and I went back to them and said tell me what you thought yeah you know because you gotta evaluate it and you can get feedback from others but at the end of the day you have to have the self talk you have to say okay this is what I did right and remember to pick on those things and and then also here's what could go better you know pay attention to both of those and like you said just how you talk your way into it as you're going to it

[00:18:52] CHRIS GARNER: yeah and you know I also but the other last piece of advice on this Suzie is I always tell sales people when I'm coaching them or anybody else in doing anything you're the only one who knows when you look at yourself in the mirror you know if you've done the work or not when you realize I've done everything I can possibly do yeah sure you're a little anxious you might be a little nervous but you also know that you're prepared you're ready to go very little is going to happen that you can't handle and conversely when you look at yourself in the mirror and you know you have not done the work that's when you just gotta tell yourself I need to work harder for next time you know when you're honest with yourself

[00:19:37] SUZIE PRICE: yes that is excellent advice and so solid and such a great point to make talk a little bit more about the parallels between your job as a chief sales officer and leader and the officiating conflict managing people how it yeah I'll tell you how all of that

[00:19:57] CHRIS GARNER: yeah so officiating college football it's definitely helped me in a business sense it's helped me to listen more believe it or not when you have 100,000 people booing you and you can barely hear you somehow you find this listening skill that cuts through all of that and all of a sudden I can hear everything that you're saying because I'm focused on you and nothing else matters to me other than the message that you're trying to convey to me at that particular time you know it's funny how we can be one on one and if I'm on my phone or you're in my office and I'm doing email at the same time I probably only hear 30% of what you're saying but I can have 100,000 people screaming at me and at a critical moment I capture every word I capture whether you're sure or you're not sure I capture how serious you are about it I capture you know maybe little gaps of the you know you're telling me everything but I can identify a one piece of the puzzle that's missing it's funny how that works sometimes so that environment has helped me listen more in the office it's helped me handle conflict better I'll tell you you know when a coach who makes $10 million a year is chewing me out in front of millions of people both in person and on TV it makes the conflicts in the office of someone mad about an expense report or they didn't get a lead assigned to them it makes a lot easier here's what I've Learned from getting yelled at by a coach they're not expecting me to change the call they don't wanna hear my side of it you know what it is Suzie they just wanna be heard and I've Learned that you know what and this is the beauty about college football they've got about 25 seconds to scream at me and then we gotta go on to the next play we're coming out of the TV Time Out commercials are over it's time to get back to work they just want to be heard that's what it is so I transfer that into the office in the business setting people come in they're upset about a variety of different things I just listen I give them my full attention I don't text I turn the phone over even put it in a drawer if I have to so the temptation's not there I don't answer emails I sit there with my hands folded on my desk I look them dead in the eye and I listen and you know what happens a lot of times Suzie after they get it all out they take a deep breath they look at me and they go that's all I have to say I just wanted you to know that and they turn around and walk away I didn't have to fix anything I didn't have to offer a solution I didn't have to say a word they just wanted to be listened to and felt like you know their manager their leader their coworker whoever it is someone that has some type of authoritative leverage that that person listened to them and that they were heard that day and then it never fails they come back later that afternoon or the next day they just swing by the office door stick their head in they go hey thanks for yesterday or earlier today I just needed to get it out and then they leave walk away that has helped me I use the those tools from Saturday to listen more I deescalate the issues that come up Monday through Friday it's many of the things that I mentioned to you earlier and you know they're also in the book but when you talk about parallels investing in the relationships of people that I interact with in the toughest of times and having the patience that knowing that not everyone moves at the same speed I do some people go slower and how they process things other people move a lot faster than I do I'm very deliberate and purposeful and as a leader sometimes I have to move slower just to make sure we're not skipping over something that could be beneficial or important or could make things better had we just taken the time to examine the process a little bit more closely I talk about there's some leadership principles I believe that are very important and you we're gonna talk about this a lot Suzie with whatever time that we have but the way we communicate I've broken it down into three separate topics communicating with courage clarity and commitment the 3 CS of communication I call them you know there's also a major accountability component that in my opinion it's a very big gap in corporate leadership many leaders either won't or don't know how to hold people or I should say you know underperformers accountable and it's not necessarily a punitive type of accountability but recognizing that there's a gap and then going to work or in collaborating and partnering with that work in closing that gap I tell people all the time there's a difference between a in my opinion a difference between a manager and a leader a manager walks around with a spreadsheet and says Suzie you're 17% behind I need you to go fix it alright well well that's great but a leader will recognize the gap and sit down with you and share the gap with you which is the accountability piece hey Suzie I wanna share with you something you know it's April the 22nd for we're already halfway through second quarter we're on our way through second quarter first quarter didn't go the way we wanted it to you know the CRM is telling us that second quarter isn't shaping up great I need you to know these things and let's talk about how we're gonna make a good run the rest of the year it could be that you're heavily weighted towards the second half of the year and you and I just need to talk it out about how are we gonna ensure it becomes a success so that you achieve the things that that you're trying to achieve that's something I just believe that good leaders do

[00:25:52] SUZIE PRICE: yeah being a great coach

[00:25:53] CHRIS GARNER: I believe that's the magic and leadership is the coaching I really do believe that and it's not taking ownership

[00:25:58] SUZIE PRICE: and it's not taking ownership it's not threatening it's not thinking they can't do it or they can you know it's just being with them and it all starts with the what you started with which is focus listening yeah I used to call it listening aggressively where you just like you just say okay yeah this is why I'm and I'm gonna give that gift and when you do that it turns people toward you and sees you as a collaborative assistant and they're not on their own and they tell you the truth and you have real conversations and there's an energy and a vibe when you talk about all that you can just feel the energy of it the positivity of it and you have the difficult conversations it's easier to have the difficult conversations if you've had the accountability conversation and you've had the listening and you really know where they're coming from so you know who they are and what they're dealing with and so it it changes everything

[00:26:49] CHRIS GARNER: there's nothing worse for anybody when everyone knows that something just isn't going right and nobody says anything about it we we know something's headed in the wrong direction no one's helping no one's speaking up it raises the stress it lowers the enjoyment of what we do why not why not use your leadership skills to eliminate all of that and make everyone feel like we're all headed in the right direction again I take this from football but I use it in the business world early in my college officiating days a great mentor to me said I know you're nervous but nothing will happen out there that we can't handle together what a great way to live and work and live by

[00:27:34] SUZIE PRICE: yeah so great mentorship helps you have a model you're gonna be the model going forward for everyone who worked with you too you know I think that's amazing that you had a great mentor and then you you were smart to pick up on all of that and deliver it and be there for your folks that's amazing so never underestimate listening that's enough it's right up there with preparation listening yep and then I love what you said about conflict you're investing in in the relationship and you just know that people need to be heard so let them be heard amazing so tell me a little bit about how you I think sometimes people know these things and are aware of them and are sometimes good at them and then they get overwhelmed they have young children at home they're officiating football and so they're juggling a million things or you know tell me a little bit about I think the balance thing sometimes self care goes out out the window for folks and so leaders have a hard time being present with others if they're tired they're not fed right they're not feeling healthy I mean all of that is a big piece of this puzzle too how did you maintain all of that the CSO role which is no small role in a very large important organization and then this whole big role of SEC I mean how did you take care of yourself in the midst of that

[00:28:51] CHRIS GARNER: interesting question I have always understood this is what helped me with that you know with balance and understanding others my last corporate job we had 300 people in the region and only gets bigger when you go company wide and things this is what I've come to understand and appreciate everybody has stuff everybody has stuff that they're dragging around I have stuff you have stuff my wife has stuff everyone has stuff no matter what face you put on about how successful confident strong independent you are everybody has stuff I told my former president well I told everybody and I used to say this on sales calls when you know my sales people would be coming down hard on the service team and they don't understand my needs and they need to do this better faster I go look let me tell you something as you want to you know kick this person from head to toe they're probably coming to this job to get away from whatever's going on at home right now when we had like I said in my last job where we had 300 people in the region every day every day you Learned of another person who their child just got in a car accident one of their parents died they had to move their parents in with them to become their caretaker they themselves found out that I don't even like saying this out loud but it's true they themselves found out they had cancer or some type of illness that was life threatening it's just the the stories go on and on and on of the challenges that people face every single day and as a leader you have to have that awareness and just understand that everybody has stuff and sometimes when people sit down with you and they're like ah I gotta get this done I need to be successful you know Suzie's not doing a great job Chris Gardner's even worse he can't be on the team and I just pause and I go hey what's going on well you know work is totally work no no no no no what's going on and probably some of the best compliments I've ever gotten from people is when they go gosh Chris you're less of a sales leader and more of a psychologist if I can get you to talk out with me what's really bothering you

[00:31:14] SUZIE PRICE: what's the problem behind the problem

[00:31:17] CHRIS GARNER: yeah we can acknowledge it we can understand that you know what every day at 2:30 you have a child that has that is challenged with some need that you have to go to the doctor every Monday Wednesday and Friday at 2:30 and you know what I'm okay with you leaving that's okay because that's more important than this expense report or we'll figure out a way to get the proposal done in time so that you don't have that black cloud hanging over your head that makes you feel like you can't be at your best and I don't care what the HR rules are we have to acknowledge people need help sometimes you know and it's and it's okay to talk about those things as a leader

[00:32:05] SUZIE PRICE: be there for your people yeah

[00:32:07] CHRIS GARNER: you you just said something the more you're there for your people the more they're gonna show up for you

[00:32:13] SUZIE PRICE: first you still have to get things done you still have to work on the vision and the strategy and all of that's important but at the end of the day relationships first

[00:32:21] CHRIS GARNER: what's the cost if you don't have that viewpoint their productivity drops they're miserable the culture suffers they eventually quit all of those things cost money and productivity why not just give people a safe environment to be their best selves

[00:32:39] SUZIE PRICE: excellent advice and a great example so what else do you want to share about parallels about work and SEC officials or any other tools that you want to dig into at all

[00:32:53] CHRIS GARNER: you know as a leader you know I'm officiating a football game I have to be 100% objective it doesn't matter who the teams are it doesn't matter who the sales person or account manager is be objective to what's going on don't turn a blind eye to it you know call it for what it is now at the same time and I've seen this with a lot of leaders they are objective to a fault so and so this is the third month in a row they didn't do their expense report on time I'm putting them on a performance improvement plan and I'm like really for an expense report so in football while we have rules we also have philosophies that tell us how to adjudicate the rule in certain times which gives us wiggle room you know to understand if if so and so doesn't get all their credit card statements or whatever the case may be until the 28th and the expense report is due on the morning of the 29th give him a little time every company I've ever worked at functions just fine when the expense report maybe it's a couple days late I get why it's important to be on time but we have to understand that not everything is hardcore black and white I was once in a game luckily I wasn't involved in this play I was watching two officials and my memory of it is I that I was laughing at them at the time during the game where there was a fumble or a turnover and both teams jumped on the ball and both guys were pointing the other way and then they let their hands go and then they pointed the other way again like conflicting signals and I'm just sitting back laughing and I was talking to the guys and and you know one of them told me something that has always stuck with me cause one official was saying the book says we have to do it this way and as I tell you that Suzie I'm thinking of another leader I worked with in the business world who said the strategy says we have to do it this way and sometimes and this is what the official told me that has never left my brain we try so hard to be right by the book that it makes us wrong sometimes and you have to have some philosophies that give you the freedom you know maybe have a shade of gray or just go just a touch outside the line of what the rule says to get to the right spot and boy I've seen a lot of leaders in business who don't have that flexibility they lose the confidence of the people because they're not given the leeway to do what's right at the time even though the book says well the the book says we start work at 8 yeah that's true I've watched people who thought they were leaders and we've seen it Suzie and these are true stories I've watched people who think that they're leaders they stand at the front door at the office as you walk in they look at their watch going it's 8:07 work starts at 8 what a great way to crush the productivity of that person for the rest of the day if not longer

[00:35:59] SUZIE PRICE: I love the wiggle room image too

[00:36:02] CHRIS GARNER: allow yourself that freedom to get to the right decision allow yourself that freedom to make to allow that person to be successful instead of finding ways to tell them that they're wrong

[00:36:15] SUZIE PRICE: yes don't find ways to tell them that they're wrong we try so hard to be right by the book that it makes us wrong sometimes that is a great takeaway and it is that it's trying to balance out I wanna be people first but then I'm I give too much I become a doormat and then people are taking advantage and so then I go the other way and it's I'm 100% objective and I think leaders kind of go that way sometimes too and they just want a rule to follow so it's a challenge but it's a that's the that if you signed up for leadership there's a lot of grey areas and you gotta be comfortable with that

[00:36:47] CHRIS GARNER: as a leader it's important to be 100% objective but then it's also as equally as important to know what the options are within that objectivity okay look you know what you can't get to work every day until 9:30 you know what I'm fine with that because you then told me you know we worked it out where you're willing to stay till 6:30 no skin off my nose

[00:37:09] SUZIE PRICE: and I think often times if people could you know have a mentor to talk those things through it would help them sort through it but it's hard to do it in the fast paced world that we're in but I love it wiggle room how about a favorite lesson from the book that people are talking about anything additional you've shared so much but I want to give you an opportunity if there's anything else we haven't touched on before we kind of jump in a little bit more about you and start to wrap this up

[00:37:35] CHRIS GARNER: couple things real quick I share in the book some lessons around patience you know rarely do any of us get exactly what we want exactly when we want to get it success takes time I've climbed to the highest mountain of college football it took me 10 years and in officiating terms that's actually kind of fast I'm actually working with a a friend of mine who you know he's in his 13th year and he's not in Division 1 yet it's probably gonna take him another five you know it it might be close to 20 but think of all the great milestones that we reach in life you know retirement paying off our house raising our children those things don't happen in minutes hours or days we have to have patience to accomplish the things um that that we're really striving for you know the the big things don't ever forget how long it takes to to build something great Suzie you know that's that's one thing I share and then the other thing I spend a lot of time on communication and you know failure in communication is the root of almost any problem

[00:38:44] SUZIE PRICE: it seems like you are so right yes that should be under over every leader's door so many misperceive every spouse's door every parent every your family member yes

[00:38:56] CHRIS GARNER: my wife has something that we call real talk she goes hey I need to have some real talk and as a man I'm like uh oh uh oh I gotta I gotta do two things I gotta turn off the TV which kills me and I actually have to look at her you know I'm like you know she wants when she says the phrase real talk I know what that means that let me clarify something my wife's an incredibly beautiful woman looking at her is not hard to do but giving her my full attention is right that's yeah

[00:39:24] SUZIE PRICE: and when she might not be happy with you you don't want to like I don't want to go there

[00:39:28] CHRIS GARNER: right right but when I talk about communication in my book I look at it there's a second half another side of that equation which is is the person you're talking to did they receive what you said yes I can tell you something I can look at you in the eye and tell you something but are you receiving just because you say something to me Suzie or you email me something it doesn't mean that I heard you it doesn't mean I received it and it certainly doesn't understand that I fully understood the message that you're trying to convey and in today's world you you want things I love someone will send an email to me and then like 40 minutes later they're like hey did you get that email uh no I get 178 emails a day I didn't I didn't get the one that you sent 40 minutes ago and I certainly don't know what it is that you're trying to what's so urgent and in today's world Suzie we're shortcutting all that with texting and instant messaging and I'm not saying those tools aren't useful but using them requires extra hard work have you ever sent a text and it autocorrected to something that you didn't mean it to say have you ever sent a text in the person you know sometime later an hour tomorrow a week later go oh I thought you meant you were picking me up yes I totally read that wrong here's a fun one I just Learned from my wife cause I every now and then I'll give her the thumbs up sticker on a text yeah yeah she goes don't ever do that to me again and I go what are you talking about so as things evolve Suzie I have Learned that the younger people use the thumbs up sticker as a sarcastic yeah right whatever response oh

[00:41:22] SUZIE PRICE: I did not know that

[00:41:24] CHRIS GARNER: look it up in Urban Dictionary it'll say sarcastic

[00:41:28] SUZIE PRICE: yeah like I'm all over it not I'm all over it not kind of thing okay well that makes sense

[00:41:33] CHRIS GARNER: it's more of a like yeah right whatever response and here I am I'm giving them all over the place the people thinking I got it and they're thinking I'm a jerk yeah it may not be from the thumbs up but it doesn't help anyway

[00:41:47] SUZIE PRICE: great point though but did they receive it and that is a mistake when we're really busy too we think well I told them we had this whole conversation and that happens all the time a like a manager will say to me you know they're just not doing what's expected and I'll say do they know what's expected are you clear do they have a dashboard do they know what's expected sure they do I know they do we've had conversations about it you go over to the employee and be like yeah nope I don't have a clue

[00:42:12] CHRIS GARNER: how many times have you gotten an email from somebody and you read it and you go I have no idea what they're talking about or what they want me to do someone says hey can you have this to me within the next week or so and what they really mean is by April 30th why didn't you tell me that

[00:42:27] SUZIE PRICE: and we do need to use in the thing we're gonna talk about in a minute is your strengths wake up big your strengths knowing what your teammates strengths are and how they like to receive communication right is a big deal help them receive it you know so somebody wants the details somebody else wants just give me the bottom line real quick somebody else needs you to check in personally first and so on so yeah that is good well your book sounds amazing I'm excited that you have written it and I see more and more wonderful things a difference you're gonna make in the universe with Garner leadership

[00:43:01] CHRIS GARNER: we're trying I'm having so much fun with it and it's just it's just sharing with people and you know this is my motto and we'll talk about this a little bit later it's all my branding of everything is possible and believing it is everything and just sharing with people how to accomplish their goals and understanding like you know there's a way to believe that what you're doing will lead to success and it's just I've just had the time of my life sharing that with people

[00:43:27] SUZIE PRICE: yeah helping people believe it yeah you got to know that it's possible and then define it and align up with it

[00:43:34] CHRIS GARNER: it segways great Suzie into uh my strengths from my yes assessment that I took

[00:43:41] SUZIE PRICE: all right we're officially going into the wake up bigger segment and we're talking about Chris's greatest strengths and we like to do this because we have so many people that are listening that are using the tools and the more you understand the trimetrics and the and the results the more you can apply them to yourself to have the wake of your life you want and create a wake of your workforce and then having met you during all this time they've now experienced you so as you talk about your results and what the strengths were I'm gonna do a just a quick recap on communication style sure you have the competitive kind of urgency competitive in a good way will to win it's not doesn't mean you want to beat other people out you have this drive to win and a sense of urgency which you typically see in sales folks often and then you have this ability to talk and make connections with people make nice rapport is another another communication style so that's the d and the I above the energy line you're big into and open to frequent change and very versatile those are some of your behavioral strengths according to the assessment which is gives you the style and then you're gonna read from the report but also the biggest thing that I thought when I saw your drivers or your motivators was passionate individualistic political so that means you're willing to be the spokesperson so you're willing be the leader in the room and you see that a lot on executive teams and you're willing to be in front of a crowd of 100,000 people and three and a half million people on TV I was like that is so him hahaha so willing to individualistic political theoretical and traditional so loves to learn you talked about learning today and the traditional is interesting because that's helping the college football and follow and enforce the rules there's a drive there the structure of it and the structure of the training and then you like to give freely of your time according to the assessment so those are some of the motivators how you like to spend your time so that's just my little preamble for those who are listening and understand the different things that are measured talk to us about your results on the strengths page what's some favorite things you saw on some of those different pages

[00:45:45] CHRIS GARNER: so I went right to No. 5 of being an optimistic leader I truly believe that's for me that's the only way to do it you know at its core leadership and I just said this a few minutes ago leadership is helping others achieve something that they didn't believe possible yeah and you know I I just don't see where you know yelling at somebody or commanding them in an over authoritative tone you know it might move things forward somewhat but I believe it's always the positive reinforcement that inspires people at a moment of uncertainty that enables them to achieve their goal a big part of my coaching that I do as a leader as a sales leader Suzie is sometimes the best and most powerful thing I say to a salesperson is you're doing all the right things sometimes they want the success right now they want the wins they want the new accounts they want the new business but like we talked about earlier great success takes time and you know you gotta make the calls you gotta do the meetings you gotta go to the networking events you gotta do all this stuff and it takes time for it to build and sometimes you just have to tell people you're doing all the right things it's gonna come these are all the right building blocks you're doing the right things the right way hang in there cause if you don't tell them that

[00:47:07] SUZIE PRICE: who else is going to people don't people are busy and they're not used to affirming people

[00:47:12] CHRIS GARNER: sometimes right in the void of uncertainty in the void of uncertainty people just make up the worst scenarios I'm doing it wrong they change their whole strategy they abandon all the good habits that they were doing they want to start tying balloon animals and juggling flaming chainsaws thinking that's the way and it's not so just being an optimistic leader and and isn't that really what leadership is when people are uncertain about how to go a certain direction you're the one that says I know the way I'm gonna show you how to get there and we're gonna climb the mountain together as I like to tell people

[00:47:47] SUZIE PRICE: you're particularly talented at that

[00:47:48] CHRIS GARNER: I don't know if I am or not it's just what I believe after studying leadership for nearly I mean gosh since the early I mean I I can go back to when I was in the military in the early 90s I can go back into high school playing sports I can go back to being on the playground and I was the captain of the kickball team

[00:48:08] SUZIE PRICE: when I was 8 of course you were

[00:48:10] CHRIS GARNER: it it it just makes sense to me of that's how you lead groups and individuals through difficult or challenging times it's worked for me throughout the years

[00:48:22] SUZIE PRICE: it's amazing all right so what else we've got ideal environment and motivating we're two other pages that have what Chris is speaking to is the Talent Insights assessment and there's a segment that combines strengths ideal environment motivating and it's tying his communication style and his motivators together with statements so what other statements did you pick to share

[00:48:44] CHRIS GARNER: you know based on what we just talked about I don't think this is gonna shock you too much you know any task involving motivating groups and using my established network of contacts no matter how much confidence I display and trust me I got no shortage of that but that's part of leadership too right of like you know showing people that you know where you're headed to no matter how much confidence I display Suzie I always keep in mind that I'm still not the smartest guy in the room and as a result I always know who to bring with me meeting as many people as you can and understanding their skill set and how it fits into the bigger picture I believe is a piece of leadership that most people miss they think because they're the leader they have to know all the answers and all the strategies and how we're gonna do it and I have no problem saying I don't know I I think I know if you you know I've got some really good ideas but you know who I'd like to ask I'd like to ask Suzie and Amy and a bunch of other people and get their input because no matter how much I think I know whenever the more people I ask and I don't know if surprised is the right word but I'm gonna use it I'm always surprised how many times other people tell me something I didn't see I didn't think of so you know I always like using groups and my established network of contacts it can be a very daunting task to try and know everyone's role especially in a larger organization but it's so incredibly worth the effort again I may not be able to solve every problem but I really do enjoy you know sitting at my desk and someone calls me and they go you know what Chris we've got nobody in this organization who can when we're in their interview process you know how do we really assess whether or not they have the skills to do it and I go hey have you ever thought about calling Suzie Price and having them run a a profile assessment and understand what their drivers are and their strengths and their motivators they don't know to do these things and I scratch my head I'm like well this is scary because you're an HR you're accountable to interview people you know you have some all these stakeholders depending on you to figure out if people have the right skills and tools and you don't know who Suzie Price is I enjoy teaching people who can solve problems for them you know I had another guy that I used to work with and you know it was the same thing he's like man we need someone who can run this financial analytics data on this one specific piece of business segment and I just giggled I'll make up a name I'll go Bill do you know that person sits right in the cube next to you like it's just people live you know with they got these blinders on and they're so tunnel focused they don't understand how many people can help them right around them and so I've always enjoyed meeting people I'm gonna steal this I heard Oprah Winfrey say this one time and I think Oprah's kind of done well for herself in life I heard her say whenever she walks into a room party networking event business meeting whatever it is her biggest job is to go to every single person meet them and understand what they do yeah because she just believes she's going to need that at some point down the road yep and what a powerful thing sometimes leaders walk into the room they're jockeying for position they knock people over to sit at the head of the table they wanna speak the most and what they should be doing is observing and listening to what every single person can bring to solve a problem

[00:52:29] SUZIE PRICE: I love that and you know how that shows up in your motivators is you're very curious the theoretical is your second driver you're very curious so you want to know and then that connector individualistic political are natural kind of connectors what you share about knowing people and thank you so much for putting a little plug in there for me while you were sharing all that we had some great

[00:52:50] CHRIS GARNER: you've been a tremendous help to me with all that

[00:52:52] SUZIE PRICE: that's for sure creating hiring templates for your sales people I always enjoyed talking to you you are a natural connector and you're very curious and you know one thing I wanted to tag on to that and when you walk into a room and a lot of consultants you know if you're the speaker or you're the presenter everybody kind of comes around you when they're when you're gonna speak the next day and you know you're there for their whatever their mixer whatever I never talk about myself and they want to know tell me about and I'll be like I might say something and then the next thing I say is tell me about your journey and that's a great opening question tell me about your journey to here and it's so interesting what people will tell you and how much you learn about the organization and how much more connected you feel to the group and and you're just you know just like what you're saying with Oprah you know I may need that insight and at the end of the day it's good to listen to people and hear what their journey is when's the last time somebody asked you about your journey not too many people do that

[00:53:49] CHRIS GARNER: what a great way to ask that question you know I go to networking events all the time and I ask people you know I'll ask them what they do and they'll tell me well I'm the assistant vice president you know of finance and I'm like but I don't know what that means yeah you could be the assistant vice president of taking out the trash in the finance department for all I know but yeah tell me about your journey

[00:54:12] SUZIE PRICE: of how it really works got there and it feels good

[00:54:14] CHRIS GARNER: it can be hard to get people to open up a little bit about what they do

[00:54:19] SUZIE PRICE: it's amazing what people will tell you especially with you being such a focused and good listener yeah and I have had to cultivate that skill myself and it that's a good one very good okay so is there another one another page with another bit of favorite to share

[00:54:32] CHRIS GARNER: we had keys to motivating and you know this this is probably one I had to kind of navigate a little bit I wasn't sure but then I immediately I crossed off two immediately there's a couple that talk about needing public recognition and power and prestige and power and control over outcomes and goals and I'm not worried about winning the award at the end of the day that's a lot of times successful people talk about it's not the result it's the process if you can have command of the process the results come I'm not worried about the trophy if I get the process right I'll get whatever comes out at the end

[00:55:12] SUZIE PRICE: yeah fun to see the outcome yes

[00:55:14] CHRIS GARNER: you know for me it's more about the opportunity to share my ideas and skills of look we've been down this road before you know I got a virtually all my clients are trying to figure out how to be successful in sales most of them are at the beginning of the curve of their sales career and they got all these wild crazy I call them get rich quick schemes I'll even let you do it if that's what you wanna do I said earlier you know and and I say this to salespeople you know I very sarcastically I'm like look if you wanna go out on the street corner and get one of those spinny spin signs and I've never seen any marketing data that says that increases ROI by a certain percentage or you wanna tie balloon animals or you wanna juggle flaming chainsaws go do it but I'm telling you that's not the way I love history I believe in that philosophy that history repeats itself and the rest of that philosophy is those who forget it are doomed to repeat it so I love history and when we go through things when you work in certain business segments or cycles you see the history coming at you I just enjoy sharing things with people where I make an observation and I say Suzie I think we've been here before where you have helped me do a personality assessment on a sales candidate and their their d is a 100% solid at the top and that has worked against us before in the past because they don't take the time to think about what they're doing and they run through the brick wall before I have an opportunity to tell them hey there's a door you can open and just walk through the door instead of smashing through the brick wall hurting yourself causing some damage wrecking things along the way you know there's a door right there you can turn the knob and open and walk right through a lot easier and smoother and faster I always enjoy the history of things and just sharing with people there's a couple of ways we can do it history has shown me some ways are harder than others and just let me share with you what I've seen the most successful people do that allows them to achieve their goal the fastest and easiest

[00:57:32] SUZIE PRICE: great leadership tips from Chris Gardner doing good work

[00:57:36] CHRIS GARNER: gosh Suzie it's so fun to watch people be successful yes that's just what I believe

[00:57:42] SUZIE PRICE: what a great motivation talk about what you would advice you would give your 25 year old self

[00:57:48] CHRIS GARNER: oh gosh great question when I thought about this because I remember doing this when I was younger I was very hesitant on some things and and this is what I tell 25 year old people now that I I wish I would have told myself back then don't ever wait to be successful and go chase your dreams don't ever wait if you think something is a good idea if it's in your heart go do it because tomorrow life is gonna throw a curveball at you and then life's gonna throw another one at you the next day and another one the day after that it never gets easier than today to start chasing your dreams why wait to be successful

[00:58:30] SUZIE PRICE: I love it yeah we have this life take time now do it now yeah

[00:58:34] CHRIS GARNER: and all of us and I know I was this way and I've heard other tremendously successful business people say this maybe you did this Suzie earlier in your career of I wish I would have done this 10 years ago what I'm doing right now

[00:58:50] SUZIE PRICE: yep perfect timing yep now but you because it feels so right now but boy look at all that you're bringing to it it's amazing you are following your advice

[00:59:00] CHRIS GARNER: I really am and I've done and I'm not gonna go into it just for time but I can point to several things in my lifetime where I just said you know what I'm going to take and in some cases it was years I'm gonna take one or two years and I'm gonna go chase this dream they didn't work out kind of they had benefits you know down the road that I didn't see at the time but boy did I have fun going and chasing a dream that so many other people they're they're afraid to go do but the life lessons it taught me of just an example I chased a dream I thought there was a point in my life where I could go play professional football for two years when I from when I was 22 to 24 that's all I did every minute of the day now I didn't make it but it set me up here I am at the top of the mountain of college football in the Southeastern Conference

[00:59:57] SUZIE PRICE: that's amazing I was curious about how that got started and it's a whole other podcast Football player there we go we got a little bit of that story there a whole other podcast that's an interesting awesome yes yeah follow the dreams you know I left my corporate gig I went into consulting for an international consulting firm after I got out of corporate with big companies Oracle NCR and then I went to a international consulting firm and then they wanted me to stay in sales and not facilitate and so I said well I'm leaving I don't want to be just in sales I'm a learner I'm a theoretical passionate number one motivator I didn't know that at the time but it's like I don't want to just do sales so well you're good at it do it and so I left it at 38 years old I did not know what I was doing did not know and it was very stressful I survived but I agree with that follow chase your dreams I probably should have held back a little longer but it ended up working out but boy there were some

[01:00:53] CHRIS GARNER: that's the thing though that's the thing though Suzie right think about the things that you Learned think about the adversity think about the adversity you went through but you survived and it made you stronger and again

[01:01:09] SUZIE PRICE: yeah I didn't know what I didn't know you know if I would have done it a lot lot later I might would have not done it but anyway yeah so it's interesting our life journeys it's interesting if you could have one billboard to influence others anywhere in the world what message would you put on it and where would you put it

[01:01:26] CHRIS GARNER: so again we talked about this earlier and it's the tagline in my branding on right underneath my company logo is everything is possible believing it is everything and you know there's just so many people in the world who they don't know they're scared no one oh gosh let me let me tell you this story real quick I can't tell you how many times I've had a someone in their 40s or 50s come into my office and they're frustrated and they're struggling and it's all the things we've talked about earlier of just you know understanding that they've got stuff listening all this I Chris I don't know if I can do this job boy I just I'm trying I'm not getting any sales well I can't tell you how many times Suzie I said to somebody you know hey you're doing all the right things hang in there and then I would say to them Suzie I believe you can be successful at this and that's all I would say and Suzie I can't tell you how many times and it's it's women it's men all of a sudden I start I start to see their eyes water up I would ask them I'm like what's making you so emotional about this and I can't again so many people have said to me Chris you're the first person who's ever told me I could be successful at this wow and I'm like what has gone on in this person's life this all goes back to everybody has stuff what has gone on in this person's life where no one supported them in a positive way to say that I believe in you I I know it's gonna be hard but I believe you can do this and like I'm the first one to tell them that when they're 52 years old so if I could I would put my motto everything is possible believing it is everything I would put it in every first grade classroom so yes every person starting their life knows if I believe in something and I'm very deliberate with these words Suzie I don't say hey I think so I feel like it no no no I believe it and if you believe it you will do the things necessary to be successful I think I might be successful that's speech for I'm not really committed to it if I believe it I will fight to the absolute end to make it happen

[01:03:51] SUZIE PRICE: and belief is every day little by little pulling yourself back up

[01:03:56] CHRIS GARNER: pulling yourself back up 1,000%

[01:03:57] SUZIE PRICE: and then having somebody like Chris Gardner say I believe you can do it

[01:04:01] CHRIS GARNER: I do I believe you can do it

[01:04:03] SUZIE PRICE: and you see it in people yeah I always think about often times we are when we're trying to create something or do something that's bigger than where we are currently we're sometimes in a fog it's like a there's a fog around us and then like you are the light at the edge of the fog when you're saying you know so they don't mean to have a fog around them but they haven't accomplished it yet so you're the light says keep going keep going that you're there pointing the way

[01:04:29] CHRIS GARNER: what we do in sales it's a 25 hour a day job you know there's you always feel like there's a million things to do because you can manufacture a million things to do and there's just never enough time and your analogy is great because a good leader says come follow me let me show you the direction yes there's 1,000 plates we may talk about this in a second but I have found if you spin three of them the other thousand seem to stay up and it's a good leader who can guide you through that

[01:05:06] SUZIE PRICE: I'm gonna have you talk a little bit about your services and after this last question but somehow this came up a pithy little statement what's your one whistle worthy piece of advice yeah that people can apply you've shared so much I've got a whole list of wonderful things to recap but what would you say

[01:05:23] CHRIS GARNER: well well Suzie you debriefed my assessment so I don't have just one thing

[01:05:29] SUZIE PRICE: and that's okay too it can be many things yeah

[01:05:32] CHRIS GARNER: it was two things for me that I always just try and share with people you know what get to this question I believe I I just gotta share with people some of the fundamentals of leadership and and one of the foundational components that I believe people who are trying to be better leaders have to grasp is that a leader has to be willing to take full accountability of the team's failure there's no room for blame as a leader when you become a leader you step in onto a platform where you're willing to take full accountability of how the leader performs if my team fails it's because I didn't prepare them or I didn't check their progress well enough if you're willing to take that on this is why it's so important if you're willing to take on the accountability then you're most likely willing to invest in their skill development so they can achieve the things that they didn't believe possible if you're willing to take on the accountability you're willing to take on getting them to be better and driving those improvements if you're not willing to take on the accountability you're just gonna blame people for their failure that's not leading it takes a very courageous strong person to take on the accountability to take on the blame because that's what directly links you to if I'm willing to take that on I'm willing to take on the work to make my team

[01:07:02] SUZIE PRICE: I love it and side note personal accountability is a skill that is measured in Trimetrix and it is something that we see in all top performers yeah so we always say when you're looking at a candidate's results look at their personal accountability man you any role

[01:07:20] CHRIS GARNER: there's nothing more disengaging we talk about this too all the time in cultures and workforce development you know are employees actively disengaged well you go to a leader with a problem and the first thing they do is you know they blame you they blame the team goes fault they're making me do it well how do I get on board with that I don't it's just important to me the second thing and I'm I'm interested in your comments on on this Suzie we haven't talked about this yet gratitude there's no better feeling for both you and the person that you're talking with when you thank them and you share with them how they've helped you become more successful so the neuroscience behind sharing gratitude you probably maybe you know you I'm sure you know this the neuroscience behind gratitude of sharing thanks and telling people thank you it lowers their cortisol with the stress creating chemical in your brain it increases the serotonin the endorphins the all the good feeling chemicals in your body it just makes people feel better it fuels you as a leader because you feel good because you know your people feel good because you know you've put in a building block on the culture that leads the organization in the right direction when I wrote my book whistles and wisdom I called some people I hadn't spoken to in 20 years and I just said hey remember that piece of advice you gave me in 1999 and in 2003 and they go oh yeah I remember that and I'm like I just want to tell you I took that with me and I used it every day in work and it changed the way I LED people and it made me more successful and they were so you could hear their voice crack they got emotional about it that they did something that helped somebody I mean there's no better feeling then sharing with someone you were critical in the success of myself this project the organization you know a lot of times we give away you know 25 dollar gift cards gas cards you know whatever you spin that and it's gone all people really want is to know that you care and respect them and that you're thankful for them you know this adage Suzie right people don't remember necessarily what you say but they remember how you made them feel oh my gosh as leaders we need to do a better job of expressing gratitude to those we work with and those who who've helped us

[01:10:11] SUZIE PRICE: yes amen amen amen yes it's the pathway to so much goodness and you know they say 3 to 1 positives to everyone course correction oh yeah and a lot of times if there's problems in the relationship it's like have you counted the ratio lately cause yeah

[01:10:27] CHRIS GARNER: I write about this in the book a Little Bit you know when I talk about football grading and you know performance evaluations in in the corporate world we live in a negative feedback society that's just what it is I had a former manager one time I nailed all the financial metrics in my corporate job hit them all over achieved them all maxed out everything and then at the end he's like you know well it would have been nice if you had also done this this and this and I just said alright I'm gonna speak up if I'm over achieving all the performance targets that you set out in front of me why are you picking on me about and it was something that didn't even matter and he said well Chris you know as a manager he goes as your manager I gotta find something to motivate you to be better and I instantly replied back and I said no you don't

[01:11:19] SUZIE PRICE: no you don't yeah why why don't person in the wrong way

[01:11:23] CHRIS GARNER: why don't we just tell people Suzie you're doing a great job the things that you're overachieving are the foundational components that make this organization a success keep doing that keep maxing those out keep focusing on those three things everything's great I'm gonna give you a raise I'm gonna give you a bonus you know there's some other stuff but I'm not gonna remember rules and philosophies being objective but having the philosophies give me a little leeway to make it better you hit your sales goals hey I got a target here that says that you need to visit 35 offices look OK you visited 22 I don't care that you didn't hit the other 13 because you're doing such a great job in the other areas we can always give people guidance but why do we gotta pick on people who are doing a great job I've never understood that

[01:12:15] SUZIE PRICE: people think that they're gonna slack I don't know what it is some old school something that doesn't work

[01:12:20] CHRIS GARNER: but if I start picking away if you do a great job and I just start nitpicking on stuff I'm gonna start taking away from the things you're doing great hey Suzie how's your performance review with Crisco well not as good as I had hoped I had over achieved all these metrics but then he started in on me that we're supposed to return to the office but I only come in 3 days a week and he started getting on me about it

[01:12:46] SUZIE PRICE: yeah that's all I remember why go down that road it leaves a high performer thinking okay there's no way to win there's no way to win

[01:12:53] CHRIS GARNER: and you know what they do they leave they leave

[01:12:56] SUZIE PRICE: we said at the same time they leave yeah yeah yeah so appreciation I like that word even better than gratitude they're both great words appreciation is is the pathway to relationships to connecting and to your own connecting too every day I make list every evening about what went well and I'm always surprised that so many things went well that I forgot about

[01:13:19] CHRIS GARNER: what a great exercise so I gotta give credit where credit is due I I work with the author John Gordon I deliver some of his stuff Energy Bus it's one of his more famous books he talks about gratitude and and and he shares that one of the great ways to show gratitude is the like what you were saying some people just journal it yeah and by focusing on the good stop focusing on the negatives or stop focusing on the things you have to do focus on the things that you get to do focus on the positive things write them down journal them what are the three great things today that went my way and all of a sudden you realize life ain't so bad

[01:14:04] SUZIE PRICE: well here's the other interesting thing about energy or mental emotion or maybe it's just me but as I do those lists all of a sudden an idea will come to me that I have been noodling on the head nothing to do with what I'm writing about how do I solve this problem and help this client or something and I'll be I'll capture it like okay so somehow that came through the idea you know the problem was solved with the idea it's an interesting

[01:14:28] CHRIS GARNER: something so simple like journaling hey I met with Suzie today I told her she was doing a really good job and then she opened up and shared with me that she really needed it and it meant a lot to her and then I'll write down the note what if I did that with everybody on my team yeah exactly start scheduling a 15 minute one on one zoom in person whatever just to say I appreciate the work that you're doing where does that get you as a leader where does that take the organization how does that build the culture boy there's so many positives in that

[01:15:03] SUZIE PRICE: yep I am so glad that you're doing the work that you're doing if I'm gonna have a a link to your book and your contact information um and tell people what you're doing so you're doing coaching you're doing speaking right keynote yeah is that the two main aspects

[01:15:21] CHRIS GARNER: yeah so you know there's a couple different legs on that stool you know my primary function is I'm a fractional sales leader so there's a ton of small midsize companies even large companies where maybe their sales team is it's just large and you know we've gotten into this thing where we have one sales leader you know who's responsible for 75 sales people across a large geographic area and that's just hard to manage so any organization that needs help in getting more out of their sales team I can do I've LED corporate sales teams for over 25 years I just share with here's how we help them both as a group and individually once people find out about my college football career they want to know more about that and so I've connected the two and I do a lot of keynote speaking I'll go out to sales groups and it's a very similar talk to what you and I had Suzie of if I can be successful with 100,000 people booing me and uh 3.2 million people watching me at home on TV I can help you be successful in front of a single customer with the sales strategies that I know work so I do that and then every now and then you know I go out and I hustle this book a little bit every now and then but when I left the corporate world you you know how it goes Suzie you know my president at the time he goes well where are you going thinking I was going to a competitor and I just said I'm done I just believe the world needs more positivity in it and I just wanna go and talk to people about it and as I've said a couple of times here I want people to believe everything is possible and believing it is everything and I just enjoy talking to people about it

[01:17:09] SUZIE PRICE: awesome you are a great representation of it I'm so happy for you and I'm so pleased that you have shared all the goodness that you've shared today and you have been excellent and no surprise I knew it would be a wonderful conversation so thank you

[01:17:24] CHRIS GARNER: thanks Suzie I appreciate you and you've helped me tremendously and I look forward to speaking with you more thank you

[01:17:31] SUZIE PRICE: I hope you enjoyed our discussion as much as I did in a moment I'm going to recap some of the highlights of the session and have a giveaway but first let's hear from Douglas White the CEO of Soul Integrated Athletics who has been a recurring guest in 2025 for our well being 2.0 aligning with your excellence segment it's a very quick segment it's little nuggets of wisdom about aligning with your excellence and let me tell you quickly or remind you who Douglas is he also participated in the high pressure world of sports but in professional baseball with a 17 year career in Major League Baseball including the Houston Astros and Los Angeles and he was a four time major minor league champion and part of two World Series winning teams you can get the all of the segments that he has produced and access and information to him at Priceless professional.com forward slash well being I like how this segment ties in beautifully to what we're talking about today if you want to be a better leader you've got to stay present you've got to be in the moment and everything that Douglas is talking about here is about that let's listen to Douglas now

[01:18:42] DOUGLAS WHITE: hello everybody Douglas White here again emotional well being 2.0 aligning with your excellence we are in segment seven now this is directly piggybacking off of segment 6 where we talked about like first of all what the heck are we doing here really this is about identifying and eliminating limiting factors in your life and again all the segments prior to that are explaining well what's the foundation to be able to identify and then eventually eliminate those limiting factors even though energetically we don't eliminate anything in our lives we simply dissolve or dilute or move around move through so on and so forth but so I started talking about physical versus vibrational reality where yes we have this physical reality in front of us all day every day that seems very very real and we gotta action our way through change and I brought up the fact that yes you can absolutely do that but more importantly we wanna know what is the energy the feeling place behind our actioning steps are we in touch with that because that's what's driving our physical reality the vibration behind it the beliefs behind it the again the living factors behind it maybe that's what's recreating our physical reality and so there's really two things going on at once so so roll with me on this one kinda hang in there for this right I thought of this the other day it's becoming versus being let's say being is how am I being in these moments of my life currently right now in the present in the present how am I being how am I showing up and really it's about how am I feeling in my life because there's something I want to become there's something I want to have let's say also but this becoming versus being so if you want to become something in life become meaning have do whatever if you're in this journey of a becoming being right well then your beingness right it really matters how you be in this moment how you're feeling in this moment how you're thinking in this moment how you're perceiving these moments that all matters greatly because how you're being is dictating your becoming and so it's happening basically simultaneously here's how I be but this is what I want to become so how do I become something well you gotta be what you want to become so in these current moments these present moments we want to practice being who we want to become so we can practice that in all different ways we can practice that by actually visualizing what we want to become but remember when you visualize you better have a feeling that comes with the visualization you could actually do those things you want to become like let's say you wanna be better at a certain sport go be it go do it but be aware of how you're feeling while you're doing it because you want to become this person of confidence this person of excellence and alignment and consistency and knowledge and self empowerment and love and passion and on and on and on and so you can see what that relationship is what are you being right now is dictating what you're becoming so if you wanna become something be it right now what are the ways right now in which you could be it and the being doesn't have to be doing it doesn't have to be an action it could be an actual energy an emotional place of being I hope that hits home love you guys so much bye

[01:22:58] SUZIE PRICE: so as a reminder if you're new to this segment you can go to Priceless professional.com forward slash well being and you will see a page with each of the segments there so you can tie it or go revisit what he's talking about but what he's doing is setting up a great foundation to help us eliminate limiting factors in our life and so if we're not aware of our emotions and how we feel it's hard for us to be able to actually make successful progress toward our goals and so in order to align with what we want we have to know where we are and figure out how to get there so stay present and don't discount your feelings and watch what happens again priceless professional.com forward slash well being for all the other segments that we've had so far this year with Douglas because they all tie together so now I want to talk a little bit about the top takeaways for today first preparation isn't optional it's everything and so that's how we make everything look effortless he says you know if you've done the work or not and so he talked about that a little bit on college football and officiating you know just the high stakes nature of it how they're graded on every call I mean that feedback is powerful and so getting that kind of feedback makes them better and better and just the amount of pressure with all the people and the coaches yelling at them and it just was very interesting so what he talks about whether it's a game film client research or daily practice you know what you hear from him is the more you prepare the more confident and effective you'll be in high pressure moments and that we both talked about this and I see it all the time in my world preparation often takes longer than expected so sometimes we think something's wrong when it's taking a long time to prepare so good conversation there but preparation isn't optional it's everything and I liked Chris's statement that every sales call is a practice for the next one next we talked about leadership and how leadership begins with listening and empathy and I like how he tied how he got so good at listening when he needed to focus you have 100,000 people yelling you've got a coach yelling at you and so that really taught him to really tune in and be present with others that's been a journey for me too about present and being able to be in the moment I'm not always good at it but I'm much better at it by practice and some of the different things that I've experienced but I love how Chris tied that in um you know and how he realizes with the coaches when they're yelling at him on the field they just need to be heard and he parlay's that into the office and with people when people feel heard it reduces stress and oftentimes they just needed to be heard so it really the his officiating experience sharpened his ability to get calm and do that and with team members you know he also said you know another great quote he said is when people feel heard the room changes so that's something to really pay attention to I've always been a fan of being a better listener and knowing the power of listening having been the recipient of it at times and recognizing how it's changed me and wanting to give that back to others and there's something we've taught over the years and I have some podcast episodes and some articles in the show notes at priceless professional dot com forward slash whistles and wisdom on listening aggressively and it's actually a format in that the way we define listening aggressively is a focus on hearing in a determined and energetic way and when you're doing this well you're demonstrating your desire to understand by asking questions and listening with no agenda other than to understand which is what Chris talked about just tuning in letting people have their say and being able to be present to do that you know seeking first to understand before trying to get them to understand me that's a famous Steven Covey 7 habits of highly effective people situation you know so knowing that our way is not the only way being able to listen pick up on the best attributes from others so tuning in listening very important and the next thing that was a key theme was also talking about gratitude and appreciation and accountability and how those things can create a winning culture and so I loved how Chris said gratitude strengthens organizational culture and then this accountability is taking ownership of outcomes and regularly showing appreciation his philosophy is you take responsibility for everything and so accountability without gratitude leads to burnout so we've got a whole people accountable and then we have to be accountable for all things making sure we've had all the conversations and that they've actually heard what we said that our message was received and he reminded us don't assume your team knows communicate clearly and often that is just such a key piece of that gratitude and accountability go together I like what he talked about when he said about wiggle room you know so there's a right and wrong but it it we need to recognize that we have to be objective and at the same time balance that out that there is some wiggle room so I just love the word wiggle but it's a good less serious way to look at accountability and so and the other thing he talked about with accountability is making sure you're talking to people when something is wrong and that he said nothing is worse than something not going right and not and the leader not addressing it so accountability is about seeing a gap and then having a conversation with them about how to close it and partnering with them as opposed to lecturing he didn't use the word lecturing I'm kind of using that but anyway good discussion on all of that a lot of take away there gratitude I use the word appreciation I'm and I've talked about this many many times but you know making lists of appreciation and also remembering as you're communicating and working with people if somebody's struggling are you also looking for what they are doing right and at least pointing that out sometimes we hold back because we don't we think well they're struggling I don't want them to get complacent well sometimes the only way they're going to move forward is to know that they are doing something right I appreciated everything about our conversation I loved in the end where or somewhere along the way where he talked about sometimes people have gone their whole life and nobody said I believe you can do this and he says tell them and true look for their strengths tell them where there's some gaps partner with them listen and then tell them that you believe in them get to a place where you can believe in them if you get into the habit of looking for their strengths and share that with them so whistles and wisdom lessons on life and leadership from an SEC Football Official is now available you'll find a link to it in the show notes at priceless professional. com forward slash whistles and wisdom and just remember everything is possible and believing is everything so that's how Chris started our conversation and I want to end it with that I'm so thankful for him taking time to be on the podcast I'm thankful for you appreciate you tuning in and listening we are giving away a complimentary assessment if you will leave us a review if you got something out of this episode if you are a colleague or friend of Chris's and you would like to make sure that he gets some visibility and you appreciate what he's doing or you just got something from today go to Apple Podcast leave us a review that helps other people find us let me know that you left lesser review and I'll send you a complimentary assessment link to the Motivators Assessment one of the most powerful tools that helps us see what we're energized by and what we wanna do what puts gas in our tank so check us out leave a review reach out to me if you have any comments or questions and let me know how I can help you if I can and we'll see you on the next episode take care

[01:30:54] OUTRO: 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 Priceless professional.com to gain access to more professional development resources