A Leadership Journey with Jeff Hancher

Today’s Guest is Jeff Hancher the founder of the Champion Forum. He is a keynote speaker and works with companies of all sizes as a leadership coach offering private and group coaching. His Career began serving his country in the United States Army. After which he joined the private sector workforce a blue-collar worker. A true case of hard work and dedication paying off he would be promoted 10 times and hold an executive leadership position at that same fortune 500 company.

https://thechampionforum.com

Leadership Development

 How do Leadership Styles Vary?
What is the Value of Mentoring vs. Coaching in developing yourself as a leader?

Resilience is a popular word given the world lately. How can leaders who have suffered setbacks learn and recover from them? 

 For about 75 days every client was asking me about what I saw in the business world. How have you seen your clients have to adjust and evolve to the business climate?

 Are there books that influenced your own development as a leader?

Finding and Developing New Leaders

 When I look around my peer group are now all senior execs and business owners. What are some ways we can help develop the next set of leaders?

 If you are early in your career or have just decided it’s time to grow and take on more how can individual contributors begin to show leadership qualities?

 Is mastery of various areas of the business essential for growing as a fully rounded executive?

Transcript

Tim Kubiak : 0:00

Hi everybody. Thanks for listen to bow ties and business. I'm your host, Tim Kubiak. You can find us on our socials on Facebook and Instagram at bowties and business and on Twitter at bow ties and b i z. You can find me at Tim Kubiak on Twitter and LinkedIn and as well my website Tim Kubiak.com. Today's guest is part two of our conversation on developing leadership with our guest, Jeff Hancher. He's the founder of the champions forum. He's a keynote speaker and works with companies of all sizes, his leadership coach, offering private and group coaching. His career began serving his country in the United States Army, after which he joined the private sector workforce as a blue collar worker. A true case of hard work and dedication paying off, he'd be promoted 10 times and hold an executive position at the same fortune 500 company. Jeff, thanks for being here today.

Jeff Hancher : 0:52

My pleasure. It's always good to be on your show, Tim, and great to be back with you. I really enjoyed our first time together and you pulled out a lot of great stuff from me made me reflect back on some of my career and leadership journey. So I'm glad to be back with you today.

Tim Kubiak : 1:11

Pleasure to have you. For anyone who didn't catch the first episode you can, we'll link to it in the show notes. You can catch it off the website and go back. But Jeff, you know, this started really is a dream to change your life. So do you mind just giving everybody kind of a quick version of your backstory? So they're familiar?

Jeff Hancher : 1:26

Yeah, sure. Yeah, I mean, to give you the nickel rundown tour of what got me here, I grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania, a product of two parents that were medically disabled and grew up in poverty. And my brother and I would always talk that our greatest hope was finding a good steel mill or a coal mine, and making a strong run at this thing. And that was the dream just to help take care of our sick parents. And during high school, the first Gulf War was happening, and I got an itch to serve our country, went to the military as a United States Army soldier. And Upon my return, I was planning to go to college. But put that on the back burner to take care of my mom, who at the time was in hospice. And at that time, I started with a fortune 500 company, basically, as a filling truck driver, doing service work. And after a 20, almost a 24 year career and believe it was 10 or 11 promotions and finishing in a top leadership role within the company. The last couple of years, Tim, I just had this burning passion, to give back what was given to me to be successful. And now I want to spend the rest of my life helping to develop leaders into their biggest potential, which is serving other people, and being excellent in the craft and the art of leadership. Because I truly believe that every organization will rise and fall at the hand of leadership. And so December of 2019, I left a thriving career with a lot of runway left to take that big leap that many of us talk about and follow my passion. And so who knew a pandemic was going to hit but nonetheless, I've been able to add a lot of value and serve a lot of people in this time of uncertainty. And man I am, I'm really enjoying the journey.

Tim Kubiak : 3:24

You know, and it's so great to hear people, you know, businesses are growing. I know a lot of people are suffering. But a lot of businesses are doing well. And a lot of innovations already starting to come out of this situation. So it'll be really curious to see where things are a few years out.

Jeff Hancher : 3:38

No doubt, no doubt about it.

Tim Kubiak : 3:40

So before we jump in today's topics, obviously leadership development, right, and you run a great podcast. So you want to tell folks where they can find you and how to subscribe and all that good stuff.

Jeff Hancher : 3:51

Yeah, we'd love to. So we do have a leadership podcast. It's called the champion form podcast with Jeff Hancher. And that's a host of teaching from the current events of today, as well as leadership principles that have withstood the test of time. We have a lot of very interesting guests that are on people that are proven and leadership, proven entrepreneurs, and quite a few doses of inspiration to get us through some valleys as well. So they can find me wherever podcasts are played under the champion forum podcast, and then my socials under the champion forum podcast other than LinkedIn is under my name, Jeff Hancher, and then my website is thechampionforum.com and they can get show notes from the from the podcast, as well as all of the services I offer from consulting to group training as well as executive coaching.

Tim Kubiak : 4:45

And you have a new offer, so I don't want you to miss that one. So talk about your your monthly coaching and your mastermind groups.

Jeff Hancher : 4:52

I'm very excited and thank you for giving me the opportunity to showcase that. These are really Two groups, a lot of people, this is based off of market demand and some clients that I have to create two leadership groups, these are both virtual. And basically what I've done, I've created two groups very intentionally, I have executive executive leadership mastermind, you know, this is for the established leader that's looking to grow incrementally and continue to sharpen their skill set, they're a little more tenure. You know, they they've kind of been, they've taken a few more laps, and maybe a new leader, or somebody that's newer to leadership. And this group is going to be exclusive and will be limited to 10 people, this is going to allow for that mastermind feel, and that q&a, that networking, the benchmarking that happens in a mastermind type of environment. And then I'm going to have the leadership development group. And this group is designed for those that want to lead, aspire to lead or they're new to leadership. Or they might be like a lot of leaders out there where they finally got the leadership role. They've been at it a while and they come to find out man, there was really no playbook here. And they're just trying to figure it out. And that this group is designed for those. And again, we're going to be covering basic leadership principles that are relevant to today like pushing through adversity, change management, different things that are applicable right now in the season we're in, as well as leadership principles that have stood the test of time. How do you become a challenging leader, while being a motivational leader that tapped in the art of leadership? Either group, what I can tell you that I've learned about leadership 10 is that leadership is better caught than it is taught. Everything that we're going to talk about today, you and I, everything in these groups are all things people can find on the internet, on a YouTube, whatever it might be. But the best people develop their skills by catching other great leaders. And so these two groups are designed to do that. And you can register to either one of these groups by going to the champion forum.com, forward slash groups, it's two zoom calls a month. And I'm looking forward to growing these and really serving people as they continue on their leadership journey. So thanks so much for giving me the opportunity to showcase that.

Tim Kubiak : 7:23

Absolutely. And we're gonna give people a little taste of this. So as we jump in the leadership development, one of the things you talked about in the previous episode was different leadership styles. Can you take a minute, go through those styles and maybe go a little deeper on what each one means and some of the characteristics of them?

Jeff Hancher : 7:42

Yeah, man, there's, you know, I guess it's what makes the girl world go round is the different styles of leadership. And there are several, what I would tell you is that there's not one greater than the other and you shouldn't gravitate only to one. I always tell leaders that if you if you go one way too much, you're going to be about 10%. Right? leadership is about being flexible, and adaptable to your environment, to the personalities that are in front of you. And I think I said on the last show, but I think it paints a picture. You know, if I'm going to go fishing, I don't put Snickers bars on the hook. I put worms because I tend to find, although I love Snickers, the fish don't. And so if I'm fishing for people, I got to know what they want to eat. Now, I do think that coming, you know, from your upbringing and mentoring and influence, you're going to adapt to certain styles. And that's fine, as some of those styles that we see out there is that of the coach, the visionary, and there are several different others, the servant, autocratic laws a fair democratic the pacesetter transformation, transformational. And you could go into all of these different styles. We have bureaucratic leaders, we have transactional leaders. But I can tell you, you have to find the balance to those different styles. Personally, I like the coach. I like the coaching style. But I think if you have to really think about when you're thinking about styles of leadership, you have to look at to really certain areas, no matter what style you have, are you going to have a supportive behavior, or a directive behavior, and it's really going to depend upon where your people are. I always tell leaders, you have to meet your people, where they're at high directive and low support behavior, you know, that might be very good for directing, but at some point, what you're trying to do is get them into coaching. And then from coaching, you want to get that person to supporting, empowering, if you will. And then finally you want to get somebody to the delegating phase. Where you can just give them an assignment to know that they're going to be done. So out of all of those styles that I mentioned, coaching, I think is very good. Because there's a difference between, you know, Tim, if you were asking me to teach you how to hit a baseball, I could give you a document and say, read this document, and it's going to tell you how to hit a baseball, that wouldn't be effective. And

Unknown Speaker : 10:24

I think so many times leaders do that. We have great manuals, we have great onboarding, binders, we have all of this different stuff and, and our team is sitting and looking at us like we have three heads like this is not helpful. So I think as leaders coaching is you can rarely go wrong

Jeff Hancher : 10:40

with coaching. Even people that don't need coached, usually value it because they see it as a way to continue to sharpen their fundamental skills. So I love the coaching style, you know, a coach, that's a leader, and a coach is someone who can quickly recognize their team members strengths, their weaknesses, what motivates them to help each individual on their team improve. This type of leader is the one that often assists team members in setting very specific goals, what I like to call the SMART goals, and then provide regular feedback. So if I'm teaching you how to hit that baseball, I'm not just giving you a document. I might say, Tim, why is it important to you to hit a baseball? Because always dreamed as a kid to hit one over the over the fence? And Okay, so we're going to talk about power swinging, then and we're going to talk about one, you know how to get the long ball, and then I'm going to show you how to hit the ball. But then I'm going to say, does that make sense to you, Tim? Yeah, it makes sense. Right? Now, I want to watch you hit the ball. Now remember, you were supposed to drop your elbow, swing through the ball. Look, watch me do it again. And then coach and redirect. So I love that style of of leadership. But the ideal is to know where your people are. And whatever style you have, I think it's a journey with people directing them, move them to coaching them, move them to supporting them, and ultimately move to delegating. This is what I have, I'm going to give it to you go run, go score, I'll be here to cheer you on. And I'll be the first one to send fireworks in the sky when you accomplish the goal. So I love that style. But there are many out there.

Tim Kubiak : 12:18

So let me ask the question. We're probably in both a visionary and a transformational time for a lot of businesses. How does a current leader start to really adapt to those market conditions?

Jeff Hancher : 12:33

I think you have to be a visionary now, maybe more than ever before, you know that we're in unprecedented times now to say ever before I would say ever before it with the current leaders. there's been plenty of challenges throughout the course of time, but not visionary leaders. I actually just did a group training on this, and I titled it will the visionaries please step up. Now is the time to be a visionary leader. Because what a visionary does is they see things as though they should be. They see things that aren't as though they are. And you have to find a balance between being fluffy, and fake. And being a realistic visionary. visionary leaders have a very powerful ability to drive progress, and usher in periods of change by inspiring employees in earning trust for new ideas. These same type of leaders are also able to establish very strong organizational bonds, and they foster confidence among direct reports. And by doing this what you're doing, especially in times of adversity, I mean, you don't have to look far to realize that things are less than ideal. market conditions are less than ideal. People are furloughed people are being laid off. There's some anxiety out there. And great visionary leaders. It's kind of like driving through a mountainous area, a lot of hairpin turns, you know, a visionary leader tries to anticipate what's around that turn, because everybody can read yesterday's news. We have to be visionaries that are anticipating what's coming, and then creating vision around that. And then tying it to strategy. This is where we're going. It's going to be sunny, the clouds are going to dissipate. And here's how that's going to happen. visionary leadership is critical in the condition we're in right now, Tim, and it's something that I've been beating the drum hard on to be visionaries that way we still have. We're inspiring people. we're empowering people. And although things are bad, we have a plan for it to get better. This is how we're going to do it. absolutely critical in our condition right now.

Tim Kubiak : 15:00

Along those lines, are you? How does this fare for younger leaders that maybe this is their first economic? You know, and I know this wasn't in the prep question. So, but you're good. Yeah. So new leaders, right? They've maybe come out, maybe they've been in the workplace since say 2010. Even. Right. So 10 years, they've got a decade of experience, but they've not experienced the front end of a downturn. Now, how can they adjust? What can they rely on, to develop themselves and you know, give confidence to their teams? Because that's a big part of what you got to do right now.

Jeff Hancher : 15:37

It's huge. It's huge. You know, I would tell you, I think you have to get in a mindset of setbacks, really. And setbacks are coming. And as a leader, they're probably going to come more often than they did as an individual contributor, because you got more people involved. And look, when people are involved, things can, things can get crazy. And so I think you have to go into leadership with a mindset. And there are to your point, Tim, there are many leaders right now that have never faced this kind of animosity, this kind of change. They weren't around for the last recession, or 911. And some of the things that happen through that. So they're being conditioned. Now, the first piece of advice that I would give to that leader is get around somebody that's been there before, you know, if I'm going to hire a travel agent to set me up with a trip to Disney, I want that travel agent to have been to Disney. I don't want them to be googling Disney 101 and what rides to ride and how to get shorter lines. I want somebody that's been there. I want an expert that knows the different parts that knows the strategy. So I would tell that leader that's facing this adversity for the first time, get around people that have been there before, because like I said earlier, leadership is better caught than it is taught. You can Google adversity and leadership and read all day long. And it might look and we should read, we should get better. But you want that leader in your life that's been there before. But as it relates to setbacks, whether it's the most crazy setbacks like we're seeing now, or just normal day to day setbacks, the first thing is have perspective. Expect setbacks, Tim, you and I are from Southwestern Pennsylvania. We we should not be surprised in January, that it's going to get to be single digits. You know, it's going to be five degrees, it's going to be negative something degrees. It's Yeah, can you be upset about it, but it shouldn't be a surprise why it's where we live, welcome to leadership, there's going to be setbacks have the perspective they're coming. But here's the great news, the pressure is a privilege. Because as leaders and as problem solvers, you will get paid in proportion to the problems you can solve. So see them as an opportunity. The other thing is set a time limit for disappointment. If you have a setback or adversity, something bad happens, the stock price falls to the bottom, you miss your quota by 20%, your best employee turnover, whatever it might be, you have 24 hours, I got a 24 hour rule. You can you can kick scream, throw plates, whatever you want, get the Kleenex out, but 24 hours and we're over it. Less emotion. And more information would be the third thing I would tell people don't get too high, and never get too low. seek information on how I can get through this setback and rely on what I call the now what all right, you've cried, you've got over it. You've got the Kleenex put away. And now it's straight into now what the best leaders in the toughest adversity. And we see this all throughout military history. You're going to have setbacks in the battles. But you can't take one casualty and focus so much on that for the sake of the rest of the team, the rest of the platoon if you will. Now, it's now what how am I going to I'm not going to focus on what has been taken. I'm going to focus now on what I have left. And lastly, you got to manage yourself talk. Who do you say you are as a leader? Maybe you're a boss, maybe the economy, maybe a competitor is telling you you're terrible. You stink. I told you you were never going to do this. Who are you saying that you are you've got to be your biggest cheerleader because at the end of the day, nobody can want it more than you. So those are some key principles. I would tell any leader that's facing some big challenges for the first time to help bring them some perspective.

Tim Kubiak : 19:54

That's really good guidance and you know your military analogy, right. So Leaders are just being battle tested for the first time. But sometimes, you know, it is. And I think this is a difficult concept in taking it out of the life and death military situation in business, sometimes, even at the lowest levels of leadership, you have to make a hard decision, especially in this type of economy, and it brings that forward, and it's an opportunity to make the best decision and do it for the right reasons and with compassion.

Jeff Hancher : 20:31

Yeah, and I think we need to lean into those opportunities. And I'm not saying be a crazy person and look for problems. But I am saying lean into the challenges. Because at the end of the day, that's what we're doing as leaders is we're problem solvers. You know, if there weren't, if there wasn't adversity and challenges, we really wouldn't have a strong need for leaders. Leaders are problem solvers, they're navigators. They help teams navigate through the choppy waters of Business and Economic climates. And again, everybody wants big success. Most people want big wealth. But I can tell you, all of that comes with the magnitude of the problems you can solve. So see the setbacks and adversities as opportunities. The pressure truly is a privilege.

Tim Kubiak : 21:22

As you look at leadership development, and we talked a little bit in the first episode about mentors, how do you evolve, or expand who your mentors are, as you grow as a leader?

Jeff Hancher : 21:37

You know, I think you've got to be very observant about that. I think mentoring, finding good mentors is very much so like finding your next great hire, be very slow to hire and very fast to fire. If that mentor that you've selected is accepted you is not working out. You're not getting deposits, personalities, aren't there fire fast. Don't worry about offending people Time is of the essence. But as it relates to getting the new mentor, I would tell you, you have to be very observant. Title doesn't always mean good mentor, what I would tell you that you're going to want to look for is really what I call the three legged stool. You want a mentor that has Yes, great results, amazing results. But here's the here's the here's where people get it wrong mostly with mentors is they go after great results. They had great results, I want great results. So I want them to be my mentor. Results alone aren't enough to be a world class mentor, the second leg of the stool is you've got to have great methods. So does that mentor have great methods? Because results can come and go. But methods methods are sustainable. So yeah, maybe they had a good year, they were the number one in the world. But is that sustainable? Were they good? Or were they lucky? If there's somebody that has great methods, now they have deposits they can make into you. And then the third leg of the stool, especially in a business or a corporate type environment, is culture? Do they exude and carry out? And would you define them as an ambassador of the culture, because not only are those three great things to have in a mentor, there are three things that you're going to need to elevate your career. So if you can find a mentor that exudes those things, and that now they can make deposits. A key thing in looking at mentors is to realize this and also realize this as a leader, you can only give what you have, you can't give in deficit, you can only give out of abundance. And so you want people that are overflowing in success. They're good at time management, they can do their job and make deposits into you. And if there's one book that I could recommend to anybody that is looking for guidance as they navigate their career, it's not really a leadership book, but on its on the lines of mentoring. It's almost a mentoring book. It's called career warfare by David Alessandra. And I'll tell you, I read this later in my career, and and was mad reading and thinking man, if I were to read this 10 years ago, it would have changed everything. So I highly recommend that book on the subject of you know, getting those nuggets in deposits, but that would be some advice on picking the right mentor 10

Tim Kubiak : 24:49

love books, so I'm going to segue to books. So I am going to go by career warfare because it's not one of my shelves. So we're talking about you're gonna love it. That's good. That's awesome. And I'm doing a book a week thing right now, right? So my whole goal is to do a book a week and some of my stuff still tends to be nerdy and some of it tends to be different. So this will be a nice change. We talked about Nathaniel Hill, or Napoleon Hill and, and whatnot and Zig Ziglar. And Brian Tracy, in the first ones, what are some great books or personal favorites that you have on leadership of any type?

Jeff Hancher : 25:29

Man, I mean, john Maxwell is the goat. There's no doubt about it. In my opinion, he is the greatest of all time, as it relates to leadership. And I've never read a bad book from john Maxwell. But I can tell you, the one that has had the biggest impact on me is the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership. Very, very sound, structurally very, very good. It's easy to digest. The other one, I would tell you, that helped me it's more specific to, um, I would almost call it situational leadership. And that's the one minute manager by Ken Blanchard. Man, it is so good because it's it's very practical, it gives great scenarios about what really happens in the workplace in the office. Very scenario based and roleplay esque, if you will. So the one minute manager by Ken Blanchard helped me immensely through my leadership journey. And then another book that's impacted me it's not necessarily a leadership book, but many people have probably heard of it is good to great by Jim Collins, I think those three books have had big impacts on my leadership journey, and just how I process and think as a leader. And I don't know if I mentioned this in the first episode or not, but one of the first books I ever read, which I'm embarrassed to tell you was probably in my early 20s, thank God for Cliff Notes in high school was lead the field by Earl Nightingale that really set the tone of personal development in my life. And you know, two things that stood out to me in that that I still adopt to this day is goal setting, one and two acres of diamonds. And in the acres of diamonds, he talks about look, canvass every piece of land that you have first before you go looking for land, to mined diamonds, and we're so quick to move along or quit the company we're at. And it made me realize throughout my career, that there's a big difference between running from something and running to something. And we have to find that perspective. So I hope that answers your question. Those are some that have had huge impacts on me.

Tim Kubiak : 27:52

Those are great. Some I've got on my shelf, some of which I'll go by right after this. So selfishly, that was very good. I'm getting a lot along those lines. You talked, you mentioned that same phrase running, not running from something but running to something talk about that, the importance of that in our career.

Jeff Hancher : 28:14

Man, it is, it's huge. It is huge. And especially if we're money motivated. You know, I've coached a lot of people through this dynamic, you know, they have a chance to go make 10% more 15% more here, they jump quick, or the this is another classic. They have a terrible boss. They don't like their boss, and here's what I always tell them. You need to get this work through. You need to figure this environment out whether it's a boss, whether I mean outside of morals and ethics, like, guess what, you're gonna have challenges wherever you go. And you Okay, so you have a bad boss, you're not getting along, one of your teammates on your team's a jerk, whatever it might be. There's jerks everywhere. There's bad bosses, everywhere leaders, there's bad leaders all over the planet. And every company, there's at least one. And so you're going to go over there for another 10% pay raise. But you might be going from bad to worse, and you don't even know. So why don't you stay here and work through the adversity back to being battle tested, instead of running from something. So there's a difference between running from something and running to something. An example of running to something would be I'm a sales representative. I have this passion for leadership. I just want to lead people. I've been a sales rep for 10 years. Out of those 10 years, I made president's club seven times that there's only one sales leader in the company, and the guy's been here 20 years and he's a bottleneck not going anywhere. And this company over here. They're a great culture. They want me to be a leader over there that's running too slow. something you've earned the right, it makes sense. And I think we have to decipher that. And as leaders listening to this show, I can tell you, you've got to get good at being a visionary around explaining to your people the difference between running to something and running from something. Because that's great leadership deposits. It's also a good way to retain talent on your team. And the best way to handle an objection, and I'm sure your listeners have heard this from you, Tim, the best way to handle an objection is great presentation. Don't wait until all hell is breaking loose on your team to give this vision, you should be doing it early. And often the best time to do it is when there's not a problem with an employee or they're disgruntled or whatever it might be. So explain those two dynamics. That way you can reinforce them when all hell is breaking English.

Tim Kubiak : 30:57

That's one that I've actually seen amazing changes in in the last three, four months. Right? I have seen senior executives, some that I know many that I don't, that are communicating in a way they never had before, internally, with their suppliers and with their customers. And I think I hope that stays.

Jeff Hancher : 31:19

Yeah, yeah, no need both. And we find that in times of adversity is typically when leaders get more granular. And, you know, that's not always fun, because now we have a leader, like a sea level leader signing off on a personal computer, like I get it. But nonetheless, like, we have to realize that sometimes the the climate of our business demands that. And so back to being flexible, and, you know, we've always heard that the most dangerous words in businesses, we've always done it that way. I would tell you, if that's your thinking, how's that working for you? And so we have to be willing to flex.

Tim Kubiak : 32:08

Talking about flexing, I'm an old guy now. Right? Um, I've been around, I've been doing this going on 30 years, and leaving different organizations. What advice would you give people that have taken those lops, so to speak, in finding and developing young talent, the opposite of looking for a mentor, but looking for a mentee, if you will?

Jeff Hancher : 32:29

Yeah, I would tell you, there's nothing better than leadership than making deposits and looking back on, you know, somebody that you literally had the opportunity to change their their life. And I think it's really two different mindsets, one would probably be more on the hiring, right? And then that that could be a whole discussion on how you find good talent. And I don't know if that's what you were asking. But the other one would be the internal, which is, what are we doing to develop the people within our organization. And if you're a leader now, I can tell you, yes, you have a team, you're looking at your chart, you got 510 100 people underneath you. But if your company is progressive, and I'm hopeful that it is you're going to need more people, you're going to have some turnover, even if it's single digit turnover, as a percentage, you're going to need to find talent. I'm a believer that most times not always, but most times, your best talent should come from within that you can assess the non the intangibles, you know the things you can't teach culture, character after effort, passion, you know, things like that, but they might not have the skill. So they're the who, but they don't have the what, as a great leader, you should be seeking these kind of people out, they're good at their job. Now. They're well thought of, they do brilliant on performance reviews, they're winning culture type awards, you should be seeking these kinds of people out and begin to mentor them into not who they are, but who they potentially could be. Because not only is that a win for you, because now you're grooming talent from within, and you got a good bench being built as you grow or have turnover or better yet promoting people out of your team. Now you've got this, this flow this bench, this firmly being built. The other thing that's so gratifying is you're making someone's life better. you're you're you're making deposits that is helping them to check off some boxes of their Why? You know, we've heard it said that people will work for what but they'll die for their why leaders have the ability to take a human being and help them get to a place they never dreamed of. Like a young kid growing up with sick parents a life of poverty that at best wanted to get into a coma. And thank you coal miners that are listening. I love you all to death. But little did I know that I had more potential and a much longer runway, a much higher ceiling. I didn't see it in me. But man, I had great leaders that did. And they took me for the craziest ride of my life. And I surpassed what my wildest dreams could ever do. And that came from some leaders doing what we're talking about them saying, There's something about that kid, there's something about that Jeff kid, man, man, if, if I could just teach him how to sell or, man, if I could just teach him some leadership stuff. This kid could be good. So I think we got to be doing that. We've got to identify those, we should have a head on a swivel. Looking for those opportunities in our organizations as as leaders.

Tim Kubiak : 35:51

Yeah. And it's interesting, because you came up through the ranks, right? You came from non traditional blue collar background. Obviously, you talked about your parents situation, right. And one of the things I found is many of the best leaders in my career have been the, the folks that came up that way, they're not the people that were the obvious choice. Some of the greatest CEOs were the ones that work their way through the business. But they started at the entry level, someone recognized that potential, which is important, but they also did the work. Right, they invested in themselves. Right? They may be as you said before, weren't a big dreamer, young but aspired to the next thing and figured out what it would take and found somebody to help them get there. Right. And that's something I think that gets lost a lot. You know, I I watch. A lot of younger salespeople, they come in and they're like, Well, you know, I'll never have the poor shell making $30,000 a year. I'm like, hey, like my first sales job. My base was 16. Okay, and I didn't have any guarantee or anything else. Right. I realized this a long time ago, and the numbers are a little different now. But you're coming in at a 40 base, and you're gonna make 60. Yeah, you're right. You're not gonna buy a million dollar house. But you've been doing this six months. What do you what are you doing to get better?

Jeff Hancher : 37:14

That's it. That's absolutely it. I absolutely agree Tim.

Tim Kubiak : 37:19

Um, we talked, we talked about setbacks. Resilience seems to be the most popular word with leaders today. Any thoughts on that one?

Jeff Hancher : 37:29

Yes, a lot of thoughts. It's probably been the most popular subject that, that I've talked about over the last call it two months is resilience and, and working through adversity? Because I mean, again, you don't have to look far to see what that looks like. There's been a lot of it. You know, I think, and I'm a butcher this quote, but I love the quote that says, passion and resilience is, is do is continuing to do something. And staying committed to it long after the the environment and the thought you had when it began. You know, I think a lot of people start great. They have great ideas, they have big dreams, they, they want to do great things. Everything's starts pretty well. You know, it gets back to the saying that the new broom sweeps clean. It's absolutely true. But it's when things the plan doesn't work out. Well. What are you doing with that? What is your mindset? Muhammad Ali once said that, you know, everybody has a game plan to go into the fight until you get punched in the mouth. And it's what you do in that moment. And I would tell you, um, a lot of it is absolutely going to be mindset. mindset is going to be absolutely critical for anybody. But we don't have to look far in history to find out there's some awesome people that have overcome it. I would tell you, there's a couple key principles as far as resilience, and pushing through adversity. I've talked a little bit about setbacks, but I'll give it a little bit of a different perspective. One, adversity is temporary. The second thing I would tell you is if you allow adversity, it can become an anchor. You can't anchor by its definition is is designed to keep you in one place. That's not that's not the mindset of somebody that's progressive, somebody that is on a mission, somebody that's on increase. But if you allow it, adversity can become an anchor. And if you let something keep you in one place, what's actually happening is you're actually going backwards because everybody else is going ahead. I always tell people, even if you're crawling, you'll slap somebody on the couch. Don't let adversity become an anchor, and keep you in place. The third thing is is that adversity can be your greatest teacher. You know, I think Think about my childhood I think about growing up in poverty I think about, you know, my mom having her leg amputated my dad had his battled cancer battled lupus, a kid being in and out of hospitals, roaming the halls of hospitals, my whole childhood. But I can also tell you this, I learned a lot, I learned a lot about perspective, I learned a lot about what real stress was, it conditioned me to be a great leader. And you can learn from those things. You have to ask yourself in times of adversity, is that adversity happening to you? Or is it happening for you? That's a different mindset. If you allow it, adversity can teach you what you need to learn to be the very best version of yourself. And then ultimately, I would tell you that have gratitude. adversity can reveal good I like what Napoleon Hill once said, in his book thinking Grow Rich, and it's one of my favorite quotes of all time, he says, in every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it a seed of equivalent benefit. And I believe that Tim, to be absolutely true. And a great way to deal with adversity is to find the good, and practice gratitude, because there's something to be thankful for. There's people right now around the world, literally in foxholes, dodging bullets, and maybe you're listening. And that's you. But most of for most of us, it's not. And so I would tell you fine perspective, there are people in hospice units right now battling for their life. And we're losing our mind over missing a projection. And look, I'm a fighter, I'm a winner. I'm a competitor, I hate to lose more than I like to win. But when all hell was breaking loose, that's the time to find some perspective, and have some gratitude. So those would be four things that I would share with leaders that need to pull it together.

Tim Kubiak : 42:02

That's a great point. And fantastic advice. And with that, one of the things I want to do is kind of segue as we head towards wrapping up here. And that is, your business has evolved. So you talk about being adaptable and whatnot. And you mentioned it a little bit earlier. But can you talk a little more about what you're doing now to help companies make the right hires?

Jeff Hancher : 42:25

Yeah. Wow. Has that been? That's been a big topic for me lately. And I'll tell you why. I think it is, Tim, I don't know when you're airing this. But we're recording this July 2020. And I'll tell you right now, there's not a lack of employable people right now. There's a lot of people laid off. And that means that there's a lot of people looking for jobs. And we're not used to that. I mean, we went from one extreme to the other. I mean, it wasn't maybe even in January, people were fighting for talent. People were paying for talent in ways they never paid for it before labor expense was was your over prior through the roof on your income statement. Now it was the pendulum swung so far the other way. And we as leaders, we haven't adopted the mindset that maybe this is actually too good to be true. There's so much talent out there. So what we have to do as leaders right now, is we have to have a true hiring process, we have to have a process that's going to get us into a place that we're confident that we're making the right hires, especially in a sales world, because I think a lot of your people that are here, you know, they're in sales, they're in sales, leadership, whatever it might be. So I've really been helping people think through what are their outside hire assets? What should those be? What are the non negotiables? What what's the assets of a science project? How about the leader that's like, I think I can make them good history as a predictor of the future. We've got to get that stuff, right. And we can't allow ourselves to have some of these hiring pitfalls in these markets. Because everybody looks good. And especially in sales, they communicate well, they look great. And we're making bad hires. I'm seeing turnover with some of my clients in weeks, not months. And it's been a very, very painful thing for some of my biggest clients. So I've been putting a lot of time into hiring programs, specifically in the sales world because, man, it is just not an area that we can get right and I help people go from how do you recruit them? My science behind why passive candidates are the best the ones not looking, the ones that are happy where they're at. And then I take them through the interview process and ultimately the onboarding. Because people we will live and die by the teams that we have. I don't care how great your widget is, how great your culture is. It's going to be the people. And so we just can't afford to get it wrong. So I've put a lot of attention into helping some of my clients get that right.

Tim Kubiak : 45:11

That's fantastic. And with that, Tell, tell everybody again, in case you missed the beginning or didn't screw down fast enough, everywhere they can find you, you know, podcasts, the website, socials, etc.

Jeff Hancher : 45:22

Yeah, so the the website, which is a great

Unknown Speaker : 45:25

way to reach me is the champion forum.com. If something I said, struck a chord with you, or maybe you're like, I wonder what Jeff thinks

Jeff Hancher : 45:34

about this.

Unknown Speaker : 45:36

I'll be as accessible as I can be to anybody. Again, I left a great career to help people. That's my passion. If that's you, email me, I can be reached at Jeff Hampshire at the champion forum calm, and then social media post leadership nuggets every single day. And I can be found on Instagram and Facebook, under the champion forum and LinkedIn under Jesse insure.

Tim Kubiak : 46:00

Jeff, thanks again for taking the time being on this was a fun conversation. Of course, I'm excited to have a whole new list of books to sell.

Jeff Hancher : 46:08

Well, Tim, thank you. I love engaging with other professionals and watching your journey and how you're helping so many people do what you do. I am I'm so thankful for the connection that we made. And I love adding value to others. And so thank you for giving me the opportunity to make deposits into your listeners as well. And I wish you all the best I'm sure we'll be connecting more and listeners. Thanks for investing time to listen to the show today. And if I can help you in any way, don't hesitate to reach out.

Tim Kubiak : 46:42

We're happy to have you back anytime you want. So