Like we're afraid of what's not
We are live so Cynthia as speak Spanish, so that's fun. We'll dive into that too
Because this is good. I
Fear can be
You know and it is something that there's a healthy side to it, right?
There's a negative side to fear. Of course fear can keep us in our house
Protected from the root from from the entire world and worried. We worried about sharks swimming in our lawn
right, there's an impractical and there's the real ones and I think the a
Lot of the listeners a lot of the visionaries who come on this program
they have a pretty strong handle on a lot of their a lot of fears that other people don't and
now they've moved to
Higher levels and I think that's where we go when we talk about humanity itself our humanity
Does it impede our leadership or does it not?
And if we debate debate that higher level the
The more advanced visionaries and leaders from a self-awareness standpoint
Will be able to benefit far more because you you do have a gift of
Knowledge that leads you to be cerebral
And I don't think I think there's certain certain discoveries. We can't make about ourselves
Without that level of knowledge
That's one of the reasons why I'm really happy to have you on the show. So those who don't know Steve Rice
is one of the leaders at the globally conscious leader and
We talked about this deep subject called
Zero man. I got it right right before we talked zero
I'm not Steve
unmeasured externalities
externalities, right and I I had a really hard time with that just
understanding that concept but as I begin to understand
What that was all about I began to see the genius behind it, too
And I was like, okay, we've got so much to talk about at the end of the day
I found a man who sincerely cared about people
I found a leader who cared about his relationship with his children
A man who very much appreciates music and the guitar and we geeked out on a song that he had his son
Right and gave me an inspiration of something I can do with my son
And gave me an inspiration of something I can do with my children as they continue to expand their own
opportunities as musicians
So it was it we had a smartie
Oh dude, it was huge man. I can't thank you enough for that because we do that in terms of
Art and drawing at this stage, but as they begin to become more comfortable with the instruments that they collectively play
Now my my three kiddos are already starting my three oldest my youngest one's not that stage yet
um, but it will
It's just so much fun, you know to play with your kids
Oh, you know and to play by inventing things
So do you mind just sharing that a little bit? What what I would love to you know
Are you okay with sharing about the song your son and you?
Yeah
Yeah, I mean to start off to say like the the the biggest inspiration I had for my children is I wanted them not to be afraid of
Musical instruments kind of the way I was, you know, I was made to play piano
You know made to go to lessons and I loved music
But um, I learned a lot at those lessons
But coming home, I didn't have access to what I wanted to do which was play guitar and stuff
So I I hung my instruments on the wall when my kids are very little and I I made a rule
A couple rules that weren't really rules. They were just guidelines for the kids
Uh, they were there are rules for something
You know if you take something off the wall, you have to play a song
You can't just bang on it and when you're done hang it back up. Those are the only rules
So I now have three children who are all expert musicians
And uh, we have a band we've recorded like over 500 songs
And maybe 20 or 40 of those are originals and part of what jackson's
Talking about is we have an album of live songs
That's on spotify plus four or five others that are cover albums and we have a youtube channel
um, and uh, so yeah, we we write songs together and
I actually have another band that we played friday night at a halloween party and we played one of the songs that my son and I wrote
so
It was a big hit
so that brings me a lot of joy playing music and singing and and uh,
Yeah, art is so cool, man. And this this song context for your visionaries out there
I mean these are this is why again and so you can do this in your work. You can do this in so many areas, but
Um, if I remember the story correctly steve's son came in and they were talking about music and he's like hey
um, you know, why don't you uh create a song with the words god
Power lines or jesus power lines and journey or car or something like a highway. Um, and then
Within hours pretty much they had this song and video ai thing produced
I mean that that takes a lot of intentionality
To be able to produce something like that and for those of you who may be newer to the idea of intentionality to me
It's one of the most liberating feelings of life
Right and one that if we maximize
Um our days can be highly enjoyable in ways that I just didn't experience
Before becoming very intentional with my time. Yeah, other thoughts on that
Well, I I would agree and I would use the word opportunity
It kind of ties into what I how I try to be in the world and what I teach leaders whether they're a janitor or a ceo
Or an owner of a company
Um, which is mocha motivation opportunity clarity and ability
And yeah, the the intentionality is about recognizing what you know what you're good at which is an ability having clarity that
You you want to do it or you know what to do and giving yourself the opportunity to do it
So, um, yeah, I agree 100 like that intentionality
the desire to you know
Figure out what you want to do and do it is really important
It's baby. How are you listeners?
Y'all want more mocha in your life. So this works out. This works out nicely. There's two versions you can have
So, uh, let's dive into resources a little bit. So steve if um, what are three resources?
That you're grateful you came across and and implemented on your journey to become a visionary leader you could be books courses, etc
Oh, yeah, that's an interesting question. Um, I think
The one that i'm sort of standing on top of you know, like we're what do they say like uh standing on the shoulders?
Giants, um, you know one of those is a book called humane leadership by
A gentleman named stephen slone
Who happens to be a good friend of mine and he's the one who introduced me to mocha?
um
There's uh, most people in business probably know oma which is you know opportunity motivation and ability
That came out of some hr
Psychological studies in the 70s and became the oma
framework in the 90s
Uh and another acronym which stands for um, high performance workplace
hpwp
So if you had an hpwp you were probably using the oma framework for communication
Right and and it very much was sort of an hr tool trying to answer that question. How do we get the most out of our employees?
Um, it wasn't particularly a humane
Kind of thing it was it was a very
Humane kind of thing it was it was it was leadership, but it was performance in value and metrics
which are all important and
the uh stephen added the
Clarity piece because he was running some major companies
and he was realizing he was trying to have or was having oma conversations with people and
What was lacking in terms of?
Accountability was a clarity in each of those conversations
so and and he was looking to
as a manager not just
Not take their accountability away from them by demanding they do certain things but
Provide an opportunity for people to actually take that accountability themselves whether they understood that that was what was happening or not right?
and um
And part of that is his his natural belief in the goodness of people
Which I I agree with so
Yeah, so that's where mocha came from
And he used it as an accountability
um
What did he call it accountability jig accountability framework? I use it for everything
Yeah, and I also point out that we're all using it all the time. We just don't think about it
and
To tie in zero unmeasured externalities. I would actually say we're using that all the time, too. We just haven't put a name to it
so
That's one of the things um
The the other I would say
Is an unlikely one perhaps if you if you knew me personally, but there's a gentleman named paul o'neill
Who was I believe the secretary of the treasury for maybe the bush administration. He might have spanned
into clinton i'm not sure um, but
uh, he took over alcoa
in I think the late 80s
and uh, you know, he was a business person and alcoa was in the tank and
uh, he got up in front of
the
Shareholders and i'm intentionally using shareholders and not the word stakeholders
And he actually spoke to the stakeholders and what he said was to basically answer to the question
What are you going to do to make us money?
He said i'm going to make alcoa one of the greatest companies in the world again by focusing on one thing
worker safety
safety
And people literally went out the back door
after that and during that and told their uh, their you know stock folks to sell
Sell the shares in alcoa. This guy's a nut job
What he was doing is he created a non-arguable goal around excellence
and he knew that
Workplace
But you could measure the excellence of an organization by how happy the employees are
so
I think one of the things he actually said
About that workplace excellence and in that particular non-arguable goal which ends up being
Uh zero worker days lost to illness
Injury sick days, right?
Um, that's a non-arguable goal
For his company, you're never going to attain that doesn't have to be attainable
And uh, but what happened is he said like if you work that if you're working in one of our factories
And there's a machine that is dangerous
And you bring it to the attention of your manager and they don't fix it
Then here's my phone number
Right. He also told management at all levels right now as of now you have an unlimited budget for worker safety
And if you don't if you don't fix something, it's on it's your hide
I'm i'm making you accountable for worker safety in every one of your factors
And somebody actually lost an arm in a factory in mexico
and they had brought to the attention of the
Management that here was a machine that if somebody got bumped into it could be dangerous
And their solution was to paint a yellow line on the floor
Which was not safety and somebody got bumped into it while trying to get out of the way
I think that's a very dangerous thing
into it while trying to get out of the way, I think of a forklift
so
You know those people the managers got fired and one of the things that i'll that that paul o'neill said in that
Stock shareholder meeting is he said like if anybody wants to lose an arm
Raise that arm right now
Right, and that's that's a nice way to think about a non-arguable goal
And which zero unmeasured externalities is a non-arguable goal and that's why i'm bringing up these non-arguable goals
um, so so you can have some context
so
So i'm standing on his his shoulders there
um
Boy a third one
um
I'm kind of honestly i'm drawing a blank. I started thinking about artists and uh people that are very creative
um
You know peter peter frip, uh guitarists
um
Because I I do think that
You know business is a science and an art
and
It's it's a it's a human venture. It's it's an artistic adventure to
to invent something
You know make it with your hands and figure out how to sell it to other people
absolutely
Well, we're big on balance. Uh vision pros live is not a business show as much as it is a show by
A founder who happens to have a business, uh, you know named jackson
Um, so the show itself is designed around leadership and it's one of the reasons why I love that you included
the janitors, um, and that I don't say that speculatively
I say that appreciatively because so many people would not consider
The janitor leader so many people would assume that the intern doesn't have a place in leadership
Um, but I think that you and I share the reality that as human beings we're all leaders
um, and we all
Have the opportunity to step into leadership
A lot of people have a muzzle put on them
you know or are
torn apart by other people who are
leading poorly
Um, and they may feel like it's not a good idea to step forward into their leadership capacity
But there are great leaders like you
Um like myself and like other other leaders out there who while we all have our flaws
We want other flawed people to step forward and and become their best self
So I love the story i'm glad you reminded me of it when I when I the two times i've now talked to you steve
Both times like first time was like oh my gosh
I can only catch so much. Oh man on this time. It's registering a little bit more a memory of like oh good
And uh, so this this conversation for those of you listening in this is the juice of executive leadership. Enjoy this and
Steve will be right back. We'll come back and talk about your vision and uh,
Those of you sticking around if you have questions for us drop them in the comments
Even if it's after the live broadcast, of course, we'll come back to those and make sure they're dressed
All right, welcome in to vision pros live with jackson callum. I'm your show host
We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there
Hey, what's up everybody welcome into another episode of vision pros live i'm your show host jackson callum founder and ceo of first-class business
And I get the privilege of having steve rice on the show today the globally conscious
Leader we are going cerebral today. I highly recommend having a dictionary on hand
Um, I have written plenty of notes already just in our intro
And these you know, it's funny. We live in a world that where steve and I both value simplicity
But we also both value
Complexity and if you take the human body for instance, my three-year-old can draw a human body very well
It is that simple yet a doctor can study the human body for 40 years
And still feel like they're just scratching the surface of what they know about it
So today we're going the doctor route and diving in much much deeper into the anatomy of leadership
um humanity whether it impedes our leadership or not and how to make sure that
Um, you know, we bring out the best of our leadership opportunities
Um, so with that said before I bring steve back on I also want to give you guys some more resources
Um first one dave morrow of the hard to kill.org organization hard to kill.org
Is an entity that's helping 100 000 veterans lose 2 million pounds collectively dave's got a great show called the hard to kill podcast
He's award-winning. I highly recommend googling his name and the words and the word afghanistan
And seeing just what he was doing as an advocate for people in need. Um, I absolutely love dave
He's a good dude and he's out there helping so many people. He's now including civilians in this
I'm in the workout program as well
Because of it. I have maintained my own workouts
It to a degree that I have not done in over eight years and my back feels better
And i'm super grateful for whatever the heck he did to my mind and my heart to get me to be consistent with workouts again
Um again, he's the only one being able to do that and I work with a lot of health people
Um, so go dave then there's the oprah nice the trabajo para latinos that is opportunities for work for latinos
That is our own homegrown program
And if you know of latino leaders or you yourself are a latino leader and you'd like to come on our podcast
Please do our podcast is designed to help inspire other latinos out there who may not even be aware
of linkedin canva
Up work and beyond a lot of countries outside of of the united states
They very much focus on technical training and if you don't get specific technical training
The general assumption is that they then can no longer be employed in other areas of life
Yet you guys all know and I know that there's so many opportunities that exist for virtual assistance
Um, and for being able to take care of people's brands and work with american companies
But what we're doing in this program is we're inspiring latinos to jump into the game and come and realize they can put their existing
Social media skills to use and learn the technicalities of how to support brands. So this is my passion
This is my love we're bridging the economic gap to north america south america and rest of world
And this program has now expanded to opportunities for filipinos and opportunities for indians as well led by
respective leaders from those communities, so
Um, please join us on that and and uh, if you're in need of a virtual assistant
Then uh, this is not the program for you. We see va relationships and I call it virtual abuse
It's time. We take care of our people better my friends
So then there's the the water project water project is not something we're associated with but it is something that is near and dear to
My heart
When I found out about it
I fell in love with the idea that you could give to a specific community and see the actual outcome
Um, thanks to all the transparency that the water project puts into what they do
Um, what really struck me was realizing that there are children and women and families out there who don't even have access to
the basic resource
That I take for granted in life
So I started to meditate and think about well, how can we make an impact on this?
And uh as part of the you know, that was part of the journey before launching this podcast
Now it's quite fun to see how many people love to get involved because we simply talk about it
Um, we do give back to this project as well
And if you're in a position financially to give back then of course, uh, feel free to do so
If you're not my hope is to inspire you to then take this to a dinner conversation, you know
Or perhaps tag a friend who might find this fascinating might be able to help when I see these kids
Celebrating water with the same enthusiasm that my kids celebrate Christmas day
It reminds me of just how much good we can do in this world
By by trying to again spread the word and doing our part if you have another
Um
Program or cause that you'd like to see us talk about or like to see brought to our attention
Don't hesitate to drop that in the comments as well. We got eight billion people to help out there in this world
Um, and it lights my fire
To get up and do my part for that. So without further ado Steve rice
Thank you so much for joining us on vision pros live
Thanks. Thanks for having me back
Yeah, my friend. Absolutely
so, you know, there's there's uh, so many assumptions that I can make in terms of the depth of
Your team and what you guys are doing and there's a family side of it and there's global leadership. There's local leadership
What is the vision for those you serve and and who's who are you really who you're focusing on most?
Serving on a day-to-day basis
Well
the
I come from blue collar background. I come out of the outdoor industry. I was a fishing guide and a mountaineering instructor rock climbing instructor
uh still an active snowboarder rock climber all that kind of stuff and um
I I like working with the employees in a company
and uh
Sometimes you though in order to get access to those folks you have to start at the top
Um, you know with an executive and get permission to do that
so we at the globally conscious leader, we're actually
trying to do both
because
We we know that we can go to an owner or a ceo and talk to them about
Uh their own culture and the accountability of their employees. They're usually worried about employee accountability
And uh and and eventually learn that they have accountabilities too that they're not aware of
but also
I've I'm fully aware and have experienced and taught individual people in companies where no one else knew what they were doing
But they learned mocha and they started using
that language
When talking to their superiors during employee reviews when talking to fellow co-workers
When talking to people who maybe were placed under their care, maybe they were a new manager and they had to discuss
you know, uh people actually getting the job done and
You you can create more visibility
more accountability and more reliability in yourself without telling anyone else that you're doing it by implementing mocha
and
um, so so the answer your question is
I'm going to say everybody which is why I included janitors
because a janitor
Can still make decisions that
Help the company meaning like we're not going to use these toxic materials to clean the floors anymore
We're going to start thinking seven generations down whatever those things are
um somebody who is a
Say a graphic designer
um
You could possibly be working in what you might consider to be
Not the best kind of workplace call it call it toxic semi-toxic. Whatever it is
You can actually help fix that simply by being a better person and
I'm not saying it's easy to be a better person
And i'm definitely not saying you got to be all touchy feely to be a better person
But I am saying if you want to give yourself a framework that allows you to have conversations
That allow you to be a better person and give other people the opportunity to step up the mocha framework is something anybody can do
Mm-hmm. You you nailed something huge too for the visionary leaders out there that are also in in your shoes. They've got to
uh, they've got the opportunity to think through
Who is it that they want to be influencing and who is it that they need to get access to?
And you reminded me of one of my absolute favorite books of all time
raving fans by ken blanchard
And and the sheldon bowles, I think he he often doesn't get mentioned and that's not fair. Um, but this book has
A couple of pages in here. I've got this marked as the most important pages two pages in the book
obviously you need the full context but
What you're talking about by mentioning sometimes you've got to go through the leaders in order to get to
Those who you want to spend your time helping
This concept is true of almost any style of organization that exists out there whether it's a family or it's a corporation
In the restaurant industry we face this um with our restaurant software
We could go straight to the owners, but if we took a top-down approach to implementing our software people were pissed
They didn't want involved if we instead
focused on the host team members
and their managers and the servers and
The assistant managers like we worked our way up. We ended up creating a
Army of individuals who wanted our system so when we went and talked to the owners
Their people were already bought into the idea of working with us and the people even started to demand it as we got really good
Talking about that. So these pages
pages uh
458 and 59
Helped me have that epitome way back in the day that okay. There's a managing partner. There's the gm. There's the assistant gm
There's the marketing. There's the it there's the accounting. There's the owners. There's the investors
There's the host team. There's the diner. There's the concierge as the event planner. There's the pr company or rep
Every single one of those people
Could represent an obstacle to my path or they could represent an opportunity
To help me solidify my relationship with the organization. So that's a sidebar
Option outside of to realizing grass visionaries outside of the direct nature of what steve just shared
so steve you um, I
I'm tempted to go down the story snowboarding path. Uh, like my my desire my yeah
I wanted I wanted to have done that but we're gonna dive instead
right into the leadership stuff, um, and
We're gonna start with a couple of base questions and these to me
We may find a way to tie these back to
Does our humanity impede our leadership? In fact, I think they're representative of the leadership of the organization
In fact, I think there are representations of that. So what is the worst leadership experience?
That you've ever had
Um
With me as the leader it can be or you know what we're really looking for is
For the audience if there's one that you experienced, you know as the person being led to whatever is going to be most powerful
For this audience. That's really what this is about even though it's a dramatic and juicy question
Um, you know, I really want people to benefit the most from this. So yeah
I do have a couple stories, but i'll i'll start with the one where
I I got into where i'm at now because I was actually working for
Uh, like I said, I was in the outdoor industry. I also was in the travel industry and in the
the very youth of the internet late 90s
I was tasked with developing
an internet presence for a travel company
And uh, it was one of my first very large successes and it's the first time that I was able to take my
technological
Uh proficiency and the artistry of how I think and put it together into something that actually was you know
Had a business model to it and uh created revenue. We actually created a super
It was an amazing company travel essentials.com
and um
From that we we built a content management system which they I built it with a team that we hired at that company
And we spun that content management system off. So you're we're thinking of things like wordpress
And that build websites and that's how I got the technology start to start a company called.com jungle, which I still own
Uh, and I so I ended up taking on.com jungle and building a company that had you know, 12 companies a modest, uh,
You know agency
um with uh national
You know brand and you know a couple hundred clients 12 employees and at some point
uh
I had I had a future my future business partner
Came to me as a customer and interviewed me about he'd heard about me through word of word of mouth
um, and uh
He interviewed a whole bunch of people and he came back to me and he said look
I
I want to be the last kind of person like me that you hire
and I
Like what do you mean? Like you're hiring me? He's like no you're choosing the kind of people that you work with right?
And and I want you to think about that because i'm looking at you and you you seem to me to be the most capable
Person that i've come across between san francisco and portland that i've interviewed and i've interviewed a lot of them
Trying to find who's going to work for me and first of all, you're the only one who wasn't full of
Can I cuss?
Yeah, wasn't full of shit meaning I didn't I didn't just say yes to everything
He's like you're the only person who said that's not in my wheelhouse
That's not in my wheelhouse and I and I value that highly
He also he also said I think not only you're the most capable
But I think you're underserving your entire community with what you can do
And you're incredibly unhappy and I was like
You're absolutely right
And as a as a leader what I had done is I had started a company when I had very small children
I had a mortgage I had other, you know financial concerns. I was I was basically a startup
And I was saying yes to every single customer who called me
Who wanted a website wanted integration with their erp's all that technology stuff?
and I had
Basically had 12 employees and I think nine of them were unhappy because I was unhappy
I wasn't an abusive person right? I never have been
Right, but I had created a work environment where nobody was really
Nobody was really motivated to do what they were doing like they were good at
That you know at being a designer or whatnot and I provided a lot of training a lot of support
But the whole atmosphere really wasn't that great, you know and and and also
Uh, I was learning to identify people who potentially could be toxic or not
And I hadn't really figured that out yet and I didn't have a tool like mocha
And so when he showed up, this is his name is Stephen sender
He's been a business partner of mine for 14 or 15 years now
and um
He basically said like we're gonna start focusing on that and you're gonna start saying no to assholes
Whether they work for you or they're your customers
And we went from a scenario where we had like 200 customers
Uh to where we had 25
But our revenue was twice as much as it was and I had six employees who were really stoked to be there
You know, so um from a leadership standpoint
I hadn't learned that saying no might be one of the most valuable things you can learn to do
Because I was trying to do everything and right and I and I'm not good at everything, you know, so
so focusing on
Identifying my own strengths and it was helpful to have some feedback from somebody who's like I think I see you for who you really are
right
Exactly a lot of readers listening can benefit a lot for go ahead. You know, yeah, let me let you finish that
You know, yeah, let me let you finish that well, I made changes to how I interact with my employees. I started um
You know hiring people for not what they knew but who they were
And by the time I started buying businesses like I bought an outdoor store with steven a while back
um, you know, we were that's when I
For that I had the other steven's name was loan of humane leadership
I had incorporated mocha and humane leadership principles by the time we got to buying companies we could walk in and
We could implement mocha
And in the in the end you'd have people who really didn't belong there and not because they're not bad
They're not because they're bad people but because maybe they'd been there for a long time
They really wanted to move on but didn't really know how to do that
They didn't know how to say no themselves and we gave them the opportunity to express
What their motivation was for being there maybe what their motivation is for the next thing they wanted to do whether it was inside or company
Or outside and if it was inside we would schedule them opportunity to do that
And I have plenty of stories of giving people two hours a day to you know, do marketing or whatever
Um, but it was my responsibility to give them the opportunity if they were motivated to do it
It was also my responsibility to give them clarity
But it's also their responsibility to identify what they're good at for that ability
Ask for the clarity if they don't have it give themselves the opportunity
And and ask themselves if they're motivated and if they're not motivated my job is to help them get a job somewhere else
Yes, and that's got to be okay
Uh, and in the places that I now, you know am in charge of it's it's okay if somebody needs to move on
I want I want them to be happy. That's the number one. Correct. Not
I'll find somebody else to do that work
I love that. Um, we we're i'm quickly becoming a fan of mocha. Um, you know myself we're gonna be um adopting that
We'll give you credit every step of the way
Um as we use it, um, because it aligns very well with our process of vision culture leadership and marketing and vision cultural leadership
Uh, you know, we focus on the who and then we focus on the why
Um, and really it sounds like mocha is a different way of saying that you got again motivation
Um, you know, and I I like to define the who up front and i've defined that based on values because I want to be
I don't want to plan a party with somebody. I don't
Have a connection with yeah, um, you know, I want to plan that with somebody who's actually aligned really well with the things that I stand for
And so i've also learned that maybe one of the other things I need to do
Stephen cinder steven slone and steven rice is just make sure that I only hire people named jackson
All the people who are willing to to change their names even? There we go. Oh well in this case. No, you're for mine
Oh
Um, so
Oh, no, it's it's uh, it's uh, it's ironic but that is fun though as a jackson and there's not many out there
Yeah, I always get a little more excited when I meet somebody who happens to be named jackson
It's like there's there's something interesting about that. The same is true of twins
I find that twins usually run into twins more often in the world and recognize that so that's
I have identical twins and one of them's name is jackson
There we go, there's already like you more
Easy play for there's a there's a tactic for all of you out there who are tactic searchers
Um, right. So now let's let's talk about um, you know speaking of
Does our humanity
Impede
Our lives
I think we all know listening in deep in our hearts that it it can
Right, but it can also amplify our leadership. So steve you're you're right up on
The fact that let me go back to it real quick that
Leading an organization or group at any level and being a human a human being is difficult
But you also believe that it's not
That hard. Um, right and then you can you can teach people that's where
This inspired me to just think about humanity and impeding our leadership or where it doesn't
We don't have a lot of time, but bless us with the time. We do have what does that mean to you?
What should we be? How do we how do we embrace our humanity?
In the best of ways, that's probably the question. I think I want to know the most
You know the way I like to answer that is only do what is good for your granddaughter
Oh, you know and and then by extension if your granddaughter is that important?
Make sure you take care of everyone else's granddaughters
And that's where the global peace comes in
And when when we're talking about business
I I get it, you know, it is hard to
Do everything like we want to support our local real quick steve young bucks
Out there the ones who don't have granddaughters like me write it down
Do it anyway, you will have one one day
And if you don't you can still project the reality of how important should that person be to you?
Even if you're 16 years old and listen to this listening to this right now
This rule still applies to you. He's not speaking to people who are 800 years old
Yeah, well remember that your mom and all of you have one
Is a granddaughter. Yeah, right keep going man. So
So, you know
Just to give some simple examples if you've got a manufacturing facility that's next to a river
Your daughter lives downstream your granddaughter. You're not going to throw the you know
Um the waste from your production facility into the river because you don't want to hurt that person
By extension if you're hiring a customer
To build your products or manufacture pieces of your products
You should not allow them to dump their waste into a creek. That's
Upstream from somebody else's granddaughter. It's sort of that simple. That's why I mean like yeah, it's hard, but it's not that hard
right
It's you won't always life's hard. I mean life's hard
So whether you're 400 pounds or you're 4%
Body fat life is still going to be hard. We just get to we but we do get to choose oftentimes
Which heart we want
Yep
So I think that's the reality that you're talking about is it can be difficult or it can be hard
But it's again, that's not really part of the equation
The equation is what do we want out of this? So I love that you also said you didn't say
Sometimes do what is good
You know, you didn't say you you know strive to always you said only
Do what is good and that simplifies our choices, right?
If we're willing to step into that reality if it's like, okay, I'm only going to do what aligns my virtue
And that eliminates the need to fuss for all of the the excess options that come our way
That's brilliant
Well, I think that's a great point
I'm going to use the word accident, but I'm not sure that that's the right word
that
So many accidents that have happened that have been detrimental to the human race
Davis huge
that we did
and
To give you the context of what i'm thinking of we used to use pcbs for everything in the united states
I'm sure around the world. Maybe they're still being used
and fragile, and we almost wiped out condors.
That is an unmeasured externality
that we weren't thinking about, right?
And so I call it an accident
because we didn't know that was gonna happen.
What's a PCB, Steve?
Polychloral something or other.
They were banned, I think in the seventies.
But we have a better example of that right now.
Have you heard of a PFAS?
No.
Well, you've heard of a forever chemical, right?
No.
No?
Okay.
I'm a layman.
Well, so we've all heard of Gore-Tex, I hope.
Gore-Tex is a PTFE.
I think it's polytetrafluoroethylene laminate.
Teflon, the stuff that you are-
It was a thing, my friend.
So Teflon, there you go.
I heard of one of these.
But one of the challenges of us
for people who are intellectual is the curse of knowledge.
And the curse of knowledge,
a great study by Harvard about how
once we learn something,
we begin to assume that it's common sense
and that everybody knows it.
And so if I give a water bottle to a caveman,
he might stab the bottle to try to open it
versus the rest of us take for granted the twist top, right?
But we had to learn that at some point.
So again, those of you who are listening in,
the beautiful nature of talking to somebody like Steve
is that he's got access to superpower realities
that at least I might-
Maybe all of you are like,
Jackson, what planet have you been on?
And that's okay because I know,
and for those of you who are in my position
where we're like, no, I don't know anything about this,
stay confident in who you are as a human being.
Stay confident that you've done things with your life
that are just different than what Steve's done
and appreciate the fact that if you can dive
into this knowledge and understand the value of it
and why it matters to you,
you might be that much better at making a purposeful impact
in this world.
So again, thanks for diving deep on this with me.
So Teflon, I know that one.
Yeah.
Well, we all know Teflon has been used,
I think it was invented right after World War II.
Turns out it is, what makes it amazing
is that it's one of the most durable materials
that we've ever invented.
That also means that it is impossible
for nature to break it down,
which is why they're now calling it a forever chemical.
And it turns out that all the waterproof coats
that had been invented since Gore-Tex
was started being used, all the Teflon materials,
they all have, it's all PFAS.
And they're now in our bloodstream,
they're in our lakes and our rivers.
There are both scientific and anecdotal studies,
people going basically out into the mountains
and pulling water out of a creek
that's coming off of a glacier at 11,000 feet.
And there's measurable PFAS in that water.
And so we're now realizing that not only is it everywhere,
but we're putting more and more into,
every time we wash our clothes,
there's every durable water repellent material
that's ever been made almost has PFAS in it.
And that means we wash our clothes,
it goes into the sewage system,
it goes into the rivers and it goes into the ocean
and then it comes back out.
Some of them are highly volatile
and they actually will evaporate into water particles,
which is how they end up on mountaintops.
That was a new finding of the last several years, I think.
But we know now that those things do a lot of damage
to kidneys and livers.
So much so that the, I think it's the USDA
or whoever would say this,
says that there is no acceptable parts per million
of several of these types of chemicals
that should be allowed in anything that we have.
Water, anything else.
Also say that is impossible to attain.
So we're gonna choose, I think,
4.4 parts per trillion or something like that
is what they want.
And there are a lot of water systems in the United States
that have five, six, seven, eight parts per trillion.
This is why I love YouTube influencers like MrBeast
and Mark Rober, right?
Who combined and joined forces.
And they're cool enough and they're fun enough
to put on Jimmy Kimmel Live, for instance,
and talk about their project to kind of save the ocean
and draw some hype about this reality
or these things like this exist.
That's where I usually learn about stuff like this
is something that is considered kind of like young and dumb
or just like entertainment value.
But if we can combine and harmonize the strengths
of both of those worlds,
it is people like you combining with people like them
that will lead us to find these amazing creative ways
to solve the bigger problem
and make sure that we are improving upon the planet
that we have, not just destroying it.
And that's what can be said leadership.
We need to solve some of the problems before we create them
is part of what I'm saying.
Yes.
There's no way I'm gonna pretend
that we can know everything in advance.
And I know that hindsight's 20-20.
That's not what I'm saying here.
But I am saying that we have an extractive international
global business model that takes
like functionality trumps like long-term effects.
So Teflon is a good example.
We found something that's amazing.
It's super slippery.
We're like, we can use it for the thousand things.
For the visionaries listening in too though,
I think we have to apply this to their lives.
A lot of them are in combustible materials
or goods and products.
A lot of them are in the world of leadership.
And so when we take these same principles
and we apply it and say, wait a second,
let's learn to go against the norm.
Excuse me.
There's opportunities to say, you know what?
How can we apply?
And in our case, we're looking at how do we cultivate
and inspire more love, patience, persistence,
consistency and reliability in the workforce?
How do we emulate that as leaders?
How do we help people feel connected to that love
where we can create more balance
and more appreciation for people in the workforce?
How do we make sure that we create a full appreciation
for family and for personal wellbeing within the workplace?
Not outside of it, but also within.
And how do we also bridge economic gaps
that exist out there and create win-win solutions for people?
All of that can be done,
the same types of creative thinking
and opportunities like MoCA.
You're talking about motivating,
like figuring out the motivation, the opportunities,
the clarity and the accountability.
Like that's a framework that one can apply over and over
and over to different areas of life
and ultimately audit and evolve and create an even better life.
So if this was one last question for you, Steve,
this is my favorite question of the lineup.
If this was your last chance to ever speak,
what powerful lesson can other visionaries learn
from your experience?
Oh man.
Let me first give you kudos for like two
of the maybe top five questions I've ever been asked.
Boy, powerful visionaries.
I'm gonna say the zero unmeasured externalities
as a non-arguable goal for everything.
Because what we're saying is,
if you're leading and you've got a company,
you need to know what effect you're having downstream.
So an externality is actually not something I invented.
It's a financial economic term that came out of that,
started in the 1880s, but it was popularized in the 20s.
And it's any effect to somebody who wasn't expecting
that effect from your financial activities.
And the person who invented it was thinking about banking,
but we now talk about it in all business things.
So if you're dumping PCBs in the river
and all of a sudden the Eagles are dying,
that's an unintended consequence, that's an extra down.
So, but zero unmeasured externalities
as a non-arguable goal, it's a very lofty idea.
It doesn't say that we have to know everything,
but it says that we should be striving for excellence
at all times in all things.
And you can use zero unmeasured externalities
to drive an art department.
You can drive production, you can drive manufacturing,
you can drive your company,
you can drive the finance department.
The finance department's job
is to uncover all those externalities.
Like just what are we paying for that we don't need?
What are we getting?
What are we, you know, all of that.
We're actually doing this all the time.
We just don't think about it in this codified way.
And if you combine zero unmeasured externalities with MoCA
to help have those conversations about accountability,
which is supported by zero unmeasured externalities,
and then approach everything
from sort of an agile project management,
continuous improvement,
those three things, you can change the world.
You can change your company,
you can change everybody in it,
and you can change the world.
And it doesn't matter if you're conservative,
it doesn't matter if you're liberal,
it doesn't matter if you're left, right, green,
white, red, orange, gray.
I love it.
Those of you listening in,
there's a lot of dictionary terms
that for the first time I heard this,
man, I didn't quite get it.
I needed to better understand.
So if codified, right, is not up your alley,
agile is not up your alley,
you know, what I hope that you catch is the intensity,
the passion, the compassion that Steve speaks with.
You know, we're talking about making sure
that life on earth is protected.
We're talking about making sure
that people have better relationships.
And we will struggle to understand
how to embrace our relationships
and how to maximize them if we don't pay attention
to our opportunity to gain more knowledge,
because knowledge can be liberating
if we use it appropriately.
And so this idea of externalities,
it's still something that is foreign to me.
And maybe all of you guys listening
are laughing at me like,
Jackson, how are you not getting this?
And that's okay.
But if you're in my boat where these terms
are just a little bit outside
of your ability to play with it,
you know, maybe I'm used to Play-Doh
and this kind of feels like playing with cement,
you know, and like trying to pull together
something that is much bigger than I'm used to.
My hope is that you go back just a couple seconds,
click the double click to go backwards,
gather those words that you don't understand,
pump them into Google,
ask friends or family members what they mean,
because I don't think Steve is speaking hyperbolically.
In fact, I can tell that he's not
when he says this can change the world,
you know, and change our lives.
So it's very important that we strive to do our part
in understanding what that looks like.
Those of you who want to know more,
of course, in the action steps below the show notes,
we'll have how to connect with Steve
and the Globally Conscious Leader Community.
We'll also have below that the resources
that we mentioned today.
And if you have any comments,
anything that you'd like to give back to this discussion
or add to it, by all means, jump in,
we'd be grateful to hear from you.
And of course, if you want to be a guest on this show
in the top right corner,
you'll see a button up there that says, be our guest.
You don't have to be the most cerebral person on earth
to be on the show.
You might be a stay at home parent.
And you think that's the most important vision
we can hear about?
Personally, I couldn't agree more.
You know, at the same time,
if you are the Elon Musk's of the world,
if you are Ken Blanchard, Sheldon Bowles,
people like that, come and join us in the show too.
There's plenty we can learn from each other.
And we look forward to seeing you all in the next episode.
Steve, this was fantastic.
Thanks for being here today.
Thank you, Jackson.
It's been an honor and a pleasure.
Appreciate it.
Absolutely. Let's get you back in the future.
Oh, it would be a lot of fun to dive even deeper.
So everybody have a great day
and we'll see you on the next episode.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is gonna get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show
and thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision.