06. Hike the Mountain: How Jay Thompson's Transformative Journey Fosters Personal and Professional Growth

Ever find yourself thinking about making a change but not sure where to start? What if embarking on a transformative journey could help you find the exciting outcomes you've been dreaming of? Tune in to our latest episode, where we had the pleasure of hosting Jay Thompson from hikethemountainorg, who passionately discusses the importance of personal responsibility and the pivotal role it plays in creating a workplace environment where everyone, yes everyone, is excited to be a part of. 

Jay's unique approach to team building is truly inspiring. He offers a trail guide that promotes brainstorming, relationship building, and personal development, all while taking a hike - the kind of hike that makes you feel like you're conquering a metaphorical mountain. We traverse through Jay's compelling journey, from his love for baseball to his exploration of new paths and how his diverse passions shaped his view on life and work. Brace yourselves as he speaks about bridging the gap between belief and behavior within an organization and how acknowledging past mistakes can lead to future success.

We also delve deep into how Jay's organization fosters success through the recognition of employees' stories, creating a platform for them to be heard and respected. Together, we navigate through the importance of learning from failures and how rewarding vulnerability can pave the way to a better future. Jay's insights will definitely help you make impactful changes in your personal and professional life. Be prepared to be challenged, inspired, and motivated. After all, it's not just about the destination, but the journey to get there.

Chapters

• 0:00 Hike the Mountain
• 8:28 Bridging the Gap
• 13:58 Lessons From Hiking, Baseball, and Ministry
• 24:18 Redefining Leadership and Company Culture
• 40:05 Admitting Mistakes for Progress
• 44:52 Fostering Success and Cultural Change
• 54:19 Learning From Failure in Business
• 1:01:11 Pivoting and Mentors
• 1:11:08 The Power of Exciting Outcomes
• 1:17:54 Entrepreneurship and Personal Growth Journey

Transcript

Michael Devous: 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of the Fearless Road podcast. I'm your host, Michael DeVue, and this week we are in studio with the amazing Jay Thompson of hikethemountainorg. Now, normally I come to you from a nature walk or something like that, but this week we've had some weather issues, so here I am in studio doing this intro this week Jay Thompson, hikethemountainorg. This is a very interesting organization. Jay is an incredible leader, mentor and coach who specializes in curating a very how do we say it? Like a menu of a specific hike for you, like a literal hike. He takes his teams your team, your organizations team, your leadership team, your culture team, your HR team. He takes them on a hike but before doing so, curates a very specific agenda for the hike so that each plateau, each step along that way you're thinking about one of the strategies that you want to make change in your organization, leadership strategies, cultural shifts and mindset. Talking about ways to create environments that are both safe and vulnerable for your employees, encouraging safe spaces, brainstorming, whiteboarding you name it. Like this hike can be very tailored to your specific needs and that's what Jake specializes in, but it's also out in nature. You're also team building. You're also gaining some positive feedback and touching the earth, you know which is important and valuable. Jay reflects on his own personal journey learning to pivot after a baseball, having a setback in college where the world sort of sets him on a different path. He reflects on the importance of mentors, on diverse passions and focusing on the end goal that can inspire comfortability with change. Jay and I discuss the power of personal responsibility in creating a workplace environment that your employees want to be in, how to let go of certain habits so that you can focus on what you're best at, and how to notice when it's time to make that change in your organization. So listen for an enlightening conversation with Jay from hike the mountain and maybe you'll discover a few ways that you can embrace change in your workplace as a leader as well. And if you're interested in getting ahold of Jay, don't forget it's Jay at hike the mountainorg. And thank you for listening to the Fearless Road. Remember, stay fearless.

Michael Devous: 2:41

Oh, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Fearless Road podcast. I am Michael DeVue, your host. We are here in studio today and I'm very excited to have Jay Thompson from hike the mountainorg, a gentleman that I met recently through the speaker lab, which has actually been a bevy of incredible talent and people and resources For me. I'm very blessed to have this, but his story and his passion and his message really resonated with me and I figured it would also resonate with our audience and our listeners.

Michael Devous: 3:14

Jay was a former teen entrepreneur with the landscape business. A very ambitious young man turned a full time coach and motivational speaker. Now, whether that's hiking the peaks of company culture or personal development, finding a hiking partner on your journey to success can make all of the difference, and what Jay brings to this particular trail, this particular path both the Fearless Road and our hiking together, which I think is pretty cool is going to be amazing and helpful for everybody out there today. I think we're going to get some really cool tips and tricks and into some fear while we hike. I mean, what better place to discover some of the things and phobias and fears that we have than on a path?

Michael Devous: 3:56

I mean the heights you know. So let's begin, let's hit the trail and let's let the journey begin with Jay Thompson from hike the mountainorg Awesome.

Jat Thompson: 4:07

Thanks, michael, I so appreciate the opportunity to be be with you today.

Jat Thompson: 4:12

I, like you, have met some incredible people through the speaker lab, you being one of those top people as well, and very seldom in life does it seem like you can find a place with a lot of like minded people that can encourage and challenge and spur one another on in a way that I found at the speaker lab, and I think it's because of the passion of people who have a message to share.

Jat Thompson: 4:42

There's something powerful about that, and regardless of what that message is I mean, as you well know, we've met people within that group that have messages for businesses, for people, for families, for people in crisis, for people who experience success and everything in between, and so it's been been quite a journey over the past couple of years as I've been been with that group, and so I'm excited about that and just looking forward to today sharing a few things and hearing always enjoy our conversations together. I always have my little notepad here and I write down things, my little Michaelisms that I get from these things, so like a little nugget, little nuggets we're gonna get it.

Michael Devous: 5:23

We're gonna find some nuggets today. That's. That's this journey of hiking our own particular mountain, our own fearless road and, of course, digging and mining for gold, which is what all these episodes are about. You know, we're mining for a really great nuggets of truth and honesty and authenticity, things we can put into practice in our lives. I think you're right. It's hadn't even occurred to me that you know our group at the speaker lab and we'll just give a shout out to them right now, which is the speaker labcom, if you are familiar with them helping people build and create their journey with motivational speaking and turn into a speaking business, a professional, profiting, profitable speaking business. But what's really amazing about that are the people 100%. There's so many incredible people with so many incredible messages and experiences, like, like you said, in one location right, that we just have access to that. Didn't even occur to me that you know it's our own, like little therapy group.

Jat Thompson: 6:20

That's a good description of it.

Michael Devous: 6:22

Yeah, like we're. You know we're trying to get our messages out there, but we're also there to listen to each other right and and hear these journeys. And so many people have so many incredible journeys that I think you know we are not alone. I think if you do feel like you are, feel like it's difficult on this path as an entrepreneur, building your own dream, building your own business, it can feel slightly isolating and an island unto yourself. But I am here to tell you that there are a ton of people out there on this journey sharing their successes, sharing their stories, sharing their failures, sharing their dreams, and this is one of those places you know there's most places where we're going to share that stuff and that experience with our audience and our listeners, hopefully getting some feedback both from you as well as other experienced professionals out there who are on this journey.

Michael Devous: 7:14

And Jay, so hiking the mountain, which is a great metaphor for a lot of things in life. Wow, I mean congratulations on getting thatorg and thatcom domain. Yeah, I thought the Fearless Road was pretty cool. I was super lucky to land on the name and not have anybody already taken, so I was very happy about that. Now I have to live up to it. I have to like make sure I'm not sucking at my job, but as we hike the mountain and our own lives right towards our own successes and towards our own mountain tops and peaks, talk to me a little bit about what hikedmountainorg specifically, what that does, what you do there and how that helps companies and corporations and company culture today. But also, how does the metaphor? How have you seen this metaphor shape itself? Like I'm assuming it was one idea that you had, but then it's grown into its own thing over time.

Jat Thompson: 8:17

Yeah, oh, that's a great question. So let me let me kind of step back and go for me this whole process of getting to with with hike the mountain At its core. What we do is we help bridge the gap between belief and behavior within a company's culture. As you well know, every company, every person, has their own culture. I would say that is a set of values, really, that kind of drive them, their own integrity, and so every company has a culture. Oftentimes the poster of that culture that is posted on the wall is not matched by how people actually behave in the company that they work. And so that's what I do I help define ways to bridge the gap between what a company and individuals say they believe and, ultimately, how they behave. And so I do that in a couple different ways. I do that through something called a trail guide and a walk and talk video, which is a weekly little one sheet PDF that I produce for organizations around their values and living those out. And then I make a short little video that takes maybe one of the points that I've written about in that, in that one pager, and I talk about that a little bit, and what I do is I have found.

Jat Thompson: 9:37

Michael, you know this, people learn in a lot of different ways. Some people are very visual, some people like to read, some people like to have to write it down. I'm kind of a mix of that. If I'm listening to something and something hits me, I've got to write it down and I probably even going to draw some kind of a little picture that goes along with it. But if I can watch or listen to a video, it's even more powerful, so that that trail guide that I produce in the walk and talk video.

Jat Thompson: 10:00

I have companies that I do that for every week. One, one bank. I've been doing that. I'm actually this morning it went out as for 474 weeks in a row. I've done that for one, just one bank, and I've done it for multiple others as well. But so I do that. I also help to do some personal coaching with with teams and or individuals around. I call them the six switchbacks of personal development and kind of take them on that journey. As you know, a switchback is you can go up a mountain a couple of ways. One probably easiest is hop in the helicopter, fly the top, get out, enjoy the view and then fly back down. But that's not really hiking. That's called helicopter and I guess. But so it's a it's. You know it's a. It's quite a thing there when it, when it comes to what we're going, to, what we're going to be able to do.

Jat Thompson: 10:51

But how you going to hike that mountain. You can either go straight up right and you can head straight up hardest way possible or you can take to switchbacks was go back and forth up and down the mountain, up and around the mountain to ultimately get you there. I do some coaching around that, about that personal development, around those switchbacks as well. I also do some keynote speaking. I actually even take groups out on a hike and just call it take a hike and we'll go out for half day or for a full day and we'll go and do a hike and I'll share some different things I've learned on the trail when I'm out with them that way. So there's a lot of different ways in which to help to reinforce that culture when it comes to working with the organization. So that's kind of what I do. When it comes to business development or personal development, business development and helping to impact the culture of companies that's kind of the role that I play.

Jat Thompson: 11:51

The birth of hike the mountain, where that hold, this whole thing came from, was back when I was 40 years old. Long ago, 15 years ago now, I set a goal to hike the entire appellation trail before I turned 50. I've hiked a little over 1700 miles so far on the appellation trail and have it quite finished yet before I was 50. But I've done 1700 miles and I've learned a lot of things along the trail and so that's something that that's kind of where my passion and stuff for hiking has come.

Jat Thompson: 12:25

I go for at least two weeks, sometimes three weeks out of the year. Me and one of my buddies will go and we'll hit the trail. We actually leave November the fourth will be going from the fourth through the 18th of November this year will be in Vermont and keep head north on the appellation trail. So that's that's where my passion and my love and my I would go and addiction for hiking comes from. Michael, for some reason I'm not hearing you right now. I hate to get a pause on that, sorry. How's that better? There we go.

Michael Devous: 13:15

There you go, folks, you know what when you mute yourself? Uh, there's a lesson in there, right?

Jat Thompson: 13:24

Yes, we need to learn to mute ourselves sometimes, but then sometimes when we get something we're saying, we need to remember.

Michael Devous: 13:31

Oh, if my mother were alive, the things she would say right now. She could mute me to save her life. In fact, you know, I think my mom used to suffer from pharyngeitis Pharyngeitis I had laryngeitis every now and then, losing her voice and stuff. I mean, I think I can honestly say that I have lived my entire life and never lost my voice, much to this chagrin, I'm sure, of my parents and other people. Uh, where was I? Okay?

Michael Devous: 13:59

So we were talking about the trail. We're talking about like the 1700 miles of inspirational trail that you've been on for a long time. What I was asking for was actually commenting about how late in the season it was to start hiking in November, which I thought would be cold or you would have run into weather issues. Um, that was sort of like an anecdotal comment that I was making. But then, on top of this, like when along your journey of hiking, did you begin to develop the idea that you could apply physical steps of hiking a mountain to cultural shifts and change in the mindset, in the work, in the workplace?

Jat Thompson: 14:37

Uh. So I think for me that probably comes back down to two things in my, in my background and my experience. So back when I have I've had three big passions of what I want to do in life, I guess through the years. One was I wanted to be a professional baseball player. So I played baseball since I was five years old, played all through a little league high school uh got the pitching scholarship uh to Georgia State. As a pitcher I was top 10 in in in my region and Georgia of in pitching and hitting and all of that signed my scholarship to pitch at Georgia State University. Two weeks after I signed they dropped the baseball program there. I was devastated Uh.

Jat Thompson: 15:19

What I learned through baseball is, especially through pitching, is that, um, I can have all the ability in the world but if I'm not a student of the gang and no matter how hard I throw, the batter has a baton can always get a hit. But if I will study the batter, I can. I can pitch to their weak spots and my strengths and I can accomplish something. So that's something I learned from baseball that I that has translated to understanding from a from a culture standpoint for companies, is that every country company has a weak spot and if we can identify areas that they are strong in, then maybe they are able to then lift up those areas of weakness and they can see success by leveraging their strengths to overcome their weaknesses. So that's one of the one of the things.

Jat Thompson: 16:11

Second to that is landscaping. Um, you'd mentioned that about me being an entrepreneur early. I mean, I have mode. I have mode, my fair share of yards. I have pushed a lot more around the neighborhood. Um, I, I, I learned to do all of that stuff, uh, when my pitch and scholarship went away, I ended up going to Auburn University and landscape architecture got my degree in landscape architecture and what I learned through that was, um, I learned a design process. I learned to see an end product before it ever existed and then discovered the, the, the method to come up with all the steps necessary to create that in, in product, that thing that I saw, that in design. And so for me, how that has translated is uh, from a, from a company culture standpoint. It has helped me to help people and organizations see who they can be and then design a process and plan to take the necessary steps to get there. So that's baseball. That's uh landscape.

Jat Thompson: 17:20

And then the third for me was ministry. I've been in ministry for 35 plus years. You and I've talked about that before, um, and that's a big part of my life. Faith is a big part of my life, and one of the things I learned about faith was I have to be in someone's life before I can ever speak into someone's life. Right, is that in? Or if I can have the most incredible truth in the world, but if I've not earned the right to be heard by somebody, it's just going to be Charlie Brown teacher to them, right? You know why, why, why?

Jat Thompson: 17:51

that's what it's like, and uh, and so, from that, how does ministry it's taught me from a culture standpoint with with, with organizations, is that, instead of me coming in being mixed or Mr Fix it, if I build a relationship with them, they get to know me, I get to know them.

Jat Thompson: 18:09

Then we can help to identify those steps and I have the I've earned the credibility to be able to speak into the direction for the organization when it comes to culture. So all of that to say along the way of hiking hiking for me, what I learned was the only way to get to the top of the mountain is one step at a time. And so put all of that together. Right, Baseball, understand, strengthen weaknesses, landscape, see a design, and then the steps to get there Ministry connect first, instruct second, and then, with hiking, is that it is a consistent. Consistent process over time will lead you to the greatest heights you'll ever see. But the only way you do that is one step at a time. So put all of that together. That's where the mountain was birthed, and I'm so glad we're recording this because I don't know that I have formally ever said it exactly that way. It's an aha moment, it's a great stop on the fearless road here for me and I kind of go through this.

Jat Thompson: 19:14

So, and I guess the takeaway from that is just don't discount the moment you're in, because you don't know what the moment you're in is going to teach you about the moment you're going to experience in the future. So that's just a good thing that you let me just kind of babble on here a little bit and kind of understand my journey.

Michael Devous: 19:33

Well, there's a lot to absorb here. I don't know if audiences are going to be doing this while I'm doing this because I'm such a visual person. I love the idea of putting into physical steps, you know, literally, with your team, your teammates, your corporate culture, your company, any actionable physical steps that we take on this journey together as a group, while applying and looking at ministry and ministry. You know not to turn anybody off, you know, from the God complex of it all and the Christianity complex of it all. But I think we're all here ministering to our message and to our audience in our base about ways to A improve their lives, B hopefully improve their businesses and C improve their relationships and the relationships you talked about.

Michael Devous: 20:24

It's very important, I think, in a company culture today to realize that you are in a relationship with a number of things. One you're in a relationship with your client, your customer, your product line, that whole journey. You're in a relationship with your employees, and a lot of companies never really bothered to look at strategy from an internal standpoint right. We were never encouraged to do that. Businesses and companies were never really encouraged to look at an internal strategy and corporate culture as a meaningful practice of developing not just a positive environment where good product is made and good services are made and good services are done, but building a strong foundation for a longer term, longer impact in the world. Right, I think when we think about building a business, I mean you and I have to do this. When we were talking about, and Speaker Lab talks about, what is your why? What is your purpose? What's your positioning? Expert positioning statement Just taking the time to develop these vision mapping strategies, which is what you were discussing earlier, which is how to reverse engineer a vision mapping strategy for getting you where you want to go, right, Whether that's the landscape idea of the final product, the beautiful garden and the berms and the flowers, where they're going to go, how we're going to plant them, how often are we going to water them, what watering systems are we going to need in place, Like all of those different things are the same as looking at a final version and vision of what you want to be, what your company wants to be, and then reverse engineering that map and the steps it takes to get there, and I think anybody that isn't looking at a cultural strategy from an internal standpoint is going to miss the boat. You cannot be running a successful company these days without considering what, when you define success, how does that correlate to your internal company culture? How does that correlate to the services that you provide, both as a company, to your employees, but services that you provide outside of that to the public? And finally, what are you going to do? How do you define success within that right? So it's not just the profits that are coming in, it's not just the amount of items and widgets that are being sold. It's a larger idea about success and value.

Michael Devous: 22:46

I was talking to another person earlier, actually from someone from this big lab who I think is going to be on the show, which I'm very excited about, talking about gratitude. That's, his specific topic is about giving back and charitable behavior, practices and things like that as a company culture, and what does it mean to add that to your strategic vision? Mapping right, and I was talking to him about? Well, I think part of the reason why this is important and crucial is it's how we define success. I think you and I grew up with the idea that entrepreneurs and businesses define success from a bottom dollar concept, from a shareholder mentality, and not from a corporate culture standpoint, and one of the things that I was looking at recently about value, like self-worth and value.

Michael Devous: 23:39

How do we begin to define what that looks like?

Michael Devous: 23:42

Am I living by somebody else's idea of what value and integrity is and success means to them, or am I living it by my own standards and I can't be the best that I can be and give the best that I can give to the company, the organization or the people or community if I'm not living in my authentic integrity right and when you're coming from that place, when you've established that part of yourself, what you end up providing and giving, not only to the organization you work with but all the people, is ultimately some of the best stuff out there, some of the best you can possibly give.

Michael Devous: 24:18

I think right now we're in a space where redefining what that looks like is happening in a number of ways, including hike the mountain, which I think asks the question if you're going to build a set of steps to get you to a particular goal. Have you begun to look at what the value systems are? Have you begun to look at your integrity? Have you begun to look at your impact and your cultural impact, both internally and externally, and how do you want to get there? Why do you want to get there, Like what's the purpose, if you haven't defined it yet right? Why do you want to have the impact you claim that you want to have with your product, with your services, with your company culture? And I don't know that? A lot of places are asking that question. Do you find yourself in a unique position to help them find their way?

Jat Thompson: 25:09

Yeah, I think it was. John Maxwell said if you find your why, you find your way. Simon Sinek said you have to start with why, his whole concept of that book, and you know, as he talks about, that your why determines your what you do, and your what ultimately determines how you do it. Right, we started. Most of the time, everybody typically starts on how they're going to do something and then what that is, and then you know, or it's the why, the how, the what, right, this is what we're going to make. We're going to make these widgets. How are we going to do it? We're going to do it through these processes. And why are we doing it? Because we want to make a ton of money.

Jat Thompson: 25:49

Well, at the end of the day that I don't know that.

Jat Thompson: 25:52

That continues to get you up every Monday to keep getting after what you need to get after.

Jat Thompson: 26:00

Right, it is the, a bigger why, a bigger purpose, a bigger accomplishment. That way and I think that is something that falls on the leadership of every organization is two things One is to remind everybody in the organization that what they are doing is valuable and why it's that, communicating that message, and secondly, I think one of the second, if there's a one in a one, a one a for leadership is, this is not only to remind people that what they're doing is valuable, but to help the people see that they are valuable as well. And I think that's the disconnect a lot of times is, one, they don't see how they fit and two, they're not perceived or recognized as being valuable to the organization. And I think that is one of the things from a culture standpoint, how the greatest investment any company is going to make is not in a better process, not, ultimately, even in a better product. It's in. It's in helping to make sure you have better people, making the people that are there better.

Jat Thompson: 27:20

Yes if people always say this way you have to be something before you can do something right, and I think that is from a leadership standpoint in an organization. You've got to help people understand their be before you harple them on what they do, and if you reinforce who they are. It'll it'll impact what they do.

Michael Devous: 27:46

Well, and this comes back to the real basic, we are human beings, not human doings. Right, you know, if? And I think the second part of this that struck me was, we're asking our leaders, our company leaders, corporate leaders, executive leaders, and, by the way, y'all have a big task, big task in front of you, 40-some-odd years and I'm going to speak about my particular history, which is 53 years on this planet and the majority of that was during a time when leadership did not ever include embracing, building up and supporting your employees. It wasn't about us, it was about your product or about your service, and it had nothing to do with the staff or the employees. And I think the reason why we are where we are now is we can't sustain it. In fact, the entire resignation generation, which I think yes, I would probably say Gen Z's, but Gen X's are the ones who put up with this stuff for so many years where we thought making money was where it mattered. And now we're so dissatisfied with that thinking and that process, with that that, that we're asking for more. We're asking for a different type of world, and I think the younger culture that's coming up underneath us is recognizing it so quickly that they're now demanding it and we're putting in our leaders in a position where it's tough to be a leader.

Michael Devous: 29:18

And with this type of ministry, this type of messaging, this type of culture, company culture, change in mindset shifting, when we are individuals ourselves who don't know how to define our own self-worth and value outside of the deliverables that we provide for a company, right, if we're always meeting the bottom line and company quarterly reports and things like that, and that's where we found our value.

Michael Devous: 29:45

Now we're shifting the entire mindset to the value is inherent in the individuals that we build up and support and build integrity and self-worth in our company. That then, therefore, as a result of their satisfaction going up, their happiness going up, their gratitude going up, deliver a better set of products and services for us on our behalf. Right, no one's ever looked at it that way. You know, tending to the roots of a system, not just the branches and the fruit that come off of it. Right, we haven't looked at it that way and we're asking a lot from our leaders. Wouldn't you work with them at Hike the Mountain? What are some of the biggest challenges you find right now, with leaders who have to take on this role themselves if they're not in a position of understanding their own self-worth and value.

Jat Thompson: 30:35

I think it comes back to this whole thing that you talk about so often is the fear, and I think one of the number one greatest fears for most leader I'm gonna say sea level folks, that kind of stuff, people that I've connected with and work with is the fear of vulnerability. They don't want people to be able to see behind the curtain. They don't want there's the fear of what happens if everybody realizes I don't have it all together or I don't have all the answers, or I don't you know, and so that fear of vulnerability, I think is one of the biggest obstacles. Let me keep it in my genre of hike in the mountain Yep, that's one of the biggest obstacles getting to the place that they want to be. And I think, to go back to that, you're talking about my generation, your generation. We grew up loving the cliches. You know saying this, we could make a living off of cliches If we had a dime, yeah, Right.

Jat Thompson: 31:42

The challenge and I think what it is going on right now is this is I think people today are like I want the reality of what I want the truth of what the cliche is. Don't, don't feed me the line without giving me the truth. And so to say you know I? There's no I in team. That's easy to say, but that's not how we live. Yeah.

Jat Thompson: 32:07

You know that. You know that we recognize your effort but we reward their results. That's what we do and that's the disconnect. Is that if? Because, again, that the whole truth of um, for people, what, what you reward, is what's repeated. So we, we've rewarded probably the wrong things, and a lot of times and I'm not going to say we, I have rewarded the wrong things in my own life that have been repeated. And I'm repeating things in my life and I'm like, why do I do that? It's because I reward myself with that and I need to change that. And so, before I'm going to point fingers there, I think and I have seen with people I've worked with, but I see for myself, is that fear of vulnerability that for me to to let them see the man working behind the curtain is not really Oz, the great wizard of Oz, he's just a man pulling some levers like everybody else. Um, I think that's scary for folks.

Michael Devous: 33:08

And I think we are talking about systemic issues, um, that our systems, especially ones you and I grew up with, had a reward based um setup for rewarding, conformity, rewarding you, just, you know, deliver these things. Stay in this place, dress like this, look like this. You get this perfect house, that perfect wife, this car, that job, that 401 K, and the idea was that, by conforming to all these things, happiness would be yours. You know, this American dream whatever that's supposed to mean these days, which is, you know, to me, and American dream is what it should be called, not the American dream, because anyone can build their dream in America and it could be different every single time, and it should be. It should be as colorful as the flag is, it should be as beautiful as the rainbow, it should be as creative as as as we are as a nation, as individuals, right and not just conforming to one set mindset of what success and value needs to be. Um, that vulnerability, that fear. You know, yeah, our leaders are going to need to step up and they're going to need support. They're going to need a set of systems and a set of shows and podcasts and hiked mountains and whatever out there in order to help them become the people we are now asking them to be.

Michael Devous: 34:40

We are now demanding from our executive leaders, our leadership in companies and corporate culture, to make these changes. And um, you know it's not without um. It is our responsibility to a hold them accountable but B provide them the support that they need. We can't just be like you did it wrong and point the finger. We have to be in that arena with them, helping them figure out how to climb that particular mountain, how to develop that corporate strategy and that mindset.

Michael Devous: 35:09

And if it is a challenge and if it is difficult and you work in a corporate company where that culture is a mess and that system isn't working and they're trying to make change, be a part of that change, not a ridiculer, not a criticizer. Nobody needs somebody sitting in the in the cheap seat pointing fingers. We have plenty of people who aren't willing to get down into the dirt and into the arena and do the hard work, right, like there's a lot of people who could sit in on chair quarterback all day long. But when we are talking about real change, meaningful, impactful corporate culture change, it's everybody at the table, all hands on deck. Um, do you find that that's that that's a disconnect as well, that that that the employees are still waiting to be led like sheep out of a out of the dark, you know, by by some great leader, as opposed to being the leader you want to see be the change you want to make, kind of a scenario.

Jat Thompson: 36:05

I think there's a. I think there's different camps, if you will, there, there are those that are like um, I'm only going to stay in my lane, this is what I want to do. This is what I get paid to do. I'm only going to, I'm going to stay right here, that's what, and I'm not. I'm going to do what's expected, but not more.

Michael Devous: 36:27

Yes.

Jat Thompson: 36:27

Um and and that's, and there there are people that are that way. Uh, I also think there are people that are, that are willing to follow leadership, if they, but they're not right now, because they either don't trust the leader, they don't even know the leader. There's a disconnect there.

Michael Devous: 36:50

Yes.

Jat Thompson: 36:50

Um, I think that's a group and I also think there there is a group as a small group. Last stat I saw was about uh six. You know, uh 30, 35% of people are quote unquote engaged in their work. Uh, the other 65% are disengaged and of that, of that, 16% of those uh last stat I read are actively disengaged. That's mean they're doing things. There's a group of people out there that are doing things to take the company down and and make that. I mean it's so.

Jat Thompson: 37:23

So again, I don't, I don't think that's, I don't think that's where we need to be at all. Uh, uh, that that format. Yeah, I think the challenge is this you said a minute ago um, if you only point out problems, you're going to frustrate yourself and everybody else, but if you can recognize a problem, own the part of it that that is yours and provide paths for solutions for everybody involved, I think that is being real and being authentic in that situation as a leader. And I think one of the things that that I have found is this is when people have come up, when leaders have come up to that sense of that vulnerability or that fear of vulnerability, of being real and being authentic, sometimes in front of everybody in the organization. I, what I have done in in is I've been able to come along beside them, listen to them and be able to help them communicate in a realistic way kind of their story.

Jat Thompson: 38:28

Where they're at, um, there's a. There's a great disconnect oftentimes, um, because, like between a CEO or a COO and people on their team that work on the team underneath them, if you will, there's a disconnect because, um, they don't know how to, they don't know how to to to take what's what's important and speak that in a, in a, in a language that the, the troops understand, if you will, that that are doing that, and that's one of the things that that I work with as I work with them to to go, let's, let's find common language and let's help me. I help them tell their story of where they want to go and who they are and that kind of stuff in a way that connects more with with the average person on the in the organization, as opposed to um doesn't sound like I do, that. I'm just listening to myself talk here, going like I'm not even thinking.

Michael Devous: 39:32

I don't think I'm communicating this in a, in a clear way, but I think you pointed yeah, I think you pointed it out, you hit the nail on the head here which is developing the language. Um, we don't have that. That language is not inherent in our current systems of corporate culture, of company, organization or culture. Uh, the language to use that we're talking about, which is the language of vulnerability, the language of connecting, the language of and this is what I was going to ask you a minute ago Do you think it's important and valuable for us as a company, as a company and organization? Is it important to admit the mistakes of the past before beginning to move forward? Meaning, if we're going to establish a new set of a new paradigm, a shift in our, in our thinking and a co-company culture, and we want buy-in from the, the employees, we want buy-in from everybody, right? Is it important to start with a fresh slate by saying, hey, this is what we used to do, this is how we used to be.

Michael Devous: 40:28

Um, you know, when I got clean and sober, I had to admit my wrongdoings to my family members, I had to make amends to them in order to begin to make my steps move forward, and then I had to hold myself accountable and my own integrity by continuing to make good and positive steps.

Michael Devous: 40:46

Um, when you're a CEO, a COO, a CFO, and you speak on behalf of a company, these issues, these behavior problems, these um challenges may not be something you developed, may not be something that it's not you who did it, but you now have to take ownership of it and order in order to make the change. What does that look like? When we're asking someone to take responsibility for a company and its behaviors and its choices over the last however many years it it we're talking here and then to an act and begin to ask for change, what language would you recommend or do you offer these, these, these CFOs, the executive leaders, to help them start developing a way to communicate and a way to make that, to get that message across, so that we can begin to see progress and actionable steps?

Jat Thompson: 41:50

There. That's a huge challenge of um. I think. I think you have to just be open and honest and recognize the the situation that you're in. I would say this if it's something that you did as the leader, and it's, it's it's your old crap moment right, yeah, yeah.

Jat Thompson: 42:15

I mean I messed up. I um, if, if you're open and honest about something people may, people may go. Well, man, jay's a jerk, but at least he understands he's a jerk, I mean. So there's, there's a. There we can begin to find common ground that we all agree that I'm a jerk and was a jerk. Now, how do I not be a jerk moving forward? So I think you got to. How?

Michael Devous: 42:38

do. I ask you to not be a jerk Like this is what we're doing, is we're? We're basically saying please change who and how you are, but I have to do that first, Like I have to represent that change Right For the company.

Jat Thompson: 42:50

I think the right challenge is when it was not something that you were a part of and it and again, you know you have to. You have to recognize it and go. I know this a challenge. I know there's, I know there's baggage. I understand there's hurt. I understand there's broken relationships. I understand feeling the blank of whatever that is.

Michael Devous: 43:13

Sure.

Jat Thompson: 43:14

I recognize that. What I know is this I can't fix what has happened, but together we can chart a path of what will happen in the future. So that's where, in the only way I know that you can ever demonstrate that commitment that you want to change is to is to change. I mean, I know, you know my, my, my dad always, and my dad always said this it takes a whole lot of of that a boys to make up for one. Oh shit, right, and in life that's true. So if there's a, if there's a mess up in the past, the only way you're going to show that there's a change is you do a whole lot of you make the right things and do the right things moving forward, and you and again there comes a point in time where you got to recognize it, but then then we've got to let it go, yes, and you need to move forward.

Michael Devous: 44:20

Yeah, there's a time for acknowledging and then there's a time to like. Okay, now we're in. We're in the stasis of progress, right? We're no longer reflecting on Whatever right pick, pick a place in the past and reflect on it. We are now in the midst of those changes and here are the ways and steps that those are going to be.

Jat Thompson: 44:41

Can I?

Jat Thompson: 44:41

Can I add one thing to that Is this is, I think, the the best way to do that is moving forward as, as success has happened.

Jat Thompson: 44:52

Don't only tell the success stories of the leaders. If you can become a success story, share of other people, other people within the organization. Again, I love to me it's great when I hear that my leader has accomplished something, but I feel even better when my my leader shares a story of how my team in the organization accomplished something, and so I think that is this, is that To to, to acknowledge that from the past and to move forward is that you have to then acknowledge this incremental successes along the way of Everybody in the organization as much as possible. Tell the entire story, tell everybody's story, because people identify with that and they're like, when you know, it's one thing for it's one thing for me to share something I've done. It's a whole another thing when my wife brags on something that I've done with a group of people, I'm with man that makes me feel a ton better, right, and, and so I think that would be what would?

Jat Thompson: 46:01

the advice that I give is Share everyone's success story, and one of the organizations I work with they do that Phenomenal. They have an innovation suggestion Platform that people can share, but then the CEO will send out a company-wide email on Sarah's innovation suggestion was phenomenal. We were able to do this, this and this. Thank you so much for that. So again, it's not look how great we are, it was look how great you are. You've made us and they tell that, yes, and that that's the way to, I think, have impact moving forward.

Michael Devous: 46:43

I Think what you're describing because we were taught you had mentioned. How do we find the language right? How?

Michael Devous: 46:50

do I help you as a company and find the language to communicate this moving forward, and that's, I think, right there You've hit it. That's one of the ways. In order to Be well, in order to be a good leader In the way that you're describing you, you have to also be a good listener of what's going on in the company. Most you got. You remember, national lampoon's Holiday. It's having chase Christmas vacation. Oh yeah, his boss. His boss would just come through like, oh, give me somebody, put somebody on the phone. Everyone remembers that corporate boss that didn't do anything, but we all count how to. Now we're shifting from that individual to more. We're asking him to be more vulnerable so we don't have to, you know, kidnap him and his wife on the holidays.

Jat Thompson: 47:45

So I'm gonna be on either cousin Eddie in our life to take care of those moments, I guess all right, oh my god.

Michael Devous: 47:54

So the it's just a great movie. There's this. This place of being able to listen to what's happening in the company means you have to ask for those stories and inviting those innovation moments, inviting those opportunities. So my dad worked for Eli Lilly and During COVID they enacted one of those things where they wanted feedback from everybody. They wanted an open forum for people to offer their ideas and their thoughts on every from everything from manufacturing, logistics, distribution, development, science, you name it so that people felt like they were being heard. But then there's a. You can get a cacophony of stuff coming in.

Michael Devous: 48:33

So it's your responsibility to develop a platform in a way to gather that that, that feedback, that information that's coming in, and then Acknowledge, when it does work, how to implement it. If you decide you're going to. But the very act of doing that right when we're asking for change, we're asking you to create change in your company culture, we're asking you to hike this particular mountain and deliver to us, the employees, a better Work-life balance and experience all the way around. One of those steps is by taking the time to hear and listen to what your, your employees, your company, your people are doing and Then recognizing it. Right, that's in a step of involvement that perhaps most places and people haven't seen before. Right, so that could be a really great beginning To developing and getting that progress we're talking about and company culture change.

Michael Devous: 49:27

Which is how do I begin, as a leader, to take acknowledgement for these things, how do I participate in this and then set the example? Well, that's one great way Offer opportunities for voices to be heard, recognize those voices when they are heard, and then not just that, but actually Implement something, like I've seen them go it was a great idea and that was a great suggestion and dot it off, but no one ever takes action. Right, right, everybody's got lots of buckets of ideas, but where's the action behind it and when do we get to see what that looks like? You can pat everybody on the back all day, but you're just gonna end up with the sore elbow.

Jat Thompson: 50:00

Yeah, you know, you got to actually have some action in there, yep so one of the things that that I do with companies is I help them. That I've done with that is Specifically will with some of the. Some of those organizations will do like a just a virtual company wide quarterly update. What's that? What's going on? This is where this is where we at kind of moving forward some things to know and Within that update, we always go over. This past quarter, x number of innovation suggestions were made. Of those, three have been implemented, seven are in progress, two are under evaluation and three couldn't be done because of APNC, and so again, it is recognizing the progress that has been made for them, and so that is again that's just a way of You're you're seeing that it has been implemented, and and another way that we do that is for some organizations. I'll do some. Some call this a huddle in the morning.

Michael Devous: 51:05

Yes, I can stand up right.

Jat Thompson: 51:07

I can do this either in person for them or I've done it virtually as well, but, but again, not not everybody has the ability to stand up in front of somebody and and share and make something connect. So so with that I either I either do that myself or I train the department directors or the branch managers and that kind of stuff and and and all they do is is five minutes and it's two purposes one is to inform and one is to inspire. And so we in that, in that inspire piece, is some kind of something there to kind of, you know, just encourage people in what they're doing, and it's typically tied to somebody's success story within the organization that you know we're talking about. You know, you know geese fly together and they do that in the v formation and that helps to pull people along and Helps that. Not everybody has to exert the. Not every goose has to exert the same amount of effort to move forward. Somebody's carrying more the load and that kind of stuff, and then we switch it around.

Jat Thompson: 52:08

Well, for example, when Terry was working with her team, she was the lead goose many times. But over the past few weeks We've seen, you know, see this, come on, and now they, they're helping to fly together and they're making an impact and they're doing ABC and so, and again, in just a couple of minutes You've, you've inspired them about something and recognize an achievement. And then it's again when people are With, when, when there's some kind of you smile, you're in the story, you're, you're, you celebrate a little bit and then you put some information around that that information sticks much better. So if it's like, okay, now do that and don't forget coming up, we need everybody to go through and go on the employee engagement survey, get that filled out. Or there's a new process that everybody needs to come when it comes alone, or origination, make sure you go on to do, do, do, do, do.

Jat Thompson: 53:02

But if you can tie that inspiration information together, that sticks. And so now that information is now connected to that story of inspiration and it's typically remembered much more positively to begin with, and it is in a negative way On some of that information. Sometimes it has to be delivered. So that's one of the one of the things I've figured I've had an opportunity to be a part of over the past 10 or 12 years is helping the internal messaging of Organizations. That in specifically how it impacts or culture, and I've you know that's, that's one of the ways that we've been able to do that, so that goes by?

Michael Devous: 53:45

are you examining? Are you examining reward systems at all, like? The reason why it occurs to me is what's gonna ask the question, which is how do we reward Vulnerability? Right, we're asking not only our leaders to be vulnerable but and show by example when they're asking for developing and vision mapping for cultural change, internal cultural change but then we're also asking the employees to be vulnerable because they're gonna get up and share ideas, concepts, new thoughts, processes, suggestions. When it's a failure, or when it's and I don't like to call it a failure because if you've learned something from it, then technically You're not failing, you're just falling and learning. How do we ask Not just to share the successes but some of the trials that we go through and being vulnerable? How do we reward vulnerability? What does that look like?

Jat Thompson: 54:42

I'm working vulnerability. That's a good question.

Michael Devous: 54:47

Or how do we begin to look at rewarding? Going back, what?

Jat Thompson: 54:50

you said there is that the way you reward vulnerability and Failure, mistakes, whatever when it comes, every how you want to couch that the head is Focusing on what was learned Through that is is so because of that, now we know we're going to we. It led us to this next step, and that, had this not happened, we may never have gotten to this step, and so I think it is. What's the sound of music? Is it is no, no, no, is it Mary Poppins? A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.

Michael Devous: 55:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah right.

Jat Thompson: 55:32

So I Think the way you reward vulnerability, you reward authenticity and you how you, how you reward that for people is you take people on the journey of what we learn through that and when that, how that has helped us to move forward. I think, if you can couch it that way, that it's not just point out the problem with the issue or the failure or the vulnerability. But you know, I Was writing one of the the weekly resource trail got things. I was writing that today and it I was talking about some financial stuff and this is that you have to track your money. You have to know where you're spending it.

Jat Thompson: 56:18

If you don't know where you're spending it, you can't change how you're spending it, and that sometimes the vulnerability is the willingness to track where you're at so that you can get where you want to be. You can't get somewhere if you don't know where your starting point is. Is what that that whole thing is. So I think that is how you reward that. If the reward is not so much, I think the reward is is seeing the next step, as opposed to being Focus on how you were stuck, if that makes sense.

Michael Devous: 56:48

Well, yes, and I think a Good way to Share this I suppose one is. I would occurred to me like, in project management, we have what's called lessons learned, and that is at the, usually at the end of an iteration, or what have you, when they talk about lessons learned, so that they can begin to take an Apply, or in those lessons forward? I think the other side of this is In Vulnerability. Isn't the act of pointing out what was done wrong. It's the Presence, awareness and availability of recognizing how you're living, who you're being and what you're doing, and that there are changes that could be made in order to move forward. Right, right, and True vulnerability it's just recognizing that that's was great, but that's not where we want to be now and we want to move in this direction. So those, if those things aren't serving us, then that's okay. It isn't a judgment about, though. They're not good or bad, they're just not serving where we're headed now. And true vulnerability is able to recognize that, point them out and to make suggestions for how to begin to move forward and make those changes. And I think Gratitude, I think you know we need to look at. Thank you for sharing your lesson learned, thank you for taking the time and the energy to walk down that particular path. You doing it in your department now saved 30 30 other people than other departments. Not having to make that step or those 23 steps and realizing that this is where we can go now. Right, that is valuable having that information. I now know it was Edison said. I now know 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb, like we need the 10,000 steps, we need the other 10,000 steps, we need the knowledge and the information of what was gained in taking those 10,000 steps. And I think a lot of companies just bypass those steps and was like well, we just want the end result, we just want to know how it was. Well, no, there's experience to be had. What taking those actionable steps and recognizing A why they did or didn't work, what you can get out of them, how they can be applied in other ways. And, by the way, having that perspective means that you can now take a look at those 10,000 steps and say they didn't work here. But something I realized while taking those steps is that 2,373 of them could be applied over here and make this entire department more efficient. Most of us don't think about that. A lot of executives probably don't realize that, while our staff are taking those 10,000 steps, there is value to be had from those lessons and from that information, and if it is put into a way that can then be utilized for progress in other departments, it's a total win-win. I think you got productivity, efficiency, you've got all those different things that are improving as a result of allowing people to take the time to be vulnerable and take those steps. So let's jump back a little bit.

Michael Devous: 59:58

Your OG story with fear. Your origin story with fear. As an entrepreneur, I started out when you were in college, losing your opportunity to play baseball, do you? When you were talking to me before about this? It's interesting, because I know a lot of people don't have the moment that happened simultaneously, where they recognize opportunity. Right, you add that huge change where, all of a sudden, the dream that you were building and what you were heading towards suddenly just disappeared and you were able to pivot and sort of put your energy into the creativity and landscaping and the business.

Michael Devous: 1:00:45

How does one prepare themselves for these spaces? Especially when you're young, it can seem, first of all, daunting. Second of all, oh my God, what do I do? The world is everything's. The world, it's all the world, and it's so much bigger and it's so much the sky is falling for us that we realize when you get older and you've had hindsight and you and I can look back and go like dude, trust me, there's gonna be 83,000 more of those coming. So just relax, it's gonna be good.

Michael Devous: 1:01:11

Now is the time to look at opportunity and figure out how you can pivot, and I think we don't teach pivoting a lot. We don't really teach being prepared. I don't wanna call it, have a play and be, have a backup or whatever. You know, our parents used to always say well, what are you really gonna do, like, if this doesn't work out? Suggesting that you're going to fail. Most of us didn't wanna hear that message. We didn't wanna hear that we wouldn't succeed, because we felt like that was undermining our progress at where we were. But there is something to be said for having these skillset to pivot when it's necessary.

Jat Thompson: 1:01:48

Yeah. So I'm gonna frame my answer within the sports world, if that's good. So nowadays, my son-in-law and I coach a travel girl softball team and what it seems like in sports nowadays is kids have become so focused on one sport that they're missing out on what they learn from other sports that can make them better in the one that they're the best at. So for me, what I guess what allowed me to pivot, is one I was blessed to have incredible mentors in my life my mom and my dad, my aunt and my uncles, my grandparents. Some mentors I had from baseball and from faith and some different I've just been. I was blessed with a great mentor, so I guess seven of one is. Make sure you surround yourself with good people would be. It's hard to pivot by yourself. Secondly, I would say, is that the best way to pivot is to be all in on what you're doing but be open to other opportunities that you can learn.

Jat Thompson: 1:03:09

So I would say that, in the sports metaphor, I became a better baseball player when I played football and I played basketball when I was in school and I played soccer. I was the worst soccer player that has ever lived in this entire world. Ever I played. I didn't even know that they had full backs, but there was a position called full back on soccer. My, here's what I did kick them in the shin or kick the ball, but one way or the other they were gonna stop. That was me in soccer. I am not a soccer player, but what I learned in soccer is the flow of a team and how one thing on one end of the field has an incredible impact on the other.

Jat Thompson: 1:03:50

That translates to baseball, man, Right, I mean that translated for me from a baseball standpoint. So the only way I know to be able to pivot when the scholarship goes away is that if I put all my eggs in one basket and I'm only learning one set of skills and not being open to learn other things along the way, you have nothing to pivot to. True, you think you have nothing to pivot to Right and again. So I think the combination of having the right people and you pursuing as many other passions as possible while you're going after that, whatever that is in your life that when the door gets shut, it's not the only door, it's not the only way to do that. And wow, that is easy to say and hard to live.

Michael Devous: 1:04:50

Right so Well. I think it speaks to the fact that, especially when we're talking young adults here, developing young adults, knowing what you're capable of is a huge statement. It's a huge move. And if what you've been doing and your parents have been only supporting you in baseball for the last five or six years while you're in high school, or one specific sport, one specific action, one specific set of focuses, it's gonna be really challenging for that person to recognize what they're capable of when there aren't other pieces of evidence that show what you're capable of.

Michael Devous: 1:05:34

How, as a parent raising future entrepreneurs which, by the way, y'all are out there doing it right now, ladies and gentlemen, you're out raising entrepreneurs because they are growing fast and furious, especially post COVID. There are so many entrepreneurs and people with entrepreneurial spirit and thank God, I love it. I think we should be. I think everybody is a little entrepreneur. We're all like little creators. We should be encouraged to do that. But in order to be really good at being an entrepreneur, being able to pivot and A know what you're capable of are two crucial elements, I think, in terms of your own personal progress.

Jat Thompson: 1:06:09

Yeah, I think it is for me. I would love to say, michael, that I just immediately pivoted to landscape, but I didn't pivot that dramatically. The first I was like, okay, I'm gonna find another school to play at, I'm gonna go try out. And so sometimes the only way you can make the big pivot is that you're willing to make the small little ones along the way. That what I found is this I went to another school, went to have a bad tryout. Things just didn't work out, didn't get there, went on to school locally. Coach never talked to me about playing at that school. My buddy went to play who got a scholarship at that school. Coach came to him and goes man, where's Jay? Why is he coming out? He goes, well, he's not coming. You never talked to him.

Jat Thompson: 1:07:06

And so what I did was this is the only way I pivoted from baseball to landscape is there were some small little shifts along the way to prepare me to make that. Okay, I had to realize I pivoted from one, lost it, pivoted to another one thought I was gonna do it didn't work out. There is that you have to make the realization that the door's closed and stop trying to kick that one in and start looking for the cracks on the other ones, and sometimes it's small little pivots along the way that gets you to the one. That's there's the open door, and that's for me what it was. And so I tried, I tried, just didn't. Work went on. Landscape was something I loved as well. I had done that for myself, for other people, as I was a kid, like I told you. I mean, I'd be nine years old, pushing a mower around. Somebody's gotta have their grass mowed in the neighborhood, I mean. So just walk around and look for the bad yards and knock on the door right.

Michael Devous: 1:08:07

I mean, that's what you do. You're talking about seeing opportunity. You know, as a kid I thought you know mowing the lawn. I do it for my parents. Why would I wanna do it for everybody else? My God, it takes up my afternoon, you know, and I think there's a different mindset between the young arts Prenuer and me, which was, you know, seeing this lawn mower and the gas can and realizing but if I did this and I made 20 bucks off my lawn and I did this for 20 lawns in the area and I got $400, I just did math real quick by the folks you know.

Michael Devous: 1:08:40

My dad is listening to this right now, shaking his head because he knows I can't add, I have my own origin story with math, which was just math was never my thing and I have this whole concept. It was like funny because I was coming from college. My dad was so sweet, he always supported me no matter what, even in my stupidity, and he used to give me this gas cartexco gas card. And I'm on the side of the road, I've run out of gas, I'm pissed and irritated and I'm calling him because I can't understand how I could end up out of gas, because I know that there's another quarter of a tank in there. There's five quarters, and I only spent four of the quarters of the tank, so there's gotta be another quarter.

Michael Devous: 1:09:24

And he's like what are you talking about? What's funny? Five quarters, son. And I'm like yeah. He's like are you sure there's five quarters? Yeah, dad, I was looking at it right here. It's got five lines. You know markings in there and I hadn't used up all of them. That's why I started my consulting company. It's called Fifth Quarter Consulting, because there's always room in the tank. There's always something.

Jat Thompson: 1:09:51

That's hilarious. I loved it.

Michael Devous: 1:09:52

We're gonna find that fifth quarter, we're gonna implement that and we're gonna make that happen.

Michael Devous: 1:09:57

So I think you know learning to pivot is key.

Michael Devous: 1:10:02

I think being surrounded by mentors and I think that's the difference, like you're talking about you know you can be surrounded by important people, influential people, but a real mentor like having a real mentor in your life can be a game changer at what you believe you're capable of doing.

Michael Devous: 1:10:21

There's a difference between someone who gives good advice and someone who shows you a way forward, and I've had mentors that have shown me the way forward out of where I was. That's different. Like just showing you how to do something or how something can be done is very different than showing you how to get out of where you are. Especially if you've dug and dug yourself in and you're, like me, a stubborn son of a bitch who just can't seem to get his head figured out, and you're stuck in a place because you made some bad choices, it's hard to see how to get out of there. And a good mentor, I think you know, whether that's ministry or coach or whatever could be that key to helping you see how to pivot from where you are out and into the next version of yourself.

Jat Thompson: 1:11:08

Yeah, my dad. You know I got a lot of quotes from my dad through the years that you know kind of have always stuck with me, but he always said yes.

Michael Devous: 1:11:19

I'll thank dads right now, that's right.

Jat Thompson: 1:11:23

He said that and they're quote. Yeah, that's right. He said that you know some lessons you have to learn the hard way yourself, but if you can learn a lesson from someone else, that's even better, because you know you don't have to go through all the hard part of it to have learned that. And so I think that's what a mentor does is they are. They help you understand which obstacles you need to go through and which obstacles you should plow around, because they know that going through certain obstacles is going to make you better.

Jat Thompson: 1:12:00

And they know that certain obstacles are better for you not to waste your time with that, because the experience is not going to move you forward and I think that's the valuable part of a mentor. Speaking of mentors, so I was doing some training in Atlanta for a company I work with some business development training and I met Stephen Falk. He is an author, wrote the book called Intrinsic Motivation incredible book and you were talking about seeing these opportunities and that you know. You saw a mower that you never wanted to touch after your dad made you mow your grass. I would see the mower and I did the math in my head, going I can, I counted up how many yards were around the block and I could do all that kind of stuff.

Jat Thompson: 1:12:50

Stephen Falk in Intrinsic Motivation he talks about. Here's the book in a nutshell it's a FEO. Focus on exciting outcomes, as opposed to the process or the pivot that has to happen. Focus on the outcome if the pivot does happen and I think that is the thing is focus on the exciting outcomes. And he said this he learned to make doing taxes fun Because and the way he said that is because he understood this is that when he got the taxes done right, he focused on an outcome, that was, the taxes were done and he was able to do this. I was telling this.

Jat Thompson: 1:13:31

I was telling this recommend this book to somebody, the other day and I was talking to them and they're like I told them about the taxes, they didn't laugh like you did, which most everybody does. He had the biggest smile came on. Gary's face and he said man, I love tax season. He says because the way I've got it set up, I know this. What I get back on taxes every year funds the family vacations, the family vacation for us, and so I can't wait for the taxes to get done.

Jat Thompson: 1:14:02

What he's done is this instead of focusing on the dread of doing taxes, he is going to focus on the exciting outcome that, once the taxes are done, what it brings for him and his family. And to me, that what Stephen writes about in that book, that intrinsic motivation within us, is that if we see the outcome as opposed to all the stuff that it. You know, pivots are not easy and pivots are not always comfortable. Right, the only way we can be comfortable being uncomfortable is when we focus on the exciting outcome on the other side of the pivot as opposed to everything that's going to happen when the pivot has to happen. To me, great book. Great. I got a chance to pick his brain. He was in some of the training and during the breaks and stuff. I just sat there and had a list of questions that I just went through and I was like just getting stuff from him and stuff like that. But great book intrinsic motivation focus on exciting outcomes.

Michael Devous: 1:15:04

Well, I think this speaks to some of the things I talk about, both in the speech which is making for your friend, but also on the show I've mentioned a few times. The human brain loves to tell stories. It's one of the things that we just do naturally, which is we need a beginning, middle and an end.

Jat Thompson: 1:15:22

And.

Michael Devous: 1:15:22

I think for those of us who spend a lot of our energy and time, we do great. One of the things we do as kids and this is what humans do too is we dream. We dream big. We dream about life, or dream about becoming superheroes, or dream about becoming doctors and space astronauts, and you name it. We dream and then, as we get older, we those dreams become hobbies and projects. Those dream become business startups. Those dreams become Changing who and how we live and what we're gonna do in the next moment to become the next great version of ourselves.

Michael Devous: 1:15:57

But that doesn't mean that that there isn't an unknown to this right. The end is always unknown. We don't know what tomorrow is gonna bring. We don't know what's gonna happen. If I put my time on energy and building this company, I don't know that the outcome is gonna be positive. I could die, it could disappear. Who knows right?

Michael Devous: 1:16:15

But our brain does this funny thing or it's desperate to fill in the end for us. It needs to know. For some reason it has to have an answer. And if you don't Focus on exciting outcomes, if you don't put an exciting outcome on the end of that story, your brain is gonna fill it in with the things that you doubt. It's gonna fill it in with the things You're not sure about. It's gonna make you think, oh, you're not worthy of this, you're not capable of this, you may not have enough money for this, you didn't get trained for this. Who do you think you are? Imposter syndrome, all those things that could come creeping on in right and get in our way.

Michael Devous: 1:16:51

And I love the idea of focusing on the exciting outcome, because if you can write it down, if you can put it on a dream board, a vision board or whatever, and you can write it down, you are Engaging with the outcome. You're engaging with your future. You're engaging with potential right, not just waiting and wondering, not just making some plans and hoping for the best. You're engaging with it, which means that the fear, the doubt, has less opportunity to infuse itself into your future and into your energies, and that potential for that outcome, that good, focused, exciting outcome, has greater opportunity to present itself, greater opportunity to manifest in your life Because you are actively putting energy towards that right. I think that's wonderful. I mean so what? That's the tip for today, folks, we're gonna end the show right here. You can go. Don't be successful by doing exactly that focus on exciting outcomes. Um, I think that's part of it. I think that's part of what entrepreneurs do is we focus on exciting outcomes? That's why we even start the business to begin with, because we see this incredible opportunity, this incredible gift, this incredible service or or product or whatever it is, and then we have to Take all the steps to get there. And during that journey is when we can get knocked down. During that journey is when we need to pivot. During that journey is when we need to recognize what we're capable of and you know Rates refit ourselves to meet the dream. Right, we got to adjust. I'm not always gonna end up the same person that I started out with. You know One of these great quotes that I love from conversations with God, neil Donald Walsh, who wrote this, this series of books about conversations with God.

Michael Devous: 1:18:43

He was asking that same question about, like, why do we go through some of the things we go through? Why do we have to go through these hard things? And a lot of God's response in this, where he was very. He said sometimes we have to, sometimes we have to become that which we are not in order to understand and know that which we were meant to be. Hmm, and A boy does that not Spell out some of the shit In my life, bro? Like okay. So it took me a long time to realize that which I needed to be, because I had to go through a lot of that which I was not, and go. I definitely know that's not me. I definitely know that's not what I want to do, because I've done it and I don't like it and I don't want Do it.

Michael Devous: 1:19:30

Other people are like my dad who are like why did you have to go do it? I could have told you it was no good. You know, because he sees it. He's that mentor who's like, yeah, don't do that. I'm like, but I got to, I got to do that stupid thing first before I can do this really smart thing over here. It's like I'm stuck.

Michael Devous: 1:19:49

You know I'm like one of those individuals who has to do the dumb put my hand on the hot plate, hit ten times. Well, are you sure? Is it the same with the right? Because I don't know. I mean, maybe the left is super sensitive or the right's not. You know I'm my brain does that. That's what my brain does.

Michael Devous: 1:20:06

It's like well, I'm gonna test every you could be wrong once and if I get it right, just in that one moment, I feel vindicated for making the stupid choice. But you know, trust me folks, there's a lot of us out here who've stumbled and you don't have to make them choices. If you want to learn from us, you know, get, listen to a show, get a mentor, find somebody to help you focus on those exciting outcomes, because that's that, that is Possible and you can pivot, which is great. I think these lessons are really, really good for us. Before we move to, you know, saying goodbye Any major obstacles, challenges and things you currently face that you see that we need to address, or as a culture, society or a company, especially when you're providing coaching and consulting for these kind of services.

Jat Thompson: 1:20:57

I would wrap it up this way from a culture standpoint is the only way you fix culture is Taking personal responsibility for yourself in the culture first. I Can't fix it before I fix me, and I have to. What I mean by that is I can't have, I can't expect people, I Can't expect people to be the type of culture I want to be in if I'm not willing to be that myself.

Jat Thompson: 1:21:35

Well, yeah, I mean that's the challenge right there a lot of times is we, the. The big challenge is today, is we live in this? A overall human being culture today of Talking about the things that everybody else is doing wrong and not being willing to address the things in our own life first, and I think that's the.

Michael Devous: 1:22:04

Apologize for that, that's human nature.

Jat Thompson: 1:22:07

No worries, that's, that's just. But that's human nature and of itself. And I think my I had a.

Michael Devous: 1:22:14

I'm not gonna say who I had this conversation with, but it was recently. Now he may know who he is when he hears me talk about it. Son, here he has mentioned on repeatedly to me. You know I Like meet up with him and catch up with him. How are things going? How are things?

Michael Devous: 1:22:32

I'm still working, you know, I'm working on letting go of blah blah blah and I'm like what's interesting, you, you've been working on letting go of blah blah blah for Three, four or five years now. Is there a certain point when you just actually let go and don't talk about letting go and don't Think about letting go, but just actually let go? And I and I wondered about that as a, as an idea. We become so focused on the Strategy, the concept of change right, the idea of cultural change, that we spend so much time writing about it, talking about it, thinking about it, we don't actually do the change. Is there something we can help light, a match for folks to be like okay, it's time to shit and get off that pot. Or you know, yes, it's awesome that you want to implement change, it's great that you think you can have a strategy or whatever, but let's talk about some real steps you can take as a leader in your organization to begin to make this happen. Hmm.

Jat Thompson: 1:23:39

I Would say if I had someone in a leadership position, ask, ask me for that advice.

Michael Devous: 1:23:45

I would say higher J Thompson and hiked a mountain. That's step number one.

Jat Thompson: 1:23:53

Yeah, outside of that, the second thing I guess no, I would say this is that you have to spend some time identifying the things that only you can do as a leader.

Jat Thompson: 1:24:06

Good and then, once you've identified that, anything else that's not on that list you need to let go and give off to somebody else Okay, because chances are they can do it better and more efficient than you can and the amount of return that you're gonna get from doing that versus doing the things that only you can do as a leader Not gonna get that return. So that's not maybe letting go of something bad, I think. I Think the greater challenge is letting go of something you're good at so that you can do what you're best at.

Michael Devous: 1:24:40

That's the hard nice to let go of. Yes, remember that, ladies. Let's repeat that one more time, would you, for everybody.

Jat Thompson: 1:24:47

Yeah, I think the harder thing to let go of is what you're good at, so that you can do what you're best at.

Michael Devous: 1:24:53

Amen, and I think a Little bit of introspection and a little bit of understanding about what it is You're really good at what you're best at, I should say, as opposed to what you just good at and then learning to Delegate the good out to others who are best at it right, so that you can save your energy for the things you really need to be amazing at. Is is a key, is does the hike, the mountain? Help leaders identify those those things?

Jat Thompson: 1:25:22

Yeah, I mean that's more just in the. What we do with the, with our one-on-one coaching and stuff like that is asking that I mean part of those switchbacks of personal development. Part of that is Defining who you are, what you do, what you do best, and part of that is also accountability. So there's a switchback of definition and the switchback of accountability and that's part of that process is Of letting someone coach you is not that they've got the answers, but they lead you to discover those for yourself, and I think that's what that's one of the things we do a hike the mountain from a coaching standpoint.

Michael Devous: 1:26:02

Well, there's been I mean, golden nuggets galore on this particular Journey today, ladies and gentlemen, of hiking the mountain on the fearless road, by the way, which is you know it focused on exciting outcomes mentorship, being able to pivot Cultural change from the inside, understanding what you're best at so that you can help others be good at what they're good at, or letting go of what you're good at and Delegating that so that you can focus on what you're best at Chalkful of really amazing stuff. And, if you are curious about whether or not you Want to address your switchbacks, make some cultural change. I got Jay Thompson and hike the mountain org, where I think you can discover Some pretty incredible things about yourself and what you're capable of. But also, I think you're gonna discover what Jay is capable of and he can bring some magic and you brought some for us today some incredible Advice and tips and and insights.

Michael Devous: 1:26:57

Thank you very much for sharing your time with me again. My friend, I love talking to you. You know we can spend hours at this table, this particular table, listening to each other talk about this stuff, but we may have to have you back on again to do a follow-up, but I really appreciate your time. I'm grateful to you and your family. I hope you have a wonderful trip. You're going to cure Sal.

Jat Thompson: 1:27:19

Yeah, gonna be my son's getting married gonna get to do that. That ceremony is actually a week from today, so excited about that.

Michael Devous: 1:27:27

That's incredible. I love that for you. You have to share that with me when you get back in town. I love to hear about it and see the pictures that save travels, my friend, please. And then tips and tricks, ladies and gentlemen. They want to find out more about Jay Thompson. Where do they go?

Jat Thompson: 1:27:40

Ah, easiest is probably just go to the website hike the mountainorg that's org not calm. Or you can just email me at this Jay y at hike the mountain org and I'll be love to connect and figure out. You know what it looks like to hike the mountains that are in your life when it comes to that. So absolutely need help touch with me that way.

Michael Devous: 1:28:07

Yep, and if you need to look at your switchbacks or whatever, I'll put the links and things down below so you guys know where you can get more information about today. Jay, thank you so much for joining us on the fearless road, hiking our own particular mountain For success. This has been an incredible journey and we've learned a lot, and I can't wait to learn some more from you.

Jat Thompson: 1:28:28

Be blessed. Be well, my friend. I appreciate it, it's you're very welcome. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity. Like I said, I always get a little bit of my Michael isms from you and Got some good stuff.

Michael Devous: 1:28:44

Quarters of a tank. You know, I got some gems. Let me tell you if you ever, if you ever wonder. All right, ladies and gentlemen, thanks everybody for listening, for lending your ears and taking the time. Have a blessed and amazing day, stay fearless, hike your own mountain and remember, if you ever need help and support, we are here Jay Thompson at hike mountain org. Michael DeVue at the fearless road. So yeah, have a great week everybody. We'll see you next time. Thanks you.