Have you ever made a decision for your company that didn’t sit well with you? And then you rationalized to yourself that, “It’s just business. It’s nothing personal” to convince yourself that it is “okay”? If you have ever thought that, I know I have done that in the past, you are going to love our episode today.
Jason Scott is our guest today who is the author of “It’s never just about business. It’s about people.” Jason shares his story of transformation as a leader helping companies like DirectTV, Trader Joe’s, and Sony Pictures. His team’s unique, human-centric approach to change has generated breakthrough results and created meaningful jobs.
LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:
- Purchase a copy of Jason’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/Its-Never-Just-Business-People/dp/1544502249/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
- Learn more about Tim Redmond and his company: https://120vc.com/
- If you are ready to franchise your business or take it to the next level: CLICK HERE.
ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Introducing J. Scott the Founder of 120VC who is an expert in Transformational Leadership that Gets Sh*t Done. He helps people to define and deliver the necessary and expected results by helping leaders enable their team members to reach their potential as architects of their own roadmap to a shared goal.
From the start of his career spent jumping out of helicopters as a rescue swimmer in the United States Navy, J. Scott has a long history of leadership, servanthood, and bearing witness to the transformative power of getting sh*t done.
Since starting 120VC, he’s personally overseen the global transformational efforts within DirecTV, Trader Joe’s, BlizzardEntertainment, RIOT Games, Sony Pictures, ResMed, and others. His team’s unique, human-centric approach to change has generated breakthrough results and created meaningful jobs.
In addition to being a successful entrepreneur, J. Scott has spent the last 22 years as a digital nomad, living what his family calls “JumpLife.” J. recently founded a company with his wife and two kids called Next Jump Outfitters. NJO plans to eliminate 50% of the effort that goes into a “Jump” to help those that are thinking about jumping, take the leap.
ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:
This episode is powered by Big Sky Franchise Team. If you are ready to talk about franchising your business you can schedule your free, no-obligation, franchise consultation online at: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/ or by calling Big Sky Franchise Team at: 855-824-4759.
If you are interested in being a guest on our podcast, please complete this request form or email podcast@bigskyfranchise.com and a team member will be in touch.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Tom DuFore (00:00):
Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast, where each week we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I’m your host, Tom DuFore CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team. And as we open today, I’m wondering if you have ever made a decision for your company that just didn’t sit well with you. And then you rationalize to yourself that well, it’s just business, it’s nothing personal, to convince yourself that it’s okay. Well, I know I have, and if you’ve ever thought that you’re going to love our episode today. Jason Scott is our guest, who’s an author of, It’s Never Just about Business: It’s about People. And Jason shares about his story of transformation as a leader helping companies like DirecTV, Trader Joe’s, and Sony Pictures, his team’s unique human-centric approach to change, he’s generated breakthrough results and created meaningful jobs. You’re going to love this interview and you’re going to really want to listen all the way through to the end. So let’s go ahead and jump into my interview with Jason Scott.
Jason Scott (01:07):
Hey, Tom. My name is Jay Scott, I am the founder of the 120VC brand community. I mean, my title is CEO, that sounds fancy, I generally just go with founder. And I’m super stoked to be here on Multiply Your Success podcast.
Tom DuFore (01:24):
Great. Well, thank you so much for being a guest here, I’m really grateful for your time. And one of the questions I’d written down in preparation for our conversation today is to talk about a line that you have, and you say, “Imagine a world where the majority of teams are winning.” And I really like that quote, and I’m just curious what that means to you. What does that look like? What does that mean?
Jason Scott (01:49):
So my first business 120VC, I started 22 years ago. And at first, I thought I was starting a project management company because I liked pulling teams together. I liked leading those teams to accomplish the outcomes that they felt that they needed. And somewhere along the way, I realized that’s really what leadership is. Leadership is about enabling your stakeholders to define and deliver the necessary and expected results. And then I stumbled into really being able to see the difference in people’s lives, went on a team that isn’t getting the outcomes that they feel like they need versus teams that are getting the outcomes they think they need. So essentially, in my career, I’ve taken over multiple projects that were struggling to turn them around. And these people were stressed out, emailing during dinner, text messaging during dinner, getting yelled at for emailing during dinner, working weekends. Their quality of life was terrible and their economic prosperity was not secure.
Jason Scott (02:45):
When you’re on a team that’s not getting the outcomes that they think that they need, you’re generally in fear of losing your job, looking bad, your reputation is at stake. And so, as I’d worked with these humans to turn the situation around and help them get the outcomes that they and their organizations felt they needed, I realized the change in their attitudes, the change in their stress level. People on winning teams are thriving, they’re focused on their significant others at dinner. They’re focused on the activities that fill them on the weekends, and essentially their economic prosperity and their reputations are secure.
Jason Scott (03:26):
So I like to imagine a world, and it’s what we’re in the business at 120VC of doing, is enabling our stakeholders, our customers, the leaders that we serve to get the outcomes that they need. We’re really in the getting things done business. And the thing to me that’s fulfilling about that is that we help teams win. We essentially help them live their best lives. And so when I say I’d like to imagine a world, the more leaders that we enable to work with their teams to define and deliver the necessary and expected results, the more winning teams. The more people who have great quality of lives. The more people whose economic prosperity is secured. And so, there’s just this world of outcomes that are lifting people up. And so that’s basically why I get up every morning.
Tom DuFore (04:16):
I love it. Well, thank you for that response. And one of the questions, it leads me to think about here is about how leaders at organizations… The people that will end up listening to this interview, most of the people that tune in, they’re a leader of an organization. They may be an entrepreneur, a founder, they may be a CEO of a mid-level or a mid-size growing enterprise. And how can a leader help their team members architect their own roadmap, and how could they help piece that together?
Jason Scott (04:57):
All right. That’s a really good question. That’s a really good question, and I’m thinking through how to contextualize it in short, because I could go on for hours on this one. So the first thing is whether it’s an entrepreneur and a startup, a mid-size company, a billion-dollar company, a Fortune 1000. I get calls constantly where the patient has diagnosed the problem, meaning they’ll call me up and say, “Our approach to project management is not working. We implemented Agile and Agile’s not working. We’ve got Lean and Six Sigma, and it’s not working.”
Jason Scott (05:36):
And what’s interesting, it’s what we do when we’re sick, right? We go on the internet before we see the doctor, and we Google it. And we go to the doctor and we say, hey, I’ve got monkeypox. I’m sure I have monkeypox. And the doctor’s like, well, hold on, let me get your blood pressure. Let me take your temperature. It’s often much simpler than what they’re thinking. And so the thing that I’ve learned over the years is that these disciplines like project management, program portfolio management, Scrum, Agile, Lean, Six Sigma, these are like brown belts, right? And nobody starts with a brown belt in martial arts, they start with the white belt. And so what I’ve learned is, it’s not that those things are or not working. If an organization isn’t getting the results that it thinks that it needs, really what I generally find they are lacking is a culture of discipline. That’s an ugly word, right? Everybody hates that word. A culture of discipline, trust, transparency, and accountability. And it really starts with the leaders, to bring it all back to the question that you just asked me.
Jason Scott (06:41):
If leaders are running from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting winging it, essentially, that’s exactly what their team members will do. An environment where everybody’s acting like a cowboy is an unfocused environment. And when people are not focused, they’re just chasing the scariest thing or the coolest thing, or the latest shiny new object. They’re not, absolutely not optimized for getting the results that they think that they need. So it really starts with developing some discipline about how you show up as a leader. Are your goals clear? Are your goals measurable? Have you communicated these goals, these expectations to your team? Are they excited? What do they think about these goals?
Jason Scott (07:24):
More importantly, back to helping them architect their own roadmap to a shared goal, there’s this thing that we’re taught to do, where we go and we set the goal. We say, hey, Tom, I’ve got this great idea, and I think it’s right in your lane, Tom. And then I describe it, and I’m like, is this you. Are you the guy for this job? And maybe you’re even excited because we’ve all been taught to be as inspiration as possible. So I get you in inspired, you’re like, yeah, man, that’s me, Jay. And I’m like, cool. Then I ask a rookie question, do you know what you need to do?
Jason Scott (07:54):
And so generally speaking, when you ask a yes or no question in this moment, the intelligent human being does understand something, not necessarily what you’re hoping they understand. And so you get a yes, and then they go off and they work for three days or four days to deliver this thing. They bring it back, they drop it on your desk and you look at it, and you shake your head. And you’re like, God, no, Tom, that’s not what I need.
Jason Scott (08:16):
Now, this could get really ugly from here. Then there’s the managers that are also humans, and all humans seek pleasure and retreat from pain, so they want to blame. Because if it’s your fault, Tom, if you weren’t listening or you weren’t paying attention or you didn’t care, it’s your fault, I don’t have to feel bad. It’s your fault. However, whenever I ask somebody how they felt in that moment, where they worked really hard for three days, and then they delivered the thing and it wasn’t right, how they’d feel. It’s always terrible. They’re frustrated. So the reality is that first as the leader, I asked a rookie question, which was, do you understand something? Well, yeah, we all understand something.
Jason Scott (08:52):
And now you’re crushed, and my job is to lift you up and figure out how I can be a better leader. And the way I can be a better leader is instead of assuming we’re on the same page or we have alignment… And you can’t pick up a magazine without reading that leaders need to ensure we have alignment, that we set clear expectations, that we enable our team members, that we set them up for success. So instead of asking, hey Tom, do you know what you need to do, I’m going to ask you this question, Tom, now that you’ve acknowledged this is you and that you’re excited about it, can you walk me through how you’re going to get it done and how you see it creates value for the organization? This is called active listening.
Jason Scott (09:28):
You’ll engage and you’ll start describing this. And so if what you’re describing sounds like it’ll accomplish this shared goal, see, you’re architecting, you’re telling me how you’re going to do it. And I’m not listening, thinking is this how I would do it, because how I would do it is not optimized for you, Tom. How you would do it is optimized for you, right? So you’re creating your own roadmap, and when we both think it’ll achieve the goal, I’ve set you up for success. We have alignment. I know what you’re thinking. I know what you’re going to do. I’ve ensured that we have a greater degree of likelihood of getting the expected outcome.
Jason Scott (10:02):
Now, the opposite side of that is, if what you’re saying doesn’t sound to me like it’s going to achieve the goal. Instead of making an assumption and a judgment and saying to you, Tom, I don’t think that’s going to work because first, that’s not a fact, it’s an assumption. Two, it’s the judgment. And it just shuts the conversation down because you’re going to be like, well, dude, why did you ask me then? Just tell me what you want to do. And that’s not leadership, because I basically tricked you into asking me how to do your job, and so now I just get to tell you how to do your job, bad leadership. In fact, not leadership at all, that’s command and control. That’s I tell, you do. What I’m going to say is, and this is a fact, Tom, I don’t get it, I do not understand how what you’re describing is going to get there and I need you to help me figure out what I’m missing.
Jason Scott (10:46):
And so we just kind of go back and forth and I ask you questions like have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? And if in asking you these questions trying to figure out which thing that is in your head that I am missing that will make your roadmap clear to me, I might just get to a point where I’m still not getting it. And I’m just going to say, hey Tom, listen, this is what I’m seeing. And in that, I’m either going to tell you something you didn’t know or I’m going to tell you what my universe in my brain is seeing, and you’re going to identify the thing that I’m missing. And you’ll shift your strategy and we’ll get to alignment, and then you’ll go get the work done. So that’s essentially the active listening technique is how we help or we enable our stakeholders to define and deliver their own roadmap to a shared goal.
Tom DuFore (11:32):
Interesting. Well, thank you for sharing that. And this kind of leads me to the next question. It’s really about what you describe as or your experience what I gathered is really focused on this human-centric approach to business leadership, to change management, and so I’m curious… Our primary business that we help companies go through is really change management process to help them franchise their business. They’re going from operating whatever business or service they’re offering, whatever product offering they have to now they’re in the franchise business and they’re selling, and it franchises in training sport. It’s really a shift and they’re doing something similar. And so I’m just always curious on how this human-centric approach to change management, and some things that you’ve maybe done in your career, examples you might even be able to share of clients or your own experience on what that might look like.
Jason Scott (12:34):
Sure. So let’s start with, it’s never just business, it’s about people. In fact, that’s the title of one of my books. And it’s obviously a riff off the godfather where they do terrible things and they say, “It’s just business, it’s not personal,” right? Because there’s this illusion that this company is good and this company is bad, or the government is lying to us, when in fact there’s no such… The company is just a legal entity that without the humans inside that entity can accomplish nothing, right? And so leadership and business is deeply human, in that organizations and I mean, the people in them are optimized for the results that they’re getting. If they want to get different results, they need the humans in that organization to do their jobs differently. And in order to get those humans to do their job differently, the humans need to have a good attitude or even be excited about doing their job differently.
Jason Scott (13:43):
Gallup performed a study and found that what motivates people in business is not money. When you pay people enough to take money off the table, what motivates them in the workplace is mastery, autonomy, and purpose, aka mastery of something, getting things done. Being purposeful, getting things done, and having the autonomy to architect their own roadmap to a shared goal. To figure out how to get the things done. And this is where leadership comes in. We help them figure out how to get the things done. And so, we’re taught that we need to be professional, which I always interpreted as a robot that is perfect in every way and never makes a mistake. And here’s the thing. That’s not human, right? And it’s also BS, it’s not reality. What you end up with in that model is a whole bunch of people pretending like they are perfect and not taking any risk and not taking any chances and spending more time protecting their image than getting things done. And this isn’t a very productive environment.
Jason Scott (14:46):
And so if you consider that first and foremost, all of our decisions are not made by our neocortex, so like our logical brain. They’re actually made by our ancient brain, the limbic brain. And this is our feeling brain, this is the brain that has no capacity for words. This is the brain that feels all of our emotions. And this is the brain that makes all of our decisions, which then are interpreted by our neocortex. So to not acknowledge that first and foremost humans are emotional creatures. And second, it’s humans that make all of the outcomes happen, then basically you’re operating on a premise of control like people are robots, which will never, ever, ever achieve optimal outcomes.
Jason Scott (15:29):
In fact, people in those models are not motivated. They’re clocking in, they’re clocking out, right? There’s somebody telling everybody how to do their job. The team’s collective IQ is not very high. We’re in an environment with a leader where that leader is pulling people together and helping them collectively architect their own roadmap to a shared goal. The collective IQ is very, very high, innovation is possible. This is how we go to space. This is how we build ginormous dams and satellites and have breakthroughs in medical technology. These are from environments where they are bringing humans together and collectively raising up the team IQ by engaging with them, instead of telling them how to do their jobs. So like I said, it’s never just business, it’s about people.
Tom DuFore (16:18):
Yeah. I love that. I love that statement and we’ll make sure we link back by the way to your book and information on that as well in the show notes here. Well, Jay, one of the things is this great point to transition here, and we always ask every guest before they go, the same four questions. And the first question we like to talk about is a miss or two you’d like to share about in your career or personally, and something you learned from it.
Jason Scott (16:48):
This is easy because I have so many. But you’re asking for one, so let me try to give you a good one. I would say that my biggest miss was that I grew up being taught and believing the exact opposite of everything I just said. And so I grew up in gangland Los Angeles, which is very command and control. My father ex-military, he was very command and control, which is the I tell, you do model. It’s about compliance and the illusion of control. And then the first thing I did out of high school was join the Navy. And so I thought all of these people in positions of authority were leaders. And so when I left the Navy and I got my first team, that’s the type of model that I employed, meaning motivating outcomes with authority.
Jason Scott (17:34):
And then when I left Universal Studios, after delivering some of their largest global projects and started 120, my reason, my literal purpose was because I was going to be the best because I was the best, and I was going to make a lot of money. And so, as I did deliver for my very first client with Sony Pictures, I killed it, I delivered their projects. But the problem is my motivation was, I was delivering these projects for the glory, for me because I was awesome. And I didn’t feel guilty about this or bad about this in any way, because my clients clearly benefited. But there was friction, and what I didn’t realize at the time is that it could be better.
Jason Scott (18:16):
And so somewhere along the way, as my humanity developed, I matured, I was 27 years old when I started the company. And there were times where I had truly human conversations with people, right? Because I wasn’t a bad person, I just wasn’t playing like… In fact, at work, they called me a bulldog. Outside of work, everybody was like, “Jay’s cool guy, let’s hang out with Jay,” right? So it’s not that I was a bad person, I just was not going about getting the things done in a way that lifted my team up or put them first, or where they did anything that I just described in respect to helping them architect the roadmap. It was, I’m the smartest guy in the room, let’s all do it Jay’s way. And if they didn’t want to do it my way, how could I convince them to do it my way?
Jason Scott (19:01):
And so, like I said, along the way, I ended up having some human conversations, some connecting conversations, and just being very introspective. I realized that not only did those interactions feel a lot better, but I got better results. And these people didn’t just get the job done, they were thoughtful about the way that they got it done, which included my success. As opposed to the old way, which was, they were just going to get it done because they felt like they didn’t have a choice. And so, there was no teamwork at all. And so this is where I learned, or I heard somewhere about servant leadership and I sort of started exploring it. And then I realized that “we are not called leaders because we are on top, we are called leaders because we are the first to go into the unknown.” And by the way, this Simon Sinek that I’m quoting right now. That we are not in charge, that we have a responsibility to care for those in our charge.
Jason Scott (20:00):
And so I realized the shift was, it’s not my job to make my team work really hard so I can be successful, it’s my job to help my team be as successful as possible. When they’re successful, we get the outcomes we need, and then I’m successful. And in this model, my team members are much more motivated, my team members see that I care about them, therefore, they care about me in the way that they go about doing their jobs, and innovation is possible. So I would say the biggest miss in my career is I spent the first 25% of it telling everybody what to do, which is the exact opposite of everything I just shared with you, that I’ve found is much more successful.
Tom DuFore (20:44):
Yeah. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. But to a certain extent, you recognized that, right? So the flip side is, it was only 25% and not 45% of your career, right?
Jason Scott (21:00):
Yes.
Tom DuFore (21:01):
Well, great. Well, the second question we ask everyone is, has there been a make or two you’d like to share that you haven’t had a chance to talk about?
Jason Scott (21:09):
A make. All right, give me a quick second to think on that one. A make. This is hard. I’m much more focused on where I can be better than where I feel like I’ve succeeded, but I’m obviously stalling. I would say that my biggest make-
Tom DuFore (21:31):
Well, how-
Jason Scott (21:32):
I’ve got it. Yeah, I’ve got one.
Tom DuFore (21:34):
Okay, good.
Jason Scott (21:34):
I’ve got it. My biggest make really is my relationship with my wife and my children, and the way that she and I have gone about architecting our lives to be present for our children. I come from a very, very, I’m going to say very three times, dysfunctional family to the point where everything I learned from them was incredibly valuable, in that I wouldn’t want to repeat it in my own family.
Jason Scott (22:01):
And so in this model that we have in our minds of family, I had none of that growing up, and so I really wanted to find like a good fit wife. I wanted to engage with my family as if they were my best friends, and this is actually what made my wife want to marry me. She was like, “Why do you want to have kids?” I was like, “Because then I could come home every day and hang out with my best friends.” I wasn’t trying to trick her. I wanted this because I did not have it. I had no idea how I was going to achieve it, but you know. And so we’ve raised our kids a little bit different than I think most of society, in that we expose them. We expose them to things.
Jason Scott (22:45):
And so I’m ex-Navy, which means that I occasionally will drop the F-bomb. And instead of pretending to be these perfect adults in front of our children, we’re just the adults that we are in front of our children. And then we talk about these things with them. And then we travel a ton and Next Jump Outfitters is also one of the companies in the 120VC brand community, and that’s all about living the life of adventure. And so my kids cruised on a sailboat in Mexico, both before they were one years old, and they’ve just been exposed to so much. And where this is playing out, they’re 8 and 10 right now. And so this was like an experiment, I clearly don’t have a degree in parenting, and I didn’t have any good examples. But just recently my wife and I got validation that this was a really good idea because at 8 and 10, in second and fourth grade, they are hearing all kinds of things on the playground that we did not expect.
Jason Scott (23:42):
And so we realized if we are not teaching it to them, they’re going to learn it on the playground from other children who are way less qualified than we are to be teaching them these things. And so it’s been really great because one, they talk to us about it. So we know that they’re talking about these things. But two, there’s been some really hilarious conversations where they had heard… And I probably can’t get into it here on your show. I do think that some of your listeners would be amused. But just when they share these things, and they don’t have it even nearly correct, and it’s kind of hysterical. But it then allows us the opportunity to kind of have the conversation and really let them decide, right?
Jason Scott (24:23):
And so I feel like the parents that try to shelter or protect their children, their heart is in the right place. But what we’ve just recently learned that reinforced our decision to expose them to things was, if we’re not exposing it to them, they’re going to learn it on the playground. And the coolest thing, and this is my make, is that because we expose them to so much, they feel very comfortable sharing things with us and talking about things with us. I mean, frankly, sometimes I wish they were a little more scared of us because hey, don’t do that, doesn’t always fly. Like, yeah, whatever, it’s just dad. But I think just the way our decision to expose them and teach them is paying off.
Tom DuFore (25:10):
Great. Oh, what a great story. Thank you for sharing that. Well, let’s talk about a multiplier. We get such a broad cross-section of responses from guests to talk about a multiplier you’ve used in growing yourself personally in your personal development, your professional development, or maybe growing businesses or enterprises you’ve been involved with.
Jason Scott (25:34):
That’s easy, intentionality. And this goes back to discipline. I again, early in my career, I’m reading all the magazines, all the entrepreneur stuff, and I sold myself this bag of rubbish that I was successful because I am talented. Well, then I wasn’t successful. And so, did that mean that I wasn’t talented? Trust me, that was really hard to work through. And what it really was was I thought if I build it, they will come. Well, this is a flawed concept, especially today because there’s so many businesses out there. A lot of them are virtual. It’s like the needle in the haystack, right? So you can build it, but if you don’t make people aware of the possibilities, no one is inspired to take action. And so being very, very intentional.
Jason Scott (26:28):
Becoming this human really started with me realizing that this human interaction thing created better outcomes. Treating people like people as opposed to treating them like cattle created better outcomes. It was more fulfilling to me. And then going on a search to figure out what did I want my contribution to be. And so as a student and an alumni of the Stagen Leadership Academy in Texas, I figured out what my leadership purpose was, which was to inspire others to reach for their potential. And so in that, I live every day to do that, but more importantly, I’m also very disciplined about identifying what my objectives are for me personally, as well as my organization.
Jason Scott (27:06):
I work what’s called a 2×2 prioritization matrix. It’s one of the methods that we employ for our clients to help them develop the discipline before we try to give them the brown belt of project management or program or portfolio management. And so it allows us to prioritize, acknowledging that we have multiple number one priorities in different categories. And then I time block every week. So every Thursday I spend two hours going over my 2×2. So I’ll just create it and put it in a drawer like what happens in most consulting engagements. I work it and which means my calendar every week is completely filled by Thursday of the week prior. Which the second I say this causes so many people to panic, but the reality is, it makes my life and handling all that incoming because we have incoming, the chaos, it makes handling that much easier. In that, my calendar is filled with all my number one priorities. Very few people can say that this is the case.
Jason Scott (28:03):
Then something comes in, that’s a higher priority, something tactical, something client-facing and an emergency with a team member, something like that. I can take these strategic things that are my number one priorities and instead of skipping it or deleting it, I just move it to the next week. And then I can insert this higher priority in there. It also makes realizing that something coming at me isn’t necessarily that urgent. My team members will go, “Hey, Jay, do you have time?” It seems urgent to them, but when they say what it is, “Hey, do you have time to work on this?” I realize this isn’t a higher priority than anything that I already have on my calendar. So I say, “Hey, can you find time on my calendar for next week?”
Jason Scott (28:37):
Now, if they feel that it’s truly urgent, they’re then going to voice that and vie. So instead of just leaving an open spot on my calendar for anybody to take, because they will take it, it forces people that have things that they actually think are critical to raise them up. It then also allows them to think through, do I really need to do this, this week or can I do it next week? And so it really fosters healthy behavior throughout my organization. And it really makes deciding what is a higher priority than what I already have planned super easy because I’ve already planned it. So being intentional and being disciplined is game-changing to architecting a life that you hopefully would feel is your best life.
Tom DuFore (29:22):
Yeah, that’s fantastic. I love the detail you shared with that too. Thank you. And the final question we ask every guest is what does success mean to you?
Jason Scott (29:33):
This is an easy one because it plays into what we were just talking about. For me, success is living your best life. So it’s an easy answer, but the hard part is first figuring out what’s your best life. I grew up super poor in a really bad neighborhood in Los Angeles. And so when I was young and successful, I thought my best life was multimillion-dollar home, Aston Martin DB9, all that glitzy stuff. And you know what I found after living that life for 15 years? I was miserable.
Jason Scott (30:06):
So my first step was realizing I was miserable. And then my wife and I, we decided we didn’t want to raise our kids in Los Angeles, and so we were going to move to San Diego, and we ended up in Tacoma, Washington. If somebody had asked me two months before moving to Tacoma, Washington, from the Hollywood Hills, would you ever consider Tacoma, Washington? I would’ve been like, what are you even talking about? That’s not even a city, it’s a truck. Is that a place?
Jason Scott (30:33):
And I could tell the story about how we ended up in Tacoma, but it’s irrelevant. It’s clearly not a fancy place. It’s a rad place by the way. But it’s clearly not considered a fancy place or a glitzy place, and it’s not, it’s totally a little bit gritty and beautiful and green. And so we just started experimenting, and it turns out I’m not like a fancy guy. I just want to wear t-shirts and drive a truck and spend time with my family. I go to drop off with my kids every day, which I only get to do in elementary school. And I wouldn’t have done this in Los Angeles because their private school would’ve been like 45 minutes away in traffic, and I was a busy businessman. And I mean, I guess I’m still a busy businessman, it’s just the things that I prioritize in my life are different than what I was sold by Hollywood.
Jason Scott (31:21):
And so for me, knowing that there is multiple options than the traditional path to living your best life, right? My kids, they talk about what jobs are they going to take when they’re older, but we spend a lot of time teaching them how to make money without a job. If they don’t want to be an entrepreneur, that’s cool. And so if you want to go to a nine-to-five job and be middle class, that is a perfectly acceptable option, as long as that’s what you want. If you want to be fancy DB9, drive in Hollywood Hills, living person, that’s a perfectly good option as long as that’s going to be your best life. And so knowing first of all, who you are and what you want to be is the first step, and then really committing to living your best life. So having the freedom. To me, success is creating a life that allows me the freedom to live it my way. This is where Frank Sinatra definitely had it right.
Tom DuFore (32:16):
Jason, thank you so much for a fantastic interview. And I know your book is a phenomenal resource so we’ve got that linked in the show notes for anyone who might be interested in checking out his book to get more in-depth on his philosophy.
Tom DuFore (32:29):
So let’s jump into our three key takeaways. Takeaway number one is when Jason talked about how all of our decisions start as an emotional decision and then get processed to become more of a logical decision. So it goes from our limbic brain to the neocortex of our brain. So everything starts emotionally and then gets interpreted by our neocortex. I thought that was a great takeaway.
Tom DuFore (32:57):
Takeaway number two is, he talked about using active listening to help accomplish a goal. And so when you’re talking with your team members or people who are working with you, help them ask by asking questions. Ask things like I don’t understand, and help your teammate to explain to you how they would accomplish the task or the goal. And remember, it’s about what’s best for them and how they would approach it. And if your employee is asking you how to do their job and you’re telling them, as Jason said, that’s command and control management. That’s management, not leading.
Tom DuFore (33:38):
And takeaway number three is when Jason shared how leaders can archetype their players’ success. And he said, “You do that by not diagnosing your own problems,” and I thought that was just a great takeaway. Don’t diagnose your own problems as you’re thinking about how to assess and do things.
Tom DuFore (34:00):
And now it’s time for today’s win-win. So today’s win-win ties directly into the show title and really into the title of Jason’s book as well, that it’s never just business, it’s about people. And he shared how Gallup did a study and found that people are motivated by three key things. Number one was mastery, two autonomy, and three purpose. Mastery, autonomy, purpose. So when you’re thinking about motivating your team, these are all intrinsic motivators. Mastery, how well are they going to do something. Autonomy, do I have control over what I’m doing or in how I’m doing it. And purpose, do I feel a sense of belonging or a compelling reason why I’m doing what I’m doing. Those are intrinsic motivators, not extrinsic. So let’s keep focused on those three.
Tom DuFore (35:00):
And tying into that is when Jason shared how success… He described, “Success for him is living your best life, and the hardest part of that is figuring out what your best life happens to be and sorting that out.” So I thought that was a great takeaway and a great win-win. Because if you are helping your team develop and recognize that it’s not just business, that it is about people and how you’re doing business, you’re going to go a lot further, faster, and make a far greater positive impact on the people you’re leading, on your customers, on the community you work in, and the community you serve.
Tom DuFore (35:44):
And that’s the episode today folks. Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast and give us a review. And remember, if you or anyone you know might be ready to franchise your business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at bigskyfranchiseteam.com. Thanks for tuning in. And we look forward to having you back next week.
