ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode, a couple of nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and for those of you listening, not watching on YouTube, I got rid of the beard and mustache.
I not a big fan of it, the, the younger women like it, and even some of the middle aged women. Some, but, we'll, we'll see. I, it's just, I don't know if I like it, you know, so we'll see if I grow it back. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, we're here. I'm not drinking whiskey. I might be brewing up some tea for two reasons.
The first I rediscovered video games. It's been quite a while since I I played any. And then next thing I know, it was 1:30 AM when I finished the entire game. I started yesterday, so I, I went to bed and now I could use a little energy boost and two, playing on some stereotypes. Here I have my first British guest, so I wanna make sure he feels quite at home with a cup of tea.
But as far as the British culture goes, what I do know is one of the, you know, greatest NAS in the world as a US Navy show. Obviously, I gotta say US Navy number one, but what the British fleet has that we don't, they have bars on their aircraft carriers and the CLS can actually get a drink. And so I know a lot of sailors, I.
Stationed on the ships over here in America. Whenever the British ships are visiting, they all go take a visit to get a couple drinks with the British sailors and, and catch up. But yeah, I am here with Steve Wright. He is an awesome guy. If you haven't caught our other episodes together on his show and his platforms, those are gonna be in a description below, so be sure to check those out.
But Steve, how you doing man? Fantastic. I know it's a little bit later in the day over there. Yeah. Thank you. And, and nod, thank you for the nod about the cup of tea. 'cause I probably do one right now. And also kudos to you. I, for those that are listening, they won't get the, they won't get it. But I'm actually wearing a, a sporty hat, like, like Mr.
Whiskey does. So that's, that's out of my deep respect. Thank you. Tell us the history of it actually. Where did you get to find Dapper Hat? There is no history other than actually it was bought on a trip to Oklahoma. It was in a town, Salem, I think I bought it in out of the Midwest, out with some friends that, coworkers of mine at the time.
We went into a Nui, you know, proper house hat shop, and there were lots of stuff in there and I was tempted to get one and sort of found one that sort of fit me. And I like the style, so I don't get many times to wear it, but when I do, it always brings out comments, so that's very cool. Honestly, Steve, I could see a sport in a, a black feather on the one side, or maybe you could get a set of different color feathers for different occasions.
You know, you could get a purple one. A green one? Mm-hmm. I mean, I could see a feather. I could see you sporting a feather. That's very true. Yeah. It probably does have the band, it probably does have space for a little accessorizing. Um, the band's on the outside, you could always get different bands too.
You know, you can always mize and swap those out for different occasions too. Check, check you up in, up in my game already, man. I've been, well, we, we know if, if you're gonna hide the beautiful head of hair you have, you know, you might as well do it with quite that I'm totally bald underneath it. You know, I'm bald on my head, but my chin has got the, got a handsome little goatee and mustache, which you're missing right now.
So, yeah. You know, we've swap places. I am missing it in all the senses. I miss it and I am missing it. Yeah. No, that's cool. So, yeah. But thanks for having me on your show. It's a real privilege to have a chat with you in your space and on your format, and yeah, I'm excited to where it's gonna go. I've got no real agenda, like you said.
I'm from the uk, I'm not military, I've don't have a military background, but I have spent a number of years, as we've talked before in San Diego and lived out there for about 15 years or so. You can't avoid being around, around the impact, the influence, if you like, of the military services, particularly Navy Marines.
Right. Um, and really enjoyed it. I, I, I loved it. It sort of, it gave the place character and it's a beautiful part of the world. I do miss it from time to time. And it's already such a melting pot, California, especially over on the coast over there. So that's at the military, which is a huge melting pot. And then you got all of that.
But yeah, like you said, it's hard to go over there. And I, I have been friends with women before who lived over there and you know, they're on the dating apps and it's like, oh, this guy, they're all military. You know? It's one of those areas, like I've talked about on my show before, certain areas that are prominent and known for military bases.
Sometimes they'll have bars where the women will just walk up to you and say, what rank are you? You know, it's like, wow. Quite the town to live in. But yeah. Steve, you know, I kind of mentioned that you have some platforms, so why don't you tell us about that? I know you're a big Facebook guru. I'll deem you, I'll label you.
I don't know if you consider yourself a Facebook guru, if you're a Facebook overlord, what? What would you call yourself? Well, that's flattering. Yeah. The real Connect was just is was one of the sort of meet and greet events that I run on a Facebook group. I started a Facebook group recently, probably the last two and a half months or so.
And although I've been on Facebook for forever, you know, sending. Pictures of the babies and the family from around the world and stuff really pivoted recently into using it for a platform specifically to promote sort of what my purpose is in terms of coaching, personal development, and turning, you know, turning managers into leaders.
And so to that end, my personal page and also my Facebook group are really geared towards that, that that project or that program, the managers who lead, so the Facebook group is called the managers who Lead. And also I've got a presence on LinkedIn to that end as well. Again, speaking to that personal development coaching space, which is something that with, uh, quite a long career in it, which has been always about around the technology.
It became very apparent that the people matter. The people matter more than the technology. They make the technology worthwhile. And so pivoted into a more coaching career. Coaching space has been, has been really, it's been good for me and the, the time of life that I'm in. And it's been good because it's opened up so many more contacts and people around the world, such as yourself, you know, that, that have got a platform that are trying to make something, trying to make something happen in their space, you know, and that's so important.
We, we need to have vision and we need to have, we need to have a vision and a voice and, and like you said, what you're doing in your space is really powerful and that's pretty what, that's pretty much what I do. So I'm enjoying it. As I said, I've been around it for decades and I said, this time of my life, it's really important just to kind of be in a place where I can serve and really just lift up people.
Right. You know what's interesting is you're kind of, you know, I'll, I'll say rare in the field because all the. Transformation and life coaches and all the speakers I talked to, they all kind of have the opposite story. Most of them saw the negative side of leading. They experienced the people didn't matter.
The people were less important than the job or whatever. Same with me, right? I had a lot of toxic command climates and leadership where the people didn't matter. You know, the job mattered more. And in the military right, it's a little more understandable. Sometimes the mission is more important. But there's a lot of times in military where it's, you know, the whole military isn't, there's not always a mission.
There's a bigger mission, there's smaller missions, but there's not always that kind of mission, right? And so there's no excuse for it. And even in the civilian world, I experienced toxic leadership and you know, there's a lot of changes going on in the world and a lot of changes in leadership. But if, if I'm understanding you correctly, you saw the good side of leadership and you want to, to spread that because you're saying you saw that.
Maybe it wasn't the leadership, but like you said, you saw that the people were more important, and so you're like, well, if we work on people, if we improve the people, then everything else is gonna follow. And that's a great mindset to have. Yeah. And that some of that is informed by the dangers and hazards and problems that people have been put in, put into.
So it's, it is, you know, when you see a problem, there's two ways you can deal with a problem. You can see the problem and justify why it's a problem, and then just kind of entrench yourself in that position that it's a problem, or you can see a problem and then pivot to looking for the solution to the problem.
Right. And then that sort of, it doesn't diminish. The presence of the problem, but it gets your focus on the solution. And sometimes it's, sometimes we like ease, we like things to be easy and it's so much easier to complain about the problem than it is to look for the solution. So, you know, a lot of the stuff that I, that for me it is really there is something that's not quite right because often that's what triggers or activates us to take action, right?
And then the goal is the action that you take should not be just to exacerbate or dwell on the problem as much as it is to sort of seek a solution and be careful. 'cause sometimes some solutions can actually add to more problems. You know, you talk about the military have missions and then, then sometimes you know the mission is big and you need to get it done.
And other times, you know, it could just be driven by activity. You've gotta keep a bunch of, a bunch of first time quality impression, you know? Yeah. You don't wanna. S get a solution that creates more problems, like you said, or makes you have to restart all the way over again. Yeah, yeah. And, and people often do that.
But you know, it's funny you said there's two ways we can kind of look at problems, but I'm, as the comedian in the group, I'm gonna give you a third way. Uh, this was trending a couple months ago and it, I'll say you could apply it to your, the problems in your life, which is you can double it and pass it to the next person.
You know, the trend was someone would come up to you with ice cream or money and be like, do you want to take what it is now? Or you can double it and pass it to the next person. And as funny as it is often true that people, you know, will pass the problem on to someone else and sometimes in a worse situation than, than when they got it.
Yeah. And then another thing I, I couldn't help but think of is you said people want it easy, which is so true, especially the younger generations now with the instant gratification, the low attention span, the not wanting to work hard. Which isn't all of them, of course. But because you and I are recording on a Sunday morning, as soon as I heard easy, I couldn't help but think of the song.
You know, I'm easy, like Sunday morning and Oh, you know that Commodore baby? Oh, I was gonna sing it, but I figured, Steve, you're the guest and I wanna give you the honor of singing it. Oh, I, no, I don't have the, I don't have the voice for it right now. It's my, I'm actually sound a bit gravely than I usually sound, but yeah, don't, it wasn't from drinking tea last night.
That has a lot of grab. It was, it was a little, maybe twisted tea. It looks like tea. It didn't taste like tea, but there you go. Right. We keep it, we'll keep it like that. Although I, I, I should have had a cup of tea before I joined the call, but nonetheless, that's fine. I've got my water here, so I'm good.
But yes. Yeah, easy. We do like easy. And whether it's like a Sunday morning or, you know, and then doubling, passing the buck, you know, kicking the can. That's something that we. It's a scary thing to do sometimes because sometimes it's good because it, you are, you are giving people the opportunity to learn, you know?
Right. I can have that tendency where I want to fix everything because I want to own it, and it's my duty to do so, and then not realize that I've actually, I'm actually preventing some other people from having the opportunity to serve in the way they want to serve. And sometimes kicking the can or passing the buck in that respect is actually a, a good thing to do because it, it engenders other people to the mission, you know, to the purpose.
It's not just about me. Other times it is just you being lazy and you just don't want to do it, and you're now giving people the clap jobs because you know you can, 'cause you're the boss or because right. So you gotta watch that. You gotta watch yourself, watch your title, watch your life in doctoring closely, bro.
You know how that goes, right? No, I, I agree with you that, you know, if there's an opportunity to growth, we should foster that. But you know, and always being there too, right? That if it's something that can't handle, you know, that we're gonna be there to back them up, you know? But a lot of people want to like drop it off and leave.
It's like, see ya. Don't bother me about it. Now, Steve, were you a leader in the IT world at any point in your time, or like a manager of a group, did you mentor people at all while you were working?
Yes. Yeah, I, I did, I mean, I came in, I came into it, um, straight outta college. Um, and I major myself now. That was back in the late eighties, so I've been in the, in that field for quite a while. A lot of the, a lot of my roles were in, in support, customer supports, customer service, so it support, which. I say that because the focus is on serving the client, serving the customer.
So you got to see, you got to see how technology really helped people get things done and get over the hump. Right. You know, you'd walk in as a, you'd walk in as a troubleshooter and they don't want to see you, but they're glad that the, they're glad that you're there. 'cause you're right. Yeah. You know, you've got that love hate relationship.
You've got that mindset and then it sort of, it transformed more into managing resources because that's where the management comes in terms of IT management. So whether it's servers, services, internet products, then your, you know, your managing those resources that you can manage at scale to clients. And it's interesting 'cause you pulled back a little bit away from the clients because your services are being scaled, therefore your touch points with customers are smaller because you've got more customers to serve.
And then it pivoted a little bit more from there in terms of managing a team. Were delivering services. So I managed, at one time in my career, I managed a team that was globally based, three continents, and they were providing support services for our software, US based company, actually based in San Diego.
And I joined them from San Diego and then actually moved back to the UK and was working from the UK with that company. And we had people across the us, Australia, as well as Europe. So that was an opportunity to really serve the people that were serving the customers and ensuring that I was managing the resources that made them successful, and then also leading the team in such a way that they can feel that they were valued, they were heard, they were appreciated.
And those are sort of touch points that. Looking back now, I sort of formulate what I'm saying now in terms of what I was doing in the moment. When you're in the trenches kind of dealing with a situation, right? I've got my boss that I need to serve and support, and I've got my team that I need to make sure that they're, you know, on task, we're doing what we need to do and so on.
So that form of leadership is important. I think leaders have to be good followers if you, okay, there's so many references, his story in fiction, in in religious literature, in terms of being a good follower and dares you to becoming a good leader. It's just a matter of who you're following, you know, and who you're leading.
So that's really important in terms of being a good follower. And then, and then just being empathetic. A lot of my roles came from me doing the job as well. So there's a bit of a mentoring as well as a leading component to that. That's not to say that you cannot lead someone. In a role that you yourself have not done.
Right. Right. Because it's a different skill. And I think sometimes in coaching for, I say that 'cause of coaching, the coaching and mentoring are two different things. And, and right. When you're coaching you don't necessarily have had to have had the same work experience as the person that you're coaching the coachee because you're bringing a different perspective, a, a holistic view, a 360 viewpoint to helping that person get better.
You know, so the sporting analogy is the classic one in terms of, you know, the world class coach may not have necessarily had a world class medal themselves, but they are very acutely skilled in pulling out the best in the people that they're coaching and or the teams that they're coaching. So in that respect, they have a very different skill to the athlete.
And in sports, we recognize it. In the work world, coaching in the US it's a bit easier. People understand the metaphor of coaching in a professional context. In the UK it's a little, it's a little bit more skeptical, I think. I feel that it's only the C level really can adopt it, and Okay. And people in other ranks don't necessarily lean on coaching.
They sometimes think of it as a, as a remedial issue, a remedial solution as opposed to a performative solution. So in that respect, if you say you're being coached, it's because you probably did something wrong. And you, you mean, you know, you need to be fixed. Oh, I get where you, as opposed to coaching because you want to, you know, you really want to aspire to the next level and the, the company values you and sees the investment in your skillset as a right, as a value to the business.
So, interesting mindset. So answer your question. Yeah, I, I was gonna say, it really is, I guess there is that stigma where it's like, oh, if you need coaching, if you need training, or if you have someone helping you, it's because you're not good enough on your own, or you, you did something wrong. But, you know, Mike Van Pal had come on my show from J Man Podcast and he was talking about how even he as a life coach and a podcaster and a successful one at that has podcasting coaches, has life coaches, because he said as, as a man, it's your duty to always be learning and growing and, and tapping into all the resources to best take care of you and your family and, and the people around you, especially as a leader in a community.
And so I think that negative stigma, I, you know, I'll say it's negative because it's like. You know, same with tutoring, right? If you're getting a tutor, it's like, oh, well, well you're stupid. Well, it's like sometimes we just wanna tap into all the resources we have, you know? And, and learn as much as we can to best perform.
You know, there's a difference between poor performance, you know, performance, and then our best performance, you know, because plenty of people can perform, but they're not at their best. And it's because they're not tapping into resources to pull out, like you said, sometimes we can't even pull out our own potential.
It has to be someone else. And so, speaking of the coaching, you know, there's a lot of different life coaches in life for different things, right? Like I said, there's coaches just for podcasting, for voice, acting for, you know, combating addiction, for family, for relationships, all these different assets. So what do you specifically focus on?
Is it just. Anything going on in, in their, your clients' lives that you can help them with? Or is it specifically on leading and managing, or is like certain aspects of their life? Hmm. That, that's a good question. And, and just before I answer, I just want to come back to what your guess was saying in terms of being the best you can be and, you know, so being the best man you can be to serve and lead in your community.
And I would, I would go further that, that, that doesn't preclude, that doesn't include anybody growing themselves in terms of, you know, women leading their households and really serving their families, communities, serving their workplaces. So I think that that is an, that is a human aspiration once we stop focusing on the problem.
Because if someone says, why you can, you're getting a tutor because you are, because of, because you're stupid, quote unquote, right? Then they're focused on the problem. As opposed to recognizing that you're, you're getting a tutor because you want to get a better grade, which is the solution. Alright. Or the, the goal, the aspiration.
Right. So, and ties into answering your question in terms of where I see my, my, my focus is I tend to, I tend to have empathy in the spaces that I've got experience in. And that would be in that sort of managerial business space where people have ident, I've identified themselves as a someone in charge of people in some capacity.
And they want to do, they want to do that better and they want to do that with, with understanding, with empathy. Being conscious in terms of their leadership skills and not necessarily C-Suite. I mean, it tends to be that all the top leaders can walk around and profess all of their coaches, and coaches can always advertise their high ticket fees because they're dealing with people at the top of the industry or top of the, the organization.
Um, my my heart lies with that, that middle manager either, you know, you're a VP or director of a business and you have direct reports above you and you have peers at your level and you probably have subordinates people that report to you. And in that space there's a lot of moving parts and sometimes the moving parts are how you deal with the things around you.
And sometimes the moving parts are how you deal with the things inside you. And to that end, the things inside you are tend to be universal. You know, if you are coming to, if you come to work, you know, you have a mindset that all the company has a mindset that says that, you know, you leave your problems at the door and you come in and do your eight hours and get your stuff done.
Right. Meet the goals, meet the, you know, get the numbers and you know, we've, we'll exchange your effort for this salary and we are all part company and that's all well and good. And that in the old days, that would work. You know, back in the old human resources days when people were human capital, you know, we almost called that back in the day.
You were a widget maker and that kind of worked, right? Today's workplace, and not even COVID because I think it was a pre COVID movement. It was just people, the younger people were work, were trying to work out why they should work and who they should work for. I. Right. And they're looking at values and qualities of companies and organizations Yeah.
And things like that. So that was important information plus the nature of work. Internet meant that you didn't have to be where the work was, which means that like, we are having this call and we're, you know, we are seven hours time zones apart. So it meant that people, it made it harder to determine where you were when you were working.
And that means that you can't not bring your stuff to work if you've gotta drop a kid off, if you've gotta, if you've gotta take a doctor's appointment, if you've gotta go see a, a recital or a sports game, you know, there are things that will impact the way you feel about your work if it impacts on your life.
So it's important for us to. Ensure that this work-life balance is a, is a, is a mirage because, uh, I don't think it works that way. Assuming that it's gonna be like a seesaw that you have to keep in perfect balance is not the way it works. It's always moving, right? It's in flux. The balance is that it's moving and you know, so that respect means that you can walk into a, you can walk into your job and say, I'm running late.
I've gotta get out early. I'll get the stuff done, or I'll pick it up later. And having that sort of flexibility, you know, you have a, you come in, you know, God forbid you're having an argument with your partner, spouse person, you, you know, person that's important to you. And you walk into a, a meeting and you can't help but carry some of that stuff into the meeting.
Right. And you know, you're doing all you can to suppress. The feelings that you came into the meeting with, alongside the feelings that you have with a subordinate or a boss that is activating the same emotions that you had at home, right. With your partner. So all of this comes into play. So the, the, the, the, the long answer to a very short question is that there's an element of the mechanics in the workplace and in, in that context of work, which I can relate to.
And there's also the mechanics of the human experience in terms of how you deal with understanding your emotion, understanding your, sort of, your psychology, understanding, you know, sort of how you, how we function and how we, how best we function. The importance of communication and the importance of empathy and understanding one another.
And then having tools that can help you along the way to just kind of be a, a better person and, and maybe some dates and advice Mr. Whiskey too, you know, if you wanna catch that. Oh yeah. I mean, I can, uh, now that, now that you've got no, now that you've got no beard and mustache, we have to, to shift that profile a little bit.
Oh yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Well. I actually have some questions for you off Mike. You know, go for it. I think I was, I think I was, uh, friend zone the other day and she said it was because she's the same age as Steve Wright. She wouldn't tell me her age. She just goes, I'm the same exact age as Steve Wright, give or takes five to seven hours.
And I was like, well, I don't know how old Steve Wright is and, you know, but anyway. And that's not a joke that actually happened. I think it happened on my show or her show, if not both. But anyway, ladies and gentlemen, what I wanna to say, and I'm just gonna jump in there real quick. The lady that you're referring to is an amazing lady, and it's, it's interesting when you meet someone and you say, oh, when's your birth?
You know, my birthday's this month. And they go, oh, mine's the same month. And then they go, well, what day is it in the month? And then you say, the day in the month. And they go, oh, wow. We've got the same day. And then you go, well, what year were you born? And then you realize that you've got the same year and you can't help but go down to like, what time of the day were you born?
Right? Right. So to me, someone in the world that is that close, they were actually on the earth. We were on the earth hours from hours from each other. Is is nice to, to the point that y'all could have been swapped at birth and that would've been quite the, uh, story. Uh, well, she's age, she's right in the, in the woman we're talking about don't exactly look the same.
Uh, for a couple reasons. But it's funny, for those of you who caught last week's episode as in the week prior to this episode, she just told the same exact story you told in almost the same exact fashion. So that's hilarious. So we're both, we're both twins. You're meeting the birthday twins from other mothers, but yeah, anyway, very different mothers.
That aside, um, I was gonna say, you bring up a great point, Steve, which is almost like. The workplaces nowadays are kind of being forced to be flexible because they're, it is at the point where so many people are working from home. So many opportunities for remote work are available that if workplaces aren't offering flexibility, they're gonna lose their employees.
Because why would I work for a company that's not gonna be human and say, Hey, you were running late, this or that, especially when you're still getting the work done. When I could go work from home making maybe the same, maybe more, maybe less. And so I, I agree. You know, it's, and, and when you said the morals thing, that's a huge thing.
I remember when I was in high school, we actually had a thing where we had to research the morals of companies. And I remember the one company I researched wasn't treating employees right. And they lost, there was a huge movement against them. You know, nowadays everyone's suing for everything. So if you're a company and you're not treating your employees right, like the.
You said human capital and now we're human beings again. You know, I, as funny as that is, that's kind of how it is. Where's like the work-life balance is being pushed more and more because companies weren't keeping work-life balance. They just weren't flexible enough. You know, work was always more important.
And I've had a lot of military guys on the show complain about not being able to achieve work life balance in the military. 'cause it's different. The military is the, you are showing up to work regardless, you know, otherwise, like, as my friend said, there's gonna be a man at your door knocking at 3:00 AM So, but like you said, you know, having the weekends, having, you know, every time I go to the gym I always complain 'cause it's always packed.
I'm like, who are all these people? Like, why don't they have jobs? And then, you know, my gym partner will always say they do, they just work from home. They can, they have flexible hours. It's like what happened to the nine to five? Dolly Parton wrote that song for nothing. Come on working nine to five. What happened to that?
And it annoys me. As someone who works from home and is trying to take advantage of going to the gym during non-traditional hours and the road is packed no matter what time of day, I say, why aren't these people at work? What is this a lunch break, a five hour lunch break anytime of the day? And you know, it's also just a point of the population in America is getting to the point where there's always someone where who has a day off the same day as you.
But yeah, the company morals and why should I work for you? Really, companies don't have much to offer nowadays because there's competition everywhere, right? There's money being offered everywhere. So you have to offer more than that. You have to offer a lot of good benefits. You have to offer the, we're a family and we mean it.
Like you said, that the empathy and another thing you addressed is, uh, leading peers of the same level. That is one of the most difficult things in the military. Because one, you're always put in a position of leadership as someone fresh outta high school sometimes. Sometimes you're only 18, 19, or 20 and you're leading people older than you or people who have been in longer than you.
'cause like you said, it's not based on job skills. When you talk about being in a position and not having all the skills or having lived it, right, like the, your sport example, sometimes in the military, it's a matter of numbers. Hey, we need someone to fill this spot. Or Hey, wow, you know, because you score slightly higher on this or that.
Now you're gonna be in this position that has nothing to do with this score you got on the test. Or because there's a lot of favoritism, rank ups in the military. Yeah. But one of the things I found the most difficult is when you're in those less official positions of leadership that they have among small groups in the military, such as class leader or division leader or this and that.
Your peers don't wanna listen to you 'cause you're working together. Living together too, which is a huge thing. Mm-hmm. You know, there's no, part of respect is the privacy that you have between yourself and the people you're leading, which you have in the working world. You know, it's harder when you're a military guy or gal and they're like, well, we went out to that for call where you got drunk and, and you, you were with a lady boy.
You know, like they hold that stuff over you, you know, like it happens. Oh yes. Uh, and I'm talking from personal experience, by the way, you know, but I have been in those leadership positions before where it's like, how do you lead a bunch of other 18, 19, 20 year olds who just want to goof off in the military, who are also dealing with so much at home?
Mm-hmm. As well as work. You talk about bringing baggage and you know, the leave work at work home at home. Yeah. I mean, who can honestly do that? And I'm sure I have a bunch of listeners out there saying, I, I do it, Mr. Whiskey, you know, but it's very difficult. It takes a lot. I. Of mental discipline, accountability, and practice to truly leave work at work and home.
At home. Yeah. I mean, how can you exist? Not thinking about one or the other, especially like you said, with the at home. I've had meetings before. I've had episodes where, like right now I was just fighting with my dad, uh, because he's talking about satanism and I'm a preacher on my other show, and we're arguing and I get on the show.
But it is like, you know, luckily I'm able to get into the mindset. Yeah. I have a, a funny guest here to crack some jokes and, you know, there you go. So it's a good time. But, you know, and actually one of the people I admire the most, Kimberly Spencer, she just posted yesterday about how she landed one of her biggest clients and right before that meeting she had a miscarriage.
And how, as a imagine being a mother going into a meeting, just having a miscarriage, that's one of the most painful and difficult moments for a woman. And she was talking about how she had to, you know, put on the front and, and so props to that. To, one of the things with the remote work is it's a lot easier to not bring that baggage in 'cause you're just hopping on the meeting and then you're at home.
You know, you don't have to commute, you don't have to be stuck at the workplace all day. But people do need to still. It's also creating that unhealthy habit of being able to bring baggage to work without consequences. Exactly. That are very prevalent and And prominent. Yeah. But there's, like you said, those background consequences, especially if it's reflecting into the way you're treating people.
I actually left when you were like, your boss treats you just like your significant other. Yeah. So it's like, like if, especially if you have a narcissistic boss and you're dealing with your narcissistic partner and then you get to work, you're like, not this again. Can you share with us, you know, you talked about a lot of good leadership qualities and stuff, but I.
Have you had any bad leaders in your life? I know before you were working at it, I'm sure you worked some, you know, jobs here and there. I mean, can you tell us about any, any funny or super serious stories about like bad leadership that really like Yeah, you were like, this is not it. Yeah, there's, I've had great.
Not so great experiences within my IT career and a couple of summer, a couple of summer jobs and holiday jobs that have been funny in the sense that I wasn't the one that was vindictive that other people have. But, but I wanted to come back to something you, you started by asking, you know, how to manage peers, you know, and especially your, your example in the military where you can literally be a couple of point grades different from somebody and now you're leading them.
Or you could be a, you could be, you know, in your late teens leading people that are, you know, that, that have got years on you in that space. And it made me think, I blame schools man. I blame the school. Prefect. You know, you know, you, the whole monitor, the people who used to, who used to be given a badge, man, you depu, you know, the teacher deputizes some kid in the class and then all of a sudden the person with the badge is busy authority.
Yeah. So busy showing off the badge to make sure that they let everyone know that they have got this, they've got this role, and. You know, it's funny 'cause we don't do things, we don't, we as humans, we tend not to do things with a bad intention, but often the things we do can end up with a bad consequence, right?
So, you know, the teacher says, oh, you know, little Susie in the corner. She's so nice and well behaved. I like her. So she, because she's well behaved, I'm going to make her in. I'm going to, I'm gonna reward her by making her right the class monitor. So she will be, may not have any leadership qualities at all, though.
You've not taught her anything except the fact that you like her. And then now all of a sudden, Susie, now if she likes the teacher or looks up to the teacher more than she looks out for her peers, she will look up to the teacher, take the new role, and then fish lord it over. Her friends. And all her friends are like, Susie's such a whatever.
You know, they fill in the blank mess up. Yeah. Kiss up. That's the ego. That's a good acronym. Teacher's pet, she's a kisser. Exactly. And, and it doesn't engender Susie for her role. Right. The teacher hasn't prepared her for, for that kind of responsibility. And she wasn't picked out of the group to lead the group.
Mm. You know, so in the workplace, a lot of times sort of the best leadership is usually ascribed leadership, where you people get together and go, we need to do something and we need someone to be in charge of X. Let's all agree that Steve is in charge of X. And well, Steve, are you okay with that? Well, yeah.
I'm okay if you are okay. Yes, we're okay. And now it's ascribed leadership as opposed to walking into a room and sort of saying, okay, everybody sit down. I'm the leader. This is what we're gonna do. And they go, well, who are you? Right? And then you've gotta spend all your time justifying who you are. And every time you justify who you are, they resent you more.
Because you've not told them, you not come from them. You know? Right. So all of that to say, to answer your question, it's like, yes, bad leadership comes from that place where it's not been ascribed where you rock up and someone says, I've been in this role 20 years. I know the industry inside out. I know what's good for the industry and I know what's good for you and this is why we're gonna do it.
Don't get me started on that. Well, actually, I have a lot of experience with the, I I, I hate the concept and it's a much more old fashioned concept that time on job equivalents to, to leadership qualities. You know, it doesn't, or that especially I've had egotistical kind of leaders who were like. I've seen everything.
There's nothing under the sun that I haven't seen. You know, I was here before you were even made, I was here 30 years before you were even made. And because I actually had incidents that at this acid plant I was working at where there were certain physical malfunctions and the boss was like, well that hasn't happened in 30 years, so I know it's not happening today.
You're lying. And I was like, why would I lie about this thing not working or this not? And it was fine. I took photographic evidence to him and you know, he just like shifted the direction to somewhere else, to, you know, as one does. It's like, well, why didn't you fix it then? And it's like, well, hold on. I would like the acknowledgement that in after 30 years, there are still things that can happen.
Yeah, definitely. People haven't seen before. Well, as soon as you were like, you know. I've been here for so long, so I know what's good for you. It's like, well, you haven't known me for that long. You know, especially when it's the, it is the new people, right? Or like you said, someone just showing up and it's like, well, I know everything.
Right? It's knowing the people is so much more important than knowing the job, because like you said, it's the people that create the beauty with the technology or whatever field you're in, right? So if you can get the people to work right, you can get the stuff to work right? But a lot of the old fashioned mindset is, we want this, we're focused on the stuff.
On the issue. People are solutions. Not always, some people are problems, but typically it's like the company's goals. You know, the, the tech is the issue, right? In it, the tech not working is the issue. The people are the solution. The people are the ones who can fix it, who have the access to the resources to fix it.
Yeah. And you know, and there's so many, even that, that story with you in the, with the, in the plant where you. You are all part of, you are all part of one system and someone says, I have not seen a problem in 30 years. And then you are closest to the issue and you actually see an issue and you do the correct thing in terms of reporting the issue to the system so that the system can, so that the system can adapt and fix it.
The analogy is like the body, if you stub your toe, your brain's gonna know, 'cause it's gonna go ouch, right? It's gonna know the toe is important because the toe reported back to the brain or the rest of the body that it just hurt itself. And it's for the body to now respond to that. You move away from the pain or you fix the issue, you assess the damage and you mitigate it or you fix it.
Punch the desk the same in a curse at it. Say that again? I said you punched the desk and curse at it. That's the uh, yes. Yeah. And if that's part of the issue, yeah, that's fine. And you know, at sometimes, you know, and the thing is, you know, the analogy kind of works. Sometimes you do have to cuss and then people hear around you go, what just happened?
You know, something in that system is not working because they just cuss some jerk, let this desk out in the open for me to stu my toe on. And then usually you're the guy who put the desk in the middle of the room. So, so the response in a, in a workplace should be Thank you for reporting it. Right. Thank you for reporting it.
It's a system that affects us all. I've been here 30, 30 years. You've been here five minutes. You found something. It's valuable, it's valid. Right. Let's deal with it. Not have an ego position sort of saying. Right. It's like the brains saying to the toe, who are you to interrupt me? Right. You know, you're saying doing so in stubborn toe, you're making that up.
Yeah. I'd be like, why would I make that? I'm, it hurts, like, why would I make this up? Like my toe is like, it looks like it's gonna face the wrong way if I, if I don't fix it. So Yeah. So deal with it. The denial, which I don't understand that. It's like why I have no, like you said, we're all part of a system.
Right. I have no reason to sabotage us. To lie to us. To hurt us. Right. If I'm reporting something, it's because I think it's is important to the system. Yeah. And so I don't get that denial other than the, well, I don't want to sound wrong because I said I know everything. I've seen everything and I haven't seen this.
Well, that's just like. That's why you shouldn't have put yourself to begin with in a position of I know everything. I've seen everything. No one on this earth has known or seen everything. No one at a company has known or seen everything. Mm. So the issue is people even putting them in that position to begin with, as a leader, you need to be humble and, and relatable.
You know, that way there's no reason to deny anything. Yeah. Our language, and it's interesting 'cause our language sets us up. It opens the door that we walk through and then pin ourselves into the box. So if you open up, if you open up the door of I know everything, and then you walk through that door, you're now pigeonholed, you're caught.
Right, you, the trap worked because now anyone coming to you with something has to come up against what you said as you knowing everything, right? So sometimes you gotta be careful in what you say because what you say ends up becoming what you believe and that that literally can pigeonhole you and your ego gets in the way and all of a sudden you're now trying to justify your existence against the system.
You know, something, some, someone reported an issue. Same in it. I mean, it is in, in some respects, it is kind of nice because it can be very black and white. It's very binary. You know, something's on or off and it's not working or it is working. And often if you ask enough questions you can, you know, you've got processes to get to a root cause of something.
At the same time. As much as that is very much a science, a lot of technology today is very artistic. It is open to interpretation. It is open to nuance. It is open to. Being aware of the surroundings. So you don't have a fixed position. It's not always on and it's not always off. And the bad places I've worked in it have had very fixed positions, very fixed mindsets, to the point where it was at the expense of people that had good intentions, joined organizations for good reasons, and found very quickly that they couldn't grow.
They, they couldn't express themselves, they couldn't add the value that they thought they could do. Mm-hmm. And they quickly left. And if you're churning people in your organization, then you got a, you've got a bigger, that's your biggest problem of being in business. I don't, I can't think of any problem bigger than that.
You could sort of say, well, I've got no sales. Well, even that can be fixed. If you've got, if you've got no sales, then that might question the business that you are in. But if you are turning people, you've actually, you've got people in, 'cause you've given, you've sold someone the job and they've come in the door and then you've turned them prematurely, they've left too quickly.
That means that you've not looked after that person, which means you're probably not looking after your customers and you're probably not looking after your product or services. Because if you're not looking after your people, then the whole equation's gonna fall. It's a house of cards. You can't keep that, you can't keep that going.
Right. You know, it's funny actually talking about the, the turnover rate. I worked at this one restaurant where we would get new people and lose people every single week. And when I first applied for the job and, and did the interview, you know what the, the leader did was just basically stereotype and crap talk.
Teenage women. And having just got outta the military, he's talking about them being lazy and not wanting to work. And I'm like, okay, I, I, I could see that, right? It's. Waitering at a restaurant. What I realized though, by the end of it, is that there, there is a turnover rate that's pretty high in the, in the restaurant industry, but to have new people come and leave every single week, there's gotta be a bigger issue, uh, such as the boss having various family members show up whenever they want.
Take the best tables, take the money, leave the table, it's dirty. Right? Which was one of the biggest issues, right? O other than the founder and and owner of the restaurant, constantly micromanaging everyone, including the managers, cha, manually changing their hours to not have to pay them like, like they would work 70 hours a week and it would go in and change them to like 30.
And, um, also never paying us our base money. I actually reported it all to the. Georgia revenue and department or whoever, like the labor service, and they never got back to me. And I was like, okay. So I reported this guy is not paying any of us. It's changing all of our hours. There's physical proof of it.
I have a long list of people who were affected by this. Well, I guess it's not important. I guess I just won't get paid for all the hours I worked. But yeah, it, it, it was awful, you know? And I took that experience. I was like, okay, so if, if the boss is really talking bad about all these people who are coming in and out, it requires a little deeper look at, well why are these people all coming in and out?
Mm-hmm. Because you can't just say, well, it's because young women don't wanna work. Right. Because there are plenty of young women out there who do want work. So what's the real reason? Like you said, if there's certain people in and out, either leaving prematurely, you know, people go into a job, typically even a part-time job, like, we're gonna do this for a while.
Yeah. So if you're seeing people get out within a certain amount of, of weeks or months, it's like you gotta question that and. Yeah, I totally agree. So it seems like, and you're talking about the IT word being black and white. It is either on or off. And the first thing I thought was, until you get that piece of machine that's like, well, it's on, it's off.
It won't make up its mind, you know, troubleshooting can be fun. It can be quite the, the difficult thing. You know, I'd done some troubleshooting on circuit cards and boards, and it's like, okay, we're just gonna test current flow through every single possible point we can because we cannot find, we there, I can't remember what it was, but this one light would not turn off right.
But it's like there's no power going to it. Like what's going on? We can't find any Schwarz or any grounds like what's, and it's like, ugh. Technology can be, it can be a puzzle and puzzles can be fun. Unless you're missing one piece and you can't find it, then it's not fun. So you some adventure. Yeah, and that's the, and that, like I said, that's the, that's the artistry, that's the artistry of our space as well, because, you know, it isn't, it's things aren't that black and white, you know?
And there is this, there's nuance and I said in the, in that, I mean my, my toughest difficulties areas of work have not been as bad as what you just outlined in terms of the restaurant trade. And some trades are, are more susceptible to, you know, higher turnover. Um, and it's not even a matter of skill level because you could have high paying consultants turn and churn in their work, and that could be a factor in terms of their longevity and their success, you know, and.
I say that because it's like, you know, yeah, certain industries don't, certain industries have that propensity to be more, more or less volatile and restaurants are one of them, but it's the same thing. The thing as people walked in the door to get the job, and the irony is that as quick as they turn, as quick as they turn over is as quick as people fill in the vacancies, at least walking in to be interviewed.
The sad thing is that it doesn't take, it doesn't take much. It doesn't take much to keep people around. You just show them that you care. Right. Well, you know what his mindset is something that I wanna point out that we kind of haven't touched on, which is seeing your people as irreplaceable, but his mindset, he said to me, you know, how many college kids are out there wanting to work at a restaurant right now?
Left and right. I don't care who stays or who goes, I will fill in the spot. When you are working for someone who sees you as if he sees other people as replaceable, guess what? That makes you? You're not special. You're no exception. Right. He's gonna feel the same way about you, no matter how long you've been at at the restaurant, especially when he's screaming at his sister saying, he'll fire her even.
You know? But the point being is you wanna work for a company like you said, that cares about you and how do they care? They see you as a valuable asset that they're not willing to just throw away. But I wanna backtrack real quick and, and just for everyone who's listening. When I talked about his IT days and adventures, Steve got so excited he threw his earbuds out at me like he dumped in his seat.
He was, he like had a jolt of energy. He was like, woo. Lemme tell you Mr. Whiskey, that the days of the, it like brought him back to the, oh yeah. Glory days of circuit bullets, baby boards down with bad knees and he is got like flukes in hand and you know, you know flute that, that'll do it to you. People don't know the IT industries.
There's a lot of bending down and crouching down that it really destroys the kneecap. Right, Steve? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. My first job I. Yeah, my first job, I walked around with a scope man. I like you said, you, me, you mentioned flukes. Yeah. Fluke meters and scopes, man. We were looking for test points and, and checking, checking, checking the sign waves and making sure you had to fly frequencies and things.
It was crazy. And it's interesting 'cause it built a sense of artistry and mastery because you were working, you know, data was back then, data was, data was so big. You can see it, you know, I, I, I actually sold, I sold it out circuit chips nowadays, I wouldn't even, I wouldn't even touch anything. I wouldn't even touch a physical piece of equipment to fix an issue because it's all logic now.
A lot of it, a lot of that technology is logic. It's stuck in a data center somewhere and you switch out a con an entire. Board, physical board, which represents 20, 30, 40, 50 virtual machines running all sorts of things at that kind of logical level and not a physical level, which can make you feel, which can make you feel kind of disheartened because you're not, there's no, there's, it has lots of roles where you can't show what you've done for your day's work.
It's not like you built a cabinet. You were, um, like job satisfaction. Yes. You were someone who actually crafted something that lives in, that exists in the world and someone goes, Ooh, who made that? That's beautiful. You don't get that feel in, in a lot of it roles. Wow. I'm not saying there isn't some, because there is some artistry.
Like I said, there's art, artistry and craftsmanship in coding. Well, in building good products and good services, there is an artistry to it, and I think the companies that we endear ourselves to have really built themselves their brand and that, that artistry, apple comes to mind as a top of mind, right?
Just off the bat. But coming back to your, your, you know, your restaurant owner sort of saying, I've gotta convey a belt of youngsters that are just gonna come through and I can churn them as much as I like. His business model is obviously based on accepting that churn. My argument is that it doesn't, it's actually more work to deal with the churn than it is to actually look after the people.
We think it's harder work to look after people. That's why we often don't do it. We don't ask, we don't, when we ask someone how they're doing, you know, in the corridor at work, we ask that question, expecting them to say Fine and then move on. We don't want to, we don't want them to say, actually I feel like crap and you know, I've just been to the doctors and I'm waiting for a diagnosis.
Or, you know, my, my partner was out late last night. Again, I dunno what's going on. We don't want to hear that side of the answer. Right. We wanna just hear fine and then go on with that day. Right? Yeah. But sometimes you gotta be prepared for that, to stop for five minutes and look them in the eye and, and then wait them, wait for them to say what they're gonna say, you know?
Right. That goes a lot further than waiting for, you know, going through the corridor with everyone saying fine to you. So, right. That's important. Right. And now something I want to ask quite a while ago, which was. How did you end up in San Diego? You know, kind of, we've talked a lot about your IT life, the adventures of Steve Wright, the IT man, but what about, who was Steve Wright before the IT world?
You know, he was in the uk. He was in San Diego. He was running around doing what? Drinking whiskey maybe. Well, I, well, I, yeah, I started way back. My parents are Jamaican and they came to the, they came to the, the UK actually, I had, my mom was one of my podcast guests on my show, and it was a blast. I would advise anyone who's aspiring to podcast.
Go interview your parent, interview a loved one, interview someone that is important in your life, depending on what your podcast is about. If it's about like kinky secrets, maybe you don't want to interview your parents, like, so keep that in mind. If it's about like health and wellness, you know, sometimes we don't want to know everything about our parents or it's like the podcast is.
What life decision would I have made different? You might not wanna interview your parents 'cause they might say you, yeah, if I could've had a life about you Junior, it would've been a better time. I would've been a rock, a Rockefeller leg swinging dancer. You know, so, but, but you destroy my body. The, I guess, I guess, yeah, I guess the, the, there are gonna be some areas that you would, you wouldn't want to explore the kinky secrets that they might be yours or your parents.
I dunno which one's gonna be worse actually. You might wanna explore them. Depends on your personality. If you're hosting that kind of show, you might wanna know, you might wanna know what's genetic and what's not, they, that's very true too. But, but yeah, so, so like I said, Paris Jamaican, born and raised in the uk and.
Since we're going, since we're doing the full disclosure, we've got a long, it's a long format podcast. So I went out to the, I first left the, the UK at 18. I spent a year in Africa, in Zambia, and that informed my worldview much more than I even give it value for. It was a great adventure. It was a time between finishing high school and going into college and sort of took a year out and, and did that and that the chance to travel through six countries in the, in southern Africa.
And this was right. I went through South Africa and this was still apartheid days. You know, I was turned outta shops. I couldn't buy things, I couldn't attend certain places 'cause of my color and I couldn't eat or buy things or in shops because of race. And that was in it. That was an eyeopener for. And then fast forward, my dad has always been in technology and, and it was one of those things that, that bond us together.
He was always fixing things, fixing the tv, fixing the fridge, fixing the washing machine, had circuit boards out and he loved tinkering and making things work. And I really lit the bug under me to kind of move into that space and went to college and did that. And then moved into the workplace. And, and I had worked for some companies, ended up being self-employed.
I was self-employed for, run my own sort of PC consultancy, pre Y 2K, which was kind of interesting time 'cause everyone was worried about the world sky falling and the world closing at with zero, zero in and now we're 20, 24. It's crazy. And so did that for a while. Moved into, I actually was exposed to personal development through my, you know, one, it was that thing you want to do better as for yourself.
I'm self-employed. So there's no boss to send me on a course. I'm the boss and I send me on a course. So I ended up exploring a lot more of the, the personal development space for me to grow and develop. Came across Tony Robbins. Tony came to the UK in 93. I met him and was at his program at 93 and sort of formed a relationship with some of the people in his team and kept in touch with them and three years.
Three years later, I was actually in San Diego that Christmas and spent my first Christmas with Tony and his family in, in La Jolla. In San, in, in, in San Diego. And it was beautiful. Oh wow. I worked in his offices there and just got exposed to the power of personal development and some of the business of personal development 'cause it's a very big business and Tony runs a a, a large organization.
So that got me to the states. That got me to San Diego. I pivoted back into it 'cause of visa requirements that required me to work in my technical space, but always had that, always had the sort of backdrop of. Personal development. I understand how important that is. I read a lot, I think a lot, and I, you know, try and apply that where I see it can work for myself and for others.
So that got me there. Raised a family. I brought my family across the country, across the continent twice. So we had to go back to the UK for a spell with visa issues causing us to leave the States and I thought it was gonna be three months, you know, while we get the visas in place. It ended up being three years.
I came back to the UK for three years and interestingly enough, in that time I went back to college and I got a master's degree and then I was doing a, I was doing a speaking engagement in San Diego as part of my university training, my certificate. And actually I interviewed for a company that I used to work for while I was out there on that trip.
And then they sponsored my return. So. Swings in roundabouts. You know, life is life. I mean, I say that because it, life is very, you've gotta be curious, man. You've gotta stay curious, stay open because you don't know what door closes and another one opens. And you know, you, I don't believe in burning bridges.
I, I don't believe in carrying baggage either. Don't carry the bag, don't carry baggage, but at the same time, don't burn a bridge. So, Hmm, interesting. And ask the question. Yeah. For, for the most part. I, I got asked how and when did you meet the misses? And you know, you, oh, why That was, that bring back and forth.
So that's, that's the juicy drama we want to hear. That was a nightclub. That was a nightclub. Were you wearing a fedora? What I was I wearing? I wasn't. I can't, I can't remember what I was wearing. I was, it was a Friday night. You probably remembers more than you did. It was a Friday night, got paid handsome.
He was in a full suit. You know, we just got paid like the song says Friday night just got paid and we were four, four guys Get all up in this club. We were four guys. We were four guys. Just a couple of my buddies got together, Cru, we were cruising the streets of London. It was bizarre. It was bizarre. And, and back then you could drive through London.
Nowadays you can't. It's all, it's all ionized. You can't, it's all pedestrianized. You can't drive anywhere in London walking, everyone's working from home or has the day off it seems. It's just everywhere's. Too busy. I need. And I don't wanna live off grid, but I'm also like, there's too many people between me and the groceries, you know, go to the grocery stores and there was like, um, you know, cart jam between the deli section and, and the aisles because people couldn't, I don't understand that.
You got like seven carts all like in a circle. Like they're like all trying to. Go at the same time. So then, yeah, they're like, all right, we'll let you go. And they move, but then they move in the same way. And it's like that old game of like, which way are you going? Are you going? And I'm like, how can people just, I'm a complainer.
They say, you're not a good sailor if you're not complaining. And it's like you said that the traffic everywhere. Even in the grocery store, I've got cart traffic, you know? Yeah. So you're at the nightclub drinking tea. And, uh, well, well, well, here, full confession here. You heard it here first. Mr. Whiskey got this out of me.
I wasn't in the club, I was outside the club because the club was turning out. We, we got this so late, it was closing. And I don't know if this, I dunno if this tip fashionably. Yeah. I don't, yeah, I dunno if this tip works nowadays. 'cause I'm, I haven't been in that space where I'm, where I've been t trawling clubs, but it's been a few years.
Sometimes some being out after someone's had a good night out. It spills out into the street and it's a great place. It's quieter. You don't have to buy, you don't have to buy drinks. Everyone's been, everyone's had a drink already. Right. And people are still friendly, you know, they, they've come out with a good energy from the club.
So I actually, you know, I actually met, I, I met my wife then, and I think it was a few friends. We, they were eating a hamburger. They were out at a burger spot. And me and my bestie came up and my wing man, best friend to this day. And we started the conversation and that was how we met. No dating apps, none of that.
Right, right. Left or right. We would call because the younger generations like to speak in terms of video games and stuff. What, what you're telling us to do is what we would call spawn camping. You're camping and waiting right at the spawn point and then making your move, call it spawn camping. That sounded that.
So it sounds like your buddy is a good wingman. Have you paid back the favor? Have you been a good wingman in return? Oh, that's a good que That's a good question. I th You don't have to, you don't have to answer it if it's answer. No, just I think, no, I think I have, I think I have. I think what's engendered our friendship over 40 odd years now has been, it's important to give each other space and connect as if you had just met for the first time, or you had just met yesterday, whether it was a week ago, a month ago, a year ago.
You know, we don't leave it that long before we talk between talking, but whenever we catch up, it's fresh. It's, there's no remnants of, oh, you know, woe is me for not hearing from you and all that kind of stuff. Right. You know, it's important that people are, your people hear you out. They don't have to agree with you, but they hear you out.
And if they've got, if you ask them a question, you know, or you ask for their advice, only give it when you're asked. Don't give it when you're not asked. I think that's another key thing with our friendship is that I don't tell him stuff that he doesn't want, that he doesn't asked me about. And that's important 'cause Okay.
You know, because it's too easy to kind of, you don't wanna shape your friends regardless. Okay. Wow. Not because you've shaped them that way, you know? Wow. Steve came on the show gave us, I was gonna say, you gave us advice on leadership on work. On relationships, on friendships, on personal development. You are just a man of all of, of all tricks and trades.
You gave us advice on all the core aspects of life without having it planned, without even intentionally doing it. Wow. I knew you were gonna give us advice on leadership, but to top it off with the how to pick up people outside of nightclubs and how to keep friendship, that's pretty good because the thing is, ladies and gentlemen, take the friendship advice first because if you take Steve's advice for the nightclubs and it doesn't work, you're gonna need friends to fall back on.
You're gonna need those good, good friends by your side, so, and you're also gonna need good friends. To go hang outside the nightclub. 'cause you don't wanna go by yourself hanging outside the nightclub. That might be a bad time. You don't wanna do that. Yeah. Especially nowadays, you know, it is different times.
Uh, very myself, very myself. It's a great time. But Steve, thank you so much for coming on the show and do you have anything to leave us with? You kind of left us with a lot already. Like I said, all your information's gonna be in the description below and I'll try to find that if, if you send me the episode with your mom in it, we'll put that in the description below.
Oh, fantastic. It's not asking her weird questions. Ladies and gentlemen, I just wanna clarify that it's just a wholesome interview where you probably learned a lot that you didn't even realize or know. Right? It was like insightful. Yeah. Yeah. I learned a lot. I mean, and I guess sort of, sort of the couple of parting things I wanted to, you know, you asked me for parting comments or uh, or thoughts.
One is, one is, you know, we talked about, you talked about the 30 year job veteran saying that they've, in their 30 years of experience, they've never seen every, anything like this. Therefore, it didn't happen. They missed the trick by cultivating 30 years of curiosity, which means that everything that happens is new.
They got, they have a new perspective on things, even though they've been in the industry for so long. It should be a wow moment, not a, oh, I don't believe you moment. So I've been around, I mean, I'm, yeah, I'm, I said if I got a friendship of 40 years and I was in college in the eighties, then you know, you know, I'm up in age.
So that really does do math. I'm trying to do math because, uh, Matt does that, does aspiring celebrity crush won't tell me her age. So there you go. Crunch those numbers in the meantime. But, but, but yeah, so that, that being said, I think there is great value. There's great value in mining. Mining the wisdom of people around you, and that goes up and down and beside and left and right.
It could be the people that are ahead of you in terms of career, age, life. It could be the people that are following you in terms of, you know, younger siblings or friends in that space, and the people that are in your space, you know, that, that are next to you. We spend too much time assuming that we know what the older people think or the younger people think, or what our friends think and don't spend enough time actually exploring and sitting in the space that lets them tell you what they think, you know?
So me sitting there with my mom was special because it was a predetermined time to sit down and talk to her, like this show, you know, and you don't have an agenda per se, you know, you, you co-create as you go along. And you trust that you're going to come up with some gold and this has been great just talking with you and Mr.
Whiskey. So you know, you know that's gonna happen. And where it goes and how it shows up is just being real. This, we're not sitting there reading from a page of reading it from a script. And I hope that comes across, you know, when people sort of watch and listen to this. So definitely take the time, you know?
And if you're gonna ask people how they're doing, give yourself some time to get the answer. Don, assume that you could walk past, as you say, how are you? Because you've not actually given yourself time to listen to the answer. And you've mentioned mental health, and I just wanna touch on that in terms of, you know, our wellbeing and you and I feel your heart for the military in, in that respect.
You know, and the stuff that you do in that space to really showcase well, and it doesn't always, you don't have to necessarily be a seasoned, qualified, professional mental health professional to help somebody. Goodness sake, if you, you know, if you share a drink or you share a cigarette, or you sit down on a porch and have a conversation.
You don't know. You, you are an angel saving someone's life, you know? So I definitely believe that that happens, you know? So be open, be curious. Keeps you young. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, Steve is only 29 and he's done all this and you know, he's your Matthew's off. Yeah. They're like, well, he, he, he's young. We can tell he is young at hard, but, um, maybe he has an age.
Oh yeah. You know, it's funny, I, I love seeing a lot of military guys will post this, this picture and he goes, uh, it's, it is a picture of a man named Josh. He goes, me and mechanic isn't stressful way at all. And it says, Josh 25 years old, and he looks like he's in his sixties. And it's like a lot of military members will share that because there are some military members I've met who they're like, we're the same age and they're, or, or they'll be like, I'm 18 or I'm 20, I'm 25.
I'm like, whoop. My, my bad sir. I thought you were a, wow. I thought you had, uh, three kids in 1D UI, but it looks like not just 1D ui. Then you'll have those people that like, they're like, oh, well I'm at, I'm 32. And you're like, Ooh, you must not really, you must have one of those easy jobs in the military because then you look pretty young.
You must put lotion on your skin or something. Yeah. Well, you it that's funny. 'cause you say you, the way you say that now, it's like you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. You know? Yes. If you, yes, if you don't look haggard, you're not working. And if you look great, you got an easy job. I mean Yep.
And it is just like. It, it, yeah. It's like if you work hard and you have all callous hands, men respect you. And then women are like, Ooh, don't touch me. But if you get the soft hands, men will punch you in the face and, and women will love you. So it's like, we gotta choose, we're always fighting in a battle for approval that we can never win.
But as long as you're happy with yourself, right. You know, you know your age, you know your wisdom, you know your work ethic. So that's what matters. And, and, and the good Lord sees it all. So, yeah. ESD, thanks so much for coming on. And again, if you wanna just share with us, I know you got your Facebook groups and, and how can people find those and join those?
Where are you at on LinkedIn and all that stuff? Yeah, yeah. At ages. Place is, the Facebook group is the managers who lead. The managers who lead.com will get you there. And I'm on LinkedIn under my name Steve Wright. I put MSC at the end so that it kind of stands out. So M Steve Wright, MSC, that's my master's degree.
Does that stand for, is that like, so Master's of Science? It's a master's degree. It's, yeah. Right. Oh, okay. You had to flex on everyone. Thank you. Okay. Well, well, yeah, like, hold on. Let me include my degree even where people are, aren't looking for it, just to make sure they see it. Well, Steve White's a common name.
Steve and Wright are common names, so that Okay, that's a fair point. Yeah, I had to put something on there just to kind of, so they, they can see it. But yeah, those are the two places where I, where I hang out the most. And like I said, happy to connect and chat. I, I have a podcast that I do weekly, the one to one thing, and it's like this, it's conversations not necessarily as long a format, but certainly in conversations that that can inform enlight and inspire people to, to think more about what they do in their work, in their career, in their community, in their faith.
Those all important things. So. Love that. Awesome. Yeah, like I said, all those will be in the description below as well for y'all to easily find. And I highly encourage y'all, if you do join the managers who lead to join one of our, not our, his real. It's ours. Yeah, right. Zoom is like, I always do. The zoom is like mirrored.
So one of of Steve's real connects, you know, I was on there last time and it was a great time. I mean, I was on a couple shows afterward and stuff. It's a great place to connect with like-minded individuals, different minded individuals to grow as well. And sometimes you'll get a unexpected tour of someone's house full of artwork.
You know, there, there are, you know, it's like, it's live, it's real time, you know, human connection. So it is a great time. And so be sure to check out the Facebook group, join that and share with whoever else you think needs to hear this kind of stuff. You know, we're always looking to grow our platforms and reach as many people as possible.
So ladies and gentlemen. Be sure to share a comment and, and share with ever everyone, you know, whoever needs it, whoever doesn't need it. 'cause we never know what we need or don't need. So, yeah. Do thank you so much though. I know it's, uh, it's been a pleasure. It's time for you to go get your tea, right?
Yeah. Oh yes. Oh yes, yes. Tea and a biscuit. Oh, and a biscuit, okay. Yeah. Okay. A biscuit. Biscuit. Your biscuits are different because I'm no south. I almost said South America. South North America. So, you know, I got a different type of biscuits than you. I hope you enjoy that biscuit. Yeah. I will be seeing you soon for something else.
There's always something going on, so, but thank you so much for your time, man. That's great. We'll see what the next will connect. We got one schedule next week. I'll let you know when it's out. Thank you so much. Great to be here.
