Who we are as people has as much to do with how we are as leaders as any other facet of our experience. The story we tell ourselves and others contributes to how we both serve and set direction. Fluent in the nuances of these talents is Peter Lynch, who joins Brian Comerford and Nick Lozano to discuss the importance of sharpening focus, failing skillfully, and finding strength in our own ugly advantage.
Peter Lynch
CEO & Founder
Hitch Studio
https://www.peteralynch.com/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ugly-advantage/id1401460497
Pre Order Peter's Book The Ugly Advantage
https://www.peteralynch.com/book-sales/the-ugly-advantage
0:07 Opening
1:59 Intro
2:44 What is the Ugly Advantage
4:44 Story Telling
5:46 Story telling for leaders
10:04 Experiences
13:33 Mantra
16:46 Running to failure
20:29 Innovation
20:55 Failing Gracefully
23:04 Culture
26:11 The Ugly Advantage elements
31:13 Honesty
33:09 Authenticity
34:43 Mentoring
41:49 Recommended Books
43:24 Peter's Book The Ugly Advantage
44:02 Where can people find Peter
45:28 Closing
Books mentioned:
https://www.amazon.com/Fred-Factor-passion-ordinary-extraordinary-ebook/dp/B000FC1LH4
https://www.amazon.com/Obstacle-Way-Timeless-Turning-Triumph/dp/1591846358
https://www.amazon.com/Second-Rule-Transform-Confidence-Everyday-ebook/dp/B01MUSNFOO
https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0884271951
Peter's TEDx Talk:
Hosted By:
Brian Comerford
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briancomerford/
Nick Lozano
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-lozano-97356621/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NickLLozano
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Show Transcript:
Nick Lozano 0:07
Brian, so today, you know on Lead.exe, we have Peter Lynch joining us. Peter has a really interesting background. And we talked to him for quite a while, and he had a lot of interesting nuggets. What were some of your favorite takeaways from this conversation that people can look forward to hearing in this interview?
Brian Comerford 0:27
Well, I'll tell you what, we've had a lot of interesting folks join us on the program. But Peter is all about storytelling. And boy, do you get it, you get it? It's and what came out of our conversation? And and some of those things, I think, are also instructional. One of them was, you know, referring to the three point sermon, right. It's important that, that you, you break those things down. And there's structures like that, for a reason. Success always leaves clues was part of what I heard him say that, that I just love. Culture is the worst behavior you tolerate. That was another one that I
Nick Lozano 1:05
love that too,
Brian Comerford 1:06
Just stood right out to me. So he's, you know, full of a lot of years of experience. But I don't think that's necessarily what guides his wisdom. You know, he's a storyteller at heart.
Nick Lozano 1:19
He is definitely storyteller heart, and he's very good at, you know, it seems like observing his situations and being very self aware, and almost having that emotional intelligence. And one of the great things I think our listeners are gonna like is when he talks about fear and embracing fear and running towards it, instead of away from it.
Brian Comerford 1:39
All right, well, let's get out of the way of the exceptional discussion that we have Peter Lynch here, and we'll let folks get into the program.
Nick Lozano 1:46
Yeah. So enjoy.
Brian Comerford 1:50
Thanks for joining us for another edition of lead.exe. I'm Brian Comerford in Denver, Colorado.
Nick Lozano 1:56
And I'm Nick Lozano, Washington, DC.
Brian Comerford 1:59
And we are thrilled to be joined today with our special guest, Peter Lynch, who is the founder of hit studio. He is a speaker, and author and as well as an executive coach. So we're going to be walking through a variety of topics today. kicking it off with really what Peter has characterized as the ugly advantage, which is also the title of your new book. Is that right?
Peter Lynch 2:24
That's correct. Yeah. new book coming out later this year.
Brian Comerford 2:28
Okay, great. And that's also available on pre order right now from Amazon. If I'm not mistaken.
Peter Lynch 2:34
It's not quite yet. But it will be out shortly.
Nick Lozano 2:38
You can pre order pre order on his website, right. hitch.studio. Yep. Or studio. Sorry,
Peter Lynch 2:42
http://www.hitch.studio .
Nick Lozano 2:44
Peter is curious if you could just tell us a little bit of what the ugly advantage is. I know you had a podcast, I've listened to a couple episodes, one of the great ones I really liked was running towards fear. Yeah. And your whole perspective that that, you know, you go after things that you care about? Yeah, I wonder if you could just enlighten us a little bit about what what the ugly advantage is?
Peter Lynch 3:04
Yeah. So I mean, it's really a story of my life. And my experience, you know, it starts with me telling the story having grown up in rural Washington State, and I had a single mom, and she hadn't graduated high school, but she made some really brave decisions. To leave an abusive relationship. You know, I grew up in a single wide mobile home, surrounded by a fair amount of chaos, and never really knew or understood what was even possible. And from there, really starting this rise through corporate America to some of the, you know, biggest positions at some of the biggest companies in the world leading talent for empower retirement and leading global operations at Western Union, I mean, doing some really cool things. And I did it always from a foundation of authenticity. And from a foundation of really not just, I kind of say, it's the second level of vulnerability. It's not just being okay with your flaws. But it's this hard drive to love your flaws. So it's more than just accepting them, but it's loving them. And so that was really the Genesis and the start of this book. So I started to unpack this idea of what what does it mean to leverage your flaws as your advantage. And so in doing so I kind of framed this model of ugly, it's been unique. It's been gutsy and brave. It's been somebody that is likable. And then ultimately, at the end of the day, being yourself so being what you were designed to be. So that's the framework for ugly that I built.
Brian Comerford 4:44
And it's so cool. And I know for your speaking engagements, you like to frame things through the whole storytelling approach. Yeah. And really driving towards that, that key theme of authenticity that you sort of walked us through right there.
Peter Lynch 5:00
Yeah. And, you know, it's so funny stories, this, this kind of hit me. This kind of hit me like, probably 10 years ago, when I was listening to one of my favorite speakers top talk, Mark Sanborn. He's ultimately become a business partner, as well. And he had this quote, and he said, stories are the tracks that you hang ideas on. And so I remember when I heard that I, I had just started to recognize that I had actually been using storytelling my whole life and really didn't even know. And so I wanted to understand that so that I could become a better storyteller. And to me, there's no better way to build memory and connection with people than through stories. So storytelling is definitely been central to what I've done.
Nick Lozano 5:46
Now, I really like that idea of storytelling. I mean, if you think about it from from humankind, throughout history, in a story, time telling has kind of always been there, you know, gathering around the fire telling stories, and that's how you passed on tradition and knowledge. And I really like your your take on that, you know, so what what can leaders do when it like when you hear storytelling, most of the time people think of Oh, so So you want me to be a novelist here, I need to learn how to be a novelist to tell a story and tell details. But if you're a leader, storytelling is kind of important. It helps you frame your ideas. Can you tell us how you came about to knowing that storytelling was kind of important for you? From a leadership perspective?
Peter Lynch 6:30
Yeah, I mean, really, it was observing the best leaders that I knew, and watching them, and I saw them leverage storytelling, even if they didn't know they were. And then I really started to analyze, how was I as a leader, and when did I show up best, and storytelling was present at the times where I was best. And here's one great example. So I was leading the talent team, huge company. And, you know, for for millennials in particular, but really, for everyone onboarding is becoming more and more important in organizations. Day one, you know, Jason Dorsey found that day one actually has an 80% predictability on likelihood to stay beyond a year, it's really important. Wow, that they feel welcome. And so one of the issues that we had was, technology wasn't ready and technology not being ready on day one was one of the big three feeders for dissatisfaction on day one. And so I went to my talent acquisition team, and I said, Guys, I need you to help solve this problem. And I'll never forget, one of them looked at me and said, Yeah, but Peter, we don't own that. And I could have, as a leader said, it doesn't matter. I'm telling you do it. Or I could have tried to be inspirational, be like, I believe in you, you can do this. And neither one of those probably would have had the best results. But I remembered just the week before, I had taken my wife out to a really nice dinner, we have three kids. So we don't get to do this very often, we got a babysitter. When dinner's done, we go to get the car and we evaluate it, and one of the valets left with my keys. And long story short, it took an hour for that valet to get back with my keys. So we spent more time on the babysitter, we were there longer than we wanted to be just wasn't a great experience. And the manager comes up to me, and he said, Mr. Lynch, I just want to apologize. But I want to let you know, we don't own the valet. And I looked at him and I said, you know, you don't own the valet, but guess what you own, you own the experience. And I told that story to my team. And the guy on my team, who said, We don't own that. When I the minute, I told that story. I gave him a coat rack to hang an ID on and he got it. And he went and solve the problem. So that's, I mean, that is how storytelling is used. And that's how I've recognized its power.
Brian Comerford 8:51
That is such a great example. And I love that you used a story to explain the power of storytelling.
Well, you know, Nick touched on it a little bit. But there's something about being human where communication. It's not just about sharing experiences.
Peter Lynch 9:17
Yeah,
Brian Comerford 9:18
absolutely. The power of going to the movies. It puts us in a hypnotic state, right?
Peter Lynch 9:24
Yeah,
Brian Comerford 9:25
we're all willing to go to a place where we live vicariously through a completely different set of experiences. And part of that is to take that stories, experiences and make them part of your own
Peter Lynch 9:37
beautiful. Yes. And, you know, I love that you said that. That's actually when you look at the science of storytelling, I go through what what does storytelling actually do to the brain? One of the things it does is it creates this cortex activity that actually allows the person to make that story. There's so I mean, scientifically in the brain, biologically, it helps us connect to the story.
Brian Comerford 10:04
And then consequently, we find ourselves actually being able to take that experience and turn it into our own experiential knowledge. So yes, for better or for worse, some of the stories that we ourselves are selecting, right, whether or not we're conscious of the selection process that we're putting ourselves through. Yeah, ultimately affects the quality of our thinking, the quality of our decision making, even the quality of our own moods,
Peter Lynch 10:32
right. Yeah, no question. Yeah, I mean, there's, there's all sorts of amazing things that happen, you know, there's release of dopamine from stories, there's multi cortex activity that takes place. I mean, there's all sorts of biological things happening that are pretty powerful. And I love that, you know, you'd mentioned this, you talk about the idea of being human. And, you know, one of my favorite studies of storytelling from the past, is the idea of what are known as inukshuks. Inukshuks notebooks you've probably seen him like at the Whistler Olympics, the logo was an inukshuk it's these rock formations that look like people. And the word a inukshuk actually means to act in the capacity of a human. Now, they basically performed three functions. When these Inuit tribes were traveling long distances across northern Canada, they would scan the horizon find a inukshuk and they would walk towards that inukshuk. And when they got to it, they would scan the horizon and find the next. So it helped provide direction. And then when they were on this long journey in the middle of nowhere, and they saw one of these, they know that someone else had been here. And so it created this idea of community and connection. And lastly, if they were pointing to a field, or if they were pointing out until water, they basically told people that this is where you find food. The distance they were from the water is how far you throw your lines out. And so they helped with this idea of how do you feel mind abundance. And I'm thinking when I look at what people want, in an organization and a company, I think it's best said by Daniel Pink and his book Drive, but he said people want autonomy, mastery, and purpose. And if you think about those three things that I just talked about, I'm talking about, they want direction, right? They want autonomy, they want to know where to go, be self directed to get there. They want mastery, they want abundance, and they want to feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves. So storytelling, to me, is central to who we are as humans. So I love that you said that.
Nick Lozano 12:39
Now, like, you gave those things, everything that you know, human beings want it because lately, you can hear you could put that phrase and say that's millennials, right?
Peter Lynch 12:49
Yeah.
Nick Lozano 12:50
Brian, and I always get in this conversation. I'm like, you know, it's not millennials. And I think everybody wants to have a purpose, who wants to be doing something wants to be doing something and impactful? It's just not millennials. Maybe Millennials are the first generation that were allowed about wanting these things. But I feel like over time, you know, it's everybody wants that, not just the millennials.
Peter Lynch 13:10
Yeah, yeah. I love that. You guys say that. And I, a lot of times, what I'll say is, you know, this is attributed to millennials. But there's another group that it's attributed to, and I say, it's not the people that just started shaving their face, it's the people that just started shaving their ears. And that's me. And that's, you know, it's it's a covers a broad spectrum of people.
Brian Comerford 13:33
That is one of the unfortunate aspects of aging. You're lucky enough to get there. If you know, you have to start plucking hairs on your ears.
Nick Lozano 13:44
First world problems first.
Brian Comerford 13:48
Classic. You know, I love the fact that you put out just very key distinct points, right. direction, mastery, abundance, and yeah, those things seem to be, you know, clearly universally true, but also as a leader, being able to redact things down in the most succinct,
Peter Lynch 14:11
yeah,
Brian Comerford 14:12
type of messaging possible.
Peter Lynch 14:13
Yeah.
Brian Comerford 14:14
And, you know, not necessarily to turn it into a slogan, the way that advertising everything, but but really having something that almost turns into an affirmation.
Peter Lynch 14:25
Yeah,
Brian Comerford 14:25
you know, corporate vision, you know, becomes a driver for your workforce. And yes, people, that's that first message towards setting direction, what are some of the recommendations that you put out there, when you're doing your speaking engagements or your coaching, in terms of how you get to a place where you can distill? Yeah, what that message and what that story should be?
Peter Lynch 14:47
Yeah, and it's a beautiful point. And I actually like the word mantra, you know, because to me, a mantra kind of has some real depth in connection to it. And so what I always tell people is, your first pass is going to be way too big. And this has actually been one of my big lessons as an entrepreneur over the last 17 months, is my problem is never that I don't have enough ideas. That's never my problem. My problem is that I don't have enough focus. And that generally, is the problem with most speakers as well. You know, you, you look at the concept of water, water, which is soft, which if you know, if I go and turn on my faucet, put my hand and nothing happens. But if you direct water, with force and focus, it can cut through steel, you know, it's really powerful. And so I start there and say, you're going to go through a few activities of synthesizing and focusing what you want to talk about, and just know that when you've done that, you haven't gone far enough, that there's another step you need to take. And I always look at, I'm a big believer in studying the best of the best, you know, success leaves clues. And so what are people that do this all the time and do it really well? What are they doing? And one of the examples I use is, every weekend across this country, there are millions and millions of people that gather in buildings for religious ceremonies, and these people who spend their career sharing a message. There's a reason that they call it a three point sermon. You know, there is something to this idea that when you have simplified it to three points that people can remember that that's a really powerful way to so that people can remember the whole idea because ultimately, if everything's important, nothing's important. And so what you have to do is go back through and determine what are the key elements that you want your people to leave with?
Nick Lozano 16:46
Now, I really like everything you just said there. And I want to go back, something I heard you say in your podcast was about, you know, honesty and admitting failure. I think that's a trait that doesn't get addressed often, often enough. And I always kind of bring this up. When I talked to people, I have a good friend of mine. He's an engineer. And he says, You know what, I always love being proved proven wrong, because that means I've learned something. Right? Yes. So yes, I was like, wondering what your perspective is on on, you know, being honesty, as a being honest, as a leader and admitting when you're coming up short, or you have shortcomings.
Peter Lynch 17:23
Yeah, well, and this is why so you know, one of the things my wife has said to me in the past one time, she told me, she said, Don't take this the wrong way. And that's always an interesting way to start the conversation. You know, something's gonna come that you probably will take the wrong way. She said, Don't take this the wrong way. But I've never met somebody who just doesn't believe they're ever going to lose. And you don't necessarily have all the attributes of somebody who I would think with act like that. And why is that? And I said, Well, it's because I don't lose. And here's why I said, in every situation, I get one of two things, I get a reward, if I do it, right, or I get a lesson, if I do it wrong, and I actually in my life, have valued the lesson more than the reward. Because to me, the more lessons I learned, actually, the bigger the rewards get. And so I'm looking for lessons. So I love it when I failed, and I can learn from it. And I can do something with that. And really, it kind of synthesizes back into in my book, I have a definition of culture, because you know, culture is such a hot word in companies today. And I say, here's my definition of culture. It's not a vision or mission. It's not the words on the wall, the ping pong tables in the coffee shops. Culture is the worst behavior you tolerate. And here's the example. So I was speaking at a conference 1000 people in Vegas, and I asked them, I said, How many of you work at a company that has a culture of innovation? How many hands do you think went up?
Nick Lozano 18:55
All of them? I bet all of them.
Peter Lynch 18:57
Yes, every hand in the place going out. I said, Now keep that hand up. I said, Now, how many of you personally, with your team have sale celebrated a failure in the last three months, and six hands went up. I said, here's the problem. I said, You've told yourself a lie. So that you can sleep good at night, and you can feel good about yourself. But you don't really have a culture of innovation, if failure is not a common part of what you do. Because innovation is impossible, absent failure. And if your people don't feel empowered, you will never be innovative. So to me, this idea of feeling failure that we run away from is actually crushing the very thing that we want. When in reality, if we flip the model and said, You know, I'm going to run towards that thing that scares me something like fear, guess what's going to show up innovation? The very thing I want?
Nick Lozano 19:48
No, I love that. And I always bring this up with Brian, I'm like, a lot of people are pessimistic when they look at things, right. They always look at the bad side of something like, oh, we're not going to start that company. Because you know, I might lose my job, we might not have any money, you know, and, you know, five months, we might only have one customer and still looking at the good things that could possibly come out of it. Well, if we start this company, you know, maybe I can leave my job, do this full time, go on to other things, bring another revenue. So we always spend a lot of time looking at the negatives and very little time looking at the positives.
Peter Lynch 20:21
Yeah, for sure.
Brian Comerford 20:23
You know, Peter, I think it'd be interesting if there was a second question that you asked following the innovation culture.
Peter Lynch 20:29
Yeah,
Brian Comerford 20:29
innovation question, which is, how many of you actively discuss the concept of failing fast, huh? Yeah. And then book ended with the review?
Peter Lynch 20:41
Yeah.
Brian Comerford 20:44
Because that's part of the doublespeak also. Right. I mean, yeah. And the the buzz phrase around culture. You hear a lot of organizations talking about, oh, we're all about failing fast.
Peter Lynch 20:54
Yeah.
Brian Comerford 20:55
Nick, and I were just talking about, you know, really the the phrase that maybe my better characterize what's necessary is to fail skillfully.
Peter Lynch 21:06
Yes. Right.
Brian Comerford 21:07
Yeah. It's, it's to do it in a way that you're talking about where there is a lesson that's taken out of it. Totally, that's brought back into the process. It's not just like a fool. Don't do it again. Yeah. You know, let's make sure that we, you know, we make that part of our DNA going forward.
Peter Lynch 21:25
It's such a powerful point. And I actually love the way you phrased it. So I think I am going to give you credit three times, and then it's mine, but
Nick Lozano 21:33
no, great artist borrow, go ahead.
Peter Lynch 21:37
It's really good, though. But like, I love this idea of the value in it. And one of the things I did to as a leader to try and promote that was I created a monthly award that I called the bourbon award. Now, it's not quite what you think that would be a cool award, if it was bourbon. But it was modeled after the app BURBN, which was in Instagram's. first iteration, most people don't know this, it was called bourbon BURBN. And they launched it and it had check ins before Foursquare. It had social feeds before anyone had I mean, it had, it was really cutting edge, but it failed miserably. And so what the founder did is he went back through the logs. And he saw that almost everybody was doing two things. They were posting photos and using filters. And so what they did is they learned and leverage that data. They rereleased that as Instagram. And the rest is history, the fastest app ever. I mean, that, to me is the power of failure right there.
Nick Lozano 22:39
Yeah. And that that totally integrates your focus to right, taking the step back for a minute and look and saying, hey, these are what people are using. And this is maybe what we should be focusing on.
Peter Lynch 22:49
Yeah. And again, you think about it, they were doing like they had created new things. They had gamification, like where you could do a future checking in, if you showed up. You got points. I mean, they were doing some really amazing things. But they had no focus. Great point.
Brian Comerford 23:04
Peter, I want to ask you about your background, because obviously you didn't start out as a speaker or an author or coach, you You came up through the ranks. Yeah, really doing work around what you just talked about culture?
Peter Lynch 23:20
Yeah, yeah. So
Brian Comerford 23:21
yeah. So tell us a little bit about how that kind of shaped your decision to move into the story that you're now telling.
Peter Lynch 23:29
Yeah. So you know, really, my, my corporate career started with Gateway Computers, if you remember the old cow spotted box, many of us and, and I started, I just might, we had moved out to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, because that's where my wife's family was, and her dad had recently passed away. And so we moved out there to be around them. And I just knew I needed some company experience. And really the only big company there was gateway computers. So I got a job in, went to one of the country stores and said, Are you hiring? And they said, Well, we need somebody to teach people how to use computers. And I was like, Sure, I'll figure that out.
I took a job training brand new computer users how to use a computer. And I got some interesting stories out of that
alone. There's some fantastic stories, my favorite was, you know, when you're like, Okay, take your mouse and click on here, and there's people with their mouse on the screen. I mean, it was awesome. But I just I knew that if you get me in front of people that I had a skill to be able to help them get to a result. I didn't quite know what it was yet. But I knew that and so I started doing that was, you know, really successful, ended up moving into training at the call center. From there moved to Denver, Colorado took a job at Dish Network, and I took over all training for the call centers and the service teams and I just had a real knack for taking a message a lot of times a message that was complex like compliance, and really synthesizing that down in its simplest form, and giving people coat racks to hang those ideas on and getting people to change. So you know, all of those things bleed into storytelling, culture speaking, all of those elements. And so I just, I just began to double down on what I did well, and then what I did is I focused on building a team around me to backfill these massive gaps that I have, you know, that I'm not an organized person that I didn't have the strongest technical acumen, the beginning and, and so I started collecting these people that were the, yin to my yang, you know, really filled in those gaps. And those, those things that I didn't do well, so that I could maintain my focus on what I was excellent at. And so that's always been my team philosophy is double down on what you do well bring people in that make you better, and and then collect them and make sure that they're people that want to stay with you. And that's why I've had four or five people that have followed me to five different companies, you know, because that model just worked
Brian Comerford 26:11
Well that in itself as a cool story. Yeah. Something that I'd like to ask you about that kind of brings us back full circle to the ugly advantage. Yeah. You know, part of what you described with the ugly advantage is almost the flip side of the coin with the strengths assessment. Right. Yeah. You know, why? Why try to develop your weaknesses? Why not play to your strengths? Yeah, sort of a similar similar tale that you're, you're telling there. Yeah. kind of similar to what I asked you previously about, you know, from a leadership perspective, how do you how do you narrow the focus on to some of those key points? From an individual perspective? Right, yeah. What are those elements that are most necessary for, for me as a person or as a professional, to be able to identify and the story that I want to share outward with the world about who I am?
Peter Lynch 27:04
Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it's such an interesting dynamic, and it's really, you know, it takes some time to figure out, because I'm using words, but I'm using them in a different context than people have used before. So I talked about your weaknesses from the ugly side. But what I'm saying is, if you leverage those at correctly, those actually are tied to some of your greatest strengths. And so it's, it's a unique look, it's not saying, you know, I know I'm not good at organization, and that I will never leverage that into a strength, it's just not who I am. Okay. But I have some other things that are weaknesses that have a direct link to my strength. And what I do is I actually unleash my strength through that weakness. So, you know, a really rudimentary example is, you know, I never knew my dad growing up. My mom had left because of some horrible things. When I was 21. In college, I got a phone call from him. And it was actually a girl that was with him. And she said, I'm in town with your dad, at this point, I didn't know his name, I'd never seen a picture. And she said, Can you count? Can we meet you? And I was on my way to finals. And I said, Well, I have to go take a final. I said, I'll be back in 60 to 90 minutes. And she talked to on the phone to him, and he never got on the phone. And she said, Well will be gone by then. And you know, it was this almost secondary, you know, rejection, is really powerful rejection. And I remember thinking to myself, do you know, do I have what it takes to raise a family to be a dad? And you know, to me, that was seen as a huge weakness? Well, you know, I have three kids now, we just took my first to college, you know, I'm super connected to them. I, you know, I feel like we've built an amazing family. I could have, I could have stayed focused on that fear. But instead, what I did is I said, I actually believe this weakness can become part of the most powerful part of my story. So from a leadership perspective, what I think is most important, is that people look at what is their strength? I think it's still good to know that, but then to start to uncover, what are some of those things that those insecurities that I have that I think are my weakness, that might actually feed my strength to a whole different level? So that's kind of the connection that I think leaders need to do that a lot of times they don't. And the last illustration, I'll share around that, is you ever seen the Antiques Roadshow?
Nick Lozano 29:47
Oh, yeah. Yes.
Peter Lynch 29:49
Such a good show.
Nick Lozano 29:50
Yeah, yes. I cut this watermelon with the Civil War sword when I was a kid.
Awesome. I mean, the biggest prize is once you start, you're going to be there for a while, cuz that's all thing. But yeah,
it's it's, it's it's kind of like watching House Hunters, right? complaining about the people complaining about the house, right? Yeah.
Peter Lynch 30:11
But I was watching one episode, and this lady brought this silver vase on and you know, beautiful old vase, and the expert comes out. And they said, you know, this vase has got a lot of history, and it's valuable, and it's valued at $8,000. And the owner was like, That's amazing. That's awesome. And I remember the person though, said, but one problem, it would have been worth close to $80,000. But you did something. And what she had done was she had polished away the patina. So she had taken the thing that she thought was ugly, and she shined it and made it beautiful. And it actually lost its value because of that, because the value actually was in the patina. You know, the patina, was what she, you know, kind of showed its worth and its value. And so from a leadership perspective, I think you can still have great value if you shine yourself. I mean, you still can, but but you, you might actually be taking away the thing that makes you not just good, but Great.
Brian Comerford 31:10
All right, you just stopped me dead in my tracks.
Nick Lozano 31:13
No, that was that was really great. And we're kind of going back to the the honesty perspective, right? Yeah, it's almost like you're saying that you need to be honest with yourself, as well as with other individuals to get to get buy in? And that's what I'm hearing you, you say.
Peter Lynch 31:30
Yeah, and that's why, you know, when I talk about the why, and I believe that yourself, there's the great quotes, be yourself, because everyone else has already taken, but it really goes back to that honest conversation about yourself. And, you know, we tend to be people, especially in a world that is, you know, curated social posts. And we believe that that's a person's life, that we compare ourselves to something that's A fake or B further down the path than we are. And I always say it that makes no sense to continue my chapter two against someone else's chapter 10, I need to understand that my path it might be different than other people's. And you know, the greatest two great examples of people that really drive This, to me are Vera Wang, who, if you ask anyone, they'll know she's one of the best wedding dress creators ever. Well, she didn't develop a wedding dress or create her first wedding dress until she was 40. And then the other example, Stephen Covey, who wrote one of the best business books ever Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, one of the top selling books ever, he did not publish that book until he was 57. Now, again, most people don't think about these things. All they think about is why am I not there. So it's more than just a self evaluation of me against other people, but it's also me against myself. So my path is probably going to be different than other people's paths. And that's okay. And if I focus on my ripeness, and my path and what makes me unique, then I'm less apt to polish away the patina. And I actually might build greater value as a leader.
Brian Comerford 33:09
So from using the authenticity lens that you're talking about there, you know, really, rather than spending as much time as you know, a link LinkedIn profile would tell us, you know, this is how you need to polish yourself. Yeah, right about here's all the value. I think it's really better to just go with a, this is what I do. And this is how I do it.
Peter Lynch 33:31
Yes. Yeah. Well, and let me give you a little challenge here. This is a great one. I call it ugly video, which is unscripted selfie video, most people are really fearful of doing this. And one of the things I do with my clients is the first month they have to send me a selfie video for 30 days. And I tell them, I say if you pick up the phone, and you are thinking about what you should say you're doing it wrong. I said, if you pick up your phone, point, the camera you're and hit record and your only thing you say on the video is I have no clue what to say. That's great. Do that and send it to me. I want you to get comfortable with this idea of being comfortable with yourself. And I still love To this day, one of the guys I was coaching two weeks into this, I got a text from him. And all it said was I get it. And so I responded. I said, What do you mean, he said, I get why you're doing this, why you're having me do this, it just clicked. It just makes sense. He then went on to start to post on LinkedIn. And he was trending on Federal Reserve and trending on finance. And because he was now unleashed to create these really powerful videos.
Nick Lozano 34:43
Yeah, I really, I really liked that. And I think I've actually seen his videos on LinkedIn. So really good content, it's kind of like goes back to that same to it's like, you know, get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Right? Yeah, try to just skirt the edge a little bit. And, you know, it's like that exposure therapy thing, you know, just starting to take the video once and say you don't know. And then tomorrow, you know, say two more words. And then after that, say three more words. Yeah. and post it. Because at the end of the day, you know, you post a video on LinkedIn. You said I don't know anything at the end of the day, you know, most people don't care. Right? They just keep scrolling. Right? Yes. Yeah, but I mean, that's really great. And and I hear you talking about you're doing coaching now. Like kinds of bring brings me to something I always ask people is about mentoring, you know, in coaching is almost like a mentoring perspective, right? How important that is for a leader to have a mentor and also be a mentor to somebody else.
Peter Lynch 35:41
It To me it is paramount. And I love the word mentorship way better than coaching. It's just that, you know, I actually, when I started my business, I said I will not be a coach, you know, because everyone's a coach. But then I just kind of fell into it. And it does to me feel more like mentorship. And I have an old talk that I delivered years and years ago. And I call that the mentorship cycle. And it's, I said mentorship basically goes through three cycles, where you learn a legacy, you live a legacy, and you leave a legacy. And so in that you operate differently as mentors, and from that, I have this model where in my life, I always have three mentors. So one is somebody who is ahead of me and done what I want to do, and I want to learn with them. The other person is where I am, but they are still challenging and pushing me. And the third is somebody much younger than me. That is crushing the game. And they're accelerating beyond what I did. And I want to learn from them. So I have these three people in my life all the time. You know, I have Mark Sanborn, I have Tony Grevmeyer, I have Dominick Quartuccio I have these three guys in my life right now. And I always have. So to me, if when people say what's the number one thing I need to do as a leader? Who's your mentor? Who's your coach, if you don't have one? Right there, look no further than then than this. Because if you want to accelerate, success does leave clues. You need to be learning from people.
Brian Comerford 37:10
That's a great piece of advice right there.
Nick Lozano 37:12
No, I really like that. And I feel like, you know, the coaching whole thing has been overplayed. And people think of you know, the yelling coach, like a bill cower the Pittsburgh, rip your head off every five seconds. Yeah, that's that that's really great. I always think, you know, having a mentor and being a mentor to somebody else. It's really important. I know, Brian is have had these conversations with their staff under you, you should always be doing everything that you can to help make them better to be better than you know, if you're not doing that you're kind of failing at your role as a leader, you're more than just their manager, you're their leader as well, too. And it seems like you have fostered that throughout your career. And you know, the proof of people following you is proof of that you're one of those leaders, you know, you hear people say, Oh, I'd walk through razor blades for him. Yeah, so that's a great trait to have.
Peter Lynch 38:09
Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, going back to what we just talked about the beginning. You know, my, my objective is I want to leave inukshuks, I want to leave things that people look to, to find direction, and, and they walk towards them. Because Yeah, to your point, if if, if all I'm doing is, is creating success, then boy, I'm failing. You know, Tony, Tony Robbins studied 100 billionaires. And what he found is that all of them just crushed the science of success, they get it, they knew it. But 97 of them were very unhappy. And so they didn't fully understand the art of fulfillment. And to me, it takes both of those things to live a life worth living. And I i've transit transit to transition that into this quote, that success is based on what you get. But great greatness is based on what you give. And so if you can build that into your leadership portfolio of not just getting not just getting the role, you know, getting advancement, and those things are important, but not just doing that, but then giving. So if you give to a team, boy, they will return to you more than you ever gave them. You know, it's like the old Braveheart quote, where he said, I would rather have one soldier fighting for something they believe in, then 100 paid. It's kind of that same model.
Brian Comerford 39:27
That's interesting, I keep a quote on my computer monitor that I used to remind myself frequently with, which says, judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
Peter Lynch 39:41
That's good.
Brian Comerford 39:41
And part of that, for me, is exactly what you're talking about. It may not be the giving up in the process of achieving that, but once you've gotten that, you know, ultimately there is give that has to be part of the routine.
Peter Lynch 39:58
Yeah. That's really good. Yeah. And it's, I mean, ultimately, to me, it's it's the differentiator between good leaders and great leaders.
Brian Comerford 40:08
I like to use the technique with some of the staff that I mentor, when they come to me with a challenge, and then walk me through, you know, I have one, one person in particular, that's really detailed, you know, really good at capturing sort of, here's all these challenges that are going on throughout this whole thing. lay it all out on the table. And then it's like, you know, looking at me like, okay, what's the answer? And I said, Yeah, you've got things enumerated there. Let's just start picking apart. What would you do? Where do you see is the solution and the challenge that you brought? And and it's not to just completely, you know, deflect or delegate something off to somebody else. But it's to give them that opportunity to think and grow themselves? And yeah, a lot of times, if you've identified that there's a problem, it's because you've already got the solution in your mind. Yeah. You just didn't know that you were capable of articulating it. Because you perceived yourself as you know, well, I'm the subordinate here. So I've got to take instruction.
Peter Lynch 41:17
Yes. Boy, that's I mean, that's kind of the that that I think there's a book in there. By the way, maybe, maybe you got a book around that. That's a concept that a lot of people never, never get.
Brian Comerford 41:31
All right, well, maybe I'll be joining me on a book tour here shrtly. Nick and I have been chipping away at our own for a while now. So we've got we've got some golden nuggets. And certainly some of them have been derived from conversations that we have with thought leaders like yourself.
Peter Lynch 41:47
Nice.
Nick Lozano 41:49
So as as we're speaking about books, is there any book that's had a big influence on you are a big impact or a book that you like to gift at all?
Peter Lynch 41:57
Yeah, yeah, there's a couple. So you know, my, my mentor, Mark Sanborn, his book, The Fred factor is has always been one of my favorite. Just because it's a story. It's based about the whole book is about his postman and the lessons he learned from his postman. It's a great book, and great storytelling in it. I'm a big fan of Ryan Holliday. I like his book, The obstacles the way. It's, it's really, you know, kind of that, you know, Chase fear. It's a lot of stoic philosophy, but just a fantastic book, you know, ideas, like, you know, a tree is strong, because the wind tries to push it down every day, you know, so these ideas that don't be afraid of the thing that you should be afraid of, because it's actually probably making you better. Those are two books. I really love. I love Mel Robbins book, The five second rule. So yeah, I have a whole, you know, cadre of books. If you know from a process system thinking when actually this is funny, this doesn't get talked about a lot. But if you've ever read a book by le gold, right, it's called the goal. It's about the Theory of Constraints. But it's written like a novel. So it's the the only process system sigma book that's written like a novel. And so it's really easy to read to have it. That's a great book to
Nick Lozano 43:15
that sounds interesting, instead of it being all academic. But yes, just like snoozing out after 10 minutes.
Peter Lynch 43:23
That's right.
Nick Lozano 43:24
And you also have a book that's available for pre order as well.
Peter Lynch 43:28
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, the ugly advantage. So you can go to my website, https://www.hitch.studio/, or you can go to https://www.peteralynch.com/book-sales/the-ugly-advantage.com and I have a pre order available for that. But that book should be coming out later this year. And that really is, again, that whole story about how to leverage authenticity and storytelling into your superpower. You know, this thing that you probably thought was one of your weaknesses.
Nick Lozano 43:56
You've got me so;d that I'm pre-ordering that as soon as we get off this call here.
Peter Lynch 44:01
That's awesome.
Brian Comerford 44:02
And Peter, you've got just a ton of content all over the place. I mean, yeah, you know, search on you. It's easy to come to TED Talk, or, you know, other videos that have been posted. What's, what's sort of one of the golden nuggets that you would offer out there if people want to learn a little bit more about who you are?
Peter Lynch 44:22
Yeah, I mean, so I would, I would tell people that I have a website for my speaking https://www.peteralynch.com , that's where you can see some of my videos, but I love when people follow me on social media. I'm pretty active right now on Instagram, at real Peter Lynch, as well as LinkedIn. And the those are great places to follow. But, you know, a nugget, a great nugget, it's from my TED talk, I kind of ended my TED Talk with this. It's my TED talk was about the cul de sac and lessons that I learned from my kids. And and it's, you know, the my lesson from them, which is get there early, stay late and enjoy the ride. It's, you know, it was never, anytime someone knocked on the door and said, Can we play, my kids always wanted to go play, and they never came in voluntarily. They wanted to stay out there. And they loved what they were doing while they were out there. So that to me, that's a good model for life, you know, do something that that causes you to want to get there early. That makes you want to stay late, and that helps you enjoy the ride
Brian Comerford 45:28
around to that could end any better than that.
Well, cool. Thank you so much for taking the time to spend with us today. Peter. It's a It's a real honor to get to have you on the program. And it's just you know, I know we've gotten to speak a couple times. It's a real pleasure getting to know you a little bit.
Peter Lynch 45:50
Yeah, it's been great getting to know you guys as well. I love what you're doing. It's it's really exciting to watch.
Nick Lozano 45:57
All right. Thank you. I really appreciate your time.
Peter Lynch 46:00
Thanks.
