7. Better Boss Habits + Committing to Yourself

Transcript – Episode 7: Better Boss Habits + Committing to Yourself

Joe:
Putting an end to new year’s resolutions, upping your boss game in just minutes each week, and supporting staff who are worn down by rude customers. It’s happening right now on Boss Better Now.

Alyssa:
You’re listening to Boss Better Now. Please welcome speaker, author, and Miracle Whip hater, Joe Mull.

Joe:
Hello, Boss Heroes. Welcome to the show – however you are listening today on Apple podcasts on Spotify, on audible or Amazon or Google or Stitchu or Stitcher that was Stitcher…Or if you’re watching us on the Boss Better Now channel on YouTube… we are delighted, you are here. Please welcome my gracious, and talented co-host, Alyssa Mullet. Greetings, my friend.

Alyssa:
Hey ya, I also am a fellow Miracle Whip hater. That does not belong in any kind of condiment land. Let alone the gloriousness that is mayonnaise.

Joe:
Thank you. Agreed. Um, Miracle Whip tastes like rejection feels.

Alyssa:
Oooohhh that’s good.

Joe:
It’s not even a food, right? It’s a food like substance invented in a test tube in a lab.

Alyssa:
I would completely agree with that. It has this air that is full of nothingness. Just, yes. Nothingness exists within the miracle realm. Ooh, yuck.

Joe:
And I so appreciate that, the first thing you said was to try to debunk this idea that that Miracle Whip is like mayonnaise. Um, because for my money saying that Miracle Whip is just like mayonnaise is sorta like saying that a colonoscopy is just like a nap, right?

Joe:
I mean, they both involve laying down, but the similarities end there.

Alyssa:
You’re on fire today, man, my ab workout is going to hurt by the laughter. So prepare yourself out there, listeners. He’s on fire this morning. What else are you on fire about today, Joe?

Joe:
Well, it’s about the time, on the calendar, when new year’s resolutions start to fade. Or they burst into flames, uh, and our intentions are no longer lined up with our actions. And this is why the very first email I sent to my BossBetter email subscribers was about not making a new year’s resolution, because we know they don’t work. Have you ever made a new year? Did you make a new year’s resolution this year?

Alyssa:
No, I did not. But I’ve learned my lesson. I don’t do that anymore.

Joe:
Okay. And why not?

Alyssa:
Uh, because I have found for myself that new year’s resolutions imply that I have to have some sort of motivation. There’s a motivation start point, so to speak and initiation of that motivation. And, that does not translate well in my life. Because then every day leading up to that is just the exact opposite, right. Because I better get it in before I have to get to this point. So rather than trying to think about it as a resolution or a specific moment in time in which I have to have this motivation, I have tried to think of it as a continuum of mome of momentum. Momentum over motivation. And so resolutions don’t really align with that whole thing of momentum, for me.

Joe:
That’s right. That’s right. Because you know, the deciding that we’re going to increase this or decrease that or do more or less of something, uh, it’s an idea that’s not tied enough to habits. You know, that, that’s what we understand about how change happens in people that it takes the creation of new habits. Uh, a habit is a regular tendency or practice, you know, one that is hard to give up. And so we sometimes fail to translate our resolutions into habits. And so that, that first email that I sent to our BossBetter email subscribers was about saying, Hey, don’t make a resolution. Instead, let’s think about the new habits that we want to adopt. Um, and there was one habit in particular that I encourage them to adopt and that I wanted to talk about today. Well the habit is called the Monday 20. And the idea here is it’s quite simple. It’s that every Monday you take 20 minutes to do something that makes you a better boss for those you lead. And maybe you spend 20 minutes talking with a coach or a colleague about a situation that you’re facing. Maybe you spend 20 minutes reading a leadership book, or I don’t know, listening to a podcast.

Alyssa:
Plug. Plug.

Joe:
Plug, plug, right. There’s so many things you can do with that time. You, you use that time to write a heartfelt note of appreciation to an employee. Uh, you take 20 minutes and do a set of rounds, uh, to connect one-on-one with people where they work. Uh, you pull out your journal and you write for a few minutes about your leadership intentions for the week ahead. So I call it the Monday 20. Do you do anything like this, Alyssa?

Alyssa:
I, um, you know, I love me some habits, just like, I love me some values. I love me some habits. Um, and I actually, um, is part of the core work that I do with each of my, uh, coaching clients, um, which is to support authentically, uh, led actions of values. We name the habits that support those actions of authenticity. So, um, for me personally, how I apply this is habits that serve. They serve me, right? That’s the primary objective of those core habits that I have developed for myself. Um, and so the first things, you know, I’m going to get real specific. The first things that I do, um, in the morning is I get up early because I that’s the only time that I get truly that time to serve the habits that serve me. So I have to exercise in the morning before my kiddo gets up right before I, my time is anyone else’s.

Alyssa:
I have to claim it as mine. So in that time I exercise. I do my, you know, self-care and then I do some meditation. And then I do writing and reading. And the body of work that I love most surrounding habits… Um, what I have found most meaningful for me in applying this to my life is my habits specific to writing. James Clear, wrote this book, “Atomic Habits”. It’s amazing. Right? And in it, I…what stuck with me… This is one sole phrase of “inhabiting your habits”. So I no longer say I’m gonna spend, you know, 15, 20 minutes writing in a journal. I don’t do journals. I’m not a journal person. I am a writer. I inhabit the habit of the writer. Therefore, I write daily and that when I can think of it as it’s who I am, it’s part of my identity than it is no longer unchained or unconnected to me. There’s not the availability of it to be anything, but who I am at my core.

Joe:
I love it. And you lay down in, in such a beautiful and convicted kind of way that this is an unbreakable thing for you. This is an unbreakable commitment. How much time does it take you? Cause you rattled off a pretty good list there of some things that you try to get to every morning. Um, do you mind me asking how much time it takes you to complete your habits?

Alyssa:
So, people are going to laugh and go like, Oh, that lady is nutso, but it takes two hours. And that includes a shower and all that fun jazzola. Um, but I wake up at 4:30. So from 4:30 to 6:30, I am exercising, you know, cleaning myself up for the day, putting my face on which really doesn’t really mean anything nowadays. Um, but, but then I am, um, meditating and you know, whether that’s saying a mantra over in my head, um, you know, whether that’s just listening to, you know, a meditation or meditative music, um, I do that for 10 to 15 minutes. Then I am, um, writing again 10 to 15 minutes. Um, that’s my writing habit. And then I’m reading until I am forced to not be allowed to be in my book anymore. (Joe: When another human enters the picture from the family unit.) When I hear the door crack. I mean, it is like the sound that broke time. (Joe: Good feeling gone.)

Joe:
So here’s, here’s something that I’d love to get your reaction to. I remember having a conversation about habits, especially as they relate to food and exercise, um, with a speaker friend of mine who said to me, he’s a CrossFit coach. He said, your feelings will lie to you. He said, our feelings lie to us. We never, we never, the idea was we never feel like getting up at 4:30 in the morning. We never feel like exercise. And we never feel like taking the time to do some of the things that you have committed to in the mornings. And so we’re sort of constantly negotiating with ourselves, aren’t we? Of, well, I got to talk myself into wanting to get on that exercise bike or, or go, uh, do my yoga or, uh, just, you know, not hit the snooze button. How have you not let yourself off the hook? How have you not given yourself permission to say, well, you know, I’ve done the 4:30 to 6:30 thing for, you know, a month and maybe I could take a day off. How have you maintained that commitment that it takes to sustain a habit?

Alyssa:
I think in large part, um, two reasons. #1, it is, um, I know what it feels like in my body, not just my feeling emotional. I know what it feels like in my body if I don’t do those things. Right. Um, and it is, I get angrier quicker. Um, it is the negative self-talk starts way sooner in the day. And it gets a lot louder in my head. Um, my ability to serve others completely hinges on my ability to serve me first. I hit, I feel that in my bones and I have written about it to myself and I continually go back to that and to remind myself, okay, even though I might not feel like it, right, this is what I’m, I’m committed to doing. The 2nd, you know, um, way in which I am compelled to continue to serve those habits is that I see in my clients exactly what happens, that negotiation, you talk about, we put ourselves at the very end of that priority list. And so we think, well, I’ll just do this instead. That’ll be better for them. Or we somehow negotiate with ourselves to make it less of a priority. To do those things that we know will serve us because we think that we’re serving someone else better or more efficient, efficiently, or that is, uh, more courageous or more, um, compassionate to serve someone else other than yourself.

Alyssa:
And I would add not just serve someone else, but serve someone else – first. And that’s, that’s where we have to kind of change. The entire dynamic is we have to make serving yourself first, not feel so ugly and so selfish and so shameful and guilt-filled. Get off that train of thought, right? Cause that’s, that’s, what’s going to lie to you every day that guilt, that shame, that selfishness that’s the lie that you keep telling yourself.

Joe:
And the truth to counteract it is what you said moments ago, which is my ability to serve others, to be at my best every day, depends on me setting aside this time and keeping this commitment. It’s funny. I have always said, I am much likelier to break an appointment with myself than I am with someone else. So when I would make an appointment with myself to do exercise or even just take a walk, uh, it’s easy to set that aside when certain things on the to-do list aren’t done and, and you know this in, in quarantine and from March and into the summer, um, I use that time to try to pursue, after years of struggle, uh, some changes relative to my weight and my overall health. And, you know, I able to make better progress on that than I ever have before I lost 46 pounds and really got down to the, the healthiest, uh, shape that I have been in really in my adult life.

Joe:
And one of the things that became clear to me and I still struggle with this, but it’s clear as day to me is that for me, activity, whether you want to call it exercise or just moving my rear-end is my therapy. It is my medication. I am a better husband, father, business owner, writer, speaker, friend, housekeeper, doer of laundry. When I create the space early in the day to do that activity. Yeah, because I get all those good brain chemicals, right? You can just go, you can go, just go down the science path, which is that I produce some reactions in my biology that make me more resilient. And that’s what you described earlier is that when we commit to the habits that favor ourselves, we’ve are able to better serve others. And when the others we serve challenge us, push us, call us our patients, call on our resilience,

Joe:
It’s going to be there in a greater depth than it otherwise would have been, had we not shown up for ourselves with our habits.

Alyssa:
And that is the perfect parallel to how you BossBetter.

Joe:
Right?

Joe:
I thought we were going to talk about the Monday 20, but we were talking about the reason to embrace habits. And it’s such a precursor to this conversation because, and I tell organizations this all the time, I get calls to do training and development, work with them to help grow leaders, to help staffs and teams overcome various obstacles. And most of the time, what I am doing with them is being an accountability mechanism for the setting aside of time. Right? If I work with an organization for a few months or a year, we are setting aside time to pull people together and work on X, Y, Z. And I’m going to let you in on a little secret, almost everybody listening to this doesn’t need me to do that.

Joe:
The greatest resource that we can devote to getting better at something, whether it’s being a leader or being a parent or being a father, being a partner – is time. It’s the setting aside of that time. So float the idea of the Monday 20. What I’m asking folks to do is to make a commitment to a chunk of time that is devoted to a specific set of practices. That set of practices is about becoming a better boss. And there are so many different ways you can use that time, but it has to become an unbreakable commitment. Otherwise it’s just a new year’s resolution that fades in a couple of weeks.

Alyssa:
Yep. Absolutely. Powerfully said, Joe powerfully said.

Joe:
So as you think about leaders taking 20 minutes each week to do something that would make them a better boss, what other kinds of ideas pop into mind for you Alyssa, about ways they could spend that time?

Alyssa:
So, um, a lot of the things that I think of I’m going to translate from my own personal habits that I, I think serve me. So in terms of how that applies, how does exercise apply in the workplace? Right. Okay. So the first thing would be is I think that number one, a healthy you is a healthier you everywhere in all of the arenas that you, you live in. But if I translate that, literally, it could mean that that 10 minutes, you know, if you’re able to be amongst other humans right now, you know, and not via a screen. Mask up and go around and smile with your eyes and say, hello, good morning. How you doing? How’s it been? How was your weekend? Make the connection. Physically go out and move your body towards people – towards your team. (Joe: Be seen.) Be seen, yeah. Right. Um, then I might think of, okay, well what translates into my habit of meditation?

Alyssa:
Well, you could still do that, you know, within your own office, you know, maybe you ask some people to join you. You put on some, you know, meditative music or, you know, a guided meditation and you do it as a team. I mean, who is that? Not going to serve, that’s going to be good stuff. Um, the other thing that I think of is, okay, so my writing habit, I’m a writer. So I would translate that in the workplace to, as you said, journaling, putting, um, your, I think, you know, I might “coach it up a bit” there and say, what is your intention for the week? What kind of tone do you want to say? We’re setting the tone on Monday. Okay. So what is the intention that you want to go into this week’s activities – this week’s meetings with, how do you want to hold yourself for that intention? Meaning I just want to make sure that everyone on my team knows how much I care for them. How grateful that I am for them, right. That translates into an intention and holding that intention for yourself, writing it down is a powerful exercise.

Joe:
And that is inhabiting the habit. Because if you say I’m going to be the kind of leader who slows down and wants to be seen. Then, then what are the subsequent behaviors that you’re making time for? If you’re going to be the kind of leader who says, it is part of my job to be concerned with the quality of the relationships between people in the workplace. I have to be concerned with teamwork. I have to be concerned with camaraderie. I have to be concerned with conflict and how people interact. Um, that, that is the, I want to inhabit that habit of being that kind of leader. So what does that mean in terms of the commitments you need to make in your schedule and in your routines?

Alyssa:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Joe:
Well fantastic. And so I’m going to encourage everyone listening to take a moment today, go to your calendar and block 20 minutes for next Monday, and then set it up as one of those recurring appointments. And, you know, life happens. There are fires that need to be put out at work. And so I give you permission to move it around from week to week, if it needs to be moved around, but make it an unbreakable commitment that no matter what you’re going to set aside that 20 minutes on Mondays -the Monday 20 – to do something that makes you a better boss for your team, even if it means staying up an extra 20 minutes at night before you go to bed that night to fit it in, that is a habit. And that is how we get better. Well, that brings us to…

Joe:
The Camaraderie Question of the Week. And there’s a theme here, my friend, it all lines up. Our Camaraderie Question of the Week. Remember bosses build camaraderie on teams by making it easier for people to find things in common with each other. Every week, we give you a question. You can use it at meetings to facilitate connection and build camaraderie. So our question this week, in alignment with our theme… Alyssa, what is the longest amount of time you’ve ever stuck to a new year’s resolution? What was it and for how long?

Alyssa:
Well, I kind of gave this away already, you know, that I don’t really do them anymore, but right. I will say, um, the longest period of time that I have successfully, this is going to sound horrible as a coach, but you know, this is I’m human man, um, that I have inhabited a habit, right. Is from, let’s see it would’ve been, so it’ll be two years now, right? That I’ve had my writing habit. That I’m a writer. Um, so that is the longest period of time in which I can claim that I initiated an activity and I have kept it going for myself.

Joe:
That’s fantastic. And that’s not a traditional new year’s resolution, but it is something that you aspire to, that you set out to do. It was a change that you wanted to pursue that you knew was in service, both to yourself and to the people around you, and that are important to you. And so it has not ended yet. You’re on a streak.

Alyssa:
I am, I am. What about you, Joe? What’s your, your streak? I mean, you are still a powerhouse. I mean, you did your whole “quaranlean” for goodness sake. You were on GMA, like the whole thing. You’re like famous, you know, for, uh, your kind of commitment to these things. So tell me about your resolutions.

Joe:
If you are on Facebook, you know, that Facebook has a, um, a tool or feature called Facebook memories, uh, where it shows you like what you posted that day, each of the past couple of years. And if you’ve been on Facebook for 12, 13 years, like I have, you’ve entered the stage where past pronouncements on Facebook come back to haunt you throughout times of the year. So after new year, I saw all of the posts that I had made in recent years, all the pronouncements that I had made about the massive changes I was pursuing. I had posted some things related to giving up sweets and to running certain distances. And in most cases I did not see those through. There was one though that I did sustain for quite a while. Uh, I gave up soda for about 150 days, a couple of years ago.

Joe:
And I now let me be regionally inclusive because where I’m from, it’s pop, right. We live in Western Pennsylvania. People say, some people say soda. So let me say it like this. I gave up soda pop for 150 days. Um, this was just two or three years ago, I think. And I was traveling a lot for work and that was hard. Cause there were, there were days at the airport or, you know, moving from place to place where, where you’re kind of surrounded by the sights and sounds. And if, you know, there’s a reason Coca-Cola airs ads pouring the cold fuzzy goodness, over top of the glass of freezing cold ice, right? There’s a sensory, make your mouth water kind of appeal to it. And, and, um, as time went on, it was getting harder and harder for me to stick to it. And then it was a random day in May. It was right around Memorial Day, I think. Um, and we, this was before the pandemic was couple years ago and we were having a family gathering and we put a bunch of stuff out for everybody and I saw soda and I was like, yeah, I’m having that. And that was it.

Alyssa:
I’m done. Now I am done.

Joe:
The willpower had eroded at that point.

Alyssa:
I think that’s interesting, you know, in terms of like what the cutoff is, because like I talked about with, um, trying to find the, um, motivation to start something. Equally on the other side of things, um, when you want to stop something, you know, or break a habit or something of that kind there is this going off the cliff, you know, like what it might mean if you have that first drop, right. Were there any thoughts of, I take this and it’s all over forever, I’m thinking I’m going okay.

Joe:
It was the purity of the streak. That was the only thing that was keeping me going. And I find that that is a big thing for me. If I commit to something and, and I’ve strung together some time on it, it’s almost not the benefits I’m supposedly getting from the new behavior. It’s the purity of the streak. Uh, last year before I started on some success with some better eating and weight loss habits, I was tracking all of my food in a, in a food log app on my phone. And, um, my wife and I went on vacation for a couple of days with another couple. And I decided that that week I wasn’t gonna hold myself to such a high standard. It was a vacation and I let myself off the hook with logging that. And as soon as that streak of days of logging was gone, the momentum that I had was gone. And so back in March, when we started quarantine and I decided to recommit myself to some daily habits in the interest of my health. The first daily habit that became an unbreakable commitment for me was logging my food. And today is the 322nd day of logging that food. And because I know that if I break that streak, there’s something about my psyche, that it will be 10 times as hard to get the momentum back. If I do that.

Alyssa:
Kudos to you and congratulations on your streak. And that is a testament to what it takes to continue that momentum for each one of us is so different. And so, um, requiring of that individual, um, ability to determine what serves you so that you can serve others.

Joe:
Absolutely. And I love that our entire conversation today so far has been themed entirely around the idea of habits, right? And it reminds me of a fantastic book. Uh, many folks ever. You talked about “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. Uh, another terrific book is called “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg. And so we will link both of those books in the show notes on the Boss Better Now podcast webpage. That’ll be over at bossbetternowpodcast.com. And that folks was the Camaraderie Question of the Week.

Joe:
And so we end today with Mail Time.

Joe:
We are seven episodes into our podcast, my friend, and we have encouraged our listeners to reach out with their feedback, their comments, their questions, uh, and folks are starting to do that. Uh, you can get in touch with us a couple of ways you can head on over to the Boss Better Now Facebook page, where you can comment on episodes on clips. You can ask questions. You can also do that at the podcast, webpage bossbetternowpodcast.com. There is a comments section under every episode. We’d love to hear from you. If you don’t want to post your questions or comments publicly. Well, then you can email us at bossbetternow@gmail.com. So I have a couple of, uh, comments and questions for us today, Alyssa, uh, first Liz in Sewickley, Pennsylvania writes to tell us that our show is her first ever podcast. And she is hooked. She says that she leaves our show feeling understood, recognized, and supported.

Alyssa:
Well, that’s like my life’s work like, yes. Thank you, Liz. Awesome.

Joe:
Renee from Tampa, Florida wrote in to say that she thinks our show… this is all caps SO WELL DONE. Uh, she wanted to tell me, Joe, you picked a great co-host and she has a question. She says, your show is so well done. How much pre-scripting and editing do you do? You want to talk about that?

Alyssa:
Uh, sure. Uh, so I’ve, I think maybe I spoke about this a little bit in that, um, we don’t do scripts. We, you provide this wonderful, awesome run sheet to me, like maybe a day or two in advance. Uh, and it just kind of says, here’s like the bullet points of what we think we’re going to talk about during this particular episode. Right? And then there’s like these standardized, like when we’re going to talk about our intro, you know, that might be written out all the rest that’s that is unscripted folks. You’re just getting it real. And Joe has such an ability to bring out the best in everyone. And I just get to be a part of that. And I fully trust that whatever comes from our conversations while I am yes, intensely vulnerable, uh, sitting here with unscripted because my type A wants to go, Oh my gosh, I want to control every single word that comes out of my mouth. I trust you. And I trust our listeners that it has the intentions that we desire it to have, and it will have the purpose and the meaning, um, come through regardless if, if I get it wrong sometimes in just how I say it.

Joe:
I think conversation of people who have knowledge, expertise, and ideas alongside a deep caring for seeing other people succeed, uh, is a formula for some good things to happen. And so when we decided to do this podcast, as we’ve talked about, it was born out of some of the naturally occurring conversations that you and I would have that were a mix of… I’d like to think rich, but also a lot of fun. And so here we are. So to your question, Renee, we don’t really script anything other than segment one’s topic is this, Camaraderie Question of the Week is this, third segment is going to be this, let’s see what happens. Uh, I hit record at the beginning and I hit record when we’re done and we send it off to the podcast engineers and they, uh, make sure you don’t hear like humming in the background and echoes and whatnot. And that’s it. That’s, that’s how it’s done. So, uh, thank you for the question. I got two more here for us. Um, Jamis writes from Denver, Colorado to tell us that he really likes the music for the Camaraderie Question of the Week.

Joe:
It’s a little cartoonish, isn’t it?

Alyssa:
That’s all you, my friend knew our creative genius.

Joe:
Is that an oboe, oboe or bassoon? I get them…. I have a degree in music, but it was voice. So what do I know about instruments, that’s a xylophone I believe, and that’s a trumpet with the muffle thing on it. The term which went right out of my head.

Joe:
That’s for you, Jamis. One more run through of our music. Thanks for telling us how much you like it. And then lastly, um, Oh no, I lied. I have, I have two more. Sorry. I have a question that I want us to spend just a few minutes talking about. I also needed to share this. I think you’ll find this really entertaining. Rich in Ohio, listened to our conversation in episode four, about my resemblance or not to Hugh Jackman. And he sent this along. He says, Joe, for the record, in the comics, Wolverine is 5’3″. So at 5’8 1/2″, you are actually closer to being Wolverine than 6’1″ – Hugh Jackman. That makes Rich from Ohio my favorite listener. Thank you.

Alyssa:
Good job, Rich. Good job.

Joe:
All right. Well, we’re going to end on a question from Nancy in Montana. And I want to chat about this question for a few minutes, because it’s such a great question and something that I think a lot of folks struggle with, here’s her question. As a leader, how can I help my overworked, stressed out, staff who have been worn down by rude customers? I mean, that’s something that folks deal with a lot, but I think we’re living in an age right now in recent months where a lot of the folks we encounter in the workplace who are customers maybe are not having their best day and that really can take a toll. And so Nancy wants to know how she can help her overwork, stressed out, staff deal better by being worn down by rude customers. Where do you want to start for her?

Alyssa:
Uh, this is similar to a question that I ask at the beginning of every coaching engagement that I embark on with a new client. And that is… How do you experience support? As your boss… How am I gonna translate that? As your boss how do I know that, you know, I care about you? And so my first thing to Nancy is if you don’t know the answer to that individualized to those team members — ask, and you can start with that question, how do you experience support? Make a note. Write it down. Do it. Make them feel that support. In the way that translates to real care for them.

Joe:
And I like asking folks, I, you know, I’ve done a lot of workshops on dealing with difficult people in the workplace, and sometimes those are difficult customers. Sometimes those are difficult co-workers. And one of the questions I always begin with is how do you know when you’re flustered? Flustered a wonderful word. Isn’t it? Not annoyed, not challenged, but flustered. And what are the signs and symptoms? What are you thinking? What are you feeling? What’s happening in your body? And we have this really great dialogue. Um, I’ll never forget. I was in a workshop once and a woman raised her hand and said, everybody in the office knows I’m done when I take off my hair.

Joe:
And I feel that I know, but you know, but she’s clear on it. And I think when we ask people to identify, when they’re noticing that they’re worn down, then we can ask the kind of question that you threw out, which is, well, then what do you need? Right? What do you need to experience in that moment to be supported? Maybe it’s me as a leader, just giving you some time and space to recharge, finding a way to move you away from the, the environment, maybe where you’re on the front lines or, or being worn down if that’s possible. And so I think that’s a big part of it is, um, you know, when I was kid growing up, I was a big fan of professional wrestling. You know, the fake stuff that you watch on TV and you know, I’m a child of the eighties.

Joe:
So it was Hulk Hogan and Macho Man and all that. And if you ever watched tag team wrestling, it’s the same script every time, right? There’s one guy in the ring, who’s getting his butt kicked, and he’s like dragging himself over to the corner and he’s, and he’s reaching and he’s waiting and his hand’s shaking and he’s trying to tag in his partner and then boom, he tags in his partner and his partner comes down like a house of fire, right? We need to know who our partners are in the workplace, so that when we’re down on the mat, we can tag them in and they can come in like a house of fire. So what’s your signal in the workplace? What are you going to, you know, Carol Burnett used to tug on her ear on TV to send a signal to her, her grandkids or family that you love them and go to bed. But what’s your signal in the workplace where you’re going to tag in a teammate to say, okay, I get it. You’re on down on the mat. You need me to come in like a house of fire, here I am.

Alyssa:
These metaphors again, folks, he started off on fire. He’s ending it on fire as well. Aren’t we just the greatest beneficiaries of it today.

Joe:
And Nancy, here’s the other thing to remember my friend, you’ve got to make your employees the hero of the story. You’ve got to give them capes. And what I mean by that is when you’re dealing with rude customers, it’s really easy to focus on the horrible behavior and the awful ways they make you feel. And when we do that, all of our mindset and all of the dialogue, both internally and around us is negative. But if you can find a way to flip the script and to tell them why they’re the hero in the moment with the rude customer, you move away from that negative mentality and into a better headspace. And what I mean by that is you ask the employee, you know what? Yeah, you’re right. That was a horrible interaction. That person had no right to talk to you that way. But boy, I feel bad for whatever it is that they’re going through or are dealing with that led them to be in such a place where they talked to you that way.

Joe:
And in the moment you had an opportunity to be a hero, to help them solve their problem. You did not give them the power to negatively influence your quality of service delivery. No matter how they showed up, it didn’t change how you showed up. And that makes you a hero in my book. And when we can write that script for folks, and we can say that out loud and plant those seeds in people’s heads over and over again. They become a little bit more resilient in the face of rude people.

Joe:
Alright, that ends our Mail Time segment. As we said, folks, please feel free to keep in touch with us. Email us at bossbetternow@gmail.com. And that is our show. Thank you so much for listening folks. We’re so glad to have you hanging out with us today. We hope to see you again real soon.

Alyssa:
This show is sponsored by Joe Mull and Associates. Remember commitment comes from better bosses. Visit joemull.com today.

Alyssa:
Hello BossHeroes. Are you planning a conference meeting or event? Why not invite our own Joe Mull to be your keynote speaker? Joe speaks and writes about commitment in the workplace in a way that is funny, powerful, and captivating. He knows that your attendees want rich content that is relevant to them and delivered in a way that is fun, compelling, and useful. Joe’s keynote programs, help leaders say and do new things so they can get better results. If you’re planning a remote event, Joe can beam in from a fully equipped virtual broadcast studio with multiple cameras, professional audio and lighting, and tons of interactive ways to engage participants. He will leave your audience raving about their experience. Oh, and Joe is a certified speaking professional. That’s the highest earned designation in professional speaking that is held by less than 20% of speakers worldwide. The CSP is only awarded to speakers with a proven track record of experience, expertise, education, outstanding client service and ethical behavior. Whether your event is in-person or virtual, your audience doesn’t want another boring 60 minute lecture. They deserve to learn and be inspired by a world-class program from a professional speaker – they simply cannot turn away from that’s what you get guaranteed from Joe Mull. For more information, visit joemull.com/speaking. To check date availability, or to get a quote, email jamie@joemull.com. That’s J-A-M-I-E@joemull.com.