Valuetainment - How the Pandemic Exposed Leaders

00:00:00.240 You know what most people forgot that was happening pre-pandemic?

00:00:03.060 Think about it.

00:00:04.060 February of 2020, the economy, we had 128-month economic expansion.

00:00:10.680 That's 128 months of economic expansion in America.

00:00:15.460 Everybody was making money, everything was great, people putting money in the market,

00:00:18.800 making millions.

00:00:19.800 Everybody felt great.

00:00:22.040 Then the pandemic hit.

00:00:23.040 You know what the pandemic did?

00:00:24.860 It exposed bad leadership.

00:00:26.360 Today, we're going to talk about how bad leaders were exposed during the pandemic.

00:00:35.500 So look, as leaders, you're going to go through bad times, but what made the pandemic more

00:00:39.000 challenging than others is the fact that it lasted a long time.

00:00:43.840 You know, you'll have a problem, it'll last a month, a week, a day, few hours, but not

00:00:49.820 six months, over and over and over.

00:00:54.020 And this pressure of things we've never experienced before, people are like, oh my gosh, I don't

00:00:58.960 know how to handle this stuff.

00:01:00.360 And so that lasting pressure exposed bad leaders more than ever before because they were typically

00:01:05.980 able to handle pressure for an hour, a day, or a week, or maybe even a month, but definitely

00:01:11.720 not six months.

00:01:12.720 That was one of the things that the pandemic did.

00:01:14.980 The next one is, it showed us which leaders were for the people and which leaders were

00:01:21.100 for themselves.

00:01:22.320 This doesn't matter if it's politics or business.

00:01:25.360 You knew which leaders in politics were all about themselves and which leaders in business

00:01:30.480 were all about themselves.

00:01:32.140 You kind of saw the fact that some of these leaders were for the people.

00:01:35.300 You may be working at a place and in your office you could say, let me tell you, I learned

00:01:39.400 the people I work with on a daily basis, they were for me.

00:01:41.980 I had no idea that we're going to be okay with this, that we had never done a remote leadership

00:01:45.940 type of a model before.

00:01:48.120 And they were able to get people to the way they had, I just really liked the way they

00:01:51.320 handled it with the people.

00:01:53.120 But during the pandemic, everybody learned if it was about the people or if it was about

00:01:58.000 the boss.

00:01:59.360 Everyone learned about that during the pandemic.

00:02:01.880 Next, it created a filtering process.

00:02:04.220 And what I mean by filtering process is you learned who is a peacetime leader and a wartime

00:02:12.180 leader.

00:02:13.180 It's purely a filtering process.

00:02:14.820 You never know who's tough until pressure comes.

00:02:18.920 In sports, you don't know who can handle pressure until there's two seconds left on the shot clock

00:02:24.060 and you hand the ball to a guy and Anthony Davis hits the shot with two seconds left and

00:02:29.280 he wins and a Paul George couldn't.

00:02:32.340 You don't know the difference between how pressure is handled.

00:02:35.280 It's very easily talked about, but you'll learn about it during pressure times.

00:02:40.160 It created a very simple filtering process to identify the wartime leaders versus peacetime

00:02:45.620 leaders during the pandemic.

00:02:47.300 It's very good to look good when everything is good.

00:02:49.960 It's very good to look good when the economy expands for 128 months.

00:02:53.420 It's very hard to look good when we have a pandemic for six months.

00:02:57.500 Another thing the pandemic did is it revealed the true character of the leader.

00:03:00.400 What I mean by the true character of the leader is very simple.

00:03:02.760 Look, you know, I've worked in the financial industry now nearly 20 years.

00:03:05.760 I got in it in 01, so 19 years, right?

00:03:08.900 When 07, I'll never forget November of 07, I was in California and mortgage companies started

00:03:15.880 shutting down and you saw certain people that were doing business the right way.

00:03:21.780 They were not doing business the right way, but it revealed a lot about their character

00:03:25.900 in 07, 08, and it was a rough time, man.

00:03:28.460 I mean, it was not a good time when the market hit during 07, 08.

00:03:32.340 You know, you had all these repos taking place in San Bernardino Valley.

00:03:36.120 It was not a good time, but character was revealed during those times.

00:03:40.480 The same thing happened during the pandemic.

00:03:43.800 We can, we're very good at hiding ourselves.

00:03:46.440 We're very good at acting.

00:03:48.180 Most of us would make pretty decent Hollywood actors because we act in life, right?

00:03:52.920 As if either everything is good or as if we are doing a great job and then, boom, something

00:03:58.700 hits and you realize, man, I don't know if I was as tough as I thought I was.

00:04:02.300 I didn't know if I could handle as much pressure as I could, I thought I could.

00:04:06.020 But the pandemic definitely revealed that.

00:04:07.860 Here's the other thing during the pandemic is everybody's put under the microscope.

00:04:11.740 Why?

00:04:12.740 Look, no one likes being put under the microscope.

00:04:15.180 Why?

00:04:15.680 Because with the microscope comes what?

00:04:17.480 Nitpicking.

00:04:18.480 Watch this.

00:04:19.480 Watch that.

00:04:20.480 Watch this.

00:04:21.480 And it's a lot of judgment.

00:04:22.480 Who the hell wants to be put under a microscope? 0.64

00:04:24.180 You ever looked at your skin under a microscope?

00:04:26.420 Your skin may look good on camera and then go look at it under a microscope and look, oh

00:04:29.200 my gosh, my skin is terrible under the microscope, right?

00:04:33.740 Because no one likes that kind of judgment.

00:04:35.740 Look, Ellen DeGeneres just came out this morning with her talk about what kind of a summer she 0.99

00:04:40.620 said.

00:04:41.620 It was a great summer.

00:04:42.620 Obviously being sarcastic.

00:04:43.620 Everybody's talking about, oh, toxic environment, toxic environment, toxic environment.

00:04:47.260 How come no one talked about this while she was crushing it and there was no pandemic?

00:04:51.680 Why are they all of a sudden targeting her during the worst time in America in the last couple

00:04:57.520 of decades?

00:04:58.520 Minus 9-11, right?

00:05:00.900 How come no one said anything the last 17 years?

00:05:03.520 Well, because it's bad times.

00:05:05.480 And bad times, more people have more times, people have more time to look at you under the microscope.

00:05:11.580 And unfortunately, this is not even about good leadership and bad leadership.

00:05:15.800 If you choose to be a leader and make boss-type decisions, eventually the microscope's going

00:05:20.900 to show up.

00:05:21.900 And you either have to be able to handle it and say, look, yes, my standard's never been

00:05:26.580 perfection.

00:05:27.580 My standard's been progress.

00:05:29.220 However, if you act like you're perfect forever, you're eventually going to be under so much

00:05:33.940 scrutiny and pressure that you're going to have a lot of mental and emotional breakdowns

00:05:37.640 behind closed doors that nobody knows about.

00:05:39.980 If you picture yourself as this perfect savior that everyone's been waiting for, you'll pay

00:05:45.220 a price for it emotionally.

00:05:47.160 And it'll be private.

00:05:48.160 It will not be public.

00:05:49.440 And then eventually you may get to a point that you're going to want to be private and

00:05:52.300 hide for the rest of your life and you don't want that.

00:05:54.220 Another one is it showed a different leadership style, meaning you saw people that were wanting

00:05:59.740 to go out there and talk about it.

00:06:01.180 For example, Trump wanted to go out there and talk and take every interview.

00:06:04.160 He talked about it.

00:06:05.160 Biden, you didn't really see Biden being out there talking to people.

00:06:08.660 Cuomo wanted to go out there and talk about it.

00:06:11.120 Newsom wasn't as public as Cuomo was.

00:06:13.840 Cuomo, every day you woke up, there was a New York hearing that he was doing to talk about

00:06:18.100 the problems that they had the night before.

00:06:19.880 They got bigger and bigger and bigger and people kind of learned about Cuomo.

00:06:23.820 Most people didn't know about Cuomo.

00:06:25.120 They knew about him in New York, maybe in a couple of different places with the story

00:06:28.040 of his brother and his father, but they didn't know how to handle pressure.

00:06:31.940 But you got a chance to see, you know, there was a little bit of levity with his approach

00:06:37.340 under pressure.

00:06:38.620 You know, there was a little bit of royalty with Newsom under pressure.

00:06:43.120 There was a little bit of wartime with Trump under pressure.

00:06:46.980 There was a little bit of hiding with Biden under pressure.

00:06:50.840 You kind of just saw everybody on how they were handling things under pressure.

00:06:55.620 And you saw the leadership style that you liked or didn't like.

00:06:58.500 And that was on you where you said, you know, this wasn't my policy, by the way.

00:07:02.860 But I liked the way Cuomo was handling things with pressure.

00:07:06.040 I liked it a lot.

00:07:07.560 You know, I became a fan.

00:07:08.840 I became a fan of the fact that he's sitting there coming out there and talking and people

00:07:12.360 were sitting there asking him questions.

00:07:14.180 And some of the questions was pressure questions and he didn't like them, but he did to his

00:07:17.500 best of his abilities to answer it.

00:07:19.420 But somehow, some way, the populace felt comfortable about the fact that he was being transparent

00:07:24.640 at least.

00:07:25.640 Look, when you're being asked hundreds of questions every day, you're not going to nail every single

00:07:29.180 one of them.

00:07:30.180 But at least the people know that you have the audacity to get in front of camera live.

00:07:35.020 This is not, let's pre-record and cut it properly.

00:07:37.940 Live to address these issues.

00:07:39.940 We learn about everybody on how to handle it.

00:07:42.180 That's your company.

00:07:43.180 You learn how to handle it.

00:07:44.180 Did they email you?

00:07:45.580 Did they only email communication?

00:07:48.080 Did they do a live or did they do prep videos?

00:07:51.240 Did they just sit there on a camera with you on a Zoom or a FaceTime and say, you know, with

00:07:55.040 their hundreds of leaders and say, what's on your mind?

00:07:57.960 What's concerning you?

00:07:59.080 You had the ability to make a decision on how they handle those issues.

00:08:02.880 If your company did it right and you won, well listen, you better applaud those guys at

00:08:06.720 the top that did it right.

00:08:08.120 If your company didn't, then you also paid a price for it.

00:08:11.160 Again, this is when you realize what's good leadership and what's bad leadership.

00:08:14.440 Next, handling of money and resources.

00:08:16.980 Why is this so important?

00:08:18.060 Here's why.

00:08:20.380 If 128 months you experience economic expansion, shouldn't you by the end of 128 months have

00:08:26.360 more cash than you had in 128 months?

00:08:29.700 Meaning if during the 128 months market goes up and up and up and up and up, you probably

00:08:37.160 should have more capital.

00:08:38.740 You probably should have more money.

00:08:40.280 You probably should have more cash.

00:08:41.860 How does this benefit you?

00:08:43.220 When a crisis takes place, you don't have to do 60% layoffs.

00:08:47.100 When a crisis takes place, you don't have to stop everything that you're doing on a daily

00:08:50.540 basis.

00:08:51.540 When a crisis takes place, you don't come from a place of fear.

00:08:54.660 When a crisis takes place, you don't come from a place of anxiety because you don't have

00:08:58.040 enough money to pay everybody's salary.

00:08:59.900 You're able to make more poised decisions.

00:09:03.160 This is why you saw a lot of companies who were sitting around saying, oh my gosh, we

00:09:07.640 don't have as much capital as we thought we had.

00:09:10.920 Everybody learned about the travel business.

00:09:14.560 Everybody learned about which companies had no money saved.

00:09:18.260 Everybody learned which retailers were not ready for this.

00:09:22.240 Everybody learned how money is being handled behind closed doors.

00:09:26.440 And those who handle the right, boom, they became wealthier.

00:09:29.920 Those who didn't handle the right, boom, they went out of business like this because there

00:09:34.420 was no capital during the economic expansion that took place.

00:09:38.860 Here's the other one that took place.

00:09:40.120 It created a need for off the cuff.

00:09:43.500 You kind of saw off the cuff decision making process versus research based.

00:09:46.560 What do I mean by this?

00:09:47.700 So somebody can come in and they're like, well, you know, we have a pandemic taking place.

00:09:50.760 Ah, it's not a big deal.

00:09:52.740 It's going to be fine.

00:09:53.620 This is just a bunch of this.

00:09:54.800 It's going to go away.

00:09:55.800 Okay, great.

00:09:56.800 Maybe, but what if it's not?

00:09:59.100 Are you doing any research?

00:10:00.660 Because you don't know how people are going to react.

00:10:02.480 Let's just say you're right and that's how you react.

00:10:05.460 But in an economy, it's not about how you react.

00:10:08.120 It's about how the economy is going to react.

00:10:10.060 It's about how the people are going to react.

00:10:12.040 If the people who are your customers react in a certain way and you don't do research

00:10:17.300 on the way they're going to react, you're going to pay a price for us.

00:10:19.620 I don't know if I'm making sense or not.

00:10:21.140 Let me say this one more time.

00:10:22.140 So some people are like, well, it's going to be fine.

00:10:23.960 It's not a big deal.

00:10:24.960 It's totally fine.

00:10:26.960 You may be right.

00:10:27.960 But if you react that way because you're calm, the other 95% who are your customers don't,

00:10:33.540 and you don't think about their concerns, you're going to lose them.

00:10:36.960 Because you have to think about how they're going to react, not how you're going to react.

00:10:40.960 Yes, you being calm and composed helps them, but you still have to understand how the reaction

00:10:45.760 will be.

00:10:46.760 Which means what?

00:10:47.760 The next time something like this happens, say the next crisis happens is a war.

00:10:51.180 Say we have an attack, say we have an espionage situation, say we have a bio warfare, say

00:10:56.960 we have a cyber attack that happens to America.

00:10:59.640 Say anything happens that's never happened to you before.

00:11:02.500 How are you going to handle it with the way people are going to respond to it and how much

00:11:05.700 research you're going to do?

00:11:07.020 You got to come back and do a lot of research so it's not just off the cuff without you

00:11:10.440 having no proper research.

00:11:11.440 I've been on both sides.

00:11:12.760 I made off the cuff comments that I wasn't prepared and I paid a price for it.

00:11:16.880 And I realized it's better off me going out there doing a little bit of research.

00:11:19.720 Every time I have done more research about a topic, I've made better decisions.

00:11:24.660 Every time it's been off the cuff without a lot of research, I've paid a price for it.

00:11:28.840 So the recommendation is spend some time adding the research the next time crisis takes place.

00:11:34.840 Let's continue.

00:11:35.740 It also showed how many leaders seek counsel and how many didn't.

00:11:40.200 Meaning, how many leaders went to a group of people who have been through this before

00:11:44.740 to say, how should we handle this situation here?

00:11:46.880 I've never been through this before.

00:11:48.520 What do you think?

00:11:49.520 Look, I run an insurance company myself.

00:11:51.360 We have now around 17,000 agents.

00:11:53.600 And when that took place, one of the CEOs I respect the most called me.

00:11:58.200 I respect him.

00:11:59.200 He's my mentor.

00:12:00.200 He called me.

00:12:01.200 And he says, so what do you think about the handling right now?

00:12:04.020 What are you guys doing about this?

00:12:05.020 What are you guys doing about that?

00:12:06.020 How are you guys handling this?

00:12:07.020 How are you guys handling that?

00:12:08.020 You know what it made me think about?

00:12:10.080 Here's a guy that runs a $40 billion company.

00:12:12.220 He's calling me.

00:12:13.220 So I'm sitting there saying, who are you calling, right?

00:12:15.560 And I have my list of people that I was calling to get advice.

00:12:17.860 But him and I always go back and forth.

00:12:19.580 So you sit there and you realize, man, if this guy that's running a $40 billion company,

00:12:24.500 how about the rest?

00:12:25.720 And we had a great hour and a half conversation together.

00:12:28.360 He said, how are you guys doing this?

00:12:29.780 I said, we're doing this.

00:12:30.780 What are you guys doing about this?

00:12:31.780 We're doing this.

00:12:32.780 Well, we don't know what to do about this.

00:12:33.780 How are you guys doing this?

00:12:34.780 We're doing this.

00:12:35.780 Okay.

00:12:36.780 That's what we're going to do that.

00:12:37.780 By the way, we're doing this.

00:12:38.780 If you want to take up, think about doing this.

00:12:39.780 Oh, that's a great idea.

00:12:40.780 We'll do this.

00:12:41.780 That collaboration with other people that are also going through the same issue.

00:12:44.780 You came up with better ideas on how to handle it within your own company.

00:12:49.240 Another thing that gets exposed during the pandemic was a lack of empathy.

00:12:52.420 What do I mean by lack of empathy?

00:12:54.540 Look, a lot happened.

00:12:57.340 You know, some can be fake.

00:12:58.860 Some can be real.

00:12:59.700 Some can be, you know, maybe even exaggerated.

00:13:04.780 But regardless, you'll learn whose approach was filled with empathy.

00:13:09.840 You'll learn whose approach was understanding.

00:13:12.240 You'll learn whose approach was, I understand that this is something that's concerning you.

00:13:16.340 I totally get it.

00:13:17.540 You know, here's how I see it, but I totally understand where you're coming from.

00:13:21.240 Empathy has a tendency of creating a retention model in your company.

00:13:25.240 You'll learn very quickly who is someone that leads with empathy and who doesn't.

00:13:31.120 Last point I'll make to you is the following.

00:13:32.700 The pandemic also forced you to take a stand.

00:13:34.700 A lot of people don't want to take a stand because if you take a stand, you may not like,

00:13:39.240 certain people may not like you.

00:13:41.120 When you take a stand, you may have a group of people that may be against you.

00:13:44.880 But it forced you to take a stand.

00:13:46.460 Leaders have to take a stand during the pandemic.

00:13:48.040 You can just go out there and be vanilla.

00:13:50.000 If you were vanilla, you probably lost people.

00:13:52.260 If you were vanilla, you probably lost clients.

00:13:54.360 You had to take a stand.

00:13:55.800 People had to kind of see your position.

00:13:57.260 Whether they agree or not, people respect the fact that you took a stand.

00:14:00.160 Here's where I'm at, guys.

00:14:01.160 Based on the information I have, I believe dot, dot, dot, dot, dot.

00:14:04.180 And those who took a stand, they came out of it good.

00:14:06.840 Look, all of these things we're talking about, I can set the stuff out and add another 20 points

00:14:11.000 to it.

00:14:12.260 The whole moral of the story about this video is leadership is tough.

00:14:16.820 Leadership is not easy.

00:14:17.820 Leadership is emotional.

00:14:19.620 Leadership is not about perfection.

00:14:21.200 Leadership is about progress.

00:14:22.580 Leadership is about you saying, I'm going to get better.

00:14:24.780 I'm going to do my best.

00:14:25.780 I'm going to make some mistakes.

00:14:27.780 But I'm not going to try to win 100% of people, because you're not.

00:14:30.500 A leader that tries to win 100% of people, they typically don't have any real loyal followers,

00:14:35.260 because you're not going to have any of that stuff.

00:14:36.880 But also a leader who is not willing to do their best to lead every kind of people is also

00:14:43.360 not the best kind of people.

00:14:45.600 If you only know how to lead people that like you, you're not a leader.

00:14:50.360 If you only know how to lead people who think you're awesome, then you're not a great leader.

00:14:55.000 If you only know how to lead people who agree with you, then you're not a great leader.

00:14:58.840 Then you've got some work to do as a leader.

00:15:00.540 Because when I was running a small organization in a small sales office with five people, it

00:15:05.260 was very easy.

00:15:06.260 Everybody liked me.

00:15:07.260 When I went to 50, there were some people that didn't like me, and I didn't like that.

00:15:10.800 I had to learn.

00:15:11.800 But the moment I couldn't handle it, my organization shrunk.

00:15:13.800 I'm like, wait a minute, why are you trying to get everybody to like you?

00:15:16.560 Then we went to 100 people, then 500 people, then 1,000 people, and I know a lot of people

00:15:21.300 were like, oh my gosh, I don't agree with your style on how you're doing this.

00:15:25.360 I totally understand, but I'm going to try to accommodate everybody in the company, but

00:15:29.080 I'm going to stick to my style and what I take a stand on.

00:15:31.360 This is what I'm all about.

00:15:32.740 So leadership's got a lot of benefits, but it's also got some stuff.

00:15:35.800 This is why many people don't want to take leadership positions.

00:15:39.040 This is why many people say, I don't want that kind of responsibility.

00:15:42.440 I was always curious, and when I go to certain people and I say, I want to promote you to

00:15:45.200 a manager, you know how many people in my career, when I went to them to say, I want

00:15:48.320 to promote you to a manager, they said, I don't want to?

00:15:50.320 I said, what do you mean?

00:15:51.320 They said, I don't want to be a manager.

00:15:52.980 Why don't you want to be a manager?

00:15:54.500 Just let me do my job.

00:15:55.880 Why not?

00:15:57.140 Because I just don't want to be judged if I make the wrong call as a leader.

00:16:00.520 I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.

00:16:02.640 But guess what?

00:16:03.640 That's okay.

00:16:04.640 Everybody wants that.

00:16:06.200 Not everybody wants to be a shot caller and be judged for the bad shots that you called.

00:16:11.320 Not everybody wants that.

00:16:13.060 But this damn pandemic, let me tell you, this pandemic definitely exposed and revealed

00:16:21.120 a lot about all of us, you and I, all of us during the pandemic.

00:16:26.140 And my hope is that during this pandemic, we all came out better, stronger in a way where

00:16:31.080 you're able to look at some of the bad mistakes you made to get better.

00:16:34.420 So the next time a crisis happens, we know how to handle it.

00:16:36.880 Because bad times are coming again, just so you know that.

00:16:39.500 We're going to have some good times, but I guarantee you there's more bad times.

00:16:42.980 And hopefully this made you a better leader.

00:16:44.640 So you know how to handle next time when this thing comes around better and better and better.

00:16:48.820 And again, if you're watching this and you're asking yourself, I want to find a way to become

00:16:52.280 a better leader.

00:16:53.280 I did a video a few months ago due to the pandemic titled wartime leadership versus peacetime leadership.

00:16:58.460 If you've not watched it, click over here to watch that video.

00:17:01.120 And if you're not subscribed to the channel, please do so.

00:17:03.280 Thanks for watching everybody.

00:17:04.280 Take care.

00:17:05.280 Bye bye.

Valuetainment - September 22, 2020

How the Pandemic Exposed Leaders

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