The Learn-It-All Leader with Damon Lembi
Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Welcome in everyone, you are listening to the Authority Podcast here on the Be Podcast Network. Thanks for joining us for a conversation that I believe is going to have a lot of relevance to you. No matter your role in the professional sphere, if you're a school leader, if you're leading in some other type of organization, if you are just wanting to demonstrate the leadership skills you have, regardless of your role or title, there's a lot here to think about, to think about how organizations can be successful, how individuals can be successful, and hopefully a little bit about how we can recognize effective leadership traits in one another, within our teams, among our peers, and just continue to build and foster better relationships.
Work environments, work cultures, and then lead to more success. [00:01:00] My guest today is Damon Lembi, who is a two time best selling author. He's the host of the Learn It All podcast and CEO of Learn It, which is a live learning platform that has upskilled over 2 million people. Drawing from his prior baseball career, Damon brings an athlete's perspective to leadership through his journey.
He has gained invaluable insights into what helps organizations grow, how great leaders learn, and why Learn It All companies outpace their competitors. Every time his latest book is called the learn it all leader mindsets, traits, and tools, Damon, welcome to the show.
Damon Lembi: Ross, happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Ross Romano: So there's a lot to, to kind of build around here. A lot of topics that I think,
you know, regular listeners of the show will recognize as things that typically interest me and, and
and things that are really
valuable and critical.
I wanted to kind of start by building out of this.
quote or phrase that I read [00:02:00] while reading up on the book, which is great leaders aren't born.
They're not made either. They're in the making. They're constantly creating and recreating themselves, their companies, and their leadership, which I think, you know, starts to set the context for what it means to be a leader. a learn it all leader versus the know it all leader.
Can you expand on that a little bit?
Tell us about what it means to be the learn it all leader and how that might contrast with, with what some people are thinking about and, and this process of, right, that it's a continuous process of always being in the making.
Damon Lembi: Sure. Because a lot of times people think, well, you're just either born a leader or you're not. You have it or you don't.
And I want to say that's absolutely not true. I think we all have the ability to be leaders. And you know, I consider leaders to be, we're all leaders, right? So whether you're a parent, whether you're a school teacher, whether you're leading a fortune 500 company, we're all leaders in our own way.[00:03:00]
And the difference between a learn it all leader and a know it all leader A know it all, starting off with that, is somebody who comes in, we all know them, hopefully you're not one of them, who has all the answers, everything, they have everything figured out, right? They're not open to other ideas, this is how we do it, this is how we've always done it, and they know more than everybody else.
The contrast that with the learn it all leader is somebody who has an open mind, who's humble, curious, and has a insatiable appetite, I like to say, for learning, and they always know that there's more out there. There's people who are smarter than them in different areas, and they I think one thing that's really important is that they're, they're always curious, right?
So they're curious and they want to learn to continue and grow. And that's why that quote you found there, which I always like to say is, you know, great leaders aren't born or made, they're constantly in the making. Because I feel like as a leader or as a parent, if you figure like you have all the answers, Then you're going to get [00:04:00] left in the dust.
Ross Romano: Yeah. What,
what's required to
an intentional mentality or like mindset shift toward learn it all leadership? Maybe someone's already in a, in a position where they've been in leadership and they either recognize that maybe they have been
doing a little bit more of the know it all approach, or they're not totally sure, but they want to be more intentional about it.
What are some of the things they would want to know about and commit to?
Damon Lembi: Well, I think it's a great question. And there's not a lot required, it's just having an open mind and being curious. And realizing, again, that there's always some, there's there's There's always more to learn. And you see, honestly, it's a little tough to change somebody from being a know it all to a learn it all.
It's kind of funny, when I, when I, my book first came out, I had a lot of people that I know who are total know it alls. And they'd be like, oh, I'm a learn it all. I have, [00:05:00] I know, you know, this, this, and that. But, at the end of the day, to be a learn it all, it just means that, You want to for from a team perspective, you want to surround yourself with good people.
You want to give them the space to be able to provide information to, you know, take the lead on different things and that you're, you foster a culture where everybody's learning from each other. Right? So instead of an organization that is run by a know it all, Where a lot of times the, whether it's a small business owner or a leader of a team, their roster, they're actually the bottleneck in the organization because everything has to come through them.
Right? They have all the answers. You know, nobody's allowed to make a decision. If you go against the boss, well, you might either get fired or put in your place. So,
the know it all organizations typically have a yes mentality where a learn it all cultures, people have They feel like that there's psychological safety where they can approach and give their [00:06:00] leader feedback and, and share ideas.
And so that's really the difference between the two. And as somebody who wants to go from a know it all to a learn it all, it's just having enough self awareness to see what side of the fence you fall on. (ad here)
Ross Romano: Yeah,
I'm wondering about
the
core assumptions, I guess, of, of different models of leadership.
I ask because
it's coming to mind. We recently finished. We're actually still sort of in progress on it, but we've conducted the bulk of it. A partnership campaign here with Reading is Fundamental for National Literacy Month, and I had a lot of conversations during that about the science of reading, practices that have proven to be effective over many decades, but which
We, you know, as an education [00:07:00] system haven't remained consistent in committing and having fidelity to them and trends have gone on a bunch of different directions.
There still are a lot of people who believe that there are
different, you know, multiple approaches that work when the actual evidence and the science has been consistent for a long time about how to teach reading. And we talked about what are some of the reasons why. why that's happening? Why, why do people change something that's working?
Or, or why is there not clarity after all this time about everybody having a consensus on understanding what works? And some of the reasons are things like
I think the assumption that something better is always going to come along, right? That when we know something that's working, but we just assume, well, the more that we
look into this or the more different things we try, there must be something because the way that it was done a long time ago can't possibly work [00:08:00] anymore.
Or
some things like there's certain parts of it that, that can be boring and, and sticking to the fundamentals and. really committing to saying, look, if we can build the fundamentals, then we can do anything from there. But the fundamentals can be a little boring, so maybe there's a different way.
But anyway, my thought being, right, that a misapplication perhaps of a learn it all mentality would be that all learning means change versus sometimes we learn something that confirms what we know works or we learn and that, you know, to an outsider who's not really going through the, the steps of
the investigation and the critical thinking, they might assume, well, that means no at all, because, well, you just think, you know, everything because that's what used to work and it doesn't.
So anyway, that's a long way of saying
What, yeah, what are some of those, you know, if [00:09:00] I'm committing to say a learn it all leadership and I am committing to constantly evaluating, right? Reflecting, investigating, learning about new things, but then being able to critically think and compare and contrast them to other approaches and figure out what's best for me, for my organization.
What are some of the assumptions we would go into that with about where it would lead to, I guess, and what, what. you know, actions are expected as a result of my learning or are not expected.
Damon Lembi: Well, it's a, that's a great question. And there's some good insights in there.
I'm not, I don't know exactly about your, your
you know, the study you did on, on reading, but one of the things that I'd like to say first and foremost is that I don't think everybody learns the same way. I think different people learn different ways.
And so I think that there needs to be
flexibility. You know, some people are visual learners or some people like to
Take live classes. Some want to, you know, do [00:10:00] it through coaching or on demand videos. So I think there needs to be flexibility in, I don't know whether it's teaching reading or whether it's teaching leadership or even how to hit a baseball.
So everybody learns different ways and have different approaches.
When it comes to learning overall, I agree with you. I don't want to run an organization where all we do is just learn all the time, you know, and, and, and, and do change just for the sake of change. It's got to make a difference, right? And it's got to make an improvement.
And there's a saying I heard
by a guy named David Katz, who's awesome, who said, learning without doing is treason. And what I, what he means by that is, If you sit there and you read 100 books, or if you're constantly learning and, and, and you're not applying it, or you're not executing anything that you're working on, then it's, then it's kind of a waste of time.
And sometimes the way that things are set up right now, they are the very best. And so, let's not just change it to change [00:11:00] it, but if there are ROS, if there are ways to iterate on things and make them better, Especially in the education system, you know, where
maybe it needs a little bit of an advancement.
Hopefully people are open a little bit to change and
I'm on, I'm on an advisory board for a small private college and they're, they're trying really hard to get out of some of the old mindsets and adopt to new ways of learning. And I'm really proud of the work that they've done. So it's just having the mindset of being open to change if change is what's important.
But like you said. Let's just not just spend all our time learning, learning, learning, and not advancing ourselves in, in a direction that makes the most sense for our school system, for our education, for our teams we coach, because then you're just going down a rabbit hole of,
you know, just going down a rabbit hole.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it, it brings about the necessity of understanding goal setting, right? Cause there's [00:12:00] maybe a spectrum where at one, you know, the one end is a lot of things are broke. But we're not even trying to fix them. Then above that is the, if it's not broke, don't fix it mentality, which can lead to a lot of complacency and not a lot of forward thinking.
Maybe all the way at the other end would be let's constantly just try to fix everything, even if we don't even know what's working, what's not, or what we're trying to do, you know, let's just learn all the time and maybe do things all the time, but not really have a plan.
And then in between there somewhere, there's.
We have a clear vision of where we're trying to go. We have clear objectives for what we want to do, and then we're going to learn how to do what we need to do to get there. We're going to look at what's working, what's not, what we could be doing better
what we can anticipate even if it's working now will not work in five years, etc.,
intentionality around that, being able to [00:13:00] communicate a clear vision, I'm sure. you know, would go in with this leadership of saying, look, if we're going to commit to this path
we are going to, we know why, like, let's, let's have people understand what that looks like versus let's just have a completely different approach every year, right?
So what, what might kind of the process of goal setting and goal communicating
look like for a leader who's, you know, leading this type of organization?
Damon Lembi: Well, let me, as you're speaking, I was thinking about Learn It, my organization, which a live learning platform. And we essentially do instructor led training, instructor led training on emotional intelligence, leadership skills. We also do, you know, how to teach Excel and everything like that. And quite frankly, I think we do a fantastic job. Now, with that being said, If we don't learn to change and evolve, we're going to be in big trouble, right? Because [00:14:00] there's all these AI tools coming out. There's a, you know, AI coaching, AI, all this stuff. And
I'm not, by no means do I, do I look at it like it's going to replace, you know, live instructor led training, but what it can definitely do is supplement and enhance what
what's, what's out there and, and for us, help us make our training more sticky, you know, help with retention.
And so we're building things like habit coaches, you know, AI habit coaches, you know,
automated advisory stuff. And so to get back to your, to get back to your question about vision and goal setting, our leadership team sat down about it, you know, at the beginning of the year and, and said, Hey, let's, what's our roadmap for the next 12 months of what we want to be able to create and do, and where does it add extra value?
And that's where we said, you know, our goals are, and you know, that we have lofty goals, but you have to have goals along the way. [00:15:00] Right? And, and so our goals were, we want to create a habit coach that goes along with each course that we teach. So if somebody gets through an emotional intelligence class, they can, they can, access this coach who will, you know, help keep them on track and prompt them to do things.
they can help make their learning more sticky, you know, instead of just our instructor led training that we have. And so a small goal along the way was just building a prototype that would even, you know, answer any questions. So we're in the process of doing that. Hopefully that helps as far as an answer.
But yeah, we set a clear vision of what we want it to look like in a perfect world and the steps that we have to get. to go there. Because even though I think we have a very well, even though our customers say we have a very good product, I know that there's more that we can do. And instead of, you know, sticking our head in the clouds and not realizing
that that technology is out there, if we don't take advantage of it,
others will, and it's going to leave our leave our [00:16:00] leave, learn it behind.
And we're doing our disservice to our customers by not being able to provide them these extra resources to help evolve their learning journey.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, you're referencing AI and it's a perfect example of, I think, where there's some, you know, learn it all versus know it all tendencies right now happening in
schools, happening in other, you know, areas of, of industry where
you know, some people quickly jump to the conclusion that they knew what the, the right thing was, or what the eventualities were.
I know that. This is just something that's going to disrupt what we already know how to do, or going to be about cheating or whatever. And so I know that we don't, we're not, we're just going to ignore it entirely. There's other people who maybe, you know, went too full fledged and embracing it without a clear plan of knowing what they were trying to do and just said, I [00:17:00] know that this is, this is the thing.
So let's just, you know, and, and in the middle, there's the people who are saying, okay. Number one, these technologies are going to continue to evolve. So we don't know what that is exactly going to mean. But what we need to do is think about what are the areas where we could do more? What are the areas that are likely to be changed regardless of what we want, right?
And what do we need to learn about this and engage with the conversation? And that's some of the conversations I've had with people about it is
we don't, you know, in one, way. We don't totally know who all the experts are on this yet because we don't know how everything's going to bear out. We know who maybe some of the thought leaders are, but what you need to do is engage in the conversation.
It doesn't mean you need to jump to immediate conclusions about these are the tools we need to adopt, or this is everything we need to do, [00:18:00] but it means you need to be aware of what's there. Be aware of, oh, I didn't realize this was going to be possible.
especially in, in organizations where we're responsible for leading learning, right?
Not lead learners down a path that's going to become obsolete. Oh, let's keep teaching them how to do something that in a couple of years, nobody's going to really need to know how to do, or you'll need to know how to do it totally differently according to the way technology is evolving.
But let's also not, overwhelm the senses with too many different things without, you know, a cohesive vision, right?
But it takes the willingness, you know, you referenced humility earlier, and I definitely want to talk more about how that applies, but the humility and the willingness to engage and to say, We, I don't know the answers here, and that's why we're going to keep learning, stay knowledgeable, and then we will be able to make informed [00:19:00] decisions and do the things that best serve
our constituents.
Damon Lembi: Yeah. And humility falls into it because you might go down a certain path and you might find out that it's the wrong path. So you got to have humility that, well, one, don't fall for sunken costs, right? Don't fall into like, okay, we're going down this path and we've already invested in it. We have to stick with it.
Hey, if you realize you made a mistake. Throw your hands up, made a mistake. Let's, let's pivot and go the other direction. What I like, what you really said was a different spectrums. Let's just take AI again, right? Well, you have some people in the learning field, whether it's, you know, again, K through 12 or college or, or B2B, like what I'm in, who are just adamant.
They don't want anything to do with it, right? They're just gonna, they're just gonna pretend like it doesn't exist. Alright, well, good luck with that. You know what I mean? Good luck with that, cause you're, it's here to stay and it's gonna, it's gonna be involved. Then you have the other people who go way overboard.
They, you know, they just [00:20:00] jump 100 percent in the other direction. when a lot of this stuff isn't even working yet, right? And, and so, and like you said, you don't even know who the thought leaders are. And I mean, well, maybe we know who the thought leaders are, but we're not sure what technology is working.
And you also have to be careful about investing too much in it right now, because it might just come out organically without having to spend a ton of money in six months. So finding a happy medium.
what I like to say, starting small and, you know, just start small and, and test and, and get something, you know, try something out.
And, and just, I think that that's important to, like, even in my organization and some of the customers that we work with, you know, they're a little, they're a little resistant to AI and, and, and to expect them to go, to go, from 0 to 100, that's impossible. So, I mean, or it's just not going to work. But maybe you get them to dabble in it a little bit, you know, and just, maybe it's just dabble in it a little bit, and get some confidence with it, and take small steps instead of going one direction or the other, [00:21:00] I really think is the
the best way to go about it.
Ross Romano: So,
getting back to that humility piece, which I think is going to be part of this, but,
I'm wondering about how a learn it all leader
presents, you know,
What kind of demeanor
a learned adult leader may have, right, in a, in a situation where they're working with people of whom they are the quote unquote leader, but how might they act?
How might they engage people?
What are some of the, the things that we might expect to show up? in somebody who is approaching leadership in this way, versus maybe the, you know, the image people have in their heads, or what that know it all leader might look like, or what most people You know, who haven't thought that much about leadership, right?
If you just walked up to the street and said, when you think of a leader, what do you think of what they might even say, even if that's not the [00:22:00] type of leadership they would like to be led by or, but it's just, you know, there's images all of us have in our head of what a quote unquote leader is
that may or may not correspond to effectiveness.
Damon Lembi: Oh yeah, I mean, look at, you know,
people, people might turn on the TV and, and look at, you know, I don't know, some of the politicians out there or just some of the people who show up on time and
whether, whether that's good leadership or not, who knows, that's, that's a whole different conversation. So, but that's where some people, you know, get their idea what, what, what leadership is.
For me, I, you know, for
when it comes to learn it all leader, I, I really think that there's five main traits, you know, we've talked about
some of them already. It's humility, curiosity, integrity,
courage. And also accountability. Those are really the, the traits. We talked about humility a little bit.
When it comes to, let's start at, you know, when it, when it comes to integrity, you know, you think it's expected, right?
Okay. Well, you know, you gotta, you gotta lead with [00:23:00] integrity.
Not that's not necessarily the case. And what I mean by integrity, really, I'm not talking about doing something illegal versus not illegal. That should just be, you know, a no brainer. But integrity to me means that a leader who who says
doesn't over promise and underproduce.
If you say you're going to do something, then do it, right? If you're, you know, if you're going to be there at a certain time, show up on time. And I think if you don't have integrity
you're going to have a very difficult time gaining trust from your team. You know, you have to earn trust. And I have a hard time imagining a successful team where teams don't trust their leaders because they don't feel like their leaders have integrity.
The other trait I think that's super important. Well, we talked about a little bit, but curiosity, I think is the thread that kind of runs through everything is just being curious, open, asking great questions. You know, I think, I think some of the best leaders out there, you have a conversation with them
they make, they make you feel like you're [00:24:00] the only person involved around, right?
They're just listening and they're actively interested in what you have to say. And I think curiosity is super important.
Also when I talk about courage, you know, I'm not necessarily talking about what the amazing things that the people in the armed forces do in that
The courage it takes to go out and do that.
But as a leader, you need to have the courage to make tough, bold decisions.
People want to follow people who aren't afraid to make tough decisions, right? If you have somebody who's wishy washy and you get a decision paralysis, you know, I mean that people, you know, they don't, they don't, you lose trust in them, right?
So I think it takes courage.
To, to be a great leader. And, you know, how they, and that comes back to, you know, how do you present yourself? Look, I said, humility. I, I think vulnerability is important, but vulnerability, it's, Vulnerability with [00:25:00] confidence. You know, I mean, sure. Hey, I made mistakes.
Help me out with this.
But at the end of the day, you also have to show the confidence like, Hey, yeah, I messed this up, but this is how we're going to figure it out. Right? So it's being an open book like that, but also not being
you know, a weeping or a weak CEO or a leader.
So it's, it's kind of a fine line, right? Because people want to see that you're human, that you're vulnerable.
But on the other hand, at the end of the day, if somebody's working for you or they're sending your kids, their kids to your school, they want to be able to trust that they're putting their time, money, investment, and their lives in your hands, that they have somebody who's a strong, leader. And so I think that those traits right there, if you can, and I'm sure there's others out there and you can mix it, match the combinations,
at least for me, I think that those are the ones that, that I try to coach up on our teams and our customers and try to live by myself.
Ross Romano: Yeah, yeah. And I mean,
[00:26:00] this conversations about leadership always make me think of these
three cons of leadership that I've thought about and written about a few times.
It's a little tongue in cheek, but it's conscientiousness, consistency, and constancy, right?
That they're positives, but the conscientiousness being like, like a good leader is somebody that we know, We know that they're committed to the mission, right?
We know that they are thoughtful and mindful about their work. We know that they are
mindful and thoughtful about the people they're leading and what their role is as a leader, and they take it seriously and, right? Consistency. There's a logic to the thing we do. I may not always agree with every decision this person makes.
They're communicative. They're transparent. Like, I understand why we're doing things that we're doing. If we change course, we kind of get why we did that because there's a consistent approach. There's a thoughtfulness of that and the constancy about demeanor. I know, like, I don't have to worry when I come in day to day, [00:27:00] what's the person going to be like today?
I have a question for them. Can I approach or not?
You know, that's somebody that is a presence that we know that we can rely on and it's reliable. And then like, you can. Those can apply to people in different ways, but I always think of them as three things to say, okay, if I'm
If I'm somebody who, you know, again, you're like, you're only a leader if people are willing to follow you, right?
So if, if I'm thinking about somebody that I would want to follow, or I want to be the type of leader that people are willing to, to follow toward an organizational goal, what are some traits
that would say, okay, right? Because, because we, there's never a situation where you can always please everybody all the time or everybody always thinks you did the right thing or made the right decision or everybody even thinks you're the smartest person and and well why is that person in that position it should be me or you know there's all those things that are going to happen in an [00:28:00] organization and a team but can you Get people to at least see, like, this is what we're doing.
This is why we're going to do it.
We can buy into this and, and we can see where it goes. And we're also willing to your point to continue evaluate and say, look, we did this, we thought it was going to be the right thing, it didn't work, we're going to change and here's why.
But I can, I can live with that.
If I understand that there was a rationale. So why we did that in the first place, right? But if it just seems like haphazard at the whims of, well, this person just is doing this because it satisfies their ego, or I have no idea why we're doing what we're doing. And I can't even feel like I can make smart decisions about what I should do with my job, because I have no idea what the organization is doing or why they're deciding things.
Right. It makes everybody better.
When there's a willingness to. And, and I think [00:29:00] that's. You know, the humility plays into that part too, the transparency and communication piece, and the Also, the, you know, perspective taking and the empathy of saying, what things do people in this organization want to know about, what questions are they going to have, what are their concerns going to be, what are the things that we have not been in dialogue about that we should be, right?
I think organizations tend to, tend to categorize too many things as proprietary information or need to know basis kind of stuff.
Where it's like, okay, what is the practical application of all this information to everybody around the organization? It doesn't necessarily need to be that they're directly involved with
process, but it means that, again, it communicates the other things, communicates the conscientiousness.
So here's the process we're going through, right? Here's [00:30:00] how we're thinking about this. It communicates strategy to say, hey, it might make you better in your role. Because you're thinking about strategy in your role, because you understand the strategy we're going through and all those kind of things.
it increases trust, right?
Because now I no longer feel like, well, they must be hiding something, or I have no idea what they're doing, or I don't, I don't know why they're doing what they're doing, and I don't know where their heart is, and I don't know what they're thinking about, and so I have no, I can't, I can't trust them, right?
Not that I want to mistrust them, but they're giving me no evidence that I should trust them.
So, you know, I think it all kind of relates to what you described. there. I don't know if you agree.
Damon Lembi: I do agree. You know, one of the things you said, which is miserable, is working for somebody.
And I played for baseball coaches like this, where you never knew what you're getting when you walked in in the morning. You never knew what the mood was going to be like, right? And so one of the things you said earlier was, was [00:31:00] consistency.
And I, yeah, I think, I think leaders need to be consistent. They need to be consistent with their messaging. They need to be consistent, their approach.
Of course, you know, you want to be able to pivot when you need to pivot, but.
It's, it's uncomfortable and not a great environment to work in where you
come to work in the morning and you have, and you're going to look at the body language of your boss or your, your leader to determine how your day is going to go, right?
Do I, do I approach this person? Do I leave him alone? You know, what, what's going to go on that that's miserable. And one of the other things you said, which I think is important. is when it comes to decision making, understanding what the process is like. A
lot of times I feel like people don't understand the process for the decision making and people will come with ideas and then these ideas will get shot down and they don't know why it was shot down.
They don't know why they're going in the direction that they're going in. I'm a big [00:32:00] believer that you, you know, there's all different types of decisions. That's a whole nother conversation. But let's, let's say that
you, you come, you have an environment where people, are, you know, that you want them to come with ideas and on decisions, like we're going to do, we want to do this, but we want to figure out how to get there, come with the ideas.
So you get your team members to come to the ideas, you hear them out,
but they need to know who's the decision maker in this situation. Is it the CEO or is it a little panel or whatever it is? And at the end of the day, if we don't go with your decision, what we do need for you to understand is that we heard you out.
And we need you to get behind whatever decision we made, right? So just so that if they understand the process, you give them the time to speak. And then if that their decision doesn't get chosen, then they get behind the team and go in that direction. And I think if you do that, Ross, I think that you're going to get people who will continue to come to the table with ideas.
And if you don't do that, then, and you don't, you're [00:33:00] not communicating to them and you're not again, transparency, which I think is critical for leadership. then people are just gonna, you know, they're gonna wonder, they're gonna be like, why even, why do I even waste my time saying anything here? Because it's a waste of time.
So,
yeah, I think consistency, communicating, and
just. I think a lot of it comes down to self awareness, just being aware of how you're perceived by others because when you're a leader, you're, you're pretty much always on stage, right? So good or bad, people are always looking to see what's your body language like, you know, what's your tone, what's your tone over email, and you just need to be, you know, aware of that, that's, that's something that took me personally a long time to understand
you know, cause we all have bad days, right?
So even though we all have bad days, you still need to show up in a way that's professional and something that's not, not gonna either, you know, worry your team or make them feel like you're an inconsistent or [00:34:00] just somebody that they shouldn't trust.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the one way to,
to say it is like, To worry a little bit less about your privileges as a leader and a little more about your responsibilities, right? Cause there's a lot of things and it can because we may have worked for people who operated a certain way. And it's like, you know, you're almost kind of longing for the day when you're in that position and then you get to, to, you know, have some of those same privileges or, or not, not technically be, Accountable for certain things, but realistically
if you care about the effectiveness of your organization and of your people and about really leading a great organization
spending more time thinking about, okay, what are the.
You know, being elevated to this position certainly comes with its benefits, but it also means that there's things that I am, I am now responsible for,
Damon Lembi: Benefits [00:35:00] and responsible. Like you, I just want to key on what you said. Benefits, but it's a responsibility that you have to uphold.
Ross Romano: right
I, I also think related to this, and this is something that
a lot of people struggle with, and that a lot of people
maybe,
you know, are grappling with the, the humility piece and all, is the imposter syndrome part and overcoming that, and in my, you know, view, I mean, you know, The way I describe it usually is
the only reason you really have to feel imposter syndrome is if you really are being an imposter.
Like, if you really are trying to be something that you're not, then you should feel like that. But if you are just being, you know, your authentic self and, and doing what you should be doing, then you should feel that way. And, but also that. You know, humility and true humility to me
is the presence. It happens in the presence of confidence, right?
It's the, it's the [00:36:00] ability to feel like I don't have to try to appear a certain way to people. I'm confident that if I go about this the right way and I learn and I ask questions, I don't have to show that I'm in charge. I just have to do the job and then You know, versus humility being, you know, some people may still think of it as meek, right, or unconfident or I'm, I'm, I'm really nobody.
And that's
that's not, you know,
being in maybe in humble circumstances is not humility in that sense. But
yeah, the imposter syndrome piece. I know you've thought about overcoming that as a leader.
Damon Lembi: Well, one thing I would say again about humility is some of the most successful leaders, athletes, people I've ever been in my life. are the most humble ones. You'd never expect them to be who they are
success wise. And they just have that [00:37:00] silence, confident, silent confidence. And I don't know,
maybe it just starts with
childhood and how your parents raised you, but man, it's so critical to have confidence.
I think that the people out there kind of like what you're talking about, if you just show up. as your genuine, authentic self, because you have confidence. I look at some of these people, especially sales reps who are trying to, you know, sell you things. And it's, they're so fake, right? You know, they're, they're, they're trying to be somebody that they're not.
And it's so easy to just see right through that. It's, it's much more enjoyable.
and builds better relationships if people just show up as you are, right? And don't try to be somebody else.
It's, it's just much more engaging. And again, you build more trust. When it comes to imposter syndrome, I think, I don't know, I think we all suffer from imposter syndrome at certain times, imposter syndrome and self doubt.
And I think if you
If you say you don't, then you're probably either a [00:38:00] sociopath or maybe just not, not telling the truth.
It's, it just, it's just going to happen. And it doesn't even mean necessarily that you, you lack total confidence. A lot of times, some of the people that I mentor are individuals, Ross, who they get promoted to a leadership role for the first time, or they took on a new
left a company and took on a new job and they'll turn to me and they'll say, Damon, I can't believe I got this job.
What am I supposed to do now? I don't, I don't know if I'm even qualified for this. And what I like to tell them is, Hey, look, that's not your responsibility to worry about whether or not you're qualified, because there's other people out there who hired you for this, who believe in you. And they wouldn't have put you in this position if they didn't have the confidence to be able to do it.
So don't worry about whether or not you should be here. Just get there. And, and, and, and have confidence in yourself, believe in yourself and have confidence in yourself and make it happen. You know, do the, all you can do the best you can do.
Imposter syndrome. The first time I ever really dealt with [00:39:00] it and not to go for a very long story about it, but I was a high school, all American baseball player.
I got drafted by the Atlanta Braves.
I turned that down. I went to college instead. When I got to, when I got to the baseball field at Pepperdine Ross. I was used to being better, the best player on the team. When I got there, everybody were super stars. And so I was just like,
and I was like, I don't even know if I'm good enough to be here.
And
and so I struggled and I ended up leaving
And I got another chance to go to Arizona State, which was like my last chance to be successful in baseball. And I didn't want to give it up. So I, I threw, I put aside the fact that, am I good enough or not, the imposter syndrome? And I really, I really built a three step framework on it.
Step number one is really work hard. You know, there's nothing that's going to replace hard work. So I was the first guy out on the field, the last guy to leave. And number two was
And I like to call it deliberate practice, [00:40:00] right? So it's very easy to, to procrastinate. You know, if there's something you want to get better at and it's hard for you and it's uncomfortable, it's easy to try to do something else.
But if you really want to get better at something, then jump at it headfirst. Like when I first started
hosting my podcast, I was, You know, nervous I wasn't going to do a good job. I just did it a lot. You know, I just, I just worked hard at it and I just really focused in on parts that I didn't think I was very good at.
And maybe I'm not still very good at it, but I'm getting better at it, right? But I'm focusing in on that. So you work hard, you put in the deliberate practice, and then when it's game time, whether it's giving a presentation or stepping up to the batter's box, step three is learn and let go. Stop worrying about the, the technique or whatever.
Just go for it. Get up there, make your presentation, take the swing at that.
you do great, fantastic. If you fail, so what? At least you got up there and you tried and learn from that. Learn from that and do different, [00:41:00] do better next time. And I think a lot of people don't give themselves enough pat on the back for trying, because a lot of people don't try, you know, and other people don't try, at least you stepped up to the plate and you tried, right?
So work hard, put in deliberate practice, and learn and let go. That's, that's just kind of the framework that I've used over the years, and I've, I've tried to, you know, throughout learn it and every else we help people with. But
I also think to add to that, I think it's a leader's responsibility to help people see how great they are.
and the achievements that they have. You know, there's so many times where I've had a, maybe a younger individual, 26, 27 years old, and you could tell they're kind of down on something. And I was like, I'd highlight for them the accomplishments they've, they've already accomplished. I'm like, what are you talking about, man?
Look what you've done. You've done this, this, and this. You got to be proud about that. Sometimes people forget about that. Right? So I, you know, I, I, I think that there's no [00:42:00] replacement for you doing it yourself.
You know, getting out of that. Self Doubt, Imposter Syndrome, but I also think it's a leader, a coach, a parent's responsibility to help people understand how great they are as well. (ad here)
Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I completely agree with all that. And, and going back to one of the things you, you mentioned, you know, the, the, the sales person's a great
example with this because I think a lot of people's
feeling that they're averse to sales, oh, I, I can't, I'm not salesy or I can't be a sales, is because of their, you know, connotation.
Right.
It means being
an impotent, it means being something you're not, and it means trying to sell somebody something that they don't want, right? And again, if you're trying to sell somebody to something, to someone that you know is not you, They shouldn't buy, then you should feel like an
Damon Lembi: You It's that car salesman of,
Ross Romano: oh selling you something that's gonna break [00:43:00] down. Versus, if you stand behind the product, whatever it is, an idea, you know, an opportunity, or a physical product, and you know that it is, valuable to the other person, then you should be confident to communicate to them and not feel like an opponent.
But anyway, and, and then, you know, to the baseball thing, I love that. And listeners, I get to plug my other show, Sideline Sessions here, in which I talk to sports coaches.
So I always love to make the sports references, but you know, baseball being such a rich
field for that, because I do think in so many ways, right, the role of the baseball manager and operating their organization is most.
relevant to
all types of organizations and what it, you know, the, the amount of time that you're together in the day to day and managing personalities and
needing every single person on that roster to be ready when their time comes. Right. And knowing that even though it's a team sport, it's a bunch of [00:44:00] individuals performing as opposed to, you know, other sports where it's Your performance may be more or less
dependent on what your teammates do or on the strategy or, or you can hide somebody who's not totally prepared.
You know, when you're up at the plate, you're by yourself. It doesn't matter who your teammates are. You're either going to perform or you're not. If you're on the mound, You're either going to throw a strike or you're not. Nobody can make you do it.
Right? But ultimately you have people who are depending on you to do your part and you have to be willing to get up there, as you said, and, and give it a shot.
You know, the spotlight might be on you. People are looking at what you do. You're going to fail at least as much as you succeed.
You have to be willing to get out there and do it.
And I think that relates to
also, you know, we're, we're kind of getting towards time here, but I want to, wanted to sort of tie this together with one final piece
which [00:45:00] I've talked about here before, but you, you write about focusing on elevating strengths over improving weaknesses, right?
Which is something I think applies in sports of saying, like, The more time we're always worried about what this person's not good at and trying to focus on that, they could get a lot better at the thing they're already good at and that could be more valuable to our team if everybody gets better at the things they're good at versus worrying about
strengthening and the same thing with organizations, the same thing with just,
I think the pressure we put on ourselves to say, Oh, I need to, you know, focus all my learning on the things that I don't know as well or I don't do as well.
Well, have you reached your full potential at your strengths? Because if not, you know, there might be unlimited growth that you could achieve there.
But yeah, tell us about that, why that's your perspective and, and what benefit you think that brings to organizations.
Damon Lembi: Yeah. And I'm curious. I think we're on the same page with this, but I am curious. And, and please tell me if you disagree, [00:46:00] but I, but I, I prefer to focus on people's strengths and I think it's important as a leader of an organization or using the baseball analogy on people's strengths. You know, in baseball.
Somebody might be able to play third base because they have a great arm, but they're, they're better as a relief pitcher. So as a coach, you need to understand where to put your person, that person in to have the most likely chance of success. And that's, that's part of the coach's responsibility. Instead of just hammering, hammering, hammering on trying to getting them better on their weaknesses.
Now, I'm not opposed to improving weaknesses, sure. But if somebody's good at something, they're probably a little bit more passionate about it anyways. And I've kind of felt like it's, it's a low hanging fruit and a lot left you know, a lot easier and, and, and, and adds a lot more value to focus on those weaknesses, because just like you said, Ross, maybe you haven't maximized that strength.
So let's take that your strength from an
you know, [00:47:00] an 8. 5 to a 10. Let's keep focusing on there.
And when it comes to a team, you know, everybody can't be great at everything. So your responsibility as a coach, again, is to take these puzzle pieces, these position players, and figure out who is strong at what, and create a cohesive team that, that, that, kind of holistically covers everything.
So you got to be aware, you got to be curious what people are good at, and you want to focus them on their strengths. I mean, I've had at Learn It, and I talk about, there's like three or four different stories in my book about it, but one of my favorites is this guy, Joe Patti, who showed up at Learn It and
was as a sales guy.
And, you know, he worked his butt off. He, he, he, he made a hundred calls a day. He was frigging miserable doing it. And, but he had such a great attitude and a great personality. And so I sat him down and I was just like, this obviously isn't working out
but you're great. You're, you're great for our culture.
else? What else [00:48:00] do you like to do? And he's like, well, you know, I, I was in shows in school and I studied computer science and I'm like, okay, let's give you a shot as an instructor. And so he's been crushing it as an instructor for five years for Now, I want to say that by saying, if somebody's, you know, for all you listeners out there, if you're a leader, if somebody's failing at their job, that doesn't, that doesn't mean you automatically need to try them somewhere else.
Maybe they're not a good fit and you could let them go. But if you have somebody Like Joe Patti, who has a lot of the values that align with your organization, and you can see something in them, then maybe try to put them in a position, you know, to be successful. And that's exactly what happened with Joe.
We
Took him out of sales, put him into instruction and it aligned with his passion and his strengths and he's been
fantastic ever since.
Ross Romano: Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's a great way to kind of tie this together and definitely something we talk about here, you know, talk [00:49:00] about it in schools with instead of worrying about the one or two subjects where a student's not as strong. There's unlimited things they can learn about math or science or language or anything, right?
And, but that's something that takes the, it takes the joy out of learning. It takes, you know, the joy out of the pursuit when we're told, You're already good enough at that thing. You don't have to spend time on the thing you are good at and maybe enjoy the most. We need to spend more time remediating on the areas where you're not as strong, right?
And there's, and so, if all of our time is spent at things that we're struggling on or that we're not as passionate about or not as interested in and we're trying to, homogenize in that way where everybody has to be the same and, you know, certainly that happens in sports, right? Where I think there's
The more we think we've gotten smarter about certain things, there's, you know, great players from 50 years ago that would never get an opportunity today because [00:50:00] their weaknesses are what we would focus on versus their strengths.
But it applies to everybody. So these are all great ideas and, and listeners, you can find the book, The Learn It All Leader on Amazon or wherever you get your books.
Damon also have your podcast, anything in particular you want people to check out.
Damon Lembi: Oh, check out my podcast, Learn It All podcast. I have a lot of fun doing that. And connect with me on LinkedIn at DamonLembe. And of course, you can check out classes at learnit, learnit. com.
Ross Romano: Excellent. All right. Listeners, we'll put all the links below. You can check all of that out
make it really easy for you. So there's a lot there and there's a lot more. Trust me, I had a lot more ideas for our conversation that we didn't even get to. So there's much more for you to read in the book, hear about on Damon's podcast and, and see what kind of resources LearnIt also has for you.
Check all of that out. Please do subscribe to the authority. If you haven't already, we have a lot more great conversations. Thank you. Coming your way, or visit bpodcast. network to learn about all of our shows.
Damon, thanks again for being here.[00:51:00]
Damon Lembi: Ross, it was a pleasure. Thank you.
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