Ty Cobb Backer: 0:01

and we are live. Welcome back everybody to Behind the Tool Belt, episode 288. I'm your host, ty Cobb-Acker. Thank you for joining us on this Wednesday edition. We will be back after our short intro from our sponsors.

Speaker 2: 0:35

Welcome to Behind the Tool Belt, where the stories are bold, the conversations are real and the insights come to you live, raw and uncut. Real, and the insights come to you live, raw and uncut. Every week, host Ty Cobb-Backer sits down to bring you the stories, the struggles, the lessons learned and the wins. No filters, no scripts, just the truth. Please welcome your host of Behind the Toolbelt, ty Cobb-Backer.

Ty Cobb Backer: 1:01

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back everybody, everybody on this rainy Wednesday edition of Behind the Tool Belt. Now, last week, we talked about how to amplify your brand by developing your company's culture through leadership and creating lasting authority while expanding your market presence. This week, I would like to talk a little bit, probably about, obviously, leadership, because that's all I'd like to talk about Not all of it, but most of it. It's kind of weird not having Vic in the studio with me, but I do see him over there. Hi, vic, he's behind the stage. What's up, dude? Good to see you, brother. Anyhow, like I said last week, this all starts with great leadership. There's no secret sauce. You have to be able to manage yourself, lead yourself and learn how to serve before you can lead others. And listen. By no means I say this all the time. I'm not perfect. I am a work in progress and I am trying to personally develop my leadership ability, to be a better parent, be a better coworker.

Speaker 2: 2:10

So on and so forth.

Ty Cobb Backer: 2:13

So leadership, yeah, it's an ever-evolving, changing thing, at least for me. Some of you know and have heard me mention you know, know, I'm in the process of writing a book. I refuse to use ai, I want it to be my words, my words only. And it's like the more that I'm studying this thing, the more that it's evolving, the more that'm changing. My outlook on things are changing and I think my biggest struggle with that is that I don't want to contradict myself like 10 years from now or even a month from now, what I'm putting in there, even though most of it is stuff that I've heard along the way, sharing a lot of my personal experiences and things like that. One of my personal experiences is being a horrible follower, right. Especially, you know, not in a leadership position, but also being in a leadership position is having the capabilities of following and anybody in any kind of organization or family, right. There's a time to step back and there's a time to let other people take the lead on something, offer suggestions, using other people's ideas, because as parents, as manager, as person in a leadership position, we don't have all the answers, and the sooner we figure that out and the sooner we let everybody know that, the easier our lives become. But there has been times in my career where I have failed. I've failed to follow, I have failed to take people's suggestions and, in an effort to prove my leadership right, I have made myself look bad rather than strengthen myself as a leader, you know, and of course, and in the eyes of my teammates, it undermines them, right, it undermines my leadership ability. And when this happens, you know I have to, or I've had to, you know, recover right, I've had to build back trust. I've had to, you know, just eat crow, go back, apologize, whatever, you know, especially like if I undermine somebody and it's like my way or the highway, and we go ahead and move forward my plan and it fails right, and of course they're sitting there saying I told you so, whether they say it out loud to you or not. But, man, I hate when I put myself in that position and I would consider that one of probably the weakest forms of leadership.

Ty Cobb Backer: 5:04

Right, and and I've, I've heard it, heard it where it's kind of like a rock paper scissors. Well, it's more like a rock paper rank right and rank always wins. So, um, I heard that from a great author, some of you that might follow Jocko Willink and his co-author, shoot. I just totally lost train of thought there. I forgot Leif Babin, his co-author, might have actually been the one that said that. That it's, uh, you know, rock paper rank right and it's just a horrible way to lead. And I, I've done it. I'm sure I'll probably do it again and probably feel like, oh crap.

Ty Cobb Backer: 5:57

But um, when times like these happen, you know, I feel if I follow it makes me, me, look weak, right, and I think that's ego, that's fear, that's always wanting to have, you know, all the right answers to everything, but by me stepping back and letting other people take charge, it actually. It actually strengthens, you know, our relationship. It encourages trust and encourages empowerment for people to take ownership and stuff, and we talk about that quite often and I hate to be one of them like I'll give somebody something and take it back, and we've talked about that before and again. It's just something that we all have to work on, you know, and thrive to to be better, right, be better at these attributes, right. That's not to say that, you know, every leader has to be able and ready to take charge and make hard decisions, you know. However, it is very important for us to be a good follower and that's kind of the point of today's discussion. Today's, you know, topic is knowing when to lead and when to follow right. And you know, the difficult part of that, at least for me, is having the wisdom and the humility to know the difference.

Ty Cobb Backer: 7:27

And, as Jocko would say, that is the dichotomy, one of many dichotomies of, of leadership. And if you haven't read any, any Jocko stuff, man, extreme ownership is amazing. Doesn't matter if you're an entrepreneur. And extreme ownership is amazing Doesn't matter if you're an entrepreneur, if you're in any type of management or leadership position, or even just a co-worker, co-leader, whatever. I highly recommend reading Extreme Ownership and the Dichotomy of Leadership, both very, very well-written books. There's a little bit of war story in it, but you really got to listen because I've heard people not like their stuff because a lot of it is based around war and war stories and things like that. But there's a message in there. There's a message on how they have failed, how they have triumphed and how it is applied in daily parenting and in organizations and stuff like that.

Ty Cobb Backer: 8:30

So anyhow, as long as you don't really care, I think at the bottom line it really comes down to. You know, anything is possible as long as you don't mind not taking the credit for it. You know, doesn't matter how the job gets done. The important thing is is that the job gets done Right. And I think having confidence a lot of it has to do with, you know, having confidence in your abilities, your own abilities, right. Have you? Have you put in the time, have you put in the effort? Have you had enough victories under my under your belt? You know, and I know I've struggled where victories under my under your belt. You know, and I know I've struggled where.

Ty Cobb Backer: 9:09

You know where I start second guessing myself because there's a few plans or ideas that didn't work out so well and when it seems like, when you get like two or three or four of them, that's just like punching the gut and you're fixated on like the failures of it and not really taking away what you've learned from those. You know, step backs Right, and that's that I think that's the most important thing is learning along the way, and that you are, if you are in a leadership position or you're an entrepreneur, or even a parent, if you're a parent or mother or father out there, right is learning from these setbacks, learning, because now that's experience, now you've gained the experience, the knowledge and and all these things and the confidence right. Building that confidence up in your abilities, you know, can sometimes be hard to find. But but strong leaders, right, should always encourage others to be good leaders, you know, and not take, not, not take that away. Lead by example and always pushing praise down to the team.

Ty Cobb Backer: 10:16

And that's the thing, that's, that's the catch 22 here. You know, during failures, you know if the team fails, I have to take that hit. If the team wins, I give them the hit. And I'm not always good at that, but if you can surround yourself around a good group of people and I heard this the other day, I think Joseph Hughes might have said it he said good team members solve today's problems, while great leaders solve the problems that don't yet exist.

Ty Cobb Backer: 10:47

And I think that's where I can get hemmed up sometimes, you know, is where you know I'm trying to solve problems, future issues and things like that, and every decision that we make today is going to affect tomorrow. And to have some of those decisions not quite go the way that I thought or was hoping, you know, I just got to put trust and faith into my abilities. I have to put trust and faith in my team and my higher power, that it may not always work out the way that I wanted it to, but it worked out the way that it was supposed to work out. And I think, if you can kind of live in that space, you know, minute by minute, things always tend to work out the way that they should have worked out. And, like Ed Milet says, this isn't happening to us, this is happening for us.

Ty Cobb Backer: 11:36

So, anyhow, as a great leader, you know our job is to see further, see faster, thrive under pressure, you know, and be prepared, be prepared for crisis. You know what I mean. We have, we have three choices. When, when shit hits the fan, you know we have three choices Is it fight, flight or freeze? You know, and if we choose to fight, stick it out. Definitely don't want to run from it and I'm guilty of freezing at times, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because sometimes the best thing to do is nothing Right.

Ty Cobb Backer: 12:11

So, anyhow, try to stay cool, try to stay calm, be decisive as possible, you know, and keep an open mind, you know. Don't be afraid to ask for help, you know, and that's where it's, you know, uh, including your team and and helping make decisions, especially major, major decisions. And have a confidant, have somebody that you can confide in. You know, like I do with Vic, vic, there isn't much, vic doesn't know about what's going on in my life and, um, you know, I appreciate that and he, he has the same thing with me too. There's not much that we that we don't talk about, but anyhow, there's David KX Good to see you, buddy Victorino, Hi, jana, for quite some time, and I just kind of want to probably go through the attributes.

Ty Cobb Backer: 13:11

We talked about the attributes last week and the 12 attributes that, where I'm at today, you know would be the first one would be self-awareness. You know that this starts with humility and vulnerability. Why do we want to be a leader? Right, like, why do I want to be a leader? Why do I want to be a leader? Is it something that I want something out of? Is it self-serving, or am I getting involved with this leadership thing to serve others? And that's something that you got to decide for yourself. And if you're okay, pretty much giving everything away, especially when you don't even have it, and helping other people, then leadership might be a good fit for you. You know, understand your strengths, your weaknesses, your values, your beliefs. You know, set a standard right. Set standards early, lead by example and definitely no shortcuts. Right Number two.

Ty Cobb Backer: 14:06

Number two would be vision. Develop a clear and compelling vision for your team and your organization. Right, and I think that's something that I do pretty good at times, until I get myself over and inundated. So it could be other businesses, it could be other shiny objects. We all suffer, I think, from complacency. I get very complacent at times, I get very distracted and even for myself, the vision gets very dim and I forget why the hell I'm even doing this sometimes. Um, but that vision should start with the very first interview.

Ty Cobb Backer: 14:47

When someone comes to your organization and they sit down and they want to come work for you is setting that expectation, setting that vision clear and making sure that they're a right fit for that vision. And how are they going to complement thank you for always having my back, babe. Going to compliment thank you for always having my back, babe. And is that way? He says, just when I need to hear something and it provided. Isn't that the truth? Me too, man. It's like whenever our ears are open, we hear that message. Um so um.

Ty Cobb Backer: 15:24

Number three. Let's move on to number three here, and that would be communication man, I'm still working on this and that's why this is in the top five of the 12 steps to great leadership, at least my 12 steps, from my experience. I'm only sharing my experience. None of this is set in stone. This is just my kind of where I'm at today and, like I said, I'm hoping that I don't contradict myself tomorrow in some of this stuff. But from my experience, having clear, effective communication skills are crucial for sharing the vision and the goals right.

Ty Cobb Backer: 15:55

Learning how to articulate that message and get it out there, whether it's writing it or values, sops, kpis, all those things as a form of communication to your team and making sure that they live out your life's mission. But also having a vision big enough for their dreams to fit in. Having a legacy large enough for those around you for their legacy to fit in. Large enough for those around you for their legacy to fit in right, which can be hard, could be time consuming, take sometimes decades right For these things. It's great to want to go out and start a business and say, hey, I want to have a dream big enough for other people's dreams to fit in, which is great, which is exactly how or why you should start out in a business.

Ty Cobb Backer: 16:48

Is having a service that you're providing to your local community that impacts those around you, right? I mean, really, at the end of the day, that's kind of what it is. You know, any good business has figured out a service that people need, right. So figure that out and do your best at serving people. And, of course, figure that out and do your best at serving people. And, of course, integrity. You got to throw integrity in there.

Ty Cobb Backer: 17:15

I don't know, I struggle with this word a little bit. I think it's used a lot until I can come up with something else. But you got to have it. You got to have it. You got to lead with honesty, transparency and a strong sense of ethics. Okay, if you don't have ethics, if people can't trust your word I mean a lot of times the only thing you do have is your word. You know, like the old school days of a handshake, like if I can shake you or I call you brother, like I really mean that. Like you are my brother, what's up, brother? You know what I mean. Like that's, I don't just call anybody my brother. You know what I mean and you know you just got to code of ethics right.

Ty Cobb Backer: 17:56

You got to have your standards, you know, and don't be afraid to have personal core values. Don't be afraid to have personal core values. Your personal core values may or may not be the same as your professional core values. Jana and I actually wrote, probably about two years ago we wrote family core values. I don't even know where the hell they're at. I'm going to have to find them. I got to get with you after this. I got to find our. I almost feel embarrassed to say I don't know where they're at and I don't even remember what the hell they are. So, anyhow, I do know what my personal core values are, and a lot of them do align with my professional and our family's core values. So integrity gotta have it, gotta have it. You know especially. You know what is what. What do they say? Integrity is. Integrity is doing the next right thing, especially when nobody's watching Right, and that's just like the fearless 44 that myself, jana and a few other people online are actually partaking in right now.

Ty Cobb Backer: 19:16

So, anyhow, empowerment, number five empowerment Delegate responsibilities, trust your team and allow them to grow and make decisions, and I hate this, but you got to let them make mistakes. But that goes into. That rolls into number six, the accountability. Right, you got to allow them to make mistakes, but were they malicious? Was it due to negligence? Right, so you got to put guide rails in place, like you can let certain things slide at certain times, but it's the frequency of them and how often and how costly that it might be. You got to put guidelines in place. You got to put warnings in place and warnings. What I mean by warnings and new policies and things like that? I mean what it is. It's a reminder like here's your warning. This warning is a reminder of how serious it is or could be if you continue to make these mistakes. Right, because we're all going to make mistakes. I couldn't tell you, I can't, man, I couldn't, I don't know how many. I made a lot of mistakes. I mean sincerely too many mistakes over the years to look down my nose at people and shun them, shame them, belittle them and act as if I'm white as snow, because God and a whole lot of people know that I'm not perfect. But I'm working on that.

Ty Cobb Backer: 20:49

So, number seven adaptability. Adaptability, man, resiliency right, resiliency. I forgot we were going to talk about resiliency today. I said that last week I'll get around to that. But adaptability man got to embrace change, got to be flexible and encourage and be open to innovation.

Ty Cobb Backer: 21:17

Again, this is trust building trust in yourself, building trust in your team, allowing them to be innovative, to come to the table with ideas. Use their ideas. You know now they're not always going to be good ideas, but hear them out and who knows? They might, they might be relevant later in time. You know, just not today. You know because, as as things are fluid right, especially in business and families I mean christ, the weather we have no idea what the heck's going to happen. It's rained again. It's raining all day today. It rained yesterday. It rained day before. Supposed to be 30% chance of rain Monday and Tuesday, but it rained, and I mean it rained hard. So remain adaptable right.

Ty Cobb Backer: 22:05

Plans change, things change, people change, situations change. All we can do is adapt, bounce back like a rubber band, get up, never quit. Which leads me to number eight emotional intelligence. Develop empathy. Understand others, their emotions, manage your own emotions right and this is something I've worked on for decades was to manage my emotions, because I know that I can make any situation worse or I can make it as good as I want, make it as bad as I want, and I've made a lot of situations worse where it didn't really necessarily matter what happened to me, what happened with the situation, but I've blown up, blown it out of proportion and have gotten in more trouble because of the way I responded. Instead of reacting, I responded poorly to a situation and just blew it completely out of proportion. Shit, I think I've even gotten locked up.

Ty Cobb Backer: 23:13

Yeah, we do need to build an arc, vic. Screw it, build an arc. Yeah, so, emotional intelligence man, develop it, get it. Have empathy, understand others, meet them where they're at right. It's not much. I haven't been through right. Fear them out. Be an ear for somebody. I may not have all the answers and sometimes I don't need to say anything. Sometimes you just need to shut your mouth and they need someone to just listen. They just need to get it out. So, anyhow, number nine decisiveness. Make well-informed and timely decisions.

Ty Cobb Backer: 23:56

Nobody likes indecisiveness. I mean, vic and I had a funny before this and I was going to use this as an example. I suffer from being hangry at times. I'll get so hungry right, and Jana. She'll be so hungry. We're both hungry and it doesn't even really matter, like, I just want something to eat, it doesn't matter what. But neither one of us can decide where the hell we want to eat. I'll make a suggestion. You're like no, I don't want to. Well, I thought you were hungry. Where do you want to eat? I don't know. Well, if you don't want to eat here, then where do you want to eat? It's like you kind of go back and forth and it's so annoying and it's adding to the anger, it's adding to the irritability and discontentment and it's like nobody likes that.

Ty Cobb Backer: 24:45

Right, and I don't know how many times I just wished somebody would make a decision, right, wrong or indifferent. Just make a decision. Let's go there, let's do this, let's implement that, let's just figure it out along the way. Let's figure out how to build a freaking parachute once we already had jumped out of the airplane. Doesn't matter, it is hard, it is hard, it's hard. It's hard to control emotions, especially if I didn't sleep well, especially if I broke all these micro promises to myself for weeks.

Ty Cobb Backer: 25:21

Right, and this is the thing I've discovered. If there's something wrong, there's something wrong with me, and nine chances out of 10, if I don't like somebody or something, it's because I see discovered, if there's something wrong, there's something wrong with me. And nine chances out of 10, if I don't like somebody or something it's because I see myself. Think about that for a minute. Let that sink in. If I don't like somebody, usually it's because I see myself. So, anyhow, I'm going to let that there for a minute.

Ty Cobb Backer: 25:44

Be decisive Number 10, team building for a minute. Be decisive Number 10, team building. Foster collaboration, encourage diversity Not too much, just enough so people can voice their opinions. Make sure they're not clotheslining each other from the top rope or anything like that. Make sure you're building strong relationships within your team. Right, where you can have that trust and have that empathy and have an area where people can voice their opinions.

Ty Cobb Backer: 26:16

Where, if they do make a mistake, okay, they shouldn't fear coming to you. Right, there shouldn't be a snitch somebody out policy as long as everyone's willing to hold themselves accountable. And when they do make a mistake, especially a large mistake that could cost a company, or company's got to mysteriously pull money out of their ass unexpectedly, right, not about pointing fingers, it's about owning your shit, coming to the office, knocking on the door saying, hey, I screwed up, but this is what I think we can do, or I screwed up, I have no idea what to do, but I needed you to know that I screwed up that way. Later on, when that check needs to be written for that mistake, or something needs to be paid sooner, or whatever the case might be right, because eventually it's going to come out and it only makes you look worse if you don't own up to it. So create a culture, create an atmosphere where people step up and say you know what I made a mistake and don't be the martyr, right? Don't be a martyr when you do it, just own your shit right. Don't be a martyr when you do it, just own your shit right. And I know that's not. That's a hell of a lot easier said than done, right? Because especially if you've been screwing up a lot or you've been caught doing other things and didn't own up to shit, it makes it even more difficult, especially when you already have a reputation for being a fee for a liar right. So don't ever put yourself in that situation, right? It goes back to you know, empathy or, I'm sorry, integrity. Just have integrity, because really, at the end of the day. That's what it comes down to.

Ty Cobb Backer: 28:06

Number 11, recognition and appreciation. You know, recognize and appreciate the contributions of your team members regularly. Now, I'm not saying be that person that needs a pat on the ass every 2.3 seconds, but I'm not saying don't be that leader that doesn't ever show appreciation. Don't be that leader that expects people to just do their job right. Well, that's what I pay you. Now you want me to recognize you because you're doing your job.

Ty Cobb Backer: 28:40

I'm guilty of that. I've said that it's like well, be grateful, you got a job today. You know what I had to jump through to make sure payroll was made. Guess what? This is the shit that I signed up for. I still get stuck in that stuff where it's like be grateful, you got a job. We made payroll but barely made it right, had to sell a motorcycle and second mortgage on the house, and anybody who's been in business long enough understands exactly what I'm talking about. Like we got to give even when we don't have it. We just got to figure that shit out right. So give them recognition, show them appreciation. Whether it's pizza on a Friday twice a month, breakfast in the morning at the shop, you know it's just whatever. It's hard to get creative, to one up things sometimes, and it just. I know it stings as a leader where you feel like you're not being appreciated too, but again, this is what we signed up for. It's not easy. If it was easy, everybody would be doing this shit right.

Ty Cobb Backer: 29:43

And then, last but not least, number 12, the 12 steps of great leadership Continuous learning. Stay curious, man, stay curious. You know. Yeah, chat GBT does have good ideas, david, I was on a call yesterday with David Carroll from Dope Marketing and that's what he said. He said, chat GBT, he actually had some great ideas that we're going to probably implement. So, but, thank you, thank you for your input there, alex.

Ty Cobb Backer: 30:19

But continuous learning, you know, stay curious, seek new knowledge, continuously push yourself, improve yourself and your leadership ability, right? You don't know what you don't know and your leadership ability, right? You don't know what you don't know, right? So dive in, dig in and ask questions, right. Surround yourself around smarter people.

Ty Cobb Backer: 30:42

If you're always in a room where you think you're the smartest person, you're probably in the wrong rooms, and that's why I do a call, I do a bi-weekly call with a group of men, but that's not intentional whatsoever. There's women. Women are allowed. It's it's for business owners, leaders and managers Not everybody owns a business in there and it was the call I was talking about earlier with David Carroll on the call, and he's talking about doing a hundred million dollars here soon in his business and he's got about 125 people that work for him and that's someplace I want to be someday right, or I'm working towards like he's working towards. So obviously he's the kind of person that I would want in my space, because he's trying to achieve the same things that we're achieving right and vice versa. So he would want to be around people who aspire him to do great things and know that it is possible, and want to know those that he has surrounded himself around to get him where he is today and not to be afraid to be the dumbest person in the room and to admit that, but not bashing yourself to the point where it's almost embarrassing to be sitting in that room, but smart enough and and and courageous enough to sit in these rooms to be around people who are where you want to be or who have been where you want to be Right.

Ty Cobb Backer: 32:04

So continuous learning. I can't, I can't say enough, you know, and and just leadership is an ongoing progress. You know process, and these steps, you know, can guide you on your journey. And those are the chapters in my book. I'm not getting into a whole bunch of the book stuff yet. I will get it out there at some point in time and I'll keep leaking little things out like this as time goes on. But you know it's progress rather than perfection. You know what I mean. And it's a journey. There's no destination here, nick, what'd you get?

Ty Cobb Backer: 32:44

I got a book by Tony Russo on leadership. One last strike to start it. And it covers so much on leadership. That's good, man. I mean, you can't get enough. You can't get enough. I can't, at least where I'm at today, you know.

Ty Cobb Backer: 32:59

I mean, especially if you're trying to create a legacy and pass on the knowledge that you've learned, and that's what that's the thing about leadership. You know, everything that I'm I've been taught needs to be teached. I have to teach the things, um, I have to. And when I I have to teach the things. When I say I have to give this thing away, this is one of many things. When I say you have to give this thing away in order to keep it, this is one of the things I'm talking about. Everything that I've learned over the years has to be given away. If I want to keep this, if I want to keep any of this, if I want to keep my sanity, if I want to continue to keep learning and I want to keep giving, I have to keep pushing forward. I have to continuously surround myself around smarter people. I have to suck it up. I have to be humble enough.

Ty Cobb Backer: 33:53

Raise my hand, ask a question. I did, man. I was so poor at that in school, you know, I never wanted anybody to know that. I didn't know the answer to something you know, and that's something that you know as, as human beings, you know our ego, our pride, all those, all those negative, bad things that have held me back for so long. You know I've gotten in the way of of of me. Succeeding faster, further, longer, harder was just simply by not asking questions, you know.

Ty Cobb Backer: 34:26

But then that's where failure comes into play too. You know I, I've, I've, I've failed because I didn't ask for directions, I didn't read the instructions right. I failed, but I figured it out. I got a hands-on experience, you know, and a knucklehead like me, you know, when the pain's great enough, I'll get off my dead ass and I'll do something about it. But there's also five principles, you know, on how to get here right, and the five principles, which will also be in the book, is number one is that your thoughts and your words become your emotions, okay. Number two your emotions become your actions. Number three your actions become your habits. Number four your habits become your actions. Number three your actions become your habits. Number four your habits become your values. And number five your values become your destiny. So cool, so that's pretty much it.

Ty Cobb Backer: 35:24

If you're a contractor out there, leader, an entrepreneur, whatever you want to learn more, follow us on Facebook, youtube and, hey, listen. If you're a homeowner out there, right, and your roof is old and it's leaking or it's damaged, don't wait for things to get worse. At TC Backer, we have helped thousands of homeowners protect their homes with quality roofing, financing options and a team you can trust. Want to take it to the next step? Visit our website or give us a call for a free inspection. No pressure, just answers. And remember, solid roof isn't just about shingles, it's about peace of mind. Anyhow, you guys, enjoy the rest of your week. Happy 4th of July, everybody. And for those of you that know, bill W, make sure you reach out to Jana on Friday. Jana's got a big day coming up on Friday, so any of you that are friends with Bill give Jana a shout. Until next week, I love you guys. Stay safe, stay dry and stay hydrated. Have a good week.