124 | Nobody Wants to Work? Let’s Talk About the Real Leadership Problem

Welcome to another episode of Freedom Blueprint podcast. I'm your host Justin Deese and I have got not one but two special guests co-hosts hanging out with me today. ⁓

One is obviously my wife that is on the podcast on regular basis. But then we have Kate hanging out with us, who is our, she's the wrangler, I think. Like, she wrangles all my crazy ideas and tries to make them into, like, come to read.

⁓ your crazy ideas?

⁓

It's not my ideas though, it's your ideas.

I'm

⁓

So got Kate, can you just real quick just introduce yourself to the podcast world?

Sure, absolutely. So Kate Hendrickson, I have been in the consulting leadership world for ⁓ many years, over a decade longer. And then prior to that in hospitality and leadership and a lot of cool places, meeting a lot of cool people. And so I have joined Kristen and Justin about a year and a half ago now, close to a year and a half ago, ⁓ as Justin said, wrangling all the things that happen and the...

bits and pieces and parts of our company ⁓ and love it. So excited to be on.

Yeah, one of the things that she didn't mention is that she recently released a book. It just came out probably a week and a half ago. So you gotta tell us a little bit about the book and how do they get a copy of it?

So, yes, so my life is in multiple lanes and multiple passions and priorities and one of them is writing. So I wrote a book about Christmas and it's a fun fictional rom-com, light story about a husband and wife who switch roles for Christmas. The husband does all of the wife's lists and duties and responsibilities and the wife does the husband's. You mean it doesn't just happen? It doesn't just happen. That's so crazy. No, no.

Christmas doesn't have

happens at our house. Santa, guess, just. I know. It's the craziest thing. Nope.

⁓

Yeah, so it's fun and light and lets me lean into my passion for writing and creativity. ⁓

So last night, so our tree has been in our living room for probably almost a week now. It's been sitting there lit. It's a fake tree, so all the things are all spread out and it looks all pretty. And the box of ornaments to put on the tree has been sitting next to it for solid couple days. And last night I finally was like, all right, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna put these ornaments on this tree already before Christmas is over.

you

And my wonderful, lovely husband sat on the couch and watched me put all of the ornaments on the tree last night. I got it. But I like doing it though, because it's like a little trip down memory lane, looking at all the ornaments and remembering where it came from and why we had it, what we were doing in that time frame and all that kind of stuff.

Some would say.

Supervisor.

Yes, and then you don't have to move them later because you put them in the wrong spot, right?

clustered

in this one spot.

They're all just right here.

Yeah.

So thank you for bringing that up and it's called Christmas Switch and you can get it on all your major retailers, Amazon, Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, Barnes & Noble, all the places. So thank you.

She just did a really cool interview with one of our local news stations. So I'll make sure and put that link in the podcast notes so y'all can check it out and hear a little bit more about it. So I wanted to do this podcast with three of us today. ⁓ Two reasons. One, if you're watching this on YouTube, you obviously can see we're not in the studio. We're in little bit of a different, a little bit different area. So I wanted to talk about why.

Why not,

So

if I could just point out that at the time of recording it's December and I see a little sweat on your lip there because it's a beautiful day. I think we're at almost 70 degrees down here. I'm like processing my vitamin D right now and it feels absolutely amazing.

I'm having some regrets right now on this sweater. ⁓

Yeah, so we'll go ahead and tell them what are we doing here today.

pretty amazing. were gonna record the podcast over there but it's so windy right now that you wouldn't be able to hear us but we'll definitely have some shots of the beach. Yeah. Maybe we'll do some beach

We had a Blue Angel fly over earlier today. Yes we did. Yep, it's freaking awesome.

Speaking of blue angels, do you want to tell them, either one of you guys want to tell them about a little bit of that blue angel?

Go

ahead. absolutely. ⁓

Speaking of, that's

not a Blue Angel. No.

I'm thrilled that a good friend of mine, ⁓ John Fay, who was a Blue Angel, he was the executive on the ground, so chief executive officer on the ground, number one guy ⁓ on the ground, he is going to be joining us and doing one of our keynotes. He is so fun and interesting and really can connect the leadership skills you need in any area to all the cool things that the Blue Angels do. So it's going to be really cool to have him there.

So,

well, obviously you're gonna be at the event because we're gonna see you in April. And one of the prerequisites, I think, of all the attendees needs to be to watch the Blue Angel documentary. Yes, 100%. Yeah, he's in it, but it also will help you to understand the actual ramifications of what he would have been responsible for while he was serving right there, right? Like, the Blue Angels are a super impressive group and the pilots turn over

as every two years or something there. just a constantly a new group of people that you're having to get.

and then every two years the leadership changes. So it's a constant.

Yeah. So

we're talking about, we're not talking about people who have been flying together for 20 years and that's why they're so good. ⁓ So the leadership required for that is ⁓ pretty impressive.

So yeah, so we'll have him on the podcast sometime in the beginning of the year so so people can kind of get to know him a little bit before they come to the event and get to meet him and hear his story which Give the guy at Google. I mean that's about the best I can tell you When Kate first brought it up, I gave him a quick Google. I mean he he played football at the Naval Academy I mean, he's just there's a lot of stuff he's done. So

and just

a good person. it's like, it just fits, it just fits.

Yeah.

So if they want to get more information, not more information, if they want to go ahead and get their tickets before they sell out, how would they do that?

We have our website, Freedom Blueprint Live. We're like, who are you asking? FreedomBlueprintLive.com is the website where you can go ahead and get your tickets. And I would do it sooner, sooner than later for sure, because we sold out.

Yes. ⁓

our focus this year is finding team members, right? Finding team members. We're busting the myth that nobody wants to work because it is a myth. And so but we have to be pretty methodical about what we're going to do in order to be able to find good team members. And so we are spending two days

just learning how to do that. Where do we, who are we looking for? Where are we going to find them? How are we going to keep them? How are we going to, ⁓ you know, motivate, yes, motivate them ⁓ to be awesome team members because it is a struggle that a lot of companies have and, you know, reducing turnover and the whole thing. It's an important piece. The team is an important piece. So we're spending two days talking about all of that and it's a workshop. So there's going to be times

where we're going to be literally working on something. It's not two days of somebody talking at you.

Yeah,

so this is an interactive workshop. So when we're done with the workshop, you're going to have things to take back to your business immediately and apply. It's not going to be, hey, they gave me a bunch of theory or. So many great ideas I've got. You're actually going to leave with a blueprint that you can go plug into your business and then you can be part of that group that doesn't say there's no good people.

great ideas.

Yeah,

and the cool thing is, is when you do it well, when you do it right, your culture is just, it gets to be a place where people are coming to you to work. You're not looking for them. They're knocking on your door and it's really cool.

And

the guest speakers that we have ⁓ this year play right along in with that. So they both are actually military themes. There's a lot of correlation and things that we can learn from military leadership that we can infuse into our own businesses. And our other guest speaker, his name on social media is Steve Speaks, but he is a Marine and retired.

What is really cool about the thought of just the Marines in general is that leadership is getting 17, 18, 19 year old kids to basically be miserable for a little while and having them excited to do it is like what I feel like the definition of a young Marine is. That they tattoo it on their bodies, yes.

much so they will tattoo it on their body. And

they don't they don't pay them well. Right. They're not treated well. Right. they're not stable. can go anywhere. I mean, it's just

But

once a Marine, always a Marine. there's a lot from that culture and that buy-in that we can learn from that branch specifically of the military. that's going to be exciting guess. Marines would disagree, I think.

She is part of the Navy, so it does all tie in together.

So yeah, so anyways, we wanted to talk about that a little bit. We got to check out the room today, got to do a little bit of measurement to make sure it's laid out the way we want it. So I'm excited. I can't wait.

We

also had lunch at a cool place that they'll get to see as well. So we're going to have some time for you to network with everybody else that's there as well and other people who are facing some of the same struggles that you might be facing. that's going to be a cool evening event. Yeah.

fun.

Beautiful sunset.

Yep. Good fire pit. Yes. Good entertainment. Yeah. It's going to be it's going to be rad. So ⁓ not to pack too much into this podcast, but one of the things I wanted to also talk about was an email and conversation we were all having tying into DISC and the conversation came up about DISC and and buying presents. Yeah. I just I was blown away because I've never thought about it like that.

Good entertainment.

And for anybody who doesn't know, can you guys give a high level view of what disc even is for anybody listening that doesn't know? And then we wanna talk a little bit about how that even ties into how you buy somebody a gift, which my letter is Polaris.

Yeah

Polaris Ranger is not on the disc.

You want to tell them or you want me to? I can do it.

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So, DISC is an assessment that you can take to really look at not only your own gut behaviors and communication styles and traits that are used ⁓ professionally or really personally, but we look at it professionally. And so, looking internally at yourself and then also looking at the people you work with and how they ⁓ naturally communicate and how they naturally... ⁓

receive information so that way you can work better together and build a stronger team. the assessment's really cool, the results are cool, you kind of learn some things about yourself and also have some aha moments like that makes complete sense and then you learn a lot about the people around you and each other. So the DISC assessment, we took some of the results from some of our clients and people we work with and really helped them understand how they can acknowledge and recognize their team members at this time of year when it's

You want to celebrate the successes you've had over time and celebrate them and recognize them in ways that they will feel are beneficial and important and mean something to them. it's really cool.

It is cool. Disc is one of those things that you can apply to anything in terms of like everybody's got, there's only four letters, right, D-I-S-C, but everybody is a little bit of a different variation of those combination of letters. ⁓ But there's always going to be one that's like the dominant. so, ⁓ and that applies to like literally anything, including gift giving and receiving and recognition and all the things. So ⁓ it's,

It's pretty cool to look at it and say, well, if I know that you're an I, then your ideal gift is gonna be something that's fun that a lot of people can partake in, right? Because you are a people person and a Polaris seats four people, so other people can enjoy that with ⁓ you, because you're a people person.

Okay, so you all tell the, you don't have to say the company's name or anything, the email that went out today that you guys sent out, tell them what, kind of walk through what that was, because it was a person in the gift, and it was just, again, it just kind of blew me away. I never thought about

Yeah, so

we were just giving some recommendations around they have a specific team member who was a CS-ish style, right? And so with the C-style, you are wanting...

things that are maybe a little bit more practical, practical, right, that you can use in your day to day. So some of the suggestions I had were around what are some kind of next level items that they can use in their work that's going to make it make their job, make their day to day easier. But it's also kind of a step up from what their normal tools and equipment that you provide for them is. Right. So for one was like a Yeti cooler, right. Because the guy, the guys in the field a lot, we are in

Florida and this company's in Florida as well and so he's got heat he's dealing with and so it was kind of a cool way to say here's something that you can use every day but it's a little bit nicer higher level possible gift that you could upgrade right? So that one that's kind of fun another one that we sent this morning as well was an I and a cool idea I thought of was what if you ask that person because they like the energetic

They like the social activity, they like it. So what if you ask that person to take on one of the holiday activities within your company? So what if it's they're decorating the break room or coming up with some kind of small holiday activity for the team and then they like public recognition. So then you also can publicly recognize them for putting this together and bringing the team together. And so it really leans into their want and need for that social interaction engagement.

So it's really cool looking at how the different letters really can help you recognize people.

Yeah, that's pretty cool. always, you know, always thought about it from a communication standpoint, but until I saw that this morning, I never even thought about being able to apply that towards gifting.

Well,

and that's why we're the behavior experts of the group.

And I'm the one who talks on camera. My I

is showing.

That's

right, that's right, your I is showing.

⁓

Yeah, that was kind of him and I just wanted to kind of touch base and connect with everybody, ⁓ do a little bit of filming while we're here. We did walk through the hotel, so I'll put that in here. You can check out the pretty cool hotel. I mean, the ocean's right there. So I think the big challenge we're gonna have during the event is how are we not all gazing at the ocean?

time. Yep, we're going competing with with the Gulf of Merica in April, ⁓ but I think we'll be able to provide enough value that they're going to want to stick around.

It's a big military town, so there's a lot.

That was a lifeguard helicopter.

So.

We'll thank you all for coming and hanging out. And listen, make sure and get your tickets, freedomblueprintlive.com. Get your tickets before they sell out and we will see you in April.