Episode 77 | The Antidote to Curing Shiny Bubble Syndrome with Denise Cooper

Denise Cooper 

But if you really studied leadership, and if you really study what it takes to make an organization, sustainable and sustainably profitable, it means you have to change it has to grow. It has to go into new markets, there’s always things that are new that have to happen. And sometimes you’re caught with a organization that missed that curve, and didn’t read the market right. And so now you’re trying to dig out of a hole Well, to be effective, and to get an effective company. You’ve got to be able to help people change their behavior so that they can meet the new challenges.

Voiceover 

Welcome to the “Lead at the Top of Your Game” podcast, where we equip you to more effectively lead your seat at any employer, business, or industry in which you choose to play. Each week, we help you sharpen your leadership acumen by cracking open the playbooks of dynamic leaders who are doing big things in their professional endeavors. And now, your host, leadership tactics, and organizational development expert, Karan Ferrell-Rhodes.

Karan Rhodes 

Hello, everyone, welcome back to the podcast and thanks for joining another episode designed to help you better lead at the top of your game. As you know for season three, each month we’re featuring leaders who have fascinating roles in a particular profession or industry. And today’s episode is part of our special series be trained leaders who focus on an aspect of professional development. And now enjoy the ship. Hey, they’re superstars. This is Karan and welcome to another episode of the leader the top of your game podcast. I am so pleased to have on today’s show, Miss Denise Cooper, who’s the founder and CEO of remarkable leadership lessons. remarkable leadership lessons is a company that she founded to assist leaders and love of all levels. She works with leaders of all levels to make sure that they’re raising their game as major contributors in their business or industry, as she’s also a very renowned executive coach, who’s very highly sought after for her ability to assist leaders and preparing for their next best career option. Many of her the people she coaches are on succession slates for roles of broader scope and responsibility. So helping them to close any development gaps and get ready for that next great role. She is an expert and specialists on that type of preparation. She’s also the author and host of both a book and a podcast respectfully also called remarkable leadership lessons. So welcome to the show, Denise.

Denise Cooper 

Hello, Karan. And hello, everyone. Thank you so much for having me on.

Karan Rhodes 

Oh, we’re just absolutely thrilled that you have come aboard. And listeners and full disclosure, I was very honored to be a guest on Denise’s show. And we had so much fun. And we’re sharing so many ideas and tips together. And we ran out of time when we said we need to do this about 15 More times together. And our next engagement of course, I had to invite her on the show so that you could experience some of that magic that I was so fortunate to have experienced myself. So thanks again, Denise, for the gift of your time.

Denise Cooper 

Hey, not a problem for you know, I’ll talk to anybody about leadership because I think it’s one of the topics that there’s a lot of top line and Quotes and Sayings. But when it really comes down to the nitty gritty of what skills do I need to do, what’s the behavior I need to have? And how do I execute against it? Yeah, gets a little thin on the level. Definitely guys that we definitely agree there.

Karan Rhodes 

Well, before we dive deep underneath, I’d love for audience members to know just a tad bit about you personally. So just as for as much as you feel comfortable. Would you mind giving us a sneak peek into your personal life? Or passions?

Denise Cooper 

Oh, you know, I thought about this question because you get asked that regular right. Love audit. And I think the thing that surprises people the most is I’m a amateur farmer. Every year I have my food growing in the backyard. And this year, instead of going in the ground, because here in North Carolina where I live, we have a lot of clay. I did something called container gardens. And I have to tell you, I doubled my production.

Karan Rhodes 

Okay, so you and I are sisters from other mothers because I have the same I have eight container gardens out. And I farm organically. Yes. In the back. Yes. Yeah. Another commonality. Yeah.

Denise Cooper 

Yes. And I love the container garden.

Karan Rhodes 

Aren’t they wonderful!?

Denise Cooper 

Yeah. And I love gardening because it’s so much and in a strange way. You know, it’s just like growing a leader in and helping a leader grow you, you think you’re gonna get this and when it matures, that plant matures. It’s like oh wait a minute.

Karan Rhodes 

We got the save them from little seedlings and we watch them grow and blossom and produce And wow everybody I mean, we saw their maturity in a couple of months, and what a rewarding feeling is that right?

Denise Cooper 

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, and yeah, that’s probably the thing that people will go you in dirt?

Karan Rhodes 

Yeah, hey, you don’t know that much. I’m a mystery, I have all kinds of fantastic secrets and dimensions of myself.

Denise Cooper 

That’s it. That’s it. That’s it. And always exploring new ones

Karan Rhodes 

Always exploring new ones.  I love it. Well, thanks for sharing them too nice. And let’s switch a bit. And let’s talk a bit more about kind of leadership in general. And specifically, I’d love to focus on some of the stories and lessons that you wrote about in your book. But there was one statement that I really resonated with, and I’d love to start us out there. And it was the statement that you said that being a leader is dangerous. And it wires being on the line for something that you believe and whether it’s to change the future, or to walk in faith or to stand for unpopular values. All of those are dimensions of leadership. So I love for you to share, expound on that a bit on why being a leader is dangerous, but can be still very rewarding.

Denise Cooper 

Oh, it is being a leader, if that’s what you want to do. And, and I challenge people all the time that you may not have the title of leader, but you are leader always. And the skills that you have to use and learn and grow with to be someone who’s the leader in an organization are very much the same kinds of skills that you need to have a really successful and good life. But it is also very dangerous when you have that title of leader. Because when you look inside, you see yourself as I’m just Denise, but because you have this title on you and this assumed power, people think differently about you. The other thing is, is that there isn’t a leader who is in an organization who really isn’t a change agent. I’ll tell it from a story. I have one young lady who’s one of my clients. She’s a vice president, and she defined herself when I first met her as I’m a rebel rouser, I’m a change agent, I love to see things get better and better and better and better. And so as we went through the learning of how to be a good change agent, it’d be a leader who can inspire others and come up with those things. She realized that being the first is pretty heartbreaking. And it’s hard to be vulnerable to take all the slings and arrows of why you make this change. What does that look like? You don’t know us. Winter, do that kind of stuff. That’s not what we do here.

Karan Rhodes 

Right?

Denise Cooper 

You know, her boss always pushing back on Well, wait a minute, why do we have to do this? Or why do we have to do that? And then making people having the idea that you’d have to make people change their agenda to fit your agenda, right? I mean, that’s an essence of a leader. Right?

Karan Rhodes 

Right.

Denise Cooper 

A lot of it was people who saw her either in power, or saw her as a leader, and they wanted to help trip her up. Or those who said, You know what, boss right now is really pissed at you, because he doesn’t like what you’re doing and where you’re taking us. And they were just move back like the parting of the Red Seas. And leave her out on it. And you know, and I’m not saying that just because she happened to be a woman because I’ve also coached men on the same way. And it’s that whole idea of, you know, we think of being a leader is that we just have this great story that turns people minds and hearts and they just go yes, of course, of course. But if you really studied leadership, and if you really study what it takes to make an organization, sustainable and sustainably profitable, it means you have to change it has to grow. It has to go into new markets, there’s always things that are new that have to happen. And sometimes you’re caught with a organization that missed that curve, and didn’t read the market right. And so now you’re trying to dig out of a hole Well, to be effective, and to get an effective company. You’ve got to be able to help people change their behavior so that they can meet the new challenges. And what’s that old saying of, I like change as long as you ain’t impose that on me.

Karan Rhodes 

That’s right! You’re right, as long as you’re not imposing. I’m okay with this thing. It always baffles me the knees that I don’t think there’s a person on this earth that wouldn’t agree that leadership is is extremely important in almost every aspects of our lives. But it’s still so hard. And we’re still exhibiting behaviors in the workplace that in essence, sabotage, when leaders are trying to wonder why that is? And I don’t know, if you have an answer, I don’t know the right answer myself. But I’m just wondering why leadership is so hard. There’s so many forces that you’re having to push against.

Denise Cooper 

And I think, you know, just by defining it, that is, it’s not hard, but it is a different skill set that were not always taught, you know, they’re still when you talk to people and ask them, Where did you learn leadership? And I do this as part of my classes, sometimes, I’ll say, Who is the person who taught you how to lead? They’ll say things like mom’s dad’s a teacher, great uncle, someone like that? Or maybe there was a mentor? And they’re like, Yeah, well, that’s, that is role modeling values and beliefs. But it’s not really understanding and learning how to do the hard skills, and the communication and behavior skills and putting them together, come up with a way in which people will actually follow you, or at least do what you ask them to do. And I think that’s the reason why it’s hard. And in particular, over my tenure, and I’ve, you know, I only admit to 30 years at this, okay,

Karan Rhodes 

Only 30

Denise Cooper 

Yeah, after that it’s really irrelevant.

Karan Rhodes 

Right.

Denise Cooper 

What I’ve actually seen as a breakdown of companies really growing their leaders there, everybody’s going after the send them to a class and then, you know, sprinkle some goofy dust on em

Karan Rhodes 

and hope they’re a leader at that point.

Denise Cooper 

Exactly. And that is, and leadership is a process. And so it has to be guided like anything else. And I think the fact that we don’t have good guides for people, we often struggle with goal setting. I mean, you know, whether 30 years, we haven’t changed it to cystic on, the failure of strategies is still in the 80 90%.

Karan Rhodes 

Yeah.

Denise Cooper 

And it’s because we teach people how to plan which is really problem solving. Yeah. But we really don’t focus on critical thinking, which is that strategic thinking about what problems are we trying to solve? What value are we trying to create? And for whom, with and that’s at a big level, but even if you’re a supervisor, you still have to come up with What problems are we here to solve? You know, when it’s done, right, what does done look like? Right? How, what are the things that get in the way? And what’s the path forward? So there’s this strategic thinking, strategic planning, and then strategic implementation. And in general, we’re bad on planning or in thinking and on implementation, how many of those big strategic meetings we all had, and then 30 days later, the book is on the shelf, and we’re going in a different direction, right. And I, you know, if we break it down, a leader has to do four things, right? They have to tell us where we’re going. We have to make sure they have to make sure we have the resources, which is time, attention and money, then they need to follow up and ensure follow through so that the follow through is actually what we said we were gonna do. That’s right. And too often what happens is, is most people have shiny bubble syndrome

Karan Rhodes 

Say define shiny bubble syndrome?

Denise Cooper 

It’s where you know you’re working every day and the tyranny of the day moves you that to do lists,

Karan Rhodes 

Yes

Denise Cooper 

Moves you off, or some new thing breaks on the news, and we just have to, oh, my God, we need that. So what’s the new thing now? AI…

Karan Rhodes 

AI, yes! Everywhere you look around AI workshops.

Denise Cooper 

How do we do this, how do we? Well, that’s great. And you should be understanding how the market has changed.

Karan Rhodes 

Right.

Denise Cooper 

Okay, or how technology is changing how customer preferences are changing? Absolutely. But taking them in, in a vacuum away from what’s your strategic thinking said was the additional problem that you’re trying to solve the initial value that you’re trying to generate for your customers? What happens is as you begin to diverge, and allow the idea as it’s forming, to not have an anchor, and then going back and saying, Well, if we go this way, what does that do to our current plans, resources, outcomes? And then what does it do to our implementation plan? That’s right. And so bringing it back and constantly doing it. So what I do instead is I ask leaders to really say, Okay, what is the, you know, 18 months because that’s about as far as we can think out there and be good, right? But then every three months, revisit goals, revisit To make sure that we’re still convinced that this these, this is where we want to be, there’s nothing that’s going to end to intervene with us. And if you plan for goals to be somewhere around 12 to 90 days to 12 months, you allow the organization to stay focused immediately on solving the most critical problems. But you also give your organization a breath to re thinking through what they’re going to do how many companies right now, that’d be interesting. Have your viewers send you a text message or a comment on here? How many of us are still waiting till fourth quarter to check in on our goals?

Karan Rhodes 

A lot, I would guess if they’re honest with themselves. You know.

Denise Cooper 

Yeah, yeah. And I will also say the other thing is, is we the shiny bubble is when you read things like Harvard Business Review, and Forbes, and all these grand magazines and articles, they’re telling you the truth. But for the top 100 Yes, there are millions upon multi millions of companies, right. And the gap between the top I’ll say even fortune 500, and the rest of them is bigger than the Grand Canyon. And so you’re not starting in the same place with skills, technology, money, none of those things. And so reading those articles can give you a false premise that if you do these five things, it’s going to work right. And in your environment.

Karan Rhodes 

It may not work at all. You’re so right on that. I’ve been also wondering if companies and organizations aren’t doing a great job on teaching followership. Yeah, meaning, you know, everybody can’t all well, you know, you can lead in your role, no matter your level, but there’s some times when you’re going to be the leader, and sometimes when you’re going to be the follower and the follower is also extremely important, because it has a very key role as a key stakeholder and getting, you know, X initiative or x effort done, right. But sometimes I’ve noticed success, especially when I’m observing and coaching clients and watching them observing in a group setting. Sometimes individuals don’t do a good job in being a great follower, and how do you contribute and help support the leader? What kind of ground rules can you all come up with together to make sure everybody’s being heard or collaborating with and in the way that they like to collaborate? I’m just curious of your thoughts on followership. Do you think companies are doing a great job on that? Or is there some room to improve in that area?

Denise Cooper 

Yeah. And I think part of the problem is the language followership, we have this idea or this feeling, at least in the US, it followership is really being less than, yeah, the leader spot on, and no one wants to feel like they’re less than, and so I use, we have a role that is a leader, which basically says, This person has the responsibility to make the primarily to decisions on where we’re going to go, everybody else is an influencer. And even a leader has to influence up that, you know, if you’re the CEO, you still got to influence the board, the board has to influence the CEO, and they all have to influence investors, so that everybody has a boss in this. So this is not just a kind of a, you know, middle management issue that we’re talking about. And the influence that if you have the role in the title of being a leader is one thing, which means you have to do those four things, right. That’s where we’re headed. What does it look like when we get there, manage the resources, follow up, and it’s your follow through. But if I’m the project leader, I’m influencing those things. And some of the skills that as you use as a leader, which is really around communication, understanding your audience, those kinds of things are the same skills that an influencer has to use. Every time you know, if you’re the tech person who is just doing the coding, you’ve got to influence people to believe that the tech the coding that you do is the right thing, right. If you’re a nurse in a hospital, then you’ve got to influence the doctor influenced a patient so that they both understand and that they following the orders that are going to get them healthy. And so if we, in my work, if I if I help people understand when they’re leading versus influencing, it gives them a language and a skill base to start from. And so then like when I go over the assessments that I use with them, they understand what helps them influence better, or what inhibits them, how their mindset oftentimes prevents them from either being a good leader or a good influencer. And the last piece is it also helps them understand what are they passionate about.

Karan Rhodes 

Right.

Denise Cooper 

And how does their passions and the things that they don’t really like to do, influence how they lead and or influence other people, motivate them, inspires them to stay focus on things. Oftentimes I find my clients complain about I’m a procrastinator or perfectionist. And when we start peeling back the onion, that’s not really what they are. What it is, is they’re caught in a loop of this is what I really, really like to do. And I want it to be perfect

Karan Rhodes 

That’s right.

Denise Cooper 

And so they spend more time on that avoiding things that they don’t really like or see value.

Karan Rhodes 

That’s right. And so by letting them be critical,

Denise Cooper 

Exactly,

Karan Rhodes 

Right?

Denise Cooper 

Exactly. And sometimes it means they have to have a conversation with the person who has a boss, and say, Why is this important? Or why did you assign this to me? And so it’s this dynamic of having a conversation and really understanding the context. And the fact that leaders don’t do well in this setting the vision piece, because it’s not always about the big vision, it really is about, Are you clear about what good performance is? And why

Karan Rhodes 

Preach Yes.

Denise Cooper 

And why

Karan Rhodes 

And why? That’s right. And I’m curious, Denise, because you coach, so many clients in both individually and working with organizations, are there any trends that you’re seeing, that leaders are struggling with right now? And he’s talking about the vision, but are there other areas, you know, post pandemic that leaders are commonly struggling with right now that you’re having to help them work through?

Denise Cooper 

I think it’s it kind of depends. But ultimately, it really does focus around us goal setting idea, and setting objectives. I think the majority of people really, really struggle with leaders in particular, really struggle with what does it look like when it’s done? Right? And what is the outcome that I’m actually having on it? And because once you get to goal set, and you have to provide feedback and opportunity for people to you have to let them go do it their way? Yeah. Because you don’t really want to watch what they’re doing as much as you want to judge what they done, how it came apart, right? And I think, you know, we still have this pension of if I can’t see you, then I can’t evaluate you. Right. And so this idea of evaluating your work is a very difficult one. And I think the reason it makes it difficult is it requires us you have to have a conversation with a person. That’s right. That’s right. And it’s easier to have a conflict, you know, to stay focused on tasks to be in meetings, which are notoriously bad. Yeah, they go too long you walk out. And if there’s six people in there, you got six people saying what happened? And they generally don’t come into sync? Not at all? Not. So it’s all this idea of how do we manage goals, and the work is really gotten more difficult. And I think the last piece of it is, is the pandemic caused people to really reassess who they are and what they’re doing. And they’re struggling now, in general, I think people in general are struggling with redefining their boundaries and their values. And when I say read, describing their re reassessing their values, I’m not saying that, you know, you might say that I’m the kind hearted person, okay, that may not have changed, I want to be a kind hearted person, I want to be someone who’s fair with them, I want to be somebody who has integrity. But how that gets expressed, definitely changes. Yes. So it’s easy for me, and I’ve learned a lot about how to be kind to you face to face. But how do I be kind to you when we’re virtual?

Karan Rhodes 

That’s right. And we don’t have as many physical connections that we had in the past, where there was a bit more, I’ll say, Grace, if you will, with a meeting might not have gone well, but you might go to coffee afterwards, and, you know, talk it through or get a better understanding. But sometimes you don’t, you’re not able to do that, as generally, you know, the days. And I love what you said about goal setting. But and I’m gonna push it a little further, I think they’re struggling with goal setting both ways. We both getting goals from their higher ups, you know, kind of come into agreement on what needs to be done. And then as they get their marching orders, setting the right goals for their teams to get that done. Because even though I have seen it on a few, but I’ve seen a bit of, I’m just going to make this up that say the CEO gave the marketing director, a goal. And the marketing director heard it, but really wanted to do something just a little bit different, like a different spin. And then they tell their marketing teams, you know, this is where we’re going to do this was what we should our goal should be and this is your role into it. And sometimes there’s a disconnect, I guess, come from the down from the top and then feedback comes back up to the you know, out through the chain. And sometimes there’s a disconnect when this kind of that thing, when you tell a story, you whisper in somebody’s ear, and the next person exactly does a little invite 10 people later the story has gotten totally different. I’m seeing an issue with communicate clear communication, both up and down the leadership chain. So,

Denise Cooper 

in that, and for me, that’s teaching people how to have shared understanding. So why is it that we’re talking about shared meaning when we say it’s blue? What shade of blue? Are we talking about?

Karan Rhodes 

That’s right!

Denise Cooper 

Right? And then shared expectations, things like when do you think you’re going to get it back to me? What we look like when it comes back to me? What’s the use of it? And how is it going to be connected into the organization? And so I know what it is going to do. So that when I’m delivering it, I know it does what its purpose is, and doing and I think those kinds of conversations don’t generally happen. And if they do, people think that I can have that conversation once in London with him, you got banned for munication? That’s exactly right. Communication is a series of planned conversations that keep people on target and bring out the beauty. It’s kind of like we were talking about growing a flower, or growing food, you know, yes, we think if we add water, we add fertilizer. But sometimes during that timeframe, we’ve got to go back and connect in because now we need to put up a trellis because we thought it was going to be able to withstand the weight of the fruit, but it didn’t. So now we’ve got to adjust it, because what we want is to grow up, sometimes we we want more leaves, because we need to shade on the fruit or keep from getting bright. But then too many leaves come up, let’s send it is now a process of communication is often the same as growing something because it’s not a one and done the attention of the brain. And we can you know, I’m a geek, and in most of my work is around neuroscience, and really the neural science of how people learn and behave, and then evaluate their own personal results. That’s a big part of my leadership. Because when you can understand how you evaluate yourself, it makes it easier to understand and ask questions about how others evaluate themselves, and the work and the contributions that they’re bringing. But in all of that, it’s this, this me to have a, you know, a beginning, middle and end. And the end is as I had this one conversation, and then I don’t need another conversation with you until you’re done. And I think that art because we we don’t manage resources. Well, we to put too many projects on the tables

Karan Rhodes 

Yes we do

Denise Cooper 

Little bloody

Karan Rhodes 

Well, why is that not something that day, after day?

Denise Cooper 

Well yea. And we want to faster and faster and faster and faster and faster?

Karan Rhodes 

That’s right. That is any No. And I reflect on this conversation, Denise and now it makes total sense why you selected the leadership tactic in my book that you did, as our listeners know, we always love to ask our guests, which are the tag that says the leadership tactics in the in the book that came out of the research really resonated with them. And you were so kind enough to share that leading with strategic decision making. That’s what really resonated with you. And for my new listeners out there, leading with strategic decision making is just what it is. It sounds like it’s either making a good decision yourself having that process to self guide yourself when making good decisions, or lead in a good decision making process with your team and stakeholders. And so can you share with us Denise, Why that one really jumped out at you.

Denise Cooper 

I think particularly for leaders, this idea of you know, when people normally read strategic decision making, they may come up with thinking about the product or service to what I do. But it really for me and my clients, it’s really understanding when do you lean in to change behavior to accelerate change, to give people breath out of it. And you know, there’s one story in that I love telling everybody in the book in my book, remarkable leadership lessons, change results, one conversation at a time. And that is there was a supervisor to eight and he was a VP who was working with someone who you know, we play the pass around game. We didn’t want to get rid of the employee, but we’re gonna give it to the new guy. The new guy. But the short of the story is is as he got to know this particular person, he realized that this person had been poorly mentored and poorly drained, and that what the organization had done was create this way in which they had decided this person had no value and they would just lie to her. So when she asked for deadlines, she was ahead of the project. Everybody would sit there nodding their head, you know, saying, oh, yeah, I’ll get it to you, I get it to you. And then they wouldn’t they come up with an excuse. So her targets got pushed further and further. And consequently, her performance was being judged as not being a good leader, not being a good performer, right? But everyone colluded to make her fail. And for as a strategic decision making art, he had to decide was he going to live his values, which was to create a fair workplace and in protect and intervene for his people? Or was he just going to go with the, quote, HR thing of this is her last chance. And really, if you just write her up as not being able to do it, then we can fire her. And he made the decision that that he wasn’t going to let that happen without a fight night. And so he had to go to all the supervisors of all the, the VP his peers and say, Look, you may not like her, you may not like her style, but lying in the meeting is not acceptable. And we need to make a way in which when they give their word, they’re going to do something, they’re going to test this module that they tested, or you’re on their back as having that telling them that they violated a rule or boundary or a value of this company. That’s right.

Karan Rhodes 

That’s right.

Denise Cooper 

And so that, to me is true is the strategic decision making, that too often people just don’t do,

Karan Rhodes 

They don’t do. And you know, what I would be remiss if I didn’t add to it, it’s also a perfect example of leading with courageous agility, which is all about having the fortitude and the courage to stand up for what you believe in, even if you’re unsure and do what’s right, even if you’re unsure of the end result. So he did that. He wasn’t sure if the team would be happy with him or not. But he had the courage to make the right decision, as you’ve mentioned, and strategic decision making. But then also having the courageous agility to act in the way that wasn’t aligned with alignment with his values, even if he was unsure what was going to happen in the end. One story.

Denise Cooper 

Yeah, and being the new person, you know, you’re always testing to see if people are going to accept you

Karan Rhodes 

Always.

Denise Cooper 

So it was really a courageous act.

Karan Rhodes 

It was!

Denise Cooper 

To say, these folks don’t really know me. Yeah. And I’m going to set my boundaries and my values, and I’m going to wear them on my sleeve.

Karan Rhodes 

That’s, that is a fantastic story. Well, we just need to drop the mic there, Denise because we there have been so many gyms that you have been kind enough to share in this episode. But before we close out, you know, listeners will definitely have all the information in the show notes on how to learn more about the knees, how to get her book, or listen to her podcast, all those goodies. But I do Denise always love to give our guests time to give voice to where to find them as well. So will you please share how listeners can get in touch with you?

Denise Cooper 

The fastest way is just to look me up on LinkedIn, Denise Cooper, and you know, LinkedIn/in/DeniseCooper, and that will pull it up there. But the other is, is just go to my website, there’s a contact page on the website that you know, remarkable R L. L, what is it…RLlessons.com. And there’s a Contact page, you can reach out there.

Karan Rhodes 

Wonderful. Fantastic. Well, thank you again, for coming aboard and joining this episode of the podcast. This is our second time together. I think we have at least 13 more to go. But this has been fantastic. Thank you again for the gift of your time. Denise,

Denise Cooper 

Thank you so much. And thank you, your listeners. And you know this is such a special thing. And I feel so honored that you stopped by and decided to listen in on this conversation.

Karan Rhodes 

Absolutely. And listeners as I always say thank you for the gift of your time as well because there are many podcasts out there and we’re very honored to have you as well. Please be sure to share with a friend and because that’s the way that we expand our reach to help others just like you to lead at the top of your game. Thanks again and see you next week. And that’s our show for today. Thank you for listening to the lead at the top of your game podcast, where we help you lead your seat at any employer, business, or industry in which you choose to play. You can check out the show notes, additional episodes, and bonus resources, and also submit guest recommendations on our website at leadyourgamepodcast.com. You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn by searching for the name Karan Rhodes with Karan being spelled K a r a n. And if you like the show, the greatest gift you can give would be to subscribe and leave a rating on your podcast platform of choice. This podcast has been a production of Shockingly Different Leadership, a global consultancy which helps organizations execute their people, talent development, and organizational effectiveness initiatives on an on-demand, project, or contract basis. Huge thanks to our production and editing team for a job well done. Goodbye for now.