Episode 024: John Gallagher Recap: Key Lessons & Takeaways

John Gallagher Episode Recap by Mo Salami

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Back to that greatest story ever told. The reason they may want to change as a leader is I want someone to write my name on their list when they're asked who's made a positive difference in my life. Because that only happens with intentionality. That only happens with excellence in the work that you do and not just mediocre. And that excellence only happens on purpose. You've got to have the discipline in place to make that happen. And you got to have that so that statement so clear that you're not willing to give up when something comes gets in your way to get there.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Welcome to purpose-driven success with Mo Salami, where real journeys, mindset shifts, and strategic insights meet purpose-driven success. I'm your host, Mo Salami. Every week we dive into real conversations with high-achieving founders and leaders, uncovering the mindsets, strategies, and takeaways that help you define and achieve success on your own terms. Welcome back to another episode of Purpose Driven Success. We are in for a treat today. My guest John Gallagher is an executive coach and a performance consultant, and John has spent over two decades working with leaders inside of organizations such as IBM and Harvard. John's real credibility was forged in a moment that he didn't see coming. Early in his career, after climbing the corporate ladder, John received a brutally honest performance review. And that forced him to confront that gap between how he thought he was leading and the reality around him. That wake-up call really changed everything. Today, as the founder of Growing Champions, John helps leaders close that very same gap and build teams that perform at a higher level. John Gallagher, welcome to Purpose Driven Success. Honored to have you on the show.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

It's a great, it's my pleasure to be here. I cannot wait to have this conversation with you today. I'm real excited. This is awesome.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Great, great, great. I'm looking forward to learning, and the listener is looking forward to learning all things great leadership. And of course, you're one of the best out there. So let's start at the start and take it away. John, first of all, tell us a little bit about yourself before I dive into the questions.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

I love the introduction as it went forward. You know, you you talk about things that are on my website. It's been a journey for me on this leadership front. And if I take it back just to that real story, even before that watershed moment, if you will, on that performance review, I was about 25 years old when I got my first real leadership opportunity. Leadership being kind of that position and a title. I'd been a few years out of college. I had that traditional ego that I was never going to learn again. I had read all the books I needed to read. And when I got that opportunity, I was thrown into the fire, no doubt about it. And I didn't know how to spell leadership. But I had a mentor give me a book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, and he walked through that book with me chapter by chapter. And I don't know if it was just the pragmatic message that was there or it was the care that that mentor had for me to walk through. But once he got me started on that journey, I was hooked and I was on a personal development journey kind of the rest of my career, the past few decades. You know, as it leads up to today and many different stories that we could chat about, I ended up getting into this consulting space with IBM and with and even with a smaller consulting arm of IBM at the time, but it really worked out where I had a chance to then turn that around and be able to mentor and teach others as well. And also just for the listener, who wrote the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership? Uh-huh. John C. Maxwell. Those who are watching this on video, they look behind my shoulder, they can see about 30 of those books by John C. Maxwell. He's clearly been a mentor in my life that um I even have a picture there with him, but uh been a mentor that he hasn't really known that. But through his books, and he's written you know almost a hundred books now, but through several of those books, had a tremendous impact on my leadership journey. You know, Maxwell talks about it real real simply, leadership is influence, nothing more and nothing less, as one of his you know profound and epic pillar points. And it's so true. You know, we as leaders have a chance to influence and change the lives of others through our actions and through our words.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

If you have$25 or perhaps 25 pounds and you're listening to this, your homework is to go grab a book by John C. Maxwell. I haven't read all of them, but the ones I've read have been pretty profound. Speaking of John, John Gallagher, when you think back to your early leadership career, how did you define success initially? And how much of that definition was shaped by external expectations versus something internal?

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Mo, it's a great question. And I think it's one that I've been humbled by over the years. Again, going back to even my upbringing, middle class America, steel town, my dad worked in the steel mills, mom worked in the unemployment office that was a driver of when you got laid off from the steel mill, she had to help those individuals get their unemployment compensation for work. But certainly something that while I wasn't necessarily considered upper class, it was a lifestyle that I got used to and I learned to appreciate. I had a lot of friends that were close. We rode our 10-speed bikes through the neighborhood, and I really thought that was how it was going to be like. When I graduated from college, the success to me was defined by one term, and that was the salary that I was going to make. And I remember saying I wanted to make$50,000 a year by the time I got to 30 years old. And when I got there by 26, I'm like, okay, what do I do now? And it wasn't about making enough money or whatever that is, but it was just an awful definition of success. And again, through these people that have been in my life, through the journey that I've been on and impacting others, inspiring and encouraging others, that definition of success has changed dramatically for me. And I've turned it into mode, what I refer to as the greatest story ever told, is that ultimately, you know, we're going to get a chance in life at some point in time to be asked a question. Name one or five individuals who have made a positive difference in your life. And when someone else can write your name on their list, even though you may never know about that, to me, that's that greatest story ever told, or that's that definition of success is how am I impacting others on my journey to success? And if I can ultimately be that person that's made someone feel better in their leadership development and their life, I think that can be the most powerful story that's ever told. And ultimately the definition of success becomes legacy more than it does financial.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

What a response. And what is a checkbox that you work towards so that you get to be someone else's top five that inspired them?

SPEAKER_00 7:16

I love that. I mean, checkbox, and you think about those habits. Uh I often use this quote you know, you can have discipline, ultimately with good intention leads to excellence. And intention without disciplines leads to excuses. So what are those disciplines with intention that I try to do on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis to be successful? For me, from a personal development standpoint, so that I'm always growing, I've got a daily reading routine that I do. It's pretty simple. For me, there's an opportunity to grow in my faith. So it starts each day with prayer and scripture time that goes along with that. A devotional book that I've read for six years now, written by Tony Dungey, The Uncommon Life. And then ultimately reading 10 to 12 pages in a leadership book that I may have interest in right now on a topic, so that I'm always growing my knowledge base as well and being able to share and help others grow further on their journey. And I think that's a discipline that I've tried to implement really over the past 10 years that's been successful for me. And that 10 to 12 pages seems kind of interesting. But if you use a Maxwell book as the basis, you know, that each each of those leadership books are somewhere in 220 to 240 pages in length. And if you just read 10 pages a day, ultimately that's 12 to 14 leadership books a year. That's hours and hours of knowledge brought to you by other leaders who have learned on their journey, that becomes really powerful. So it's my job to continuously develop myself so that I can inspire and encourage others to develop too.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

And if someone listened to that and they thought, I'm gonna do that as well. I will do that too. What does that do for them, for the listener, if they take up that daily routine, if you will, morning routine, if you will, of enhancing and increasing their knowledge?

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Well, it's interesting because we talk about this on our episode on the Uncommon Leader Podcast, Mo. It's that mindset component. We are what we consume, if you think about that. So if you're consuming good information from others, you don't have any other choice but to grow in terms of going on that journey. So I think it's an opportunity. Again, we have to be selective at what we put into our minds. There's no doubt about there's uh scripture in in the uh Bible that helps us with the mindset that I use, Philippians 4.8 and 4.9. It talks about whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is praiseworthy, think on these things. But the other side of that, folks, just remember it's that's just knowledge. We also have to take that into action as well. So Philippians 4.9 says, Whatever I've taught you, put it into action. And I think that's the point where the uncommon starts to play. Is it's not just that I'm reading and gaining knowledge, but I'm now taking it, I'm sharing it with others, I'm practicing that on a daily basis to experiment and see what works and trying to ultimately develop new things for my own leadership journey. One of the things that's come on just over the past couple of years for me in that mindset space and that practice has been the limiting beliefs conversation that exists inside of a mindset. I mean, I've always fought the inner critic that is there telling me I'm not worthy or telling me I'm not good enough to get things done. But if we can practice that discipline of gratitude on a regular basis and talking about things that we're grateful for, and I try to write down three things in the morning as part of that checking the box, because if you're writing down things that you're you have gratitude for, that you're grateful for, you can't be thinking in the negative mindset as well. It helps you to battle that inner critic that's there.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

So this is why I was so honored and am so honored that John's on this uh podcast today. I literally did a keynote a few weeks ago about gratitude and why it's so important to incorporate that into your world. And you mentioned that you write three different things. How do you select which three things to write? Again, if someone's listening to this and they want to take up that practice.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Yeah, I mean it's it's intentional, but I tell you, you know, this is something that I still, while I'm trying to check the box, is to allow my mind to quiet itself and to see what comes in. So certainly the one thing that I write down every day, the first thing I write down is I'm grateful for another day. Ultimately, you know, I've had the chance to wake up and it's an opportunity to impact others. But then it's you know, it's looking back at my day and reflecting on what happened yesterday or seeing my calendar and what's coming up today. That, you know, I'm grateful for clients that I get an opportunity to chat with, or I'm grateful for moments that happen inside of my family, or it could be as simple as a warm cup of coffee in the morning that gets me going as well to be grateful for. It's what's coming into my mind at that point in time. I have a tendency to overthink some of those things at times. So I've got to talk myself out of that just a little bit and just say, no, it's some of the time, it's just the simple things that we're grateful for that can be powerful as well.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

Right. So if one gets into the habit of noting down what they're grateful for, what's the short-term effect and what's the longer-term effect of living in this state of gratitude?

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Well, for me, it's the starting off the day in a right in a good frame of mind, in that good mindset that gets me feeling warm for that day. From a long-term standpoint, you know, one of the things that I've developed recently is this is more of a relationship component of that, but we need to build relationships before we need them. And if I'm focused on gratitude at times and experiences that I've had, it may bring into my mind a person that I need to get reconnected with, to reach out to and just say, hey, how are you doing right now? As a man of faith, I believe that many times God will bring that name or that voice to my head to reach out to someone knowing that they need it. And there's been more than one occasion when I reached out to them. They've either said, you know, ultimately where you said you just were talking about gratitude, but many times we're saying, I was just thinking about you, uh, and now you reach out to me. What was that? So there's an energy that goes along with that, I believe, that's powerful. But building those relationships that we need, if we're focused on gratitude and we see relationships as one of those things that are very important, and you get that nudge that says, I should reach out to this person, even though I haven't talked to them in six months or a year, follow that nudge, make that happen. Reach out to them. You never know what that person needs.

SPEAKER_02 13:39

So powerful. You worked with a lot of high performing organizations for decades. What have you noticed about leaders that look successful on the outside, but on the inside they felt like something was missing?

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Mo, I think this is one of the biggest things that I try to work with clients on, is that success on the outside and that allure of success. You know, the term that I often hear is, well, I'm doing good enough right now. Things are okay. It's complacency that's getting in the way of uncommon. Okay. And my job, especially as an executive coach or a performance consultant, and I wrote about this last weekend in my uh weekly newsletter, but my job as a as a coach or as a consultant is to point out when I see folks holding themselves small. I had a friend refer to the analogy of coach recently. It says call out and call higher as the acronym for coach. We need to call out when we see that complacency in others, whether they're our friends or family members or our clients that pay us on a regular basis, and let them know that they were called for something greater than they're performing to right now. And that success, as they define it, in their wallets or frankly in the time or the material things that they have on the outside may seem like they're very successful, but the gap between where they are and where they could be is one that I need to expose and call them to that larger opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

You said that you received that honest feedback and the emotional performance review that really shook you. Can you take us back to that moment and what exactly hit you the hardest? What's the next breakthrough that you're aiming for, but you haven't yet figured out how to unlock? If you're an impact-driven overachiever, ready to master high performance without the burnout or the guesswork, I'm offering a complimentary 30-minute high performance coaching session to help you clarify your goals, reset your strategy, and identify the next steps to scale your impact and your fulfillment on your terms. In this session, we'll look at what's holding you back, what strengths you can double down on, and how to frame your high performance journey for even better results. Go to mostsalami.com forward slash coaching to schedule your free 30-minute session. That's mostsalami.com forward slash coaching. And let's get you moving.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

I'll link it in the show notes. Sure. To outline that just a little bit deeper. So here I was uh in this large conference room, and I was receiving my annual performance review from my boss, and this is over 20 years ago, uh, who's still a mentor and a friend today. He and I are still while we don't work together inside the organization, we have regular conversation with each other about how we're each growing. But we're sitting in this large conference room, and half the room is all glass. So people are walking by. They know that I'm in there receiving my performance review. He had flown in and they can see this happening, and we're sitting across this big mahogany table, and he takes me through the scale that we had was on scale one, which was failing up to a five, which was, you know, in essence, walking on water, which nobody got a five. But he went through that performance review and he did two things for me. One is he delivered truth to me. He pointed out things that I was good at, but he also pointed out behaviors that I had that I needed to grow. Ultimately, the score came down to a 2.3 on a scale of one to five, which would lean more toward the heavily needs development. Uh, and I was early in my journey in this role as the acting president of this organization, but I remember sitting there just quiet and my hands were on the table. And you know, I looked across and I felt these. Well, I didn't feel them. I know they were there. Tears, alligator tears, rolled down my cheeks. Here I am, uh, the pretty big guy, 33 years old, and making this happen. I'm like, I don't know where this was coming from. He's like, John, what's there? And all I could muster up in terms of saying something was that I need help. And it was that day that I had told him about the need, what I felt the need for an executive coach to help develop my skills and competencies. And what I loved about that is I look back on that. You and I share a common organization, the brand builders group, and Rory Vaden says, You're most powerfully positioned to help the person that you once were. It was years later that I heard that for the first time, but those were the two individuals in that room that I was made to help. It was that individual who was receiving that feedback truthfully, who needed to grow and wanted to make the decision to grow. But it was also the person on the other side who was delivering that feedback with truth and with grace, uh, allowing that person to recognize their need for growth. And I continue to look back on that conversation ultimately uh as something that has shaped me uh in my career over the past almost 25 years since that performance review today.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

So at the point when you received that feedback, you were already successful on paper. You mentioned the aiming for the$50,000 a year. What made that moment different? You know, different enough for you to actually force change versus just continue as you were becoming more successful on paper?

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Yeah, back to that good enough conversation, right? I mean, I I had really felt uh and I had not received feedback like that before. I mean, I'm in my early 30s and I haven't received that type of feedback, not just negative feedback with regards to the performance score, but that kind of matter-of-fact feedback where behaviors were outlined in that conversation. And I had just heard a couple weeks, a CD a couple weeks before about this organization, Building Champions, that coaches executives and makes things happen. There was a choice I had in that seat right now. I could take that and I could just deny it and I could leave and go somewhere else because I knew I was, quote, good enough inside of that space. But I also knew that he was calling me out and calling me higher, as I was saying in that acronym. And I said, no, no, I want to use this to get better. And when I went to that executive coach, another kind of way that went through, I said, okay, we're going to talk about all these business things and make that happen. I get in that conversation with my first executive coach ever. And it was six months before we talked about the business. We spent six months just talking about me and my mindset and how my life, not just my work, but my life was being impacted on a daily basis. And so you think about some of the areas where we could develop a business plan. He was helping me to develop a life plan in the area of my faith and the area of my finances and my family and my fitness and my health and my fun. And all these different F's, if you will, in terms of helping me to get those areas back in line because if I wasn't a whole leader, I wasn't going to be able to be the successful business leader that I wanted to be. I gotta admit, as I look back on that, I went on that journey for a few months. I was no doubt compartmentalizing my life into the business inside of what was happening in those 45 to 50 hours a week inside the business. And then, you know, ultimately outside working on those other things. I had to be focused on developing, in essence, both my life and my business to be successful like I wanted to be in the future, back to that impacting people. It's not just impacting people at work, it's impacting people in your life.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

That is so powerful what you just said there, John, about that trajectory of success. A lot of time that takes up a lot of time. How about that? And all of a sudden you get to get that green flag of victory from success from that$50,000 in this case. And it's so phenomenal that really early on you had a coach that taught you success in all the different other areas of your life. You must have come across, as a coach yourself, a client that says, Let's forget all that other stuff, let's go straight to the business, let's forget all the fuzzy stuff. What do you say in that scenario where you're dealing with someone who's very quote unquote successful, wants to go straight to the success, and then all the other stuff, fulfillment and well-being, is not important to them apparently at that moment?

SPEAKER_00 22:16

What I really love about the start mo, if you will, so I've got an assessment that I use that I ask individuals to answer a question at the start of the assessment. It's about a five-page assessment that I put them through. I said, tell me, what's the one area that you want me to help you with with regards to our coaching before we get started up? And I've already done my own assessment and conversation through the sales process and everything else. But when we've started, when we've made the decision to get going, I ask them that question, what's the one area? And then I go through a series of questions, including asking them to assess not just where they are in their business and how they do with their teams, but where they are in those other areas of life. So where are you in terms of your health? And where are you in terms of your finances and your friendships and your family and those other areas of life? And I have them score themselves on a scale of one to 10. And I take them through a series asking them, you know, what's what their life's like outside of work as well. And I get to the end, and the last question at the end of the assessment is the same as the first question. What's the one area in your life that you'd like me to help you with on this journey as an executive coach? And it's sort of a trick question, but it gets them to start thinking about, oh, wow, I think this is going to be more than just a business coaching opportunity. And so it creates this conversation right off the bat with regards to that 90-minute visioning session that we do that allows us to get started. We probably mix it up, Mo, because I think many leaders today are looking for a pretty immediate return. And so there's a level of focusing on their business and putting some, you call them checkboxes, some daily and weekly habits in place that are going to help them improve their business right off. But we're also talking about, oh, by the way, what time are you leaving to go home and have dinner with your family each night, each week to make sure and we start to measure that as well? I'm a big fan of the statement. What you measure, you can manage, and what you don't measure, you just accept. And so if I can get them to help measure how they're doing in all those areas of life, then we can start to manage that on a on a regular basis in our work together.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Because we're on the topic of coaching, I have a coaching question for you, John. Um as you know, coaching is not about telling people what to do, it's about helping them discover who they are. How did you personally come to understand this distinction and how has it reshaped how you coach your leaders?

SPEAKER_00 24:47

So good. I mean, you know, that whether we talk about the difference in between a manager and a leader, good coaches ultimately ask great questions. And the good part about how I developed my technique is that I've been coached by some really good ones as well. From a life planning standpoint, I've worked with a coach for about seven or eight years who really took me through that journey and asked me how I was doing in all those areas of my life. From a performance consulting area, I had such two really good teachers who absolutely taught me in the Socratic method with regards to asking me questions versus telling me what to do. It's a guided discovery and what we're really looking to go forward to. Look, folks can read books and now, especially with the onset of AI and the continued improvement in AI. You talk about you want coaching, you can go into ChatGPT and get all the coaching you want to to have it tell you what answers you want to hear. With regards to what we are able to provide as coaches, that personal side and really asking them the questions. You know, one of my favorite questions is tell me more. Okay. I have a process that I take them through that is ultimately the five kata question, you know, how the Japanese teach. What is your target? Where are you today? What's the one thing that's getting in your way? And what's one thing you can do over the next week or next 10 days to eliminate that barrier? And then the last thing that's very important is now when can you show me? Because I want them to show me how to do that. Many times I had to learn on my own, the sensei uh Mr. Miyagi of Karate Kid, see one, do one, and then teach one. I had to see it happen. I had to be able to do it and be on that other side of coaching, and then I was able to teach it on a regular basis as well.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

So I'm hearing the word coaching a lot in terms of you're on it, you're a coach yourself, you have coaches, you have coaches in more than one area. What do you say to the listener to sort of shift that mindset from I'll just wake up early and figure it out by myself because I work hard, to actually let's get some guidance from a coach or coaches. How do we shift that mindset given that, of course, coaches equal an investment?

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Well, I love that. And that's that's one of those questions that run into, right? Is that you know ultimately for me, uh I've had coaches in my fitness, I've had you know health coaches that work with me. We you and I uh are working with the same organization from a brand coaching standpoint. I've had life coaches, I've had business coaches, I've had financial coaches, you name it, partly because I'm looking for folks who have been there before, partly because I am looking for folks who have seen some of the success that I want to see. Now, again, those individuals, when they're just getting started on the journey, reading a book can be something that can be very powerful. There's no doubt about it in terms of getting that answer. But ultimately getting to the level, if you're ready to say, I want to reach an uncommon level, I'm gonna need someone else to help me get there. Let's take it back to my health journey. I mean, I was able to on my own. I could write exercise plans or I could write, go again, go out on a chat GPT and get a nutrition plan. But it took me walking through the doors of a fitness location in 2017 when I was 80 pounds overweight and saying, back to the even that coaching question, I need help. And having that person there, that trainer, say, uh, and her name was Marg, and she has helped me over the years. She's we're still friends on Instagram, but you know, she said, I can help you. And I just want to let you know something. I lost my dad early to a heart attack just a couple years ago, and this is why I do this. So she had a purpose in how she was going to get me to probably do one more repetition than I was willing to do on my own. Too many times as individuals, we're gonna stop whether it's developing our leadership skills or developing our business or developing our health just before the level that we ultimately can get there. It's our minds that'll prevent us, but our bodies are capable of so much more. And so that coach is really there to take us to a place that we would not get to on our own. Our coach is really there to point out what we don't see with regards to our blind spots and recognize that you are capable of so much more, and to not allow us to be small in that space.

SPEAKER_02 29:20

I definitely concur. I have coaches in so many different areas of my life uh today. You mentioned earlier that when you coach your leaders, you ask them to identify what's that one thing, and then after that, what's that one change? And then why are we going for one and one? Why not multiple?

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Well, we know they need multiple, right? And this is a priority type situation because another quote I like to use you can do anything you want, you just can't do everything you want. And as we get started on a journey, it's very important that we focus uh in one area to be successful, to develop a pilot, and then we can ultimately spread that to other areas of our life and we learn what's possible in one area. Again, do we end up working in two or three areas at one time? Absolutely. But we're gonna go after that one area that they see at the start as their biggest gap. Again, even in our own fitness journey, we try to go our own business journey, we try to fix six, seven, eight different variables at one time. I go back to my journey with that trainer. Uh I never forget today I had plateaued. I had lost about 15 pounds. I was still working out hard and I had plateaued. And she said, okay, this is about three months into it. She says, It's time to get serious, isn't it? What are you eating right now? I started to work with her in terms of what my weekly eating was, and she started to laugh, almost a belly laugh on the floor at me. But she said, look, we're not going to go on some radical diet. Just pick one thing that you know you're not eating that's you know good for you and make that happen. And the hashtag that we ended up using was stop eating french fries. It was a hashtag that I used in business and anything else, because I was eating french fries five or six days a week. And she said, just cut that down to one day a week of french fries, and then the other days replace that with a good green vegetable as you go forward. So the hashtag stop eating french fries was really about stopping those bad habits that we know they were causing us to do bad things, okay? Whether it's doom scrolling on social media or opening up Facebook and understanding and rationalizing, well, I'm going to go through Facebook because I need to do this for business development or LinkedIn. So I'm going to go and reach out to individuals, or ultimately spending too much time on that game on my phone as well. Those silly phones are one of the biggest distractions that we have. But when we can learn that it's really not 20 things that are important, it's just one thing to help us get better, that can be something that's really powerful for us. I don't sense you eat a whole lot of French fries.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

I do not.

SPEAKER_02 31:58

Speaking of French fries, how do we get someone to stop eating French fries? What I mean by that is to stop a habit because you'd know intellectually that I need to stop eating French fries and I need to put away the tomato ketchup, if you will. What happens next to switch that from a habit to stop eating French fries? Hi, it's Mo Salami. Quick question. What would it feel like to finally have a predictable, scalable online revenue engine in your business? One that reliably brings in 10k plus months without chaos. If you're an established business owner and you want a dependable online revenue stream that truly complements your authority and your brand, I've opened up a limited number of free taster strategy sessions for listeners. This isn't a sales call, it's a 30-minute strategy session where I'll help you clarify your biggest leverage point, assess your current model, and uncover what your next 90-day scalable revenue plan could look like. To apply it and to see if you qualify, go to mostalami.com forward slash consulting. That's mostalami.com forward slash consulting and submit your application for the free taste decision. I'll link it in the show notes.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

Yeah, you think about the traditional uh James Clear, right? Atomic habits. He talks about this, and one of my favorite books on this topic is The Power to Change by Craig Rochelle, but really is replacing that habit with something else. You know, in this case, the true French fry was replacing it with a green leafy vegetable, which maybe didn't taste as good, but I had to recognize that that was important. Understanding that we had to replace a bad habit with a good habit. Now, again, many times when we start to think about something that we're addicted to, bad habits, it doesn't work quite as simply because we can just create something that's ultimately just another addiction. That's not what I'm talking about with regards to replacement. But imagine, if you will, the opportunity to sit down and watch a podcast in front of a screen versus saying, no, I'm going to replace the screen habit with I'm going to put it on my phone and I'm going to do a walk while I'm listening to the podcast as well. So you're replacing that sitting habit with a good habit of walking as well, or stacking those two habits of developing yourself and exercising at the same time. You develop a stacking habit that goes along with it. I think there's a reward that's important to go through as well when you can replace a bad habit with a good habit and recognizing that, hey, you know, cheap meals or whatever those things are, right? I mean, hey, I'm going to have ice cream. If I can go six days without french fries, then I'm going to have ice cream for my dessert on Sunday night, whatever that means. We do similar things as leaders. We have to learn to give ourselves credit in that space for the good things that we're doing. Now, look, we are human beings as well. We're not going to be top-level executives and start patting ourselves on the back because we start to read 10 pages a day. But here's the thing that's really going to happen. Others are going to see that as well. It's going to become part of who we are. And as a leader, we're going to be modeling what that goodness looks like inside of that habit. And so we're going to get affirmation or we're going to see others change as a result of the habits that we're putting in place as well. We don't have to force that on them. They're going to see it and say, I want a little bit of what he's talking about right there. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

Great. No more French fries. Agreed. What's the distinction, John, between an uncommon leader and a common leader?

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Yeah, I love that. I mean, the Uncommon Leader podcast and Tony Dungy wrote the book Uncommon, basically, that led me into really thinking about that. It's the plus one, though. I mean, it really is. It's in the world of saying, what am I willing to do when the lights are off that nobody else can see? What are those habits and rituals that I create, whether it's getting to bed at a decent time so that I can get that done? And I have to, in essence, sacrifice other things that other people aren't willing to do. So it's that plus one. I'm willing to do the 10 repetitions on a Monday, Wednesday, and a Friday to get my exercises in. But what am I doing on Saturday morning when everybody else is still sleeping in? I'm going to get up and maintain that ritual at the same level. So it's the ability to be consistent over a lengthy period of time that makes that uncommon leader the one who's a little bit different than common. Look, I often say it in a very simple term, Mo. You're walking through the parking lot at the grocery store, and many people will leave the shopping carts just in the middle of the parking lot so that if the wind blows, they'll wander around and run into somebody else's car where they could have walked it just 20 feet over to the corral or they could have walked it 30 feet back to the store. I will pick that empty shopping cart up, and it's not an ego thing for me or anything else, and take that back to the store, even though it wasn't mine. Because I haven't seen many uncommon leaders ultimately who just, in essence, quote, leave that proverbial shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot undone and not make it happen properly. One of my favorite tests when I used to test leaders was we'd have a class of 20 leaders, and before they'd come in, I'd set up the room with a few pieces of paper on the floor that were trash in a trash can right beside it, and see how many people just walked right past that piece of paper on the floor and didn't pick it up and walked right past. Sometimes walking right over it versus picking it up and throwing it away. And it was an opportunity to say it's the small things done repeatedly over and over that create the uncommon.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

Great distinction.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

So what I'm hearing is being that uncommon leader 24-7, when someone's watching, when your team's watching, when nobody's watching, and it just sort of sifts through into every single area of your life. It's not what we do, it's who we are, absolutely. You mentioned that you embrace this at an early age. How do we convince our leaders? I wonder if convince is the wrong word. How do we nudge our leaders to embrace the fact that fulfillment well-being should have equal weight almost as success?

SPEAKER_00 38:42

You mentioned the word convince, and it's hard to convince, you're exactly right. The words that I use to define growing champions in my organization are inspire, encourage, and equip. And those are the three words that come to mind when I think about how we do that, right? So we have to model that from an inspiration standpoint, model that from an encouragement, and ultimately share what we're learning on a regular basis. Back to the very start of our conversation, John Maxwell said leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. Influence is the ability to move others in a common direction, ultimately. And I think you know we can push them, right? Or we can be out in front of them and pull them with us along the way. Inspire, encourage, and equip them so that they want to be that leader they were called to be. Convince, push, force are not going to be words that define ultimately what an uncommon leader is. But being out in front of those others and pulling them with you on the journey to make that happen is what we're really looking to do.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

Early on, when you're in front of a leader, because you're working with people who are possibly the best of the best in their field. Early on when you're working with a leader, do you paint for them, encourage them to paint for themselves, the vision for their legacy so that it has that identity shift for them versus let's get a paycheck at the end of the year. Let's, you know, our revenues for the end of the year. Is that part of your process? I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

Yeah, it's a great question, Mo. And it is, it's the first step in the journey. I mean, once they've made the decision that they want a coach, that they want to change, that they want to grow, one of the first things I take them through outside of that assessment is that personal vision statement. And the framework that I use to teach that is so what, now what, so that. Three steps inside of finding that personal vision. And it starts off with that so what? I mean, ultimately, people will change either out of inspiration or out of desperation. And I think there's that's two reasons people change. Two reasons, you know, whether it's in your health, you change out of desperation because you know you just get a bad health score, or in your business, your business, you know, you know, inspiration is I know it can be more. You help them to define what that inspiration is from their perspective, not from my perspective. They have to be able to own that. So that's the so what is the inspiration of where they want to go. The now what is the action they must take. I must change, I must improve, I must design, I must grow. Whatever that action word is that we're looking to grow them in is something that's very important. But the last piece, the third step in that framework, that's so that is the why. That's where it all starts to happen, Mo, and where you have to get them. Like, why do they want to change? Back to that greatest story ever told. The reason they may want to change as a leader is I want someone to write my name on their list when they're asked who's made a positive difference in my life. Or I want my team to grow at a level so they can be successful in their life and understand what that fulfillment really looks like. So it's that so that is the thing that gets them out of bed every day when the alarm clock goes off rather than hitting the snooze. It's what helps them hit the floor with their feet in the morning that gets them out of bed that gets going. And they can do those so that statements for each area of their life. I often use a scriptural reference here in that that John 3.16 was written, God so loved the world, that was his inspiration, that he sent, that's the verb, that's what he did, he sent his only son. Ultimately, so that if we believed, we would have eternal life. So, you know, that's like the uh ultimate so what, now what, so that framework that exists inside of the Bible. But inside of a leader's life, they've got to have those three things in line, or anything they try to do, knowing improvement is all uphill is going to go for naught.

SPEAKER_02 42:42

18-year-old John reaches out to you, and 18-year-old John refers to you as present-day John. So 18-year-old John says, What is the difference of a life that's just success versus a difference of a life that's success plus fulfillment plus well-being?

SPEAKER_00 43:05

You know, I think about this, Mo, and one of the questions or a couple of the questions I might ask him, and again, it still comes back to this greater story ever told was hard, because 18-year-old John was an athlete. He played basketball, played football, he loved that as well. And he would have a focus on some of those sports greats that were there and understand. But I might ask him, who were the last five most valuable players of the NBA? He might be able to name one of them, maybe two of them. And then I'd ask him, yeah, you're a football fan as well. I want you to name the last five Super Bowl most valuable players. And again, he might be able to remember, sometimes you don't even remember which team won the Super Bowl. If it wasn't your team, you rarely remember that. But I'd then ask him now name five people who have made a positive impact on your life. Not on the last five years, but on your life, even through 18 years. And we can go back in time, whether you ask that question at age 18 or age 50. And you're going to be able to write those names down really easily. Those five individuals, whoever you're going to write down on the list, help you to define what success is going to look like in your life going forward. So don't worry about so much about how much money you're going to make. Worry about the impact you're going to have on the people's lives that you're going to experience. Now, 18 years old, regardless if that's 18-year-old John or some other 18-year-old, I know enough to know that they might hear that. I remember a conversation with my son one time and one of his friends were at the house. I looked at both of them. They were just getting ready to be seniors in high school. So a 17-year-old, I said, you guys need to know you're going to be the average of the five people you hang out with the most. And it was like I said something to them that was earth-shattering. I didn't make that quote up. At least that's attributed very much to Jim Rohn and some of his writing, and many other people have said it. But that's been a situation for me that they look back on that and said, I remember, and once Mr. Gallagher, my son says, Dad, I remember when you said that to us in that room. And that becomes so important because you will be determined by those people that you hang around with the most in your future. I certainly could have used some of that advice at 18 years old as well.

SPEAKER_02 45:22

How do you discern the five people that you hang around? Is it a gradual process of looking at your circle? Or is it a cull? A culling where it's like, okay, you're you're out, you're in. How do we gravitate towards having a great five people around us that inspire us simply the greatest version of ourselves possible?

SPEAKER_00 45:46

Purposeful reflection drives purposeful action, right? And I have a process that I use each year, and it's not just for people, but it's for life. How did the year go? What went well and what could have gone better in my life? Many times I'll you know look back at my calendar and see who I spent the time with to make that happen. I think it's more gradual, at least for me, it's more gradual than others might say. I have a trouble, I have trouble at times saying no to individuals in my life. Because you've got, you can pick your friends, you can't pick your family. So you got your family that you work with on a regular basis. They're very, very important. But those friends that you choose to hang around with become very important as well. And call is a very hard term. I think there's sort of a slow fading that happens with some of those friends in your life, but you naturally will become more intentional with the people you do want to hang around with. So you find out your yeses become so much more important because anytime you say yes, you're saying no to something else. There's no doubt about it. And so those yeses become very important, both as you know, individuals and friends you have. And then for my wife and I, in fact, we were just talking about this today, as couples who we choose to engage with as well, that are going to have a positive impact on us from a marriage standpoint, from an entertainment standpoint, all those different things. So I think it's more gradual, Mo. I don't I don't want to, I'm not the kind that'll uh just chop those things off pretty fast. But I think when you're doing regular reflection at the end of any time period, it could be the end of a month or a quarter, ultimately you say what's going well, what can be going better, and then you look at that list and you say, What do I need to keep doing, start doing, and stop doing? And so some of those stops are the calls of either relationships or actions that you need to stop doing. But some of the keeps are those things that are going really well as well.

SPEAKER_02 47:40

How do you stay aligned mentally, physically, spiritually? You mentioned spiritually a few times. How do you stay aligned in all these different uh paradigms when things get demanding?

SPEAKER_00 47:55

Yeah, for me it's a dashboard. I mentioned that what gets measured gets managed, and what doesn't get measured kind of gets accepted. And so I sit down with my goals on a regular basis, develop those smart goals every year in those different areas of life. How much reading I want to do from a personal development standpoint, what do I want to grow in from a health standpoint? This year for me it's sleep in terms of sleep quality and VO2 max in my health or in my business as well. What are the new leads that I want to generate or new revenue that I want to generate? So that dashboard for me is very important to understand. And I look, take a look at those results on a monthly basis and see how I'm doing. If I'm not measuring it, I'll just let it happen. There's no doubt about it. And so I've got to be intentional with measuring the metrics and ultimately looking at my calendar to see if those items that are on my calendar are impacting the metrics that I set up on a monthly and annual basis.

SPEAKER_02 48:52

And if someone's listening to this and they want to do the same, harping back to what you said prior, am I assuming that you'd ask them to kick one thing from the calendar versus trying to navigate the entire calendar as a starting point? I'm assuming someone that's hearing this for the first time is like, wow, I need to implement something like this.

SPEAKER_00 49:12

Yeah, it's back to that stopping and French rise, right? They start with one thing that's small. Again, I'm going to read 25 books in a year sounds really big. That's that's a big number, right? But if I sit down and say, I only need to read 10 pages a day, like that's a whole different conversation. Like each day am I tracking whether or not I can read 10 pages in a book? That's a lot different than I'm gonna read 25 books. But 10 pages a day is gonna get you to 25 books in a year. And so that's one way is to break that big goal down into small incremental steps. But the other thing, you're absolutely right. It's not about I'm gonna change six things, all six areas of my life at one time. Let's pick one to focus our energy on and design that habit and get it into our calendar, get it planned in there to make it happen inside of our calendar. Because if we don't plan our time, somebody else will, and we'll miss that opportunity to get those things done. That tracker is a tool that I'd be happy to share with your listeners. If somebody wanted to write it down, I'd be happy to share that monthly tracker that they could set up, that monthly dashboard, that scorecard that they could use to track their metrics on a monthly basis. I think it's a great, great way to start.

SPEAKER_01 50:25

We can add that to the show notes. And let's go back in time.

SPEAKER_02 50:32

Earlier on in your leadership journey, you made a bold mistake, which was investing in real estate with a family member and thinking you could change how they worked. What did that experience teach you about humility and leadership and the limits of control?

SPEAKER_00 50:48

And you can go in as deep or as not as deep as you wished with this. You're being so kind with that. I know you've read about that and you did your homework, but uh back in uh 2006, my wife and I decided to move back to her hometown, and we really didn't have kind of work lined up, so I decided to get into real estate, and that that was a bold move for me. But the bold part of it was I decided to team up with my mother-in-law in real estate sales, and so we became a real estate team. And I had a lot of you, I'd just come out of being the president of a division, and I was going to change her. There was no doubt about it. I was going to put these disciplines in place for her to really make that happen. And that was probably one of the most powerful leadership lessons I learned was two things about that. One is you're not going to change a person. They have to make that choice that they're going to change and kind of move toward that. But the second piece of that was to recognize the different strengths in each of your team members, how important that was. There were things that I was trying to, in essence, ask this individual, my mother-in-law, to do in the business that was way outside of her comfort zone, almost outside of her learning zone, whether it was technology and tracking and things like that, where really some of her strengths were in that relationship building that she had already done. And I was pulling her away from that. I mean, we were still able to be very successful. We named the real estate team of the year one year as we worked together for five years. But it really was a leadership point that, hey, we can't change others. We can only again inspire, encourage, and equip them. They need to make the decision, either out of inspiration or out of desperation, that they're going to change. And the secondly is recognize those gifts that other individuals have and leverage that and focus on their strengths.

SPEAKER_02 52:37

Recognizing the gifts that other people have. You know, I'm I'm definitely of the belief that everyone has amazing gifts and it's just about getting the fish off the bicycle is what I wanted to say. Putting them in the right seat. John, this has been really, really awesome. We have such an alignment. This podcast is literally called purpose-driven success. If someone is listening to this and they're successful, and they've listened to this and they've thought, I've been chasing the wrong definition of success this whole time. What is a question that they can ask themselves to begin redefining success for themselves?

SPEAKER_00 53:16

Oh, back to that greatest story ever told, Mo, and I love this question as it finished to finish it off. It's who's going to write your name on their list? Because that only happens with intentionality. That only happens with excellence in the work that you do and not just mediocre. And that excellence only happens on purpose. You've got to have the discipline in place to make that happen. And you got to have that so that statement so clear that you're not willing to give up when something comes gets in your way to get there. So who's going to write your name on their list of someone who's made an impact in their life?

SPEAKER_02 54:00

And throughout this conversation, we've heard that it's not by accident that you're super duper at what you do. If I can phrase it that way, you've given so many references to books and learnings and mentors and coaches and also that distinction that you have so many different coaches as well in different areas of your life. I just wanted to preface that before saying if somebody wanted to learn more about you or wanted to work with you, what's the next step? Where would we send them to?

SPEAKER_00 54:36

Mo, I appreciate that opportunity. And I certainly appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation with you today. It's been phenomenal. I knew it would be. You've been on the Uncommon Leader podcast a couple of times, but thank you for the opportunity to also share my contact info. It's going out to my website, coachjongallagher.com. We'll get you anywhere you want to. I've got a weekly newsletter that I do called the Champions Brew. It's the blog on that page. As Mo knows, he's been a guest on the Uncommon Leader podcast, and you can reach that through that website as well. There's a button there that you can set up an appointment with me to chat however you want to. We'd love to chat with any of your listeners.

SPEAKER_02 55:12

Absolutely. And if you've listened to this episode and you've liked what you've heard, imagine working with John over an intermediate term and the impact that will have for your team, for yourself as well. And I just want to do one more thing, John, if I could. Tell us a little bit about the intention of the Uncommon Leader Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 55:33

Oh, well, the Uncommon Leader Podcast, we're a couple hundred episodes in, about five years. I've mentioned that Growing Champions is inspire, encourage, and equip. I love having other uncommon leaders from many places, whether they're authors or podcasters like yourself or just inspirational leaders, pastors, and even clients that I've had on there come on and tell their story of uncommon leadership. I start off by asking them about a story from their childhood that still impacts them, which just lines a mix creates a through line all the way through the conversation to give them the final opportunity to give their note at the end. But they're 30 to 35 minute conversations with other leaders that are bound to inspire and encourage you to be the uncommon leader you need to be as well.

SPEAKER_01 56:26

18-year-old John Gallagher just hopped into the room one more time and asked the question if leaders are readers.

SPEAKER_02 56:36

It probably follows that uncommon leaders are uncommon readers. Expand on this part about leaders are readers.

SPEAKER_00 56:46

Well, again, let's go back to my story out of college. So that 18-year-old John Gallagher, certainly 22-year-old John Gallagher, was never going to read another book. I mean, he that was not going to happen. I had studied everything I needed to study. I had my engineering degree and I was out in the workplace now. That's all I needed to do. But when that leader gave me that book, The 21-year-feudal Laws of Leadership, so it wasn't just that book, but it was the experience of walking through it with him chapter by chapter. And the master class that you can get basically for 20 bucks and 10 pages a day on how to be a better leader, how to be a better manager, how to run your business better, how to be a better man of faith, a husband, a parent. Learning from others who have already been through it before is so important. And what other way is there to really learn but from other people's mistakes? Because they love to talk about those mistakes inside of those books, that you can then say, Oh, I'm not going to make that same mistake in the future. They're unbelievable. You think about a the$20 MBA or whatever you want to call it in terms of your degree. There's so much years and years of experience into one 220-page book that you can find. And if you are not growing from either reading or listening to podcasts, which can be just as powerful as well, then where are you going to learn and grow on a regular basis?

SPEAKER_02 58:18

I hope you've enjoyed this masterclass in uncommon leadership today with John Gallagher. John, it's been such an honor having you on the show. So thank you so much for gracing us with your wisdom, your insights.

SPEAKER_01 58:33

And I'm sure again you'll be a repeat guest at some point. Thank you so much, John. I look forward to it, Mo. Thank you as well. All the best. Ciao.

SPEAKER_02 58:45

Thank you for listening to Purpose Driven Success with Mo Stalami. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review. It's one of the best ways to help others discover the show. You can find links and resources and show notes at our website. And if today's episode inspired you, check out one of our other insight-filled, value-packed episodes. Next week we'll have another amazing guest, so stay tuned for even more real stories and actionable insights. Work on your mindset, work on your skill set, and always move in the direction of the result you want before you see the result you want. And until next time, do the best you can consistently. Ciao.