Episode 72:

Welcome everyone to The Upstream Leader. I am excited to have a repeat guest, which doesn’t happen a lot on the podcast, but excited to have Jake Thompson back with us today. As a quick reminder, for those of you that don’t know, Jake has spent more than a decade working with leaders and organizations all over the world on how they can get better results for themselves and their teams.

He does this as the Chief Encouragement Officer at Compete Every Day, a brand that he started back in 2011 by selling t-shirts out of the trunk of his car. Through his entrepreneurial sales experience, client work, and research, Jake has built a proven framework that helps leaders improve their mindset, Habits and team development to create more influence as an impactful leader in their organization, which is the topic today. Jake is in Dallas, Fort Worth with his wife, Elena, and their dogs, Sugar, Donut, and Snacks, which are some of the cutest dogs on Instagram, I’ve got to say.

Thanks, man.

Jake, good to have you.

Dude, excited to be here. Thanks for having me, Jeremy. Yeah, they, the three stars of the household are Hot Mess. And I was about to say, one of them’s right here at my feet right now.

As they should be anytime somebody is trying to get something done, right? That happens in our house as well. So if anybody’s looking for a little bit of background on you, they can go back to episode 29 is when you joined us to, and talked about the brand and compete every day, which I’ve been a huge fan of for quite some time. Today, though, you’ve got a new book out called Lead Better Now: A Practical Guide to Increase Your Influence as a Leader, and me being always the skeptic of books when it says “a practical guide,” I’m like, all right, well, let’s hope that it’s actually not just, you know, a bunch of monologue and it’s practical. And I gotta say, man, you really delivered on that practical guide. It is actionable.

Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Yeah, that was really the goal with this one, right? The first book, Compete Every Day, was, we tried to be practical, right? Very applicable, seven choices, simple on the surface, how do you execute? But with this one, we had to dive deeper just because of the problem we’re trying to solve of, so many great individual contributors and performers are thrown into leadership and they hate it. Like, they feel like they’re drowning, they feel like they’re a failure, they see Posts on LinkedIn and assume everybody else has it figured out. Reality: nobody kind of has it figured out. You’re just trying to get better every day. And so this, I didn’t want to be like a lot of other leadership books I read, which were very high level, talk vision, talk all of these things, Big picture. I wanted to try to get nuts and bolts with this because really when you’re drowning, You don’t want to learn how to swim. You just kind of want a life raft or, some kind of flotation device to say, hey, start here, do this. We’ll worry about it later.

And you definitely delivered with this and, you know, right out of the gate, you jump in even, you know, the first chapter, are you ready to lead? What an important question that arguably so many people aren’t even asked before they’re thrown into leadership, right? Like you said, it’s, hey, you’re really good at what you do. Great. Now you’re a leader. Good luck. And that doesn’t exactly work. Here’s the other thing that I really got to say, I loved about how you approach this book, you’ve got three really clear sections, right? Compete, connect, and communicate. And look, I’m a process guy. I’m an accountant by, you know, background. So. I almost always follow stuff in order, but what I loved is, as I was going through it, I was like, you know what, I could go back and grab any of these key topics when I need it, and I don’t have to read this in order, because it’s got that action.

So, I want to start off, though, in order, having said that, and talk a little bit about “Compete.” Obviously, that’s, you know, your brand, your background is all about Compete Every Day. Why is that the place that you chose to start for leaders in this practical guide?

Yeah. So when we look at the actual definition of “compete,” most times when you ask people, hey, what does it mean to compete? They’re like, you gotta, it’s winning, it’s sports. It’s all of these things that are outcome focused. In reality, the definition is striving to gain or win something. And when you really look at that, to strive, is the daily pursuit. And for me, a lot of the work that I do at Compete Every Day is self leadership. I believe everything that we do starts with the person we see in the mirror, and in order to lead others, especially to earn the right, to build the influence and to build the trust with others, we have to lead ourselves.

And so this whole idea of competition is, what are you doing every day to improve yourself? Not to be the perfect leader, but to be a leader continually making progress, because that does more than anything else. Because your walk talks louder than your talk ever will. And so it doesn’t matter how many formulas and how good you are giving directions and all of these other things that are processes and data, if you can’t lead yourself, it does not matter anything else you do, because your words are going to fall on deaf ears.

And in the book I make the joke about the Chris Farley motivational speaker, the SNL skit of Matt Foley, “van down by the river” that everybody knows. You have a guy living in a van down by the river, super overweight, disheveled, yet he’s the quote, “motivational speaker” you’re supposed to listen to. And you’re like, what you’re teaching doesn’t work for you, why would it work for me? Like, you just go down that path. And so this idea of learning to compete with yourself, which is kind of the ethos of everything we do, is fundamentally the most important part of leadership, because until you’re willing to do the difficult discipline work to improve, you’re going to have a hard time leading others that you want to improve.

Yeah. And I love one of the quotes that you have called out in the book, it says, It’s impossible to influence others to become better if our actions are no different from theirs. And that really speaks to what you were just saying, is you’ve got to figure out in a way, and correct me if I’m wrong, you’ve got to separate yourself from those that you’re leading, and you’ve got to be willing to do the extra things, to go above and beyond to do that. So when you think about that and the idea that so often leaders are trying to be part of the team, right? How do you reconcile the two, right? How do you reconcile, I’ve got to push myself to be better than those that I’m leading and better than myself and stand out and demonstrate all those things, but at the same time, you don’t want to come across as having that ego, right? So how do you balance the two out as a leader? ’Cause I can see that being a challenging aspect.

Huge challenge. And you also have the issue that a lot of leaders and probably listeners are struggling with that when you’re on the same level with a ton of people, you’ve built some relationships and all of a sudden, if you’re the one that gets promoted, that creates a different dynamic in that relationship, and for a lot of leaders, they really struggle having the tough conversations of holding people accountable, coaching them up, once you start with that dynamic.

So in terms of ego and the way I look at it is how do you connect with people? Like, how do you make investments in people? But also, are you willing to, just like a really great friendship, tell them the truth? Are you willing to coach them up? Are you willing to not avoid or ignore certain failures or shortcomings because you, quote, “don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings,” or you want to make sure that you’re still, quote, “the buddy.” You’re willing to talk truth to them to say, Hey, listen, here’s where you’re falling short on this action. What can we do to improve it? I think that’s the big one.

The other piece that really separates the ego out of it is just understanding you don’t know everything and you don’t have to know everything. Like sometimes a leader’s greatest response is I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out because what that says is I’m willing to be a little bit vulnerable with you, that I don’t have everything figured out, but I’m willing to find out what it is in order to help this situation. Because a lot of times what you’ll have is say you’re the person that comes into a leadership role, you weren’t kind of on the same level with everybody and got promoted, you come in from the outside or you switch departments, and you don’t have some of those prebuilt relationships, is people just assume because you’re higher up in the org chart or you’re in a leadership role that you have all the answers or that you’ve never messed up. And when they mess up and when they struggle, there’s even more tension in that relationship because they felt like, well, you can’t relate. You’re so much better at this. But then you can say, hey, like, I didn’t know this when I was in your spot and here’s two or three times I messed up doing that. That’s why I want to help coach you through that. Then it’s not about how do I make myself look important, it’s how do I make you get better? And that’s really the shift in focus is not how important can I feel? How interesting am I? It’s how interested can I be in you? And how much can I help you get better?

I love that. So, let me take the other side of that then, because you said, you know, for a lot of folks that come outside the organization and then join in, right? There’s that perception. Right? You’re the boss, you’re, you know, doing all the things and you’re higher up and all that. What about the person that they’ve been on the same team for a decade, right? They are best friends with half the team members, and now they’re the leader. Now they’ve been put in charge, and it almost feels like that “us versus them,” and they’ve almost been cast out. How do they navigate through that situation? Stepping out of the, right, the buddy, like you said, the friend role into the leadership role without damaging those relationships.

Yeah, it’s probably what a lot of parents go through at some stage of wanting to be the buddy versus the parent and having to make that shift for the good of the child, right? So in this instance, there’s a couple of things. One, you have to be aware that when you rise up, you’re no longer part of the team in the same sense. Like they’re not going to come to you and complain about the boss, because now you’re the boss. So understanding the dynamic has shifted. What hasn’t hopefully shifted is the investments you’ve made in the relationship. And what I see is the biggest struggle for these folks in this position is they don’t want to have the tough conversations anymore, because they want to be back in the buddy group, right? They don’t want to be able to, Hey, when somebody messes up, they don’t want to give them that negative feedback because it could damage the quote, “social feedback.” And the way I look at it is in a friendship, this is the person that’s the yes man that always tells you what you want to hear instead of what you need to hear. Does neither party any good. And so the first thing you have to realize is there’s going to be a shift in the relationship and that’s a hundred percent natural.

Second thing you have to realize is if you continue to make deposits into the people, You now have to have the tougher conversations with them. And the more you avoid the tough conversations, the actual worse off they’re going to be because they’re not learning where they can improve. And they could be blindsided by a termination that you could have helped them avoid by helping develop the skills. So when you have those tough feedback conversations, you’ve got to be able to do that. Second, in addition to that, is giving the good feedback. Sometimes when we’re on the same level, we don’t praise each other as much because it’s like, well, yeah, that’s part of our job. We’re supposed to do that. But when you rise into that leadership role, it’s even more important that we heavily praise process, like how people are showing up, what their attitude is, things that most people think, well, yeah, they should be doing that. Absolutely they should. But how do we reinforce and build their confidence by encouraging them to keep doing it is to call it out. And so the other thing you’ve got to do that may be outside of your comfort zone of light. Well, I mean, I did that when I was in that role. Why would I encourage them is to help encourage those processes.

The last, that’s probably the most uncomfortable, is when you get picked over one or two others. That are still there on the team. And now they report to you a couple of ways. This can go, obviously there’s tension. The individuals are upset they didn’t get the promotion. But what you can look at is, Hey, this is a great opportunity to understand from who hired me, why they chose me over them, where they’re lacking in skill sets, and now be able to go to those people and say, listen, I know you’re frustrated, you want this role that I’m in. But now that I’m here, I really want to help you for the next opportunity, to be in the perfect position for it. Here’s what we can learn. Here’s where we can get better. Here’s what I want to help coach and develop you on. And I may not have all the answers, but I want you to know, like, here’s where I’m committed to helping you. That can help alleviate a ton of the tension out of the get go, because now you can be on their team by saying, hey, it wasn’t me versus you. they chose me in this instance for the opportunity, but now I want to make sure you get the next one. And so that will help alleviate it versus the, well, they just don’t like me now because I got the job and they’re jealous of me and I’m just not going to invest in that relationship any, because they’re maybe cold shouldering me versus like go heavy into investing in the relationship to help them.

So that’s really taking that mindset of abundance in a way, right? And it’s saying, look, just because I got it now, it doesn’t mean we can’t help you get it next. Yeah. Right. And you mentioned the deposits and the deposits into the relationship. And I don’t know a lot of folks that think about the constructive feedback as deposits in the relationship, right? The praise, sure, yeah. That makes me feel good. Of course I see that as a deposit, but I think it was in chapter nine, you talked about, you know, that relationships are a lot like piggy banks, that you’ve got to just keep making those little deposits, because what it does is it builds that relationship, it builds that trust. Talk a little bit about the role of both the constructive feedback and the praise in actually building those relationships and that trust.

So feedback is like a seesaw, right? We typically do a really good job of being very specific, detailed to the point on negative feedback, and we’re very general and broad when it comes to positive, it’s like, hey, you didn’t do A, B, and C, and I need you to do it this way, next time to be correct. Oh, by the way, you’re doing a good job. Well, that doesn’t really give me much of anything. So when we talk about deposits, one, we’re praising the process, right? We’re looking for opportunities to encourage, to empower. But the other thing when you step into this role is to be very transparent from the beginning of, hey, we’re going to have tough conversations. Like, my job is to help make you better and help you get to what your full potential is, to that next promotion, all of that. And sometimes that means I’m going to have to give you feedback that doesn’t feel good. And I want you to know the only time I’m going to tell you feedback that could be negative is because I see potential in you that you can rise to, and I want to help you get there. And we can’t change behavior unless we’re aware of it.

So like establishing, this is my why for giving it, it’s not because it looks bad on me or any, like, I want you to know I’m giving you feedback because I want you to be better. Then it’s approaching the negative feedback the same as the positive. It’s, hey, I got two pieces of negative feedback where you messed up. I’ll give you all the details. I’ve got to be two pieces of positive, very detailed. Hey, I saw how you handled this client on this situation that I know is frustrating. It was outside of your control. You kept your calm. You showed up ahead of time. Like you did all of these things. I just want to commend you for that because that is very important. And that’s what a leader does.

So like, taking that opportunity to do both is really crucial because if you do the super specific negative and the very general positive, they’re not going to get the positive. If you do the crap sandwich, which is a good, negative, good, people either completely tune out the negative or they completely tune out the good. So it doesn’t work. So the goal is how do you balance the two? To get very specifics on both sides. And I think that for a lot of us takes effort and work, and it’s not always the easiest thing to do, but when it goes back to the beginning, right? We have to do the uncomfortable work as a leader to improve. So looking for opportunities to constantly give good feedback, call out the good, and then when you do the negative, it’s in a one on one setting, you’re establishing upfront of like, hey, I want to have this conversation because here’s what I see in you, and then we’ve got to be very specific about it. We’ve got to add the positive, and then we’ve got to make sure when we finish those, we call them up.

Now, one of the things that I think is really helpful with this, that a lot of people tend to overlook, is we have management one on one meetings all the time—we rarely have coaching meetings. And so the goal is to have a management meeting where we talk about tasks and numbers and where you’re hitting the mark and where you’re not. And as Mike Weinberg, who’s a sales speaker talks about like management meetings, you should always feel icky leaving, a coaching meeting, you should leave inspired. Like, you should go into a coaching meeting and say, this is what I want to get better at. This is where I need help. This is what I want to work on. And then I have targets to leave that motivate me to chase. And so that’s a great opportunity of giving feedback in both of those arenas as well.

I’m going to call out one thing that you said there that I want to make sure everybody heard, especially for those of you that are new into leadership or maybe you’re in leadership and the feedback side isn’t working is Jake, what you said is let people know you’re going to give them feedback. Don’t just come with it right out of the gate, and it’s never happened before. Cause that might be a little bit jarring, right? Catch them off guard. May not be as productive. But what you share there can be so valuable for a leader because it recognizes, hey, I got to go to somebody and tell them, look, I’m going to be providing you feedback. Some of it’s going to, you’re going to love. Some of it, you’re probably not going to want to hear, but you still need to hear it. Just so you know, I probably don’t want to have to tell you, but we’re going to have it, it’s going to happen.

And that really eases the tension, I believe, for then providing that feedback because everybody knows, hey, it’s coming at some point, and if it’s never happened, what that does is it brings it up in a way that now makes it easier for you to change the narrative and change what you’re doing there. So I love what you shared there. Thank you for that.

I want to ask—

I was going to, I was going to add to that—

Please.

Based on what you just said. So there’s a number of statistics and off the top of my head, I could not give it to you, but it’s between 65 and 75 percent of people surveyed talk about, they only get feedback from their manager once or twice a year. And they, most people crave feedback because they want to do a better job, they just don’t know where or how. And so when you take that, and then you look at over 75 percent of people who left their most recent job in the last two years, left because of the manager. Wasn’t the culture. It wasn’t the work they do. It was the person they reported to. And most of them said it’s because they felt underappreciated or ignored because they never got feedback.

So when you counter that in, it’s like, people want to learn what they’re doing well, where they can get better. We either don’t give them feedback, or we only tell them what they’re doing wrong, versus also telling them what they’re doing right to build their confidence.

Well, and so often, the people that we provide the least amount of feedback to are the ones that crave it the most: The high performers, they want to know it. They care. And I don’t know about you. I know I’ve seen, with a lot of folks in the accounting profession, and I, look, I was guilty of it, when I was leading the team as well. It’s like you give more feedback to those that are struggling, even if they don’t want it, because, well, that’s what we’re taught to do, is fix that situation, and those that are doing really well, they don’t get anything. And they’re sitting there going, man, if somebody would tell me how I could get even better, I could take this thing next level. But we just simply don’t.

I saw today there was like a chart and it was like every organization for the most part has 10 percent high performers, 80 percent average, and 10 percent low performers. And most people spend their time on the low performers and on the bottom half of the average. What you should be doing is spending your time on the top, the high performers, and then the higher end of the average, to move the goalposts, like to shift it further and further, knowing you’re eventually going to eliminate out the 10 percent at the very bottom, versus spending all your time and energy there. And yeah, I mean, why wouldn’t you want to figure out how you can get better because that creates more opportunities. The biggest key with that, we actually just did a podcast on it is understanding the feedback is about something you do and not who you are.

Yeah.

And I think that’s really important for us individually as leaders when we get feedback—it’s how we’re leading. It’s things we’re doing, which are skills based and skills can be improved. It’s not personal and identity based, and when you can separate the feedback from who you are, then you start to crave it because you’re like, how can I do this thing better? How can I play the piano better? How can I manage this? Like, how can I do all of these things better versus what’s wrong with me?

Yeah, behaviors instead of character. And people are so much more receptive that way, right? Nobody likes a character attack. You want to see people get defensive, that’s a great way to do it. So, I’m going to ask, I’m going to go slight sidebar here. You’ve mentioned three terms.

Okay.

“Manager,” “Coach,” and “Leader.” Just real quick, differentiate them for me.

Yeah, so Management and Manager is pretty much the role most people play. It’s task oriented, you get promoted, you now manage people, you make sure they do certain tasks. Leader and Coach, I tend to look at a little more interchangeably, right? Really, your job when you step into management is not just tasks, but it’s to coach and develop people. Brené Brown, Simon Sinek, and Adam Grant were talking on a podcast, and they all laughed that if you could replace “leader” with a word, it would be “coach.” And I agree with that, because a leader’s job is to develop other leaders, is to develop people to call them out. A manager is just there to say, did you get the job done? Did you get the task done? And managers, no offense, are a dime a dozen. Leaders are more rare, and what people don’t understand is if you’re a person in a role that can manage and coach, you can help develop people, then you’re always going to have a job. Because the people who can develop other people become invaluable in organizations. And it doesn’t matter what goes on, like you’re always going to have a position because you can help develop people versus just make sure they get the job done.

And so leader and coach we tend to use a little interchangeably. The way I tend to kind of look at it if you’re structuring it, is manager is just the role. Coach is what you move into where you’re really starting to develop people. And then the leader role is where you’re developing those coaches into leaders.

Got it. I love that. That’s really good. And it reminds me of a quote and I won’t get it word for word, but it was a book I was listening to recently, and they said that your people have the highest potential ROI of any investment in the company.

Without a doubt.

And it goes hand in hand with what you said, right? If you can develop people and future leaders, you will always have a place in an organization because that’s what they need for sustainability. I want to ask you about two different topics and there’s not a, I guess, a perfect natural transition here, but I’m going to go back a little bit. We were talking earlier about, a leader’s behaviors are going to speak louder than what they say. So when you’ve got a leader, And the team that they’re leading is at a, let’s say quite a bit earlier in their career than where the leader is at, right? So maybe there’s a 10 year gap. Those folks aren’t going to see what that leader did when they were their age, when they were in that role. So help me understand the role of vulnerability for a leader in sharing those experiences and talking about those things that they can’t demonstrate because they haven’t “long ago,” so to speak.

Yeah, I think the easiest is when you start having those coffee conversations and getting to know them as well as when you have a coaching opportunity. So the first is, you know, just getting to know the people, sharing different connections you may have. Oh, you know, when I was in your role, this was something I found important too. I’m glad we have that alike. When you get into coaching opportunities, when people have messed up, when they’ve missed the target, when you’re asking questions and you start to see a similarity of people, I did the same thing, or I was guilty of this, that’s really the opportunity to share that. Because what most people do is they want to protect their ego and never share where I messed up, because I’m supposed to be the leader, I’m supposed to have it all together, versus realizing that misstep, that setback imperfection is actually what’s going to allow you to connect better with the individual because now they can relate to you.

And now if they have the assumption that you have everything figured out where you are in 10 years, and they don’t have anything figured out, and they realize when you were in their spot, you made some of the same mistakes, you suddenly give them hope that they can, quote, figure it out over the next 10 years like they believe you have.

So how does a leader get over the fear of sharing their mistakes with their team?

It’s like anything. Courage, you just gotta do it once. Like, right? You gotta do something a little bit easier. I preface that, and I say that because there’s always scary parts. Like, courage is a necessary part of leadership because you have to deal with discomfort. And there’s a story I tell in the beginning of one of my keynotes that I didn’t tell for years. Hit it, was embarrassed by it, didn’t want to tell it. And as I was reworking the talk last year with a guy, he was like, you’ve got to tell that story. Like you have to open with that story. And I’m like, I don’t really know about that. He’s like, no, you’ve got to do it. And I started telling it. And the moment I started telling it, I started having more people come up and be like, it happened to me. I did that too. I know this.

Like, it created immediate connection because they were like, I’m on stage saying like, this is one of my most embarrassing moments as a young 20 year old. Like this was a dumb decision I made because here’s what I thought. And I was afraid. And when you start sharing stuff like that, people can connect with it. And all before I’d given that keynote without that story, I was like, I’m just missing, like, there’s something not connecting with the audience here. And it’s because I hadn’t opened up in that way with them. I’m not telling you to open up and be like, oh my god, I’m going through a divorce and everybody hates me and like pouring it all out. But what I am saying is, are there professional instances where you’ve made that mistake? Where you’ve been in a similar position they have, and maybe they made a better choice than you did. Where are there opportunities to teach, by just being a little more human, instead of expecting I’ve got to have all the answers, I’ve got to be perfect all the time, because that’s going to allow you to connect with people. And if you can connect, you can build trust and influence. And if you can build that trust and influence, then you can really help steer and change their trajectory over the course of their career.

Definitely. I love that. And I mean, it’s hard to come to terms with it, but you’re so spot on that a flawed leader is so much easier to connect with than somebody who portrays perfection, because nobody can see themselves as being that. But as soon as a leader says, you know what, I’ve been there, I screwed that up, and, you know, we almost lost the company’s biggest client, but guess what? We still have them. We fixed it. Life goes on, I’m still here. Now, all of a sudden people are like, Oh, wow. They’re a person. They’re not just this, like, robotic leader. They’re a person. So, I appreciate you sharing that.

I’ve got one quote from your book that I want to throw out to you and just get you to maybe riff on this for a few minutes here as we work toward the conclusion: “You can’t change your friends, but you can change your friends.” Talk to me a little bit about that and the importance of that for a leader.

Yeah. So we talked on this in my first book, Compete Every Day, about the importance of aligning with the right people. We called it building your starting lineup, playing off the Jim Rome quote that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Really taking that to another level with this book, because as a leader, you’re always going to struggle unless you’re hanging out with other people who are also trying to lead. It’s why some of the most successful business owners I know, and leaders, get into mastermind groups, they get into professional networking groups, because they need to spend time with other people to sharpen them, who are going to do the same thing.

If your buddy has no desires to ever lead and manage people and is good, just kind of getting by, you’re going to have a hard time relating to them as you’re trying to grow throughout your career and help other people manage because they’re not going to relate. They’re like, I’m good where I am. I don’t want to do anything else, and you’re like, I actually want to keep doing better work and help others. And if you go to that person for advice, they’re probably not going to be able to give you very good advice. The other piece of that is, is just what I said, the Jim Rome quote, the average of the five, like, if you’re hanging out with people who are content with average and average results, they’re going to pull you down no matter how driven you are. And so what you need to do is align yourself with people who are going to sharpen and push you, like put yourself as the old cliché is put yourself in the room where you’re not the smartest person and find a way to put the ego aside as we talked about and just get better.

And so as a leader. Going in knowing I’ve got to make some courageous choices, I’ve got to put aside my ego, I’ve got to be a little bit vulnerable. I got to go to places and meet people that I don’t know yet because I need to learn from people who are ahead of me and that’s okay that they’re ahead of me. Just changes the dynamic of how we approach those things. And so relationships are key. I think it’s kind of like competing. I saw online the other day, a guy was talking on a podcast and he said, say, you’re going to run against 12 senior citizens in a hundred meter dash. He’s like, how fast would you go? He’s like, I don’t know, like 12, 15 seconds, but you’d win, right? He’s like, yeah, absolutely, I’d win. He said, okay, cool. And now you’re going to go against 12 or 15 Olympic athletes. He’s like, how’s it going to go? He’s like, I’m going to be dead last. He said, yeah, but I bet you run faster than 12 to 15 seconds, because your competition, the people you’re around with, the people you’re running with have changed, so even if you finish last, you’re going to finish faster than if you’re at the top of the squad.

And so that’s an important visual reminder for us of how are we putting ourselves in positions, not to finish quote “dead last,” that doesn’t exist in this. This is the infinite game, right? As Simon Sinek says. But it’s really to apply the mentality of how do I get people who are better, faster, smarter than me? And then to hang out with them, I’m forced to keep pace, because high achievers are not going to allow average achievers to hang out with them for very long. So if you want to be in that circle, you’ve got to be able to step up. And sometimes that’s the best thing we can do for ourselves is to put ourselves in that uncomfortable position with people we see way more successful than us, because it’s going to force us to grow.

Alright, that is gold. I really appreciate that, Jake, and I love the analogy of the 100 meter race against senior citizens or Olympic athletes, and it’s so spot on. When you focus on the ranking, it looks like a failure. When you focus on the performance, It was way more successful, right. And that goes back to what you said at the very start, who are you competing against? You’re actually competing against yourself. How do you get better every single day? You don’t get better if you’re already at the top, you get better when you’re trying to get higher up and achieve more with higher achievers.

I know in the book, you also go into talk about who the individuals are that a leader should have, you talk about the coach, the teammate, and the ball boy. What I’m going to have, that as kind of a teaser for folks that want to learn more, that they need to check out your book. So where can they find you? Where can they find your book and what’s the best way to get connected with you and the amazing community that you have?

Dude, I appreciate it. So the easiest way to get started is CompeteEveryDay.com. You’ll see a link to both my books on there. The audio book for Lead Better Now is still about a month away, thanks to just travel schedule and cold and not being able to read and all that. So it’s coming, but both physical paperback and hardcover, they are my first books available. You’ll see links to the podcast. And then for me, social media, I tend to hang out two places, LinkedIn, you’ll see Jake Thompson and then Instagram, @JakeThompsonSpeaks. If anything we talk about here resonates, let me know. If you want to know more about the ball boy and those three relationships, you’ve got to get into the book. Thanks Jeremy, well teased.

Appreciate that, Jake. Man, thank you so much for joining me again here on The Upstream Leader. As always, it is great to connect with you and hope we get to chat again soon.

Appreciate it, my man.