How a Panic Attack Revealed the Secret to a Meaningful Life | Robert Glazer | E129

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Passion is a little bit misconstrued like you're going to go find it or discover it.

Like passion comes from finding things that you're good at and that you like doing and that you're engaged in.

Robert Glazer, entrepreneur, best-selling author and founder of Acceleration Partners.

I was starting a business and there was like a global recession going on.

I was working like crazy.

One day my heart was racing.

It just wouldn't stop.

And I I kind of passed out in my kitchen in front of my son and I had a massive panic attack.

When you went to college, something clicked and you started loving learning.

Why?

I kind of always could do enough to get by.

Like I was smart enough and that's basically what all those report cards said.

And what happened was I...

Entrepreneurship is sexy in the rearview mirror.

People talk about the sale of the company and the IP, and they forget about all the bankruptcies and the stuff that takes down families.

You decide that you don't want to be the CEO.

Yeah, was that a hard moment?

Every time your company doubles, you have to reinvent yourself as a leader if you haven't done it before.

I didn't want to be the CEO of a 50 million revenue company, I self-identified that.

So, how do you figure out whether you're on a path that isn't yours?

First, you have to understand

Robert Glazier, entrepreneur, best-selling author of many books, and founder of Acceleration Partners.

I had him actually over a year ago on our podcast, and it was an incredible episode.

So go back and listen.

But I wanted to bring him back to dig deeper on his career and finding passion and understanding your values or making decisions, especially because he has an upcoming book.

It's like his eighth book, The Compass Within, a little story about the values that guide us, which is exactly what we speak about in Leap Academy.

I love this conversation so much.

Robert, thank you for being on the show again.

Thanks for having me back, Alana.

It's going to be super fun.

So I want to actually take us back in time because speaking of compass, speaking of value, how was your childhood like?

How was being in school like for you?

Because I think this is where we form a little bit.

Yeah.

It's the first question I ask, too.

It's always super interesting.

It's amazing how people's childhood connects to what they do today.

But I, in one of my presentations, I start with all my report cards that I found like a few years ago.

And my mom dumped all my childhood stuff in my house.

And I was like, oh, wow, it was pretty bad.

I remember dreading those parent-teacher conferences, but why?

Look, I was a very creative EDD outside-the-box kid.

It's just not something that our school systems reward.

It's like, hey, he needs to sit down and be more quiet and, you know, pay more attention.

Do you know Dave Rendell at all?

He has a book called The Freak Factor, and he'd be a great guest for your show.

So Dave, it like makes my ADD look mild.

He's like six foot seven.

He wears all pink and he's like a global keynote speaker.

And Dave was like, my whole life, people told me to shut up, sit down.

And I can't remember the third thing or whatever, like sit down, shut up and keep my voice down.

I think that was it.

And he's like, I make a living walking around, talking and being loud now.

And if people had said to me, you can make a living doing that, I very early on would have identified like, that's what I want to do.

But was it clear to you that you'll be successful?

No.

You know, I was constantly told year after year that I was basically an underachiever.

And I didn't know what that meant because I couldn't get excited about stuff that I was learning.

I wasn't interested into it.

And when it finally clicked and when I finally figured it out, you know, then I spent 10, 15 years overachieving and overdoing it and almost killing myself and, you know, driving myself into the ground doing that.

So a lot of my work around capacity building stuff is really like, hey,

what if someone had come to me and said, here's how you can build your capacity and do things about what's important to you.

And, you know, my foundation of that is sort of spiritual capacity and core values.

And then it was like, all right, well, I got to help people figure that out.

So I've been getting a lot of adults to have very vulnerable conversations.

And I don't have market data on this, but I can tell you that in my experience, 99% of values come from formative childhood experiences where people are trying to double down on something that was very important to them or they are trying to do the absolute opposite of something that was painful for them or just didn't land right for them.

I was trying to explain to someone, like, you can come out of situations, you're all different person and an environment can create a different response from two kids.

You could have a kid who grew up in poverty and they grow up and they're all about saving.

And then the other one grows up and they can't spend it fast enough.

So true.

I sometimes tell the story that my father would used to, you know, talk to me all about investment and stocks and all these things.

And I was just like, I can't think of anything more boring than that.

But it could have taken a completely different, you know, turn and say, oh my God.

But then I do believe success leaves clues, which we're going to talk about, right?

Because it is part of that.

But when you went to college, something clicked and you started loving learning.

Why?

It happened right after my sophomore year.

I kind of always could do enough to get by.

Like I was smart enough.

And that's basically what all those report cards said.

Like he's, he's not really trying, but he's like smart enough to get by.

I never won any awards.

I was never the head of anything, like literally.

And then the college I went to had sort of a heavy prerequisite.

So again, it's like, here's all the things you have to take.

And what happened was I started entering the classes that I wanted to take.

I realized I had a high acumen for business and marketing.

And I kind of fell in love with those things.

And then, and then I went abroad for six months.

And then I worked there and I learned there and I started reading.

And I kind of then, you know, it's interesting.

Like I actually want to learn all that stuff that I wasn't paying any attention to now because it has a context for me and I have a, it has a meaning, right?

Like I want to improve my own mental models.

I wish I had paid more attention to AP history at this point because we're living it.

I came back to school and I got like almost a 4-0 the next two years.

It didn't matter.

I was just taking all the courses that I wanted to take.

And I just kind of, I realized like, you know, something just kind of clicked that I was, I loved learning.

I just didn't enjoy what I was learning.

And I think our education system has a lot of flaws.

Flaws.

And I think there's some balance here.

Whether it's a sport or a new subject, you have to go through some pain to figure out whether you like it.

You can't just be like, after five minutes, be like, this isn't for me, right?

When you try a sport and you've never picked up a racket before, it's going to suck initially, right?

And you're going to be bad at whatever it is that you're doing for the first time.

Like it's always the case.

Yeah.

But I don't know why we're not like, there isn't a science gene in my family.

Like we have a lot of creative marketers and otherwise, there's just, there's no, my brother married a doctor, but that's the only doctor in our family.

Like, I don't know why when people start showing an inclination or proclivity towards something, we still try to make them check all the boxes.

And we don't, you know, the people who are brilliant writers weren't good at scientists.

The brilliant scientists weren't good at music or maybe they didn't really care about social studies, right?

And so the valedictorians, you know, underperform at the end of the day to what they should do because they're almost like, you can't be that good at everything.

You were just kind of a rule follower more than you were passionate about something.

That's a good point because again, we are learning to follow rules, which is exactly not what you want to do when you you want to stand out and get out of the people's pile.

And there is no zero or 100.

There's a lot of shades of grade.

There's experimentation.

There's failing, right?

There's a lot of things that were just not taught in school.

And we're not going to be able to do that.

Right, when Steve Jobs is like all in on building computers in high school, someone should be like, you know what, you really don't have to worry about poetry or like this other stuff.

Like it's not your thing.

Passion is, I think, is a little bit misconstrued.

Like you're going to go find it or discover it.

Like passion comes from finding things that you're good at and that you like doing and that you're engaged in, right?

I don't know that you find your passion as much as you develop.

People look at this pot at the end of the rainbow.

I think that's a really like it may make it sound like there's only one job or whatever.

Like if you learn that you're someone that likes bringing order to chaos, there's a lot of applications for that for you.

You don't have the evidence yet to even know if it's your passion, right?

Like when I started Leap Academy, that was not a passion.

You know, it was like, is there any other person that feels stuck in their career?

You know, like

it doesn't come with these passions.

And I actually do want, you created this incredible agency.

I do want to take you there for a second because you suddenly decide to leave the various jobs that you were in and you decide to go with entrepreneurship.

And you find yourself somehow creating a marketing agency.

Can you walk through that path for a second?

Funny.

Someone said to me years ago on like an interview, they said, well, how did you decide to start your marketing agency?

And I thought about it for a minute and I laughed and they were like, what's so funny?

And I'm like, I actually don't know anyone who decided to start an agency, who grew up and said as a kid, like, I want to start an agency.

The story's all the same.

I was doing this thing and I left the company and I helped someone with it and I did a good job and they asked me another one and I hired another person.

And then I woke up 10 years later and I was running an agency.

That's just sort of

no one, no one's, no kid's dream is to start an agency.

That's sort of what happened to me.

You know, we got good at a couple of things.

And I, I, uh, for me, it was actually, I helped this company with something that had a huge exit in Silicon Valley.

And it became the program that we built for them was really well known.

And when there's an exit in the valley, right, people spread to all the other companies.

And suddenly they all started calling me and say, can you build that program, you know, for us here?

And I could.

And then I needed help.

And then I hired someone and then we got more.

And then I hired another person.

And then, crap, I'm running an agency.

So that's sort of my, my journey too.

But entrepreneurship journey is really, really hard, right?

I mean, there's a lot of ups and downs.

And I think you also share a hard moment with your kid when you just kind of woke up and said, wait, this is a wake-up call.

What was it?

Look, I always say entrepreneurship is sexy in the rearview mirror.

People talk about the sale of the company and the IP, and they forget about all the bankruptcies and the stuff that takes down families.

In fact, this story years ago where we were having a family,

spouses to one of my like forums that I was in.

And one of the people were coming from flying from a closing where they were selling a majority of their business.

And so we were kind of celebrating them and they came in.

The wife was there.

We're like, God, it's amazing.

Like, congrats.

And, you know, they were making life-changing money.

And she was like, it's hard to believe.

This journey had so many ups and downs.

And the last time we were in that office was like seven years ago, declaring bankruptcy.

And I didn't think we were going to make.

And so someone from the outside would look at this and be oh they're so lucky and look at this but you know she was in on that journey and the pain and the roller coasters and the near misses and all that stuff so my story was uh

my son is 17 so this would have been 17 years ago hard to believe he's 17 and I had a few things going on that year.

So we were building a house.

We were living with my parents while we were building that house.

I was starting a business and there was like a global recession going on.

So this is 2007, 2008.

And I was working like crazy.

I was having, you know, couple cups of coffee in the morning and a couple glasses of wine at night.

And one day my heart was racing.

It just wouldn't stop.

And I kind of passed out in my kitchen in front of my son.

And I completely thought I was dead of a heart attack.

And I just had a massive, I got taken away in an ambulance and had a massive panic attack from just like just too much.

Yeah.

Super wake-up call.

And, you know, have made a lot of changes in my life then, you know, and I noticed in the after over the years, I would have a decent amount of mini panic attacks, like basically just totally overwhelmed.

But tell me, because when somebody has such wake-up call, what does it do?

Like, did you take any specific actions or did you just push it aside and continued grinding?

Look, I started running.

I started exercising in a different way.

I started paying more attention to kind of health and hours and all that stuff.

And, you know, we talked about values, like health, health and vitality was always a value for me.

I think that was the moment when it elevated it, you know, in the stack.

I mean, I've had a bunch of different goals over the years.

They had different themes.

A lot of time they were financial, they were growth.

My overarching goal the last two years has been sort of health-oriented.

You know, this year I'm actually turning 50.

And so my goal is.

You turn 50 and generous

humanity.

Don't look a day over 40.

Oh, of course.

But my goal is to be biologically 40 at 50.

And I've been tracking that on my loop watch.

And I've literally been getting into the best shape I've ever been in, which has fixed a lot of other problems that I was having.

And so that's the most important thing right now.

So I love that there was like a concrete thing.

And I do believe that there's moments that define us.

Like, I need to learn something from this because, again, sometimes it's the grind, you know, or doing the same thing again.

Again, we're going to talk about that, some of that in the values.

I want to ask you one more thing because at that point, you're after that, you're growing this agency, 300 employees.

Like, this is a giant.

This is not, you know, I want to make sure that the audience here is like, this is not a one-man show.

Like, there's...

There's a lot on your plate.

There's a lot in terms of managing

something big.

And then COVID hits.

What happens in COVID?

So COVID hits.

We were on a great growth streak.

And I think in those first three weeks, you know, between 30% of our business either paused or said,

we'll just pay you in six months.

It was pretty scary.

And that, that actually, the stress of that, and then going through from an investor at the end of the year, it actually, I think, also caused health problems for me over the next year or two.

That was like, those eight weeks were just physically and mentally exhausting.

But we adopted sort of the Stockdale paradox principle, which was, hey, we're going to tell people the truth about the hard things, but we're also going to have a like look-forward viewpoint of like, it's going to be okay, but it's also going to suck.

Think about it.

You have two options to leader.

If you tell people just it's all horrible and it's all bad, it's going to like the like great.

Like if you tell me the ship's going down, I'm going to jump off, you know.

And if you tell me just rainbows and unicorns, well, the ship is on fire and it's blowing up and whatever, I'm also going to think you're full of crap.

We were super transparent with people.

We even said we're going to have to make decisions.

Here's our decision-making model.

Company, people, clients, partners.

It's funny.

I remember early on because we had some 20-year-old employees at this point were 10 years of a Goldilocks economy who had never seen a reset.

They had just never seen anything but

good.

And they were kind of like, why are you traumatizing us sharing all this information?

You know, the first couple of weeks and we're like, here's what we know.

Like, yes, there could be layoffs if we got to that.

Like, here's what our clients are asking.

Here's what we're trying to do.

We just felt like if we had that information, we should share it.

And then, interestingly, like, they all have partners and companies, and they weren't talking about anything.

And then suddenly their partners are losing their jobs and getting fired and all without any discussion.

And then a lot of them came back and said, actually, like, thank you for, you know, even if it's scary, I'd rather like be in a loop about what's going on than not hearing anything and then, you know, being blindsided.

And I appreciate that.

You know, and it's a side note because I think transparency as a leader is really, really interesting to navigate, right?

Because like you said, you can't freak everybody out, but you also can't sugarcoat everything.

They need to be all in on the bus, right?

So there's that navigation is really complicated.

And I know that you talk a lot about it.

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The link is in the show notes.

Now back to the show.

You said in the previous episode that every time a company doubles, you need to kind of reassess what's needed and whether you want to lead it and all of that.

And eventually you decide that you don't.

You don't want to be the CEO.

Yeah.

Was that a hard moment?

Or was it, again, it's ties to the values?

And I want eventually for us to see your decisions.

The values framework is all about those biggest decisions.

And I talk about in the book, kind of partner community and vocation.

And look, every time your company doubles, you have to reinvent yourself as a leader if you haven't done it before.

So as we went to a 5 million revenue, 10 million, 20 million, like I had to be like, do I want to be the CEO of a 20 million company?

And by the way, this is what I'm going to have to learn to do.

And what I always liked, and I had a great partner, number two, who president was I liked kind of focusing on the next year business.

What are we going to do next year?

What's the new idea?

I was the R D lab.

And he would run the day-to-day business.

And that's a great combo because operators usually aren't visionary and visionaries ironically like i can

i can actually operate well okay but i'm better in the in the visionary role but eventually like the r d department was half the business when you get to two to 300 people and you have board meetings and you have management and you have check-ins i'm like i don't want to do check-ins i don't want to do whatever this is just not right i set my ego aside and i said what does the business need and what do i want to do You know, objectively, because they were, our ego is really tied to it.

And I said, I, the CEO of this business, it needs to be managing the management team, doing these meetings.

That's not what I want to do.

I want to focus on leadership development, new products, and new revenue and all that stuff.

And I'll continue to be the R D department.

It's just 10% of the company now, not 90.

And the CEO needs to be someone who's doing that.

So I elevated my number two to CEO.

He kind of was already doing that role.

And I gave myself the permission to do what I want to do.

I didn't want to to be the CEO of 50 million revenue company.

I self-identified that.

It wasn't the kind of work I wanted to do.

And I love that because I think this is so important to

have the

ability to look and really admit what you like and what you don't like and

put aside what society expects.

At some point, you start elevate.

Speaking of elevation, right, you start to elevate brand.

By the way, it's interesting.

From last year, I think we talked about about 120 or 150,000 subscribers you have 300 now i've actually cut subscribers a little bit because i'm focused on engagement rather than just numbers so turns out it's expensive to keep people on certain you know newsletter lists interesting it's true who aren't replying yeah the bottom line like it's huge you have multiple multiple books and now you have your upcoming book why did that become the thing This has been a centerpiece of my work for a while.

I figured out my core values over 10 years ago.

It changed everything about my life and my business after a leadership training that actually identified for me that core values were really important.

And I probably was leading from them.

It didn't tell us how to figure it out.

So like any entrepreneur, I went and figured it out.

I started then training a lot of our leaders on that process, saw some great results.

wrote Elevate, talked about figuring out your core values.

People are like, okay, I'm in on.

How do I do that?

And I'd be like, it's hard.

You know, I have a training program.

I can't really send you that that I do with people.

So I was like, why don't I make a course?

So the people are asking, I made a course.

Over a couple thousand people took it.

It was kind of an hour and they could kind of get a good start on that.

And I was like, God, I'm getting all these notes.

This really works for people.

Like, I want to get this to more people.

I wanted to write a book.

But I always, I had this vision of walking through a Barnes and Nobles and walking by this book called On Values and being like, no one will ever pick this up.

It doesn't sound interesting.

It doesn't sound whatever.

I need people to understand this.

I'm a huge fan of Patrick Linzioni conversation with my daughter, in which she was like, I challenge you to write fiction books because you live in non-fiction world and I am always challenging her to do something.

And I was like, I wonder actually, if I could show this rather than if I could take the framework from the course and build it into a story like he does.

And then at the end, I'll tell you what you saw and how to do it.

And it seems to be really resonating with people because it's a fun story.

They can get into it.

They can see themselves in the character.

They've all been this character at some point, whether in their relationship, in their work, in their community.

It's a pretty quick and easy read.

So in your book, and just for the listeners, The Compass Within, you basically tell the story of Jack, who mentors Jamie, right, to find her values and live her oath.

I was going to correct you, but it was interesting how you presented it.

The story of Jack who mentors Jamie is interesting.

That is true, but yeah, that's funny because people start with Jamie, but it really is about Jack.

So yeah,

I've been accused of being both of them.

There's a little truth in each of them.

There's a lot of fiction.

There's a lot of true things in the story that have no relevance.

All my kids' names are in there, but they're all minor characters so that no one felt left out.

And I think this is really important.

So let's talk about the compass because it is about the compass.

And I think there's a saying, the worst part is not being on the wrong path in your career because that one is screaming at you every single day.

Get off, get off, get off.

The worst part is being on a good path that isn't yours.

So how do you figure out whether you're on a path that isn't yours?

First, you have to understand your values in the way that I define them, sort of actionable core values.

So, you know, what are core values?

Like, that's the first place to start.

They're these non-negotiable principles that guide your behavior and decisions.

They're intrinsic, not aspirational.

They reflect who you always are.

They're really deep.

They come from these childhood formative things, which is why they're central to you.

So they show up in your leadership, whether you realize it or not, right?

And that's, I think they're consistent across all areas of your life and work, and they're clarifying.

They help you make better choices.

So I think it's like the instruction manual we weren't given.

Now, some of us have a sense of them.

The problem is they have, it's like get hitting the electric fence and knowing you're being electrocuted, right?

Like we know when our core values are violated.

The goal is to like stay away from the fence and stay in the lines.

I felt like, again, I was values oriented.

I could spit out things and say integrity and family.

And those are not not good values in my rubric of values that are actionable that you can make decisions on.

But I couldn't really explain what was underlying that.

And going at it by feel isn't the way to go.

You know, I have had these five core values now, you know, for years, which is the finding a better way and share it, which is kind of my dominant value, health and vitality, self-reliance, respectful authenticity, and long-term orientation.

And you can connect a lot of the things I'm doing in my life to those.

They're specific.

I can make decisions on all of those.

I can know whether I'm doing the right thing.

I mean, even in launching a book, like there's some things that are like incredibly expensive, but they have a really high long-term outcome.

And I'm like, look, I'm someone that will trade a short-term expense for a long-term gain.

Once you have clarity on those, you can then really start to align relationships and jobs and make it really clear that like, oh, like we won't pick on you, but like, boy, Sarah just rubs me the wrong way because she's just the opposite of two or three of my values.

And so like, I need to spend less time with Sarah.

Yeah.

And actually, Jamie is super connected to my values.

So I'm going to spend more time with Jamie.

All of it is a yes.

And obviously the people that you choose to be around will make a huge difference in how they rub you in the right way or in the wrong way, et cetera.

And I think there's another element that I want to tap into because I think you call it maybe recovering achieve a holic or something along the line.

I have a whole

right never seem to be like fully satisfied and always kind of moving the carrot and always moving the goal and

this like endless trademail.

And I think for our listeners, this will resonate because a lot of them are in the go, go, go, go, go, hustle, hustle grid.

But the minute we are even close to getting to the finish line or the goal, the goalpost moves.

So we're essentially, we're never happy.

I laugh when you say that because I was on an interview this morning with a friend of mine who started his own business and whatever.

And I asked him rhetorically, we were talking about the book.

I was like, so let me ask you, we were talking about these different clubs.

For high achievers and self-starters, what happens when you get the goal, when you get to the mountain, top of the mountain?

And he goes, well, you celebrate.

Well, you celebrate a little bit and then you figure out what the next goal is.

And I was like, exactly.

I couldn't have said it.

The view does not provide all of the enjoyment that you thought it would.

And you realize that actually, like, you're kind of addicted to the striving.

And like, unless you do the work to figure out why that is and what you're trying to solve for, you're not going to break.

that pattern.

And I talk about three climbs.

The first climb is like, you were kind of bullied into it by by your community, your parents, like go be a good doctor or lawyer or whatever.

And you, you go into that career and you're climbing and you hate the climb the whole time and you hate the top, right?

Like, because it just wasn't your thing.

Then probably this will resonate with me.

Like, there's another one where you pick the climb and you go on it and you're like, I chose it.

And it's fun some days and it's not, but you kind of think that like, the whole climb is justified by that view on the top, right?

And when you get there, it's going to make it all worth it.

And you get there, and as we just talked about, you're like, yeah, like my life doesn't feel better.

Ironically, like you sell the business, you get the check, you get the thing.

Like it doesn't bring the satisfaction and happiness that people think it's going to bring.

The third climb, I call the Vista climb.

And I think what it's different is, so imagine like you start a little higher at elevation.

It's like 5%.

So you're sweating a little bit, but you're not dying.

It's got an incredible ocean or vista view the whole time.

You could climb it for an hour or 10 hours and you'd be happy and you're happy to stop.

And you're not like trying to get somewhere.

It's about what you're actually doing, right?

That to me is the value when you figured out the values aligned thing.

And you can make a lot of money on that.

But when you're doing something that really aligns with your values, you're less worried about the destination because you're enjoying what you're actually doing.

So let me challenge you for a second because I love this so much because I've been on, you know, at least some of these.

And, and I think what you describe as the middle one, right?

That's kind of me and VP, you know, tech the boxes of success, you know, in a cool company.

Finally, I figure out how to climb the ladder.

Awesome.

And then it's like, okay, this is not it, right?

Like, this is boring.

And Leap Academy for me is probably the vista, but I also want to challenge you because within that vista, there's going to be a lot of days of suck.

So I want to also like, you know, put that in perspective because

how do you decide, you know, if it sucks because you shouldn't be on it or it sucks because it's always just going to be.

It still rains on the Vista climb, right?

Like

there's still unexpected weather.

So it's not that we don't have bad days.

It's that it's a steep.

gradual climb for which the climb itself is enjoyable.

When you think about a lot of other climbs, you're willing to just like the climb is miserable and you hope the summit makes it worth it.

That's the difference, I think, fundamentally.

And I think at the end of the day, it is about constantly training a muscle, you know, to think about like, I can't think of doing anything else in my life.

Like, this is what I want to do.

So I think there's also a little,

right?

You fight through it and you fight through those bad days because you believe in it, right?

Not because you think.

There's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Okay.

So if somebody's listening, they're stuck in their career, they want more for themselves, like trying to figure out, okay, so how do I find my passion, right?

How do I find what's next?

How do I know if I'm on the wrong mountain?

What would you tell them?

And obviously they need to go buy the book when it's ready.

There's a book and the book comes with a course.

If you buy it before launch, you can go to Compass Dash Within.

The first process in all this is answering these six questions.

These six questions are meant to look at the times in your life when you've done well or didn't do well and the things that connect with you, and they help pull out the patterns of core values.

So, I put them at robertglazer.com/slash six.

We can talk about some of them.

People are always trying to write them down.

So, I just put them on the website for everyone.

Answer those questions, like start this process.

It's the alignment stuff can only come after I know what I want to align to.

I've done some work with people on this, and they're like, Look, they're someone who likes to, it's really important to them to build communities.

Now, let me walk through this.

Someone who has a strong core value of I want to build communities and bring people together.

Two things,

most cases.

They grew up on like a kibbutz, you know, or somewhere where that was actually the operating system, or they grew up like super lonely and isolated.

And the way they got out of that was they learned how to be a community builder.

So that's pretty deep for them, right?

So they might have known that, but then when they can really articulate it and get it down to something, they can look at like, oh, like these two jobs, you know, I was looking at the company and the glass door rankings and whatever, but like, this is a job where I'm actually going to be asked to build and create community.

And this is a job that is going to be more transactional and on my own.

Like, this is going to be a much better fit for me.

So that all the alignment stuff

can't happen until you first are clear on what you're aligning it to.

And I think this is really powerful, Robert.

And I think it was the first time it dawned on me because when I talk about Leap Academy, I always talk about kind of losing everything, you know, losing my startup, losing my career, losing, like falling off the cliff of success.

And that's kind of where Leap Academy started.

But you tie it to values of wanting, you know, to whatever.

You shared community and it took me to, okay, so why am I doing this?

Why am I passionate about it?

And it was interesting because all my life I thought I'd be a doctor and help people.

So it's actually kind of interesting how that came.

Let's go.

Look here.

We'll do some psycho now.

Let's see if we can test some of my.

So why did you think you were going to be a doctor?

Because your parents told you that was respectable, or you let you generally like it.

I mean, I mean, let's be real.

Like, I grew up in a place where you can really choose between being a lawyer, a doctor, and later on, it was like an engineer.

Like, that was really kind of the options for me.

You know, I mean, it's like, it's not like I had a lot of things on the menu, but I think you know, I did love the idea of helping people.

I think that was always kind of a big thing for me.

Um,

And I literally thought that this is going to be it until the Air Force.

And that kind of changed my perception.

But yeah, definitely,

I thought I'm going to be a doctor all my life, like from age six, that's what I said.

Yeah.

And if it's interesting, if the reason was not I love medicine, but I like helping people, you know, there are other, as we said, you find your passion, there are other ways to

do that.

And right, there's probably even like a different, deeper definition of there.

Like, what does helping people mean to you?

Does it mean helping make them better?

Does it mean, you know, for some people, it's, you know, that even has different connotations.

But and I think a lot of it is the thank you, thank you, right?

It's like, oh my God, you changed my life.

It's the impact.

Like, it's, it definitely sits there somewhere for sure.

Well, let's test with you.

Cause I always say one of the clearest signs of a core value and the way to do it is when that core value is violated, we really don't like it.

Right.

So this anti-test is pretty accurate.

I've done this on a few different podcasts.

We had some really, really,

this guy went right back to his childhood yesterday.

We got deep in there.

Like, so

like, so what drives you crazy?

What, what in someone, what is a, imagine an avatar of a person at a party that you are like,

I can't stand this person.

Like, what are they doing or saying or talking about?

I mean, it could be somebody that usually they're hostile.

They're, they're mean.

They're, they're saying bad things.

They're putting somebody down.

They make me feel down.

Like, it's just, there's, there's a meanness.

Disrespectful and mean.

Like, I hear that.

Is that, yeah.

So then the opposite of that, like, is, you know, showing kindness, showing empathy, showing understanding, probably being, being respectful, right?

There's usually sort of an opposite that sits within that.

Yeah.

And then again, you'd say, like, if that's a really strong current, either two things.

One, you're like, look, I, I grew up with people really that were kind, you know, or there was someone who was really mean and it stood out as a real formative, you know, event.

I mean, that's this just always seems to be the case.

Uh, this guy yesterday, he kept saying, like, I hate people who think they're better than people, like, it drives me crazy.

And then, and then he remembered the story from being like eight years old, where like this neighbor was like talking down to his son around, like, if you don't work hard, you'll be like Jimmy the, you know, contract.

And he just thought that that was like so repugnant and offending.

You know, he just had this visceral memory that that's when it hardened for him.

That, like, as an his organization is super flat.

It has no hierarchy.

It actually is like very representative of people not being above anyone else.

Interesting.

You know, when people come to you, how do they figure out?

I mean, they read this story and

they read the book, they do the course.

And then I, you know, sometimes when I'm working with people on one-on-one or leadership development, they kind of share their values to me and I help them pressure test it.

If they actually follow the course, it will do all of that for them.

But people aren't very good at instructions.

So they skip that.

I mean, there's a specific thing like that.

One of the things that I have, it's called the core validator.

And to me, it really differentiates a core value.

So you're supposed to answer these six questions, start taking the answers, group up the themes, get a theme that really represents a value.

And you say, look, if I think this is the value, can I use it to make a decision?

Like, is it worded in a way that like I can make a decision on it?

Cause that's how it's helpful.

And when I imagine the opposite, does it strike a nerve?

Right.

So, if it was like self-reliance, I would be like, can I make a decision based on, yeah, like, am I relying on myself or not?

Does the opposite of it drive me crazy?

Yes.

Like, I, you know, people who are dependent, like, even, even I have a joke with my wife and

then my, my wife and daughter are not dependent generally, but they have a thing, I joke with them.

I'm like, you are both good looking, but the worst lookers I've ever met because when they can't find something, they ask me to help them look for it after 10 seconds of looking for it.

I just don't understand in my mind why you would ask someone else to look for something before you looked for it.

Like you try to do it first.

Like that's just my natural orientation.

So I get so frustrated when the two of them do that.

I was like, I mean, if you've looked for an hour, like I'll help you out.

But if you've looked for 10 seconds, it's still in the you problem, you know, world.

So, so that's like, again, mine.

And then, and then when you get down from the theme, like maybe in there, it was like independent and self and whatever.

Okay, yes, I can, the opposite of that drives me nuts.

And then is it a phrase rather than a word?

And I came up with self-reliance because I think that was it.

And could you, I, could I objectively relate my, rate myself on it?

So could I say like, I'm doing a good job on this, you know, or not?

So A, it's got to be a decision-making rubric.

And it's almost got to be like if someone was giving you a report card, like, do you know if you do it or not doing it?

So things like integrity and family, like all fail this test.

And in fact, those are the two most common ones people tell me their value.

I'm like, all right, what does integrity mean to you?

And then we get in very different directions down there.

For some people, it's tell the truth.

For others, it's do what you said, you know, make your words match your actions.

You know, for others, it's even, and so that is actually

more important than how they show up in different domains.

I'm like, family, tell me, like, what's family?

Like, because do you think it's okay for the drunk uncle at the wedding to be, you know, grabbing grabbing people and dancing inappropriately because he's just family?

Is that actually like, is that actually what you mean by a value?

And they'll say, no, well, family is like the trusted core unit of people that are there for you.

I'm like, okay, well, that's, you know, different.

Or family is like, you always show up.

Right.

And when you start getting to those things, I can then look at their leadership and their friendships and say, now, do you see that that's actually how you're operating in all domains and it's more helpful to you?

Because if all if your core value is actually like always be there and always show up, and your family's a priority, that's how you show up for your family.

If your friend, if you're running around like crazy and your friend's parent dies and you're trying to decide whether to go to the funeral or not, if you have a core value of always show up, you should go to the funeral because you're going to feel pretty bad about yourself if you don't.

So

people throw those out a lot.

And I can tell you, when we go a level or two deeper, it gets much more interesting as to what that means.

So are your actions

really aligned with what you say you value?

We always kind of look at kind of what are your must-haves and again we're more career centric, but it's kind of what are your must-haves?

What is the zone of genius?

And how do you start experimenting with what is your career direction?

But it's really interesting to kind of align all of these together.

Yeah.

Your book is coming.

First of all, they can already sign up, right?

They can sign up at compass-within.com.

It's coming October 14th.

If you're interested, the book is like $17, the hardcover.

The course is $100.

And you can sign up and put your thing in.

You get the course for free.

So it just makes a lot of sense to do it now.

Once the book's live, go back to selling the course.

And again,

if you just want to play around with those six questions, go to robertglazor.com slash six and answer them.

And I'd reach out.

I'd be curious to hear your answers.

So maybe last thing that you want to share with the audience, one lesson that you wish you knew earlier in your career.

Look, core values decisions, which are hard decisions, they usually cost you something in the short term.

And I have a whole bunch of stories about this I've been telling.

It's real easy to point your boat down the river when your boat and the river, your values in the river are going in the same way.

It usually costs you something in the short term and long term.

I think with this anchoring, you get a lot more confidence in doing something that seems a little bit painful today to save a lot more pain

in the the future.

It's not that these things make it easier, it makes it harder.

But I think about like in the last couple of years, even with companies, there was a lot of decisions that were made that were virtue signaling and the very easy decision at the time.

And companies got themselves into a mess rather than saying, this isn't who we are.

We're not doing this.

I don't care if people want to say, you know, we're in the business of farming tomatoes, not advocating for unrelated causes around the world, right?

And a lot of people got distracted and got off things and created more divisiveness.

Versus, I look at someone like the base camp guys, you know, they, in the middle of all this, they say, we're not doing politics at work.

It's divisive.

It goes against our personal values of people feeling comfortable and getting along.

And we're a software company.

People told them they were going to be on the wrong side of history.

And a third of the company quit.

By the way, their applications went through the roof of people who want to go work at a company where people aren't posting politics on company channels all day long and they are thriving and doing better than they've ever done.

And other companies who decided to like wade in and try to do what was popular, you know, their businesses and their stuff is a mess years later.

So they believed so deeply that it was divisive and not something that they on a personal level that they were willing to lose their business over it.

And, you know, it was a rough couple weeks and months and they're so much better for it in the end.

Thank you, Robert.

That was phenomenal.

And I can't wait to read the book and to see, you know, because it's exactly what I believe in.

Excited about it.

Yeah, there's a whole trainable sort of curriculum on it.

So if it's good for

what you're doing, definitely let me know for sure.

Amazing.

Robert, thank you so much for doing this.

Thank you, Alana.

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.

If you did, please share it with friends.

Now, also, if you're feeling stuck or simply want more from your own career, watch this 30-minute free training at leapacademy.com slash training.

That's leapacademy.com slash training.

See you in the next episode of the Leap Academy Wuzzy Lana Golan Show.