Appropriately Annoyed: Jon Stenberg on Leadership, Accountability, and Better Decisions

In this episode of the Activating Greatness Podcast, host Alec McChesney sits down with Jon Stenberg, CEO and President of Citizens Inc., to explore what modern leadership really requires in complex organizations. Jon shares his philosophy of keeping leadership teams “appropriately annoyed” — pushing leaders to think critically, challenge assumptions, and avoid complacency. The conversation dives into decision-making, accountability, and why leaders must balance the concept of “good enough” with the pursuit of excellence. Drawing from his experience leading Citizens Inc., Jon explains how clarity, healthy tension, and disciplined thinking create stronger teams and better outcomes in today’s fast-changing business environment.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:04

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Activating Greatness, the show where we dig into what it really takes to lead with purpose, inspire performance, and create lasting impact. As always, I'm your host, Alec McChesney. And every episode, we sit down with leaders, thinkers, and change makers who are unlocking potential in themselves, their teams, and their organizations. Here we talk about the real stuff: leadership that drives culture, strategy that creates momentum, and the mindset that turns good intentions into game-changing results. Because greatness, it isn't a title, it's a choice. It's something that you activate every single day. So thank you. Thank you for listening, for showing up, and for being part of a community of leaders who refuse to settle for good enough. Now let's dive in and meet today's incredible guest. Today's guest is John Stenberg, the CEO and president of Citizens Inc., a global life insurance company operating across multiple markets. John has spent decades leading in complex and competitive environments, guiding organizations through change, growth, and strategic reinvention. He believes leadership requires discipline, prioritization, honest conversations, and the courage to make hard trade-offs. He's known for challenging complacency, pushing his leadership team to stay sharp, and insisting that leaders think critically about where excellence matters and frankly, where good enough is the right call. Today's conversation centers on one of his core beliefs. Great leaders need to stay appropriately annoyed because comfort is the enemy of progress. And John, I can't thank you enough for spending some time with us today. And I'm really fired up about today's conversation. Before we get in, I want to give you the opportunity to maybe further introduce yourself to those who aren't familiar with John Stenberg.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Thanks, Alec. We're gonna have some fun today. So first of all, they say the camera adds 10 pounds. I think on this camera it's adding 10 years. So a couple things. I'm a farm boy from Michigan. I'm the first person in my family line ever to go into the corporate world. I so I'm figuring out as I go. Uh and I learn every day uh about things I could do better and things uh that we all could do better. Uh I'm also a military veteran that's very important to me. And um I have a lot of courage and respect for those who uh who serve in that capacity. Uh other than that, uh let's let's go. So you mentioned appropriately annoyed, and I will write off the bat I think that's an annoying phrase, like it's awkward, but it says exactly what it means. What do I mean by that? Well if you are totally happy with everything and there you're not annoyed by anything, well, you are by definition living in complacency. And I think uh complacency has taken down the biggest companies at times in in the world. Royal typewriter, Kodak. You you can name companies that uh became complacent, they were incurious, they uh uh were not annoyed. Um and so what do I mean by annoyed? Well uh I want uh I want to celebrate our wins, right? So we should go out, we should go out our bait our day in a happy way. We we do we want an aura of engagement for our teams, our employees. They don't want a sullen leader, absolutely not. We all have our bad days, but uh we by and large need to be chipper. But uh leaders also have to have a list of things that are annoying them, like things that we could do better. We could our our customer service could be better, we could answer the phone faster, our website could be more uh easy to navigate, it it should be easier to pay us. Like you name it, our bread should taste better or be more healthy. Uh there should be uh things that are rattling in your brain at all times that of things that you need to fix and you know you need to fix, and you also should be a little bit annoyed that you don't know you know what the next thing is that you're that you should be annoyed about. You should be like, okay, what am I missing? Uh because who else is gonna think about that? I'll tell you who else is gonna think about that, and who else is gonna find that annoyance? Your competition. Your competition is gonna find how to do that better. Uh, and then where are you? You're playing catch up. So I I encourage everyone just to not be sullen, not not to be annoyed visibly all the time, but be annoyed by the things that could be better. Be annoyed by what you don't know could be better and search for those things.

SPEAKER_03 5:07

I am so glad that we just ripped off the band-aid and jump in, John, because since our prep call, I have been thinking about this nonstop. And I have uh re-recoined the term just miffed, right? Like I want you to have a little bit like, hey, I'm just rubbed the wrong way right now about this or about that. And, you know, I find it really interesting the perspective of complacency, and we're gonna talk about good enough here in a couple of minutes as well. But within this appropriately annoyed, I think about all of the great books of Good to Great or Dan Heath's Upstream, or I just finished listening to uh Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0. And the reason I bring that up is you brought up your background, which is military, Michigan farm, Michigan farm boy who is learning on the fly at all times. And in all of those books, there is a core theme about being appropriately annoyed, and yet no one will ever describe it in the way that you just walked through. All of the stories of Blockbuster getting beat out by Netflix and so on down the line, it is an era of complacency and not trying to find better ways to do things. And so I do want to challenge you right out of the gate with a bad podcast question. We say, I want my leadership team to be appropriately annoyed, but what does that look like in practice from a, hey, I want you to be appropriately annoyed. I want you to find solutions and I want you to take us into a new direction. I want you to to go and and uh you know get some of that customer and client feedback and find where that maybe annoyances, that rub is in the market for our for our competitors, for ourselves, for our customers. And then let's actually make an impact because I think about innovation, and then companies don't actually let their team members be innovative or make change. So, how do you balance this? I want you to be appropriately annoyed, and I still got to get the thing done.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

So there's two words in that phrase. Yes, and every everyone, when they think about it, they only hear one, they hear annoyance. The other word gets 50% of the attention if you if you use it right appropriately. So, what is you asked, what does that look like? Let me tell you what it looks like. Uh it's uh it's an excitement uh around uh doing uh look what we could do. We can do magic. Hey, uh um this application for credit is 18 questions long, but it uh but that's half of that's holdover from 20 years ago. We could get rid of it, they're not risk reducing. Gosh, we could have the shortest credit application and still have all the protective value. I'm pulling something out of the air, that's not my world. But yeah, how exciting is that? How cool is that? So, what you do, the person is not the problem, but the uh uh the the gap between where you're at and what could be and how cool that be, that's the joint problem. So we are on the same side, and we should be jointly excited about closing that gap. And there's the annoyance that we can't close that gap fast enough. So, again, I said it's not a sullenness, it's not a I'm you know, camudgery. I'm walking around the hallway, so oh gee, what mood is John in today? You know, not at all, not at all. It's mental high fives, hey guys, but that should draw people into that appropriate annoyance, and your annoyance should be aimed at what could be better, and gosh, what how soon could we we close that gap? And I wish we could do it faster. So it's a it creates a positive, it doesn't sound like a positive phrase, but it creates a positive energy because you see the vision of what could be. Oh my gosh, that that would be a huge competitive edge. Oh my gosh, we could make our yogurt healthier and more cost effective, you know. Whatever it is, you should get excited about it. And the annoyance is at first, gosh, we have a gap here, but then the annoyance turns into I'm annoyed we can't close this gap faster. And there's a positivity in there, Alec. Draw upon that energy.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

I I love the pairing of appropriately annoyed with another phrase that I love, which is yes, and and that means we're trying to find that solution as part of that. And I think you know, it comes back to do you know how we're really good at X topic? Yes, but could we be better? And I had a guest on last week, and his word of the year, which was really surprising for me coming from him, was imagine. And he was like, Imagine if we could do this just a little bit better. Imagine if we took this process and made it a little bit better. And it blew my mind. I was like, that even just having that framework goes from this interesting aspirational to like, hey, just let's look at this process and imagine if it could just be a little bit different, a little bit better, a little bit more effective.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

I love how that draws your mind into what could be about closing this gap that you're annoyed about and how how how it could be better. I love that. That's great, it's better than my stuff.

SPEAKER_03 10:33

Well, it comes out J Jason Nichols, I'll send it to you. Comes out the Thursday after years. So we've got them lined up back to back. So and and it's one of the reasons why, as you're listening to this, we love the Activating Greatness podcast because we're coming out with nuggets like that uh now two times a week, John. Uh every Monday, every Thursday, you're gonna get new episodes of the show, which is just a nice little plug here. Um, I do want to I want to take this conversation and and move it to this concept of of good enough. And you really opened my eyes in our prep conversation because um at velocity we've been pushing this. Is this my best work? Is this good enough? And it's a theme around the activating greatness podcast of good enough is neither, we don't want to settle. And then you and I have this conversation, and and we talked about you gotta know when good enough actually does work in some areas, and it kind of snowballed into knowing your weaknesses, knowing your strengths. And I kind of raised my hand and I said, I'm probably the worst individual at PowerPoint there is at our organization. And I and I know that, and knowing it and communicating it to my team allows us to work better as a team. So I just want to give you the floor, give you the microphone here to talk about your your thought process around good enough and why sometimes good enough actually is okay, and we're gonna go over here and we're gonna be excellent in this area, but we just need to be good enough to to get by in this area.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

I I'll make a very bold statement, Alex, and then I'll stand behind it and I'll defend it. All right. If if you can't be okay with some good enough, you can't be a good leader. Full stop. Tell me.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

Tell me more. Oh, I love this. Tell me more.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

So there's nobody that listen that's listening to this podcast has not heard of the phrase the power of no. When you say no to something, what are you saying? I'm not gonna spend resources on that, I'm not gonna take on that project, I'm not gonna add that thing because whatever it's uh designed to address is good enough. Because you got bigger fish to fry. Let me give you a stark example so we can start with something that's non-controversial. Okay. Yeah. Um the color in uh Withering Springs conference room down the hallway. I'm not crazy about it. Well, why aren't I spending all my weekends and times figuring out what the best color is? Is fuchsia better than this or that? You know what? It's good enough. It's good enough. By the time we we start stressing about that and fixing that means we've fixed everything else. Because our payment system could be easier for the client, it could be more accepting. We could offer, we could, you know, accept PayPal and all this other stuff. Maybe that's more important than the color of Withering Springs conference room. I it's a ridiculous, right? Because the two don't belong in the same conversation. But I just offer that up as an example that there's it's non-controversial to say that's good enough. Because we got other we got other problems we gotta solve. All right. Nobody's gonna leave because the cover the color was the wrong shade of fuchsia. Uh that's not the luxury world we get to live in, right? We're we're having to make really tough decisions. And if we weren't having to, then you know what, we're in the wrong place in a role because they're they're paying us a lot of money to be in the roles we're in. Um or if you're a business owner, you you have a you have high stakes games to play. And the stuff you say no to is tough. Objectively, it would be good if you uh invested in that or fixed that or made that better. But we don't have we never have enough resources to do all three things. One ball's got to drop because these two are critical, and that's a little less critical. Uh and we don't always have the luxury of doing all three. We rarely do. I I'm I'm jealous of those leaders that have you know all the money to and resources to to do all the critical things. So that's what I mean about you have to be okay with good enough at times. Good enough is your friend. It is really a uh it's a it's a practical application of the power of no.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

Yeah. And and another way that I started to look at it after our conversation comes back to if everything is a priority, nothing is a priority, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Bingo and yep, and that's in this that's never a controversial, but yep, what does that mean? It it literally means you're gonna some things are gonna have to be good enough for now.

SPEAKER_03 15:39

Yeah, it it's super interesting because I think every leader that's listening to this, myself included, has been in a room where someone brought something to our attention, and the moment they brought it to your attention, you can just think to yourself, this is not relevant for us right now. This is not going to help us reach the next stage. It's not one of our core focuses for the year. And all you're thinking is, why are we talking about this? Why are we putting an emphasis on this? And I think to your point about what makes a great leader, this also goes back to that appropriately annoyed language and the imagine is we have to do that in the right areas, right? We, if somebody's appropriately annoyed, but it's just about the color of the Withering Heights office space, then you're not appropriately annoyed. You're just annoyed and you're off on your own. Go do your own thing. And so I think it comes back to those strategic initiatives, the ability to prioritize and deprioritize. Uh, and to your point, to frankly make some tough decisions in this process because you're gonna have team members that come to you with, you know, good solutions and and potentially things that can be better. But from a budget and resources standpoint, we just don't have the capacity to add to that at this current time. And it goes kind of that that rainy day list, uh, you know, for for a year or two years down the loan down the road when we get everything else figured out more effectively, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Yeah. I would I I I would just add, um we all have cringy memories of in our career, right? Yeah, for better or for worse. Yes, for both, actually. I think about it, and right now I'm thinking about this moment, and internally I am cringing because somebody need to know. One of my one of my team members brought something to me. It was an idea, and it was the one of the dumbest things I've heard. And I let him know. Oh my gosh. And I wish I could go back and repeat that time and hear him out. Because what I what I ended up doing, I think, is cutting off all ideation from him.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

He we should all have the freedom to brainstorm. And I I don't want to shut that curiosity down. And that's part of being appropriately annoyed. You think about this thing, and maybe you're just venting, da da da da. So I wish I could go back and hear him out. And yes, it was like you, it was like you like, why are we talking about this right now? Like we have major fish to fry, major problems we were trying to solve. And here's this idea that would just distract us. Um but I should have encouraged the ideation and that he noticed something and and and not just uh shut him down like that. So I would just be yes, I agree with you. Um you want to encourage the good while still saying maybe no to the idea. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:54

Yeah. Well, I think to your point, right there is a perfect example of the structure and the environment, right? We want an environment where people can find those ideas, can find those things that they're appropriately annoyed with, can be curious, and then as leaders, need to explain why that's not the right time because of X, Y, and Z, because of the priorities that we currently have in place. And I think it's a great segue to a line of questioning I never thought that I would have on a leadership podcast here, but it's another one of your terms that I just fell in love with in our in our prep call, which was grown-up version of would you rather? And again, I I want to I want to take us out of the podcast here for a second and just lament how your background Michigan farm boy first won to go with the corporate world. And one of the things that you said on our prep call was you're just learning by doing this, you're learning by doing and trying and doing and trying. And then we come up with appropriately annoyed and the grown-up version of would you rather. And I'm starting to see the playing field in a much different light. So thank you for for that. Um, you describe leadership as a grown-up version of would you rather? And if you make one decision, something else is going to be deprioritized. You make a decision and you have to uh, you know, lay off some team members. You make a decision and this team has to be relocated. There's a lot of real world things that are happening. How does this framework shape the way you make difficult decisions? And any extra context you want to add to the grown-up version of Would You Rather? I am all ears on. Uh, and I certainly think our audience will be as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Well, it's so the game, the way kids play Would You Rather, it's two horrible, horrible options that you would never pick, but you're forced to make a pick. It's like the movie Saw, I guess. Like, oh my gosh, do I die or cut my leg? I was like, this is just not a game I want to play, but I but I play it every single day at work. Because we don't get the luxury of the color of the conference room versus fixing our billing system. We get fix our billing system or reprice our product because it's mispriced. Oh my gosh. This is they're both critical, but you only have enough resources to do one. Uh reformulate our recipe versus um refurbish the factory to make it more efficient. Well, you should do both. Well, you can't do both, boss. We can only we've got to do one or the other. Yeah. And and and so these decisions are why uh we're in uh the role we're in, why we're leaders. Because if they're easy decisions, they don't need a leader to do that. They're done by people that don't need to be leaderful because the is just obvious to do, which by the way, sometimes uh obvious isn't done, but Apply that in your um in in our context and uh you have to make a decision. So you can't uh you can't do two things. You can't do analysis paralysis and you can't just shoot off the cuff. So you have to have a fine balance between uh doing uh enough research to have one of the choices get a lead that you can defend to yourself first and foremost, but then if you can defend it to yourself, you can explain the decision to others, to your board, to your coworkers. And it may not be the right decision, but you made a decision with the information available at the time. Now I was in the army, but the Marine Corps, I have a lot of respect for them. Um even though the Army and Marine Corps don't get along. Uh one of the things I I I really like about the Marine Corps is um, I argue it's because they're not smart enough, but uh I really love that they say when you don't know, you decide. The only wrong decision is no decision. They have an absolute immediate uh action protocol. You decide and you act, you decide and you act. And so uh speed of action above all else, which means they make a lot of mistakes, but they're fast, right? And speed on the battlefield is is actually a force multiplier. Um we can't be that quick. We have to take a little bit of time and understand, and understanding how much uh research to do before before you enter analysis paralysis is another hard thing skill set. So we have later needed need to develop that. And the standard I use is can I defend this uh decision to myself? Can I go on the other side? Um I have a coach, my coach gave me something super powerful. So I had this idea I wanted to do. And he said, I want you, he gave me a a weekend exercise. And I went, I I did it. It's like, holy crap, it was a lot of fun for me, but not everyone's weird and wired like me. He says, I want you to make a list of all the reasons why that is a stupid effing idea. But it really I'm military, so he has a certain latitude to language with me. Uh and um, I got the mission. Oh, yeah, I can do that. And I tore myself down. I tore my idea down. I had a ball doing it. You have to do that. And uh if you can do that, and then you come up with all the reasons it's a dumb idea, and and your idea still weighs, well, I think you do you can defend it to yourself. And when somebody comes up with uh an objection, guess what? You thought about it in that exercise. So I I owe David, my coach, uh, you know, a a real uh a real feather niscap for for bringing that little tool to me. So I'll I'll share that.

SPEAKER_03 25:08

Yeah, absolutely. I I think uh a big piece of this, would you rather in decision making is there's so much text out there, there's so much coaching about decision making, but also it's a learned process for you as an individual. And the way that you might make a decision might be a little bit different than I do versus someone army, marines, so on down the line, but you have to know, you know, within your style, right? We talk at at velocity all the time about the bird styles and eagle and omel and and all of the above. You have to know what it takes for you to make a decision. Now, I am definitely more on the lines of if I can argue it with myself, I'm running and I'm gonna make that decision and I'm comfortable making a mistake and coming back and saying, well, I made a mistake, but I did X, Y, and Z. And here's why we went with that decision. And I think a lot of the up-and-coming leaders that we work with at velocity, what we hear is they're just not sure when to make that decision. Do I need to have 90% of the information? Do I need to have 70%? Do I need to get John's approval and Alex's approval and Abby's approval or at least get their feedback? And then the moment you start asking all of those questions, that's when we get into that, you know, analysis paralysis, that ladder of inference and a little bit of the shame spiral. And then suddenly we're not capable of making that decision, or worse, in a lot of ways, we make a decision that we don't feel confident in. And when we do get pressed on it, we kind of fold a little bit. And I certainly, uh, it's been thankfully a couple of years, but I can recall coming in and you know, trying to put my position in a really exciting place, making a call. And then the moment I started getting questions on it, I was like, wow, I didn't, I didn't think about that. I didn't think about that. And now you kind of start to have that internal doubt of wow, did I make this this wrong choice? And you know, I think everybody needs to get more and more comfortable from a self-awareness perspective on how do you play the game of would you rather? How much information do you need in order to, to your point, be able to defend it to yourself and also tear out tear down your own idea. I I absolutely love that that line of thinking and and that as an exercise too.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Yeah, and when you you can't disargue with yourself because we work in teams, you have to expose your thinking to others, and you you have to now here's here's here's the risk there. Uh I do my why is this a dumb idea exercise? I still like the idea. I I go and I take it to somebody. I what do you think? What could go wrong with this? Why is this dumb? Do you see the advantages? And let's say they hate the idea.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Well, well, now you're gonna hurt their feelings if you if you go forward with it.

SPEAKER_03 28:01

You still do it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

And so now that's a complication. Now I I I have a relationship now I have to consider with this team member. And so you have to expose it to others uh and and you have to bring them along in a way that if you don't choose that way, at least now that they they felt heard.

SPEAKER_03 28:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Yep. And fine, the jury wasn't unanimous, but the jury member who uh got outvoted, they they felt heard. Um and that's just something we as leaders have to be comfortable with. Bring them along. You can't make everyone happy, otherwise you'd never make a decision.

SPEAKER_03 28:41

Yeah. And and I also, as you're bringing in others, showing them the full picture, because a lot of times what what I have seen and and what we've talked about on this podcast a lot is they agree that the vision needs to be changed. There's a problem. They can agree there's a problem. They might not agree exactly on how we solve the problem, but if they feel heard and they understand that that problem needs to be fixed, then a lot of times that creates that alignment for honest conversations. And I think it's a great segue into our final line of questioning here, John, which is teams that that challenge each other. And one of the things that you told me right out of the gate was that you were going to be really transparent. You could pick up the phone, you could yell at me the moment I brought up good enough is is neither. You were like, Well, I kind of'm calling that one out because I think good enough is great in these areas. And we had just met and we were all of a sudden going back and forth the way that was like we've been working together for for three decades, which of course is a testament to you as an individual and as a leader. But how do we create that? How do we create that culture where someone can think critically? They can challenge your assumption and avoid this level of complacency and then still shake hands after the meeting and say, Hey, do you do you want to grab a beer? Do you want to watch a game? Is your kid going to recital? Like, how do we actually build that infrastructure in a in a realistic way? Well, I well, first of all, I'm an odd duck.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

Um the uh the example I'll give is I had a um at a former employer, the head of compliance, and I was the head of the division, and you could walk by us and hear us argue, that's the dumb. And you know, people were at first probably like, oh my gosh, what the hell's going on? So we'd have this fierce, fierce debate. And at the end of it, like, hey, am I gonna see you down at the gym at 5 30? All right, man. Are the kids coming over to your your neighborhood for Halloween this year? Or or my Oh, I love it. You know, part of that is when you're in the army, if I give you crap, it's a sign that I like you, right? Okay, not everyone's wired like that. So some people are are are much more sensitive. Most are actually. Um, so here's where I I give I'll I'll give the piece of advice that applies in your relationships, whether it's brother, sister, husband, girlfriend, you name it, uh, and your co-workers is be very careful when you argue with loved ones or co-workers because nobody wins when you argue. Um what you you don't want to listen to retort to win the battle, right? We and we get we're emotional, we get caught up in this. We want to be right, of course. You have to fight that urge, you have to fight that urge, uh especially in a husband-wife relationship. Like if you win that argument, beat them into the ground. Wow, you just lost. Yes, you just lost because the marriage is more important than whatever the heck you were arguing about. Well, don't listen to rebut. Have the conversation to truth seek. And the language you use in truth seeking is different than the language you use in a courtroom. It's you mentioned something earlier. Yeah, and okay, and instead of yeah, but because all people are gonna hear the but. Yeah, and so uh use all the language you would use in uh in a truth-seeking curiosity, and we're in this together, the gap, the problem that is the enemy, it's our joint enemy, not you. The people is not our is not the enemy, the problem is our joint enemy. And every time you have a joint enemy, you're on the same side now, you're allied, and you're you're building the relationship and you're true, you're seeking truth together. Um, that's how normal people should operate. And because not everyone's weird like me and can have a really fun back and forth debate and say, hey, we're gonna hit the gyms fifth.

SPEAKER_03 32:51

Yeah. I we've got our we've got our four birds as part of the disc style. It's uh eagle, parrot, owl, and dove. And I think we need to add a fifth just for an odd duck, and we throw them uh somewhere in the matrix.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

I do yeah, I'll I'll quack.

SPEAKER_03 33:08

I I am I am curious. I had a uh a leader on uh her episode will come out in a couple of weeks, but one of the things that she said is she kind of raises her hand and introduces herself to new people when they join the team or if they're transferring departments or whatever it might be. And she'll say, Guys, I am who I am. I'm gonna challenge everything. And I don't, it's not personal. It is because I this is what I love. I'm so excited about it. It's out of passion, it's out of energy. It's never gonna come off as it's personal and you can remove names from it, but I I love this. And she said ever since she started doing that, it has led to an environment where someone is willing to challenge her more because she admitted that. And and I'm curious, you know, is that something that you I know you call it an odd duck and it's a little bit different how normal, you know, normal should do it, but is that something that you're openly inviting in in leadership meetings, uh even throughout the organization from a top-down, you know, and then bottom-up standpoint? Are you saying, hey, let's challenge mediocracy, let's challenge the status quo? Is that a message that you you know believe in and send out?

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Well, uh a huge challenge in my role is uh positional authority. It is a roadblock to truth seeking because people are I don't get the info, I don't need the info. And people are um once they work with me and understand it gets it gets better. But some people are just more reserved than others and they filter too much. Uh and and so then issues go along that I don't know about because they're you know, or ideas go unraised. Uh and and so that's a challenge. So I actually need to do more of that. So if I was to coach myself in this coaching session in this podcast, I would say I I need to say, and because I say it, but I don't think I say it enough, please find the fault in my ideas. Please, I'm begging you. I need you to tear these down because that will be uh as part of a truth seeking. But if I have an idea, I have to be very careful how I posit it because people are gonna want to take it and run with it and support it. Yeah, so you have to tear down your own positional authority at times in order to truth seek and get to the best solution. Because some of those introverted people have some really deep thinking on stuff, and I I want to tap into that.

SPEAKER_03 35:47

I I'm pausing so I can pull that out and and it's a snippet that I can use on LinkedIn. And I didn't call that a bad podcast question, but I think it I think it's gonna qualify as a as a bad podcast question. But just hearing you work through that answer is something that I think every leader can just continue to evolve, right? Like that's not one that you set it and forget it, it's just a continuing improvement on opening that door and having those conversations. And yes, you might have said that when you started or six months ago or at an all hands, but reiterating it, and I love the way that you said it, you kind of look to the ceiling. Please find the flaws in my idea. I joke all the time. I can bring a good idea, but it's your jobs. Please make it a great idea. Like this was me on a Thursday night because I have issues and I was walking the dogs, and I suddenly had a thought. Please take it and make it way better and take all of the credit, run with it. So I really appreciate you taking me down uh that thought process there, John. Um, final question for you, John, before we go into the four rapid fire questions. I'm just curious. You talk about complacency, we talk about the the uh annoyingly uh appropriately annoyed. What are some of the things that you do that that other leaders can do uh just in general, uh to stay sharp, to continue growing, making sure that we aren't as leaders stagnant uh inside the organization, but also as individuals, um uh you know, team leaders, whatever it might be. How do we make sure that we don't become irrelevant or complacent as well?

SPEAKER_00 37:29

Well, I'm a lifelong learner. I uh and it took me a while to build up to that. Uh I like to um like the other day I was on there an airplane next to a guy, he was a lobsterman.

SPEAKER_03 37:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

I grilled him the entire flight before, but but he was probably exhausted when I get off the plane. And so I have this knowledge network theory that if I learned uh what's the best way to dig a ditch for to run a phone line, it helps me understand quantum theory, and understanding quantum theory helps make me make a decision on pricing it because it's all connected. Um and so be hyper curious, be a lifelong learner, it it really helps me stay sharp because in those other areas trigger lines of thinking in your own world that might not have been triggered had you just stayed in your own little in your in your own little bubble. And building this knowledge outside of your world gives you context in order to make these decisions better. Uh, and you can see you start noticing parallels in military history, political uh uh situations, um, business situations, technology evolving, science. Uh there's nothing off the off the table that I don't I I learned about stuff I don't want to learn about. The other day I was like, okay, uh I watched a short video about crocheting. I don't ever want to crochet, but I know nothing about this, so I clicked on it. Oh, I love that. I zero interest, but I actually found interest. Like, oh okay, that's that's cool. And I got like, huh, it's harder than I thought or more interesting. So I I that curiosity um helps stop complacency and it it triggers your thinking. Yeah. And you we as leaders need to be we need to be little answer wheels going in there on our own business, and understanding things outside of our business helps us do that. So I I'd encourage everyone to be lifelong learners and watch stuff you're normally not interested in, you know, documentaries and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 39:44

Uh there there's so much good there, and and curiosity is a massive theme for for Dave Feckman and the team here at Velocity in 2026. And you know, I always go back. One of my favorite quotes, I think it was Steve Jobs at the at one of his commencement speeches said, Stay hungry, stay foolish, and and just kind of walked through what those two elements mean and and staying hungry, not being complacent. He walks through that and then stay foolish of do things that you're not good at, do things that you you know have never done before, and just admit that you're not the smartest person in the room. And essentially to stay as that lifelong learner. And and I absolutely uh I've always held that one to heart, especially the the foolish aspect of that, because uh there's just something that rings really true. And I love the idea of you maybe on an airplane watching a video of a crocheting video. Um that brings me, it does bring me a lot of joy, John. All right, we're gonna go into four rapid fire questions. This was, you know, we're at the 38-minute mark. This has been exactly what I thought it would be such a great conversation. I could already see people commenting, asking questions, and pushing for episode two uh of you and I later in the year. So we'll have to stay tuned for that one. Before we get there, though, four rapid fire questions off the top of your head. Uh, we're just gonna run through them. Question number one What is one leadership habit that you rely on every day, no matter what?

SPEAKER_00 41:12

Uh futuring or what could be true. Imagine the imagine, actually. Imagine.

SPEAKER_03 41:18

Yeah. I love it. I love it. Question number two What is the most underrated skill that a leader needs in order to be successful today?

SPEAKER_00 41:28

Team building. Finding complementary skills and getting them to work together is a real high priority. You're the general best strategy and vision and everything else I said, but if you don't have complementary skills and those people don't necessarily naturally get along because people flock together, is you have to build the right team that gets along, uh, that are going to execute against these great strategies we're coming up with.

SPEAKER_03 41:57

Yeah, you you are the general manager of the team, and you have you got to have the scheme and the process and the structure, but without the players to fit that scheme, it just does not it does not work. I love that one. Uh, on the opposite side of the spectrum, question number three What is one thing that you believe great leaders should stop doing?

SPEAKER_00 42:19

Anything that touches anywhere near condescension, like don't be condescending to people. Um, you know, I'm glad this podcast is activating greatness, not becoming great, because anytime we think we're great, wow, we lost the game, we lost the script, and you it's not a good look, it's not inspiring, and it and then you tend to be condescending, and you kill off a lot of the great stuff we've just talked about in this on this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

So check yourself, uh, and and don't be condescending.

SPEAKER_03 42:55

Yeah, I love that. And you know, I hadn't used a single sports analogy until the rapid fire section, but you talk about the Super Bowl hangover, the World Series hangover that every team has had, except for you know, a couple of teams over the the course of the last 70, 80 years. And so much of that is we we got to this pinnacle and then we got complacent and then we rested, and everybody else is continuing to push. And I I love that that's the first time that answer has come up for question number three on what you believe great leaders should stop doing. So I appreciate you taking it in that direction. The last one here, question number four what's the best leadership advice that you've ever received?

SPEAKER_00 43:38

I'm gonna I'm gonna change that question a little bit, please, and I'm gonna share with you an epiphany, okay, which is obvious. Now, once I say it, I'll be a duh, but I I hadn't thought about it. So I realized that you never figure it out. Let me take, let's go back to when you. were 14. You're emotional, you're a teenager. But boy, when I get to become 18, uh it's gonna be great. Uh I'll have it all figured out. I'll be an adult. Well at 18, now you're even more confused. But boy, when you get to be 21, that's gonna be great. You're 21, now you got debt piling up, you're confused, you're not making any money, you're more stressed out than you were before, but when you get to be in your late 20s you get everything's gonna be great. Well now it's even worse. And every stage through life you think you're gonna have it figured out at the next point. Uh and if there's evidence that that's not true, go visit uh an elder care facility. And you're gonna see a room you're gonna see a room full of people that still don't have it figured out. As a matter of fact, they're lost. And so some people could take that could view that as depressing I think it's cool. Because how boring would this life on this earth that we get to spend be if it we had it all figured out that's not that's a boring life. Having this constant grind of trying to figure myself out trying to figure you out trying to figure us out trying to figure this world out is really what makes this fun. So give yourself a little break and realize it's okay if you don't have it figured out it's okay if you're struggling a little bit it's okay if you're a little stressed because the the opposite is you know I think kind of death it's just like okay you're just in this nothingness. So find joy in this journey and the joy in that you don't have it all figured out and it's a little chaotic.

SPEAKER_03 45:45

I I could have thought you were going to go in any direction, John and it's not often that I am speechless at uh at any point for those who know me, that's a hell of an answer. That is and I appreciate you taking us on that journey and moving on from the leadership advice and and more of an epiphany and you know you brought up the 14 to 18 to 21 so on down the line but one of the things that we see all the time is when I get the next job, when I get that promotion, when I get this, when I get this thing and you get there and it's like well now there's a you know the there's a bunch of stuff here that doesn't work well and there's a bunch of problems and I'm more stressed and you know it's that rung on the ladder and instead of the whole ladder being the journey. And you know I always say that the the best advice I've ever received and it's it's never even really been actual advice is just work and trust the process. Like trust the process enjoy the process play the game be a good human be curious all of the things but at the end of the day just it's a process and it the process isn't finished until you're finished. And so as long as you're still here process is still going. So keep it keep trying so um I got the you gave me the goosebumps on a Monday afternoon uh I'm gonna I'm gonna look at my my daughter is 11 months old today as we're recording and it's just a it's such a different perspective when when you take what we do on a day-to-day basis and you put it in the light that you just did and that's why it's called the activating greatness podcast John you absolutely crushed that answer. Before I let you go though I've got to know who who else are we interviewing? Who is another leader that we should interview next someone that is doing meaningful work that others can learn from I'm curious where where you're thinking with this one.

SPEAKER_00 47:38

That's a really hard decision. Oh I love that I love that the answer I'm gonna give is a little near and dear to my heart and it's a little bit out of guilt because I I don't do enough for my fellow veterans that are suffering from combat injury or PTSD. And I feel guilty about it. I just would have struggled to fit that in my life in a meaningful way and serve everything else properly that I need to serve. So I would encourage you to find a leader in an organization that is serving this community and doing something towards uh combat injured and PTSD suffering uh veterans. And like or you know like or hate that we've been in involved in conflicts in the last you know 20 30 years. Uh I'm not a fan. You know, I think some of the wars were kind of dumb but people have different opinions that we shouldn't take that out on the veterans. They deserve our love and kindness and attention. It's not something I feel I've been a good servant in. So in retirement that's what something I want to catch up on. But in the meantime I would encourage you to find somebody who's living in that difficult world and finds inspiration and energy each and every day to continue on.

SPEAKER_03 49:02

We've got we've got the uh of the VA hospital in Omaha is right here and there's you know all sorts of volunteering that happens there. I there's a couple organizations that I worked with on the nonprofit side a couple of lifetimes ago at my first agency that works specifically with this audience one incredible organization who off the top of my head I'm struggling to remember their name but they did scuba diving for veterans who had PTSD because it's a great way to be re-immersed and and an experience for them. And it was this incredible program. And so I'm gonna uh I'm gonna take that call to action John and do a little bit of research and and line up a couple of guests who are are working in that and you know I think even that answer alone uh and and the previous one on the best leadership advice that you've ever received is just a testament to who you are as an individual and and as a leader. And I I couldn't be more thankful that you spent uh almost 50 minutes now this episode uh has been almost 50 minutes talking through all of this and I I really appreciate your time and and and taking the you know time out of your day. It's Monday here uh I really appreciate you taking the time and sharing your expertise with us for the Activating Greatness podcast John. Awesome well I'm a huge fan of Velocity uh love david I love working with you and uh I encourage anyone who's listening to this to uh engage with velocity you guys they have uh my unqualified support I love it well if you are listening to this and you thought this episode was the best which I completely understand make sure you leave it a five star review leave some comments go connect with John on LinkedIn tell him that you're integrating appropriately annoyed into your team and into your leadership make sure you continue to download I mentioned this earlier in the episode but somehow somehow because of great guests like John and an unbelievable audience like yourself we're moving to two episodes a week so as of March 9th there's an episode every Monday and an episode every Thursday and we couldn't do that without the individuals like yourselves listening and showing up and and trying to strive for for better and certainly John couldn't do it without you so thank you so much once again and uh thank you for being a part of this community of leaders and we will see you on the next episode of activating greatness