speaker-0: The thing about leadership in crisis is it doesn't show up when the crisis shows up. You have to cultivate it all the way up to that point. When they walk in the room, they have the ability to slow things down. They have the ability to lower the tempo of the conversation. They have the ability to soften the volume and the tone of the conversation so that everybody feels welcome and heard. Everybody feels safe. AI can pull up anything in a moment. But it can't do the interpersonal communication.

speaker-1: How can a leader effectively navigate and facilitate those crucial conversations when they need to happen?

speaker-0: Allow him the opportunity to mentor you. And in turn, when you're given the opportunity, mentor someone else.

speaker-1: Today's conversation is with Jay Jacobson. Jay has spent more than forty-five years in funeral service, where he has worked with families in grief, helped respond to major disasters, and trained others to lead through high pressure situations. In our conversation we talk about what makes somebody steady in a crisis and why that steadiness is built long before any kind of pressure arrives through presence, clear values, and the ability to slow things down when everyone else is reacting. If you get value from this conversation, be sure to subscribe and share it with a friend. And now please enjoy my conversation with Jay Jacobson. Jay, thank you so much for being here.

speaker-0: It's good to be with you, Ian. I'm looking forward to the next hour.

speaker-1: Absolutely. So, Jay, a lot of your work in your work, you've spent a lot of time around people under pressure. So you've seen people in that situation where they're under pressure steady the room and others make it harder, right? And kind of escalate under that pressure. So what does a steady person do differently in the moment of crisis?

speaker-0: Well, one of the things that I've noticed in in throughout my career and in observing leaders is as they kind of float to the surface is when they walk in the room, they have the ability to slow things down. They have the ability to lower the tempo of the conversation. They have the ability to soften the volume and the tone of the conversation so that everybody feels welcome and heard. Everybody feels safe and having conversations and sharing information. To help resolve whatever the crisis is at the moment. And that's really a hallmark of really good leadership. And that goes all the way back to those ⁓ communication skills, the skills of being able to walk into the room and be able to read what's going on without even a word being said. And sadly, today a lot of that is missing in in the next couple of generations coming up. Because when they are should be learning those lessons between age 13 and 20. They are handed a cell phone and all of a sudden their their entire communication becomes texting and email and what they read in in a very small screen. And so it takes their focus off the whole room. And so they're not understanding and building those skills of of reading the body language, of understanding the tone of the conversation and understanding the whole room. And so that's part of what I do when I go back and I and I'm I'm consulting with businesses is I help teach those generations that have lost that how to get it back.

speaker-1: Yeah. And when you're going through that process of teaching the younger generations who have been buried in cell phones during those critical years where they would be picking up these subtle cues and these subtle things, kinda what does that process look like? Like how do you teach somebody this this skill?

speaker-0: At first it's very uncomfortable because the first thing we do is we take their devices away from them. We sit in a room around a conference table and we look at each other and we start having a basic conversation, ⁓ just you know, just chit chatting and teaching them to hold eye contact because someone whose life has been in a screen gets very uncomfortable when you look in them directly in the eye. It's very uncomfortable for them. They they aren't used to that. So we have to first teach them to get comfortable with eye contact and not having to dart away, you know, every couple of minutes ⁓ to regroup. Those are the the first steps that we take. By taking their their devices away, we take away the distraction. So even though you put it on silent, it still distracts when it vibrates or when it lights up. And so it pulls the person out of the the being present in the room. And that Presence in the room is key to understanding what's going on. And that's one of the things I talk about in my book is the importance of presence as as one of the key pillars of of leadership. You have to have have your presence in the room where you are, where your feet are located is where your attention should be. It shouldn't be on the phone. It shouldn't be on a screen. It should be with the people that are in that room. Now, one of the things that we do in in my household, which my kids and my grandkids really don't like is at mealtime we don't even have the phones in the room. They have to be in the other room. If they hear ⁓ ring, they have to go to the other room to answer them. But it's a matter of helping them understand that importance of presence and of being able to hold a conversation with a variety of people and and be able to hold their attention ⁓ long enough just to have a meal. ⁓ and sometimes that's a challenge.

speaker-1: Yeah. So presence really is the fundamental ability that you need to be able to develop in order to lead in any circumstance, especially in a moment of crisis. So why do you think that is? Like why is presence that first thing that you need to be able to develop or that first the prerequisite to effective leadership?

speaker-0: Leadership comes from understanding. And if you don't understand the facts that are there, if you don't understand the people that are in the room, the conversation that's going on verbally and the conversation that's not going on verbally, then you're playing from a handicapped. You can't lead people unless you have the facts and you have the understanding of of the tone of the room. And so that singular skill of being able to understand that room and being able to read people is probably the single most important job skill that we will see in the next 40 years. All of the knowledge that we have in the in mankind is available to anybody online now. AI can pull up anything in a moment, but it can't do the interpersonal communication. It can't understand the person that's sitting outside outside of their camera. ⁓ outside of where they can read their voice, what's going on. It takes real human people to do that. And that's where we come back in. And that's the opportunity that this next couple of generations have is to go back to building those people skills. Learn how to lead in those situations. And you will always have a job.

speaker-1: Yeah. One hundred percent. You know, in the generations where an ability is scarce, the few that can develop this ability will stand out and be able to differentiate and provide more value and capture more opportunity for themselves. And I think leadership and these other, you know, quote unquote soft skills are things that you can read about, you can consume all the right information. But I feel like the best way to learn this ability First and foremost is to practice it and and you know, be intentional about trying to improve it, but seeing it demonstrated in others and in different kinds of sir situations and circumstances. And in your story, you have a very unique path that you went through and and and a series of stories that you can pull from, like ⁓ excellent demonstrations of leadership throughout your your journey. So if you could share with the audience some of your journey and these different examples of leaders that you

speaker-0: My leadership journey started probably at age nine. I was paper boy and delivering ⁓ the newspaper to a small town in rural Iowa had you know fifty, sixty customers that I delivered a newspaper to every day. Thursday nights we went around, we collected the the money for the subscription. But that Thursday night, that being with the people and being, you know, at their doorway and being fully present and understanding some of their needs, it became very apparent early on that a lot of the people subscribe to the newspaper, not for the news, but because somebody would come and visit them on Thursday night and they wouldn't be alone. And so my my route of ⁓ going and collecting took much longer than most because I would be invited in for a piece of pie or a card game or a board game and spend some time with them. I never lost a customer. My customers stayed with me. But it taught me a very valuable lesson about being present and the importance of of paying attention to people. Being responsible to show up every Thursday night. They knew I was coming. That repetitive just being responsible, getting that paper to them before six in the morning, every morning, showing up on Thursday night. That was really the start of the foundation of the leadership. And the thing about leadership in crisis is it doesn't show up when the crisis shows up. You have to cultivate it all the way up to that point. And a prime example of that in nineteen eighty nine here in Iowa. United Flight two thirty two took off from Denver, was headed to Chicago, ran into some serious problems and ended up crashing at the Sioux City Gateway Airport. Sixty six hundred feet, six six hundred and the idol

speaker-1: Equipment's coming off.

speaker-0: That's 37 years ago this happened. But 150 of us funeral directors from around three states converged on the area to care for the people that did not make it. And just to come in as th 150 people who really didn't know each other, didn't know the skill set we each had, and to watch as the leaders rose to the surface. To see people walk into a room that is absolute chaos and be able to calm it and say, okay, I know this part of it. I can help here. I know this part of it, and I can help here. And watch us over a very short period of time go from chaos to a very organized system. A system, by the way, the National D Mort program that we have today is modeled after. We created it here in Iowa. Just 150 funeral directors coming together and working together to create something to deal with a mass, mass casualty event. On that day there were 112 people who died. 112 people had to be cared for, had to be treated with respect and dignity, had to be followed all the way through, their belongings had to be tracked, each person had to be tracked, we had to identify everybody. We had to make sure everybody got back to their home and we had to keep their families informed. We had to keep the press away from the morgue area. We had to keep the press away from the families. But just coordinating all of that and watching that leadership that was already there showing up. was a real lesson in why it's important to train, why it's important to understand what leadership is well before that crisis comes in.

speaker-1: Yeah. 'Cause in those moments of crisis, right, there's no operating manual to follow. There's no SOP, right? So it's really in those moments of crisis is where is when true leadership ability is of most value.

speaker-0: And funeral directors are are well suited for dealing with crisis. ⁓ and and well suited for dealing with very critical conversations because multiple times a day we are in the middle of what we c what I call a crucial conversation where you've got high charged emotions, you've got important outcomes. You may have people in the room who don't want to be in the room together, but together you have to make a decision. And so over and over we are put in that position. So we're trained on a daily basis. This is how you communicate. This is how you slow the process down and bring everybody into the fold so that everybody feels that they're they're being heard. And so we we train for that and we learn it on a daily basis. And that kind of training shows up in in situations like Sioux City, when we all know how to slow the thing down. We all know the language and and what it takes to work our way through a crisis.

speaker-1: And you talked about how once leadership really started to take shape and people started to rise to the occasion and leader the the impact of high quality leadership really started to shine through, you saw this chaotic mess kind of turn into an organized system of effective action. Are there any other implications or outcomes that come from like what are what are the other signs of effective leadership taking shape and taking hold? Right. Obviously turning chaos into organized system, but like what is there anything else that we can speak to there?

speaker-0: Well, there's some other pillars that I write about in my book. I write about vision, and and that's the vision of understanding not only what the future looks like, but who you are, what your mission and your values are. You start there. Once you have developed your own personal mission statement, once you have developed your own values, you're in a position to pivot when the when the the challenges come without losing yourself. You know these are my values, but this may not have been the plan I wanted. So how do I incorporate these values into the new plan? Part of that is also servant leadership. A leader is not a leader if nobody follows them. And so when you walk into a room and you can generate individuals who are willing to follow you because your vision is there, your integrity is there, your presence is there. Then you are are starting to get to that point of legendary leadership where people will follow you, where you can be effective and you can get things done. We all have to be adaptable. ⁓ that's another pillar of of what we talk about in in my book is you know how you adapt without losing yourself. There again it goes back to having those personal mission statements, those personal values, and understanding what those are as you make the decisions and and process through all of these types of of crisis situations.

speaker-1: Yeah. So I appreciate that. That kind of takes sh gives us a shape and an outline of what cultivating leadership looks like before cultivating this ability before a crisis emerges. Because if you don't have it in the moment of crisis, it's not going to be something that you just snap your fingers and you magically have. And one of these critical pieces that you talk about is having your own personal mission. So could you share with us what what that looks like? Or maybe you could share the example of of your personal

speaker-0: Very good question. That leads me back to ⁓ when I first started into the funeral business. I worked for a funeral home in rural Iowa. There were two funeral directors that worked there, the owner and then the former owner. The former owner when I met him was eighty-five years old. Wonderful gentleman, very well grounded. He was excellent at every aspect of funeral service that he touched. He was excellent in every aspect of his community involvement and every aspect of his family life. He was a very well balanced person. And he modeled that. And he and he shared that with the people he trained, including me. And he was very willing to sit and and explain not only what we do, but why we do it. And then I contrast that with the other funeral director that was in in the office that owned the funeral home. He's a young man, about twenty eight years old, had just bought the funeral home. Very good at the funeral service. Very good. There was none better. But that's where his Mission and values ended. As soon as he was off the clock, his life went crazy. He had no involvement in the community. He had no anchor in terms of faith. He didn't have a strong anchor with his family. And ultimately he would end up losing his business. He would end up losing his family and end up being an alcoholic and addicted to drugs. But that's a good i illustration of why those personal values And that balance in the community and the balance in your business and with your family are so important. The people that I've watched in in my profession throughout the years that had that balance have been resilient. They have managed to live to old ages and retire as funeral directors, whereas those who did not struggled. They lost families, they lost businesses, and many of them took their own lives. So we look at that model and and we understand what it means to to have those values. And to be able to to anchor to those so when things do get tough, you have those to fall back on.

speaker-1: And this personal mission goes well beyond just your professional work, like the what you're doing professionally. It extends into your your personal life, your faith, your belief system. Right. It's more than just a professional.

speaker-0: In fact, your your personal mission really should have very little to do with what you do for a living. It should be about who you are as a person, what drives you, where your values are, you know, you know, what kind of person do you want to be? What kind of person do you want to model to your family, to your your kids, to your grandkids? That's a good starting point. You know, who am I? And as an outcropping of that, who am I enters into the workforce and you bring who am I into that. And you're able to build a vision as to who I am in the workplace based on who I really am as a person.

speaker-1: One of the big responsibilities of being a leader is having what you call those crucial conversations. And those show up in many different kinds of crucial conversations. And you hinted at a few of the the points on how to effectively handle those crucial conversations. But if I could just ask directly without being too repetitive, the how can one how can a leader effectively navigate and facilitate those crucial conversations when they need to happen?

speaker-0: Before you go into the conversation, you have to ask a few questions. Number one, what do I want as a out of this conversation? What is the outcome we want? Not the decision, but the outcome. And that can be that that the two of us are having the conversation, arrive at an agreement. That's a very strong outcome. Number two, how do I make it feel safe for the person I'm having the conversation with? So they're willing to share all of the information, all the facts, what they want out of the conversation as well. And number three, how do I slow this down so that we can have a meaningful conversation and move forward into a ⁓ a conclusion?

speaker-1: Yeah. And this point about slowing down is something that's hit me in the last few days. It's you know, an idea that maybe I was a little bit more intentional about a couple of years ago. It's just one of those things you kind of forget about how important slowing down can be in pretty much everything, right? Whether it's the golf swing or it's the, you know, how you facilitate like your day to day life. Why is slowing down so important? And then how can we intentionally do that?

speaker-0: When we start to see things spinning out of control, the blood flow to our brain changes. Normally when we're when we're calm and we're fully oxygenated, the blood flows to the frontal cortex of the brain. That's where you do your logical thinking, your non emotional thinking. But when you start to get aggravated, when you start to think spinning out of control, that blood flow moves to the back, the fight or flight mechanism of the brain. And so when you recognize that this is a chemical and a biological change that's happening in your body, and if you can take some deep breaths and you can just back off a minute and just wait, then you can reestablish where that blood flow should go. And you can begin to have a logical conversation instead of an emotional conversation. And that's the the real key to having effective conversations is that. You come from a calm, logical place instead of a an emotionally charged fight or flight, because you will make better decisions. You will make better comments. You will have better control of who you are and and what you're doing and what you say. Now this is even more important for children and teenagers because when you start looking at all of the the hormones and the chemicals that are are generated in in children and particularly teenagers. Once they get aggravated, it takes almost twenty minutes for those chemicals to reset. And so you need to have a way of backing out of those kind of critical conversations when you get to that point and allow time for things to reset and then come back to it. Now, a lot of people and a lot of parents, and I'm guilty of this, when you get into that, it's like I've got to solve this problem now. Well, the best thing often is to, okay, let's give it a give it a few minutes and let's come back to this. And find a way of dealing with that in a more constructive and more positive way.

speaker-1: Yeah. And I'm not a parent. I don't have kids. I can't pretend like I have any answer on how to affect affect that. I I can think back to myself when I was a teenager. Even, you know, probably now I'm not I don't ha I'm I'm I'm I don't have it all figured out. Still probably give my parents some trouble. But the ⁓ you know, the parents like what do you think the role of the parent is in teaching these principles to their To their kids, right? Like how do they do like is it just setting the example? Like in those moments where things do get heated, they kind of just say, like, Okay, we're gonna give this a couple of minutes and we're gonna come back and have this conversation because this is just too emotionally charged right now or like what should a parent do in that moment when they wanna teach these leadership principles to their kids and they're having those kind of heated conversations?

speaker-0: The main thing is to remain calm and model the behavior you would like to see. Kids will learn from modeled behavior, not from lectures. So when they see you saying, you know what, let's take a breath and let's let's just back off for a little bit. Obviously this issue is very important to you and I want to deal with it in a constructive way. But let's take a few moments, let's regroup, let's think about what we really want to see happen here, and then let's get back together and let's talk about it calmly. Now, when you come to a child with that, yeah, they're gonna push back, but you calmly keep at that. And slowly those chemicals that are floating around their their bodies will dissipate and you'll be able to have that conversation. Now, one of the problems we see, particularly with teenagers right now, is the ability for instant response. And so when they're all hyped up and they want to get their point across, the first thing they want to do is run to their phone and text somebody. Now, when they look at those texts an hour later, they're embarrassed. Because it shows all of the things that were negative about the emotions they were having. So that's another caution with with teenagers right now and even adults, our natural inclination with social media and with with texting is, okay, I've got to reply to this right now. Well take twenty minutes and think about it. Think about do I really need to respond? And if I do, What would I say in person to this individual? If I wouldn't say it in person to them, why would I write it down? Because what that does in public is it reflects who you are, not this situation that you're trying to deal with. But when you can model those kind of of situations for your kids and intentionally walk talk them through what you're doing and why you're doing it, they begin to understand this is important and this is how I can deal with my problem.

speaker-1: Yeah. And it's pretty apparent here in our conversation that these principles, these ideas, these skills, these abilities extend far beyond leadership and leadership in crisis. Right? They extend to day to day life, parenting, right? Every interaction that you're gonna have with people. And I think this makes sense because, you know, the skill, the ability of leadership is really just the most advanced, like interpersonal skill that you can have. It's just like how do you work effectively with people? And that's Spreads across every interaction in our life.

speaker-0: There are two books that I would recommend to all parents and all people who want to to start working with young people in in leadership. The first is a book called Crucial Conversations, and we've talked a lot about some of the material that's in that already. But the other one is a book called The Anxious Generation by Hate. And it talks about the the next generation and the struggles they're dealing with being in a digital environment and how the roles have changed and how particularly young men are feeling lost in society and and some of the things that we need to be aware of and to help them navigate where we're going from here. But those are two very good books that I highly recommend, outside of my own book.

speaker-1: Of course. Of course. yeah, we'll put the links to those recommendations in the description as well as the links to all of your work. So go check out that content in the description. And I think I'm feeling called to kind of go this direction with the conversation. So this idea that this anxious generation exists. I a hundred percent. I'm a part of it, right? I see it elements of it in myself, but I definitely see it in in my peers and the other people my age group and you know my I have a sister who's a few years younger than I am. can ⁓ you know, see it in us, right? I can absolutely see it in us. So the prescription from that book, like what do they what do they see as the prescription? Like how do we fix this? How do we address this problem? Or like what do you believe is required for us to do in order to?

speaker-0: The first thing is to recognize it's happening and to understand that that we have to do more, particularly with young men. In my generation, and and I'm sixty-five now, we knew what traditional roles were. And and we certainly don't want to go back to a world where we have traditional roles. But when I was growing up, the dads worked, the mom stayed at home, took care of the kids. Then as it progressed, both parents were working and you had daycare. And very few women were in high placed areas in terms of income. Now, today many women are in higher income fields than the men. They're taking the job that were traditionally men, like just in funeral service. When I started out, ninety-five percent of all funeral directors were male. Today, eighty five percent of the students enrolled in mortuary school are f are women. So that role has changed. And so now you have men who knew where they were going before. They knew what kind of role they wanted to take, but those roles are gone because they've been filled with women and and other people. So what do they do now? What is their role? They don't have to be the provider anymore because women now are making almost as much or more than than the men. They don't have to be the daycare provider because we have daycare services out there. So what's left? What do we fill our time with? And that's the real struggle that a lot of young men have. And that's why a lot of young men are turning to behaviors that are not the most positive, filling their days with screen time, filling their days with ⁓ drugs and alcohol or pornography. All of these things are filling a void that it is left because they don't have a clear mission or purpose anymore. And so we have to understand that. We have to be ready to say, okay, maybe your purpose isn't the same as mine was. But I'll bet you could be an excellent teacher. I'll bet you could be excellent in the healthcare field, which was typically dominated by women. There are any number of things you can do. It does not have to be the traditional role that we once had. And we have to help ⁓ young men, particularly, understand that that is okay. You can be successful by filling a purpose that that you feel good about.

speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think bringing the conversation all connected together up to this point, the if we look at this situation, right, this anxious generation illustrates like you could define this as a crisis, right? It's a crisis of yeah. So who do you think the burden of responsibility of of leadership, like who does who does the leadership burden to handle this crisis, who does it fall on? Because in my opinion, it can't be government, right? It can't be government. There's no way. So who do you think the the burden of leadership falls on for handling this crisis?

speaker-0: We have to start with homes, parents, families. That's where everything starts. That's where leadership starts. That's where modeling th the kind of behaviors and and the observation of okay, what's going on in my own family, understanding when you start seeing things going ⁓ the wrong direction, being able to step in with love and with care, saying, I sense there's something going on here. Let's talk about it. Let's model how we solve our problems versus Let's just escape into our bedroom and and and spend all night on a ⁓ T V screen playing a video game or online chatting with somebody we don't even know really, what is a better alternative? And so if we can model that in our homes, it's the first step. The second step is is with with our school systems, with our guidance counselors, with our colleges, and helping those who are feeling anxious and lost find their niche. Looking outside of what was traditional. Where might we plug you in? What are your passions? And that's where we go back to beginning to understand who we are. What is our our real at core value? What is our real at core mission? What excites us? And when we can get down to what when we have a conversation, what really lights us up and what really gets us excited, then we can start to begin to say, okay, it looks like you have a passion for this. Let's explore how we get you involved in this. What looks like something you might be passionate about? But that's the starting point. And then we provide support to help you get to those goals and find that roadmap to get to something that that drives your passions.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, and that sounds exciting, right? Like that idea of, you know, traditionally, historically, maybe you didn't even give it a second thought about what actually lit you up, what excited you. You just kind of knew that you had to enter a career and, you know, make money and take get this job, and there were plenty of opportunities to do that, that you didn't really ever really give yourself as the the male figure in the family the thought about like what like really discovering yourself, right? That was kind of like a mushy Woo woo kind of idea that was never really considered, right? So

speaker-0: Ian in in your life, what excites you? What really gets you excited to get up in the morning?

speaker-1: I love having these kinds of conversations. Like I love talking to people. It's just been something inherent in my entire life. I love having interesting conversations and just meeting new people, talking to people. Like I I love that. And I also love serving others, right? Just delivering value. Like my favorite thing is when I build something for a client, we have that first review meeting and then they come out and they're just super happy about the work that I did for them. So yeah, I just love serving people and helping people and having interesting conversations.

speaker-0: The conversation we just had is the foundation for for discovering who you are. Of the foundation of starting to write your own personal mission, of the values that you have. You know already know that you want to serve other people. So one of the values is ha you have is servant leadership. One of the other values you have is is communication and understanding how how people communicate and educating and and mentoring other people through what you do online. So you've already establish three very important pillars of leadership just in that little bit of a conversation we had about what gets you excited and to get out of bed in the morning. So when you start having those kind of conversations, and and parents can do that with their kids. You can do it with your best friend. Those are the conversations that help you hone in on what direction would should I take that is truly going to get me to happiness outside of money. outside of any kind of personal reward, those things are all temporary. If you do your what you're passionate about and do it well, the money and the rewards will come from that. Yeah.

speaker-1: Absolutely. Jay, thank you so much for the time. I have one final question for you, but before we get to that, how can people get in touch? Where can they buy the book? All that good stuff.

speaker-0: They can ⁓ my book is available. It's called Lead by Legendary Example. I'm on the cover. Real exciting. That was my ⁓ publisher's idea, not mine. ⁓ they can get it on Amazon. I then get it on Apple. It's available in print and also in audio. It's not a dry leadership book. It's filled with stories, rich stories and rich emotions. So it's one of these books that will pull you in and you will want to get through it. ⁓ the first two thirds are that type of material. The last third is ten sessions of leadership training that you can use with your own organization. If they want to reach out to me, I have a website, JacobsonPro Staff dot com. On that there's a link also to purchase the book. There's also a link for our blog. We do a regular blog talking about issues of leadership, particularly in funeral service. A lot of times we'll go outside of funeral service as well and but the principles still apply to almost any type of leadership. If they w wanna reach out to me they can ⁓ get me at J Jacobson or J U Jacobson at gmail dot com.

speaker-1: Yeah, we'll have all of that linked in the description so you can find all that information down below. And I guess maybe before I do get to that final recurring question, again, thank you for the time. You mentioned the idea that the first two thirds of your book are more of that deeper kind of emotional tenor, that kind of energy. If you could give us maybe just a a sample of one of those kind of stories or those ideas to before we we leave here today, is there anything that comes to mind?

speaker-0: One of the the stories that one of the chapters I talk about is is called The Great Pivot. Now this book I never set out to write a book, but the chapter that ⁓ that's The Great Pivot talks about why I wrote this book. A little over two years ago my wife went in for a routine knee replacement surgery that went horribly wrong. And over eighteen months she had to have twelve major surgeries. We went through hospital induced delirium several times where we didn't know if we were going to get her mentally back. We've went through ⁓ surgeries that we didn't know if she was gonna survive. We went through surgeries we didn't know if her leg was gonna survive, we didn't know if she was ever gonna walk again. But it's a journey through the decision making we made during that time. The book was written, it started to be written during this time. It was a document that I created to share with my two daughters who could not be in the room with us so that in real time they could understand. what the doctors were saying, what our decisions were making, and what the rationale was behind the decisions we were making. And that rationale behind is really what became this book. ⁓ when I got done with writing that document over a year and a half, it became very obvious that that these six pillars of presence, integrity, vision, servant leadership, adaptability, and mentorship were echoed over and over and over again in the decisions we were making. And so when I finished writing all of that, I put it with my publisher and we came up with this book. And it is a very deeply emotional, very personal book. We tried not to hide the the personal stuff that that we've all been through. There have been some very key events in my life that have really shaped leadership, everything from a paper boy to testifying before the United States Senate. Those stories are in there. They're rich, detailed, and they all support the the six pillars that we talk about.

speaker-1: Amazing. I'm glad I'm a I asked and and thank you for sharing that. I'm excited to get a handful of those copies. I think that sounds like a type of book that my dad would absolutely love to read, so I'm gonna get him one and myself ⁓ a copy as well.

speaker-0: Ian, I would encourage you to go read through it with your dad and go through the the second part of the book with your dad because it's going to open up some conversations that you would never in your life have had otherwise. And it's going to build a bond that you're you're never going to forget.

speaker-1: Amazing. Yeah. And that's something that I've been trying to do a little bit more meaningfully over the last year. My f my my father's gotten older and you know, when you reach I'm twenty six now, it's like when you leave for college, you know, you're excited and you start coming back after school and you I don't know, you start to see your parents getting older and it's just like weird. Like you're definitely you're getting older, your parents are getting older. Like I've been trying to think more intentionally about like meaningful conversations and things that I can talk about with my dad. And I think using this kind of book as a

speaker-0: And there's a host of knowledge that your dad has that he's just waiting to share. And just waiting for you to ask. And and that's the the last point of the pillars is the mentorship. Allow him the opportunity to mentor you. And and and in turn, when you're given the opportunity, mentor someone else.

speaker-1: Hmm. Yeah, I'm excited for that. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you. My final question for you, Jay, is a recurring question that I ask every guest, but if you had a giant billboard that had one message to the world that everyone in the world could see for ten seconds, what would it say and why?

speaker-0: It would say what are you doing today to make tomorrow better? Yeah. And if you ha ask that question every single day, tomorrow will always be better. Because you do one little thing, you know that tomorrow's better. If it's nothing more than make your bet, tomorrow will be better.

speaker-1: Yeah. What are you doing today to make tomorrow better? Jay, thank you so much for the time.

speaker-0: Thanks again. It's been a pleasure.

speaker-1: Thank you for listening. My main takeaway from my conversation with Jay is that leadership is mostly about how you show up for other people and really just found it in the fact that you put other people first. Jay kept coming back to the idea of presence, staying calm, listening, and being someone that other people can rely on. Those things are built not just in the moments of crisis, right? Being able to perform and execute that kind of stuff. Even execute doesn't sound like the right word, but you know, being that kind of person is something that you build in the ordinary moments. And those characteristics become especially important when the pressure gets high in any kind of situation that you find yourself in. If you get want to get connected with Jay, you can find the links to his social medias and his book Lead by Legendary Example in the description. And if you're an author, a coach, or a course creator and you want to make it easier for your clients to engage with ideas and more of your clients to actually follow through on what you teach, I put a free resource in the description that will help you build more execution support in your program without adding more to your plate. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you in the next one.