How Leaders Think with Kenny Lange

Misael Diaz [00:00:00]:
So if we want to have a leadership culture, you're going to teach me leadership. The moment you are hiring me, the moment you bring me in the door, you have to plant that DNA in me. You're not waiting for me to develop into the super leader and become the super manager and to have the territory and to bring the millions of dollars. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You hired me today. You trained me as a leader yesterday.

Kenny Lange [00:00:26]:
Welcome to the How Leaders Think podcast, the show that transforms you by renewing your ways to think. I'm your host, Kenny Lang and with me today is the Missile Diaz. He not only is a business development leader for Venturity Financial Partners, but he is also the founder of Advanced Leadership Consulting. Not basic, it's advanced. So for all of you, like high level thinkers out there, it'll take you further. Which is a company dedicated to helping businesses and individuals achieve their business and personal goals. He is an international coach and speaker. He trains both large and small groups on how to maximize their potential and transform their lives.

Kenny Lange [00:01:09]:
Over the past eight years, Ms. Al has worked with globally recognized brands. You're going to know some of these AT&T, Bose Corporation, Sierra.Com International, Starbucks, Avon, Amway, Malia Hotels, Hyatt Exclusive Collections and Casa de Campo Resorts, among others. He's also a best selling author. There's pretty much nothing he can't do is what you should be taking away from this. He has books such as Creating a New Story and the Leader Born Made and it multiplies and we'll have links for those in the show notes where you can go purchase them and live a better life. He lives in Dallas, Whoop whoop, Texas with his wife Helen and their two children. Welcome to the show, Ms.

Kenny Lange [00:01:56]:
IO Hey Kenny.

Misael Diaz [00:01:59]:
Thank you for having me. I grateful for the opportunity. Thank you for that intro. I felt like somebody else should be. Should be walking in right now. I should be talking. So thank you.

Kenny Lange [00:02:09]:
Where is this guy? I want to meet him. Like where? Who is this?

Misael Diaz [00:02:12]:
Who is that person?

Kenny Lange [00:02:13]:
Yes, man, we're talking to him. You got an impressive resume and people should know about it.

Misael Diaz [00:02:20]:
Thank you. Appreciate it.

Kenny Lange [00:02:21]:
Well, man, I'm so excited to have this conversation. I know our first conversation, we were just zinging back and forth, lots, lots of shared ideas, a shared spirit and just a passion for leadership. But tell me today, Ms. Ale, what.

Misael Diaz [00:02:36]:
Is on your mind at this very moment? In my mind is your audience. And the reason your audience is in my mind, Kenny, is because every time I have an opportunity to speak to anyone, whether it's via the airwaves of your podcast or live audience, or the many different forms that nowadays we can communicate. First of all, I'm grateful for you because basically today you're writing a blank check to me. From this particular podcast standpoint, your number one product is your audience. This is totally unscripted. You don't know what I'm about to say, how I'm going to say it. So there is no control on that from your part, and yet you're trusting me to come here and join you and speak to your audience, speak to the people that trust you to bring value on a monthly or weekly basis. So your audience is in my mind.

Misael Diaz [00:03:45]:
And the question that I'm asking myself, you know, when I'm thinking about your audience, is what do I know? What do I have that could be of value to that for them today? You know, what do I know? What do I have that could be of value for them today? So that, that's what I'm thinking of right now.

Kenny Lange [00:04:01]:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I appreciate you saying a blank check. Number one, that was a great movie in the 90s. Number two, I've told people I write a check. I was like, I don't actually write checks because I live in the 21st century, but I appreciate what that signifies. So as you're thinking about the audience, as you're thinking about this listener, this leader on the other end of this conversation, what's maybe something that is top of mind for you that you would love for them to know, for them to think differently about within their leadership? I mean, I went through the whole bio like you've written books. You're speaking to audiences, you're speaking to smaller groups, large groups, corporate groups. Is there something in your interaction with these different groups that you say, man, I thought I understood this, but I'm taking this away.

Kenny Lange [00:05:04]:
And I would love for this listener on the other end to have a better understanding of this principle of leadership.

Misael Diaz [00:05:11]:
Sure. So let, I'll give you two. So my, my answer is going to be a two part answer. And number one, it's because one leads to the other. And the latter, the second one, in my opinion, will never happen unless we understand the first one. And the first one is potential. It's us becoming aware of our potential. I say it this way.

Misael Diaz [00:05:40]:
This way, Kenny. I say that the best gift that you and I could ever receive or the best gift that you and I could ever give someone is awareness of potential, is making them aware or us becoming aware of our potential. And to Put it in simple terms. Aware. I mean, potentially simply everything that you and I could be, do or have, that we are yet to be, that we are yet to do, that we are yet to have. So I don't have the potential to be speaking with you. I'm already speaking with you now. I have the potential to be somewhere else in an hour or two, three, five hours from now.

Misael Diaz [00:06:23]:
But as of this moment, you know, what I'm doing is no longer my potential potential. So the best thing that as leaders, we could get hold on of or, you know, we could grasp is our potential. Because once we become aware of our leadership potential, then our possibilities expand, our possibilities grow. We learned that there is different opportunities, that there's so much more that we could be, there is so much more that we could do. There is so much more that we could have, Right? But it's from that standpoint, from the standpoint of becoming aware of my potential. So that's the first thing. So that's the first part of my answer. So what can you get? Hold on.

Misael Diaz [00:07:07]:
What can you grab? What can you take as a leader today? Is that based on your potential? Right? It's all of the success, all the possibilities that you could have, that you could create. So as a leader, my advice, or my first advice is this, is that do not define your worlds by your limitations. Right? You have to look at your world by the possibilities, by its possibility. Is it possible in the world? Yes, it is. Maybe I'm limited at this particular point in time, but is it possible somewhere in the world? So I'm not defining who I am as a leader or what I do as a leader based on my current condition and circumstances, but rather I'm defining it based on, you know, what's possible in the world. That's. That's what the first thing I will say to that leader.

Kenny Lange [00:08:04]:
Yeah, I love, there's a lot I love about that and, and a lot of questions I want to ask to unpack that. But I think first I would love for you to give an example of what you mean by thinking about your potential and then thinking about what's possible in the world to interpret your own current circumstances. Can you, can you give an example of what that might look like or sound like?

Misael Diaz [00:08:32]:
Absolutely. So we all come from different background, different ethnicities. We are a mix of many, many different things. And many times we define ourselves or we limit ourselves looking backwards. So we define ourselves based on where we come from, based on what we've done, based on our last name, based on the school that I went to based on the academic or non academic education that I've received based on the title or the degrees that I possess. So we define ourselves looking backwards. Rather than define ourselves or try to determine who we are, what we could do looking forward. My point is that we say, well, I can only do this because I've done that.

Misael Diaz [00:09:24]:
Instead of saying I could become this because I'm yet to do that. So I could become an author because I'm yet to write a book. Right. Instead of saying I cannot be an author because I have never written anything. Right. So I will. When I'm. When I'm interacting with a live audience, Kenny, I like to play around.

Misael Diaz [00:09:48]:
And I said, look, learning is so easy that the only requirement is that you know nothing. Right? The only requirement for you to learn is that you don't know.

Kenny Lange [00:10:01]:
Yeah, right.

Misael Diaz [00:10:02]:
That's the only requirement. So if you know nothing today, you are the perfect candidate to learn. Right? You are the perfect candidate to learn. So the example is this. Hey, before you had a podcast, imagine if you sat in your, in your house or you, you were talking to a friend, your wife or a colleague or whoever and you say, man, I have this burning desire of adding value to people and changing lives and, and letting people know that they can be, do and have more that they can beyond that they can have done that there is a giant within them. But you know, I have never turned on a microphone, so I'm not going to do it. But you know, I've never, I've never used this particular software. I've never spoken to anybody, I've never interview anybody, so I'm not going to do it.

Misael Diaz [00:10:48]:
You're defining yourself based on what you've done, rather defining yourself on the possibilities of what you could be. Right. So not based on your current condition or circumstances, rather on the emerging future. Right, right.

Kenny Lange [00:11:04]:
There's so much I love about what you're saying. It's a drum that I beat quite often, not just for myself, but for others like you. I mean, we share a similarity in that we both speak and coach and train around the concepts of leadership. Things that have really impacted us and helped us grow. We want to see that for others. A couple things come to mind. One, with what might I be capable of? What could my potential lead me into a. And it's a commonly used example.

Kenny Lange [00:11:36]:
But when you think about the four minute mile, like somebody running the four minute mile, sure. Nobody. It was thought to be an impossibility. And like globally, I mean, runners had been running since, since the, you know, days of ancient Greece when, when actual marathon, like he ran 26.2 miles or whatever it actually was. And then you have, and someone's going to email me if I get this wrong. And that's, that's fine, I, I can delete your email. But, but Roger Banister goes and breaks the four minute mile. And I want to say in the 12 months that followed him breaking it, there was like, I don't know, like 12 to 20 other individuals suddenly snap.

Kenny Lange [00:12:28]:
They saw that it was possible in the world for a human to break that barrier, to reach that possibility. And it wasn't though, until there was somewhere in the world that that had happened. And I've actually been reflecting on that a lot with the project I'm working on currently where I've had some people say, well I don't know if, or you could do this thing. I'm looking at, I'm building an online community which by the time this comes out will already be live and on the interweb. So you can go to my website to look into that. But looking at it as a way to add value, to generate revenue and just support people where they're at. Right. Because I got the big ticket item and not everybody's ready for that.

Kenny Lange [00:13:18]:
And, but I don't see a bunch of my other coach friends who are building something like this. So I've had to go outside of my circle and go is what I'm thinking about is what that, that burning desire, is it possible? And sure enough, I'm looking around and there's all these other people who are, who are doing this and there's, and there's courses on how to build a million dollar online community. All these different things. And so now I go, okay, well it's possible. I just have to put in the work. I have to know nothing. So that which I am, I think my children probably think I'm ripe for learning all the time because I'm pretty convinced that they think I know nothing. So that was, that was number one.

Kenny Lange [00:14:04]:
The other one is a little bit more fun and playful which is I'll have people who say, I, you know, like my kids will say, well I don't, you know that some of them are a little more shy than others. I don't know if your kids are split this way. Like one is just like total extrovert and the other one's like hard pass on meeting new people. But they're like, I don't, I don't like meeting new people. Anytime anyone says that to me, my children included, I'll go. Every person you know now was a stranger to you and you had to meet them for the first time in order to know them now.

Misael Diaz [00:14:38]:
Correct.

Kenny Lange [00:14:38]:
So I don't think you have that big of a problem meeting new people because you know people now. You weren't born knowing them. Right. And so for all of us as leaders, when we think about these big endeavors, is anything you currently are doing or anything in looking back that you have achieved and you could look on as a success, you didn't know how to do it or that you could do it at that level prior to you doing it for the first time and it being brand new and just full of potential? Right?

Misael Diaz [00:15:10]:
Yes. Yes.

Kenny Lange [00:15:12]:
So is that, and is that the most common way of thinking, that that is really getting in people's way of taking these steps and achieving their potential is somehow in their head? They're like, well, I've never done that before. Not remembering all the things that they had never done before before they did them. And I know that I've turned into like Dr. Seuss at this point, so I should probably shut up. But what are you encountering with that? And why is that such a hard mental block for people to overcome without having someone like you come along and sort of like, let me break you out of this.

Misael Diaz [00:15:52]:
Yeah. So it's, it's the uncertainty of the unknown, right? The uncertainty of the unknown. It's. It's not knowing what I don't know. It's. It's that you mentioned, you know, our kids. Same. I, I have a teenager.

Misael Diaz [00:16:09]:
My son is a teenager. He's 14 years old.

Kenny Lange [00:16:11]:
Okay.

Misael Diaz [00:16:12]:
He is very much like you described. You know, he struggles to meet new people, but then after 20 minutes, he transforms into this jovial, a lot of jokes, very funny type of guy. But, you know, the first five minutes of the conversation were totally awkward and you know, trying to hire. Right. My daughter, my daughter is totally opposite. She's 10. And you say hi and it's like your family and you've known each other for 100 years. Right.

Misael Diaz [00:16:45]:
So it's completely different. And when you bring that to leadership and you talk about what am I, what I am encountering right now, what I'm seeing is that we many times leaders, we'd rather cling that we don't what we don't like, but we know rather than go and onto a new endeavor and take a new challenge. Right. With uncertainty. We're trying to avoid uncertainty. We're trying, we're trying to lead without uncertainty. We're trying to lead without uncertainty. And it is impossible because the reality is that that's what actually, that's what leadership is, actually is, is not knowing.

Misael Diaz [00:17:35]:
You know, a leader, A leader does many, many, many things. But let me give you one of them is that it moves people, processes, projects, vision from point A to point B, from the known to the unknown. And that which is unknown is called vision, right? So a leader, right, moves whatever is moving people, processes, companies, projects, endeavors. You name it, it moves it from what it's known to the unknown and that which is unknown, it's what is called vision, right? So if you're trying to lead without uncertainty, you're trying to lead without vision, literally, right?

Kenny Lange [00:18:17]:
Which, what's the saying that if you don't know where you're going, you'll end up anywhere, right? Like you're just sort of wandering around.

Misael Diaz [00:18:29]:
And I will add to that. If you don't know where you're going, your speed doesn't matter.

Kenny Lange [00:18:36]:
Everybody rewind and replay that. Can you, can you elaborate on that? Because I, I've, I've had conversations recently. It's so funny. So many of the things you're bringing up are like recent or tagging into recent conversations I've had with, with clients and, and other leaders. Talk to me about the speed and, and pacing.

Misael Diaz [00:18:57]:
Well, it's simple. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it sounds simple, but we don't pay attention to it. We don't know where we're going, and yet we're trying to move as fast as possible, right? We're trying to, we're trying to, we're trying to, trying to move as quickly as possible, and yet we don't know where, you know which, which direction we're going. What is our destination, we don't have a clear target, and yet we want to be in motion at all times is because the world that we live in today and the way we are programmed today, we vilify or we diminish. Being quiet for a moment or stopping for a moment or reflecting, right? We equate losing or unproductivity with being still, right? And as a leader, yes, you want to be emotion when you know where you're going. But if you don't know where you're going, you don't want to be in motion, right? So if you don't have a destination, if you don't know where you're going, it doesn't matter how fast you are moving in Fact, what you're doing is more often than not, you know, moving fast, not knowing where you're going. What you're doing is either wasting resources or creating more damage than what you have, Right? So look, we all want to have the biggest everything, the fastest everything, the best of everything. We want to be the first at everything and all of that.

Misael Diaz [00:20:41]:
And, hey, aspiring to do great, that's phenomenal. But look, you must first defined what you. What you. What you're trying to build, what you're trying to do. Look, I'll share this with you, Kenny. In a couple of weeks from now, I will be in Amsterdam, in Holland with a group of leaders from a variety of countries in Europe. One of the exercises I've done for company, for corporations I'm going to be doing in Holland in a few weeks from now is I'm going to take a bunch of index cards, okay? Blank index cards. And I will give.

Misael Diaz [00:21:26]:
This is all executives. They work for the same business, for the same company. Many of them have been around for 10, 15, 20, 25 years. Picture A room full of executives, right? Different places around the world, but they work under the same vision, the same everything, right?

Kenny Lange [00:21:46]:
Okay.

Misael Diaz [00:21:47]:
I will hand them a blank business card and I will ask them one question. And the only one condition that they have is that they don't talk to each other. They are not allowed to seek advice or to consult with one another. It is a private answer. And here's the question. How do you. Let's say where. This is Acme, right? So ACME llc, right? Executives for Acme llc.

Misael Diaz [00:22:22]:
They are all in a room, and the only thing they have is a blank index card in their hands. And here's the question. How do you. Acme, right. Give me the definition of leadership according to Acme llc. Go. And I will give them whatever time they want. And I'll give them 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes.

Misael Diaz [00:22:48]:
I'll give them whatever time they want. Take a guess. How many of them give me exactly the same answer.

Kenny Lange [00:22:59]:
Probably none of them.

Misael Diaz [00:23:01]:
You got that right. Very few times, extremely, very few times, I get one or two people to give me exactly the same answer. You know why? It's because we do not, as leaders, we do not take time to define what leadership means within our organization. And here is the punchline. If you cannot define it, you cannot build it. Okay.

Kenny Lange [00:23:33]:
All right.

Misael Diaz [00:23:34]:
If you cannot define it, you cannot build it.

Kenny Lange [00:23:40]:
Which really strikes at the heart of all of these, like learning and development, you know, departments and leadership pipelines. And we're doing Leadership development. And it's like, what are we developing leadership? What is that exactly? It's, it's something. So when I, I love this concept, I, I do something similar. More, more from just like a verbal perspective. When I talk to teams about core values in the organization because they want to have like 37 core values. And I tell them, it's like if I have a hundred dollar bill or if I have a stack of them and I go into your organization and I say, anybody who can tell me all of your core values and the definitions exactly as they are stated, I will give you $100 bill right now. I said, how many Benjamins am I handing out? And everybody looks around and then their heads go down.

Kenny Lange [00:24:36]:
They're like, well, you might give one to this guy, but he's been here for forever, but nobody else would know it. So you know, just shared communication can do so much. But I love your application of that way of thinking towards what are we building in leadership?

Misael Diaz [00:24:53]:
Correct.

Kenny Lange [00:24:53]:
And what I'm curious about is because there are like, you know, something you and I spoke about on, on one of our, our first conversations was Maxwell and, and the work you had done with, with that organization and speaking and, and things like that. Now a lot of people look to people like John Maxwell or Dave Ramsey or a Patrick Lencioni or any of these other like, great, just like leadership thinkers and authors and I think have a tendency to outsource their definition to them. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't be inspired by or influenced by their thinking, but do you find that people are trying to grab at other people's definitions instead of taking the time to do the work to define what it means for them? Is that the tripping point or is it that they've never really thought about a definition of leadership?

Misael Diaz [00:25:51]:
Well, the thing is that all of these concepts and theories and philosophies and teaching points and all of those, those are simply guidelines and, and tools for us to learn, you know, how to think for. It's a starting point. Their concepts and their philosophies are not wrong, but they're simply is, is the very first step. It literally is the very first step is just starting. They are telling you, hey, these are things that you should be aware of. But now how do you define, how do you build that leadership within your organization, you know, that leader. So it's based on your values, right. It's based on your culture.

Misael Diaz [00:26:45]:
Right. And again, it's based on where you are going. So one of the things I'VE learned over the years, Kenny, is that you don't. You don't recruit for where you are. You recruit for where you're going, right? I'm not going to recruit for my situation today because my today, my presence is not today, is not the result of my decisions today. So, for example, again, let's say I'm in front of an audience. I stand up in front of an audience, a group of people, whatever number of people, sometimes into the thousands or sometimes two people, doesn't matter. I get up in front of them and I say, look at me.

Misael Diaz [00:27:34]:
Look at me. And after a couple seconds, I say, look, what you're seeing right now. You are looking at it in the present, but you're looking at the past. And I make a pause, right? And then I repeat it again. And I said, look, you can see me in the present while you're looking at my past. And again, the parcel in question comes in until I say, look, the reason you're looking at my past is because today I am who I am based on the decisions that I made yesterday. So I am today the result of the decisions I made yesterday. If you want to know who I am today, what I'm doing today, you would have to, right? You will have to wait three months, six months, a year.

Misael Diaz [00:28:33]:
So the decisions I'm making today will come in, display, will be reflected, will become evident. So it's the same thing, right? We're building leaders. But what is it, right? You don't do it for today. You do it for where you're going, right? What is where you're going? And all of these books and the things. And I'm. I'm. I'm a student, right? I'm. I'm constantly reading, I'm constantly listening, I'm constantly developing myself.

Misael Diaz [00:29:00]:
I believe in all of it. But that's not the end, all right? That's not the end of it. You know, it's not the. It's not the final thing. It's just for you to know what's possible. And then you have to look at your people and your vision and say, what am I trying to build? What is the culture that I want and what are my values? And then based on that, you will develop. And then I'll finish with this on that long answer. And that's the reason I tell leaders, business owners, business operators, I tell them, the leader you're looking for doesn't exist.

Misael Diaz [00:29:38]:
You will never be able to hire the leader you're looking for. And they ask me why, so what am I going to do is the leader you're looking for. You build it. You don't recruit it, you build it. You find people that you can invest time and resources in them and build them into the leader that you want. But the leader that you want doesn't exist. You will have to develop it.

Kenny Lange [00:30:06]:
I. There's so much I love about that man. We might have to do a part two. I'm getting excited. So when you're talking about building a, an organizational definition of leadership, right? And I don't hear you saying it's like throw everything out. Like it's, take something from that. See. See what's meaningful for you.

Misael Diaz [00:30:36]:
Sure.

Kenny Lange [00:30:37]:
When, when do you think the right time to build a definition of leadership is and who should be involved in that process?

Misael Diaz [00:30:51]:
So it's a, it's a fluid conversation and it will never end. Start as early as possible, okay? Start as early as possible. You know, start even with you, one person, okay? The moment, the moment you start learning about your potential and the moment you start thinking of yourself as a leader, you must have a definition of leadership. Now, now, is that the end of it? No, that's going to change. It's going to be fluid because the world changes, your circumstances changing, you know, your desires will change, your knowledge will change, your level of awareness will increase. The information that you have will change. The way you see things will change. The more you grow, the more you will see, the more things will expand.

Misael Diaz [00:31:45]:
And what you thought it was impossible yesterday, now today is a walk in the park. And what is seem to be, you know, unacceptable at one point, now it is acceptable. And all of it, all of it. So my point is that, is that you must, you should, you should have a definition of leadership as early as possible. Even when it's just you, just you by yourself. That's it, you know, and then involve as many people as you can as you go along, right? Train, training that. As early as possible.

Kenny Lange [00:32:20]:
Right?

Misael Diaz [00:32:21]:
As early as possible. As early as possible. That's, that's, that's my, that's my perspective on that. Let me, let me tell you why I can. And, and the way I, the way I define that, let's call it culture of leadership, okay? A culture of leadership. And in a culture of leadership is a, a process or a place or you know, a habit, however you want to call it. Cultural leadership is where leaders are constantly, constantly and systematically being developed, right? It's a constant thing. It's a constant flow.

Misael Diaz [00:33:02]:
You have a bench of leadership. And how do you know you have a culture. Number one, you have a language. Number two is predictable. Right. Number three, you teach it at the lowest level, not at the highest level. Right, right. That's important.

Misael Diaz [00:33:21]:
That's extremely important. I wish, you know, we have more time because that, that will be extremely, you know, broad. But I will try to be as brief as possible. Think, for example, this country in a couple of months in November, we will celebrate a holiday at the end of November. What is, what holiday is that?

Kenny Lange [00:33:44]:
Thanksgiving.

Misael Diaz [00:33:45]:
And what likely. At least traditionally. I know people now change a little bit, but at least traditionally. What are we going to eat?

Kenny Lange [00:33:54]:
As much as humanly possible. Now we're going to have turkey, we're going to have stuffing, mashed potatoes, crescent. You're getting me hungry right now, man.

Misael Diaz [00:34:03]:
Where you go now? How old is your youngest child?

Kenny Lange [00:34:08]:
Two.

Misael Diaz [00:34:09]:
Okay. Are you waiting for your two year old baby to be 18 to teach him Thanksgiving or is he already. Or her learning Thanksgiving?

Kenny Lange [00:34:25]:
Oh, he will learn. He will probably be wearing Thanksgiving.

Misael Diaz [00:34:28]:
There you go. So that's my point. We teach culture at the lowest level. You're not waiting for your child to become an adult so you can teach him the culture. Right. So if we want to have a leadership culture, you're going to teach me leadership. The moment you are hiring me, the moment you bring me in the door, you have to plant that DNA in me. You're not waiting for me to develop into the super leader and become the super manager and to have the territory and to bring the millions of dollars.

Misael Diaz [00:34:57]:
No, no, no, no, no. You hire me today. You, you trained me as a leader yesterday and you develop that culture.

Kenny Lange [00:35:05]:
I love that something you're saying it connects with some of the work that I do with leadership teams and building their, their, we call it just an organizational roadmap is we have something called the culture equation where we say that core values plus, you know, so like who we are at our best, plus organizational habits, things we're going to do to express those values together on a regular basis, equal our cultural attributes. Now we go ahead and name the culture that we want to design and create and have and it would sound like you would need to have those things in place and then you can say, okay, and now that, that's the culture of the whole place. How do we develop leaders out of it? That would reinforce this, that would champion this, that would help develop others in this way. Is that, is that fair to say?

Misael Diaz [00:36:01]:
Yeah, that, that's a very, that's a very fair assessment. You know, it's. And again, it's systematically, constantly developing those leaders. So, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. It's a fair assessment.

Kenny Lange [00:36:14]:
So I, there again, I love that, the concept of, of just developing from day one. And I think knowing, knowing who you are and what you want to be about, um, having that vision of where you're going should determine, okay, if this is where we're going in the future, what sort of people are we, Are we going to need to reach that, that destination, that long term? Because vision's usually like way out in the future. It's usually not just the next, you know, few months. If you're hiring, sort of going back to what you said at the beginning of this conversation. If you're hiring based on potential, right? And you're saying, I'm willing to take on the responsibility as their direct supervisor or just as a leader in this organization, I'm willing to take on the responsibility to invest and cultivate that potential so that this person can be who we need them to be to get us where we would like to go or need to go. How, how do you get people to shift that? Like, that's a very other centered mindset. Because I would think they're. Because leadership is not a title.

Kenny Lange [00:37:32]:
I mean, I'm sure you could go in depth and having taught all of, you know, Maxwell's materials, that title is really the lowest position or the lowest level of leadership. If, if people are thinking about, well, I'm the owner, let's say I'm an executive and I'm looking around, I was like, oh, I need to, I need to get these other people shifting into more of a leadership gear and I need to develop them. Does, does that require a formal program? Does that, is that a 12 month, like you're going to go through these classes and these things. Is it less formal than that? Or what are you seeing be effective in people really shifting into a culture of leadership like you've been describing?

Misael Diaz [00:38:16]:
So what I've learned over the years, Kenny, is that leadership is caught, not taught. Okay, all right, all right. So people cut leadership. You don't taught, you don't, you don't teach them leadership. That, that's not something, you know, we, we say I'm studying leadership and all that. No, no, we're studying, you know, material that, that will stimulate our leadership potential within us. Right. For example, if, if you never sent your kids to school, let's say you never ever sent them to school and you just stayed home with them 24 7, and you allow them to see you, just look at you, the Only thing they will do is look at you.

Misael Diaz [00:39:09]:
I guarantee you that they will learn whatever you're doing. If you read, they will learn to read. If you write, they will learn to write. If you. If you speak other languages, they will learn other languages. If you cook, they will learn to cook. So we caught leadership. So as leaders, right? Instead of.

Misael Diaz [00:39:32]:
Look, books, again, I have a list of hundreds, if not thousands of books that I could probably give you, right? So books are phenomenal. Podcasts are phenomenal. Materials is. All of that is phenomenal. But he's the disconnect. He's the problem that we have many times is that we have. We have people in leadership positions, right? I'm choosing my words carefully. We have people in leadership positions that don't act as leaders, but they want to develop leaders.

Misael Diaz [00:40:08]:
You cannot export what you do not have. You cannot teach me what you do not know. You cannot model what you are not. So before you can teach me something, you have to be that something. And before I can cut something from you, you have to be it. You have to model it. The best way to develop a leader is to model leadership to that person. Don't tell me what to do.

Misael Diaz [00:40:32]:
Show me what to do. Don't tell me what you expect from me. Show me what you expect from me, right? Don't tell me how to walk. Show me how you walk and I will follow your steps. That's the best way. Our programs, phenomenal. Yes. Is your online community phenomenal? Yes, it is.

Misael Diaz [00:40:50]:
Can you have a coach? Absolutely. Do you need a mentor? For sure, you do need a mentor. But again. But again, if you are my leader, don't just be a title holder. Be it. That's why I love the word. Or, yeah, behave. If you take that word, behave, right? Break it into be.

Kenny Lange [00:41:12]:
Have.

Misael Diaz [00:41:12]:
You have to be it before you have it. You want good leaders, you have to be a good leader. You want good employees, you have to be good leader or good owner, a good business operator, whatever, right? Behalf. Behave. Be it. Before you have. It's not only programs. You have to model it, man.

Kenny Lange [00:41:35]:
If you were holding a real microphone, I would say just drop it and walk off stage. But your microphone's in your computer and it's probably pretty expensive. So somebody listening to this is saying, hey, all right, miss, I'm on board this. This resonates. I love this. I want to be part of developing a culture of leadership, or I want my company, maybe they're an owner, to have this, this culture, this pipeline, this bench of leadership, and I want to be this leader you're talking about so that they catch it instead of just hearing me teach it.

Misael Diaz [00:42:10]:
Sure.

Kenny Lange [00:42:11]:
What's the first step? What's a baby step? Someone can take next 24 hours with little to no money to make progress towards all these things that you've been describing.

Misael Diaz [00:42:22]:
It is the least cost, the least costly, but it's the most difficult one.

Kenny Lange [00:42:30]:
Bring it.

Misael Diaz [00:42:31]:
Okay. Lead yourself. It's a decision. It's a decision rather than a skill, rather than an ability, rather than you buying an equipment, is lead yourself. That's the first thing. Decide to lead yourself. Right. What is leading myself? I'm following through on what I promise I'm going to do.

Misael Diaz [00:42:58]:
Right. I am acknowledging that I have blind spots and I'm finding people to let me know that I have blind spots. I am investing in my strength and recruiting for my weaknesses. I'm not trying to be an auto. Right. I'm the leader, but I allow others to do the thinking for me. Right. I once heard John say my best thoughts came from somebody else's brain.

Misael Diaz [00:43:25]:
Think about that. Okay.

Kenny Lange [00:43:27]:
Yeah.

Misael Diaz [00:43:28]:
My best thoughts came from somebody else's brain. So the fact that you are the C suite or you are the owner or you are the one has the title and all of that, look, the first thing you could do right now at this very moment, even if you're driving, right. Even if you're driving. It's a simple decision and yet is the most difficult one. You must lead yourself. You cannot lead others until you lead yourself. At least you cannot lead them effectively.

Kenny Lange [00:44:07]:
I would agree to drill this down just a little bit. What is. What is one simple way for them to sort of cement this commitment to leading this decision? I know that there are turning points in all of our lives, and I think one of the things that we may have lost, at least here in the west, like in a more Western culture, is the value of ceremony or something symbolizing a decision, a commitment, a moment. Is there something that you have found or seen or that you've recommended as a way to submit that decision? Because they could be driving, they could be walking, they could be doing whatever and say, yeah, I'm right with you. All right?

Misael Diaz [00:45:02]:
I'm.

Kenny Lange [00:45:02]:
I commit to lead myself. And then they get to, you know, 3:00pm the next day, and they're just right back in because. Because life and leadership and work and everything else is going to come flying at you and try to choke out that commitment.

Misael Diaz [00:45:18]:
Yeah.

Kenny Lange [00:45:18]:
What is a simple but effective way that they can submit that commitment right now?

Misael Diaz [00:45:24]:
Yeah. So I'm listening to your question and I'm trying to think of something that will be, that will be applicable for everybody regardless of where they are in their journey. Because we all are at different journeys, right? So.

Kenny Lange [00:45:37]:
Right.

Misael Diaz [00:45:37]:
You may be just starting. You may be very much advanced. So I think, and I may give you multiple. But I will give you this to start because I think this will apply for everyone regardless of where they are in their journey is accountability.

Kenny Lange [00:45:54]:
Okay?

Misael Diaz [00:45:55]:
Find an accountability partner. Be accountable to someone. If you don't have a coach, find a coach. You know, Kenny's a very good one, right? So find someone that will hold you accountable. Because the issue with many of those is that we do not lead ourselves because we have no one to report to or we don't want nobody to report to. So you must hold yourself accountable. We need accountability in our lives. That's the first thing one of the things I would say.

Misael Diaz [00:46:31]:
Now another thing that I will say, let's say as someone who is more advanced in their journey is let go. Stop trying to control everything. Right. You are losing control because you're trying to stay in control.

Kenny Lange [00:46:53]:
Gotcha.

Misael Diaz [00:46:54]:
Right?

Kenny Lange [00:46:54]:
So they could just release, like find, find a thing that they're just trying to like hold on to and let go. And that could be part of their symbolizing, ceremonializing their decision to lead themselves effectively and well.

Misael Diaz [00:47:12]:
Correct.

Kenny Lange [00:47:12]:
Okay.

Misael Diaz [00:47:13]:
One thing I tell entrepreneurs a lot. I mean, people that are in that startup phase and nowadays a startup could be a multimillion dollar business and we still startup, right? But people who are in that multiple hats type of journey, I tell them, I look, if you want to accomplish more, focus on doing less. If you want to accomplish more, focus on doing less. And yes, I get that reaction often. It's like, okay, what does that mean? What that means is. What that means is that, you know, if you want to accomplish. I'm not saying if you want to be doing or busy. No, no, I say if you want to accomplish.

Misael Diaz [00:47:53]:
Listen to the word. If you want to accomplish, get more things done. If you want to get more done, focus on doing less. Because if you focus on doing less, you'll be able to put more energy into one or two things. You know, I also say this. Look, I'd rather be a very small pond. Very small pond that is a thousand feet, you know, deep, not a big ocean that is one inch depth. Right?

Kenny Lange [00:48:26]:
Yeah.

Misael Diaz [00:48:27]:
So let go of control. I mean, 80% we know this. You know this, Kenny, 80% done by others is better than 100% done by yourself. So you want to lead yourself. You want to really let it go. Let empower somebody else. That's leadership. Empowering somebody else to go and do it.

Kenny Lange [00:48:45]:
I love that. I think I. Since there's like episode two, three, four, we might need a miniseries or something like that, or maybe we'll. We'll work on building a course in the, in this new online community. I. I gotta be. I love this conversation. I'm.

Kenny Lange [00:49:01]:
I'm learning a lot. You're affirming a lot of things that I've been thinking on and processing for myself and for clients. If someone wants to know more about you and your work with Advanced Leadership Consulting or Venturity Financial Partners, as well as your book, podcast, things like that, where should they go?

Misael Diaz [00:49:22]:
I think the easiest way to find me right now would be LinkedIn misleadias. Just like that. My name, Misal Diaz. That would be. That would be an easy way if you want to find my website. Of course, my website is primarily in Spanish, initially in Spanish, because I do a lot of work in the Spanish speaking world. But you can translate it. Obviously it gives you the option to go into English.

Misael Diaz [00:49:42]:
But initially my website's in Spanish. So if you look for S O Y meaning soy, which is I am in Spanish, but S O y Misal Diaz. Right. So why misal dia. So soymisaildias.com right. Soymisaldias.com that, that also will give you a window into my world. But you know, just for. Because primarily we spoke in, In English here today, I would say that LinkedIn, if you go to LinkedIn, Misal Diaz, then from there you can branch out and even get in contact with me.

Misael Diaz [00:50:15]:
That would be the easiest way. Um, but you know, it may sound like a braggadocious, but you can also Google me. Just Google me.

Kenny Lange [00:50:23]:
Yeah. I don't. How many missile DSEs are there in the world? I don't. I don't think there's a lot. I tell people that sometimes. I actually literally this morning told somebody I was like, you can. You can Google me. There's like me and two other Kenny Langs in the world.

Kenny Lange [00:50:38]:
We're competing for top spot on.

Misael Diaz [00:50:39]:
Yeah.

Kenny Lange [00:50:40]:
On Google. And we're going to have the links on Amazon to your books. And then you have a podcast. Can you just briefly talk about that?

Misael Diaz [00:50:50]:
Yeah. So my podcast is the language of leadership. We talk all leadership. And again, leadership is a language because it is a culture. Right. So we talk. The name of the podcast is the language of leadership. What happens, how leaders behave, how leaders speak.

Misael Diaz [00:51:07]:
How leaders. You talk about how leaders think. Right? So your podcast comes before in mind because before I can have a language, I must have a thought. Right? So what I speak is the product of my thinking. So I gotta come to Kenny first so I can then go to Misael.

Kenny Lange [00:51:25]:
All right, so we need to get somebody that's doing like the, the next. We'll just, we'll just string it together, but we'll, we'll have the link to the show on Spotify, but it's on Apple podcasts and everywhere else. Find podcasts are consumed. Well, Michelle, I really appreciate you coming on. I hope that this certainly will not be the last time we have a recorded conversation, but I think you've dropped a lot of wisdom on us for one day and we're better for it. Please go find him. YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, all these different places and you'll be better for it. And thank you to all you who chose to listen today.

Kenny Lange [00:52:08]:
We don't take for granted the time that you spent here. As you've heard Missile said at the top of the show is thinking about you who are, who are saying, hey, I want to learn something. I want to get better. I want to improve myself as a leader, whether you lead one or hundreds. So if you wouldn't mind, I would love a review rate it subscribe, like whatever the platform that you're on. You know, they're, they're call to action number one. It gives me feedback to improve this podcast. I don't want to do this just for the joy of hearing myself speak.

Kenny Lange [00:52:43]:
I don't need that. But I would love to make this podcast better and better every time that I hop on one of these conversations so that I'm drawing out the very best of these guests and bringing you content that actually shifts how you think about leadership. The other thing is any of those actions help this be found by more and more people. And there are leaders just like you who are on their journey that could benefit from hearing one of these conversations. That you never know what your actions today might mean for somebody discovering the conversation that unlocks their next level of growth in leadership. And that is a free and easy way for you to pay it forward and make a debt in the universe. But until next time, change the way you think you'll change the way you lead. We'll see you sa.