The Talent Forge: Shaping Workforce Behaviors with Jay Johnson

Leadership Beyond Limits: Owning Your 1% in Every Situation with Juan Alvarado

• Jay Johnson • Season 1 • Episode 59

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What happens when military discipline meets empathetic leadership? Juan Alvarado's extraordinary journey from military sergeant to leadership coach reveals powerful insights for anyone developing talent.

After nearly a decade in military service followed by law enforcement, Juan faced a profound realization: "You go 10 to 12 years not knowing if you're going to come home, at the end of the day gets old pretty fast." This pivotal moment led him to youth development, where he revolutionized training approaches before launching his own leadership coaching practice.

Juan brings a refreshingly practical perspective to leadership development. Having faced life-threatening situations, he approaches difficult conversations with a unique clarity. His approach balances toughness with remarkable empathy through his HAT framework: How do you Handle what you hear? How do you give Attention with the right attitude? How do you Transform the temperature?

Whether you're developing talent professionally or simply trying to help others grow, Juan's frameworks provide actionable tools for meaningful transformation.

Ready to revolutionize your approach to leadership development? Subscribe now and share this episode with someone who could benefit from these insights.

Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayjohnsonccg/
Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com

Speaker 1:

Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of training and development. I am joined by special guest Juan Alvarado. Welcome to the show, Juan.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for having me. I appreciate you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so why don't we have the audience get to know you a little bit? What's your story and how did you get into the talent development space?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So right out of high school jumped straight into the military and was in the military for right shy under 10 years where I moved my way up the ranks to sergeant. I was this close to staff sergeant and getting out as an E6. But the military has a problem when you say you're going to get out, they won't promote you right before you get out for bragging rights, I guess. So yeah, so stayed there and then worked the police department for two years before.

Speaker 2:

I kind of had enough of it. Just wanted to have more of an impact. Even though I love doing what I was doing, you go 10 to 12 years not knowing if you're going to come home at the end of the day gets old pretty fast, I guess. And so I just want to have more of an impact on youth and youth development. So I went into that whole area staff, a lead and then a manager and then director of programs and so from there just started to craft and change the way we did our hiring practices, what we did for personal development, got into a different way of training staff and then started to help other organizations do that kind of as a like a side hustle, if you will, and it kind of just took off from there. And now I left the nine to five and I do keynotes and trainings for leaders and their teams.

Speaker 1:

Amazing. Well, thank you for your service on multiple fronts. It's a. You know that's gotta be an interesting transition. I actually want to dig into that just a little bit. One of my business partners she's actually the chief of police for a local municipality, and another person that I had worked with in some crisis communications was in the military, so I know how hard they work. I know how hard every one of them work. So, seriously, thank you for that service. But so how is that transition? One, you go from one of these spaces to another. There's got to be some cool lessons that you were able to bring over there. That's got a completely unique perspective for our audience. Do you have any Talk to me? This is so fascinating for me. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so it was tough to transition specifically from the military side because you feel that life has been on pause. It's almost like if you go on vacation and you come home and maybe you leave three, four, five days and you really don't have anybody, that maybe house sits or anything like that. But you come back and everything is stay the same. No one's moved. Your furniture, their couches are still the same thing, your, you know, your counters might be or your TV might be a little bit more dusty, but everything's exactly the way that you left it.

Speaker 2:

That's a thought process when you're in the military and especially when you get deployed so veteran being deployed of 18 months, and so when you come back they tell you listen, your spouse or significant other probably has new friends, lost some friends, they probably don't talk to certain family members anymore. Their hair is shorter, longer dyed, whatever. Like, things have changed, things have moved around and so you have to be okay with the changes. And that's hard, especially if you're not really good with changes. So it just helps you to understand, like, bro, you're not the only one in this world. Life has changed.

Speaker 2:

So that was a little difficult at first, but going into, like, the nonprofit sector of things. You're not afraid to handle tough conversations. So that's, I'm huge on that. So two things that I'm really big into being intentional as a leader and to how to teach people how to have difficult conversations and like, why are they so tough and you know you're you get shot at or your bombs are coming your way. Telling somebody they that they need to step it up is not that scary, right?

Speaker 1:

So that's perspective.

Speaker 2:

Yeah big time. So to tell somebody, hey, cut the crap, you need to come in on time. Of course I'm not going to say it that way, but the courage, if you will, to have difficult conversations seems to be a little bit easier. But I'm also pretty empathetic and I understand. Stuff happens, family happens, so how do I connect with the person more? And so there is some different aspects, if you will, of it helps you to be brave and have those tough conversations. It also helps me help motivate people. So I definitely have a motivational voice, a coach's voice, a friend voice and an educator voice when I'm having meetings with people. So it's really helped me to kind of figure out, okay, what is what does this conversation really need? Does it need the motivator? Does it need a teacher? Does it? And so that's helped out quite a bit in in that and perspective has helped a lot. Like this is tough, like how do I get through this? No, you've been through tougher Go back there for a second oh yeah, this is easy.

Speaker 2:

So it's a gamut of things.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I think that's awesome because you also get the credibility for when people push back and be like Juan, this is so tough. You know you're putting me through the ringer here. I've got to go have this difficult conversation about my employee being late or so on and so forth and you're like, listen, let me talk to you about tough.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1:

I really like that. The one thing that I wanted to ask about is, as you were talking, I kind of picked up on something that I thought was really interesting that you said You've got that strength mentality, but you also have the empathy to sort of connect with those people, and I think that that's sometimes a challenge. Is, you know, especially if we're training managers, if we're training leaders? You know, there was an assessment that I just looked at. I'm not a big fan of it and I'm not going to name it, but it's like the way that they measure management is how assertive they are. No kidding, and I'm like what about other things like empathy, communication, all these other functions? Right, Like being able to balance empathy with that sort of assertiveness or toughness? How do you manage that when you're coaching people?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so two different things. It sounds like you're somewhat interested in assessments or things like that, which is why you probably looked into this one, but I'm a Gallup certified strengths coach, so I'm maybe you've heard of Gallup strengths or Clifton strengths I think they're rebranding that. So Clifton strengths tells you your depending on the report, that you get your top five strengths or your full 34 strengths, and empathy is one of those. And so as I go into organizations to help their leadership or their team with their strengths, there's some people in leadership positions that are asked to, or they ask their staff to, be empathetic, but empathy is not in their strengths. It might be their last strength. That, you know, is probably what we call dormant. Right, it's their 34 strength. They're not going to use it.

Speaker 2:

So how do you expect somebody to be empathetic and have empathy if that's the bottom of the barrel of their strengths? And so there's a ways that we coach like what are your strengths? How do we, how do we get that to be empathetic? Luckily for me? Um, empathy is, I think, seven or eight, so it's still within my wheelhouse of reaching that strength, the top 10. Yeah Right, but it's one of those things where you just have to tell people okay, if you don't have empathy, how do we use one of those strengths to look like it? In a sense, it's almost like mixed drinks. There's mixed drinks and if you mix out some alcohol and this juice and this juice and this spritzer and this and that, oh, this tastes like Dr Pepper. Like you could still use your strength to make it look like quote unquote look like or feel like empathy. But one thing I tell people to do is just slow things down. What is the end goal? What is the end result of things? Right, I do this with my kids. Conversation with my wife, other people in in the organizations that I help out is let's sew it down, what's the end goal? And so the example that I use is like I was spanked as a kid, um, and I used to tell my, tell me the story of like I'm glad I was. I was spanked because then it helped me become the person that I am. But at the same time, I'm like but that wasn't the best way to go about things, but it helped. And so, like, the whole thing was like you don't get respect or empathy, or cleaning your room or whatever goes on the hand and then on the butt, cheek, and all of a sudden now it now travels all the way up to your head and then you're like, oh, lesson learned. Thanks mom, thanks dad, like it doesn't happen that way. What's the end result? I just want my kids to respect me. I just want them to clean their room, okay. So if that's the end result, that's probably not going to help you get the end result. It's probably gonna make them fear you or scared of you, or now they're going to work and being timid, but that's not the end result. What's the end result? So, if I want my staff to come in late or, excuse me, if I want my staff to come in early and stop being late, maybe yelling and finger pointing and doing this, and it's not going to work.

Speaker 2:

Do the write-ups help? Yes, but the write-ups, the end result of the write-ups is either you get with it or we work your way out of the organization and we, you know you get another job, but sometimes it's just okay. What's going on? Does this stuff happen? Does SHIT stuff happen? Like sure it does. Has it ever happened to you? Have you ever popped a tire, you know, ran out of gas, whatever? Like we're all human, so there's some grace there. But just slow it down, have a conversation with somebody and, you know, go from there. If they don't have that, that empathy piece, try to see the shoes that they come there, try to put yourself in their shoes.

Speaker 2:

And I, there's a lesson that I do when it comes to being intentional, and I talk about put the right hat on. So sometimes we need to not be manager or director, right? Especially when we come home. Right, I'm sure your spouse doesn't want you to be right, they don't need podcast hosts, they don't need manager, they don't need director, right? I need to take that hat off and put you know spouse hat, supporter, you know whatever that hat is, and so hat is an acronym. So H how do you handle what you hear? A, how do you give attention, with the right attitude? And then T how do you transform the temperature? If I'm able to slow down, right, god, I'm pissed that this staff is late or having attitude or whatever. But you can complain and yell and point all you want, but who do they need me to be? How do I handle what I hear? Give attention, with the right attitude, and then how do I transform the temperature? And by then you're able to tap into what empathy might be or look like to that other person.

Speaker 1:

That's a huge takeaway, Juan, and I really like that acronym. I like the way that you approach that. As you mentioned assessments yeah, I've studied assessments. I like the way that you approach that you know, as you mentioned assessments, that yeah, I've studied assessments. I'm certified in about 25 of them and there's only two that I use. One of them is the one that I designed, Behavioral Elements, and the other one is StrengthsFinders at CliftonStrengths. I absolutely love it. I think it's a really, really powerful program for maybe an audience member that's not aware of the strengths. And you're right, they did switch it from like Gallup Strengths to Clifton StrengthsFinder or whatever else. We had deployed it at Ford Motor Company had great results with it. Why don't you tell the audience a little bit about what StrengthsFinder is and what value you get from using it with your clients?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so Strengths, don Clifton is the creator of it and he basically saw all these different assessments and you might be familiar with the disk assessment and there's numbers and colors and all this other stuff, myers-briggs, and I think even Myers-Briggs. He studied Myers-Briggs and was like how we keep on putting people in these boxes, if you will, or these quadrants, and there's more detail to those things. And so they did an assessment of all these different organizations, different functions of work, and they said why are the most successful people in all of these areas, no matter sex, gender, whatever it is, age, why are they so successful? And they found that everybody that's successful had 34 different traits, but that these 34 traits were in all of us, but they utilized what they found to be their top five or their top 10. And so then he figured out how to do this assessment.

Speaker 2:

It's funny because a lot of people don't know this that in strength, when you take those assessments, there's actually a time. Part of the data that they get is how quickly you answer those questions, and so there's a timer behind each question that you can't see on the back end, and so a lot of data comes from that, because you're assuring you're positive. This is the way I feel about X, y or Z. But long story short, you get your top five or your full 34. And basically there's four themes executing, strategic thinking, influencing and relationship building. And those strengths all kind of go within those four. And the cool thing is is I mean those of us that well, we could see each other. But it's cool because to me Myers-Briggs says oh, you're a guy, juan's a guy, you have a black shirt on, he's got a black shirt on. So you guys must handle this situation the same way where CliftonStrength says your strength for for Jay is this way and it shows up in him this way, and this, that same strength shows up in Juan differently. So a quick example is um, um, the strength relator. It's a relationship driven strength. But, um, some of my relator strength shows up one way and somebody else can have the same strength but it reads differently in how it comes through them and how it equips them. So I think the, the the stat is one in 33 million um is the odds of you and I having the same strengths in the same order and just shows how unique you are. So that's the reason why I like it.

Speaker 2:

So now what I do with it is I get my clients right, the leaders and their staff, and we pull their strengths. Or I've even helped couples where you get the husband and the wife and their strengths and we start to see do you understand why you get so frustrated? Because your strength is not being fulfilled? Do you see why they get frustrated? Do you see why you guys aren't seeing eye to eye? You want to execute, they want to think first. You want to just move, they want to think.

Speaker 2:

And so then we start to say, oh okay, so how do I understand their point of view? How do I get them to understand my point of view? And then it helps out even with communication. Just how do I? How do I speak to them? Ah, they need context. Well, that's one of the strengths, right? So I need to give them a little bit more data, a little bit more back work for them to understand what I need. And so when you can figure out their strengths and your strengths, man, it is like Jedi mind tricks when it comes to working with uh, with people in strengths.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, so, and that's so well said, and one of the biggest challenges that I've always had is personality assessments that say this is how you are and then all of a sudden that becomes a justification for whatever ask how should I be showing up in this situation?

Speaker 2:

and make an alternative behavioral choice.

Speaker 1:

So you know, from the strengths finder, the strengths. I always thought the coolest thing was one in 33 million, exactly what you said. You know our DNA in leadership or in communication, so unique and so valuable. But I really love the other aspect of it that says, hey, you know what, instead of trying to fix all of the issues that you have with you know your lowest, your 34, your 33, your 32, really focus your energy on what you're good at. That's going to be more fulfilling, more effective, more productive and it's going to lead to better results, and I thought that was, you know, a really brilliant way to set that model.

Speaker 1:

So, juan, let me ask this question as you're navigating behavioral change, because I mean, that's essentially what we're doing as coaches, trainers, that's what everybody in our audience really wants to do. You've seen some unique, you've got some unique perspectives, I'm sure, across you know, obviously, your military background or time in law enforcement, and obviously, as a coach, you know, as you navigate, essentially getting somebody to sometimes just get out of their own way or really kind of focusing their energy in a productive way. What are some of the steps that you try to do to identify what those barriers might be and then secondly help people sort of shift their behaviors.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So one of them is still kind of riding the coattails of strength. So, on strengths, there's blind spots, and so one of the things and what I tell people in blind spots are is it's basically a duplicate of you, right, it's you getting in the way of you. And so again, right, it's you getting in the way of you. And so again, I'll use the strength of relator where relator says that you have deep, meaningful relationships, um, so, and one of the things that they say is um, what, you're not right. So, um, one of the examples is if you go into an elevator, do you like? I'm not a person that says, hey, jay, what, what, what floor you want? Or you know I on, or you know, I don't know your name yet, right, uh, hey, sir, what, what floor do you want? I'll, I'll push the button for you. No. Or if you were to say hey, uh, room four or, excuse me, level four or whatever, I'd be like you can push your own dang buttons Like who in the heck you again later on in life I'm like hey, jay, what the heck, how are you doing? What are you doing? Here? And now I can have that conversation.

Speaker 2:

The blind spot is is, is when it comes to relator is uh, people think that you have favorites, right, the guy you come in and into the elevator and the guy next to me is like, why is he all talkative, that guy? How come he wasn't talkative to me? Ah, he must have favorites. No, that's not the case. So I noticed this when I was a director. When I go to certain organizations, uh, excuse me, certain um, uh buildings where we had staff, staff at other locations would say, oh, you have favorites Cause you're always at this location. No, I asked those people who needed help. They emailed me and said hey, can you come here and work with me one-on-one? And so I did. I don't have favorites.

Speaker 2:

And so the outside, or how I get in front of myself with that strength, is some people might think that you have favorites, but the strength says I have deep meaningful relationships. So how do I have favorites if I have deep meaningful relationships? It's because I'm so strong in this area. Meaningful relationships, it's because I'm so strong in this area. One of the examples that I give is there's a video of this big old, huge buff guy in the locker room and somebody gets a post-it and they put it right in between his back and he can't reach the post-it on the middle of his back and he can't reach it. He's got like these Tyrannosaurus Rex arms and he can't reach his back because he's so buff.

Speaker 2:

Your strength is you are huge and muscular and strong. The blind spot is you can't even scratch your own back, right. So how do people get in their way? We look at their strengths and we say do you see how other people see you? Do you see how you can get in your way? You keep on help. Your thought is helping people out, but you forget about this one or two people that you haven't talked to yet. And so that's one spot of how we start to look at those blind spots and start to tell if we can be aware of those blind spots.

Speaker 2:

I could say, okay, my workday today, I'm really close and I've talked to this staff, this staff, this staff who haven't I talked to today, so let me start off my day here, right, and so we start to find alignment.

Speaker 2:

So this is the next part is sometimes we do so much that there's not alignment with our own core values, what our goals are, and so one of the things in our and how we get in our way is we kick ourselves in the butt because we can never meet our goals or our expectations.

Speaker 2:

And here's the issue that I have with people when they set goals is, I would say, nine times out of 10, people don't know how to how to use um goal setting. And people will Google and do smart goals, right, um? And they'll say, okay, I need to be specific. I want to lose 10 pounds, okay, measurable, it's 10 pounds, and I want to do it by this date. And you go, they go through the, all, the, the, the acronym of smart, right, but what they end up doing is they are setting up themselves for failure because they are setting up results of goals, not the goal itself. Right, my goal to lose 10 pounds is to eat the macros that I need today. Go to the gym and do the workout today. Go on my walk or my run today. Goal set done, right.

Speaker 1:

Next time somebody tells you they want to lose 10 pounds, feel free to steal this from me, because I've used this one in the past. I take them by the hand and I measure out from their fingertips and I go down to about the elbow and I say, all right, right about there is where we're going to make the cut then. And they go what?

Speaker 2:

And I said that's where we're going to make the cut. You want to lose 10 pounds.

Speaker 1:

I can do this for you in 15 minutes. I've got you know, I've got a saw out in the trunk.

Speaker 1:

I will come back in here. We're going to achieve your goal right now, and they're like you know, but to your point. A lot of times we look at the result as the goal. But the goal is, if I shift my behaviors and I actually take steps and I build in that habit and I start creating the conditions to get those results, that's what's actually going to get me to my goal, not necessarily this phantom, because every time I see it, somebody starts a workout program for the first week. They go through it, they look at the scale at the end of the week and they've only dropped a pound and they're like why did I just kick my ass for an entire week for one lousy pound?

Speaker 1:

And the reality is, what they don't see in the background is that their metabolism is increasing, their breath is increasing, their blood is increasing. They're assuming that they actually did what they were supposed to do, but you know that whole concept of the journey. Well, I 100 percent agree with that. So how do you get people to get out of their own way though? Because, like this is, it doesn't seem intuitive, right? Like so often, people think they know how to set goals, or they come in and say Juan, don't, yeah, I don't need to worry about goals. I've already got my goals, I've got these things set up, I've got these measurables and the reality is is I think you're absolutely spot on A lot of people just don't know what they don't know. So how do you gently, maybe empathetically, help them to see that they may not know what they don't know?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the next part of this was going to be alignment in that piece, and so, again, to go back just a little bit, it could just be the weight loss thing, but it could be. I want to have better relationship with my spouse. Again, that's the result of the goal. If it is at work, I just want my staff to be more productive. Now, those are all results of this. So then we start to look at alignment. What is your? I tell people, what is your schedule, like your daily schedule, what is your? What are your priorities or values in that sense, but your priorities. And then what are your goals? And and then we re, we reassess their goals, or what are their KPIs, if you will, for business, and then we start to look at their schedule. And here's the gentle nudge is we start to show them that they are lacking alignment, right.

Speaker 2:

So here, quick example, people say what do you want to do? Lose weight, better relationship with my wife, whatever it is right. What do you do the first thing when you wake up? So we have their schedule right. And then we start to make their schedule truthful. So it says wake up, get ready. Do you literally hop out of bed six o'clock and you just go get ready, you hop in the shower, or do you get this rectangle off of your nightstand and start to scroll and see who emailed you and liked your photos, and go to all your social media things, and so this is your number one priority. If this is the first thing that you do and you check your phone, that might take priority. Not your spouse, not your weight loss journey, not whatever. It is Right and it's the same thing at work. I want my staff to be more happy.

Speaker 2:

So you go, walk in and you're like, hey, can't talk, I have a meeting. And you go straight to your computer, turn your computer on and you check your emails and who emailed you and what you have to do for that. But I thought your goal was, and so we start to show, when the staff or people write down their schedules, I don't know what's really your schedule. Then we start to find gaps and we start to and here's a big piece when you say how do you gently nudge, I get people to talk or walk themselves into a corner. I let the client or the or the staff talk and speak. Is this your schedule? Yep, okay, is this what you really do? No, I actually go on, get on my phone first. For how long, I don't know, about five, 10 minutes or 15 minutes, or actually I just sit in bed for like a half hour and I scroll, okay.

Speaker 2:

So do you understand why you're not meeting your goals? Do you understand why you're not doing? This is because what are you doing first, and so I don't give them the answer. I already know the answer. What are you doing instead? I'm scrolling or I'm wasting time, okay. So when you get mad and you say I don't have enough time in the day, we know that you spend 30 minutes scrolling here. You take this for lunch. You do this for this. You don't do this. You don't do that. How much time could you have? If you were to be laser focused, I could probably have two and a half hours, okay. So is your is the excuse? Now, what was your excuse? That I don't have enough time? How much time do you have now? Two and a half hours, okay.

Speaker 2:

So do we so that it's because I can easily say you waste your time, you don't do this, and I can get them from point A to point B, but then there's no learned lesson. I want them to say it. So I never give my kids the answer. I never give employees the answer. I always walk them through, make them answer, and that's to me, that's the gentle shove or nudge is they nudge themselves because they walk themselves in a corner when they start to give themselves their own answers.

Speaker 1:

You'll love this. There's a great study that was done with kids and they took two groups, group A and group B. Group A researchers came in and said hey, kids, you see this table of candy sitting there. Don't eat that candy, you'll get a stomach ache. You're going to get this, you're going to get this, you're going to get this and it'll ruin your dinner. Group B they did exactly what you said. They said, kids, do you love candy? And they're like, yeah, and you're like should we eat it all the time? And they're like, well, probably not. Okay, well, why not? Well, because it can make you sick. Mom says I need to save room for dinner, this, that and the other thing. When the researchers left, they timed how long it would take for the kids to absolutely demolish the candy there and it took the group A. It took them like four minutes before the first kid comes over, grabs a piece of candy, another kid, another kid, and they just destroy it all.

Speaker 1:

Group B actually ended up keeping themselves to like one or two pieces of candy and it was really about helping people find their own way and feeling the autonomy of being able to essentially navigate that, and I want to stick with that for a moment as you're coaching. How do you give people the sense of because I heard you say something earlier in the introduction how do you give people that sense, or how do you help them find that sense of ownership? That sense of this is actually on me, you know, I heard you as you were talking through that sort of walking them through the understanding of OK, you're scrolling. That doesn't align with what you actually want to accomplish. Why are you doing that?

Speaker 1:

But humans have this fascinating capacity to come up with a wide variety of excuses. Oh well, my boss, you know, make sure that I have to check that email in the morning. So it's not my fault that I'm scrolling first and not taking care of my wife, my kids, my whatever my partner, my spouse, etc. Cetera. It's my boss's fault, or well, I have to do that because and and how do you?

Speaker 2:

help them navigate and really sort of own that space. So again, two things. One is even if it's somebody else's fault, it has nothing to do with you and it's a hundred percent their fault how do we dumb it down to 99% and you take 1% ownership, just 1%. But then how do you take 100% of that 1%? Very quick story my son is in high school, goes to a private school, christian school, and he's a good kid and he was getting a little picked on.

Speaker 2:

It was a friend that he has that sometimes have good days and bad days. But he's behind him flicking his ear and slapping the back of his head. He's like bro, stop, stop, dude, we, we're, we're done, we're past, we're done with this already. And he keeps on doing it. He keeps on doing it. And then one last final hard flick right in the back of the year and my son gets up, turns around and says bro, what the F and the? And the teacher says Levi, go outside. And he ends up getting detention. He texts me. He's like hey, dad, I'm getting detention today because I said the F word and I was like okay, why? Why, he goes, I'll explain when I get home. I said okay, and then I still have the text message Um. And I said I said to him um, I need to do a better job mentoring you. I wasn't in the classroom and I didn't teach him that word. I wasn't there, I didn't tell him to say it, but I, as his father, had to take ownership of that 1%. And I said you know what? I need to do a better job of mentoring you as your father to help you understand how do you control yourself. I need to sit down and figure out what do I need to do to change. And he was like wait a minute, I'm not getting yelled at right now, like what the heck. Wait a minute, I'm not getting yelled at right now, like what the heck. And so he started. And so when he came home, he's like God, I apologize. And so there's a.

Speaker 2:

There's a story that I heard of of a guy uh told his son to come pick him up at work and his son was late and picking him up and he said no, I want you to drive home, I'm going to walk. And so the dad gets out of the car and walks in the rain and the son is like get in the car, get in the car, get in the car and he's like no, no, no, no. And the son apologized. It was never late again. Why?

Speaker 2:

Because he felt empathetic to his dad. He realized that he messed up and sometimes you have to take yourself out of the situation but take ownership at that same time, and so what I try to do is try to have those people take dude. I just want you to take 1%, but how do you own that? It is not the other person's fault 100% of that 1%. And so in that my son was like I need to do better and you know I'm sorry. He apologized. He even punished himself and I was like okay, so let's figure out your consequences. He's like I think we should do this, this and this. I was like all right, cool and how. Another thing that helps get there is he had an understanding. You said this with the kids and the whole candy thing. They understood the why.

Speaker 2:

And my big thing I know we talked off camera on this is about there's zero fluff, like I'm a speaker that I don't like. I want to give you tangible things that you can do, real frameworks, and not just motivate you. Motivation's cool until you get to the gym. I can motivate you to lift 300 pounds, but now you got to lift the 300 pounds once we get to the gym, like, enough talking.

Speaker 2:

I think there's a saying that says everyone wants to act like a lion until they get into the jungle, and then all the animals are going to know that you, you're not a lion, right? So, um, how do we find their why? And so there's a lot of motivational speakers and a lot of people that are like find your why, lead with your why, and then you leave the seminar and you're like, yeah, I think you're like you really didn't say anything. How in the hell do I find my why? So, to me, why is an acronym, why, what hurts you, or who hurts you, what hinders you or who hinders you? And then, what will help you or who will help you? And if you can go and get WHO and figure out excuse me, who and figure out the who and the what hurts you, hinders you and would help you, you start to figure out your why. And so perfect examples of the kids like it's the what.

Speaker 2:

What's going to hurt you? The candy and the cavities and the stomach aches, what's going to hinder you If I take that candy? Well, what's going to hurt you the candy and the cavities and the stomach aches. What's going to hinder you If I take that candy? Well, what's going to help you Not eat all of the candy? Like they understood the full version of the why. We see this a lot in people who are in counseling. Or maybe you run this through yourself, like, why do you coach people? Why are marriage, family therapists, marriage family therapists? Well, if you get to talk to, I would say, a majority of them, I would say 90%, if not 99%, of the family marriage therapists that I know their parents had horrible marriages or they were divorced.

Speaker 2:

Right, they find out what hurts you. I didn't have, you know, the stability or the input, the help that I needed as a kid Okay, so what hinders you? I couldn't find you know the help or how to go to kid. Okay, so what hinders you? I, I couldn't find you know the help or how to go to all these people, and it's a lot of you know education. Okay, what's going to help you? I'm going to go to school for this and now I'm going to help other people, and so people find their why.

Speaker 1:

My brother. My brother, uh, has dyslexia and he's about 12 or 13 years my senior and at the time there was no resources for that. In fact, they just thought he was dumb and tried to um, you know, essentially hold him back. He ended up going to the university, putting himself through an undergrad, then went to michigan state university, got himself a teaching degree and now he goes and he is a special education teacher and has been doing so for the past 25 years. Exactly what you said it. I got in this to make sure that some other kid like me isn't experiencing that same thing. So I love that. Why concept? It's brilliant and you know, it's really a tactical way to walk through that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we find that we and this is not my line. It's a mentor of mine named Rory Vaden. He says we are best positioned, we are perfectly positioned to serve the person who we once were. And if I look at it, I'm like, oh my gosh, I am serving the leaders that I wish I had in my life, like I'm serving the kid that I wish that I had over me.

Speaker 2:

So, with all that being said, when we figure out like how do we nudge people to take this ownership piece, they have to find the why. Why should you walk around the block 10 times? What happens? What's going to hurt you if you don't do it? Like, what's going to happen if you don't do it? I'm going to continue to gain weight, my heart rate is going to go whatever, diabetes and heart losing heart function, blah, blah, blah. Well, what's going to help you if I get up and I walk? Why?

Speaker 2:

And so, once you find out the why behind things, and people say, like I even talked to somebody who had, like a porn addiction and it was like, what happens? What does it hurt? What hinders you? What's going to help you? And you have to audibly say, like this is what's going to happen if I continue to do this and this, and so when they audibly hear themselves again take ownership of that one percent, then they say I can't, because I know that if I, if that's not, if I do this, when I do this, this is the outcome. If I make this change, or when I make this change, this is the outcome. Which one do I want now? And just teaching people you know the difference between what you want now versus what you want most.

Speaker 1:

So smart because you perfectly addressed, even like my, why for starting the Talent Forge podcast, for running the Elite Training Academy, for writing a book on training was to help myself 20 years ago and all the things that I screwed up along the way to be better. You know, to help those people to be better. Juan, this has been an absolutely fascinating conversation. I really appreciate your insights and all the takeaways that you've left the audience. If my audience wanted to get ahold of you, how would they connect with you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so two different spots and it's two different spellings of this. So Instagram is going to be raise the bar with the Z, so R-A-I-Z-E raise the bar, ceo. On Instagram and then on LinkedIn it's R-T-B for raise the bar, r-t-b dash Juan J-U-A-N, and you can just DM me there if you need to get a hold of me. And then, lastly, the website is we raise same spelling, we raise the barcom.

Speaker 1:

Love it. Thank you so much for joining me today, Juan, and for all the incredible insights.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1:

And thank you, audience, for tuning into this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of training and development.

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Jay Johnson, CEO and Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements

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