Leading Yourself So You Can Lead Others with Jeremie Kubicek

that’s been out lately. Our PR team is sort of asked to pause on content promotion to not be sort of tone deaf on social media and things so I don’t know when this will drop but I’ll keep you in the loop.

jeremie_kubicek:
Yeah, I

caleb_stevens:
So,

jeremie_kubicek:
get

caleb_stevens:
alright.

jeremie_kubicek:
it.

caleb_stevens:
Well, Jeremy, it’s great to have you back on the Community Bank Podcast. Catch us up, what’s new in your world? I think we spoke a couple years ago in the throes of COVID, so what’s been new in the world of giants?

jeremie_kubicek:
Yeah, it’s so fun. Good to be with you, Caleb. Thanks for the time. You know, what we’ve done is we basically pivoted right before we started in January of 2020, we went to all SAS technology, and a service subscription model, and it saved our bacon. It was unbelievable timing. We dropped 70% on our consulting service business and grew 70% on the tech side at the same time. perfect timing. But what we’re doing is basically we’ve figured out how to scale leader development because time and money were the main issues or factors and a lot of times it wouldn’t work. So people had experienced bad things in the past. So we figured out our content was always good because it was built for the cynical know-it-alls. It’s all visual and it doesn’t take much time and it’s expensive. And that’s what we’ve solved. And so we’re scale, we’re in 115 countries now. We’ve got about 900 consultants in our space. And so it’s been a good season.

caleb_stevens:
There’s a few people that I know that are sort of in my circle and you always sort of wonder what do they do specifically? Do they speak? They’re right. They have this company, but if you could boil giant down into a synopsis for the folks that missed our last podcast discussion,

jeremie_kubicek:
Yeah.

caleb_stevens:
what are you really trying to accomplish and who you’re really trying to serve at Giant?

jeremie_kubicek:
Yeah. So we basically created the leaders toolkit to help leaders learn how to unlock the potential of their people. And in essence, we solve the people problem that is how do you get people to be engaged? And most people don’t know how to do it. So they just wake up every day with really annoying people issues. And so we solve people issues by training and then we train them to apprentice other people. And we use the technology system and our visual tools that’s almost like creating a leadership language for them to use for their organization. So our main client is a consultant or the internal champion who’s excited. Let’s say it was UK 11 side community. You would be the catalyst and you become the partner inside and it’s $200 a month content and you start building it from the inside. So we figured out how to scale and make it sustainable.

caleb_stevens:
Well, I think that’s a good segue into one question. I don’t know if I’ve ever asked you before, which is, you know, you’ve written a number of books. If they were sort of a common theme that ran throughout all of your books, if there’s a single sort of message that you, Jeremy Kupichak, want to impart to leaders, I mean, I found your books enormously helpful because of what you said. It kind of gives you some easy handles and some easy models and mental frameworks, five gears, five voices to get your mind around. here.

jeremie_kubicek:
Yeah, so one of them, I’ll tell it this way, I had a mentor, his name was Doug, and it was years ago, he said, “‘Jeremy, do fountains move?’ He’s an 80-year-old mentor, and I go, no, Doug, fountains don’t move. I got people come to a fountain. He goes, but what if the water’s bad?’ I’m like, ah, people walk around that fountain. Yeah, they don’t come to it. He goes, right, Jeremy, be a good fountain. Be a good fountain. What I’m basically doing is I’m helping people become the person they’ve always wanted to be, but have never known how to become. And I’m using tools to help them seed broccoli in their teeth, or maybe their water is bad, and what to do about it. And it’s working, you know, after 10 years of this model. It’s like, yeah, it works. So it’s fun to see it.

caleb_stevens:
As your view on leadership changed, the more you’ve been in this space, I mean, when you started, whenever it was, a couple decades ago, has it changed? Has it evolved? Or have you always sort of had the same perspective on what makes influential

jeremie_kubicek:
Yeah.

caleb_stevens:
and positive leader?

jeremie_kubicek:
Well, so I used to own John Maxwell stuff. I’ve worked with a lot of different people in that space. And yeah, I would say it has actually gotten a lot more simple. I think I realized that the Harvard definition of leadership is not very helpful. All the definitions that are all jargon. So I put it in a narrative or in a metaphor. And the metaphor is the Sherpa on Mount Everest. That the Sherpa, they’re the people that help people climb. They’re the people group. It’s the definition of leadership. They have to climb while helping people climb. That’s what leadership is. You perform while helping people perform. But the problem is, is a lot of people, they’re performers who got the leadership job because people were afraid they would leave. So let’s give them the manager job so that they stay, but they’re, to make more money, but they’re really not, they don’t know how to help climbers. They know how to climb. So most of the leadership jargon that’s out there is really about climbership. And we started focusing on being a Sherpa. Now, pure leadership is performing while helping people perform. So I would rather have someone who is a lower performer but was an amazing at helping people perform.

caleb_stevens:
Ha

jeremie_kubicek:
And I just don’t think there’s a lot of true leadership language out there. I think there’s a lot of climbership language.

caleb_stevens:
Any thoughts too on something I sort of see today is there’s leadership, the brand, you know, you’ve got a big social media following, you give speeches, you write books, there’s sort of the leadership personal brand, and then there’s people you actually want to follow and people who are actually leading people, guiding people while climbing at the same time. And it seems like in not not every case, but in some cases, there’s folks who are on that a whole lot in terms of an organization or people or anything like that and yet they’ve got the following and the pizzazz. How do you sort of think about the differences between those two things?

jeremie_kubicek:
Yeah, it really is climbership. I’m around it all the time. They’ve not led organizations. So they’re really saying, you can be the leader within. It’s all the personal growth. And I’m not saying that’s all necessarily bad, because there are some good things there. It’s just that when you think about becoming a person that people want to follow, then you build systems. And then you lead in an organization. anyone years old. It’s just so you have failure and failure is the driver to a lot. Like I want to follow people who’ve failed a lot. And if I see that you’ve never let anyone, but you’re talking about these leadership principles, then that’s really a shtick. And it’s a shtick that you’re trading on and following all these formulas that are out there. people who have worked with people.

caleb_stevens:
Yeah. Well, tell us about your latest book, The Peace Index. When it came out, I was sort of scratching my head thinking, okay, Jeremy, you’ve written great books on self-awareness, you’ve written great books on leadership, the 100X Leader, making your leadership come alive. The Peace Index, that sounds kind of squishy, that sounds kind of soft. What are you trying to get at, you know, with this book?

jeremie_kubicek:
So I had my publisher, Wiley, they were like, Hey, can you write this? We think the world needs it. And they gave me 30 days to write it. And I did. I wrote it in 18 days because it’s something we’ve taught forever. And the idea is peace is power. And that you’re either empowered or disempowered based on the level of peace in your life. So the great resignation is basically everyone leaving jobs to try to find in another job when there’s no inner peace. So inner peace is actually the secret. So when you don’t know, when you’re being swayed by the chaos of the world or trying to chase something, so you’re not developed inner peace, you’re causing a lot of chaos to those around you. And so the idea is that you have a number, everyone listening, you have a number over your head right now, your people in your life, the place you’re at, the personal health and the provision. And it’s basically an assessment for you to understand the number over your head today. And if you wanna know where the number over your head is, which would be really interesting to know, wouldn’t you wanna know where your spouse is or your kids or your coworkers are? So it gives a language to help people understand why they’re not at peace and where they’re off. engage and actually have more internal peace which leads to more power, more secure confidence. So it’s directly tied to leadership. It’s just I’m trying to take what is a squishy word and turn it from soft to powerful.

caleb_stevens:
Early on in my career, I didn’t have the mental sort of map and model that you’re talking about, but early on in my career, I remember I got to a point where I had to ask myself this question. Caleb, is this a job problem or is this a you problem? Are you having a rough day today at work because things that your job externally are legitimately not as they should be and not healthy? Or is it because you only got five hours of sleep last night because you stayed up too late? or you really haven’t thought through other areas of your own life that you’re bringing to work that’s creating disruption But it’s a result of you not so much the job and it sounds like that’s kind of what you’re trying to help leaders Pass through in certain cases. Maybe there is external factors that you need to remove yourself from but in some cases Maybe it’s problems you’re bringing into the work and you’re sort of Justifying it by saying well, it’s it’s these people here at work. It’s not me

jeremie_kubicek:
That’s the idea. It’s how can you manage your emotions so that other people don’t have to manage your emotions?

caleb_stevens:
Yeah.

jeremie_kubicek:
And so the whole concept of the peace index is really know yourself to lead yourself. And but it gives you practical tools. Everything I do is very, very simple and very practical where you can actually implement it. And then you teach it immediately because what’s been happening is most of us have been allowing other people’s lack of peace our level of peace. And so it’s really about building resiliency through the entire process.

caleb_stevens:
and you

jeremie_kubicek:
And

caleb_stevens:
touch

jeremie_kubicek:
so if

caleb_stevens:
the…

jeremie_kubicek:
you want to, there’s a there’s a free link. You can go take it if you want to take the test. It’s the peaceindexbook.com. The peaceindexbook.com and you can go take the assessment for free. And so that might be something you might want to do.

caleb_stevens:
And you touched briefly on the five components of the piece index, but if you want to just riff maybe real quickly on just those five, what are they, why do they matter, and I’ve heard

jeremie_kubicek:
Yeah.

caleb_stevens:
you say in talks before, you may be really high in some and low in others, and there’s your opportunity to work on the ones that are lower.

jeremie_kubicek:
Well, the first one is every one of us has a driver. One of them is most important. So again, the five are the purpose, people, place, personal health, or provision. Provision is your earnings. Do you have enough to live the life that you’re living? You have a car, house. It’s not what you want, it’s what you need. So do you have enough provision? Personal health is mind, body, soul. Place is, these are the places that supercharge you or should. your apartment, your neighborhood, your office space, your city, region, how good do you feel about your place right now? And then your people, or the people in your life, these aren’t the best people in your life, like your favorite people, just the top 10 people you spend the most time with. How are you one through 100? And then purpose is how much is what you’re doing match who you are. Do you feel, does it, you feel aligned in what your work is? yesterday was helping. She was actually a speaker on vision and I’ve met with her. She’s a little older and I met with her and I could tell her something off so I went directly to the peace index. So I go tell me the numbers where you are and her people were at 50 percent, her place was at 10 percent and her purpose was at 50 percent. Her purpose usually is at 90 percent but the place is dragging it down living somewhere out of obligation. She’s trying to help her kids with their kids when her kids don’t need help. She’s a widow and she hasn’t fully lived yet. So she’s living out of obligation. So the peace index made her help her go, Oh my goodness, I need to move. And like, yeah, you need to move. And she she had a plan to move to Orlando. Like go to Orlando. Her best friends are there. She’s got all this life. Go live it. Do it. And it just, it was almost like the peace index showed her where there’s a lack of peace.

caleb_stevens:
Mm-hmm.

jeremie_kubicek:
And then you find out at that point, what are the controllables and what are the uncontrollables? If you’re lowest is personal health, make a list of your controllables. And so it’s, I don’t let people generally whine. So if you’re around me, you can’t generally whine. We can specifically talk about frustrations, but no general whining. So the Peace Index gives you the chance to find specifically what’s not working and why.

caleb_stevens:
How good have you observed our people at self-scoring themselves versus I need some outside input and help?

jeremie_kubicek:
It’s actually surprising. They’re really bad at it until they’re given a framework like the peace index. Because if I said, hey, Caleb, how are you? Yeah, I’m good. I got what number would you give yourself? I don’t know, seven out of 10, 70 percent. All right, OK, what does that mean? It’s too generic. But by giving them the peace index, now it’s an actual assessment. Oh, well, my people are probably an 80, 50, I mean, they’re really specific and they’re usually a very spot on. And then they go take the test and the assessment is not too far from what they did subjectively, even though it’s more objective. So it’s actually surprised me how good people have been once you’ve given them parameters.

caleb_stevens:
Where does the outside news and noise that people consume on their feeds and social media come into play here? Because it seems like if you want to go out looking for negativity and for all kinds of distractions on your phone, it’s very easy to do so. Where do you sort of see that, a personal health kind of thing or where does that come into play?

jeremie_kubicek:
Yeah, actually, it affects, it’s almost like a blanket over all of them, because for some people they do comparison studies every day. Like, look at their friend, they’ve lost weight, look at what they’re getting to do. So that affects their purpose, their people, maybe their place, their house isn’t as nice. So it’s almost like a blanket. In the same way that news in the chaos. addicted to our favorite chaos. For some people, it’s social unrest. For some people, it’s climate change. Some people, it’s the war in Russia. Some people, it’s political unrest. It’s inflation. We always have our one-stick that we’re focused on, and that usually affects us, and it creates negativity. And so I’m like, guys, eradicate negativity. All it’s doing is creating worry. What chaos do you need to eliminate? So again, the peace index gives you this chance. Sometimes it’s people. In the book, I have people go through the peace assessment and you actually list your top 10 people that you’re around the most and score them, but you can’t show anyone that list ever or your peace index drops dramatically if they see it. But you’re like, okay, Caleb’s a 62 in my life. You’re not really, but let’s just say you’re 62. Why? So far as it depends on me, how can I increase that score? So it’s just a fun game that’s helping people dramatically change. And I’ll have people, Caleb. I’ve been out since October. It’s on Amazon. People are buying it like crazy. And they’re telling me, I had this conversation with my daughter. Oh my goodness, or my wife. And they’re doing date nights. And they’d have every night, every date night, they’ll have a different conversation. make it about purpose. The next time let’s make it about people. And it’s changing because it’s giving them common language.

caleb_stevens:
Mm-hmm.

jeremie_kubicek:
So that’s what I’m so grateful for.

caleb_stevens:
Yeah, well, just to wrap up, two quick questions. Where can they find the book and the assessment? And two, what are some practical applications for leaders? We’ve got several hundred community bank executives all over the country listening. If they want to implement this with their executive teams, with the teams that they lead every day at their banks, what are some practical applications here?

jeremie_kubicek:
Yeah, so number one, you can find it on Amazon. It’s easy. The peace index to if you want to go take the assessment, it’s the peace index book.com. Three, if you’re if you’re an executive or if you’re a leader, a team leader, or let’s just say any at one, go learn the peace index and then immediately teach it to someone else after you’ve done it. Tell them what your score is. Hey, I’m a 72 today. And by the way, it changes every single day. take it weekly. Some people take it daily. That’s too much in my view. But you can take it weekly, monthly, and you keep track of your score and you can see what level and it really gives you language to start knowing what to control. So it’s amazing for an executive team to do. You can do it through the book. Or if you wanted to and go deeper and actually keep the process of it, then we have the giant technology. You can have people come and do and really simple way you can bring people in to do it with your team.

caleb_stevens:
Well, we’re going to link to that in the show notes of the episode. Folks, definitely go check out Jeremy’s book, check out the assessment and start implementing it with your teams. Jeremy, this has been great. Thank you so much for your time. And we’re excited for folks to dive in further to everything you’re doing.

jeremie_kubicek:
Thank you, Caleb. Appreciate you, my friend.