Never Grow Up

This is the Daily Boost Podcast with Scott Smith. Zip, zip, come on in here. I've been waiting for you. Good to have you. It's Wing It Tuesday. As you recall from yesterday's show, if you were here yesterday, that I realized I didn't have a podcast for today after preparing six of them when I was out of town.

I realized right in the middle of it, I said, gosh, I got to make a podcast today. I have no plan in front of me, not even a word. So we're going to wing it today. Is that okay?

It's going to be good, though, because I got a great story, because I thought about it yesterday. I teased you. That was a very, it was a great tease. It really was, because some of you went right to today, didn't you?

Didn't mean to do it. I should mean to do that more. I should manipulate you more to get you to do what I want you to do. I should. I know how. I've been doing this a long time and radio and everything forever.

I know how to do this, but I didn't do that purpose. I just caught myself. Anyway, I should be back from Death Valley right now. I should know if Croy broke the record or not.

And I should know how we partied in Las Vegas after that. But I've been watching my diet really well, not drinking anything, just being a good boy. So I don't know what that party was.

A nice wholesome party, maybe an ice cream cone just to treat myself. I don't know what happened. We'll see. So today we're going to wing it a little bit.

Don't have any notes. Well, the notes I have, I had from yesterday. I don't have today's notes at all. But I wanted to share a story with you. And I was actually sharing this story before I came in here this morning.

I was chatting with my wife out there. My wife was the warmup for my podcast. It happens often. I was up early and I was kind of doing some work and doing some studying and thinking, which is what I do.

I... if you were married to me, you'd like me. I just kind of go off on my laptop or go back into my office and I'll sit there and just research and think for three or four hours, just being quiet. Then I'll come out and do something.

All right. I was doing that, but then it came out. And of course, now my wife is my sounding board in many ways. And then I start telling her stories and what, what are you thinking about this?

And what are you gonna do with that? And I, and she kind of accused me a little bit and I just go on. And at some point I'll say, well, let me go into a podcast because I'm ready now. I want to share a story.

I have a client. I won't give her name, but you'll know who she is. And it was so interesting because we were talking about where she is in her business and she works with somebody else and she's pretty high up there. She earns well and she's in a, I won't even say the field she's in, but she's done okay.

Very, very highly paid position, a very responsible position. You got to be a very smart person to do this job. And whenever you're in that kind of environment, there's a lot of competition around, a lot of leadership, a lot of money being thrown around, a lot of issues, and sometimes hard to manage.

Maybe you're there as well. So we're talking about what she does, and she would come into the same category that I would put myself in. And my guess is I'd put you in it because I think most people who listen to this program are probably pretty nice people. I know I come across sometimes kind of direct.

Sometimes my language can get colorful. Sometimes I can just get to the point really fast. Sometimes my – Scott's mean. No, not really. Not mean at all.

I'm actually very nice about it. But I just understand that I want to get you to where you can go as fast as I possibly can. And sometimes that hurts.

The good old come to Jesus conversation, right? But she's like me. She's nice. And the nice has gotten her everywhere. She's done everything right, and she's done very well with it.

And then there's another side of her. She also has the renegade side that I have. Now, when I say renegade, I don't mean renegade, go break things and make things back, that kind of thing.

I'm talking being influential, being impactful, deciding something needs to be fixed. Like maybe there's a bad leader in front of you. And instead of tearing everything down and breaking everything, you decide, no, I'm just going to be a better leader and show them the way. That's what I do, by the way.

I can get in trouble when I'm working within organizations because I will follow you. I'm a great follower as long as you're a good leader. But the minute you're not a good leader, I will still be nice, as I always am, but I will decide to flip on the nice renegade side of me, and I will begin to affect change in the entire organization, and you better get out of the way or get your act together, one or the other. And oftentimes what ends up happening is if I do it improperly, I'll get fired.

Ask me how I know that. But if I do it properly, then people realize the power I actually have, and I start to head in that direction. And things change.

So that's what's happening with this client I was working with. The same thing. She's very, very nice and very, very good about playing by the rules and getting everything she wants, but also has this other side. But she said something to me that kind of wigged me out a little bit when I first heard it.

And she says, Scott, they weaponize me and send me out to deal with clients. They weaponize my skill set. And they send me out to close the deals, do all the stuff that they want me to do. And that's the reason I'm successful.

The reason our department's successful, they weaponize that part of me. And I'm nice and everything, but it's that other part where I can kind of go renegade on them in a nice way. They weaponize that for the profit of the company. My boss weaponizes me to get his position solidified.

So he has the power. So he can say he's got the best team. He weaponizes me to do that. And I'm hearing that going, boy, she's right. Absolutely, I would do it.

I'd weaponize her in a second. Are you kidding me? Isn't that what we do? We get A performers who come into our organization. If you don't weaponize those A performers, they're going to leave and start a company and compete against you.

And I've got news for you. If you're a B performer and you're hiring A people, it is not long before they will either overtake you or they will leave you, sit where you are.

B players do not work for A players. You can only hold on to your power so long if you're the weakest link and you're at the top. They weaponize her and they send her out there. But really kind of flipped me out with this when she kind of expressed it differently.

We had a great conversation about that weaponization. But she said, I think what I need to do is I need to weaponize myself within the company. Boom. Boom.

In other words, she came to the realization. She has to be nice like she is the nicest person in the room. Or as my Billy says, I am the nicest person in the room and the most dangerous person all at the same time.

She said, I got a knife that I cut through bone in my pocket. Is it really? Can I see it? When she figured that out, that broke her through. And we spent the next hour kind of working through what that actually means and how she can weaponize herself, her skillset.

That's why I'm leaning into this so hard because I've seen it work so well. Well, we take the nice person that you are, the person who has gotten you exactly where you are, has moved to a point in your career and you feel like you're beating your head against something. I don't know what it is.

The very thing that they hire you for, they don't let you use in the environment you work in. So what we did was I said, well, yeah, let's weaponize yourself.

So what would you do if you went out to a client? Well, this is how I would do it. I would do this, this, and this. All really good, all ethical. Everything about it is good.

But what happens was she ups that leadership ability. She ups the creativity. She puts everything into it knowing that she has to close the deal. I said, well, let's turn that around to your boss, to your upper management.

Let's turn it around. Let's start using it the same way. What would you do? And immediately she had a thousand ideas. She immediately knew what to do.

She weaponized that part of herself. Here's what happens with people that are really capable. People like you, people that know what you're doing. People like me, I do the same thing.

I'm a capable guy. I can do a lot, but I will sit on the nice side and be the nice guy. And I won't jump in and make a couple of waves in a very positive way. Now, I am very capable of absolutely making waves in a very bad way.

I learned that when I was a shock jock when I was in my early 20s. I was able to do things and say things to people that... I wish I hadn't, but I got great ratings, got paid for it really well. I backed away from that career because I was too good at being that guy.

So I learned over time, I just don't have that in me. What I really want, I have the talent, I can do it, but what I really like to do is be nice and be creative and then leverage that, weaponize myself to be able to get what I want in any environment that I'm in. And you do have to stop and think about it because usually if you're a nice person, what are you doing? Well, you're trying to be nice, you're walking around and you're just, you're missing opportunity.

Let me ask you a question too. If you are, Have you noticed people around you that got out of bed this morning, decided to weaponize themselves? Have you noticed that?

Yes, there are people that actually do it and that's their only thing they do. And those are the ones that are kind of, I think they're usually below you and their talent, their skills, their ambitions and everything. I think they just have that power because I'm going to be this way. This is how I control my day.

You recognize they're there, right? That they got out of bed this morning, weaponizing whatever they had inside themselves to stop you. You got that, right?

So therefore, you need to break out of this nice thing and say, I'm going to be nice, but I'm also going to understand the most powerful, likely the very thing they pay me for that gives me the most value for this company. They're not allowing me to use in the place I need to use it to take care of myself and advance myself to make my career goes where it needs to go. I'm not even using the best part of me to get there.

Boom. We hit on that, and I wish I could share the email she sent to me once we hit on that and worked it out for about an hour. It's crazy stuff. I just gave you a mastermind-level coaching call, a mastermind breakthrough for free on a freaking podcast.

If you don't get this, if this doesn't resonate with you, I don't know where you are. But I know where you could be if you do get it. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Scott, you're way too passionate today.

This is going to make some people mad. I know. I don't even know why I did it. And right now, I don't even know why I'm talking to myself. But it felt really good.

Let's get out of here. I got nothing else to say. Have a good day. I will see you tomorrow right here on The Daily Boost.