Unedited Transcript <p>Click to access unedited transcript Unedited Transcript Jim Rembach (00:00): Okay, fast leader Legion today. I’m excited because we have somebody on the show today who is really going to help us do something that we must do. I must do so pay attention. Okay. Nir Bashan was born in Haifa, Israel and raised in Los Angeles where his earliest memory is finding a parking spot at the supermarket. You can remember it. Remember it like it was yesterday, growing up near could be found tinkering and pulling apart just about everything in the house. Nir’s. First business was going door to door, washing cars in Los Angeles. During the early eighties, it set up a lifetime of understanding how to be creative and to be successful in business. In his early career near spent a lot of time in recording studios across Los Angeles. At first, he worked with local punk bands, but soon thereafter started working with famous hip hop artists and musicians. Jim Rembach (00:55): NIR is a Clio award winning an Emmy nominated writer and founder and CEO of the creator mindset where he has spent the last two decades working on a formula to codify creativity. And it turns out that’s the same type of creativity that can be used in businesses to impact the customer experience is many clients include Microsoft JetBlue and the NFL network where he helps people become more creative with actionable tools that anyone can use by conducting workshops. Keynote talks and consulting. His formula is found in the creator mindset. 92 tools to unlock the secrets to innovation growth and sustainability near has taught thousands of leaders and individuals around the globe. How to harness the power of creativity to improve profitability, increased sales, Bruce customer service, and ultimately create more meaning in their work near lives in sunny Orlando, and is married to his college sweetheart. And they have a young son that he loves more than life itself. There we go. Thank you for your, are you ready to help us get over the hump? I am. Let’s go. All right now. Okay. So now I’ve given my Legion a little bit about you, but I think it would be very helpful, helpful if you’re going to share with us what you’re going to help us solve today and how that impacts the customer experience. Nir Bashan (02:10): So I’m going to help you solve the creativity gap that exists in businesses today, especially in customer service, where we are so busy thinking with the analytical mindset that we forget, that we are all born with this amazing creativity to put out in the world. That’s what I’m going to help people. Um, that’s what I’m going to help solve today. Jim Rembach (02:36): Well, and, and you, and you, you actually say that one of our modern problems, you know, is that we are overusing that analytical mind. So if you could just elaborate on that a little bit more. Nir Bashan (02:47): Sure. So the, the brain is separated into two hemispheres, right? There’s roughly some crossover, but one side is dedicated to creativity. And one side is dedicated to the analytics and very interesting happened about 60, 70,000 years ago, we had the, a woman named Harriet and she was a cave woman. And you’d being attacked by a beast far larger and smarter than she was life expectancy back then was like 20. I mean, you were like a great grandma 20, right? And so she was being attacked and you know, it was flooding and it was a dark and stormy night, right? And so as the water started flooding in her cave and the beast was seconds away from, you know, snatching away her life. She had the world’s first creative idea. Jim G took a stick. That was nothing but a hiking thing. And she took a Berry picker. Nir Bashan (03:43): That was nothing but a thing to pick berries with. And she put the sharp edge on the end of the stick and she managed to stave off the beast. And that was the birth of creativity in humankind. And so immediately she went to the village, shared it with everybody and it became this wonderful altruistic thing. Fast forward to today, we are all born creative. It was the single reason we’re still alive. There is no other reason humanity has made it this far, other than the fact that we were able to be more creative and those forces trying to kill us. And so what, what do we have today? We have a society and a world, and I’ve studied this across the world. I’ll in my book that value to him analytics instead of the very thing that kept us alive. And so we have overdeveloped that spreadsheet, logic and, you know, analytics and looking at the quarterly reports and all of this stuff. Nir Bashan (04:45): And I’m guilty of all of this, uh, having run many companies for other people, having run my own company. I’m very guilty of these things. And I have learned over the years to recognize how important creativity is and not to eliminate analytics, but to help balance the mind and to operate our potential at a hundred percent, not just 50% of, of analytics, but to operate our mind in a holistic and wonderfully human system. And what you get when you operate with creativity, empathy, you get listening, you get all of these wonderful customer service skills that everyone says, Oh, you can’t teach the thing. Oh, you either have it. Or you don’t. Well, it turns out that you do have it, you’re born with it, but you need to shift your mindset from analytics to creativity to help balance it. So that these wonderful tools of creativity, which are all free gym, all of them are free. They cost zero. It just takes a shift of mentality, just takes the will to do it, um, in order to become more creative in our day-to-day. Jim Rembach (05:58): Okay. So I think what you just explained right, there is one of the things that you mentioned in the book, um, when you refer to it, you say about correcting the way the brain has been functioning. And then you also talk about the whole education processes, especially in secondary education, where you mentioned how colleges and universities are not teaching this. Um, so I see design schools and I see, you know, uh, centers for innovation, you know, at the college and university level. So how are they not teaching this? So Nir Bashan (06:29): Most business schools today are operating on a logic that is 50, 60, 70 some cases, a hundred years old. Yes. There are some innovation centered. Yes. There are some, uh, um, some that you’ve mentioned, Amy Edmondson runs one at Harvard. That’s really, you know, uh, super advanced. She’s doing something there, you know, exploring the creative side that is not traditionally done, but Jim, they’re the exception. They’re not the rule. They are, you know, less than 1% of 1% of the schools out there. So there is a slight transition that is happening, but we need it to happen at a greater pace. We will never cure cancer. If we’re thinking analytically alone, we will never put a woman on Mars. If we’re thinking analytically alone, the engineering field, the medical field, everything needs to get reinforced with a sense of creativity in order for humanity to reach it. Jim Rembach (07:27): Okay. Now that makes sense to me because I had Jeff [inaudible], who is a professor at the university of Michigan who wrote a book about innovation and talks about what you refer to in regards to that, being that small number, he also really started mentioning these people by name who were top of part of that 1%. Nir Bashan (07:44): And he not amazing it’s that small. Jim Rembach (07:46): Yes. And to me, it was like, really, you know, this is coming from one of those peoples, but you’re validating his point. So I would highly also recommend anybody listening to this episode, go listen to Jeff. DeGroff, uh, his episode as well, because they definitely fit in very well together because here’s the thing. When you start talking about innovation, where does where’s the start and the foundation and the building blocks of innovation, it’s in creativity. You have to be creative in order to be innovative. I mean, it’s half too. It’s not a parallel universe here. It’s a consequential universe. I try in my thinking in order for innovation to take place. That’s right. Nir Bashan (08:24): Yeah. You have to be. So the innovation that we’re all looking for in customer service or in just about every field needs to come from somewhere, and that impetus comes from our soul. Our, our human experience is rooted so deeply in creativity. Yet we choose to not go there and we choose to not use that. Why I have a million excuses, I’ve worked with people from manufacturing to, uh, engineering and the excuses are, I’ll give you some of the most popular ones, right? Jim it’s it’s way too out there near, uh, I don’t play an instrument. I’m not an artist or it’s going to be really expensive or somebody is going to laugh at me. I swear. I’ll tell you, I’ve worked with people researching cancer. And you know, at first it’s a very polished, you know, Oh, you know, my research deals with molecules and enzymes and studying, you know, until you, you kind of have a conversation and soon thereafter you say, Oh, you have an idea about this. Nir Bashan (09:25): Have you followed up? They’re like, no, they’re going to laugh at me. You know? And these are smart. I mean, far smarter than me, you know, human beings that have dedicated their life to something yet, you know what happened? They go to school, right? They, they go to grad school, then, you know, doctors to PhD school. Then now they’re in debt to the tune of a half million dollars. They go work, start at the bottom, work their way up. They have a family, you know, they have kids at home and this person, she’s not going to take the risk. And, and you know what? I can’t blame her, Jim. I, I mean, you know, she’s not going to take the risk to go out there and go on a limb into some batshit, crazy idea because she doesn’t want to lose the establishment that she had set up. The, the history, the publication chief, you know, peer reviewed in 300 publications. And why would I take that leap of faith? But I promise you sitting around the dinner table at night, having a glass of wine, you know, sort of away from the limelight of medicine or whatnot. I promise you the ideas, there are incredibly creative and those ideas can solve problems for humanity, but they’re not acted upon. And I’ve dedicated my life to getting those problems to actually the solutions, those creative solution to actually being applied to problems at work. Jim Rembach (10:46): Well, you unloaded a whole lot right there. I’ll tell you because, Nir Bashan (10:51): I mean, at least you can’t say that I’m boring. Jim Rembach (10:54): Well, I mean, really let’s peel that back down. A lot of it has to do with the 12 things that you keep bringing up throughout the book that we have to have really some conscious thought around, uh, in order that’s really impeding and preventing our ability to be more creative and act. So let me go ahead and read those because I think it’s critically important. Uh, so these are 12 principles that continually, uh, that you need to continually address. Okay. It’s so it’s, creativity’s unlikely personality traits, the virtues of listening, the importance of the little victory, the value of making mistakes, art in the ego character counts, the four PS that you need for growth, the disease of self doubt, comfort computers, and the multitasking myth, how to champion the good idea, the creator mindset guide to crisis and the complacency conundrum. Okay. So we got 12 of them, needless to say, we can’t cover them all on this particular podcast. So for me, I always start thinking about rank order and importance. Can we discuss maybe the top two in that list? It’s like, Hey, you know, you’ve got to knock these out and they’ve got to be one of the areas that you start, you know, first, or that you’re going to be working on longest. If you can kind of give context around those top two that come to mind. Nir Bashan (12:12): Sure. Thing, I think really important, especially in the customer service community and industry is listening creatively. Applying, listening is something that is easy to talk about yet. It’s seldomly done, listen, I’ve run half know quarter billion dollar advertising agencies with, you know, uh, hundreds of employees and leadership teams and this and that. And I’ve sat in a room with all of my leadership team. They’re giving briefs on particular accounts or opportunities, you know, threats, you know, that kind of thing. And I literally, Jim I’m embarrassed to admit was on my phone half the time not listening, um, because I was just waiting to talk. It’s, it’s unbelievably embarrassing to admit, but it is absolutely true. And the amount of creativity that I left on the table, because I was so busy believing that what I knew was more important than what my team was telling me was a shame and, and completely not. Nir Bashan (13:11): Okay. And today I listen far more than I talk. I know this is a podcast and it’s a little weird, but something your listeners can do today to become more creative it’s to start to listen, listen to what your customers are telling you, listen to what your coworkers are telling you, how are they telling you this today? We’re in back-to-back zoom meetings, right? How is something expressed? You know, we have cameras, so we could see each other how that is expressed. It’s sometimes more important than what is being expressed in the first place. Um, I just read an article that, uh, um, what’s his name put out, not Daniel pink it’s uh, uh, had I forgot the name, but the, the, the important part was that they were talking about reviews, right? It was in, uh, Harvard, uh, the Harvard business review, and they were talking about, you know, reviews online of product, you know, one star to five star. Nir Bashan (14:05): And the most interesting part was that if you get a bad review, it’s not necessarily bad. And five star reviews people ignore because they think they were paid off or something like that. So it’s amazing when you really listen and you understand what is going on, you, you create a sense of empathy that we do not have enough of. We do not have enough of empathy in our businesses today to understand and truly understand what the customer experiences, what the business to business experiences. We are so bad at relationships. And we are so bad at creating a back and forth between two people, to products and services, to communities together that we are leaving a lot of creativity on the table. It’s something that we can do today. We need to stop as much and start listening way Jim Rembach (14:52): More. Okay. When you say that I start thinking of tactics and behaviors and things like that. And the reason I say that, as you know, for me, I’ve tried to be more in tune to asking the question when people say things that have density to it, like, yeah, no, that was terrible. Well, what do you mean by terrible? Right? Because what you deem as terrible may not be what I deem is terrible and, and really it’s, it’s the listening. And an also trying to go for that clarity. I think those two need to go, go together. And so questions are your bridge to connect, you know, the confusion or to get over the confusion, I should say. Um, so the, the listening has a whole lot of more depth to it than just it’s simplicity in sound. Um, you know, active listening is an important emotional intelligence attribute and competency that we have to build. Uh, empathy is one of those as well. So all of these things really get into what I think, ultimately what you’re saying here is connect better with humanity and build that stronger relationship. Nir Bashan (15:51): Yes. I think that the relationships in a sales environment has completely gone AWOL it, you know, so what, what has happened is Jim, the economy has completely changed from the way it used to be. Even five years ago, we used to have, and what’s taught in business. Schools is no product or service, a find customer or buyer B, they transact. Then the relationship is over. Nothing could be further from the truth, nothing. And it’s a great, great shame. Why, because we’re losing the opportunity to really understand how our new economy works, product or service a can connect with occasional browser J and that can go to V V can go back to E and then maybe at B it creates a sale, but maybe not. There is so much complexity today in the economy of how a product or service is consumed by the consumer, what they’re paying for, how they’re paying for it, how things are priced, that this is the best time possible to be alive, to be in the West, to be in the United States, which is the, you know, God’s gift to, uh, capitalism and free enterprise. Nir Bashan (17:09): The system that we practice here is the best system the world has ever known. Jim, it has bought more people around the world, out of poverty, out of abject poverty than any system in the world. Why it, because our product or service a affects somebody living in some country that is, you know, J or E or whatnot. And there is money to be made at different portions of the strata. And it unites us and brings us the entire world to a higher standard of living. So my impetus is to make free enterprise because of the benefits that it has just like when Ariette ran into her village and shared the stick. So is our creative world affected when we’re able to use creativity in our day-to-day job. I work with a lot of professionals who tell me near no, we’re kind of call center, right? Nir Bashan (18:05): How am I going to affect the global economy? How am I going to affect, you know, any of that? And I tell them something very important, and that is this, when you are using creativity, principles listening, and some of the others that you’ve discussed, Jim, when we use those principles, we affect somebody in a way that we can never quantify, right? We can’t look at KPIs. We can’t look at a spreadsheet. It’s a relationship between two people. We have the ability to affect that person on the other end of the line in a way that we never know, we just don’t know they could have been in a car accident. And now we’re, before they could have had some family loss, they could have had, you know, something terrible happened to their brother or sister or kids or whatnot. And the way that you treat them with a bit of respect, with a bit of empathy, with a bit of listening can make a consequential difference in that person’s life. Nir Bashan (18:58): And then they can go on in their career or their product or service or whatever it is that they do in improve the world just a little bit better and a little bit more as they go through it. And how dare you say that you don’t have the power to affect people? How dare you say you can’t use creativity to make the world a better place? We all can. We will all born with it. It’s a choice. We have to choose to use these principles, which are really just the shift in mentality. They’re free. They cost absolutely nothing that shift in mentality can really make the world a better place. Jim Rembach (19:30): So you went down the path, you started with listening and went down to this global impact with listening can deliver. And I think it’s really important because in the contact center and customer experience space, there’s technologies out there that people are not aware of that will help with the whole listening piece. And clinics will allow us to listen to a much greater degree to pull out some of those things so that we can impact globally, including the organization. So there it’s processed and it’s profit or related. It’s not just a quality thing. And that’s why we created the speech analytics master class. And, you know, for those listening that want to understand how to listen better, you need to take that class. Uh, it’s really important. Okay. So we talked about listening that being one important one. What’s our second one. Nir Bashan (20:16): So the other one that I really like, and this is something that leaders can Institute in their leadership team and spread it through the organization. And this is somebody that, you know, who is a professional, just trying to get to the next level can implement. Now it’s called the little victory. We are so busy making plans with our lives, right? And John Lennon said that life is what happens when we’re busy making plan. So, you know, I I’m like you, Jim, you’re, you’re a very successful entrepreneur. I’ve read up about you. And you’re a really successful guy. I’m sure some, your listeners are really successful too. And we’ve all sat around and we’ve made one year, three year, five year projections where we want to be and stuff like that. Um, but life is what happens when we’re busy making these types of plans. I’ll give you a really great example. Nir Bashan (21:01): There was an ice cream scene salesman many years ago, whose construct with analytical, he would volume. We’re going to sell a bunch of machine. I’m going to get on the phones and work. And we’re going to sell a bunch of machine. And like every single analytical, only business, you know, the curve starts to rise and rise and rise. But at some point it flattens out. Usually that’s when I get called in, when it flattens out, when I consult, um, what’s going on? Why aren’t people buying the double-cross Civi meat lover’s pizza anymore, or why aren’t people buying my ice cream machine. And very shortly thereafter, it starts to crash where all hell breaks loose very shortly thereafter. So this kind of happened to this guy and he noticed that there was a restaurant in California that kept ordering machines. So we had a creative idea. Nir Bashan (21:48): He said, I’m going to go down there and check it out. He went, there was a line out the door, an hour around the wrapped around the block. And he finally got to the counter and he had the best cheeseburger and he’s added in his entire life. And the guy’s name was Ray crock. And the restaurant was McDonald’s. So had he have stuck to selling ice cream machines, who knows that was his analytical goal. You know, that’s what, we’re all taught. Stick to your three-year stick to your five-year. But he chose instead to listen to the little breadcrumbs along the way that might’ve shifted us in a different direction. Now I beg your listeners. What in your life, what in your career or in your business that’s been happening. That’s going great, right? That you’re just ignoring because you’re like, that’s not serious. I need to stick to this bat. I need to go here. I don’t need to pay attention to that yet, if you pay a little attention to that, it might take you on a slightly different journey in that slightly different journey is creativity trying to get out that the DNA of who you are, who your product or service is trying to get out to guide you along to the journey you need to be on instead. Jim Rembach (22:57): Okay. So I want to, I want to really kind of flesh that out a little bit, because what you said right there, that is your path to disruption. Because when you, when you look at all the studies, you talked about research and studies and things like that. One of the studies that’s vitally important for us to always remember is that it’s your strength that you can accelerate and improve at a significantly greater rate. Then what are your weaknesses? So you have a particular area that is smooth and going well, like nearest talking about you should not ignore it. You should amplify it. Nir Bashan (23:33): And there’s so many people that ignore it and I don’t get it. It’s just not rocket science, right? It is. I am a distributor in this business and I have a great relationship with this vendor. We get along, we understand each other’s businesses. There’s a natural connection there. It’s pick up the phone and make that connection. But I don’t understand, like, you know, you’ve spent a lot of money having me come in there to tell you to just, Hey, that’s where you guys should go. And I get it. Listen, I’ve been in business my whole life, right? I’ve been, I started washing car door to door when I was nine years old in Los Angeles, getting the door slammed in my face, getting stiffed, we would wash a car and just and span three hours later. We’d go, not give the keys back. Here you go. Nir Bashan (24:16): Ma’am here you go, sir, your card’s done. And they’d look at it, look at me and slammed the door. I was nine years old. Right. And I learned amazing things from that experience. And I also learned that sometimes I got the blinders on, right. I’m like, got to get, you know, to the next level, got to get the P and L cheek got to turn this account into 0.3% more profit from the revenue. I get it. And sometimes it’s good to have outside help, but look at what you’re doing today. Look at what you’re doing in your business right now. Look at it creatively and see if there is a natural little path that might be more beneficial or it might be, you know, gold to you. Um, then you should take them. Jim Rembach (24:58): Well, this has gone so well. And you, and you provided so much more depth than what I read in these 12 principles. So I got to ask for one more near Nir Bashan (25:06): One more principle. Sure. Okay. So I talk a lot about, um, the unlikely attributes of creativity and I’ve gotten a lot of this has been controversial. So I get emails on this and, and such where people going, you know, people are telling me near, you’re kind of crazy. Uh, you know, how does humor, empathy, and courage that, you know, some of the most important creative principles? Well, one humor activates a part of the mind that allows you to look at a situation in a different way. It might not be funny to you, or, you know, we’re not really looking at something funny, particularly, but we’re looking at a different approach to a problem. So when you used humor something your listeners can do today, look at a problem that’s going on in your business. And instead of looking at it the same way, which is, Oh, crap, negative, negative, you know, um, this is going to be bad. Nir Bashan (25:56): And, and, and this sort of thing, shift the paradigm and find something positive in what’s going on. If you’re able to find something positive in that problem, boom, you’ve activated creativity. Then your mind goes, Oh, if that’s positive, then maybe I could spin it this way. And then so on and so forth. And you get really excited and you’re able to use creativity to solve the problem. So humor is an incredibly important thing because it takes pessimism and makes it into optimism. And as soon as you’re able to do that, you activate creativity, empathy, incredibly important. It’s part of that listening. It’s part of understanding, not only what somebody else is going through, but literally putting yourself in those shoes, understanding that your product or service is a integral part of somebody else’s life is really important. I’ll give you an example on a Porsche affection auto I’ve had their cars for almost 15 years. Nir Bashan (26:49): I’m a serial buyer to the point where they call me and they tell me near, we’ve got a new program. I said, Hmm, what, what what’s going on? They’re like, okay, we’re charging a flat fee. You can come to the dealer, take whatever car you want, keep it as long as you want, just make the monthly payment. Plus we’re going to pay your insurance. I’m like, this is the best thing ever, you know, and they’ve realized that they have a sense of empathy with their customer and their brand, that they know that, you know, people want to drive the different cards they want to do and have different experiences. So empathy is not only just listening and, you know, really feeling what somebody else is going through. That’s part of it. Empathy is also understanding the commercial value of applying a different billing model or a different billing, uh, um, a different engagement proposition, which is incredibly important. Nir Bashan (27:38): Then finally, um, I talk about courage. We could, you have to have the courage to take this leap of faith to go on this direction. We talked about the engineer earlier, working for NASA, right? Or space X. She really wants to add her dinner table at night with her engineering friends, right. She over a glass of wine. She said, you know, here’s my napkin. And I can, we do a solar wing. And this thing is like eight miles long. And it spreads out and it catches the rain and it’ll move us to, you know, with the speed of light and, and our friends go, wow, that’s crazy. Do you really think it works? Yes. Because we need to do this, this, this, and the other thing. And they will work, but she will never have the courage. And, and we lose Jim. We all lose. We lose because of that. She will never have the courage to go and actually develop that plan and pitch it at work and back it up and deal with all the naysayers. Oh, that’s stupid. Oh, why would we do that? You’re risking your reputation. She would never do that. She has like 99.9% of people out there. She will not take the risk. So you have to have the courage to put all these things together in order to be really, really creative and really successful with creative. Jim Rembach (28:49): You know, what you just said to me has a right there is, is, has some personal connection for me last night, sitting at the dinner table with my daughter who, when you’re, you’re in high school. And thankfully she goes to private school. And during this COVID stuff, they’re actually been going every day. Fantastic. Uh, they’re doing a really good job over at Greensboro day school. Thank you to all of you over there. And, um, she was talking about how she was upset because she didn’t get a, an award from her volleyball team because it was their entire season. And, and I said, well, Ava, I said, you know, you’re, you’re a rebel. You speak your mind. You, you know, do your own path. I mean, you, you try to do it respectfully until people disrespect you. I said, and those are first of all, unusual for a young female to have those traits. Uh, and then also those traits will never get you in a ward. Nir Bashan (29:47): Yeah. Jim Rembach (29:48): I said that, and that’s something you’re going to have to accept. It’s a harsh reality. I said, however, they will serve you well, but you just need to know that people aren’t going to pin an award on you when you have skirmishes and, and, and are going against what they think. And I think that’s a problem for many of us is that, you know, when you talk about the five fears, even at the senior level, most of them have to do with not wanting to make a mistake, not wanting to look stupid. I mean, it’s all those things that you had mentioned that are, fear-based that prevent this. And you know what, it’s not just at the top level. I don’t want to look like an idiot. I don’t want to do, I mean, I don’t want to make a mistake. I don’t. And I think that’s part of that creative and analytical thinking thing. Jim Rembach (30:29): I think that’s one of the things that we stripped out because a creative and person who’s, you know, really exercises those muscles and they’re like, well, I don’t care what you think, man, I’m having a good time. Right? Tell a story about the, you know, young kid and the butcher paper and the crayons. And you were talking about that story when you’re, when you’re in kindergarten, is that, you know, that’s what creativity really is, is I don’t care what my flower looks like. Right. So exactly right. Making that flour, I made eight a crayon and the process, but you know what? I had a good time. Right. We all did making our own flowers it’s but as we get through our education system, there’s been studies on this as well, is that we strip that creative thinking out of people’s minds because we start CRI critiquing it. Jim Rembach (31:10): And I even see it in our art class, at the high school level, um, you know, with, with my, with my daughter talking about some of the art and, and unfortunately it’s the teacher saying that that isn’t how it should be. And I’m like, well, wait a minute, isn’t it as a creative expression here, why are you stifling that? Why are you, you know, subjectively critiquing it? Um, because of the types of words that she’s using to describe the critique has nothing to do, you know, with the outcome. I mean, I just, I don’t understand that. So I think for us as leaders, we, we, and when I say leaders, I’m talking about at home in business and you talked about the customer experience, all, all of that is, you know, we need to really ensure that we’re not doing the stifling, right? So what are some of the things that we can do in order to prevent that from happening? We talked about listening, we talked about it. We talked about those things, but in the heat of the moment, in the day to day and how we build upon it, because I also say, when you start talking about growth and getting to the next level, um, you talked about goals. It’s not what I set out there. Five years down the road, or 10 years down the road. That’s not it. No, no, it’s what I do every single day. All along the way, Nir Bashan (32:23): You bet it’s one foot in front of the other and, and the road, here’s the thing, you know, Jim, and I’ll be honest with y’all level with you, right? I wrote a book called the creator mindset that had 92 tools to, you know, become more creative. And I did not write a book called, you know, invest in real estate and become a millionaire by next week. I did not write a book called you know, a sales pipeline online, become a millionaire by next Tuesday. Those are the books that are selling millions of copies. You know, the four-day workweek there. If they’re a four day work week, if there is, please put me on it. I’ve been working since I was nine years old. I worked 12 hours a day, if I’m lucky, okay. So please hook me up. I want your listeners to call me and say, you know what? Nir Bashan (33:10): Near you can work for three days a week and then have the house in The Bahamas. Great. Sign me up. The problem is, is that we are in a society and in a culture that values instant gratification, but there is no instant gratification. It takes a lot of dang hard work. And you have to read a lot. You have to read people who are thought leaders in a particular area. I read two books a week. I know you read like a lot more, but you need to read and see what’s out there. There’s a continual evolution of thought. And then you’ve got to take that thought and you gotta put one foot in front of the other, then go to work. There is no, listen, don’t buy my book. If you want to get rich quick, it ain’t going to happen. It’s going to take, yes, you will make money. Nir Bashan (33:52): Yes, you will do way better, but it’s going to take a long time. It’s going to take a process and you’ll start to see little improvements at first and great improvement in the long run. But we are in love with instant gratification. We’re in love with giving an award to somebody just because they’re there. We are in love with a system that simply it’s not reflective of where the economy of today is going, or the economy of tomorrow will go and how we fit into that whole thing. We need more creativity across the band width, across the spectrum in order to do better at business. But it is indeed a, uh, it’s a journey, not an arrival. Jim Rembach (34:36): Okay. So I have to really go back and you met, you mentioned it a little bit, you know, mentioning how you are within organizations and you were doing all the analytical spreadsheet stuff then, and this is horrible, but those are learning. That was, that was learning time. Right? It’s true. Oh, and we talk about on the show times when we’ve had to get over the hump, um, as they do, hopefully they set us in a better direction than when we first started. So is there a time that you can remember where you’ve gotten over the hump that you can share with us? Nir Bashan (35:04): Yeah. I, I do. I had a production company in Hollywood. We put out a movie that was bought by universal and literally it’s, it’s embarrassing because it was a horrible failure story. But what I learned after that failure got me over the hump to every other business I’ve ever done. And what I learned was that you can’t rest on one successful product or service, not even for a minute. Can you do it today in 50, 60 years ago, you could put out one product and do well for many, many years, but I put out product and I had my team come to me and I didn’t listen to them. I didn’t actually rate their item. They were like, we need to do this. And we need to have this auxiliary product. And this thread that is a commonality of the brand or product or service that would really help. Nir Bashan (35:52): And you know, all of these auxiliary services, I didn’t listen. I was like, this is, we just sold a movie to universal money is just going to come in. And it did, it sure did for a while, but then it stopped and it never came back. And I had to lay off people who were depending on me for healthcare and for a job and families that, you know, people were paying their mortgage with our particular business and my business. And, you know, I’ve let them down. What I learned in what got me over the hump is no matter what you do, no matter what product or service you’re in, if you’re not continually innovating, if you’re not continually changing, you’re dead in the water. I talk in the book about three very popular businesses toys R us, uh, you know, Pan-Am airline, all of these great businesses that at one point were game changers. Nir Bashan (36:39): They were the leader. They were the most innovative, the most creative. And then they sat on their butt and got stale and they didn’t, they got complacent. And complacency is one of those things that if you allow your business or your product or your service or your career to get infected with you are dead in the water. It’s only a matter of time you’re sitting duck. But if you’re able to get over the hump of complacency and understand that you continually need to change, then you will emerge victorious. I’m doing a keynote for a mortgage group and the mortgage business right now at the time of this recording is doing incredibly well. It’s like in a boom, right? And I’m the literally centering the entire lecture about how not to get comfortable with what’s going on today. And it’s a hard sell, you know, people I ask, okay, who else is speaking at the multi-day conference? Nir Bashan (37:35): Oh, everything is great. You know, you’re doing fantastic. And, you know, keep going. Everything is great. Keep going. And that’s not the truth. I’m sorry. It is not the case. You don’t need to keep going when everything is great, you need to stop and say, okay, what are the auxiliary services that I can provide? How do I ensure from the next bump in the market that I will do well, what can I enact now in good times to prepare for the bad time, how much would do I need to chop and putting the seller so that we can get, you know, through the winter, the winter is coming, the winter is coming. It’s just, is it coming tomorrow? Is it coming in two years to the coming in five years? Nobody knows, but the hard times are coming in any business. And if we’re not creative, we can get caught up in it. That’s really the hump that I’ve learned to overcome. Jim Rembach (38:19): Well, definitely have wish you the best on that keynote. Okay. All right. So, okay. Here we go. Fast leader Legion. It’s time for the hump day hoedown. Okay. Near the hump day, hold on as a part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us a robust, yet responses that can help onward and upward faster. Nearest. Yeah. Good. Let’s go. So what is holding you back from being an even better leader today? Nir Bashan (38:46): Uh, I still struggle with listening. I still struggle with it. I still think that I have, you know, really great ideas and I’m embarrassed to say, I need to listen to my staff more. Jim Rembach (38:55): What is the best leadership advice you’ve ever received, Nir Bashan (38:58): Uh, to go for it and to do what you need to do, regardless of what anybody thinks about what you’re doing, Jim Rembach (39:05): What is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life? Nir Bashan (39:09): Best tools that help me lead in business or life? I would say creativity all the way. Jim Rembach (39:17): And what would be one book you’d recommend to our Legion? It could be from any genre. Of course, we’re going to put a link to the creator mind, clip on your show notes page as well. Nir Bashan (39:25): Uh, I really liked Emily [inaudible] book that came out two months ago called clearer, closer, better a wonderful book. She’s a, uh, organizational psychologist at NYU. Okay. Jim Rembach (39:36): What religion? You can find links to that. And other bonus information from today’s show by going to fast leader.net/nearby Sean. Okay. Nearest to my last hump day. Hold on question. Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you can take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you, but you can’t take it all. You can only take one. So what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why? Nir Bashan (39:57): I would take back the fact that it took me a long time to learn that sales are, you know, the construct of sales is all about the relationship I used to just burn in, turn through contact and leads and stuff like that. And now I take precious and valuable attention into every sales relationship that I have in. I take it beyond the sale leaves are, you know, once a client, always a client type relationship that I’ve developed, and those are, have been serving me incredibly well in life. That’s what I would take back. Jim Rembach (40:30): NIR. I had fun with you today. Can you please share with the fast leader Legion, how they can connect with you? Nir Bashan (40:35): Yeah, absolutely. I am online. There’s only three near Bichons in the entire world. I’m not the one uploading the call of duty clips, um, who has time to play video games. And, uh, you know, I’m not the one who’s, you know, somebody’s decorating their closet with posts on Pinterest. That’s not me. It’s near NIR B a S H a n.com. I’d love to have you guys. We have an online community where you join. You can ask questions, it’s moderated, no Viagra ads. Um, I’d love to see you on that. I’d love to see you on there. It’s a lot of fun. And, um, yeah. Let me know what you think Jim Rembach (41:12): You were sharing your knowledge and wisdom and helping us all move onward and upward faster. Nir Bashan (41:18): Thanks, yah.