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Tayo Rockson:

Welcome everyone to another episode of As Told By Nomads. And today I have an expert in transformative leadership. He goes by the name of Jason Scott. We’re gonna be talking about how we need to make sure that teams are winning, right? And how to understand the transformative power, actually getting things done. So his career has navigated a span of life, life experiences. He’s been jumping out of helicopters. He’s, uh, rescued people as a, as a swimmer. And he’s also worked with a range of companies from a variety of different backgrounds. And he’s also navigating this location, independence world that we are continuing to move into. Welcome to the show, Jason.

Jason Scott:

I’m super excited to be here. Tayo. Um, I, yeah, I’m ready to do it. Let’s do it. <laugh>.

Tayo Rockson:

Well, no, I I, one of the things that I, I always love to do is just to get to know the person. So, with you growing up, what was the first career that you wanted to have?

Jason Scott:

Wow. You know, I’ve never been asked that question before. Um, I, so I, I grew up in Gangland, Los Angeles, and I, I really didn’t think about, I didn’t have dreams. I really didn’t like, I, I didn’t fit in with the kids. I didn’t do great in school. Uh, as it turns out, it wasn’t because I wasn’t smart or capable, I just was disinterested. Um, and so, I mean, the first thing that I really wanted to do was get away. And so the, the, as soon as I finished high school, in fact, I didn’t even finish high school as soon as I was of legal age, 17 years old, I joined the Navy. Yeah. And so it was, it was once I joined the Navy, that I started contemplating the possibilities simply because the coolest thing about joining the military, not that I’m advocating this because it is dangerous, but the coolest thing about joining the military is they will let you volunteer to do anything that you are willing to do. And I was like a sponge. So I volunteered to do absolutely everything. And the things that I learned then opened up possibilities to me. And that, that probably was my first lesson in curiosity, like, curiosity has, has basically been what’s led my, my entire life and all of my eventual successes. <laugh>.

Tayo Rockson:

Well, okay. So, you know, I can’t let this slip by you said, grown up in Gangland Los Angeles. So for, for context, and I’m sure you’re gonna provide even more, obviously there are parts of Los Angeles that have been a hotbed for, for different gang activities, whether is Crips Bloods or different types of gangs. What was that like for you?

Jason Scott:

So the, I lived in a, a part of Los Angeles where, where the gangs were Latin gangs. And the reason that I lived in that neighborhood is because my parents got divorced. Um, my mom was, didn’t have a career. She was like a stay at home mom. So she took whatever job she could take, uh, and she wasn’t making very much money. So she moved us into a neighborhood where at the age of five, I saw my first murder. I then was walking to kindergarten, which was two blocks away on the way to school, I got jumped at recess, I got jumped at lunch. I started swinging my lunchbox around to prevent myself from getting beat up. Uh, and then I ran all the way home, which is where I first learned that I was a fast runner. I don’t look like I’m built for speed, but I, I used to be a really fast runner. Yeah. And I just remember being like six years old thinking, wow, I’ve seen this on tv, but I didn’t think these, this, this fighting started so early. I didn’t really understand the social dynamic that I was in until much later. Yeah. Um, but I, I will honestly say it gives me, it gives me perspective on discrimination that I, I, there’s no way I would otherwise have.

Tayo Rockson:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, one of the things I always say about worldview, ’cause I, I like to think in frameworks, and as a professor, I always put into the equations, and so I say worldview’s, lived experience plus exposure. And if you want improve or understanding your worldview, reflecting your lived experience and what you’ve been exposed to, you’ve had quite the lived experience, but you’ve been exposed to something and your exposure to something gave you a lens into discrimination, that maybe if you didn’t have that lived experience in addition to exposure, you wouldn’t have understood the impact of what you’re saying.

Jason Scott:

I couldn’t, I couldn’t have, I couldn’t have the empathy that I have for, you know, the discrimination and the racial inequality that I have. If I hadn’t, if I hadn’t experienced this, and this is, I have, through my life, the lived experiences, I have literally watched each of those change my perspective

Tayo Rockson:

100.

Jason Scott:

So I’m a, I’m a huge advocate. Like there’s opinion, there’s interacting, there’s learning from others, but there’s absolutely nothing like the change in perspective that is possible by putting yourself out there, being curious. Yeah. Allowing, allowing yourself to have uncomfortable experiences will probably lead to more growth than anything within your comfort zone.

Tayo Rockson:

Anything. Right. Even with working out, it’s one of my favorite examples, when you work out, you, you get uncomfortable because you can’t get past a certain rep, but you know that your muscles are working, and then eventually the next day or next week or maybe two weeks later, you push past that plateau and then like, it, it’s pain, but it, it, it’s part of that Right. You basically practice failure every time you’re waking up because you get to a point where you can’t go, and then you have to push through that. And so you, with you practicing, uh, ideas of perceived failure, you navigated this idea that Navy was this, and then you became a sponge, and you were a sponge while you were swimming, <laugh> and rescuing people. Why was that the path you chose in the Navy to decide to, to be a rescue swimmer?

Jason Scott:

Oh, that, that, the honest answer is because it was cool

Tayo Rockson:

<laugh>

Jason Scott:

Right? Like, it was cool. Like I, so I, I, I went in, when you join the military, they give you an aptitude test just to kind of see like what types of jobs you might like be, be good at, feel comfortable in. Yeah. Um, ’cause you know, you can’t, you can’t resign. You can’t quit. So they wanna make sure that they, they’ve aligned you with what might look like success. Yes. Um, and so I, I took a test and I could have basically any job that I wanted. And at the time, don’t laugh, man. This, this, this age is how I was like computers of the future. Yeah. So I took a job in data processing. So, and that job required me to give five years initially instead of four because, uh, you know, it was considered advanced training. So a lot of the things that I learned how to do, I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to do because I was in, you know, let’s call it this white collar job.

Jason Scott:

Uh, but you could volunteer for anything. And, and becoming a rescue swimmer wasn’t necessarily a path that I chose or was even available to me, except for there was a problem where the administrators transferred the two rescue swimmers off the ship, and a ship can’t leave the dock without two rescue swimmers. And so the, the people in, um, in the deck department, which are the people that usually will go to swimmer school, they sent two, they washed out, they sent two, they washed out. And so here we are, I’ve got a skipper who wants to make admiral, but his boat can’t leave the dock. This is a problem. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So he opens it up, he opens up, um, tryouts to the whole ship. And I was like, I was a, I did, I, I was a, I was a swimmer on swim teams growing up. I was like, I could do this. So I, I, I ran and I swam and I did pushups and I did sit-ups and I did more than anybody else. So they sent me to Rescue Swimmer School, <laugh>. Uh, and you know, I’m obsessed with Top Gun at the time. Right. Like the Navy Seals are super cool. Come on.

Jason Scott:

Yeah. So, and Rescue Swimmer School had the second highest attrition rate to the Navy Seals training. So I was like, lemme go see if I could do this. I still will never forget the feeling of graduating and being surprised. Like, I got through this brutal training where every day their job is to see if they can get you to quit. ’cause that’s really what a lot of this, this, these elite sports are about. Success is that you’re just willing to push through whatever your brain is telling you and not give up. Right. The same with Special Forces. Like if you jump out of a helicopter into the water and there’s 10 people in the water, your job is to swim as fast as you can for as long as you can. And the seed takes the rest. Yeah. Right. And they wanna make sure that you’re gonna do that. Yeah. And so, I, I remember graduating and just thinking, I cannot believe that I made it through Rescue Swimmer School. I didn’t even join thinking I could make it. Yeah. I just joined ’cause it was cool. And then I never gave up.

Tayo Rockson:

And here you are. You, you know, you brought up Top Gun, uh, I don’t know if you’ve seen Top Gun Maverick. Uh, yeah.

Jason Scott:

No, but I hear it’s, I hear it’s, I I hear it’s phenomenal.

Tayo Rockson:

My, my, my most fun experience has seen in movies this year that, and everything every, all at once, but it’s so much better than even Top Gun. And so, uh, and the reason I, I wanna bring that there is, because obviously you’ve learned a lot about leadership and teamwork. If anyone’s watched Top Gun there, there was that idea of figuring out a work as a team, or people would die. Right. You know, whether it’s Yeah. You know, iceman or you know, goose or figuring out, you know, what Maverick is gonna do and all these things. You had to figure out how to work as a team. And that is so germane to anyone in the military team leadership. What did you learn about both concepts when you were there?

Jason Scott:

So, I have a sad answer. Yeah. I didn’t. Um, because there, there are groups in the military that need to work as a team, like special forces teams, and do work as a team, and where their leaders do employ what I consider real leadership and I’ll mm-hmm. I’ll get to that in a second. Um, and, and clearly these fighter pilots need to operate as a team. And that was the big lesson for Maverick, is that leadership isn’t about, Maverick leadership is playing for the rest of the team. And then when they’re successful, Maverick as the leader is successful. And this is really the servant leadership model. So growing up in, in Gangland Los Angeles, Los Angeles having a father that was in the military, and the vast majority of military is commanding control, I tell you, do, they’re not looking for people to be thought leaders in the lower ranks.

Jason Scott:

They do need people to think in the special forces as fighter pilots, et cetera. So again, they’re employing a different model. So I, I learned this command and control in the Navy. I then go and get my first job, and then I get my first team. And I’m terrible because I’m employing this. I tell you, do, I don’t even want to call it leadership. I’m employing this, this form of, I tell you, do management. Um, and it was because I was the smartest person in the room, and it was all about me. And I wanted them to work hard so I could be successful, except for what I realized over time is this model is not very motivating to anybody within it. And if you have somebody that wants to think, somebody that potentially wants to motivate, that wants to make an impact, they’re gonna leave.

Jason Scott:

So teams under this model are not that high functioning. Yeah. So, somewhere along the way, I had multiple real human interactions with people where, where I worked with them to co-create their roadmap to a shared goal. It felt better, it got better results. They were motivated. Um, I, I was introduced to servant leadership, and that’s when I realized that leadership isn’t about me. It’s about the team. When you decide to be a leader, you put yourself aside. And your job is to ensure that your team defines and delivers the necessary and expected results. And when they win, you’re winning. And so, I’m a leader in service of my team. Not only does this feel better, but the team gets better results because I’m, what I’m basically doing is in this helping them architect their own roadmap to a shared goal. I’m cultivating the collective iq.

Jason Scott:

Yeah. The solutions are smarter. People are bought into the solutions. This is where innovation is possible. Yeah. So sadly, my exper, I had a great experience in the Navy, don’t get me wrong, but my experience of leadership, wasn’t, it, it was really command and control. I tell you do. Yeah. And so it was really how not to be a thought leader. Yeah. Where people can quit their jobs. Where innovation is necessary, where, where people want to thrive. Right. The military is a little bit about do your time. I found a way to like, make that time awesome. But I, I don’t feel like that’s everyone’s experience.

Tayo Rockson:

Well, what you explain is what you’ve talked about. So often you talk about the difference between authority and a leader. It sounds like that’s what you have to dis, you know, distinguish between and decipher there.

Jason Scott:

Sure. And don’t get me wrong, there’s a place for command and control. Right? Like, if, if we happen to be somewhere you and I where things started blowing up, I, I probably wouldn’t even say to you, get under the table, I would probably grab you and throw you under the table as I’m flipping tables screaming at other people to get down. I wouldn’t think about it. I would just react. Yeah. My training would kick in and I, in the end, I wouldn’t be like, Hey man, I’m so sorry I threw you on the ground. I mean, I probably would Yeah. <laugh>, because I, I would be sorry I threw you on the ground, but I wouldn’t feel like I did anything wrong.

Tayo Rockson:

Yeah. ’cause there’s, you know, it’s life or death, right? You’re thinking, right.

Jason Scott:

Yeah. And now it’s funny, I realize saying that you’re probably this, this tall, super tall, huge guy that I wouldn’t be able to effectively know.

Tayo Rockson:

It’s okay. You know, I, I’m, no, I’m, I’m six woods. I don’t know <laugh>, but, but you know what happens, adrenaline will probably drive you and you throw me off and I’ll be like, yeah. So it, it works out. Uh, okay. But no, that makes sense. ’cause I, I really want to distinguish that. I went to boarding school. I’m from Nigeria, and, um, we had a lot of that type of, um, it’s just, for lack of a better word, militaristic type of things. You know, even when I was, was younger, you, you know, people could actually hate kids. It until it only shifted. Teachers could do that. And so it was all based on what the law was. And e even if the person was wrong. And I remember growing up, I had, uh, multiple lived experience growing up in five countries of four continents.

Tayo Rockson:

And I remember the first time I started challenge. Wow. Yeah. I remember the first time I started challenging authority and it was like, whoa. I said it, why you calling, calling it back? And my mom and I joke about this, but it was one of those things that I had to unlearn because growing up, I always thought whatever anyone in that is, that is an older person says is law. That was just what I, I I was growing to, I grew to accept. And then I started challenging it and it was very uncomfortable because I was the only one doing it. Right. People, this guy’s rude. Or what are you doing? How dare you, what are you talking about? You’re, you know, you’re letting what you’ve learned in the world, uh, you know, take away from, from culture. And I think many people are at odds with that right now because they deal with that internal dialogue of, wait, I’m the only one saying this. Is it worth it? Or should I be doing this? I feel like no one else is on board with me. Or I’ll be like the bad person if I challenge something that I know is true.

Jason Scott:

Here’s the real answer. You’re the one that’s brave enough to stand up and do the right thing. You’re speaking for everyone. Human beings don’t like to be told that they have to do something. Mm-hmm. I, I speak, I speak in front of large audiences on the regular, and I’ve got a couple of typical questions. And often I’ll ask an audience, like how, what emotion the word mandatory evokes. And I just ask ’em to blurt out like a one word emotion. And it’s always negative, right? Like, we might do the thing that’s mandatory, but our first instinct is to not to want to do it. And we, we really see this in the way that we handled the, the, the automobile death, uh, situation in the seventies. Yeah. And covid recently, meaning in the seventies, it was actually handled as a public health issue. And it was really effective. Like, I get in the car these days and I don’t feel safe without putting a seatbelt on. Uh, I’m sure you didn’t grow up with seat belts either knowing that you’ve lived across five continents. Right? Yeah.

Tayo Rockson:

You, you’ve made that rule. Right.

Jason Scott:

Right. And they make the rule.

Tayo Rockson:

Yeah, go ahead. No, it’s, I, I didn’t mean to interrupt, but it’s so wild that people didn’t drive with seat belts before. We didn’t think it was anything.

Jason Scott:

There wasn’t seat belts at first. Right. So, so there’s this situation where we realized as a country that a lot of people are dying in automobile deaths. And the first reaction wasn’t, let’s take away cars. ’cause that’s absurd. And the first reaction wasn’t tell people that wearing a seatbelt was mandatory. They actually gave us a choice. It didn’t look or feel necessarily like a choice, but it definitely felt different than mandatory. Meaning if you didn’t wanna wear a seatbelt, you would get a ticket. So you have a choice, right? If you don’t, or here’s the thing. Or maybe you could just get away with it, but over time, but they didn’t just stop there, right? They incented automobile manufacturers to put the seatbelts in. They ran educational campaigns. They got in our head to the point where now I get in the car and I realize I don’t have my seatbelt on, or I’m, or if, if I’m driving outta the driveway and I haven’t gotten to it yet, ’cause I’m in a hurry, my kids will be like, dad, put your seatbelt on.

Jason Scott:

Like, they’re super bought in. Like, it is just not safe. I remember when I first started riding a motorcycle, uh, helmets, helmets were not necessary. I mean, they were not mandatory. They, you didn’t, you weren’t legally required to wear a helmet. And let’s face it, if you get caught not wearing a helmet in states where this is the law, they don’t put you in jail. You just get a ticket. So it still is a choice. And now today, I, one of the things that next jump outfitters sells are these scooters that go 40 miles an hour. They’re so fast. Like, like the lime scooters, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, I don’t feel comfortable riding 40 miles an hour on a little scooter without a helmet on, right? Yeah. Like they got in my head. So they didn’t make it mandatory, and they educated us. Whereas with Covid, they said masks are mandatory.

Jason Scott:

And then otherwise educated, rational human beings. Like people that, prior to Covid, I was like, you are a super rational human being. <laugh> after not so much. Like covid is not real <laugh>, so they didn’t have to wear a mask, right? Covid o’s not real. So they didn’t have to get the vaccine, right? They told themselves all these stories. And I think it’s really because the government said, this is mandatory and we are taking away your choice. Ah, right. So human beings, when given choice, meaning, hey, like if I were to come to you and say, I, I think we should, I think we should go on the mission. I think you’re this, you’re the right guy for it. And you say back to me, Jay, I am, I am the right guy for this. And then I describe what I think only you can do.

Jason Scott:

And then I, I ask you, okay, how will you do that? Because I wanna make sure that we’re aligned and we get on the same page. And so you start walking me through how you would accomplish that. And, you know, let’s say I hear something and I think I don’t, I don’t understand how that’s gonna help him accomplish his goal. So I say, well, let’s talk a little bit more about that. I must be missing something. I don’t, I don’t see it hitting. And eventually you land on something where I’m like, okay, cool. I get it. You came up with how to get there. You had choice. You’re totally bought in. You did all the critical thinking. You’re probably gonna be excited about it because I asked you, dude, is this your thing? You’re like, it’s totally my thing, huh? I mean, I’m gonna get a better result than if I come to you and say, tyo, like this, this, this is mandatory.

Tayo Rockson:

You gotta do it. You know? It’s so interesting. Sorry. Another thing that I, one of the reasons I can relate to this, I grew up under dictatorships initially for the first decade of my life, right? And when I was seeing the covid with it, maybe’s, ’cause I have different experience, I was like, you know, come on. Like, let’s do this for each other. And Nigeria’s very collectivist, right? It’s not individualist. And I think there are pros and cons to both sides, right? Individual individualism and collectivism. But to your point, I saw a lot of people translating that as a lack of choice. But then I would also see the same people not use the same argument for other things. That what whatever side you’re on, the political party will say, well, you’re, this is my, my body, my right and all these things. And I, I would like, how are you not able to look at the same, the same instance here? Well, but use one. You know, this is what I’m saying, right?

Jason Scott:

Let’s call this out. I think it’s important. Let’s be clear. This, the group of people, we won’t name them, but everybody knows who they are. <laugh> that refuse to wear masks as an infringement on their rights, is the same group of people that is saying women do not have a right to do with their body what they wanna do with their body. Yeah. And here’s the deal, they, I promise you, it is not hypocrisy. They’re not connecting these two things as equal.

Tayo Rockson:

So that’s what you, okay, so, so, you know, help me, because it, it’s hard for me to see, I’m obviously in diversity, equity, inclusion. So I’m in fields of people that disagree with me, right? And I have these conversations all the time. And even if you bring it up, let’s say to your point, it’s not something that they see as equal. It’s a false equivalence to them. Even though that’s what both sides are arguing, how <laugh> is, you know, how do you think they got there? Is it because they just don’t like being told what to do?

Jason Scott:

So there’s a couple of things at play. Sadly, our worst behavior is nature. Human. Our humans’, worst behaviors are nature, not nurture. Now, these are the same behaviors that have kept us alive in a world where we are not the fastest, the strongest. Not even the smartest or meanest of creatures. So let’s start with fear. Human beings chase pleasure and retreat from pain people. We are not wired to wanna have uncomfortable. Yes, I agree. Discussions. I agree. We are not wired to wanna put ourselves in uncomfortable situations. And then we layer on top of that our confirmation bias, which allows us to be efficient. We hang out with people that think like us and are like us, because then they’ll protect us. They don’t necessarily wanna protect the weirdo that’s saying things that they don’t get along with, right? Because that person doesn’t believe what we believe.

Jason Scott:

So that person’s untrustworthy. So back when we lived in, in teepees and in caves, right? Like if you and I believe the same thing, there’s a high degree of likelihood that if somebody comes into the campground at night while I’m sleeping, you’re gonna protect me or you’re gonna wake me. Right? Yeah. Whereas, you know, if you’re not like me, you don’t think like me, can I trust you? We’re wired to push back on things that, that, that conflict with our preexisting notions. In fact, there’s four chemicals produced by the human brain that make us feel happy. That would be dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and then endorphins, which is an athlete you’re super familiar with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When, when we exercise our confirmation bias, which is just, it’s a muscle, it just reacts, our brain rewards us with a shot of dopamine. So when we push back an idea that con contradicts a previously held belief, our brain goes, Ugh.

Jason Scott:

That’s right. Yeah. And gives us a little dopamine. Yeah. And so this is, this is why when you take situations that are scary, where people are willing to tell themselves any kind of story to make it okay. And again, this is relative to the blame mechanism. Yeah. Brene Brown. Brene Brown says that blame is the discharging of discomfort and pain. Yes, he does. ’cause we retreat, we retreat from pain and seek pleasure, but it has an inverse relationship with accountability. And so to be great leaders, we have to be open to new ideas, to be learners and growers, we have to be open to ideas that make us feel uncomfortable, because we’re not gonna prevent the confirmation bias from being triggered, but we can transcend it. Viktor Frankl said that in the space between stimulus and response, we have choice. Yes. So with that said, you hear me expressing a great deal of empathy for all these polarized camps. Yeah. And this is what I wish every leader would do. Stop throwing, hate, empathize, have a conversation, work to understand. You might never agree fully, but your universe, your worldview will be broadened. It’ll allow us to come together as humans. ’cause look, all we want is humans to be successful in our relationships with our families and in our jobs. And we can only really do that through positive community. Yeah.

Tayo Rockson:

You know, as humans, we wanna be seen, heard, and understood for who really are, and a lot of us have attached meanings, religion, whatever you believe, like a belief system to what it means for you to belong. And when you see a perceived threat, whether it’s real or not, it really triggers a lot of the responses you’re saying. Right? Tho those four things. And, and so it’s, it’s interesting. Uh, so I, I love that breakdown and I, and I, and I know that the audience will as well. Uh, but you’ve been talking about human behavior here. And this takes me back to a film, one of the greatest films of all time, the Godfather, right? So my <laugh>, my Michael Corian says it’s not personal, is strictly business. And so what do you say when you hear that? Because I, I feel like you have a, an interesting response to someone that says, yeah, it’s not person strictly business. What do <laugh> what do you think about that?

Jason Scott:

Okay, so huge fan of the Godfather, right? Like, so I’m not contradicting the Godfather, but I am saying, I did write a book in response did to Michael Corone. Yes. You did statement and the book’s titled it’s never just Business, it’s about people. Yeah. And, and this definitely ties into what we’re talking about because I, you know, I’ve, I’ve grown up hearing people say, this company’s bad, this company’s good, the government’s bad, the government’s good, the government’s lying to us. There’s no such thing as this company or that company or the government. Like a company is basically a legal entity that if nobody ever goes to work, there is nothing. It accomplishes nothing. It’s like an idea. A company really is made up of all of the humans that go there and potentially rally around the vision of the purpose of this company to otherwise create value.

Jason Scott:

The government is the same. When people come to me with these conspiracy theories, government conspiracy theories, I’m like, you, you think they’re all on the same you. So in order to keep this a secret, all of the humans in the government would have to agree not to say anything about this. Now, to some degree, I think this is possible in like where, where they’re only letting people that have been screened and have top secret clearances. But they’re not talking about that government. They’re talking about the people in the Social Security administration. They’re talking about people in the dmv, they’re talking about like the government, like everybody that carries like, like a government badge. And I’m just like, it’s, these are people not capable of keeping the secrets that you are in like, that you are implying that they are keeping, right? Yeah. And so what we have to understand as leaders, if, if we look at our organizations of people, that’s why it’s called an organization.

Jason Scott:

And we are happy with the results that we’re getting. It’s because of the way that the people are doing their jobs. If we feel like our organization needs to get different results, no amount of technology is gonna change the results. Our people have to do their jobs differently. And that, that can be supported by the implementation of technology. And so the idea is we need people to be excited about doing their jobs differently or they won’t. So you can go in there all command and control, but check it out. Every single person we know has been told that they had to do something that, that they were, that they were otherwise getting paid to do a k a, their job that they refuse to do, probably silently. Right? Like you and I, I, I was just in a meeting yesterday where somebody was like, I was talking about where we, we weren’t getting the results that I think we need.

Jason Scott:

And one of my younger team members was like, as I’m talking empathetically about it, she was like, well, isn’t this just their job? And I was like, I mean, we could approach it like that, but I don’t think we’re gonna get good results. Like, right. Uh, when think about the last time, you know, one of us asked you to do something, oh God, I just said her name. Uh, one of us asked you to do something and you just didn’t wanna do it. So you didn’t get around to it. And because you have 800 other priorities, right? You like prioritized. I was like, or we could, we could recognize that we haven’t, we haven’t. What we think we need to do is it resonating with our team members. So we should ask them like, what’s the obstacle? How does this resonate? Get give them choice.

Jason Scott:

Get them involved in the solution. Yeah. Gallup, Gallup performed a study and found that human beings in the workplace, once, once they make enough money to take money off the table, like most of us feel like we can make more money. But like, once we make enough money to take money off the table, we’re motivated by mastery, autonomy, and purpose. And I prove this again when I talk to big audiences, because there’s always this skeptic that’s like, no, it’s money. I, I ask them, raise your hand if you’ve been paid to have your time wasted in a meeting. Everybody in the audience raises their hand and I say, keep ’em up. And then I say, lower your hand. If you were not frustrated by having your time wasted in the meeting that you, you were paid to be at, nobody lowers their hands. Yeah. That proves that it’s not money. People not, there’s no money, enough money in the world to make people feel good about having their time wasted.

Tayo Rockson:

No, no. This is so brilliant, by the way. So please continue to plug your book. Where can they get your book?

Jason Scott:

Oh, uh, Amazon. I mean, where can you get any book? Right? The, the fastest way to get any book is amazon.com.

Tayo Rockson:

I’ll make sure I put that in the show notes. And, and, and I love that, that you’re talking about that because I, I, I think it’s, to your point, a lot of people forget that people make up systems. And the reason those conspiracy theories that you’ve been talking about can sometimes be hard to believe, in my opinion. I agree with you by the way, but I, I meet people who have, were so convinced. It’s because of what you said earlier. You were talking about how we are so committed to our camps, the amount of organization it would take for everyone to be on the same page, and not just the elite elite in terms of government clearance, but the people at the D M V, like you said, and the Social Security office and all those people, they would have to actually agree on everything, including politics, including <laugh>, including whatever, and decide it’s a secret that they’re keeping together. Right. And these are people that make up a lot of things. There’s no way there will be no leak. Right. It would be like, it’ll come out at some point. <laugh>. Right?

Jason Scott:

Right. I, and I always ask like, not everybody works in a really big company or works in the really big government. Right? So ask people that work in smaller companies, 30 people companies, right? 25 people companies. When was the last time everybody agreed on an idea in your 25 person company? And they’re basically like, like never.

Tayo Rockson:

Never, never, never. Yeah. No, no. But, but one thing that you, you do want people to do, ’cause people can’t agree on this, but this is something you believe everyone should agree on, is the idea of communicating your accomplishments daily. I saw this and I love it. But why, why, why should we communicate our accomplishments daily? And is there a framework we can use to do that?

Jason Scott:

All right. So this is, this is a highly controversial tool, even at 120VC where we, we use this on the regular and we have some clients that adopt it, that get it, and others that don’t. And I always tell people like, if something in your mind is saying this won’t work, it won’t, because you’re not seeing what I’m seeing. So don’t even try it if you don’t think it’s gonna work. But there, there’s some science behind this one. We are taught, at least in the US culture, that in order to be happy, we have to accomplish something. So we set goals, but then what happens is we, we meet the goal and we just move the goalpost. Sean AOR talks about this, um, in his book, the, the Happiness Advantage. Yeah. And so we, we have a tendency to be goalpost movers. And so me, typical goalpost mover, when throughout my career, there was many times, like even it would’ve been considered the height.

Jason Scott:

Like when I was, according to society, the most successful, I didn’t feel successful. ’cause I was always moving the goalpost. And so people would ask me to share an accomplishment, and I rarely could share an accomplishment because there was nothing that I had accomplished in my own eyes that was big enough to feel accomplished. And the truth is, I wasn’t happy. Mm. No matter how successful society perceived me, I was, I was unhappy. The other thing that we do is we help organizations at, at multiple stages achieve the outcomes that they think that they need. This requires discipline and intentionality. The second I say discipline, most people go, Ew use the D word. Right? It it, because discipline often means complexity. And the vast majority of human beings retreat from complexity. It shuts their brains down. And so the daily status report is a really simple way to, at the end of the day, reflect on your accomplishments.

Jason Scott:

And this word is very intentional accomplishments. What did you actually get done that moved the needle for whatever it is that you’re responsible for? It’s not gonna be 10 things. Some days it’s not gonna be one thing. Okay. But if it wasn’t one whole thing to completion, did you accomplish something that moved a piece of something forward? Like one accomplishment? Mm. Scanning the world for what you’ve accomplished when you realize you’ve accomplished something. Cause your brain to produce dopamine, the reward for getting things done. Yeah. So one accomplishment, dopamine, then you think, oh my gosh, another accomplishment. You write it down dopamine. And so you get in the habit of, you get in the habit of paying attention to what you’ve actually accomplished. Because again, fundamentally human beings want to be successful in their relationships, in their lives, at their jobs. Right? So taking a minute to just reflect on, on, have I been successful?

Jason Scott:

Is it incredibly valuable in, in, in our, in being happy, in feeling successful, in feeling good about ourselves, in having great self-esteem, in developing confidence. Mm-hmm. What have you accomplished that the next thing that we have people do is think, okay, what do I need to do tomorrow? What do I need to accomplish tomorrow? So again, maybe it’s one thing, maybe it’s two things. Maybe it’s three things. This whole exercise maybe takes five or 10 minutes once you get started, at the end of the day, the other thing that we do, and it’s actually first, so what we do is we list three gratitudes. And then again, I’ve gotta thank Sean Acor twice. ’cause this I got from his book. We, we, we think of three things, real things, tangible things that actually happened that we’re grateful for. Then we think, what did we accomplish?

Jason Scott:

And then what do we need to accomplish tomorrow? The gratitudes actually produce dopamine and make us feel good. So it’s the end of the day, you’re otherwise tired, your accomplish just produce dopamine. And then the last thing, um, is listing what you need to accomplish tomorrow. Closes those loops. Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night, like, oh my God, I don’t want to forget to do this thing. And and if you’re a rookie, you don’t roll over and write it down and you try to go back to sleep and you can’t go back to sleep. But if you roll over and write it down, you’ve closed that loop. Yeah. And you can go back to sleep. Yeah. So like, I don’t wake up in the middle of the night very often thinking, gosh, I don’t wanna forget something because I’ve planned the three or four things that I need to do to move the needle tomorrow.

Jason Scott:

And it’s the same thing at the end of the week, I think, okay, what do I have to do Monday? And I send the email out to my team so they know, and I’ve closed all my loops. I can enjoy my weekend because I know exactly what I need to be doing on Monday. The other thing that’s amazing is we were doing this daily status report thing to be aligned, right? To be a high functioning team. And we were just listing accomplishments and planned accomplishments. They, the DSRs, our daily status reports were less popular. And again, like I said, these are small little things, baby steps of discipline, baby steps in planning out your next day. It’s not like a huge thing. It’s not complex. It’s like one thing, maybe three things, four things. When we added the gratitudes, everybody started reading them. Meaning I’m, you work at 120 and you have nothing to do with, uh, Jake’s team.

Jason Scott:

You’re not on Jake’s team. You don’t work with Jake’s team. But Jake’s team is sending out their DSRs to everybody. We sent ’em out to like a group, and Jake goes through and he reads his team members, but team members from other team started reading other people’s daily status reports because of the gratitudes. Why? Because when you read somebody else’s gratitude, we have this mirror neuron in our brain that causes our brains to produce dopamine. And so we got aligned, it helped create community. Um, so there’s a, there’s like, I could go on, there’s a No, I love it. And reasons to celebrate and communicate your accomplishments every day. Mm-hmm. Team alignment. You wanna be a high functioning team. I, it takes me 10 minutes every morning to read my team members what they accomplished yesterday and what they’re planning on accomplishing. And it allows me to like, Hey, great. Like I read it. I’m great. They’re killing it. Or I’ll read that. They’re gonna do something where I had had a conversation with an executive in one of our, our, our clients. And they, based on what they said they were gonna do, they, they didn’t have that information. So I reply, they have the information, they’re more effective. We don’t have to have huge meetings every day. They, they have a ton of autonomy. And it’s just because we take a couple of minutes at the end of every day Yeah.

Jason Scott:

To think through what we’re, what we’ve done, what we’re gonna do next, and communicate with each other. Yeah. And so I’ll, I’ll leave you on this topic with this. At 120VC, we believe that we communicate to lead. And so that’s what that allows us to do. We’re all showing up as leaders for each other.

Tayo Rockson:

I love this. So, you know, ironically, I started doing a similar exercise with my, my friends and followers. And it’s really, it, it’s such an interesting thing. And I, I guess I can see how it could be controversial, but it’s that stop, rewind, reset, reflect, uh, because I believe we live in a world that’s too reactive and instead of reflective. And so a lot of people just realize to understand and appreciate the journey as opposed to the destination. The destination often doesn’t come with the expectations that we’ve attached to it. But when we learn to love the process of, of the journey, there’s a beautiful internal, uh, feeling of joy that, that can, that can be used to offset whatever that external, uh, thing that we need. You know, when we think we’re supposed to be happy. And, and so I I I love that you do it. That’s, that’s all I can say. I think it’s such a great <laugh>. It’s a great tool. Hopefully others, uh, come to accept it though, uh, that that would be the goal in terms of that. Right.

Jason Scott:

And I mean, I love the, the model that you just described actually sounds a lot sexier, the s status report, but it, it really, it, I think it sounds like it accomplishes the same thing.

Tayo Rockson:

No, it’s the same thing. No, that’s why I was nodding throughout what you were saying. I, ’cause I I do it. Uh, you know, and the reason I do with friends and follows is ’cause I, I’m, I don’t know if you agree, it sounds like you, you agree with this? I, I I don’t believe in having superficial friends. Right? Oh, yeah. I believe in having, yeah. People that add value to life and you add, you challenge ’em as much as they challenge you. And I, I, I wanna be able to be that type of person that lives that way professionally or personally. And so that’s why I love it. And I think it’s so cool, uh, because that’s the only way teams can be humanized in a full form.

Jason Scott:

Right. You’re not, you’re not drifting through life being reactive. Yes. You’re being intentional and, and creating, or at least living the deep meaning. Yes. Yeah. Living the depth of it as opposed to just sort of transitioning over the surface of it.

Tayo Rockson:

Well, you run a team of deep thinkers. So tell us more about 120VC your company.

Jason Scott:

Uh, so 120VC is in the business of enabling our customers to achieve the transformative power of getting stuff done. Or the rated R version is getting sh*t done.

Tayo Rockson:

Done, getting done. <laugh>. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Scott:

Um, and it’s, it’s not cliche like 22 years ago when I started the company, we, we, we, we were, we were in the project management business. Very quickly, I realized that executives are less interested in a single project than they are about ensuring that all of their projects get done each year for the amount of money set aside. Because projects are really changes that they feel they need to see in their organization to accomplish future goals. Um, agile hit the scene. I thought that was great. It was like clearly a model for servant leadership Scrum, which was intended to be a better way of developing software. We, we, and so at the time everybody was like, oh, you don’t need project management anymore. I was like, nah. But I wasn’t really allowed to say it without sounding old and dusty. So I kind of, we kept doing that and we got into the Agile and the Scrum stuff and, and then we, we ended up in getting into organizational change, leadership, demand management.

Jason Scott:

Somewhere along the way I realized that leadership in and of itself is a change discipline. Nobody hires a leader anymore because they want their organization to be the same in a month, six months or a year. Um, and then as I developed my own personal habits through education with the Stagen Leadership Academy, uh, just reading books, trying to be the best possible leader of my own business, um, I realized that I had to also have like an operational management mm-hmm. <affirmative> strategy or approach to be very intentional about the things that I, I was delivering. And so, um, one of the things that I think is cool about 120VC is we don’t experiment on our clients. We don’t build anything that is bespoke, uh, which is a really fancy word for, we’ll create something custom that is unproven, uh, that will cost you a lot of money.

Jason Scott:

Uh, we have models that we use over and over and refine over time. And so for each of the discipline that I just named, we have crafts developed, we have education, we have books as you know. Um, and so we really ended up, over the course of the last 22 years, being in the business of working with anybody that leads a team to apply the appropriate craft for the necessary outcomes and help them get the outcomes that they feel like they need within the constraints of time and money that they have. Yeah. So we really are in the business of enabling people to get done.

Tayo Rockson:

All right. Well, we’ll make sure I put that in your show notes, uh, and make sure that people can, uh, you know, get to work with you because it sounds like it’s gonna be a great experience. So, uh, and by the way, I really wanna thank you for being so vulnerable and open about this. ’cause I, I, I think it’s so important for people to realize that leaders can actually be like this. You know, you don’t have to, you know, be robotic <laugh>, if you will. So, yeah. Yeah.

Jason Scott:

Isn’t that, I, I feel like it’s, this is another one of my platforms, this whole notion of being professional.

Tayo Rockson:

Oh, I, I feel like I hate it.

Jason Scott:

Right? Like, it seems to me like they’re saying we have to act perfect, be emotionless and, and act like robots. This is impossible. Again, it’s never just, business is about people. Like people aren’t aren’t perfect. People are emotional beings. All of our decisions are made from our feeling brain that has no capacity for speech, the limbic system. Right. Like, so I, I think that that really gets in the way of, this is probably one of the biggest things that gets in the way of organizations achieving the outcomes that they think they need is, is, is discouraging people from being authentic. Yes. Encouraging people to pretend that they are emotionless robots. Because here’s what happens. Since that’s not possible, people are actually getting paid to invest time in looking good. Yeah.

Tayo Rockson:

As opposed to getting stuff done instead of being good by, by the way. Right? Yeah. Instead of being good, you have to I love that. Yeah. Instead of being good, you have to get, or we have to look like your version of authenticity as opposed to the version of authenticity. This is one of my most controversial takes. Maybe many people don’t agree with me on this, but I, you know, when I teach students or when I’m working with clients, I’m always like, you know, be yourself. And they’re like, what does that mean? I’m like, your hair or your talk. I don’t, it doesn’t bother me. But, um, many people disagree with me on this, so I’m glad that you agree, <laugh>.

Jason Scott:

I am so in your camp, like, can you imagine a world where people were encouraged to be authentic? And, and here’s why that would be powerful, because it takes both sides to encourage that. Like, if I’m encouraging you and everybody else I meet to be authentic, that means that I am super good with you being authentic. Right. What would, I mean, I think we, we would all be able to talk to each other. I think we’d all be able to listen to each other for sure. And it might, it might just start with the simplest of let’s just all encourage each other to be authentic.

Tayo Rockson:

Yeah. Oh my gosh. You know, I could talk to your audience.

Jason Scott:

I think there’s a lot of destructive trends out there. Sorry. And I’ll stop. No, no. I think there’s a lot, there’s a lot of destructive movements out there today in response to people being discouraged to be authentic. I think they’re like, oh, you don’t want me to be authentic. I’ll show you. Yeah. Again, very similar. Today I gotta wear a mask. Yeah. I’ll show you.

Tayo Rockson:

It’s the same thing. It’s the same thing. It’s all that, it’s the cycle. And that’s the way we, we reacted as a world too, throughout history, you know? And so, uh, actually it leads me to my final question. You’ve listened to podcasts. I always ask the guest this question, my mission statement is, use your difference to make a difference. And the reason I came up with that, um, is because I feel like throughout history, we, we, we’ve stripped away people’s differences or we’ve politicized it, or we’ve made a, a role to eliminate it if it’s different from us. Right. And so I’m encouraging people to use their difference, identify it, and use it to make an impact. So I love it. How do you, thank you. How do you, Jason, use your difference to make a difference?

Jason Scott:

I, I’m, I’m pausing because I, i, I have an answer, but I wanna give you a thoughtful answer.

Tayo Rockson:

Please.

Jason Scott:

I, I, and this is something I did not realize about myself. Like for your listeners, if they go back to the beginning of this podcast, like, as a child, I didn’t have dreams and I was unintentional. Um, and as I, I left and I went out and started interacting with the world. I remember people would make comments. And I remember, uh, a woman named Lori. This was, I was very young. I was out of the Navy. And she looked at me and she said, I wanna be around more people like you. And I didn’t, I, I didn’t say it, I didn’t have the courage to say it, but I didn’t know what she was talking about <laugh>.

Jason Scott:

And, and so over time I realized that for some reason, the way that I approach the world gets people excited. Like I, I have a knack for people to get, I have a knack for getting people excited for otherwise boring stuff like project management, daily status reports, like really boring stuff. And so, my, my purpose, my leadership purpose is to inspire, or my difference, this thing that I’m bringing to the world. Yeah. My purpose is to inspire people to reach for their potential, not my potential. Not what society thinks their potential is, but their potential. And I feel like this is very aligned with what you just said. Use your difference to make a difference. I mean, that’s what you are doing. You’re putting yourself out there <laugh>, right? Like what, so what’s what’s your difference?

Tayo Rockson:

So when, when I always, when I get asked this question is, I, I, I always say, I try to ensure that people feel safe enough to be themselves. And it’s, and, and the reason I, and it’s just as simple as that. And the reason I say safe enough to be themselves is because it’s not been safe for many people from different backgrounds to be who they truly are. And my goal is to dismantle any system of oppression and suppression in any system. So for me, doing it myself and creating a platform with that is, is how I do that. So, yeah.

Jason Scott:

Right on. I have, I have a question for you, if you don’t mind. Please. This will be my last question. If you could give somebody a silver bullet for doing that, for encouraging everyone around them to be authentic for hearing other people’s i ideas for dismantling any mechanism of, of suppression or repression. Like what, what would the, the silver bullet be?

Tayo Rockson:

You know, I really think vulnerability is an underrated skillset. And I think if I could tell leaders to do something, I think they would be, you’d be vulnerable enough to talk about what you learn, unlearn and relearn. I think that’s the cycle of life. And you have to make it a practice as a company and as an individual, as a company, we thought this would work. It didn’t work. This is what I think. Now, when I first started this company, I used to think like this, this is, now, if anyone feels opposite of this way, please feel safe enough to do that. And we don’t talk about lot, a lot of what we unlearn, because many of us have a culture of making what we learn, just tradition. And we don’t talk about how we, we can strip the toxic elements of that tradition into something.

Tayo Rockson:

And when we don’t navigate that on learning cycle and make it public, a lot of people feel like they just have to stick with whatever they were, they were taught in school. And then we don’t even practice relearning. So I would get as many leaders on board with that, CEOs, presidents, <laugh>, fricking prime ministers to just say, I thought this was gonna work. I campaign on this. It doesn’t work. Here’s why I’m telling you that I, I made a mistake, but this is my commitment to doing that. Right. So that, that’s what I would do. Yeah.

Jason Scott:

Count me in. Yeah. <laugh>.

Tayo Rockson:

Count me in, man.

Jason Scott:

Zoom high five.

Tayo Rockson:

But no, thank you so much, brother. This has been so much fun. I really enjoy, uh, the conversation.

Jason Scott:

Yeah. Vice versa. Thank you. This is like, this has been the best hour I’ve spent all week.

Tayo Rockson:

<laugh>. Alright. Kings, queens of royalty until next time, use a difference to make a difference.