PP 248: How to be an Agent of Change with Ron Carucci

Ron Carucci is the Co-founder & Managing Partner of Navalent, a company that helps organizations build leadership capabilities and effectively employ strategies. Ron has a 30-year track record of helping organizations adopt strategies that lead to accelerated growth, and designing programs to execute those strategies. He is also a two-time TED speaker and the best-selling author of eight books, including the recent Amazon #1 Rising to Power.

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Kim Sutton Welcome to the Positive Productivity Podcast, Episode 248. Are you an Infusionsoft user? dealing with a massive confusion soft? Are you ready to use your app to make lots of money every month rather than just spend lots of money? Well, I have a solution for you. Head on over to kimfusionsoft.com to find out more about my strategy program, which can help you take your business to the next level using your Infusionsoft app. Again, that’s kimfusionsoft.com. The positive productivity podcast was created to empower entrepreneurs, to achieve and appreciate personal and professional success. I’m your host, Kim Sutton, and if you’re ready, let’s jump in to today’s episode.

Welcome back to another episode of Positive Productivity. This is your host, Kim Sutton, and I’m so happy that you’re here to join us today. I’m also thrilled to introduce our guest today, Ron Carucci. Ron is the best selling author of eight books, a popular contributor at Harvard Business Review in Forbes and the co founder and marketing partner at Navalent. Where he works with CEOs and executives pursuing transformational change for their organizations, leaders in industries. Well Ron, you do just a little bit of stuff day in and day out. Yeah?

Ron Carucci: Yeah. Kim, thanks for having me. I keep a little busy.

Kim Sutton: Oh, my goodness. So tell me and the listeners about your journey, please. I would love to know, and I’m sure they would love to know, how did you get to where you are today?

Ron Carucci: Gosh! It’s been a multi book decades of I don’t know if I have 30 years of experience or three years of experience 10 times. But it’s been a wonderful journey. I think I get to spend my life every day with colleagues and friends and leave the world a little bit better than we found it. I began my career inside organizations working in the org change space. And then after, you know, a decade or so I realized that my passion for organizations was probably going to be best expressed by not being part of one, if I were going to make any difference at all. And so I transitioned to the world outside of organizations working with them from an outside position, which felt politically a little bit less risky. And from a practitioner point of view, a little bit more impactful. So for the last 20 years or so, I worked as a consultant in various forms and formed my firm novolin to 13 years ago, with some friends and colleagues and we’ve grown ever since. And it’s been a, you know, it’s been a rich ride. It’s been full of thrills and full of bumps and hairpin turns, as is the case for any you know, small entrepreneurial firm. It’s lower, not startup anymore. There are days I still feel like we are, but it’s been it’s been a terrific ride.

Kim Sutton: I think I’m gonna have to borrow the word thrills, because that is definitely an accurate word to use. The good thrills and the bad. Yeah, maybe not bad, just not good.

Ron Carucci: There’s the white knuckle kind and then there’s the white knuckle kind.

Kim Sutton: Oh, I like that. tweetable listeners. There you go. The white knuckled kind and the white knuckled kind of how you put it?

Ron Carucci: You know, it’s the white knuckle kind and the well, although white knuckle makes sense, right? The terror of your hands opening up makes a lot of sense.

Kim Sutton: Yeah. Hey, either way, positive productivity podcast. I don’t always hear or speak properly, right. What did you want to be when you grew up, Ron?

Ron Carucci: Oh, my gosh, my coach just asked me that question. Last week, and then my next coaching session with her, I have to have an answer. You know, I think many of my colleagues in my family would just love it if I did grow up. But at this point in my career, Kim, I think what I’m trying to figure out is what impact I want to have on the world. We don’t want to be in the world, I don’t want to use my agency and my platform and my influence to do to do greater good work, not just the work that serves my clients and, you know, earns my paycheck. But what’s the fingerprint I’m gonna leave on the world? How do I want to use my voice to help others whose voice hasn’t been found yet or whose voice has been marginalized or whose influence in the world has been somehow thwarted. And so for me, I think I’m in that phase of figuring out, you know, there’s no more rungs on a ladder to climb, there’s no more trophies to put on the shelf. And I’ve been very fortunate, very blessed to have achieved the professional level that I have. And now it’s time to help others on their journey. Some of that’s part of reason why I’m chatting with you today. And some of it is yet to be figured out. But I think, you know, what I hope to say is true. Whenever finish lines I crossed whenever I crossed them is that people will say he was a very good agent of change, but also that he helped me and help make other agents of change. Others who want to have impact on the world felt their voices got amplified and supported. So I’m still figuring that out but that’s what I hope to be true.

Kim Sutton: What do you think prevents agents of change from getting their messages out? Is it them? Is it internal? Is it external? Combination of both? What do you see as being the biggest obstacles?

Ron Carucci: Kim, I think it’s a combination. I think, fear of our own agency, fear of our own impact plays into it, fear of what others will think about us plays a big role. I think sometimes, depending on where you’re trying to activate change. The environment itself can be toxic or resistant in ways that undermines your influence. And so I think there’s a host of factors, I think people who want to have a agency in the world and want to have impact in the world need to be very clear on target and with whom, and to figure out where’s the best place to have that impact, and then arm themselves, sometimes agents of change can be a little bit reckless and impulsive, and not have all the skills and not have all the tools in their tool bag before they go out and, you know, swinging their axe at something that needs something much bigger. And so I think the preparation work as well. So there’s so many factors that contribute to the journey of those who want to have enduring influence. But I think I would encourage people to start with their own inner landscape, and be sure that the obstacles that they’re not proceeding aren’t self imposed.

Kim Sutton: It’s interesting that you brought up tools that maybe they don’t have the right one, because so many times especially in the other side of my business and non positive productivity side, I often see my clients having too many tools that they don’t need, and that extra financial burden is holding them back from being able to do what they really want.

Ron Carucci: You know, I do think that there’s a you have the the two addicts, right? The people who just love to collect tools. I think those are my experience, those are that is always almost always a symptom to me of hiding that the one thing reagent have changed doesn’t want to bring us themselves to the party. And so they hide behind the tools. And they become an impediment, not an enabler, right? Those we’re trying to help don’t really care what’s in our toolbox. They just want to know that we can get the job done. But if we lead with tools, we’re almost always going to fall short of having lasting impact. It might have an impact in the moment, because people might go out with the tool. But for the most part, it’s not going to be lasting because we separated ourselves from the impact, and the toolbox becomes a great place to hide.

Kim Sutton: Wow. I just saw the clouds in Ohio part open, because I was thinking about how I need to start pairing down some of my own tools, the once that I don’t need to make an impact. Because I am pretty careful about what tools I buy but once in a while, and it hasn’t happened recently, but once in a while there’s that shiny object syndrome email that hits my box.

Ron Carucci: Oh, sure. And then you had anxiety of love others using that tool, and I don’t have it, but when they think of me, and if that’s the latest and greatest tool, I better be aware of it. And I should have it in my toolbox so I can look like I’m current. And we have all those narratives in our head that all that neurotic underbrush that gets in the way. And when you have used tools as a crutch. And I’m not obviously I’m the you have, but I think others, you know, they have a rich toolbox, I think we should all have great repertoires of tools available to us. But we should keep them hidden in our tool shed. And we should reach into that toolbox very carefully on behalf of those we serve only after connecting attaching with them, and making sure that the attachment is to us and it’s a relational connection, not a tool connection, then it’s perfectly okay to reach into your toolbox after you’ve done the hard vulnerable work of being the lead asset in the process of change. And that’s scary. For a lot of folks, that’s very intimidating. If you feel vulnerable, you feel exposed, you feel your own imposter syndrome becomes a huge thing to wrestle with. And tools are a great comfort right there. They’re extremely self soothing. And they make you feel competent, and they make you feel smart, and they make you feel progressive and relevant. But those are dangerous feelings, because they’re not always real.

Kim Sutton: I found Ron, that when my concern about tools really started to shift was also at a major point in my business when the mentors that I was following really took a shift as well. And it links back to what you were talking about a little bit as well. I was following income makers and the people who were always talking about how much money they made rather than impact makers. And the impact makers aren’t talking about the tools that they’re using, except for getting out there and being authentic and stop hiding and be fearless just to be out there and share your message. But the income chasers, those mentors are always talking about the latest and greatest software that’s out there and how you can do this to you get your next five figure six figure year or month or however, you know, make 100,000 in three days following these steps, right.

Ron Carucci: Yeah. I’ve been on some of those podcasts, right. And some of them I mean, that they’re all think that they’re being transparent by publishing their income every month and all the different income streams they use, and there’s nothing wrong with monetizing your content or having multiple income streams to sort of future proof your career. I’m all for that. But I share your concern, Kim, that when you’re enticing somebody saying, I’m grabbing $100,000 a month because of ad revenue and affiliate income and advertises on my blog, my blog, and blah, blah, blah, blah, or I’m an Instagram influencer, you know, whatever it is, you send a very dangerous message over that it doesn’t require effort. It doesn’t require content or specialization or something you really have to offer to contribute. It just requires, you know, exploitation and leverage. And I get very concerned when people, I think there’s some of them out there doing phenomenal work, who really are making great impact in the world and really are curating wonderful conversations and content, and they’re making a lot of money doing it. And I think if you only hear the part of the message, that’s the chaching, and that’s the part where people revenue, it’s very dangerous, right? Because some of those folks actually do work extremely hard at what they do, and have worked very, very hard to get where they are. And then I think most of us think, Oh, it’s the internet, I can become an overnight sensation. And they don’t realize that it takes years and years and years of effort to expand a digital footprint and digital impact that way and some people just, so many of them die in heartbreak hill. They just get tired.

Kim Sutton: That is, wow, I was about to die on heartbreak Hill, about a year and a half ago, I was there, I was ready to just toss up my arms and say I’m done. But a lot of things all happened at the same time. And I was led to a number of great, well, my current mentors, I would have to say, even though I don’t know them in person, and made that shift for me,

Ron Carucci: Good for you, Kim, because so many of us who are trying to expand our influence in the world to a variety of means like this podcast, it becomes exhausting, right? It really is a second job. And you have to stay committed, and it’s not easy. So good for you for sticking with it.

Kim Sutton: Oh, thank you. I’m exhausted, oh my gosh! Exhausting times like 10. And part of it. And I’d love to hear your thoughts, because you have a great article on Harvard Business Review, the 10 year study. So I’d love for you to talk a little bit about that. A lot of us think that by pushing, pushing, pushing, and I’m out of this now, and it’s something that I really try to reinforce with listeners is that we can’t keep on pushing to the point of sacrificing our health. I was sleeping two to three hours a night consistently for about a year and a half. And that’s when I got to heartbreak hill, because I exhausted myself. And I really do believe that I was chasing the wrong things. I was chasing numbers. Yeah. But I do agree with you, though, how you said before, I don’t believe that having multiple streams of income is a bad thing. Because that is actually what I’m very actively trying to build for myself. I love everything that I do. Yes, I do have more passion for this side of it. Don’t tell the other side. But it’s been very great business for me and I do have a passion. But I actually had a interesting conversation about two weeks ago, I was invited to talk to somebody about being on their Telesummit. And as I went through the conversation with them, I found out that they have a list of zero. And they were using the Telesummit to grow their lists, which I understand is a very common practice. However, they were using certain metrics to determine who was actually going to be an expert on the Telesummit, specifically, the size of an email list. And listeners, I don’t think this is a good way of doing it because and I’m going to “Michael Neeley” from Consciously Speaking Podcast, I was listening to one of his podcasts this morning, and he says how big your following is has nothing to do with how big of a difference you can make. And my email list may not be 100,000. But that doesn’t mean that the quality of the followers isn’t there. And the same goes for niche industries. And I’m sure you’ve seen this with the leaders that you worked with, that even the smallest niche can produce amazing results and amazing impact for just the niche that specializes in. So while numbers especially like, income numbers do make a difference when you have bills to pay, but I wouldn’t really put so much focus on them as income.

Ron Carucci: It’s a metric, right? It’s a mess. And you could have an email list of 100,000 people on it but you know, you have an average size, opt out right or opt in rate. But the reality is, if 95,000 of them don’t really engage in your content, or aren’t really actively being curated by you’re actively engaged in conversation with you, then it’s it’s policy, that bucket list, right?

Kim Sutton: It’s a vanity number at that point.

Ron Carucci: Well as exactly right. You must just go go go pay for subscribers, and pay people to join your list.

Kim Sutton: Oh, absolutely. Would you mind jumping into your 10 year study and, listeners there will be a link so that you can go read the article yourself. But I think it’s such a great article, Ron, a 10 year study reveals what great executives know and do, there will be a link to it in the show notes which you can find at thekimsutton.com/pp248. Would you mind touching on a couple of the points?

Ron Carucci: Yeah. So you know the study was born out of frustration with the fact that we’ve known for decades that more than half of those that assume broader influence roles and organizations fail in the first 18 months. And that became personal for us when we started to become people we work with, and painfully unacceptable to see the carnage. So that’s what provoked us to enter the study and discover. Two sides of the story, one was all the landmines of organizations put in the way of people on their ascent to bigger roles, and it’s a wonder any of them succeed on the way up, given how treacherous that climb can be, and how perilous organizations make it for those leaders. But the other side of the of the findings were the pleasant surprise of four very consistent and recurring patterns among the 50% that actually succeeded on their way out that actually stuck their landing and thrived in positions of great influence in leadership. And that’s what the article was, was the presentation of that of those findings. And we were very honored by HBR to be named one of 2016 ideas that mattered most, it was very moving to us to know that the findings were that resonant with people. And so the four were breadth, you know, leaders that could cross seams and create cohesion or rotation could stitch the seams of an organization and bring parts of the pieces together and see the organization as a whole, not just the sum of its parts. Context, being able to adapt your ideas and approach accordingly to the environment and not just impose your ideas to anticipate and read two leaves to look at external trends to really read the context of your environment and stay curious. Choice, the ability to make hard choices. So the folks that didn’t succeed, were the ones that said yes too much. And we’re talking to our to police people. But these leaders were not afraid to say no, they were comfortable narrowing the choices and the focus of their organizations, so that the auditions could succeed, doing a few things well. And the last was connection. These were the leaders that everybody wanted to be around, right? These are the ones that had phenomenal trust based connections of credibility and care with their bosses, their peers, and their direct reports. And the one thing that they were most known for was the hallmark of wanting to make other people succeed. So what they were heralded for was I knew that my success mattered to them. So they built their connections, not based on what they could get from people, but whom they could actually help further their success of. So the challenging part of the research was that what it indicated was that the people who distinguish themselves did all for them well, so even if you did three of those four, well, you didn’t, you were in the failure group. And so it’s hard to say that the great news was that read, the context, choice and connection are things we can all learn the things we can all work on. I actually have another TED Talk coming out on those in a month or so I recorded it in Boston last month, and it should be released. And you can also go to HBR Live. I do a live HBR session on them as well. And I have a Google Talk. So there’s lots of places people can hear me talk about those things in more detail. But it’s very exciting to hear people look at those and go Yes, that’s what I’ve seen leaders I work for, do that when they succeed and that’s what I want to do. Because the greatest things that can be learned.

Kim Sutton: I am sitting here saying yes and nodding my head as if you could see me because the same thing, I mean, I saw my own problems or my own challenges was saying, Yes, coincidentally. I was saying yes to much instead of saying no. And that was a huge transformation for success in my business. I can’t say I have all the other three down. Maybe I’m a little bit further along than I think but I know that that was a pivotal one for me when I started saying no to the opportunities that weren’t serving me properly. And that I wasn’t really passionate about. That was when I really started to see major shifts happen after I started allowing myself time to sleep again. Brian, how have you seen these four specifically impact the way that Neverland has grown?

Ron Carucci: I think one is that what we stay a brand, right? There are fundamentals of who Neverland is in the world that we all share, principles of the quality of our impact the quality of our relationships, the quality of our insights, and the impact of our material, our deliverables, our results. And I think because we embrace those, and we have a common belief about how change really happens in people’s lives in organizations, and I think sharing that and trying to find people who share those beliefs and have those basic skills we can cultivate and refine. I think that’s how we get what has made us work so well. When we only departed from that that’s when things haven’t gone so well. But I think staying true to plumb line and that sort of that DNA of who we are. I think that’s what has ultimately enabled us to grow over these 13 years.

Kim Sutton: I don’t usually ask hard questions like this or that I would like to think I don’t. But of those four that you just mentioned, which one is personally been the hardest struggle for you to stay consistent with?

Ron Carucci: I think, context. One of the blessings and the curses of having a long career is that you have a great pattern library, right. And so a lot of times you recognize patterns. And that’s what that’s what our clients come to expect of us. So they expect that our experience base will help them solve problems faster than they consultant themselves. And that’s the truth. But sometimes the problem is you, you never are excused from reading context. You’re never excused from adapting, you’re never excused from first being an anthropologist before you are a solution offer. But sometimes I have hastened to a solution or hastened to a conclusion without enough understanding of the context. And I’ve had to really hold myself accountable and stay disciplined to be curious first, to wonder first before reaching into the pattern library and seeing of what I’m seeing now looks familiar.

Kim Sutton: I see context being a struggle in everyday life for a lot of people, actually. I mean, all we have to do is go onto Facebook right now and we can see somebody else’s posts and immediately write a nasty response. And it’s so many of us forget to pause before. Yeah.

Ron Carucci: Yeah. We think we have an answer that someone else needs. So we have a point of view someone else opinion or have, and we forget to ask, we forget to be curious. And I think the speed with which information hits us and the speed with which we’re assaulted by so much, you know, data stimuli, I think almost puts our brain out a little bit of a cruise control autopilot. And we do have repositories of experiences and repositories of pat answers and repositories of cliches and, you know, sort of bumper stickers of our own that we just slap on to the world without ever stopping and asking, Is there a different story that I’m seeing? Is all I see all there is to see? And the world would be so much better if we would all ask and start with inclusion that I don’t know versus I already know.

Kim Sutton: I’m gonna have to start using that question when myself, is all I see all there is to see? Thank you, Ron. When you were young boy, what did you want to be when you grow up?

Ron Carucci: Alvin Toffler, most of my friends wanted to be, you know, Mickey Mantle or some sports star or they wanted to be an astronaut, wanted to be John Glenn. I wanted to be Alvin Toffler. The future is,

Kim Sutton: I’m not familiar.

Ron Carucci: Oh my gosh! He was a futurist. He wrote a book called Power Shift. He also wrote a book, he’s more famous book was Future Shock. The predictions in the ’70s and ’80s of the speed with which the future was coming at us that we would reach a state of Future Shock where we can absorb no more change beyond what was coming at us. So brave. He just passed away about two years ago. His wife, Heidi is still alive. He was in his late ’80s. But yeah, he’s a brilliant, brilliant thinker and futurist.

Kim Sutton: I am surprised that I’ve never heard of him. Because–

Ron Carucci: Me too.

Kim Sutton: Yeah. Yeah. And listeners, I can hear you shaking your head. What? You don’t know who he was or who he is. What would be the best way to say who he was who he is. Yeah. Positive productivity again, keep talking. What do you think is the one thing and I’m asking from the perspective of mom of five here. What do you think is the one thing that is lacking in a traditional public school system right now for kids to help them become great leaders?

Ron Carucci: Oh my gosh! If I could overhaul the curriculum of public schools. Listening. Teaching how how to listen. Really teaching deep respect. And I swear from a morbid just the tolerance of differences, but we just tolerate bullying. You know, people’s early experiences of power, which is I just spoke to myself and my TED Talk were actually quote Alvin Toffler about power. And we allow too much for our children to discover power in the wrong ways, and we don’t teach them how to use it well. And we have laws and the books we don’t ignore. So I think teaching true collaboration, true integration with others, and beyond just tolerance, but embracing and celebrating those differences. And the third one, I would say is good problem solving skills. We don’t teach practical, good analytical problem solving skills. You know, algebra and geometry and other basic STEM concepts can teach us so much by teaching our kids how to do great analytical problem solving. So listening, embracing others in differences and great problem solving, I would love to install courses on.

Kim Sutton: I completely agree and I have a 12 year old and a 15 year old as of the time of this recording. I also have three other kids, listeners if you haven’t listened before, but I can see, especially the listening, I can see that because it comes home, and mom or dad can be talking, to Mom or Dad, you know, whoever is not talking. And it’s like they’re the only one there and they start talking and then they’re not listening when we’re talking back, but I see it also carrying into adulthood, because so many times I’ve even found myself not listening and trying to think of what I want to say next.

Ron Carucci: Well, arming ourselves to refute a point we’ve heard. But I think that one of the problems with didactic learning. I think some schools are getting better with using groups and using group learning, but the reality is, is this didactic? I talk you listen. And we infer that learning is a consequence of teaching. And learning is not a consequence of teaching. Learning is a consequence of thinking. And the only way I can know if you’re thinking is if you’re talking, right? So having kids talk to each other in process what they’ve heard, so A test that they’re learning is really a very different model. But teachers, their own sense of satisfaction, their own sense of of impact is if they’re talking if they’re presenting content as if they’re curating material for their students. And that’s just not a metric of whether or not your students are learning and things we certainly know no other test scores.

Kim Sutton: Oh, absolutely! Yeah. And I even found that when I went through college, I learned a fraction of what I actually learned probably in the first three to six months when I actually got out there in real world and was doing not just listening to the professors.

Ron Carucci: Well, I think reality is we also don’t, if we’re not listening, we don’t know that we’re not listening.

Kim Sutton: Oh, absolutely. I do want to bring up what you also said about the bullying factor too and accepting everybody around us and tolerance. Ron, my 15 year old on his last day of sixth grade was or three days left of sixth grade was actually expelled for standing up to bullies. And he had perfect attendance, high honor roll up to that point. But he had had enough. He had been tolerating all year, but when they got physical with him, he stood up for himself. And that became the point when the school no longer tolerated it, which I thought was so unfair.

Ron Carucci: Yeah. Were the bullied also expelled?

Kim Sutton: They were as well, but they had been also suspended and expelled numerous times throughout the year for doing the same thing to other kids.

Ron Carucci: And so Kim, that just infuriates me. It infuriates me. What do we think of today’s bullies going to do? If they’re bullying, and they’re not being stopped? They shouldn’t be in school. I think until we draw a line that says in my classroom, in my school, this will not be tolerated. And frankly, you know what, I think there should be zero chances. I don’t think we should get in the three structure. I think those children need to, unless children believe that this is a standard to which I will be held to account at great expense. Why would they care? The pure pressures, the social pressures, the social differences, the deep hunger to fit in, all create your competitor with great immaturity, they haven’t had the social skills, otherwise to be mature. So that’s how it manifests itself and power over and abuse and who knows what’s happening in their homes that’s causing it but regardless of that, until somebody says, No. Allowing those kids to come back multiple times of doing it. It just says, Yeah, we don’t really care. And it’s enough to keep them out of trouble, because the school should know, the laws say that they’re supposed to lose their funding, right? If they tolerate that.

Kim Sutton: Right.

Ron Carucci: So sorry, that happened to your son. It’s just absolutely outraging.

Kim Sutton: Well, I think they understood. You know, I don’t personally condone fighting violence with violence. Personally, I don’t agree. However, I know there’s a lot of people who disagree with me. And well, on that point, I don’t really care that there’s people who disagree with me, it’s one of the very few things that I’ll really budge on. But that standing up actually stopped it. So they don’t bother him anymore. But it’s been something that I’ve had to talk to him a lot in the last while he’s a freshman in high school now, so in the last two and a half years. There’s innocent teasing that happens all over the place, or “innocent teasing” from the time where young children all the way up until well, now, I mean, you know, we can be entrepreneurs and leaders, and there’s what we think is innocent, and we’re recording this listeners at the end of 2017, which there’s so much coming out in the media right now about people doing inappropriate stuff. And you know, even some of that stuff they might have thought was innocent teasing. But if we don’t teach the children at a young age, what’s innocent and what’s not, then it’s not going to change and it’s going to encourage this environment where people are getting hurt in the process.

Ron Carucci: And you know what, innocence isn’t an excusive. It may explain it, but it doesn’t excuse it.

Kim Sutton: I totally agree.

Ron Carucci: And the reality is, you know, I mean, my son was severely bullied in a private school where it wasn’t supposed to happen, and we didn’t know it. And when I found out we pulled him out, and sadly, he do better in the public schools. But I ripped that superheaded in one, he was pandering to donors and pandering to the philanthropy, the money from the private school and so he turned his head. The question I would have asked those teachers, when your son was expelled was why did my son do your job for you? Why did he have to stop these boys? I mean, the only reason he had to was because you didn’t. So you should thank him. He did your job.

Kim Sutton: Ron, what did the journey of writing your books look like?

Ron Carucci: Agonizing. You know, each of the books represents a persistent, you know, some question that my clients were asking are some persistent challenge that made me scratch my head and made no sense to me that it was my way of going to learn more. And sometimes each of those journeys would conclude with more questions, which would maybe lead to the next project. So because I make my living as a consultant, and an author, which irritates my publishers, you know, that’s not how I make my living by talking about the book much on the books, they serve as great calling cards or, you know, some social proof that I might know something to people who might want to work with us. But for the most part, you know, they’re my way of going in retching some painful itch on some persistent challenge. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. And when my clients ask about it, I want to have some point of view on it. So each of them were a combination of research and all the creation and the content, the writing, and of course, the difficult commercialization process of those. So yeah, they’re a journey through some challenge that you’re just googling, googling, it didn’t provide satisfaction.

Kim Sutton: I really like that. I’m actually writing a book on Chronic Idea Disorder, because I found that I was often afflicted with too many ideas, as are so many entrepreneurs, and not in, yeah, I couldn’t find anything about how to control it. So.

Ron Carucci: Well, those of us that have divergent minds versus convergent minds, right? Divergence is a gift. And trying to impose convergence typically doesn’t work. But the reality is, is I have found entrepreneurs who are idea machines, what they can’t do is grieve, right? They struggle to grieve. And what you have to grieve is the fact that not every brilliant idea, we know about the bad idea is, but not every brilliant idea is meant to be pursued as one for the sake of the brilliant ideas you are pursuing. And so the ADD among us, the sort of the short attention span, ooh, something new to chase. We jump every FOMO, right? If your missing out, but underneath FOMO is, maybe anybody to grieve, and say no, and grieve goodbye to an idea that excited you for the sake of the idea is you’ve said yes to. And so I think those who can learn to grieve well can forego their brilliant ideas for the sake of other brilliant ideas.

Kim Sutton: Oh, my gosh! Can I quote you? Listeners, you know that. I go off on tangents sometimes. But I might have to quote you, because what I do talk about is how there seems to be a graveyard of ideas in my backyard, you know, just shell a little holes that never quite made it through the other side of the earth, because I’d never finished building them out. And that is so appropriate.

Ron Carucci: Well, it may be a sign of I can’t finish what I start for some people it is. But usually it’s the inability to sort of say no, and say goodbye. And so you should go out there to backyard and put little gravestones and have little funerals and weep and have little eulogies for the ideas, and then go on and stick to the ideas you’re committed to.

Kim Sutton: Oh, I love that. Ron, have you read Think and Grow Rich?

Ron Carucci: I have not.

Kim Sutton: Okay. In the book, Napoleon Hill talks about, he has a inner monologue basically, with a lot of past people. And I mean, famous people, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, who sat on his internal board of advisors. So whenever he’s struggling to figure out what he should do in his particular situation, like he goes inwardly and talks to these people. If you had an inner board of advisors who would be on your board?

Ron Carucci: Gosh!

Kim Sutton: I know that’s a good one, isn’t it?

Ron Carucci: It’s such a great one. I think Adam Grant, I’d have him. They can’t be people who are dead?

Kim Sutton: Dead or alive.

Ron Carucci: Abraham Lincoln, David Whyte, who wrote Crossing The Unknown Sea. What was his name? The Jesuit [inaudible] from Montreal. He wrote the Prodigal and Be Here Now. I can’t even

Kim Sutton: We’ll put it in the show notes.

Ron Carucci: Yeah, that guy. Probably some great comedian who can keep us laughing.

Kim Sutton: Oh, I love the comedian edition. Who are three mentors that you look up to right now. Or would it be the same as your board of advisors?

Ron Carucci: Well, my wife is my real mentor [inaudible] also is in my Ted, my second TED Talk coming up. She has been my mentor for 30 years. And she’s been an external influence on my life. And I’m, you know, everyday I just pinch myself and I’ve had somebody accompany me on this journey for so long with so much love and care. Who else? Maybe Nelson Mandela, if I could be mentored by or you know, somebody, some great leader of a great movement who I could glean wisdom from in terms of how they did it. Who else? You I think people like the reason I picked Adam Grant from my board, the people who have truly tried to embody generosity have tried to embody what it means to care for others in the world whose voice needs amplification whose path needs to be lit. He’s oddly young much younger than me but I just admire that he’s chosen to use his voice the way he has.

Kim Sutton: Oh, I like that. And one last question for you. Well, I guess the last of these types of questions, what is one thing that you can’t get through your day without?

Ron Carucci: Besides coffee?

Kim Sutton: Besides coffee, I didn’t want to drink coffee, though. So.

Ron Carucci: I would have and twisted it and say one thing I shouldn’t get through my day without, ‘coz somedays I do, but is gratitude. Remembering that I have much in my life to be thankful for. And I know that if I start with a posture of gratitude versus entitlement or resentment or fatigue or tiredness, my days are different. And so I know that there’s times when I can point out remember the things in my life that I’m thankful for is my day goes differently.

Kim Sutton: That’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing. Ron, this has been an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for joining me on the Positive Productivity Podcast. Where can listeners connect with you online?

Ron Carucci: Yeah. So come and find us at Navalent N-A-V-A-L-E-N-T.com. We’ve got some great videos and blogs. We have a quarterly magazine on all kinds of topics of leadership and productivity in organizations at Navalent.com/transformation, we have a free ebook for you on leading transformation in organizations. So come get that for yourself if you’re leading some kind of great change or you’re always pondering that. Twitter @RonCarucci, C-A-R-U-C-C-I. And I love if you would put it in your show notes, Kim with the link to my current TED Talk, which you can find on YouTube. I’m on power. It’s a very empowering message around how do we– get given we talked about all the people these days who are abusing their power? This is a message of how do we better steward our power and use it productively and responsibly. So gotten some wonderful feedback on it and I love for your listeners to have access to it.

Kim Sutton: Oh, absolutely. I share well and listeners, you’ll be able to find all these links in the show notes at thekimsutton.com/pp248. Ron, thank you so much again, do you have a last piece of parting advice or a golden nugget that you can offer to listeners?

Ron Carucci: I do and it came from my mentor and it’s this, nothing is irrevocable except death. Remember that when you’re fearful or anxious about stepping out and using your voice or try something different? Life does give you more do overs than you think there are some ways some things which are not do overs, but there are far more available to us than we actually take advantage of. And if I had learned that years ago, I would have taken more risks and be more courageous. So remember that nothing in life is revocable except death.