073: Bill Treasurer: I was embarrassed and tried to joke it off

Intro: Welcome to the Fast Leader Podcast, where we uncover the leadership like hat that help you to experience, break out performance faster and rocket to success. And now here’s your host, customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

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Jim Rembach:    Okay Fast Leader Legion today I’m excited because we have somebody on the show who uses a phrase that’s just totally fascinating to me and I’m looking forward to talk about it, it’s called Purposeful Discomfort. Bill Treasurer grew up 22 miles from Manhattan in a town called Larchmont, New York. While his friends were mostly old money rich kids, his dad worked at the New York Telephone Company and drove a Volkswagen bug. What makes Bill, Bill is that he never had it easy he prides himself on earning the things that he’s gotten the hard way. Bill was a scrawny kid who never excelled in team sports. One day though he and some friends were jumping around on the diving board at the public pool and by mistake Bill did a backflip, it was a moment that changed his life. Springboard diving became his sport, his discipline and his love. He won the Worchester County diving championships three times and later got a full scholarship to West Virginia University.

Eventually became the captain of the US skydive team and performed over 1500 dives from heights that scaled to over 100 feet. Some of the dive Bill performed while being doused in gasoline and lit on fire. By the way, Bill has a debilitating fear of heights, now considered himself a leadership plumber. For the last two decades Bill has worked with emerging and experienced leaders every single day sometimes he works with leaders on succession planning other times he is doing one-on-one coaching with them sometimes he’s sharing we learn from other leaders. Bill has done hundreds of keynotes and workshops sharing insights he learned from his leadership clients. Bill is the author of Leaders Open Doors, which was inspired by a conversation with his then five-year-old son Ian. A hundred percent of Bills royalties are being donated to programs to support children with special needs. 

Bill is the father of three children Ian, Alex and Dina. Dina has cerebral Palsy and is deaf. Bill considers her to ne one of his greatest teachers. The common virtue that runs through Bill’s life and career is courage. It was courage that allows them to walk through his fear of heights, leave a six figure job to start his own business, be a truth teller to dominant executives and face the challenges, realities and joys of being a father of a children with special needs. Along with his wife Shannon, Bill and his family live in beautiful Ashville, North Carolina. Bill treasurer are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Bill Treasurer:    Jim I can’t wait to help you get over the hump especially the Fast Leader Legion.

Jim Rembach:    Thanks Bill. Now, I’ve them a little bit about you but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better. 

Bill Treasurer:    Man, my current passion is partly Purposeful Discomfort. I think it’s really important that people be courageous in their life and you’re not you find your courage in your comfort zone  you’re going to find it by stepping outside of your comfort zone into what I would call your discomfort zone. 

Jim Rembach:    As I was reading and learning more about what your thoughts around Purposeful Discomfort actually is there’s something that stood out to me that is something that I’ve really been advocating and talking about for a long time and to be honest with you something that I question myself about whether or not I should be doing that and that is that your job as a leader is to make people uncomfortable. 

Bill Treasurer:    Isn’t that surprising, it’s such a surprising statement. We would think that your job as a leader’s to pat people on the back and to make sure that they’re comfortable and to take good care of them and all that stuff is true but what’s really true is your job as a leader’s to make people uncomfortable. And that means nudging them outside of their comfort zones so that they’re growing, stretching, expanding their capabilities, constantly striving to do better than they did yesterday. A key question a leader needs to constantly be reinforcing and asking is, sure that’s good enough but what’s better? What’s better? Those two words are very powerful and you don’t find what’s better in your current condition, you find it outside of your current condition into what I would call your discomfort zone. 

Now, we need to be clear Jim, this doesn’t mean that because you’re making people uncomfortable that you have to be intimidating you don’t. I think that you should not—my title is Chief Encouragement officer. I believe in encouraging people, meaning putting courage inside of people not in-fearing by putting fear inside of them. That said you need to encourage them to move into their discomfort zone nudging them to get into discomfort so that they can grow, progress and evolve on behalf of their career and then on behalf of the company. So, your job is to make people uncomfortable.

Jim Rembach:    You bring up, as you’re talking—thanks for sharing that—there’s several things that run through my head, for people that don’t have the opportunity to see through this audio is I’m a big guy, I’m 6’4, I was 250 lbs. two months ago and I’m working on losing some weight I’m on my way to 220 lbs. and I made it public so now I got to do it but the doctor wants me 185 lbs. I said, “You’re nuts” but anyway, I’m a big guy and I’m not afraid of making feel uncomfortable when I see that they have more in them that for whatever reason they’re not allowing out. And one of the things that I found is because when you start putting in the fact that I’m a big guy I’ve got a big brow all of those things, I can be intimidating just by my presence than itself can do it. And so I’ve tried to be really mindful and try to really connect with people first at a level that is much deeper than the superficial and also I’ve learned more to share my intent so that it isn’t as fearful in the intimidation but regardless I’m going make you uncomfortable.

Bill Treasurer:    It’s a good point especially if our size is sort of imposing for others and if we ask them and invite them to do and encourage them to do uncomfortable things, we don’t want them to do it out of intimidation or fear we want to do out of their own want so that they excel and that they can close the gap between their potential asset that exists today and actualizing their potential as needs be tomorrow. Some of that takes good trust building between you and that person. If they see fit you truly have their best interest in mind in nudging them into their discomfort they’ll give you a lot more leeway than if they think you’re pushing them into discomfort because it’s going to somehow benefit you, make you more powerful, make your leadership spread around more so some part of it is the motive, are you asking people to do uncomfortable things as a leader does it benefits you and the organization or because it actually helps them add more value by increasing their skills and capabilities?

Jim Rembach:    Yeah. And so for me, I think, as you were saying that, without actually not cognitively assigning it previously. I guess what I’m trying to do more often that I was just totally aware of is earn the right to do it, if that makes sense. 

Bill Treasurer:    Yeah and I think your earn it. By you to do that investment upfront time to know what their goals are, their desires where they want to end up with their career, what their aspirations are and if you take that time and put that investment and really listen to them, you know, listening is a sign of respect it shows that you respect that person, you care about them, then once that trust is built you have a lot more latitude to be able to push and sometimes push forcibly because they know that that you’re doing it for their best interest cause you’ve taken an interest to find out what their best interest is. 

Jim Rembach:    That’s true. When you start talking about the things that we’re referring to and the learnings, there’s a lot of things that we need in order to help us stay on that direction. One of the things that we use on the show is leadership quotes, because they can have such a huge impact for us to stay the course maybe even go in a different or better direction or reset a direction. Is there a quote or two that kind of stands up for you that you can share?

Bill Treasurer:    Yeah. I love quotes and there’s the quote in the immediacy of the moment when I read a book, Oh, my God, that’s a great quote. I’m don’t remember them but I did recall a quote that means a lot to me and it’s because so much from my life is dedicated to courage, one of my website is couragebuilding.com because I’m a courage builder, that’s what I do, so as part of my practice as courage building, so this quote to me by Marilyn Ferguson, “Fear, she says, is a question. What are you afraid of and why? Just as the seed of health is an illness because illness contains information so she says, just as the seed of health is in illness because illness contains information your fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if you explore them. So I love that idea that fear’s a question and it’s a treasure house of self-knowledge if you explore your fear. Most of us see fear as something that we need to run away from, maybe occasionally fight or get frozen by and choke because we see it but really fear if we stay with it and get willing to work through it, walked through it and attend to it and listen to it, it might be telling us something on the inside. So fear’s really a question, what are you afraid of and why? And what it’s trying to tell you. So, it’s taught me a lot about the idea of courage to be present when you’re afraid and don’t run from your fear but stay with it because you’re probably, if you get on the backside of fear it will have taught you a lot redeeming things about yourself that is going to make you stronger individual in the long run. 

Jim Rembach:    As you were talking I started thinking about something that happened here recently. I’m helping coach my 10-year-old son’s baseball team and they actually go through a draft process to make sure that the teams are even, which is great it’s fantastic. After we got done through the drafting process the guy who’s in charge had said that one of the kids that we selected through our draft process, Coach Chris I helped him I’m the assistant, he was telling Coach Chris and I that his mom said please try not to put him on a team where somebody’s going to make him cry. And for me the things that you were just talking about—courage to me is a learned behavior and building that is a learned behavior we’re born with a clean slate we don’t know what fear—what do we always worry about kids? Why do we give them gauge at stairs? Because they have no fear. So the fear learned and then therefore courage has to be learned to overcome that fear. And I started thinking about that mother, I’m like, what are you preventing that child from learning, experiencing, growing? If you want to do that him.  

Bill Treasurer:    You know, she’s a loving mother who wants to protect his kids it’s kind of normal behavior. And you’re right we do too much of the teaching the don’t, don’t talk to strangers, don’t play with matches, don’t cross the road without looking both ways but the truth is you’ve got to learn to use matches and you got to have to learn how to interact with people so you better learn the do’s just as often as you learn the don’ts. But you’re right we over attend to protection and we do that internally too with self-protection. So, we avoid situations where we think we’re going to get harmed and we often stay in the comfort zone because it’s the safer place we think but if you stay in that safe place too long it can actually become dangerous to your own career, to your ability to have more influence as a leader. 

It’s funny that we’re talking about this, because I’m literally right now in the midst of writing a new book and the working title of the book is called, A Leadership Slap in the Face, and the idea is that we as leaders learn best and deepest mostly through embarrassing and humiliating experiences. We learn through pain, we learn more through pain than we do from the times that our pain less that we are always trying to avoid pain so we get into a pain less situation. And yet I of the humiliating experiences that I’ve had in my leadership life and they’ve been so important and informative and they’ve shape me as who I am. I think that the greatest aspiration of a leader is to be confidently humble. You’ve got to have confidence, true confidence authentic confidence, and grounded to humility but the reality is you learn humility through humiliation. You have a humiliating experiences and suddenly you’re not so far out of your skis anymore you bring your ego back into a right sized condition. And sometimes it takes a good slap in the face from life that sort of humbles you that then you can allow authenticity come in and get much more grounded and real and stop thinking of yourself as more important than the people that you lead because leadership is not about the leader it’s about those being led but if you’re puffed up and on yourself and not humble you’re due for a face slap. So the new book is a leadership slap in the face and it’s about that idea that not only are you going to have painful experiences, if you’re a leader worth your salt you certainly going to have them, but you might as well learn from them. So, let’s plan those experiences so you can benefit from them. 

Jim Rembach:    That’s a perfect segue to one of the things that is the main standpoint of what we do on the show. We talk about humps that we had to get over, it’s just that out, we learn. And here’s the beauty about stay assail standpoints of what we do on the show is that we talk about humps that we’ve had to get over, right? It’s just that we learn and here’s the beauty about the stories being told by our guess is that it gives our listeners the opportunity to learn through those experiences. So, when you start talking about learning, failing all of those things we have to do that if we’re going to grow, we have to. And we have to get as many experiences but we don’t really have so much time on the earth so learning through the experiences of others and then we can help them take them as our own as valuable. So can you think about a time when you’ve had to get over a hump and that really taught you a lot that you could share?

Bill Treasurer:    Yeah. I tell you on embarrassing, humiliating experience that was so transformative for my career. I worked at a company called Accenture, it’s one of the world’s largest management consulting companies very reputable, and I was there and I was doing well and I was in the change management practice. In my performance review my boss said, “You know you’re doing pretty good over here’s some areas I’d like you to improve and there’s one other thing that I want to tell you, please close the door.” And I knew this is kind of serious, I said, “What it is? He said, “I’ve started to see something in your behavior and it really concerning me. My concern is that if you don’t address it it’s going to become a drag on your career. And if I’m noticing it other people are definitely starting to notice it. And you’re going to want to remedy it or you’re not going to actualize your potential as a leader and your career will plateau.” I said, “What is it? He says, “I think your becoming a brownnoser.”

Oh it hurts, it stung. I was embarrassed. I was like ashamed and I look at him and I tried to joke it off. I said, “What do you mean?” Hey, you’ve got a nice tie. And he didn’t laugh. But what he said next made all the difference. He said, “Bill, you’re a smart guy, you’re a clever guy don’t rely on laughing at my jokes harder than they are funny to get ahead because not only is it dishonest it’s manipulation, you try to get ahead by being a false friend to me. He said, I rather have you be a truth-teller, I’d rather know what you’re actually think about something than have you sucking up to me so that you can get farther ahead in your career. Trust yourself Bill, trust your inclinations tell me what you really think. That was so liberating. It was it was one of the most important things I’ve ever learned in my career and one of the most important things I ever learn about leadership and the ultimate message was to trust myself. And it freed me up it gave me permission to care less what other people think about me and it made me a stronger writer and a stronger consultant and I think probably stronger friend. By getting that face slap that humiliating, embarrassing moment that had to sting in order for me to bring about useful and maybe even profound change.

Jim Rembach:    You know it’s kind of funny that you say that, that whole brown nosing concept is something that kind of rebelled against for long times so I went the other end of the spectrum. Meaning that I wasn’t going to show people that I care. I wasn’t going to do that because I don’t want to be labeled as a brown noser and that in itself impacted me just as much as if I was one.

Bill Treasurer:    Interesting, interesting. This is an embellishment and I’m not saying that you and I are either one of the things that I’m going to talk about. Literally this morning before I got on with you today I’m into a chapter, and this is wild end of the spectrum of both conditions, the person who was into flattery or too much into modesty. The chapter is called. Pig heads and weaklings the end of your pig head it’s all about sizing your ego and the falseness of your showmanship but depths that is going to hurt you in a way that it did in my case.  In your case it might have been on the other side, I was the pig head and in this example if I’m too modest it can hurt my career too because I’m not going to get notice and I’m not going to get as paid attention to them I’m might not be included as much so there’s the danger of that too. I think the middle place is if you can get to the right place, what I would call right size that you can get a right size ego you can become confident, which is important, and modest at the same time.
Confident and humility but not false level of either condition. You don’t want to be overly modest and certainly don’t want to be overly on yourself, conceited. So it’s a delicate bounds that pig heads and weaklings is one of the chapters today. 

Jim Rembach:    And mine came from probably multiple years of getting beaten up by my two older brothers. I had to show them that I was the tough guy and can handle it. And also that they wouldn’t be able to intimidate me. So, you’re not going to win over me, man. And so I kind of cared a little bit of a different aspect to it. If you start feeling back to machismo I’m a soft hearted guy. 

Bill Treasurer:    Right, right. Yes funny how that works and how we respond to face. And now I’d say I went a little bit on the other direction too. My dad was a really dominant, my dad was a hot head my dad was one of those fathers that you do see at the ballfield. They’re yelling at their daddy and all that kind of stuff the big red face when he’d get upset about something. I love my dad, he was a great man but he was a hot head. So I think I rebelled against authority at a certain times in life in particular my late teens and early 20’s because he was the ultimate authority figure and I saw his authority as dominance and intimidation, I thought I don’t want to be like that it’s funny how we do respond to the situations in our family. 

I really think our parents our first imprint of what is a leader look like and a lot of times we do one of two things we either adapt their style wholesale without questioning whether that self fits us or we reject that style and say, I’m going to go on the opposite direction because I won’t be anything like that. I think what matters is how we end up getting our own style that’s unique to us and sometimes it takes years to develop that. 

Jim Rembach:    It’s definitely been that for me. Okay, so I know you’ve got a lot of things going on and we talked about some in the bio—with the coaching, and you referred to writing another book at the moment—the kids, the charity work that you’re doing, a lot of stuff going on. If you’re to say you had a goal, what would it be? 

Bill Treasurer:    My goal is to—I just love this idea of Mother Teresa, I’m not saying I’m anything like Mother Teresa but what I’m saying is I love her idea of being God’s instrument that uses his pencil. If I can situate myself into really being connected with the Divine Providence, and then if I can allow whatever that Providence wants to work through me to say that and have a positive impact on people then I feel like I’m doing my job. So I guess my goal is to be a good steward of the message that Divine Providence wants to put through me and give to others. To be a pencil in a way that Mother Teresa was. 

Jim Rembach:    And the Fast Leader Legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on, let’s get a quick word from our sponsor.

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Jim Rembach:    Alright, here we go legion it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay Bill, the Hump Day Hoedown is the part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So, I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Bill Treasurer are you ready to hoedown?

Bill Treasurer:    I’m ready for the hoedown. 

Jim Rembach:    Alright. What do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?

Bill Treasurer:    Probably the desire to be a more present father and husband. I’m on the road so much that I’ve lost sight of the fact that leadership begins at home. And so so much of my, this is not holding me back from being a better leader per se it actually helping me a more well-rounded leader. I’m out of balance in one world, my work world and having to bring my presence back to my family and home life and that might be giving up some things in order to do that. That is my current emphasis. 

Jim Rembach:    What is the best leadership advice you have ever received? 

Bill Treasurer:    Stop brown nosing and believe in yourself. Attach to that be courageous. 

Jim Rembach:    What is one of your best secrets that you believe contributes to your success. 

Bill Treasurer:    I am really, really afraid of death. And I think that’s a good thing. I know that life is fragile and it’s staying fast and you speed through this life. So you’ve got to make the most out of it. Take a big a bite of this apple before you kick. Use it to your fullest advantage because it’s fragile and it’s going to go and it’s going to be very fleeting. So use your life now and use it for good. 

Jim Rembach:    What do you feel is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life?

Bill Treasurer:    I’m lucky because I can’t do so many things. There’s so many things I’m incompetent at but the one thing I have a little degree of confidence for but more important passion for is writing. When I get lost in writing usually it’s a dreamy space and good things come out of that. So if I pay attention then it’s my passion plays my head tingles when it’s working well. Writing is my tool. 

Jim Rembach:    What would be one book that you’d recommend, from any genre, to our listeners?

Bill Treasurer:    Your listeners are going to really love this book. It hasn’t come out yet it’s by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, they’re friends of mine, their great leadership luminary gurus and they have a new book coming out this spring and it’s called, Learning Leadership and it’s a fantastic book about basically how do you learn leadership, so that’s’ a great one. And then I would say for any reader one of the pieces of work that had the most profound impact on me and my thinking is Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay and it’s called Self Reliance.

Jim Rembach:    Okay Fast Leader listeners you can find links to that and other bonus information from today show by going to fastleader.net/Bill Treasurer. Okay Bill, this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question. Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you have been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you now have back with you but you can’t take everything you can only choose one, what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

Bill Treasurer:    Play it less safe. Learn to live without a net and trust yourself. Just show up keep doing the next right thing but take action especially when you’re afraid. So do the next right thing, learn to live without a net, trust in Divine Providence and you’ll do great things in this life. Don’t play it so safe. 

Jim Rembach:    Bill it was an honor to spend time with you today. Can you please share with the Fast Leader Legion how they can connect with you? 

Bill Treasurer:    A bunch of ways, billtreasurer.com, couragebuilding.com, leadersopendoors.com, and my company giantleapconsulting.com.

Jim Rembach:    Bill treasure thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom, the Fast Leader legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. 

Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader show today. For recaps, links from every show, special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over the fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

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