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Hamish Knox Show Notes Page
Hamish Knox had the worst 20-minutes of his life. He was on a prospecting call with a senior vice president of a chemical company and he failed miserably. He knew all of the content he needed to know, but that was not good enough. Hamish realized he stopped learning and was unable to add value.
Hamish Hamish Knox grew up in the village of Malakwa (Mal-a-kwa), British Columbia halfway between Vancouver and Calgary on the Trans-Canada Highway on a 10-acre hobby farm. His parent’s instilled in him a passion for education and discovering, George Carlin at the age of eight instilled a love of language and languages that continues to this day.
Both of his parents have a background in education, if he’s being cheeky he’ll say that he joined Sandler because his mom always wanted him to be a teacher. Hamish actually started coaching when he was in his teens as one of the founding coaches of the Sicamous (Sick-a-moos), British Columbia Minor Soccer Associates.
He also founded the men’s basketball team with five friends at his secondary school when he was in grade 10 and founded the women’s basketball team as head coach when he was in grade 11.
Hamish owns Sandler in Calgary, part of the larger global Sandler network, but he started out as a sport journalist mostly writing for the Other Press in New Westminster, British Columbia. He also wrote for Inside Lacrosse Magazine and has written for India Business Magazine and the GreenSky blog.
Hamish has written two books, both on topics no one likes to talk about. Accountability the Sandler Way was published in November 2014 and Change the Sandler Way followed in September 2016.
His work fueled his passion for education specifically gaining expertise in neuroscience, human psychology, behavior and development. A model of the human brain sits in the primary training room of his training centre and is a recurring feature during sessions, especially with his leadership development group.
Shortly after he joined the network, Hamish started training in muay Thai under Ajarn (ah-jarn (master)) Mike Miles in Calgary where he discovered synergies between the structure of muay Thai and the structure of the systems he shares with his clients. In 2016 he earned his first level black prajiat (pray-ji-at (belt)) and continues to train regularly while supporting fighters at the gym through sponsorships so they can compete locally and internationally.
Hamish lives in Calgary with his wife of 16 years and two daughters, 6 and 3. He also makes jam and sausage…. Sometimes he shares.
Tweetable Quotes and Mentions
Listen to @sandlerhamish to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow – Click to Tweet
“If it comes out of their mouth it’s real, if it comes out for your mouth, you’re a pushy micro-manager.” – Click to Tweet
“The biggest fear of a leader is, I don’t want to have to go through the pain of hiring.” – Click to Tweet
“Accountability should be a support mechanism and not a stick.” – Click to Tweet
“Your people don’t work for you because they love you, they believe that working for you is going to get them to reaching their personal goals faster.” – Click to Tweet
“When you can tie achievement of their personal goals to achievement of your corporate goals, now they own it.” – Click to Tweet
“Until we establish where you are trying to go, we have no way to design a path to get there.” – Click to Tweet
“We need to define what are the mountaintops that you’re trying to get to and the whys behind those mountain tops.” – Click to Tweet
“You win or you learn.” – Click to Tweet
“Let’s go from zero to one and build from there.” – Click to Tweet
“If we can separate our success and our roles from our self-worth we can win or learn” – Click to Tweet
“Sometimes we have to have difficult conversation, but those are better conversations than the ones we could have down the road.” – Click to Tweet
“A goal is something that’s internal.” – Click to Tweet
“A leader’s number one job is to create clarity.” – Click to Tweet
“The word consequence is neutral, but most people layer it as negative.” – Click to Tweet
Hump to Get Over
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Show Transcript:
Click to access edited transcript202: Hamish Knox: I just stopped learning
Intro: Welcome to the Fast Leader podcast, where we explore convenient yet effective shortcuts that will help you get ahead and move forward faster by becoming a better leader. 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 today who hopefully is going to help me get over something that I’ve had a problem with for a long time and if I have a problem with it I would dare to suspect that a lot of other folks do as well. Hamish Knox grew up in the village of Malakwa (Mal-a-kwa) British Columbia, halfway between Vancouver and Calgary on the Trans-Canada highway on a 10-acre hobby farm. His parents instilled in him a passion for education and discovery. George Carlin at the age of 8 instilled a love of language and languages that continues to this day. Both of his parents have a background in education. If he’s being cheeky he’ll say that he joined Sandler because his mom always wanted him to be a teacher. Hamish actually started coaching when he was in his teens as one of the founding coaches of the Sicamous (Sick-a-moos) British Columbia Minor Soccer Associates. He also founded the men’s basketball team with five friends at his secondary school when he was in grade 10 and founded a women’s basketball team as head coach when he was in grade 11.
Hamish owns Sandler in Calgary part of the larger global Sandler network but he started out as a sport journalist mostly writing for the other press in Westminster British Columbia. He also wrote for Inside Lacrosse magazine and has written for India Business magazine and the Green Sky blog. Hamish has written two books both on topics no one likes to talk about, Accountability the Sandler Way and Change the Sandler Way. His work fueled his passion for education specifically gaining expertise in
Neuroscience, human psychology, behavior, and development. A model of the human brain sits in his primary training room of his training center and is a reoccurring feature during sessions especially with his leadership development group. Shortly after he joined Sandler network, Hamish started training in Muay Thai under Master Mike Miles in Calgary where he discovered synergies between the structure of Muay Thai and the structure of the systems he shares with his client.
In 2016, he earned his first black belt and continues to train regularly while supporting fighters at the gym through sponsorships so that they can compete locally and internationally. Hamish lives in Calgary with his wife of 16 years Kim and daughters Taylor and Lexie. He also makes jam and sausage and sometimes he says he shares—sometimes. Hamish Knox, are you ready to help us get over the hump?
Hamish Knox: I am ready Jim, let’s rock and roll.
Jim Rembach: I’m glad you’re here and I’m glad we’re talking about this particular subject. But before we go into that I’ve shared with my Legion a little bit about you but can you share what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better?
Hamish Knox: Absolutely. My passion is really around human behavior and the brain. If you stripped Sandler down to the core we’re about facilitating better human to human interactions and supporting our clients to have better human to human interactions personally professionally, so I love human behavior.
Jim Rembach: Well, you and I had an opportunity to talk off mic I said for me being in the customer care, customer service contact center industry I said, well heck, we’re doing the same thing but it’s at mass scale.
Hamish Knox: Totally.
Jim Rembach: And so for me though going on this particular topic of accountability, we also talked off mic about this a little bit, and so for me it’s gotten to the point where I just cannot stand hearing that word because it’s been so vilified in the media and any time I hear holding people accountable my mind start seeing hands around a throat and starting to be clinched and squeezed. That’s not what we want to do with people and acquaintances and friends and heck just think about it from a society perspective, I don’t think that’s where it should be, do you?
Hamish Knox: No, not at all. What I do believe is that accountability is exactly what you described, Jim, it’s the beatings will continue until morale improves which is not a great way to run a business or a society or a family or a friendship. If people come to you and a micromanager is someone who’s saying, hey Jim, what are you doing on this hey Jim what are you doing on that hey Jim what are you doing on this? But what we teach our clients to do is if I come to you on Monday and say, hey Jim high five, great to see you what are you going to accomplish this week? And you might say, well I’m going to move this file forward and I’m going to work on this project and do this and this and this and this. I’ll say great, Jim, see you on Friday. And on Friday we sit down and go, hey Jim, high five, great week on Monday you said you were going to do this this this this and this, how do you do? And you might say, man I walked it on that project. And then you say, well but you know this other thing kind of slipped off because I was fighting the fire. Hey, Jim, these things happen how are you going to make it up? As I tell all the leaders I work with—if it comes out of their mouth it’s real if it comes out of your mouth you’re a pushy micro manager.
Jim Rembach: Thanks for sharing that. What you just talked about right there is one of the myths that you refer to one of the top myths that accountability goes in the book and there’s three others, of course because we said four, so big brother that was the one that you were referring to and the other two three are: too much time, veteran team and they’ll leave. If you could tell us a little bit about what too much time actually means?
Hamish Knox: So too much time is exactly the excuse that I get back from leaders role where they say, Hamish, accountability great idea it’s going to take way too much time. This is actually built on there are people coming back and saying we’ll use the sales contacts. Hey, Jim I really want to be accountable I really want to do that CRM entry and track my activities but you’re just going to have to assume that I’m going to do less sales because I’m doing all this extra admit work. And the fact of the matter is that’s not true because you make the accountability program fit the way that your people work naturally so it’s going to be a bit different for everybody but everybody’s going to hit the same mountaintop. And then the leaders think, wall it’s going to take away too much time because as you’ve identified they’ve socialized been socialized that accountability is hands around the throat I got a wrestle you in the submission. Uh-huh all I’m doing is using your own data that you gave me on Monday to circle back on Friday and say, how do you do?
Jim Rembach: That’s a good point. In addition as you were talking I started thinking about one of the quotes that I started sharing with my kids that resonates with them now it’s like, okay you can take easy now and deal with hard later or do the hard now and receive the gift of easy later. So when you start talking about the whole accountability piece too much time it’s like okay well, where do you want to spend it? Because you’re going to be on the back end of it trying to fix the things that you didn’t address on the front end.
Hamish Knox: Exactly.
Jim Rembach: The other thing is you talked about veteran team.
Hamish Knox: Well, the veteran team comes in two flavors. The one is talking to a leader. And they go, listen Hamish, we’ve got a veteran team these people know what they need to do they are doing what they think they need to do in order to be successful and most of them are probably stuck very deeply into a comfort zone but because it hasn’t been detrimental to the organization the leader just lets it go. The other side of it is when a leaders got an accountability program in place, and I’ve seen this happen several times with my clients they bring a veteran in doesn’t matter what the role is, they bring a veteran in and the veteran says, listen got it accountability great for you great for those newbies that you’ve got on your team but you hired me because I’m a veteran I’ve got an experience I’ve got a book of business I don’t need that accountability stuff. I was telling this story to a CEO group that I was speaking to and there was a leader in there from a large construction company and they put up their hand and said every veteran they’ve ever hired has not worked out for that exact reason.
Jim Rembach: For me I just started thinking about the whole screening process. I know now, maybe I didn’t know back then, when they start talking about the whole experience thing versus mindset and attitude and everything else, I would rather hire somebody who is a continuous learner who has some humility someone who thinks they know it all and therefore they’re not open to new ideas. We’re also talking about the veteran team component, for many years I was part of doing analytics work for contact centers and we looked at customer experience associated with people performance and what we actually found is that those veteran folks they had some really bad habits that caused some really bad issues.
Hamish Knox: Yeah. Not surprising.
Jim Rembach: Well it is and so what we found is that we can even put a time clock on it from a calendar perspective and know that typically in a contact center we talked about frontline workers about that 11 month time frame is when that decline started to occur. We actually saw a negative impact to the customer experience for people who had tenure hitting that window and it was fairly common across a lot of different companies and industries. And so we kind of built that into the process to say, okay, this is coming so you need to start doing some intervention components and elements at month 10 so that you don’t experience that decline.
Hamish Knox: Absolutely.
Jim Rembach: When you start talking about data and analytics and working with clients do you see some similar type of tendencies when you start talking about this accountability component and tenure and life cycle and things along those line?
Hamish Knox: Absolutely. When it comes into launching the program it’s really building that why. It’s not just like, hey I had this idea or I read a book by some guy named Hamish and now all of a sudden we’re going to do accountability there’s got to be a real reason why behind it and that actually ties into the whole they’ll leave components. The biggest fear of a leader is, I don’t want to have to go through the pain of hiring. The fact is that you’re going to have turnover and what my clients have experienced is the people who self-select, which is my favorite HR cliché when they implement an accountability program, are the ones they probably wanted off their bus anyways and now they have a mechanism to gently and nurturingly move them off the bus and in a couple of cases it was some of the higher performers who had built their success on really a bunch of sand and it was going to fall apart and so as soon as they saw this accountability program they’re like, well I can’t keep sweeping stuff under the rug anymore I better just get out of here. And then what was uncovered after they left was they had built their success on a bed of sand and it was going to fall apart. It’s good that we learned about this now instead of later.
Jim Rembach: It’s interesting that you bring that up and so from my perspective one of the things that I always try to do is flip this whole accountability thing to an ownership scenario. Meaning that we want people to take ownership of the things that we want them to take ownership of and from an accountability perspective I want them to do that themselves hold yourself accountable have that be something that’s a self-motivation issue and a self-responsibility issue. For me I just want you to own this piece and I try to create environment therefore people will do that. How does that differ or how does that align with what you’re talking about?
Hamish Knox: Oh, you’re absolutely right. Accountability should be a support mechanism not a stick. And one of the mantras that the leaders we work with here regularly is, you’re people don’t work for you because they love you or your business they work for you because they believe that working for you is going to get them to reaching their personal goals faster than working for someone else. And so when they do turnover and they leave and they’re going to say it’s for more money or a better title or better benefits or more flexibility what they really mean is they believe that working for someone else is going to get them to their personal mountaintop faster than staying for your team. So when you can tie achievement of their personal goals to achievement of your corporate goals now they own it now you’ve got a rocket ship who’s going to blast you further than you ever wanted to be because they’re self-motivated and all you need to do is gently support them along the way up to those mountain tops both personal and professional.
Jim Rembach: Okay, as you were talking I started thinking about yet another thing that for me it’s just like why would you do that? Because talking about the human behavior and the neuroscience is that this whole exit interview thing. First of all, even if they knew this whole goal issue they don’t know how to verbalize that and they’re not going to. So when you start looking at the data that they give from exit interviews it’s like, how really valuable is that? Okay, one of the things you talked about right there also was this whole helping people to understand their goals and you do have several different components of going through that particular process in helping people to do that. And when you start looking at organizations that you’ve worked with, because here’s one of my things that also too I think is a huge gap is that I don’t think that a lot of people like to go through the exercise and activity of helping to identify those things for themselves. And that the only way that they go through any type of goal setting or even values, what are your values, is when they do it in a corporate environment they typically don’t do it by self.
Hamish Knox: True.
Jim Rembach: How much time do you actually spend going through that activity and helping people to become effective at that activity as part of putting in an accountability program?
Hamish Knox: It’s one of the first exercises that we do with any of our clients. It’s because until we establish where you are trying to go we have no way to design a path to get there. Yogi Bear our very current reference for everyone who’s listening, I always said, if you don’t know where you’re going you might end up someplace else and so we need to really define what are the mountaintops that you’re trying to get to and the whys behind those mountain tops and then we can design a path from base camp where we’re at today all the way to the path of the mountain.
The other side of it Jim, you’re absolutely right is we typically don’t do goal-setting because what is beaten into us from the time that we’re in grade school is you win or you lose but we believe that you win or you learn. So, yes you may fail you may not get to your mountaintop but what I have seen both in myself and in in people I work with if I say that I’m going to set a goal of losing five pounds, we’ll make it something that probably everyone who’s listening has done or had a friend do, I’m going to lose five pounds I may only lose four pounds but it’s probably four more pounds that I lost that I wouldn’t have if I didn’t set that goal and what we teach our clients to do is just be better than zero. If you’re not exercising do a push-up, now you’re exercising and build from there but especially from winner’s people who are the type A mindset that’s not good enough right they should be doing 25 push-ups, well, no, no, no, you got to build from somewhere because if you go from zero to 25 push-ups you’re going to burn out you’re going to fail. And that’s the same thing with accountability is ongoing growth over time. Let’s not go from zero to 60 let’s go from zero to one and go from there.
Jim Rembach: I think that’s a great point. Another thing that you talk about in the book is this IR theory and I think it’s a very valuable point that I think pretty much everybody needs to go through, so talk about the IR theory.
Hamish Knox: Thanks for asking about that Jim. IR, I is identity R is role. Roles are the answers to I am a blank. If I say, hey Jim, what are you? I’m a podcaster, I’m a business person, etc. etc. etc. all the labels that you apply to yourself. One of my colleagues says they’re like suits you can take them on and off. Right like now I’m going home I’m going to put on the dad suit and the husband suit, those are things that are given to us as we grow through our life. Like when we’re born we have no roles and the identity is all the self, it’s everything that’s related to ourselves it’s our self-concept it’s our self-worth it’s our self-identity. I say to my clients when I was born my parents didn’t say, oh look, we got an entrepreneur we were hoping for an engineer but we got an entrepreneur instead and much less a salesperson. Oh, no, no, and they said we got a wonderful human being. What we what we end up with is what we call IR confusion. We believe that success in our role determines our self-worth and the more that we buy into that the less likely we are to risk because if we buy in to that concept that our success and our roles is our self-worth well if we fail now we’re a failure, and no one wants to be a failure. Whereas, if we can separate our succession and our roles from our self-worth now we can win or learn and we can take our failures and turn them into learning moments.
Jim Rembach: I love that you just shared that. To me that’s also one of the things that I often run into because for those that listen to other podcasts on the Fast Leaders show I read a bio and an introduction that’s quite different some people shorten it but I’m like, no, no,no I’m not going to do that. Here’s the reality of our lives it’s not what you do that makes you great it’s who you are that makes what you do great and so therefore the bio that I want to read has a little bit of insight into who these people are that are actually on our show. I’ve had so many guests say, no I’ve never written a bio like that before I didn’t say it was a fun exercise. Even when we meet people we don’t want to know, hey, what do you do? But that’s what we ask. What we want to know is, who are you? And do I want to stay here or get the heck out and that’s what it comes down to. And so I think it’s really important that this whole IR thing really gets fleshed out not just from an accountability or ownership issue or things I just think overall that’s a very, very important exercise that would benefit us all in many different way.
Hamish Knox: It’s something I have been doing with my eldest daughter since she was probably 2, so in the identity role scale you’re a 10, everyone is a 10 which means you are that wonderful human being. It doesn’t mean you don’t have head trash doesn’t mean you can’t grow but it means you have awesome self-worth just as a human being so I will say, is Taylor and I 10? Actually this morning before I left for work I gave her a hug I said, is Taylor and I 10? And she said, yes I am. And I said great. Ask good questions today.
Jim Rembach: I think that’s awesome it’s great training, it’s a good mindset conditioning. All those things that are important to creating someone who has a good sense of well-being. Kudos, I’m definitely going to have to use that one, I definitely going to have to use that one. Okay, everything that we’re talking about here we’ve hit on another several occasions is really emotional based. Because when we don’t have focus and where we’re not heading in the right direction and we’re not holding ourselves accountable we don’t have over us ownership of something we can’t achieve all those things create negative emotions. On the show we like to look at quotes to hopefully put us in a right and positive mindset. Is there a quote or two that you like that you can share?
Hamish Knox: One them you read it in my bio is—I discovered George Carlin when I was eight which may be too young but he had a quote in his parental advisory album which was, I don’t like euphemistic language it finishes that it finishes with the language that takes the life out of life. I know from personal experience, yeah we don’t like having the mirror held up to us and we don’t like people saying, hey you really let me down or hey you were a bad husband or a bad father or a bad friend or whatever but it sucks in the moment to hear that but it ends up being way better to hear that in the moment then three months six months nine years from now where someone’s got so much pent-up anger and aggression and they just let go on you that they’ve been holding on to this for so long I would rather eliminate the euphemisms and just speak plainly with everyone. Sometimes we have to have difficult conversations but those are better conversations than the ones that we could have down the road.
Jim Rembach: It’s true we have to address those things prior because they become mountains—you mentioned that word but it was for a better reason (21:42 inaudible) later.
Hamish Knox: Absolutely. And the other one I guess I would share Jim is one of David Sandler’s rules which is, they can’t argue with their own data and that can sound sort of mean and maybe aggressive but the fact of the matter is like I said earlier if it comes out of their mouth it’s real. And it’s like when we talk about goal-setting and when we talk about goal-setting with leaders they’ll say, well they have quotas if we look at a sales team well they have quotas. Well, a quota is not a goal it’s a gift. A quota is something given to you. It’s a gift because it can allow you to grow from the quota but a goal is something that’s internal.
Jim Rembach: I think it’s a very important distinction, it’s what you do it’s to who you are. Okay, so talking about the work with the daughter the work with the family even learning martial arts—all of these things I’m sure throughout the course of your life you’ve had some humps that you’ve had to get over but can you share one of the stories so that we can learn?
Hamish Knox: Yeah, two very quick ones. I’ve been a sports addict since I was little. When I was 27 I got to work in Pro sports, so I had my dream job and I was 27. I do remember sitting at my desk I was like two three months into the job and I’m like so where do I go from here? And then I committed to actually doing basketball, I joined a men’s league basketball team I took a bachelor’s degree online, but then also when I got in Sandler, I had a bit of a window between when I joined Sandler and when I actually launched my business, and so in that window I went through all of Sandler’s content three times and so I thought I got this. When I came back from my initial training I just stopped learning. I stopped listening I stopped reading and about eight weeks in I had a 20-minute prospecting call with a senior vice-president for a chemical company which was the single worst twenty minutes of my life. And it wasn’t the 20 minutes worst of my life because of what he did it was because of what I did. I hung up that phone and I called my father and I spent 90 minutes on the phone with him going like, what the heck do I do from here? What is this thing I’ve got into? And it made me realize that I had stopped learning and that was my fault no one else’s.
Jim Rembach: I think that’s a very good insight. You have to tell us what was the outcome of that.
Hamish Knox: So after I talked to my dad I committed to a minimum of one hour of Sandler content every day and Sandler’s got lots of audios and videos for the trainers, so every day for one hour I was listening to something. I also committed to reading a minimum of 15 pages of a business book every business day and I typically went through on the weekends. So I was constantly learning constantly growing and that’s where I am today I’m continually learning about the brain and about human behavior because if I stop doing that I’m not growing and if I’m not growing then I’m not providing value to my clients and I’m not in a good position to support them.
Jim Rembach: It’s an important point that you’re making here because one of the things that I always talk about is that oftentimes we expect people to coach the ones that report to them. For me I’m like, okay are they being coached? Because there’s no way that a coach can coach if they’re not being coached themselves.
Hamish Knox: Amen. We say if you don’t own it you can’t coach it.
Jim Rembach: So when you start looking at—some of the things on the back of the book where you’re talking about or overcoming some issues being able to put an accountability of program in place, what would be one of the big ones that see is an issue?
Hamish Knox: Number one is the leader is not willing to be held accountable. This is right away pushback that we’ll get is—they may not say it in so many words but you can see them thinking, oh oh if I have to hold my team accountable that means I have to be accountable, they just don’t want that. Humans are animals and animals have no capacity to process language all they can do is observe behavior and so if what’s coming out of the leaders mouth is accountability and accountability and accountability but their behavior is in congruent they’re telling their team everything they need to know about accountability through their behavior and then when we get involved and they’re all frustrated about like, why is my team not accountable? Well, I bet if I followed that leader around for half a day at the maximum I would actually see that they’re teaching their people through their behavior instead of through their works.
Jim Rembach: I love that you said that because I had the opportunity to have a conversation with somebody and they were a senior level leader one of their managers came in and was talking about people not engaging in doing certain things and that you know what we should put in penalties in place for them not doing these things. And he goes what do I tell a person like that? I said you looking straight in the eye and say, yeah, let’s start with you.
Hamish Knox: Amen, I love it I love it.
Jim Rembach: If you’re not willing to have that inflicted upon you do you want to do it to others?
Hamish Knox: Exactly. Another one Jim that just popped into my head as you were saying that is not creating clarity. A leader’s number-one job is to create clarity. When we look at this accountability program and we talked earlier about the why and all that we need to be completely clear with what are the expectations and what exactly are we holding you accountable to and then we got to talk about the big seat, what are the consequences? By the way, when everybody hears the word consequence in business they hear you’re fired and that’s not true there’s got to be what we call the consequence ladder. Everyone’s going to screw up we’re all human beings we’re all going to fall off every now and then so as a leader again a support tool we have to have a way of picking that person back. But at the same time if they’re not willing to be accountable we also have to have a way of eventually moving them on if they’re not going to be supportive of the accountability culture that we’re building in your organization.
Jim Rembach: I’m glad you said that too because I start talking and share that consequences are really everything/ Consequences are the consequences of doing all of those things and having promotions, commissions,
Opportunities those are positive consequences. We have consequences of apathy nothing happens negative consequences but unfortunately much like accountability we think of a consequences as oh! No.
Hamish Knox: Exactly, exactly. I’m really glad that you bought up positive consequences first because we forget that the word consequence is neutral it’s the result of doing something or not doing something. If I don’t do the activities that need to get me to my sales target I have a negative if do the activities that get me to my sales target I will have a positive consequence. The word consequence ends up being neutral but most people layer it as negative.
Jim Rembach: That’s so true. So, you got a lot of things going on—two young kids trying to graze them right have the business be successful promote the book which is huge I’m sure be a good husband’s on there as well. But when you start looking at all these goals what’s one of them?
Hamish Knox: My goal ties into both it’s to have a completely self-multiplying company. Which means that whether I’m here or not the business not only survives but it’s thrives and grows which will give me the freedom to spend time with my family as I choose. If I want to pick up my girls every Friday from school I can do that. If one of them gets into a traveling arts organization or sport team and they’ve got a tournament hundreds of miles away I can just pick up and go to that because I can support them and then of course I can spend some quality time with my wife growing as a couple together when I see fit as opposed to saying, well honey or well kids dad can’t do that because he’s got to fill in whatever blank that is that day.
Jim Rembach: And 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 Fast Leader legion it’s time with for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Hamish, the Hump Day Hoedown is a part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Hamish Knox are you ready to hoedown?
Hamish Knox: Yahoo.
Jim Rembach: What do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?
Hamish Knox: Two things: making decisions based on my ego and saying yes to too many things.
Jim Rembach: What is the best leadership advice you have ever received?
Hamish Knox: Take care of yourself first which sounds selfish but I have worked with too many leaders who do not take care of themselves first and then they can’t support their people.
Jim Rembach: What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?
Hamish Knox: When I do something I’m a hundred and ten percent committed. My best man at my wedding the night before my wedding we were sitting around having a drink and he said, you know what? I’ve been a lot of weddings and every groom that I’ve ever met is terrified of what’s going to happen the next day you’re the only one who I’ve met who’s completely 100% committed to what’s going to happen tomorrow.
Jim Rembach: What is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business our life?
Hamish Knox: Creating clarity, speaking plainly and making sure that everyone’s on the same page with what has to be done by when before we go our separate ways.
Jim Rembach: What would be one book that you’d recommend to our legion, it could be from any genre and of course we’re going to put a link to Accountability the Sandler Way on your show notes page as well.
Hamish Knox: Awesome. It’s a book I discovered a couple years ago it’s called, Profit Firsts by a guy named Michael Makalowitz I’m a systems and processes this guy Sandler’s about systems and processes Profit First, is a system for managing profit in your business.
Jim Rembach: Okay, Fast Leader legion you can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fastleader.net/hamishknox. Okay, Hamish this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity go back to the age of 25. And you’ve been given the chance to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take everything you can only choose one. So what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?
Hamish Knox: It ties in my—the answer about the book is taking the knowledge of finances. That was never anything that was discussed when I was growing up and I had a lot of scripting and head trash around how money worked. So if I could go back and take the knowledge that I’ve gained or about money in the last few years I would be much farther ahead both personally and professionally in terms of my finances not that I’m doing bad but I would be farther ahead.
Jim Rembach: Hamish, 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?
Hamish Knox: Thanks for asking, Jim, so you can connect with me via Twitter and Instagram @sandlerhamish. I’m on
LinkedIn I published an article every Sunday. And you can also find me via sandler.com.
Jim Rembach: Hamish Knox, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom the Fast Leader legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. Woot! Woot!
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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