226: Samuel Knickerbocker: I didn’t understand the impact I was having

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.

Call center coach develops and unites the next generation of call center leaders. Through our e-learning and community individuals gain knowledge and skills in the six core competencies that is the blueprint that develops high-performing call center leaders. Successful supervisors do not just happen so go to callcentercoach.com to learn more about enrollment and download your copy of the Supervisor Success Path e-book now.

Okay, Fast Leader legion today I’m excited because I have somebody on the show today who I think is going to help us with a very critical element to our overall well-being. Samuel Knickerbocker was born in Utah and raised in Parma, Idaho a small town on the Idaho, Oregon border. He is the son of two happily married parents and the seventh of their 11 kids. There was never a dull moment in his house you always had at least one friend and one enemy. Growing up Samuel was home-schooled which provided a lot more contact and conversation with the family financial situation. They received and made financial decisions as a family working as a team to accomplish financial goals. It was here that Samuel learned much of his leadership and management skills.

Samuel got his first full-time job at the age eleven in a honey extracting plant and from there worked in the food, construction, sales and service industry while never really losing sight of his passion. Samuel loves leading others to gain greater self-confidence and build stronger relationships the legacy that he’s excited to leave behind is one of action and love. When his generations are talking about him he wants them to be saying that he was committed to lifting others around him and always looking for ways to pour belief into others about their infinite potential. He now works as a wealth transformation coach walking people through the habits, mindsets, and behaviors required to build a financial foundation that can support a long lasting legacy. Samuel currently lives in Pleasant Grove, Utah and has the most incredible angelic wife named Charlie and they have been blessed with two boys Declan and Quincy. Samuel Knickerbocker are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Samuel Knickerbocker:     Absolutely and I’m pumped. 

Jim Rembach:    I’m glad you’re here. Now, I’ve given 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?

Samuel Knickerbocker:     Yeah, absolutely. So for me one of my biggest passions my biggest dreams I was just—could make it happen today which I’m working on would be to speak in the Georgia Dome in front of a hundred thousand people about love, forgiveness, gratitude and self-confidence, self-belief in themselves and that my ultimate passion. I have been chasing that from a lot of different angles. I actually studied neuropsychology in college so got into the research and was almost going to be a neuroscientist but then I decided there’s so much going on and most of the social problems that we experienced depression, anxiety, divorce, domestic violence, and the list goes on and on most of these problems are in the socioeconomic status of the lower income. I saw that and I was like, man there’s no reason for me to go years of schooling to try and pick something that shouldn’t have never have been broken, shifted my whole focus in life to finance to ultimately have the same objective help people gain that confidence, to love, the self-respect those things but do it from a financial foundation perspective helping people gain that confidence in their life and in their ability to provide and for their loved ones or family. As they do that then everything else is actually able to be built on top of that but it starts with can you shelter yourself? Can you have transportation? Just have basic needs and once you satisfy those basic needs then it’s a lot easier to actually think about, oh well, what do I want to be remembered for? And actually start thriving rather than just surviving.

Jim Rembach:    As you’re talking—you and I had the opportunity to chat a little bit before the interview is I started thinking about a lot of people who I have interactions with in the contact center world and customer experience world and we’re trying to improve and support and develop the performance of people who are on the front line interacting with customers. You talked about that lower end of the economic status and economic cycle and economic position and a lot of those people are working in these contact centers and they’re working many times multiple jobs. So if I’m leading those people and I need to help them be more successful I must have their financial well-being in mind and this whole legacy and legacy creation for myself and them. 

Samuel Knickerbocker:     Absolutely. I would say from a position that I worked similar like that I bring in business partners and I train them how to do what I do and how to become good financial advisors or good people who understand the financial world and go out and serve families and sometimes they start in a very similar place. They’re just walking into the job thinking can this be a career for me? Can this be a purpose? Can this be a life? And what I think is so crucial from a leadership perspective is really being able to understand what each person’s individual gifts are. If you just blanket say, hey, I know you guys are all great at this or whatever if you haven’t really understood that individuals gifts and you start telling them that they’re good at something that inside they don’t believe themselves good at then they’re going to not believe in themselves even more and they’re going to kind of see you as somebody who’s telling falsities or just trying to build them up from an ego perspective rather than really identifying their gift and helping them know that you recognize what their main gift is. Maybe it’s like every time a customer walks in you smile that gift right there that’s what makes you special that’s why I want you on my team and you’re always helping them really identify their identity. And ultimately I would think in your position the goal would not to always be have them on the front line the goal would be a leadership factory where you’re bringing people in the front lines and you’re spitting them out and they’re being able to move on to bigger and better things and you’re impacting the world by having this leadership factory where people are coming in and they’re spinning out with so much belief in themselves that they’re going in and out and accomplishing just wonderful things.

Jim Rembach:    That’s a really interesting point that you bring up. I was just having this discussion with a top level executive in a financial institution it’s one of those that—do you have these in your wallet type of companies. And he was talking about so many vacant positions that they had in a senior leader type of position and even mid-level they just have a lot of jobs that are not going filled. I said you know while I may be able to assist and support you in finding  people to actually fill some of those roles I said reality is you have to groom them you have to develop them. When you even start thinking about successful sport clubs, sometimes I don’t like to use that analogy but I think it applies here and I love baseball, when you look at the most successful baseball programs the ones that are the most successful and can sustain it is that they’re developing their farm system they’re not doing it through going and trying to hire free eight in the free agent markets, unless of course you’re the Yankees you got the money, but  you’ve got to build it you’ve got a groom them you have to have that factory. And so for leaders I think, like you said, it’s really important for me to have the mindset of, I need to help people to surpass me that could be one of my most powerful legacies.

Samuel Knickerbocker:     Yeah, absolutely. There’s an industrial psychologist who end up being—I forget the college or the dean but David Bednar is his name and he’s written lots of papers on this and one of the things he said from a leadership perspective is, if you’re not actively trying to replace yourself like that should be your focus is like how can I replace myself how can I train my replacement then you’re never going to get a promotion. If you yourself, there’s nobody under you who can replace you then why would we take you away why would we promote you if there’s nobody to fill your spot? So like it’s super self-serving almost to make sure that you’re training people it’s counterintuitive because you think well if I train them to do my job then I’m going to get fired. No, if you’re good enough to train somebody to replace you then you’re going to be better than the other ten people on your same level and you’re going to get promoted out of that position. You’re going to end up, even if it’s just they create a position so you can go train all the other people, it doesn’t matter but you’ve got to always be thinking from a love and abundance standpoint rather than a fear and scarcity. Anytime you step into, well, if I do that then I might lose then you’re in fear and scarcity you’ve got to remove your mind from that. That’s a habit and a mindset that you have to be able to change to really be successful as a leader or to be successful and as a follower. Even you have to be able to build the shift, what do I believe my potential is? What’s my identity? And can I achieve that? 

Jim Rembach:    What you’re saying too is—I think sometimes it could be misleading to say that I’m going to do this to get promoted because maybe it is that I just find my fulfillment and my legacy is in—that I was a leader who developed and created so many of all these other leaders I didn’t need to have that position of higher authority. As a matter of fact oftentimes when you get to positions of higher authority you don’t get as much opportunity to develop leaders because you’re too busy doing some other things that may not be as fulfilling. 

Samuel Knickerbocker:     Yep, that’s so true. 

Jim Rembach:    You and I also had talked about a couple of tools that you created to me that seemed very fascinating and interesting to me and I definitely would like to make your e-book available to all of our listeners, tell us a little bit about when you’ve developed with that.

Samuel Knickerbocker:     Yeah, for sure. I have an e-book that I’ve written it’s, The Nine Pillars to Build a Meaningful Legacy is what its current title it’s a working title I may shift it because I want it to be more focused on what it is kind of heighten the purpose of the book. But it’s really the reason there’s one overarching reason of why you must as a leader and as an individual, this goes all the way down to the bottom level, you must become wildly financially successful. A lot of people they have this opinion in their mind being coming financially successful rich people are bad money doesn’t grow on trees these scripts that we’ve just been taught and hammered into us and if we can be willing to put those off the ultimate reason—the first two reasons why you need to be financially successful or the first two sections rather are you have to do it for your haters and you have to do it for your supporters. 

And we go over your country, your family, your faith, and all the different reasons, there’s nine of them, but the first two are the most impactful. The people who don’t believe that you can be successful you need to go be successful for one reason and that is out of love for them because if there’s somebody who’s telling you that you can’t do it it’s really a reflection of what they believe about themselves. And so if they’re saying, no, you can’t be successful you’re never going to make it out of the project you’re never going to make it anywhere you’re always going to be living off the government you’re always going to be living off your parents you’re always going to be in your parents base whatever that’s because that’s what they believe about themselves. So, because of because you love your haters it’s your moral obligation to go and become wildly financially successful to allow them so they see, wow, I know him I know he’s just a normal person if he can do it then I can do it. It actually frees people, I forget who said it, but I love that quote—let your light shine so that all the other people it gives them permission to let their light shine. 

When you let your light shine it gives other people the permission to let their light shine. And that’s why it’s so crucial that we all become wildly financially successful as an act of love to help other people see that they can and have the confidence that they can. That’s the first tool that I’ve used to help people. With each section there’s a workbook so it’s like, hey, who are your haters? How would their life change if they saw you be successful? And then what are you going to do about it? It’s like a kind of workbook that helps people walk through the process of why should I as an individual, yeah I get that we should in general, but why shouldn’t me? How is it going to change my mom’s life the mom who’s telling me I’m never going to be successful? If I did go make a million dollars if I did become wildly financially successful how is her life going to be better? What would she choose to do if she believed in herself more? When you start thinking about that it becomes emotional you break down you start crying and like that’s where the change happens. What happens is you start to understand, wow, I could have a huge impact if I chose to and then the next step is just choosing to do so.

And so that’s tool number one. The second tool that I have is a webinar. The webinar really focuses, the title of it’s called you are worthy, and it goes into number one it goes into the fact that you are worthy of success in helping you believe in your worthiness believe in your ability to achieve success. Two, it helps you fix and heal your relationship with debt so that you can actually have a healthy relationship with debt and money in general understanding the difference between debt and investment different things like that. And then the third is how to actually manage your money, how to live with the live within your means and focus on abundance rather than fear and scarcity focus on love and abundance. Most people I’ve ever talked to they don’t want to get out of debt. If you could say, okay, you could be out of debt or dead broke or you could have some debt and have twice as much money as you need to pay off that debt but you’re over here investing it. People don’t want to get out of debt they want to make sure that they are able to get out of debt. So they’re more concerned about income mobility than they are about being in debt. We focus on that kind of interchanging the mind and how to actually progress through that to where you can actually live in abundance and love all the time. And then the last section in that is focusing on the monetary exchange versus value exchange just understanding and value exchange as a whole and how to—if you’re worried about not having enough income, and this is something as a leader, I would be absolutely teaching my people always. If you’re worried about, I don’t have enough money coming in, that’s a monetary value exchange the reason that that’s happening is because you’re not adding yet enough value to other people for them to pay you money. So it goes into that mindset and helps shift out of the mindset of take-take-take and I just need something and puts them into the mindset of okay, I need to start giving so much of myself that it hurts people not to pay me.

Jim Rembach:    As you were talking I started thinking about how many people come into the workforce that are just not prepared for what you just had mentioned. Talking about the whole, oh, I need to be able to give that in order to be real to receive that. Because when we’re younger we just think that, hey, I have this experience and this education and therefore you owe it to me. And you’re saying that’s actually the wrong mindset they have we need to think about that whole giving concept.

Samuel Knickerbocker:     Yeah. I’m a deeply religious guy and I think in what area of religion does anybody owe me anything? The only way I get anything as far as Christ’s forgiveness anything like that is, it’s not necessarily that I have to do works or something, but I have to be willing to give up of myself. I have to be willing to surrender myself to Christ for him to be able to have claim on me. If I’m not willing to surrender my will and surrender everything that I am and possessed and I’m willing to do then I can’t really expect the redeeming attributes of what he did for me. For me that goes into every aspect of my life. If it’s a principle and it’s true on one side of the equation and the religion side it’s got to be true everywhere in my life. And I just like to apply principles blanket if it can be applied blanket then I consider it a true principle and I’ll accept it into my life. If I can find somewhere where it doesn’t apply then I’m probably not going to be committed to that principle until somebody helps me make sense of it.

Jim Rembach:    Also we had talked about the whole legacy piece and then also the issue associated with being able to help other people to learn from it. I had shared with you a story being on the finance committee at my church and our elders was talking about his tithing and his giving back to the church and he said, I don’t share that with anybody because it’s personal. And so then I asked him the question I said, well then how do you expect the younger generation to learn to give like you give? He looked at me with a dead stare. And I think that’s another thing that people have to remember is that okay, well if I’ve gone through this and I’ve gone down this path and gone through this journey I now need to have and help others do the same thing. 

Samuel Knickerbocker:     Yeah, absolutely. And that’s another tool that I have it’s a more of a speech that would give to corporate leadership or managers, owners of companies, things like that but I’ve redefined SMART goals not to take away from the old definition but to help people understand how the SMART way that’s an acronym to actually create a legacy. I’ll just blow through those really quickly and if you want more definitions than then reach out to me, I give an actual corporate speech on this. The S is sexy, like when you state your vision when you’re bringing people into your company if your vision for your company isn’t sexy enough isn’t like-mind captivating enough to keep people focused on it and keep people thinking about it all day long then it’s not big enough it’s not good enough that’s not inclusive enough so that has to be the huge thing, massive. Is it big enough that it requires other people to help you? If I can accomplish my goal all by myself but I’m just going to graciously allow people to participate that’s not the same as like, look, you’re a valued contributing member of this and this is not going to work without you. If somebody feels that they are on the back of them to help this get accomplished they’re so much more willing to give they’re willing to stay up late at night and sacrifice for this ultimate goal for this legacy. Is it massive enough? Is it remarkable enough? Some things are remarkable, right? Carving for people’s faces on side of a mountain, Mount Rushmore, that’s a remarkable thing. Whoever thought up that and just like, hey, this would be fun but that’s like people come from all over the world to see that with their eyes because they just don’t believe it it’s like that’s just a picture. No, it’s really there, I’ve been there. 

Another one is like Tesla put a car in orbit of the earth something like it seems pointless but what’s cool about it is that the mind, it expands the mind as well, people are going to talk about this it’s advertising, right? Is it remarkable? Oh, I missed the A. The A is, audacious. So the A, I get kickback from this but that’s why I use it audacious, is your goal divisive enough? There’s going to be people who hate your goal and there’s going to be people who love your goal. But it’s important that your goal and what you’re chasing is divisive, it’s making sure that you are selecting out who is on you team and who’s not in your team who is passionate about helping your organization who’s not. And the people who are in your organization who are against they’re not passionately and they’re in your tribe, it’s not disrespectful but like, let them leave. Let them go find somewhere else that they can be passionate about. It doesn’t mean that they can’t be passionate it just means they don’t love your goal and that’s okay. As a good leader you should be able to recognize that and set that person free from having to be participating in something they don’t want to do. So is it audacious, remarkable, and then the last thing, and this is really the kingpin of what you had mentioned with the elder in your church, are you being transparent? Are you sharing it with the world not in an effort as a gaudy or egotistical way to share your goal? One is accountability to make sure you actually accomplish your goal. Two to inspire others to go and chase down their legacy goal. If Bill Gates never told anybody about Microsoft computers nobody would be using Microsoft computers. If Steve Jobs never took on Apple and said look, we’re going to be transparent we’re going to share this with the whole entire world what we’re trying to accomplish, then we wouldn’t all be in love with Apple. And so transparency is so crucial when you’re trying to create a movement of legacy.

Jim Rembach:    I love that, thanks for sharing that. Everything that we’re talking about here even talking about the upbringing with all those brothers and sisters and the house and home schooling with mom, your poor mother oh, my gosh, she’s definitely should be sainted if she isn’t already. Man, it’s all filled with just a ton of emotion. And we need that when we start talking about legacy because some of it is just so far out there that we don’t see it quite clearly and we just need to drive towards it. But we use quotes on the show to help us drive some of that passion, is there a quote or two that you like that you can share?

Samuel Knickerbocker:     That’s a good question. Let’s see what are my favorite quotes? Honestly, I don’t even think about quotes that often, but my favorite quotes are probably some my own quotes when I quote myself. That sounds maybe a little bit self-serving but honestly I’ve never heard anybody say things like, you need to go identify your identity. Like, really? Clarify who you are. When I think about what I’m doing, my daily actions, am I living up to the legacy I’m living? Have my identified my identity? That is something that rings in my head all the time and just motivates me to really get after it. Another quote that I already shared on the show is, when you let your light shine you that gives permission to two other people let their light shine. Those are probably the two that are the most commonly in my mind going through because it’s motivating it’s giving me power it’s helping the accomplish more in my life. Because I know who I am I can then go share who I am. This goes into another aspect of my message but I think it’s crucial for a leader, you can only love and believe in somebody else as much as you love and believe in yourself. That goes into relationships with your spouse, your children, your business partners, it doesn’t matter what relationship that is you can only love and believe in somebody else to the level in which you do for yourself. 

And so like for me, my wife didn’t understand this when we first got married, but I’m infatuated with myself. Like I love myself so much that it’s easy for me to go and give love to other people. Because I’m so in love with myself I know who I am I know all my imperfections and thus I’m able to have compassion for other people’s imperfections. I know all the greatness that’s inside of me that I’m not fully expressing and thus I just intuitively believe and know that there’s greatness inside of others that they’re not quite yet expressing fully then if I can help them identify it and identify who they are then that’s just going to lift everybody up around them it’s just going to help everybody. And then that feeds into the letting your light shine so that other people around you can shine along with you. So those are the two quotes that I would say are like always in my mind I’m always thinking about.

Jim Rembach:    Well, I think those are really good. And I think for me when you started talking about loving yourself I mean a lot of people could take that as a negative but you’re not talking about it from a position of conceit you’re talking about it from a position of abundance and awareness it has to have some boldness within itself. That in itself is audacious to be able to talk and feel that way but the reality is if we all stop and think about that is that you’re dead on right. There’s no way we can positively impact others if we don’t have that positive coming and radiating and generating from ourselves.

Samuel Knickerbocker:     Yeah, everything in my life goes back to Christ on one level or another. For me I think there’s no way that I can conceive Christ doing what he did without knowing his identity knowing what his purpose was what his mission was what his potential was and who he was as an individual. He was able to love and is able to love us because he loved himself first because he kept the greatest commandment of all. Do unto others as you would do unto yourself. You have to be able to do it to yourself if you’re going to do it to others. And the dark side of that that we don’t talk, I try not to touch on too much but like, if you ever are treating people badly that’s an outward representation of how crappy you’re treating yourself. And you really have to think about that and if you’re receiving if people are treating you badly and you’re feeling all this resentment and anger and all this stuff feeling victimized by others you are already and you probably have been for years feeling a victim to yourself you’ve already been cheating on yourself you’ve already been not fulfilling your own dreams. And so then when somebody points it out now you’re upset at them for pointing out something you already know. It’s easier to be upset at them than it is to look inward and say, oh, crap that’s a belief I already hold I just don’t like it being pointed out. 

Just as good as it can be, love yourself that so you can love others. There’s the opposite side of that, we’ve got to help at least understand that’s where people are at, and so when it comes to coaching and leading people out of that if you don’t know where they’re at how are you going to go get them and rescue them. You got to know where they are and be willing to go to where they are at least with them on an empathetic level and then to show them the light and point in the directions.  Hey, look there’s a light over there I can teach you how to get there, take my hand and let’s go. But if you’re just standing over there and yelling at them, hey, come on over here I have no idea why they should move, unfortunately. 

Jim Rembach:    When I start thinking about you being able to gain the wisdom that you’re gained, gosh, such an early age. I’m still working on some of the things that you’re talking about where ready. So I’m looking forward to hearing you share with us the time you’ve gotten over the hump and what it meant for you.

Samuel Knickerbocker:     That’s a great question. There’s two stories that really come to my mind and I’ll tell one overarching story and I’ll point out which two moments it really happened for me. As a kid, my mom so far and everything I love her and she’s gotten the help that she needs now but she was extremely narcissistic, very abusive, as a child and probably in large part because her emotional irregulation because she had so many children. There’s no way that I’m going to condemn anybody there and as an adult I can understand it I could comprehend it as a child I didn’t I felt very attacked, very unloved, very abused. My way of choosing you to protect myself from that and protect my family was to become a leader in the house to make sure that everything got done so that my mom wouldn’t get upset and then beat us. The downside to that was, and what I didn’t recognize is I actually had become my mom to my siblings I had become the oppressor I had become the person who was abusing in order to save them from her abuse. In this weird twisted way it didn’t really click until I was about 13 or 14 years old and my older brother Rex came home from college and he was witnessing me going in and impacting my will on my brothers and sisters to force them to do what I wanted them to do. And he came in he held me down and just like wrestled me down to the ground he just held me really tight and in his mind it was for an indefinite amount of time he was just going to hold me there until I got it. We had a conversation, I was struggling couldn’t get out I literally felt like I couldn’t move anything and he says, hey, Sam this is how people feel emotionally when you walk into the room they feel this restricted this captive by your presence. It never occurred to me and here’s why it was inconsistent with what I believed about myself I thought I was showing up one way but I wasn’t. 

When I was about four or five years old maybe six I remember a time driving with my grandpa. We were driving to the dump to drop some stuff out at the dump and we’re listening to the radio he turned down the radio put his hand on my knee and he said, hey, Sam your voice is really pleasant to listen to you could probably lead people the greatness maybe even be on the radio someday. That was the first time I ever experienced love ever experience somebody believing in me and so from that young age I had identified in my identity that I was a leader that I could lead people the problem is I didn’t understand how to lead people. I didn’t understand the impact I was having. I was a leader I still got things accomplished we didn’t get beat by my mom anymore so it’s like all these great things but then I had become my mom. When I was sitting there with my brother and he helped me switch that like turn my mind there the penny drop and I was like, oh, my gosh that was really the hump for me when I decided okay, I can be a leader in two different ways. I can be the communist dictator, where you just do what I say because I said to do it and if you don’t then I’m going to force you to do it. Or I could be a leader out of love and so I actually shifted my whole way of interacting with people. At this young age, 13 14 years old I would go to my siblings and say look, two rules that I’m going to give you that you can gauge me off and hold me accountable to as a leader. One, I’m never going to ask you to do something that doesn’t need to be done immediately, so that that’s rule number one. Rule number two, if you don’t do it then I will get up and do it to show that there was accountability. And then the third thing was you have permission, I finally gave them permission to tell me no, just say no I’m not going to do that. What happened was over the course of 3 weeks to maybe a month of me being very clear, hey, I need this done and can you do it? Asking them rather than telling them and then having them say no, I don’t want to do it and then me getting up going and doing it and getting them feeling comfortable that way. After a month and month and a half they were actually better at following and better at getting things done by me just inviting them to do it rather than me forcing him to do it. And they were doing out of love to the point where I could be sitting on the couch, I could say hey, could you get me a glass of water, Afton, my older brother and he’d like, yeah,  I’d love to. They loved to help me once they realized that they didn’t have to help me. And I think that is what really helped me get over the hump when it comes to leadership is when I made that shift. 

There are two motivating factors, there’s two ways to get somebody do something there’s motivation which is force pushing—you’re going to get fired if you don’t do this whatever the case may be, there’s motivation. And then there’s inspiration, inspiring people is always more effective. Love will always trump hate, fear, anger and love is always going to beat that out it’s just do you have the patience to let love do its work? This is more immediate movement it takes some cultivating and takes integrity to make sure that when you ask somebody to do something if they don’t do it you’re going to go do it because like it has to get done you’re not just pointlessly asking people to do stuff for busy work nobody enjoys that no employee no leader nobody enjoys doing busy work. And so if it doesn’t need to be done then why are we asking people to do it. I had to learn that as a leader that had a pretty young age.

Jim Rembach:    Samuel Knickerbocker, I’m looking forward to being one of those ticket holders of the other hundred thousand that’s in the Georgia Dome to see you. And the Fast Leader legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on let’s get a quick word from our sponsor:

An even better place to work is an easy-to-use solution that gives you a continuous diagnostic on employee engagement along with integrated activities that will improve employee engagement and leadership skills in everyone. Using this award winning solutions guaranteed to create motivated, productive and loyal employees who have great work relationships with their colleagues and your customers. To learn more about an even better place to work visit beyondmorale.com/better. 

Alright here we go Fast Leader legion, it’s time for the Hump day Hoedown. Okay Samuel, 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 a robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Samuel Knickerbocker, are you ready to hoedown?

Samuel Knickerbocker:     Oh, yeah, let’s do this. 

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

Samuel Knickerbocker:     The biggest thing I find in myself that’s holding me back is being conscious on a daily basis of connecting with my team and making sure that they’re focused on their specific gifts and not trying to have an overall system for them to just like feed into my system but help them recognize their gifts and exploit their gifts for their benefit.

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

Samuel Knickerbocker:     Serve first and love more,

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

Samuel Knickerbocker:     I think it is radical honesty and openness. I’m not always the nicest person I admit that. From my heart it comes from a good place always but I’m very direct with people I don’t mince words and so to be in my presence or to be coached by me you’re going to get very direct communication and that helps people know, they don’t always like me, but they know that they don’t ever have to wonder what I’m thinking about them or what I’m thinking. That contributes a lot to—people are willing to join my team because they know that they’re going to get all of Sam, all the good and all the bad, and they know what that is and they’re okay with it they don’t have to guess who I am.

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

Samuel Knickerbocker:     I would say honestly staying connected with God. In my opinion the greatest leader the greatest legacy all of that staying connected with God and my purpose is a daily occurrence every morning I wake up and that’s the first thing I do. I get connected with who I am my purpose, my goals, and then I get connected with God through meditation and prayer. If you’re not doing that, even if that’s all you did, it would change the way you interact with the world entirely.

Jim Rembach:    What is one book that you’d recommend to our listeners it could be from any genre?

Samuel Knickerbocker:     I think the Anatomy of Peace is probably one of the best books. The Anatomy of Peace and the Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin. Anatomy a Peace is by the Arbinger Institute’s, if you’ve heard of leadership and self-deception that’s all about the corporate world the Anatomy of Peace is the precursor to that about how the character Lu learned everything and that book has had a greater impact on my life that I think any other book bar the scriptures. And then the Four Tendencies is a great way to actually communicate. It gives you a language to communicate expectations. Inner expectations and outer expectations and from a leader to subordinate or just relationship wise it helps people understand, okay, why am I not performing in this area that I know I need to? And what things can I put in place to help me fulfill those expectations?

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/SamuelKnickerbocker. Okay, Samuel this is my last Hump day hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25, which for you is maybe last week, huh? 

Samuel Knickerbocker:     Yeah, that’s funny actually. 

Jim Rembach:    –and you’ve been given the opportunity to can take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take everything, you can only choose so, what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

Samuel Knickerbocker:     Honestly, it would just be to love more. Be more willing to give of yourself. I have this phrase that I say to myself I’ve never heard anybody else say it but, the only way to be truly selfish is to be selfless. The best feelings I’ve ever received in my life are when I was in the service of others and so I was just chasing the best feeling, the best high, the best everything I’ve ever received then I would spend every waking minute of my life serving others and loving them unconditionally. And so that’s what I work on every day I’m not perfect at it, anybody who thinks they’re perfect I’d like to meet you. For me I’m not perfect I don’t want people to think I’m perfect but that’s what I would say, love unconditionally and be willing to serve more.

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

Samuel Knickerbocker:     Absolutely. I am Sam Knickerbocker on Instagram, Samuel Knickerbocker on Facebook, LinkedIn Twitter, YouTube. I also have a podcast called Fuel your Legacy and this podcast has simply focused on habits, mindsets, and behaviors of the world class and how to actually build a legacy, so what’s essential to build a legacy. I do a three-part show, Monday I introduce a topic Wednesday, I do a book review on the topic and then Friday, I have a guest on that week that’s going to really help us dive deep into their personal experience and their life experience on that habit mindset or behavior. That’s a fantastic podcast just to listen to.

Jim Rembach:    Samuel Knickerbocker, 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. 

END OF AUDIO