Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Everybody is missing something in life. I felt prisoner to my own success. Change is hard. Change is hard. I get it. Change or die.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: I'm going to change things.
[00:00:10] Speaker A: So what the hell can we change? If we can see things differently, we can have some different results.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Only on NOW Media Television Networks.
[00:00:22] Speaker A: Welcome back to Be the Giraffe. I'm your host and guide, Chris Jarvis. If you are looking for ways to stand out and retire in business, with money and in life, then you are in the right place. On Be the Giraffe, we meet the innovators who dare to be different and stick their necks out. We learn how they broke free from the herd and used their long necks to see and find better paths. Today we have an exciting show. My guest is Stephen Uhman. He is a go to market expert turned goto network. Enthusiastic. If you don't know what that means, that makes two of us. We're going to find out on this episode.
Stephen has worked with some of the biggest companies. Microsoft, espn, adt, Citibank, Fidelity. If you feel like it's easy to get lost in a big company and you want to learn how to stand out, today's episode is going to be so good.
Or if you're an entrepreneur and you want to boost your business by working with a big company, you're about to enter your own personal masterclass. Stephen, welcome to Be the Giraffe. It's a pleasure to have you here. So you have a great story and I think one of the really cool things we talked about offline before the show was this idea that the giraffe, it stands out. But like most kids, you don't want to stand out. You really want to fit in. It's a big thing for people. And it's not just kids, it's, it's adults and people who are a little different. That before you can be different and stand out before we embrace that as something really special to be built upon, embraced and leveraged, we go through this awakening or maybe there's a dark period, no pun intended, where we really try to fit in and we have this issue with identity. So for people out there who maybe feel a little different, feel like there's more to do, tell us a little bit about your story and how you tell us how it started and you went into that dark place and then we'll move into what you did because it's really cool the things that you've accomplished. But I think people want to hear the story first because I think it's going to resonate with A lot of folks, yeah.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: I think the best place to start in this story is actually the middle.
And I'll explain what happened that made me reflect on how and who I became in order to have what some would say is a semblance of success. I still think success is always growing. It's not a destination. Right.
But there was a moment when I was trying to get into technology sales. And the way that happened was fascinating to me because I was a finance leader at a company.
This software salesperson was trying to sell us an ERP system.
And I don't know what made me ask him this, but I go, how much do you make a year in software sales?
And he goes, last year, my W2 was $998,000. W2.
Now, when I heard that, I'm like, wait, what? And it was a very exact number because he was upset that he didn't hit the seven figure mark.
So I started looking into this world of software sales, and I finally got an interview with adp, the hr, the payroll company. And I started researching all the questions that they would ask. And one of the questions I knew they would ask is, what makes you unique?
What makes you the giraffe, essentially? Right. What makes you different?
And I had no idea because I had had zero experience. What was I going to say?
And something randomly popped into my head because I started thinking about my story. What was different? What could I bring to the table? And I have no idea how this came to.
And I walked in and I was prepared for that one question.
And so I'm in this room, I walk in, these VPs had never seen me. It's a panel interview with four VPs.
I walk in, I sit down, we go halfway through the interview, and the question pops up.
Now I'm nervous because I'm telling you, this answer that I'm about to give you, it could have gone either way.
And they go, what makes you different? Why should we hire you?
And I go, well, and mind you, at this time, they had never seen me. They had only heard my voice. Because this was at a time when we weren't doing Zoom or teams interviews. I go, I can almost guarantee you that before I walked in this room, either subtly or subconsciously, you envisioned a white male.
Yeah, that. That little dead silence is exactly what happened. And I go, I promise you, I'm not going to call hr. That's not the point of this. I actually have a point.
I go, I am the world's best chameleon. And here's what I mean by that, because of the sound of my voice, I sound like. Because I, I. My background was actually in broadcasting. And I should probably tell you the origin story is my parents were immigrants coming into this country. So I'm not like I first generation American.
And I looked at them and I said, but by the color of my skin and also by the way I had been treated my entire life, you probably assumed I was an African American male.
And I go, but my actual nationality and heritage is from India.
And it was all these things. And I explained to them that based on my upbringing, based on how I've been treated my entire life, because no one knew what I was, I didn't have a tribe to belong to. I had to learn to assimilate to almost every different culture on the planet. Because at the end of the day, if you belong nowhere, you try to belong everywhere.
And so that's when this idea of the chameleon, when I was preparing for that interview really, I guess, was birth in my heart and in my mind. And so I said, there is not a room that I can't step in.
There is not an IT department, there's not an HR department. There is no company on the planet that I believe that I cannot walk into.
Immediately connect with the other person.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: Now that's now. That's now. So you started in the middle, but for the audience, assuming you're trying to fit in, you're in a different place, you feel some pressure, you feel like fish out of water.
I'm assuming it didn't start like that. Oh, no.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: I don't want to say I had this horrible childhood or horrible upbringing because looking back, I believe I was privileged. I had parents that loved me. I had food on the table. We weren't rich. We were actually fairly poor, poor immigrant family. But, you know, I was loved by my family.
But the second I walked out of the house, the hate began.
And so I remember in kindergarten, my mom, bless her heart, did not know.
She was proud of her heritage. She dressed me up in traditional Indian garb and sent me to kindergarten, which.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: Was not an Indian kindergarten.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: No, this was in Oklahoma City.
Predominantly Caucasian, predominantly American, predominantly white. I was one of the few minorities in the entire school.
I remember walking into kindergarten and all of the kids turning and pointing and laughing. And as I sat down at that kindergarten table, we had this little pencil holder. And the kids started saying, ha, ha, that's your purse. Because I was in this long thing. And they said I was wearing a woman's dress.
And I still remember that to this day, because I remember walking home afterwards just in tears. I went home and I was praying. I go at a young age. This was four or five years old. God, why could you not make me white?
Why could you not allow me to fit in? And it was one of the most traumatizing.
But now I look back, the impetus for what created this superpower that I believe that I have, that I can teach others.
Because what once was a defense mechanism is now what I call my superpower. But I still remember that to this day.
And I could probably tell you 50 other stories as well.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: So you started there and then what else happened? Because there are some other incident, other situations of wanting to fit in, or somewhere between kindergarten with your man purse, then you're.
And your.
Long before Harry Styles made it popular. Yeah. You know, your dress. And then. And then the time that you got to the interview, like, what other things led into that? That at the time seemed to be something made you stand out, that you felt like was a disadvantage, that later on, which we'll get into the next segment later on became an advantage. Like, what else can you share for the audience? Because I'm sure there's a lot of people who are thinking, I have this thing. I wish I. I wish I didn't have this experience, this. I'm bringing this look, this, whatever.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: Yeah, we all have it. It doesn't matter about race, creed, religion, any of that. We all have this identity issue growing up where we always think the grass is greener on the other side. We want something we don't have, or we want to be something we're not. Right.
What I found out, looking back, is over the course of my childhood, over the course of college, when you try to assimilate again at that time, it was a defense mechanism. What ended up happening is if I was in a Caucasian community, I actually changed my diction. I changed the way that I spoke. If I was playing in sports and I was in a different race or culture. Right. You pick up on certain things so you can fit in. No matter where I go, I learned about even little cultural nuances, and I became curious.
So, again, I didn't realize it at the time, but it sparked this curiosity. Because when you want to fit in, you actually step into someone else's world. And when you say those words as an adult, we tell people all the time, if you want to generate revenue, if you want to generate connection with your clients, if you want to be a better seller, if you want to have better relationships, what do we do? Step into someone else's world. So all of these instances of me trying to fit into different cultures forced me to be curious and actually learn, even to the. The tune of tone, dress.
Sometimes it's even how you walk.
All these little different things, they're so minute. But again, when you start to do that, it becomes a superpower. And then now in college, I found that my surroundings, my friends, were very diverse. To this day, I have a super significantly diverse friend group across all race, creed, religion, anything you can possibly think of. So that's how I think it kind of parlayed.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: Great. So when we come. When we come back, we're going to listen to Steven's story, how he took this and took it into his professional career, in his personal life, and got to the next level. So when you want to elevate your perspective and see a better path, Stephen is going to show us that path. See you after the break.
Be bold, be curious, but most importantly, be patient. We'll be right back with more Be the Giraffe.
This is Be the Giraffe with Chris Jarvis. It's time to evolve and elevate.
Welcome back to Be the Giraffe. My guest this week is Stephen Omens. You have to squint and see him. He's a chameleon. He blends in. He's the author of a book that's coming out shortly called the Chameleon Effect.
And in the first segment, you shared some really valuable insights about growing up and being different and not fitting in and trying hard to fit in, and this constant game of. Of changing your color, changing your shape.
And we talked during the break about. About how that actually created some value. And there was a story that I wanted to share, my own, which was I was talking to Brian Murphy, who was the president of the Hartford insurance company.
And Brian was a bit of a mentor to me. And he said that he learned something invaluable when he was a young executive at the Hartford. And this coach taught him that the key to life is to figure out what is that thing that drives you, the thing that is. That is always lurking. The feeling, the thought, the fear, the pain. And understand what is that thing that happened in your childhood that drives you. And he said in the key to life is to realize what it is for first, then understand when to tap into it and feed it when you need it, because you also need to learn how to put it aside, because the thing that drives you will get you to a certain level and then it will be the same thing that Holds you back.
And so, again, I want to tell a story because we talked a little bit about that. So the thing that drives you to a certain level of success will eventually be the thing that holds you back from getting further. The what got you here won't get you there.
And so the key to success is figuring out what. What that thing is. Know when to really lean into it and tap into it, and then know when to be able to. When and how to be able to harness it when it's not serving you well. So for you, you had this chameleon effect that there was. There was a pivotal moment for you. It sounds like that fits that story, and I think it'd be great for you to share it. Yeah. So I would say there's.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: There's two spaces. Right. And a lot of it has to do with fitting in and what happens. And what I realized is that especially when I got into my career, you can't just be superficial on the top. And what I realized is I looked back at my life and I go, I don't actually have any deep friendships. What I have is a lot of surface level, and I can get extended. Accepted. But if you don't let people pass that exterior, what they think they know about you, it's very difficult to go from the whole no like and trust. You can go to the no, you can go to the like, but you have to shave off that veneer if you want people to trust you. So as I learned how to.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: So you were so focused on. You were so focused on surviving to say or do whatever people wanted on the end, but very protective at the same time.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: 100%. 100%. And so when I started to do well in my career was when I heard either. I think it was both Zig Ziglar who said, help enough people get what they want. You know, you'll have everything you want. And when Dave Blanchard, who's the CEO of the OG Mandino Group, I read the scrolls, I read that book, and he goes, step into other people's worlds. It's not about my world. And that's why this idea of even the chameleon is I wanted to change the way that I looked at my life. And I didn't want it to be a defense mechanism. I wanted to not only help others, but when my income changed and I went from, you know, six figures to seven figures, that sort of movement was when I stopped making it about me, my product, my service, and truly about others. Right. And so I think I was late 20s when I actually figured this out, um, and there. The pivotal moment was when my own. There was two pivotal moments, but I'll give you one.
When your own race. It goes back to who I was because I was a first generation American.
A lot of immigrants that came over here also didn't accept me because they didn't understand me. And there is a term in our world called abcd, American born confused Daisy, for any, you know, buddy from that culture.
And I realized because they're seeing. They're not seeing me and to not be accepted by your own people, it drove me to say, you know what? I need to stop being the shield and really open up. And it actually, that personal experience helped me in the professional life. And finally I got to this place of vulnerability, which is why one of my favorite chapters in your book is about the heart. It's about just how are we going to be compassionate and be there for. For others. Right.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: So there's a time that to fit in, you needed to understand what people were or how they acted so that you could. You could fit in and not be picked on.
[00:17:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:36] Speaker A: Like that. That was. That was the original driver, was I want to not be made fun of.
And then you realize there was something about.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: About.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: So there's this fine line too, because you go from that to I don't want to fit in to now the people that were born more alike. You feel like you're a sellout.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:55] Speaker A: Right. So this, that whole, how do I not get picked on by the masses? I have to. I have to abandon my own culture. I have to abandon my own upbringing. I have to abandon my. My old. When I left the east coast and went out west, went to business school, moved into a different socioeconomic situation. Plus I left little Rhode island to move to Los Angeles.
I can remember the com. The question or comment was, oh, so you're too good for us now.
[00:18:20] Speaker B: Such a great point.
[00:18:21] Speaker A: Yeah. So that. So that, that moment of.
And I think it's a normal part of the transition where you go, I don't know if this is true for you. It was for me where to leave a situation I didn't like. I had to almost dislike or resent my previous situation to learn and like a lot of growth. It's a rubber band where you pull one way and then you rebound the other way. So I went from not liking how I grew up and grow up poor and different situations to I want to be somebody else to then, okay, that's not exactly right either.
And so there's this Course correction of I don't want to be picked on. I want to fit into this other group. But then I often you get to the. I don't really want to abandon who I was either. And when those things come back together, a lot of interesting things can happen.
Spot on. So in your personal growth, because I want to get into. In the next segment, your business growth, which is fascinating. What happened with you, with that rebound of you wanting to be different and leaving, but then you finding who you really were?
[00:19:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
What I realized is something that my mom used to tell me growing up. She goes, you can have all the money in the world. You can do all these different things. You won't take it with you. The only thing that you'll take with you is the relationships you kept. And I changed the. The saying, because now what I say is, and I've heard it elsewhere, so maybe I didn't actually coin this, but memories don't live on through money.
Memories live on through relationships and through people. What I realized about myself is even though I'm introverted in nature, my heart and my mind, everything that I do is actually around people. I love people.
So, granted, that's why I realized. So when that pivot came, it was like, I don't just want to be accepted.
I actually want to impact and help. And if I can get into someone's world, it requires opening up myself and letting them get into my world as well.
So I think that's one of the biggest shifts that I had. And from then on, it was like this rocket ship, if you will, in terms of my life, career, relationships from then on.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: So for the people in the audience who, people who are watching this, who want to see some of the success you have, who want to appreciate their cultural upbringing, their family, their. Their friends, the places they grew up, and honor that, but also would like to succeed in a society that might look a little different than they are for those people.
Can you share one of the first times that you made yourself vulnerable? You talked about the. The know, like, and trust, and people like people who are like them. That's the easiest confirmation bias. So for them to really get to know who you are, to trust you, can you remember some of the things that you did, some of the stress around that, or. Or just anything you might be able to offer so people can get an idea of what you did, and maybe it'll give them an idea on some of the steps they can take.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: It's really interesting because, as you said, that what popped into my mind is the first time I took someone who was behind me by about a decade and I became a mentor. Because what happens is when you, you, you, Every single person on this planet is ahead of someone else and behind other people in wherever they want in their respective career, life, whatever. And when I took a college kid under my wing, I was about 27, 28, and I just shared. Here's the struggles I went through. I didn't have anyone.
I'm first generation here.
You have people that have gone through the hard knocks here, ask questions. I'm open. Let me tell you what really happened.
That's when I realized, oh, my gosh, there's a lot to give. But when you're in that mentoring relationship, find someone who you can mentor and find someone who can mentor you.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: I think that's great. So what else?
I do get the idea of when you give back.
For me, it's something that when I wrote Be the Giraffe, I thought I wrote it for a younger me.
This is the book I wish I had when I was 27, starting my entrepreneurial journey. 26. What did I need to know? So, and then as I started writing it and then I started reading the 14 lessons, I thought, oh, this isn't. This is for the younger me. Like me three seconds ago. Yeah, like this, this is, this is what I need to read now. And it became, it became, if I'm going to teach this, I have to live this.
So there's a reminder of the teaching of something in medical school. It's watch one, do one, teach one.
The idea that you need to, then the giving back and the trying to help people makes it very easy for you to continue to learn.
[00:23:05] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:23:06] Speaker A: And so what other things do you do? What other things did you do to put yourself out there with different individuals, groups, whatever it might have been that kind of allowed you to find that authentic you.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
The one very specific thing that I started to realize and it really honed in, even in the last eight months. And I wish somebody would have explained this to me tactically. When I was a kid, when people say follow your passions, there is truth to that, but what it really means and what I would tell people is figure out what you're ridiculously good at and monetize it. So what I realized, I was really good at communicating. I was really good at public speaking. So I took all of these different things that I learned about myself through trying to assimilate. And I said, even as I was mentoring, what am I so good at that somebody would pay me to do.
And boom, like when I figured that out, my income started to rise.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: I like that. So we're going to, we're going to come back to that after the break. We're going to take, we're going to talk about what Stephen did to elevate his life by tapping into who he really, who he really is and finding the people who really appreciate who he is. So if you want to see that path for you, come back after the break and you'll get that.
We're just taking a quick detour through the savannah. Don't wander off. We'll be back with more Be the Giraffe welcome back to the only show where standing out is the standard Be the Giraffe.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: Foreign.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: Welcome back to Be the draft. I'm with Stephen Omens.
Stephen, you in the last section, you just glossed over a couple things.
One of them was the Zig Ziglar quote, which I'm going to have you look into the camera and tell the audience this one because I don't want to steal your thunder, but this one is really, really important. So please, yeah.
[00:25:24] Speaker B: When my life, when I first heard this quote by Zig Ziglar, help enough people get what they want and you'll have everything you want.
It is such a well quoted quote, for lack of better words, but it is one of the most life changing quotes I've ever had in my life.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: So help enough people get what they want. You can have everything you want. Sure. There's variations.
That moment for you. You talked about not fitting in, needing to be a chameleon act like everybody else so you could get into the rooms or you would not get picked down or run out of the rooms or laughed out of the rooms or whatever the pain point was.
So you developed this astute ability to observe others and see what you needed to fit in, which I'm sure for the audience, there's a lot of us who go through that.
Then you took that a different level of, ooh, this isn't just about fitting in if I want to excel. You had that moment in the sales interview where I want to get to the next level. I want to be able to sell and create my own future, then I'm going to have to solve other people's problems.
You had developed a skill of observing, which you did it from a survival you did to survive, not to thrive. But then you realized there was this moment of the thing that I, my parents put me here. You were a victim of circumstance. Right. You're living in a Place where you don't look like other people. And as a result you have to learn a skill and then you learn that that skill does other things.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: So just for me that that story was. My parents got divorced, I was the oldest kid and the only two people in the world who would die for me seemingly wanted to kill each other.
And it just wasn't a good vibe with. And I never handled that well that why can't these two people who mean the most to me don't like each other? That sense of conflict for me became. For me it was the. I know living through proxy. 50 something years later, I'm still in this space of I like to see connection. I like to see connection between people. I see connection between, you know, whether it's a employer, employee, investor and company guest and audience, any of that. And so there is that moment that for the audience, where I want to go with this segment is when you realize the thing that you thought was a curse, misfortune, bad luck, circumstance is actually helping you. So now you have this natural ability because you've developed this skill set to go and do other things.
Tell us how you did, how you worked on that in your business. Because this is something that for a lot of people who cope, they develop. They know how to work with different people. They're hanging out with people who look like this, people who look like that, people from this background, people from that background.
How did you take that? Because I think the audience would find is. I think there's a lot of people who want.
Who may feel like they're stuck. How do you take that thing? As we talk about the advice from Brian Murphy in the last segment.
How did you do that? What did you learn and how did you apply that? Because you've had a remarkable career, you've worked with tons of big companies that a lot of people would love to work for.
Tell us a little bit about that.
[00:28:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll get tactical for a moment because something you said spurred who I think or one of the identities that I have and that's being the entreployee.
So most of us, when we get out of school, we go get a regular job. Some people go straight into being an entrepreneur. I did it the employee route and then I ended up starting a company in 2007. I had started a few others before that, but nothing of of note. Right.
And so this was in the. When the market had crashed and real estate, it was just, it was a crazy time. Right. But because of what I said before, being able to understand that, yes, I wanted to be accepted, but what it helped me understand is the reason I wanted to be accepted is because I loved people. But if you love people, you want to help solve their problems. A great example is when I went into the investment world.
It was a time of heavy, heavy foreclosures. And most people out there were teaching, oh, you can make all this money in real estate. You can, you know, make fifty, sixty, hundred, you know, millions of dollars, you know, off of a flip or something of that nature.
And I'm thinking to myself, these are people losing their homes. It's a struggle.
How do we go out? And so we created this community where it was about serving people. And when you serve people, you deserve the value in terms of monetary compensation, right? So if you think about things like seller finance notes, whether it's short sales, like these are very specific real estate terms. How do you turn that into when you're sitting across from someone who's losing their home?
These skills taught me to be empathetic.
It. And so how does that translate into business?
That empathy and me truly understanding what they're going in their world help my close rate go up and I was able to buy more homes, transition that to back to tech sales, transition that to mortgages. Anything that I've done in my career, close rates go up.
The ability for someone to trust because they know that, one, I'm not going to screw them over because it's against my ethos. But two, I truly understand and empathize what they're going with, and I want to help them past the close.
I'm going to say that one more time. Help people past the close.
[00:31:13] Speaker A: I wish you had this advice for me 20 years ago because as a mathematician in finance, I would do the analysis and then the numbers, the spreadsheet would tell me this works like, how do you not do this? Are you an idiot? And, and, and I realized that money decisions almost always have, have more to do with the emotions people have about money than they do about the money.
It's not about do I think, can I turn a dollar into $2? It's about do I like this person, do I feel in selling, I learned much later, people will buy from people if they, if you're competent enough to do the work, fine. Do they believe that you're trustworthy so you have the skills and I can trust you. But the third piece most people miss is do I believe that you understand my situation?
Which people who are espousing gold, crypto, AI, whatever it is, they do the math and go, there's a great opportunity. But if you don't understand the psychological challenge in it that people have, what do they have to overcome? Do I believe that you understand me?
You know the answer, but you listen longer, not because you need more data, but because the person needs to feel heard. Yes. And I would think that my wife's going to make me watch this episode over and over again. But the, but this. But the situation for you is that you, you, you did that. I mean, you really got into the feelings of. You have to understand.
Back to your Zig Ziglar quote.
You really focus on understanding what people want and why they want it, which is so much more important than the actual product.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:58] Speaker A: Or the service.
[00:32:59] Speaker B: And this goes to something I tell my organization today.
I'm in a world where we partner with other organizations to go and help with advisory and consulting services. Same thing in my keynote speeches. Anything that I'm sharing with people. And here's something I tell my organization.
Why would that partner want to put you like you in front of their clients?
And at the end of the day, again, the numbers.
Sure, all that needs to make sense. But we have heard this in our lives across decades, centuries, that it's the iq versus eq.
But people will not do a deal just because they don't like you. And these are in the small areas of life. I heard someone the other day tell me they didn't buy a car that was a much better deal from someone because they didn't like the salesperson.
So it is very much an emotional decision. What's the old quote?
People buy off emotion, justify with logic.
And so that's what it, it really boils down to is being the person that people want to do business with.
And that's the introspection and reflection. And it always boils down to every dollar that I believe that I made and most of my money today is actually based on warm referrals, if not all of them.
Like, I don't go out there with an offer or anything. It's just truly because I want to help people. They trust me.
And so people refer me into different clients.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: So how do you find in, in the corporate world where there's a lot of people, there's a lot more competition. A lot of the folks watching work for somebody else, they're not entrepreneurs. When you're the entrepreneur, you can say these are the rules and this is how you're going to work. But for most people who don't have that luxury and they have to be creative and be successful inside of another person's rules, guidelines, structure. What advice do you have for them?
[00:34:57] Speaker B: Network, network, network. And always remember, and I'll give very specifics of where. I'll give one or two very tactical bits of advice. But always remember, the wealth of this world is not in the currency, it's in the people. When you understand that, you'll understand that every person that you meet is bidirectional. You can create more value. And so I teach my organizations to go find centers of influence, coi and it's the six degrees of separation that you can do anywhere if you want a promotion. Guess what? If you're inside an organization, it matters what people are saying behind you, behind closed doors.
So this is everywhere, whether it's internal or external.
[00:35:40] Speaker A: So networking internally, externally, find out what people need, find out what they want, find out what their goals are.
Lots of interesting things there.
What are some ways to do that inside the company? You can't just knock on the CEO's door some places.
[00:35:56] Speaker B: Maybe you would actually be surprised. And so the question that I teach for every person to ask at the end of every single call, actually when I met you, I asked this question, which was, who is the coolest person?
And you can create any adjective. Who is the most financially astute supply chain leader you know in said industry? Like, you've got to know the other person. But I think I asked you who's the most amazing person you've met in the last 90 days that you think I should meet? Who just pops into your head and you thought of four people right off the bat. If you do that inside of a company, you will very quickly find out who's influential because whoever's top of mind, you now go to that next person you're top of mind inside of a person that is top of mind everyone else. It is the most amazing.
If you want to call it a daisy chain. I don't know what the best terminology is, but that's great.
[00:36:50] Speaker A: We're going to come back after the break. We're going to come back and hear some really interesting tactical things that you can use to get your life to the next level. To the next level. Elevate your perspective, see a better path. And you will be the Giraffe. See you after the break.
There are many twists and turns along the better path and this is one of them. We'll be right back with more Be the Giraffe.
This is Be the Giraffe with Chris Jarvis.
It's time to evolve and Elevate.
Welcome back. I'm here with Stefan Uman. We are talking about becoming powerful, connected, successful inside of a corporate environment.
And we were talking at the break about different ways to start that conversation, get things moving.
One of the, and this whole theme has been of the show has been these unintended consequences, things that we didn't know they were going to, we didn't know what was going to come from a skill, a coping mechanism and experience.
And in the beginning of be the draft, there's the Wild factor, which is a very quick four minute quiz that you assess your life in the areas of finance, career, relationships, health and fun. And then you're either an eagle, elephant, monkey, dolphin or penguin. And one of the interesting things that I didn't know in my experience at Microsoft was I had them take it and then they wanted to use it for DEI because it allowed people to say, ooh, you're, you're an eagle, I'm a penguin. We're both birds. They're very different. Now I'm curious about you.
And they said without having to get into color and binary, non binary gender sexual orientation, we can avoid those things and still create curiosity. And you've talked about this curiosity being the thing, like really being curious. So tell me, tell the audience a bit about kind of that curiosity. You've talked about little things that you've done to meet some people. Tell us some of those other things that you were curious about, how you went about them because you were curious when you met the guy who made $998,000 or $89,000 a year in software sales. Tell us about some of the curiosity you had.
And because the audience here is going to say, great, you've done all these great things, you've worked at these cool companies, you've made a lot of money.
What can I do?
And where should that curiosity go? Like you're such a curious person in our interactions, help people with that because I think that's probably an amazing trait of yours that's led to your success.
[00:39:49] Speaker B: Yeah. So this is going to sound counterintuitive and almost sound like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth, but I promise you I'm not. One of the first things I do with companies, with clients, with anyone, is help them map out their own story. Be curious about why you are the way you are. We forget sometimes what happened when we were 3, 5, 10, whatnot. But what happens is when you have these stories of your own life, what ends up happening is I say that you might not be able to be all things to all people, but you can be something to anyone. And when you walk into any sort of room, you can resonate with them because you now understand yourself. You're confident in your uniqueness, you know your own story. But you start getting curious about, huh, I know my story, but it makes you curious about other people's stories. How similar, how different. What can I learn? Right? But sometimes it starts with doing the reflection and the work on yourself. And now all of a sudden, because story, there's a. There's another quote. I'm full of quotes, right? Stories sell, facts tell. And so becoming a great storyteller inside an organization, outside an organization, it actually drives more curiosity to see, huh?
If I went through that, I wonder, did you go through that as well?
[00:41:10] Speaker A: So, so, so when you said, did I go through that first? When you think of stories in this world of social media, you think of everybody's showing the private jet, or they're showing the fancy party, or they're showing the Instagram able restaurant thing.
But when you're saying, I went through that too, it sounds like you're talking about, these stories aren't highlight reels. These stories are something different.
[00:41:31] Speaker B: Yeah. It's the deepest, darkest places that actually impact and shape. Whether it's sandpaper, whether it's a chisel, those are the stories where you're like, oh, that really made me who I am. And guess what? Now I can empathize. This is why it's important to understand your own self. Because that word, empathy, it really, really helps with that relationship building. Right?
And so this is why many times when I talk about there. There's something that I always say is principles, scale, tactics don't. And I just share this with, you know, my organization again as well.
These principles in life that we learn from our own stories, resilience, adaptability, all these different things, that's the thing that's across all humanity. The tactics are mine. And what's really cool is that's what creates that curiosity. And what I mean by that is this, Chris, you can't do what I do because you're not me.
And I can't do what you do because I'm not you. So I need to stop trying to be who you are, or vice versa, and learn and understand who you are. Because then we can both bring our wholesales to the table. And that's when one plus one equals three.
[00:42:51] Speaker A: So I went through this a little bit when I went to business school. I had gone to a State school. And I grew up poor, poor. And a lot of my classmates had gone to Harvard and Stanford and schools that were better. And they. And their parents were executives or doctors or, you know, they were professionals. And there was a lot of shame with that. And so, you know, but for me also, when you grow up with parents who are first generation or parents who were tough, there wasn't a lot of showing of love, and there certainly wasn't. There was, There was no crying in baseball.
[00:43:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:20] Speaker A: And so how do you help people with that, get over that story of. You don't want to share the highlight reels. It's not about everything is great. People aren't going to, aren't going to empathize with you if they didn't have a shared struggle. But you don't want to be seen as a whiner. So where's that line between I'm open with some of my stuff and I'm not, I'm not bitching and moaning about. About my situation and blaming somebody else.
[00:43:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
I think there's a congruency principle here where again, if you reflect on when you hear other people's stories, ask yourself, did that feel like complaining? You can actually test your own barometer because we all have ears, we all have eyes. We all hear, see and hear other people's stories and say, huh, that story was annoying. That one inspired me. Okay. And we learn, right? We learn how people operate. And so sometimes it's. It is trial and error. You check people's reactions, even in this conversation. Right. Like I'm watching facial expressions, I'm watching cues. I'm like, when do we need to go move forward? Like all of these things, it's just learned behavior over time. But I think one of the biggest things that I tell people is give yourself grace.
No one's perfect. No one ever will be. And just try, because you said something earlier, it was such an amazing quote from Abraham Lincoln. I'll let you say it. It was about memories, but we just, we can't remember things. So just try and try the next thing. But I, I'll let you say the quote because I was actually a quote.
[00:44:52] Speaker A: Well, I'm old, but I'm not old enough to have heard it from Abraham Lincoln. So the, the quote is, I missed. I'm sure, I'm sure I'm going to mis, mis quote it. But it was, no man has a good enough memory to successfully live a life as a liar.
And the other Abraham Lincoln quote, which we talked about at the break was, I Don't like that man. I need to get to know him better.
So I guess Abraham Lincoln is the theme of the day because you're so into the curiosity and getting to know where people are. And then this idea of the story is, what did you go through? How do you share it?
And that's the place where the curiosity and the opportunity to help people is going to come. And so even with the mentoring, you talked about that there's some opening up of things that didn't work for you. There's a. You have to. To invite people to open up. You have to open up.
[00:45:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:47] Speaker A: And get to that place, which is not always easy in the corporate world when people are fighting for position and rank and promotion and responsibility.
So how do you handle that?
[00:45:58] Speaker B: Oh, that is such a.
A tough one. I think part of it is just knowing, in believing that not a single person, we're all, like, puffed up. We're all trying to show our best side.
But if we know everyone's doing that, the sooner you lead with that vulnerability, the sooner you take the anxiety off someone else, because then they don't have to be this person in front of you. You've given them permission to go, oh, my gosh, I can be real.
And if they can be real with you, guess what, you just created that bond of trust. And that's another reason why when I talk about the chameleon effect, and that's what it's really about is just being in that person's world. But that does take a belief and trust. But even as I said that, I hope that the audience hears me when I say, if you are feeling it, I promise you, the person next to you is feeling it too.
[00:46:56] Speaker A: Right. And what are some good questions you can ask people, some good leading questions to get to know?
You did ask a great question of me with that question, which had me stop and think. I've never been asked that question before. And there is something to.
Answers are great, but you get great answers from great questions. And so what other questions at work, in different places can you ask for people that aren't so, like, I can't just say, what is the deepest, darkest secret you've never shared that I would like you to share right now with millions of people? That would be a bit of a stretch. Yeah, but what kinds of things.
What kind of things can people do?
You know, subtle things that can open up the dialogue and get things moving.
[00:47:40] Speaker B: Think of your questions from an emotional state. If you take that one little thing, what I mean by that Is, hey, how did you feel about that now? What did you think about that? Right.
I'm sensing. Sensing is sort of a feeling that this is the case, giving people permission. But when you do things based on emotions, you know, I feel like I'm hearing.
I'm smelling what you're putting down. Right. Like, but you get the point is when you do it from that perspective, it shifts the conversation from the what to just more the humanity. But that one little subtle nuance in the words that we choose and that we use.
And also, it's in the tone of how we ask a question.
[00:48:24] Speaker A: Right. And I think we talked about this before. You can't just put it all out there immediately that there's a little deal. There's training wheels on a bike. So where are some places that you can be vulnerable before you bring it into the corporation quickly?
Where can some people test drive this? Whether it's with nonprofits with different, you know, different places they can go where they can test their story a little bit.
[00:48:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
Friends, family, just anybody that you know. This is. Goes back to my whole theme about networking. Everyone has a network.
Look at your, you know, phone. Who did you call in the last five times? Right. Pick up those. Pick up the phone and say, I have a favor to ask. I need you to hear this and tell me how this resonates.
[00:49:03] Speaker A: I love that. Okay. So if you want to elevate your perspective, see a better path in your corporate job or in your new career where you're working with companies, Stephen has had great success. I love everything that you're sharing. Try to find that thing that seemed like misfortune that really developed your superpower.
Network with people, mentor, connect with them. Be curious, and see if you can't use the human connection when everybody else is so focused on data technology, likes impersonal things.
You're saying, let's go and get more personal so you can actually be more of a human by being more of a giraffe. Stephen, thank you for coming on.
Come back. Watch this again. Share it with your friends. We'll see you next week.
