Leadership Series Ep 7: Confidence & Overcoming the Imposter Syndrome

[00:59:00] Rodney Apple: Welcome back to the Supply Chain Careers Leadership Series podcast featuring our host Chris Gaffney and co-host Mike Ogle and myself, Rodney Apple. Chris, we’re excited to get going today on episode seven, which will cover confidence, gaining it, keeping it, and how to regain it when imposter syndrome strikes.

If you’re new to our podcast, we’ve got some prior episodes. This is all about, uh, leadership. We started with avoiding the regrettable move, how to maintain a healthy work life balance, how to identify your blind spites spots and how to overcome them. Enhancing your personal productivity, collaboration, both internally and externally, and then what to do when you’re stuck in a rut at work. So, uh, look forward to get started. Thanks, Chris. Thanks, Mike.

[00:59:53] Chris Gaffney: Rodney and Mike, looking forward to, to this one. This is, I, I, I think I say this every episode. I think this is a really important topic and, and I’m excited to dive into it.

[01:00:04] Mike Ogle: So, Chris, how does this episode on confidence and getting into the imposter syndrome fit in to our leadership series at this point?

[01:00:12] Chris Gaffney: Yeah, we’ve talked about how these episodes kind of fall into to four buckets, you know, how to work effectively, create the space for time and development, how to differentiate yourself in the workplace, how do I grow, um, as an individual, or how do I help my employees or students grow? And then the last one is kind of where am I headed in building a career path? And, you know, Initially, I would say that confidence is a differentiator in the workplace. You want to be confident to be able to state bold positions, take prudent risks and, and step out ahead. But in all honesty, lack of confidence really limits you in all of these areas. So, I’m gonna say primarily in the differentiator space, but I think it really can touch on all of these different, um, different, um, themes that we’ve laid out.

[01:01:04] Rodney Apple: Chris, obviously we kind of go back into our personal experiences. Is this an area, I mean, I think everybody struggles with it, but anything that you want to call out from your background as it relates to struggles with confidence.

[01:01:15] Chris Gaffney: You know, all of these for me at one point or another, strike a chord into my own experience, either myself or people I’ve worked with, people close to me. But, but for me, it definitely has been a, a bit of a roller coaster. And, and you know, I always remind our audience, we’re trying to, to speak to students, young professionals, but in all honesty, people throughout their career, and I can tell ya, I’ve had high points and low points throughout my, my career, and I, you know, I go back to high school and I, I think I was reasonably capable, but I was not confident and I had a professor, or excuse me, a teacher challenged me, um, at the end of my junior year, and it ended up being a huge catalyst for me completing high school and then seeking a challenging university at Georgia Tech. And then I, you know, I used a lot of that momentum through college and I, I would say I had a fear of failure, but I worked real hard. And I got results. And so I think I built confidence both in the classroom and then out at Georgia Tech. I got involved in leadership and that, that helped validate me.

But I would tell you six months into my first job at Frito Lay, um, all that confidence had been crushed by my first boss. And I won’t mention her name. I really went from being someone who felt like I had it all, had lots of job opportunities and all that stuff. So I said, I really must be, I must be it. But very quickly fell back on some of the things that I was not good at. In many cases, I moved fast on my work, but I wasn’t necessarily always great at attention to detail and that did not work well in my first job. And so I kind of hit a low spot there. And ultimately needed one of my early mentors to kind of pick me up. And then I looked through my career and I started stacking professional success.

Throughout the first 15 or 20 years of my career, I felt like I continued to see success and that laddering is how you continue to build it. And I think that went fine. And then I, you know, then I ran into this idea of imposter syndrome and what happened to me was, I took a developmental role within my own leadership team, so I was part of the supply chain leadership team and, you know, I had done logistics, I’d done planning, and they said, let’s have you take over this technical group, which, you know, covered quality, covered safety, covered engineering. And I had some experience there, but it was, you know, it was a bigger group. And right after that we had senior leadership change and those senior leaders had a lot of supply chain experience and they knew who I was and they walked in and their expectation was that I was an expert in the field. And I’d only been in the developmental role for a few months and that really, really knocked me back.

And you know, we talked about that in the first episode and that was my first experience was like, you know, I’ve been at this for 25 years, but I don’t really deserve the right to sit in this seat. So, you know, that’s where I think this one, this one has passion for me because confidence can be a fragile thing. It can be hard to build and it can be easy to lose. That’s my motive for this one.

[01:04:35] Rodney Apple: And uh, as we talk about this, I have memories, uh, popping back in from a long time ago as well, Chris, and, I won’t go too far back, but I think just being in recruiting for my career, you know, and, and on the sales side and getting, you know, it starts with, you know, getting in front of executives and, and sitting down and being nervous as I’ll get out and trying to overcome that and saying dumb things and talking for the sake of filling the air. The big one though, is progressing. You know, you get over that. You just have to have more at bats, more repetition and just, you know, believe that you’re going to overcome those fears. Um, and, and having good peers and mentors to, to help coach, uh, is always good practice. But I think the big one for me was just starting out at the age of 25 or so, uh, trying to start my first business in and recruitment. It’s focused on supply chain and, and I just remember. This was back in the late nineties. There was no LinkedIn. I didn’t know anything about supply chain. Uh, a lot of people didn’t. Um, back in those days it was still kind of a newer business function and it was tough to regain that confidence. You know, going back into the workforce, going back into interviewing, I had to kind of start over a bit, uh, with my career and, um, but I purposely sought out to gain the experience, went through the corporate world, you know, doing corporate supply chain recruitment and that’s where we met, uh, Coca-Cola and so forth.

Um, but I think just laddering those experiences, uh, knowing your shortcomings and just not being as afraid to fail again. Um, cuz sometimes we have to make mistakes to really learn, and gain that, regain that confidence. Um, but it still happens today. I mean, if I speak in front of a crowd, I, I get nervous. I may lose some confidence, but, uh, typically I just go with it and all of a sudden you just believe in yourself and trust that the experiences you built to uh, overcome those fears. So that’s kind of my personal journey.

[01:06:40] Mike Ogle: And I’ve experienced this as well, both in industry life and when I first started as a contract systems engineer at, at Intel and somebody had recommended me for a role to, to hop in and do that. That required a lot of gathering information from all kinds of different levels of, of people. Both internally in the company and externally. And it was a challenge, you know, when they told me what the job was going to entail and, and then putting together specifications and getting agreement and all these kinds of things. I’ve never done this before, but that’s part of what it’s about is being in those situations where, you know, hopefully you’re gonna grow a little bit.

Uh, and I also had taken on, uh, later in, in life, uh, my first role at, at an industry association. It had me managing people, multiple groups and committees of people that were all the way from presidents of their companies to people that were a manager or director of, of business development. Working on strategic kinds of issues and it’s like, what do I know about how to manage this kind of crew? Especially a bunch of A type personalities. But you kind of dive in, you learn from others, you ask questions and was able to do that.

And on the academic side, uh, had a very similar kind of situation where a faculty member actually got hurt that I was their graduate assistant. And they said, Oh, well now you’re gonna teach the class for the rest of the semester. Oh really? How should I do that? How, how do I go about this? How, how are they gonna believe me when I step in front of the room and I’m barely older than they are? Uh, but you just, again, I just kind of realized long ago that you kind of have to have that attitude that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. So, what do you learn from it? What can you do when you dive in the next time? Uh, what kind of resources do you need? What people can I learn from? And, and just have that attitude to get better. And as you said, learn from your mistakes.

So Chris, enough about my story. Let’s talk about building the foundations of confidence. Where do you start?

[01:08:39] Chris Gaffney: I think I’ll talk a little bit later about a, a bit of the science, but my own reflection. I, I do think it starts when we’re young and I do think the concept of the way we educate, you start, you know, you start in a given grade and at the beginning of the year it’s a slight review from the prior year, but very quickly what you see are brand new things that are gonna challenge you. And what most of our experience is something that was very challenged at the beginning of an academic grade or year, by the end of the year, you’ve gained some confidence and you’ve gained some level of mastery in that, such that you can look back and say, What was I so worried about at the beginning of the year? And if you could become aware of that over time, you can start to say every year is going to be like this. It will be another step up. This is where, for me, the laddering comes and you can start to demonstrate your own ability to take on something new. And then with practice, with feedback, you can build on it. And so I do think that is the fundamental foundation. I, I think for all of us, it’s not just the academic piece, it’s whatever you do outside of that. Whether that be sports where we all experience a high percentage of failure in our journey to get better and grow and learn. It can be in the arts if you’re gonna learn to play an instrument, um, or something like that. I think all of those things contribute to your ability to test yourself and then rise at a higher level and then somebody a black belt is a white belt who just kept showing up every day, you know?

And so I think some persistence is in there, but I think it goes without saying that what we also had in childhood, which I think is relevant, you know, as we get into later academia and into the professional world, is you had teachers and coaches and mentors who both challenged you, but also validated you to, to kind of maintain your perspective, um, help you understand that those skinned knees and those losses in those which you thought were critical games or whatever, or a less than perfect outcome, um, those were part of building of that foundation. That’s where it really gets to the heart of it in terms of my initial experiences in the journey of confidence.

[01:11:01] Rodney Apple: So Chris, it sounds like there’s different layers of evidence. Can you talk about those elements? Uh, break them down so our audience can understand.

[01:11:10] Chris Gaffney: Yeah. In my experience, when you talk about confidence, there’s at least two big components. The first one is the sheer ability to handle the task. I mean, it, it’s hard to be confident if you can’t go out and actually get it done. And so, I remember when I was a kid and I was doing model airplanes, I was not confident that first time out. I did not know what I was doing. Um, and it was pretty ugly, right? It was glue all over the place. So I didn’t have any right to be confident. Versus somebody who’d been at it for a couple of years and then got a really fancy model and put it together and it looked like it came out of a museum.

So, so you’ve gotta have the goods, you know, and, and that’s earned over time. I think that gets to our laddering, but I think for many people in the settings that we’re talking about, academic and work, the, the interaction with others is as big an element of confidence and you know, you know the stuff, but the audience or the environment itself can create the challenge.

And if you’re in a sports setting, you may be fantastic on the practice field, but when you roll out in front of the crowd, you, you tighten up. And I think in our, in our settings that we’re talking about, public speaking is a huge fear factor for folks. And they may know the material down pat, but you may not be able to articulate it once you get out in front of a crowd, so you’ve gotta be able to deal with both of that.

In the work setting, it could be a new boss or it could be a new company, or it could be a new customer that you’re getting in front of. And I think, so to master confidence, you’ve gotta be able to deal with both the underlying capability to perform the task and then you’ve gotta be able to be comfortable doing it on whatever stage. No different than somebody who studies well and doesn’t do well in a test setting. So you’ve, in my mind, there are at least two elements of confidence.

[01:13:06] Rodney Apple: Yeah, , those certainly ring true for me. Uh, you know, public speaking and getting in front of large crowds. Practice makes perfect, but you have to just put yourself out there and, uh, roll with the punches. And Mike, you hit the nail on the head earlier is, you know, what’s the worst thing that can happen? People do mess up and, you know, say the wrong things, but it’s best to get those outta the way early in your career and continue to build upon that. And I still get nervous going in front of a, you know, a crowd and speaking. But you know what? I’m gonna prepare for it and practice and, you know, get up there. And I may start out a little nervous, but, uh, I’ll. I’ll figure it out as I go along. and just gotta have that faith.

[01:13:48] Mike Ogle: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, there are so many things throughout the, the years where you ended up having a new situation. And, you’ll find as your confidence grows is that it makes it even easier and easier to go after other new things, you know, not just get better at that thing that you just figured out that you can actually do, but that when somebody comes forward and says, Hey, Mike, do you think you could handle this? And with a little bit more confidence, you’re going, Yes, I can. You know, So if, if you’re trying to continue growing your leadership game, it takes that.

I think one of those that really stuck in my head was one day my boss ended up coming in and saying, Hey, by the way, I need somebody to go up to this town outside of Detroit. Uh, we’re gonna have a group of industry professionals who are expecting you to run a strategic planning direction meeting. And, you know, the first thing in my mind was, Oh, okay. How does one do that type of thing? So, well, here’s a technique or two you could use, read these, study up. Uh, if you play it out in your mind how the interactions are going to go around the room and how you’re going to keep people focused on the results and keep yourself focused on the results, by the end of the day, you’ll be fine. I was like, Yes, sure. But you go up, you do it. You go through the process. You end up realizing that as long as everybody is focused for the most part on the same success path, they work with you on it and you have other people participate and contribute. So you keep your eye on the prize, keep everybody on track, and you may not have all the confidence going in. And I certainly didn’t. I was, my brain was going all over the place, but you have that confidence level to do it the next time and continue on the ladder.

So Chris, what is your advice for students and young professionals in building that initial foundation of confidence?

[01:15:41] Chris Gaffney: So, so Mike, I think it’s a lot of the things that you and Rodney and I have, have referenced in our own reflections on it. Here’s, here’s a list that I saw in a Forbes article, which I think summarizes it quite well, and, and I think will include that link when we, uh, publish the show notes and, and, and so people can tap into it. But first things first is getting things done. And so confidence is built on accomplishment.

You know, if you can get the small things done, you can feel better about yourself and then you can do bigger things, right? And so I think that’s the first thing. So set some goals and expectations of yourself daily, weekly, and then deliver against them. And I think the number two piece that goes with that is monitor that progress. So if you set that goal, whether it’s, you know, trying to take a few pounds off or whatever, then you’re checking in on the scale and understanding if your behaviors are translating into the, the outcomes that are, that you’re looking for. So that’s I think number two.

Number three is just do the right thing. I think this is a bit more, um, out there that wasn’t on our list, but, but if you are following your own value systems and approaching things the way you know or the right things to be done, you have the ability to kind of be at peace with the results, whether they’re good or bad, but you’re doing them on a solid foundation.

Number four on the list is also not necessarily something you expect, but it’s actually physical exercise. And I think the, the whole concept of exercising besides being good for you, it helps with things like memory, focus, stress management. Um, and leveling your emotions. So it has a tangible impact on, on the things that can be the soft, either supporters or detractors of, of confidence.

And number five on that list is be fearless. And you know, this is the whole idea that we talk about that failing is not the enemy of confidence, it’s fearing failure that really cripples us. So we know, we’ve gotta know and understand that, that our life is fundamentally about stumbling and getting back up and just being aware of it and getting good at it. So, I think that’s an important one on list.

Number six is stand up for yourself. Um, people are gonna challenge you when you’re working on things. People are gonna say, What are you doing here? But stand up for yourself and say, I’ve earned the right to be here. I’ve been assigned this project because someone believed I could do it. And just say, Hey, listen, I’m capable of this and I’m gonna demonstrate that through what I’m doing. So I, I think that’s an important one cuz you can get challenged. Number seven is follow through. You know, this whole idea of do what you say you’re gonna do is a huge catalyst and it is a differentiator in the workplace when you get known for that, not only do you see the evidence of your work, but others see it. And I think when others validate your confidence, that’s as big a, uh, a reinforcer as anything.

Number eight is think long term. Okay. This is fundamentally about setting those long term goals, making the decisions along the way, making sacrifices, being diligent, being consistent. I think that’s probably the best kind of, you know, bricks and mortar for building confidence as anything else.

And then the last one, the last two of these don’t care what others think, right? If this is important to you, you know you’re going to get negative feedback, but make sure your resolute in what you do and you keep checking with the people who are objective supporters for you, and let them give you the appropriate feedback and support as you’re on this journey.

And then the last one on the list is do more of what makes you happy. And I think one of the things I saw, when one of my kids was in a very competitive academic environment, the feedback we got from the school was make sure your student is doing something outside of class that is very validating for them because they’re gonna be in this very challenging environment, very competitive, and they need to get validation separate from the pure academic world that lets them know that they’re still good and capable people, and I think that’s true in a competitive work environment as well. So that’s a good list for folks to start from.

[01:19:48] Rodney Apple: That’s, that’s great advice, Chris. I think about going back through just my personal experiences, you gain, you build, you build, and then something happens and you lose confidence. And so I feel like this is a process where you take a step or two forward, you might take a, a leap back sometimes, but could you speak to that reversal, um, when you start to lose confidence and, and maybe some ways to get that back?

[01:20:15] Chris Gaffney: Yeah. One of the things that, that I think is interesting is that most people have that roller coaster of confidence. There are a few people who are resolutely confident, but that’s kind of the exception rather than the rule. So I, I think a lot of things that we run into on a daily basis can cause us to lose that confidence. And when that one stumble becomes more than one, and you don’t pick yourself up, but there’s certain settings where I think you need to be on guard for it is, first things first, when you’ve left your winning arena, right? You’ve joined a new company. You’ve gone from high school to college, you’re going, you know, to a different team in your own company or you’re serving a different customer. So you should be on guard when you’ve left this familiar set of surroundings and stakeholders where you know all the rules and everybody knows you.

And I think that kind of goes with number two, is you’ve stepped outside your comfort zone. This is the first day of the new year or you’ve moved, right? You, you, you live in a different city and you don’t have the same support systems. Um, as, as we say before, if you failed and you don’t get right up, you place yourself at risk.

In addition to that, you could listen to the wrong voices, whether it’s your own inner voice or if you’ve got negative folks in your environment who are bringing you down, that can clearly, um, be a problem. I think it’s always something to be careful about is, is be careful comparing yourself to others. This is about you. Again, I’ve seen this competitive settings going into new firms. We brought in 20 new, new associates, and you’re constantly tracking, am I falling behind the others in the crowd? You know, don’t fall into that trap. Loss of perspective, um, is clearly one. I always said the the best day is not as good as you think it is, and the bad day is not as bad as you think it is, and you’ve gotta remind yourself of, of that type of things.

Um, I, I, I think a lot of people get hung up on focus on their weaknesses and not on their strengths. Okay? And I think the world is about living with both of those, but you shouldn’t lose sight of the things that have gotten you where you are. Then I think, you know, the last one that I have on my list is indecision. I think indecision is a huge risk to confidence because you kind of get stuck at a crossroads and, and taking no decision in many cases is worse than a bad one. So I, I think there are a lot of things that can cause us to lose confidence. The examples that I’ve talked about, a number of those things on this list show up in my real experience.

[01:22:48] Mike Ogle: I think I’ve certainly seen that as well. And part of what I tend to think about is, completely removing myself for the moment, of being in that position, and think about somebody else who is in that position who I’ve either seen success in the past and can model it, or what would I expect if I was sitting there looking at myself. So you are your own project in a way. If you think you’re good at continuously improving and looking at at facts and looking at goals and and steps that you can take, and trying to break something down to where you can turn it into a success, you know, find the little successes, but it’s still hard to kinda get away from feeling like you are the imposter. What is this that we hear, you know, like in social media about the imposter syndrome?

[01:23:36] Chris Gaffney: Yeah. You know, it’s obviously very hot, you know, right now. I first heard the term a couple of years ago, and a family friend of ours is a professional athlete, and this individual had been extremely successful at the high school level. 10 plus state championships in various events. Same thing at college, multiple time All American. Um, I know the person. They’re very balanced, very thoughtful, very diligent about it, what they do. And they got a professional contract. And I’ve watched this person over the course of, of these years when they’ve been out there and they’ve made progress. But, um, there was a huge leap a couple years ago and I listened to an interview that this, this athlete did on a podcast and they basically said, I faced this imposter syndrome because I showed up on the line with people who I had seen while I was in college and they were professionals and they were Olympians. And when I showed up there the first time, I said, I don’t have the right to be here. And I didn’t race my best race in that setting. So that was the first time that I heard of this idea. And so when I do a little bit of research, It’s amazing. Statistically 82% of people surveyed would say they experience this concept and it’s the number one threat to career success because you’re always trying to advance your objectives and moving into, um, settings where you’re with people who are more experienced and have been there before you got there. Your day one is always somebody else’s year five. Right? And once you sit at the table with them, you, you gotta say, how do I know that I’ve earned the right to be here?

So it it, the why of this is something that’s also a term that’s out there, or, or something that has been studied called the Dunning Kruger Effect. And, a couple elements of that, it can deal with both overconfidence and under conference. In many cases, novices experience overconfidence due to quick progression on the learning curve, while experts confidence drop because they get self-aware and they realize what they don’t know everything. So paradoxically, the better you become, the more you may feel like the imposter. So my friend who had spent years building craft as an athlete, when they got to the top stage, they were much more susceptible to the self-awareness, when they look to the left and the right and like, these are people, I want their autograph. Why am I here? So I, I think it’s a very real thing and it’s something that I think many in our audience can relate to.

[01:26:20] Rodney Apple: And on that note, Chris, folks that got that early confidence, I think their employer saw those progressions. But what happened, and I think this led to some more failure and then lack of confidence is they get promoted too quickly. I know people that have done that at a very high level up to chief supply chain officer for example, and really weren’t quite ready of that position. It led to you know, failure and the job not working out and when you get a couple of those blemishes on your resume, then you start losing confidence and then others perceive you too as you failed. Is there anything you could speak to on that perspective?

[01:26:59] Chris Gaffney: Well, you know, again, I have my own experience and, and as we’ve done in our other podcast series on career retrospect, as we heard from extremely successful executives who have gone through big crisis of confidence when they’ve had some big issues. I think there are some very clear tactics that I, I think are relevant for all of us here. And I think the first good news there is this is really common, and it’s not about your personal shortcomings. It’s more of a societal thing for us. And, and I would say, I’ve got a quote that many psychologists believe that imposter syndrome is most common in high achieving women and those who feel underrepresented or different from their colleagues.

So I, I think it’s a very real thing that’s out there, and so you’re not alone. I think that’s the, that’s the first thing. We’ve talked about it throughout the podcast, is that your study and confidence is not a solo game. It needs help from others, whether they be coaches, peers, mentors, family, friends, your network, as we’ve talked about. So discussing it with others is the number one thing to do, because that, that helps you understand you’re not alone. You’re now in a room where eight of 10 people feel different, so you’re not different. You’re like everybody else.

And then I think the next thing is something that I’ve used a lot with my own team when they’ve struggled there, is let’s not be theoretical. I’m not gonna rah, rah you and say you can do this. I’m actually gonna have you sit down and write down your own past successes. Pull your own resume out, and don’t forget who you are and how you got here. Those are the facts. You did build that ladder on your own. You did build that path of success. And no different than than focusing on your strengths, but be very objective about your own accomplishments that should you know, resettle you on your right to continue to advance. And then, keep reviewing them. See how far you’ve come and realize the ladder rungs that you’ve kind of gone up on your own.

And then I think another thing that’s important is we’ve gotten into this world of perfection, that everything has to be perfect and the reality is, you know, 70% or greater is perfectly fine for most of the things we’re working with. And getting hung up on everything having to be perfect can really be a limiter for it.

Last two things for me. I had a, I had a boss who was an Old Navy commander, and he used to say, If you’re serious about this, study for the A. And then be at peace on the big day, Right? Do your homework, right. And then that gives you the right to say, I’ve done all I can do when I’ve gotta show up for the big meeting, the big presentation, the big test. And I should be at peace, be relaxed, and do my best work.

So last thing I would say, is adopt a growth mindset and be an adult learner. And I think that’s a fancy term. But it’s fundamentally the belief that you can improve your abilities through dedication and hard work. No one can ever take away your choice to just work hard. And I’ve been in many settings where I had the perception that others were more capable than me. And I, I said, I’m gonna fall back on the ability that in this setting, I’m gonna choose to outwork these folks. And if that’s my way of differentiating, I know I control that.

Know this. Everything surrounding you right now was built by people no smarter than you. Okay? The folks who did that went from idea to execution and they continued to learn along the way. And you’re perfectly capable of doing this. So keep that in mind and go out and be confident and do great things.

[01:30:58] Mike Ogle: I think those of you who are listening to this as leaders or want to be leaders and thinking about how this is done, is always think about those that are around you, whether it’s peers or whether it’s people on your team and how you provide those kinds of opportunities and be able to look at somebody’s confidence level, for instance, and try to instill that in them. And I think Chris and Rodney both had good examples early on where they said, there are things outside of the workplace where you can help people gain these little bits of confidence in their life. And, help them with that base. Give them opportunities, whether it is sports or speaking or volunteering for an activity, whatever it is. I, I think really pushing that is incredibly important as you participate as a supply chain leader.

[01:31:46] Rodney Apple: Yeah, and I’ll add to that too cuz there’s this thing that, uh, gets in the way of people moving and growing and getting past their fears and, and gaining that confidence. And I call it the dangers zone, where you get comfortable in that place you’re in. Okay. I’m comfortable, I’m in a great place. I know everybody. You’re not growing, you’re not developing, um, because you’re fearful of stretching boundaries, and failing and making mistakes. It’s danger in the comfort zone. There’s actually a book on that title that I was given at my first job at the age of maybe 22 or 23. And that’s what it’s all about, is just, getting comfortable with, with where you’re at, there’s a lot of danger if you just sit there in that zone and aren’t progressing.

Chris, Mike, this has been fantastic. I think we’ve, speaking of laddering, we’ve layered on, uh, again to this leadership series. If you like what you’re hearing, audience, please give us a, uh, rating on your favorite podcast platform and we’ll look, look forward to the next episode. And on that note, Chris, what do we have lined up for episode eight?

[01:32:55] Chris Gaffney: So Rodney, next time out, we’re gonna talk about building your internal and external network. And, they’re both important for different reasons. We’ve talked a lot about using trusted advisors when making critical decisions and to have those trusted advisors you’ve gotta be intentional about building and sustaining that network over time. So we’re gonna dive into to the how’s about doing that.

[01:33:20] Rodney Apple: Sounds great, Chris. We’re looking forward to it. Thanks audience. Thanks everyone for listening.