Ep 141: Why You Should Give a $#!+” with Frank Ziede

0:00tip about here's what facilitation is, and the very first one was lecture is not learning. Yeah, leadership is exhausting, leadership is selfless, and leadership is lonely. You're listening to the Limitless Leadership Podcast, the podcast designed to help automotive repair shops learn how to lead, coach, train, and manage their team better by sharing proven techniques and thought-provoking interviews from industry leaders. Are you ready to transform your leadership skills by tapping into unrecognized potential to achieve limitless results?

0:31Let's get ready for liftoff. It's time to go from great to greater. Here's today's episode. All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Limitless Leadership Podcast. As you know, before we get started, uh, like, click, comment, share, all do all the things you need to on social media to help this podcast impact people and build leaders. And I'm joined by another leader today, a friend of mine, new friend of mine.

1:02Our guest today is a professional facilitator for a number of brands. He's going to share all those brands with us. Our guest is Mr. Frank Zitti. Frank, thanks for being here. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. Thank you to you and thank you for your audience to taking the time to listen to two dudes talk. Yeah, well, hey, man, we— that's, that's what we do on this show.

1:21And so that's what we're going to be doing. For the majority of this episode. But first, you're gonna be the first dude to be talking because I'm gonna ask you to share who you are, what you do, and how you do it. So the floor is yours, my friend. This episode is brought to you by Limitless Leadership, because great teams don't happen by accident, they're led on purpose.

1:38If you're tired of wearing all the hats, putting out fires, and wondering why your team won't step up, Limitless Leadership is for you. They help leaders transition from player to coach who develop people and multiply impact. Through in-person or online leadership training like the Limitless Leadership Blueprint or their Roots to Results coaching method, their services are designed to help you tap into unrecognized potential to achieve limitless results and help you create safety and trust in order to provide clarity and direction.

2:05So if you're ready to stop managing chaos and start leading with purpose, head to limitlessleadership.co to book a complimentary discovery call today. Yeah, so my name is Frank Zitti. If my last name seems hard to pronounce, just think of the baked pasta, baked ziti. I've been a professional facilitator and trainer for almost the last, man, 25 years. And I've worked for brands like BMW, Mini, Jaguar, Land Rover, Honda, Kia, Acura, Nissan, Lexus, and Rivian, and Polestar, and Tesla.

2:37And you name an automotive brand, I probably dealt with them in some capacity as a professional trainer. And that's training their sales and their service staff and technicians. On really how to, how to be nice people, how to, there's a, there's a skill set that we train on the sales process, service process, technicians diagnosing problems, all those things. But there's a mindset and the mindset stuff is what I've been graciously blessed to be able to work on.

3:04I, I did some tech conversation like product knowledge and those types of things about how cars work and technology early on in my career. But most automotive manufacturers started to bring up the regional product trainer role. And so there wasn't a need for us to know every switch and dial. But the big need that we found, especially after COVID, was, is this workforce keeps coming in, and we need to work on soft skills, which are, you know, real— and they're anything but that, right?

3:31These are the really engaging emotional skills that people need to be successful in business. So, but then I branched out probably in the last 10 years more to leadership, customer experience, employee experience, work for brands like Amtrak and Northrop Grumman and Coach and Sub-Zero Wolf Cove. So beyond the automotive industry, just into industry. And I love what I do every single day.

3:57I didn't know what a facilitator was. My mentor found me like, I like I said, over 20 years ago in a hallway after 2 days of a facilitation boot camp. And he was like, "I have a job for you for the rest of your life. If you listen to me and follow my instructions, you'll have to turn down work." And I called him 2 days later and I was like, "Okay, what do I do?"

4:18And yeah, it's been a pretty amazing journey. So I'm now an author. I have a book coming out this summer. I do a ton of work on LinkedIn, but my key thing is just trying to make the world a better place. For employees, for customers, for leaders. Why, why not? Why not work on that? Hey man, I feel like that's the way it should be.

4:37You know, a lot of what you just shared falls in line with the connection side of things, but unfortunately, a lot of leaders are very focused on the content side of things. And I believe that it's connection before content. It's the name before the job title. It's people before process, people before profit. So being able to focus on the connection before the content and furthermore, dig into the leadership mindset.

4:58I think that's important. Whether you're doing leadership coaching, whether you're doing cryptocurrency trading coaching, you're doing underwater basket weaving coaching, it starts with mindset. A lot of what we do, uh, you know, a lot of us, we're, we're operating under limiting beliefs. These are perceived limitations that we're operating under. So mindset is, is incredibly important. I'm curious, um, what does it look like from a, from a facilitator standpoint, for you to dig into mindset before you get into any of the content, any of the product knowledge, any of the car stuff, if you will?

5:31Like, what does it look like for you, uh, from a facilitator standpoint to get into mindset and connection and all those good things that you and I both know and love? Oh, one of the big things is you have to make sure that your group of participants is actually participating. So people come into a training, they come into an event. I saw that you've done speaking things and, you know, if they get there, I've just launched this thing called Facilitation Fridays where every Friday I'm coming out with a 60-second tip about here's what facilitation is.

5:58And the very first one was lecture is not learning. You know, telling is not teaching. It's, it's, it's useful for some people, but if you look at the overwhelming amount of scientific research and evidence, experiential learning is the best type of learning. You know, never do for a participant what they could and should do for themselves. So getting them in the sandbox, getting them engaged is at the heart of real learning.

6:22It's what we do with children. I was thinking the exact same thing. Yeah. Yeah. My wife and I have 4 kids and as you're sharing that, I'm like, yeah, that's like, that's the way we try to teach our kids as well. Yeah. And people are like, well, they're adults now, you know, they're 40 years old. They should be able to sit there and, you know, listen to you for 8 hours.

6:37No, they shouldn't. They can't. The human brain is not built that way. So I, Typically the courses I run are 3-day events and it's from, you know, 8:30 to 4 in the afternoon. So we've got a, we've got 6 shots, 6 opportunities, morning and, you know, AM, PM, AM, PM, AM, PM. And you typically around 3 hours in each one of those blocks.

6:58That first 3 hours on that first day is really trying to put them into a ton of questions, a ton of research and data, and they analyze it, they unpack it, and we just ask a bunch of questions. Why does any of this matter? One of my first questions, one of my first modules is why are we even talking about emotion? We're in the car business.

7:19What the hell does this matter? Why? Right. Just move the metal, sell the cars, fix the car. Your car broke. I fix. You, you take, you leave, you give money. I call it the caveman mentality. Yeah. Right. And, and it, what, what I'm, what I'm reassured by is there's always about half the group. It was like, oh no, no, no, no. The emotion matters.

7:39And here, and I will tell me why. Yeah. And so instead of me coming at them, just saying, you know, this is why I'm really, really big on not being the expert. Because being the expert sort of makes people feel like they're not, and therefore they're not allowed to speak up or question your authority. So that's why you say facilitator. I'm just as a guide.

7:58I'm here. I'm your Sherpa through this conversation. And here's a bunch of questions. Tell me what you think. And great facilitation is when they start to teach you the content that you want taught. Yeah, man, Frank, you just shared a lot of amazing things that I 100% believe in. It's funny because just this week on two separate conversations I had, I, for whatever reason, this, the topic of expert came up and I shared with them, like, I don't, I don't view myself as a leadership expert even though I do leadership coaching, training, and speaking.

8:27I don't do, I'm not a leadership expert because I always think like a rookie and I have a long way to go and a long way to grow and I'm committed to being a lifelong learner. But I like how you broke it down where it's like if I call myself the expert, that might subconsciously make them feel like they're not. And the reality is what you described in terms of facilitation is the same way coaching really could and should be, which is asking a lot of questions and helping potentially shift perspective if necessary.

8:52Because with perspective, the way that we view things and drives the way we do things. Here's a perspective that I wanna share with you, and I, I know you'd appreciate this as a facilitator. As a facilitator myself, what I often say is that there are 3 different types of training attendees that I see. Which is the vacationer, the hostage, and the sponge.

9:09And you already know, like, who these are. The vacationer is the one who— they're there, like, they were told to be there, but they're there. They're, you know, they're out of their environment. They might take notes, they may not take notes. They're just kind of, you know, like, they're okay, right? Yeah. The hostage are the ones who are sitting back, arms crossed.

9:28They're there because they were forced to be there. They don't want to be there. I mean, just absolutely not gonna be taking notes. And of course, we all know what the sponge is. And I love, as a facilitator, I love nothing more than being able to convert the hostages and the, and the, the vacationers to the sponges. I, I'm sure, and, and just in the short time that you and I have, have been chatting, I know that you are really good at this.

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11:35Now back to today's episode. Real quick, I did a podcast earlier this week with a guy named Jeff and it's gonna come out in a month or whatever, but he, He said the line, this is the best mandatory training I've ever been to. And that's like, that's kind of what you said you want to hear, right? That's the best, best thing you can get.

11:54Yeah. I would say number one, I've come to realize now after doing this for so long, there are some hostages you cannot save. And those, those are people who it's got nothing to do with you. They are, they are steeped in, they're steeped in trauma. They, they don't know what that, you know, and I don't think they're intentionally trying to target you.

12:18They just, their job sucks or their leader sucks or their marriage sucks and they got to be here for several days and their fear and uncertainty is just manifesting itself in your direction. So I, I, I try not to get focused in on that. I remember one time I had, I was in New York, Manhattan, doing a training for I think it was Acura.

12:39And there was this big burly guy. I'm in New York and he's like straight out of, you know, Hoboken, like Brooklyn. And he is just hitting me with heckles as best he can. What about that? That's not the— I don't know about that. That one's not going to work. So one of the best pieces of advice I ever got from one of my— obviously the guy I was talking about earlier, Dave, my mentor who found me.

13:02He said, remember, Nobody has an agenda that says when the breaks are. So take a break, right? There's onstage and offstage conversation. Yeah. So take a break, go to the sidelines. Don't ever do some confrontation about, you know, crucial confrontation or conversation about some sort of activity. So I did, I took a break and then I, it was like near lunch and I sort of got in this area and I was like, I came with empathy and I was like, hey, are you, are are you good?

13:31And he was like, oh yeah, nothing to worry about. I'm just busting your chops. It's what we do here. And what I realized was it was just the region. It's just East Coast. And training in Texas is different. Training California is different. But I think this, this conversation back to when you talked about the hostage in those ways, uh, I've never ever found that empathy or kindness was not going to work with somebody when it was truly genuine.

13:59Yeah, that's so good. I had some, I had a person in December, a class for BMW, and this guy was on his phone. 80% of the class, midst of modules, just on his phone. And I kind of let it go for the first day. And I came around middle of the second day because we're at the halfway point of the class. And I just took a knee right next to him at the table.

14:22It's a flip chart activity. Everybody at his table's at the flip chart. He's still sitting at his table on his phone. And I said, hey, I'm just, I'm just checking in with you. It seems like you've got a lot going on. Is everything okay? Turns out the guy, besides selling cars, also has a carpet business and his entire shipping container of, you know, carpets or rugs was held up at the port in New York.

14:44And he just, it was his, his next, you know, 6 months of income. Yeah. And I, I had to just have empathy in that moment and say, I get you. If you need to step out, you do what you need to do. I'm sorry that this is happening to you. Yeah. You know, and, and he, he did come around a little bit, but not as much as any of us would like.

15:06But I think the sponge also can help the hostage. I think if you get the sponge to go participant-driven learning with other participants and engagement, They'll hear it better from them than, than, than from me. I could not agree more. The more the sponges drive the class in, in the way that we, that we want them to. Yeah. The more the vacationers become the sponges and the hostage slowly start turning into the vacationers and eventually they become the sponges.

15:33And by the end of the 3 days, they're going to say, Frank, this is the best mandatory training I've ever been at. Shout out to Jeff. Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, so you mentioned, uh, Facilitator Fridays. Uh, you and I connected on LinkedIn. Uh, well, we're connected on LinkedIn, but we connected actually through a mutual friend, Chris Craig, uh, also in the, in the industry.

15:53Um, so I'm gonna check out the Facilitator Fridays. Uh, I'll be, be sure to check that out. I'm encouraging all of our listening audience to check out Facilitator Fridays. If you are listening to this episode, you can also find this episode on YouTube at The Bearded Leader is where you can watch this episode. You'll see behind Frank, he's got a Lakers sign, so he's a, he's a Lakers fan.

16:11I don't know whether or not to apologize or not, but hey, I will say, I mean, with Luka being there, they're, they're looking pretty good. I mean, LeBron's still playing at a high level and the Lakers might have a good shot in the West this year. I'm going to throw that out there to you. Every time I talk about the Lakers in class, some, you know, and somebody gives me a little bit of, you know, grief about them.

16:29I was like, well, listen, if you don't like the Lakers, you just don't like winners. I don't know what to tell you. Yeah. You know, but unless the only person who gets to complain is a Boston Celtics fan. Okay. They're the only team that's better than them. Yeah. And I hate the Celtics to death. Yeah. But they have the most NBA championships in history, right?

16:48For a reason. Yeah. It's because they're winners. They're full of leaders. And speaking of leaders, this is a leadership podcast. Yes. I'll ask you, Frank, that's my way of segueing. I'll ask you, what does leadership mean to you? Well, there was, I'll give you, I've been working incredibly, come, you know, a lot of complex detail, crunching the numbers, putting in the research and data, and I found this 3-step plan for what makes a great leader.

17:16Step 1, build trust. Step 2, build trust. Step 3, build trust. Common theme here. I remember I learned that joke, per se, from the Steinway Piano Company. Okay. The head of their company was interviewed, and this is a video we showed at BMW a long time ago, training sales staff. And this guy had a very thick Austrian accent. He's like, here at Steinway, we're very good.

17:42We're focused in, but we have 3 plans, 3 steps. Number 1, make friends. Number 2, make friends. Number 3, make friends. And it stuck with me that we don't have to overcomplicate this idea of what's it about. Because man, if I read another one of these leadership books and it gives me another model or another XY axis grid, It's just those 5 letters, T-R-U-S-T, it's trust.

18:08But I think what, so the other thing I would add to that is courage. Okay. So leadership requires courage. And if you are courageous, you will earn trust. Yeah. That, I don't want to overcomplicate it. If I'm your, if I'm your leader, your manager, and there is something coming our way, I need to be courageous to step up and say, I've got people covered.

18:37We can do this. We can handle this. Here comes a drought, or here comes tariffs, or here comes, you know, we're going to lose some people, right? There's, I can't think of the company name, but there was a story in Simon Sinek's Leaders Eat Last book where the company wanted to cut back, you know, money. They were just losing money and they had to do some cutbacks.

19:03But the manager was like, no, we're not going to fire anybody. And they went to the team and there were people who had PTO days that they were not going to use and they gave them to employees as a gift. And, and everybody, everybody collectively took a little bit of a pay cut to keep the team together. Mm-hmm. Charlie Kim from Next Jump, he has a lifetime hiring policy where if you hire an employee, they have a job for life unless they do anything morally or legally or ethically wrong.

19:36And if you decide to leave the company, they'll help you find your next job. Okay. Uh, Zappos offers, I think it's something like $2,000 to someone to quit the job after one year of being there. Yeah. All of that is courage. You know, you're going to have so many people be like, you're an idiot. Everybody's going to do the job and then take the 2 grand.

19:57But if you look at the cost of turnover, it is exponentially 10 times as much if you're going to lose it, that person stays and they're terrible, or if they leave at a crucial point in time. That's right. So I don't, I don't know how else to say it. I need you to be courageous. You're the person. With the shield out in front slaying the dragon.

20:17And that's because you're the leader. You don't want that job? Give it to somebody else. I've met many people who don't want to be the leader, and I'm okay with that. They're like, it's not that I don't want to be the manager. That's not the position I want. I want to just be frontline. I want to be a tech or I want to be a salesperson.

20:33Just, and, and that's, I think that's actually great self-awareness. So courage is the, is the road to trust. That's my, that's my definition. What about you? Great question. I mean, ultimately I believe in, in the opportunity that we get to tap into unrecognized potential to achieve limitless results. And as leaders, we are pulling that out of somebody. So if I'm leading you, Frank, you may not see what I see in you in terms of potential.

20:57Um, I believe that you are capable, competent, and confident, but maybe you're not always confident in your abilities like I am, or you're not confident about where you could be going. Where, where I see you being able to, to, to end up. And so my job as a leader is to serve you. It's a servant leadership style approach where I'm asking a lot of questions.

21:14I'm supporting, serving, coaching, training, managing you, leading you in a way where I'm pulling something out of you that you never saw in yourself. It truly is this Believe sign behind me from Ted Lasso. You and I were talking about it right before we went live, and the four words that, uh, unfortunately some people have never heard in their life is, I believe in you.

21:32Man, all it takes is one. And if I can be that one leader to believe in that person so they can believe in themselves, incredible things can happen. I mean, there's so many people that have been in trainings that I can see have zero confidence. Yeah. They, I did an activity one time having people trying to figure out their purpose in life.

21:52And this guy was almost in tears saying, I think I've just realized my father never told me he loved me. Wow. You know, so it's— Give me goosebumps just now. Well, I mean, it's like, and you just said what I'm big about, servant leadership. And then I try to talk to all these staff and I say, the best definition you can have as an employee is a servant's heart with attention to detail.

22:13I think that's the combo. But I have so many specifically young men who are like, I don't serve anyone. And I've often said to them, I said, hey, instead of saying, hey, welcome, how can I help you? Maybe we could say, hey, how can we serve you today? Page right out of the Chick-fil-A book. They, they are viscerally against saying that. They feel like they're less than the customer if they're saying that word, just one word.

22:39And I was like, well, and I don't know, I was going to ask you this. Are you a veteran? I'm a veteran. Yep. Yeah. You just got the look. I'm just going to put it out there. You've got the tats and the, you know, you're fit, but is it, why is it not? Why is it negative? But then when we say to a veteran, thank you for your service.

22:58Mm. Right. Great point. Why, why is that? Oh, great. Cause it is, but why can't you say I can be of service? Yeah. And so I think there's a question. I think there's ego. I think ego is just there and there's a lot of people who've been hurt. They're at the natural defense mechanism, all that stuff, but we gotta let that go to start even as an employee to be serving others.

23:21So that when we get to leadership, we're ready to do it. I think you just said a key word too. It's ego, which might be the opposite of humility. I mean, when I'm thinking about how we connect with people, we connect, in my opinion, through authenticity, humility, and vulnerability. And there's a famous quote from, I believe, C.S. Lewis. He said, humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.

23:44So it doesn't mean that I'm gonna think less of myself if I'm serving others. This is a privilege. This is an opportunity. This is, um, a, a, a gift to be able to serve others. And you and I both know, Frank, the more you serve, like, like we don't, we don't get to give. Sorry, sorry. We don't, we don't give to get, but we get to give.

24:03Like, we're not, we're not serving in order to receive. We're not giving to, to, to get something. But hey, man, it, it, it's gonna come back around in different ways. Yeah. You know, forms or fashion. But ultimately, Like, if I'm ever describing servant leadership to someone, I'm first starting with this concept of like what I was used to as a veteran in the Air Force.

24:23I'm a veteran of the Air Force, and it was a— it was positional leadership. So you have, you have boss at the top and you have employee beneath boss. Well, let's change boss to leader, and we're gonna change employee to team member, and now we're gonna completely reverse the, uh, reverse them. So now, uh, uh, team member is on top and leader becomes servant leader because now as a servant leader, I am serving, supporting, guiding, influencing, investing in, pouring into this person.

24:54Like, my job is to lead people because the people are now leading the processes. So that's why I, I like to say leadership is truly a full-time job. But I know that you know this, Frank. Like, there are people who you, who you work with and who you serve who are, uh, who are formal leaders, but they also have responsibilities, uh, of folks who they are leading.

25:17So they could be selling, they could be doing workflow, they could be dispatching, they could be doing all kinds of things. Oh yeah. And they're formal leaders of all these team members as well. That's a tough spot to be in to be an effective leader. Yeah. Leadership is exhausting. Leadership is selfless and leadership is lonely. So sign up today. Are you excited?

25:39Right? But the thing you have behind you there, the word legacy is, I think, the payoff. And legacy is a little bit of an illusion, right? This is, this little statue right here is Marcus Aurelius. You know, in a thousand years, none of anything we're talking about will matter. But we're in the present moment. And your legacy can be something that actually I think can be seen.

26:05You can see an employee that you lift up, like you said, you raise them, that person can get married and have great kids and become a great leader to them, or they can start their own business. These are things that we, it's a bigger, higher goal. I think it's the best kept secret that if I'm selfless, so much comes back to me and it's authentically given to me instead of me trying to sell anything to anyone or, or, you know, gain anything from anyone.

26:31Little side note, the 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. I hate the book. Hate the book. And, uh, I argue with people all the time. They're like, yeah, because there's one, I got to like law, I don't even know what it was, 37 or whatever. And it was take credit for other people's work. And I was like, no, no, that's not a law of power.

26:50Now, if somebody was like, well, maybe it's what you should be aware of. Maybe you should be fearful that there are people who work like this. And I was like, well, then let's call it the 48 Cautionary Tales of Power. Okay. Because I'm not going to do that thing. I'm a selfless leader and I'm just focused on what ethically is right. But a quick story for you.

27:08I was doing a big keynote for Amtrak, 300 people. I'm looking at the audience. I'm 80% through my time, maybe 90%. And I'm trying to come with the hard leadership pieces at the end, right? That, you know, fearless leadership is not a real thing. All leaders are afraid. That's why it requires courage. And there's a, I say this line that I learned from Gary Vee a long time ago, which was, you don't work for your employees.

27:35I mean, sorry, your employees don't work for you. You work for them. Yeah. Right. They're on the front, they're on the front lines, not you. You're in the watchtower. Yeah. But that, that's your job is to serve them every single day, not the other way around. Left side of the, the, the ballroom, 3 tables in out of 6 table rows. I could still see him today.

27:57Bunch of gray hair. Is that, that's always an indicator. That person right there, when I said that line, gave me this look. They said, and I'll, for your podcast listeners that don't have visual, guy's just shaking his head. Got a big old no, no, no, no look on his face. And it stuck with me. I was, I was frustrated. And then I realized he was a hostage.

28:18And then I was like, I have to just keep moving because the other 99% of the people were with me at that point. Yeah. Yeah. But I think it's, you don't have to be just young to have ego to be about these things. You can be more mature and have a lot more life experience, but still be stuck in your ways. Like you said, of this is, you know, where we're going to be and that's how things are going to be.

28:41You have to invert it. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think for a lot of people who believe that leadership equates to power and control, then they may not get the message that you and I are trying to convey. You mentioned the word legacy behind me. So this is a copy of my first book called Leading a Legacy. I'm, I'm about to release my second book called Blue to Black, which is, which dives into the concept that the sky is not actually the limit.

29:03The sky is our launchpad. So we get to go from blue to like the blue skies to black, like rare air, deep space. You mentioned that you're writing a book. I'd love for you to share with our audience the title of your book, when it can be released, and where we can find it. So it's called The Lost Art of Giving a Shit, Why Caring About Customers Actually Pays Off.

29:24It is not long. It's, you know, it's a sort of a training manual on how to care about what you do. And in the preface of the book, it says, I thought about calling this book The Lost Art of Caring or The Lost Art of Giving a Crap, but I don't think that has the gravity of what we're talking about here. There's a thing on the very first page in the book called The Big Idea in 3 Parts.

29:45Part 1, according to Gallup, in 2024, there was $7.8 trillion with the T lost revenue due to, due to disengaged employees. About, about half a billion of that was in the United States alone. Point number 2, some of you don't give a shit. Some of you, what I just said, you don't give a shit. And point number 3, some of you are more upset than I said the word shit than the first thing I said.

30:14And it's like, where are our priorities? We all want an employee who is engaged and motivated. And, you know, some leaders are like, if they could just be a better employee, I could be a better leader. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. And so it comes in 5 chapters, either you do or you don't give a shit, right?

30:36You need to be honest with yourself. The second one, if you don't, figure out why. There's probably in my 20+ years of doing this, uh, you have some unresolved trauma. You have something like you said in the very beginning of this, you have a limiting belief that makes you feel like you're not good enough or nobody gave a shit about you. So as a result, why would you give a shit about anybody else?

30:59And section 3 is how, uh, why to give a shit. So it's a whole bunch of empirical evidence and data, decades of research. The, the fourth section is how to give a shit with a thing called the Give a Shit Kit. And section 5 is, uh, people who do. So it's real life examples. I think about 9 or 10 stories, either from multi-million dollar companies or just one is my story about my wife, uh, examples of, of what this can look like.

31:26And so it's a call to action. It, it's just many people I've read, uh, all these books by me. Well, not all, there's 2 or 3 that haven't, very small ones. But a couple of these I've really read back to like Start with Why from Simon Sinek, New York Times bestselling book, right? Let's figure out your cause and effect, your why. What I've experienced now after doing trainings with probably over 10,000 people, I can't get you to dive into those deep psychological concepts until you can either admit to me that you do or you don't give a shit about the job you do.

31:59And that's it. Let's start there. Yeah. Because I found there are many, there are some people who are hostages, not in even a classroom setting, just in their own life. They're just like, no, I don't. I was like, okay, that, that, thank you for admitting that to me. Now let's talk about why, why don't you? Because you should. There are holistic, you know, psychological, financial, spiritual benefits to actually caring about what you do every single day.

32:26Living a life with purpose. I know it sounds corny, but just because something's corny doesn't mean it isn't true. Right? So why, what is holding you back? Yeah. And so that's, that's what it's about. Um, I, when's it coming out? Prop, right around summer. I'm sometime probably in May. Okay. Excellent. So, yeah. Um, well, great. So, um, you know, you, you mentioned something that's really important.

32:50So $7.8 trillion in lost revenue because of disengagement. And I love that you touched on this and here's why. What we know is that, and in fact, according to Gallup as well, 77% of team members are disengaged at work. And, and they're disengaged 'cause they don't feel seen, they don't feel heard, they don't feel valued, understood, respected, cared for, loved, all the above, right?

33:11So what we know, and you and I, I think we, hopefully you agree with this, Frank, like connection creates engagement and engagement increases performance. So if we wanna increase performance, let's shift our focus from the KPIs and the sales, which by the way are important. I don't wanna make it sound like they're not important. We're, We're, we're gonna, we're gonna study and, and train on the sales processes, but let's shift our focus from the KPIs and the numbers to the people and make the connection with the people to create engagement.

33:37Because conversely speaking, 80% of people will tell you they're fully engaged when they receive meaningful feedback at least once per week. And that can be in the form of a quick 5-minute conversation. So I, I love that you're releasing this book. I'm absolutely gonna be on the lookout for it. I can't wait to get a copy in my Uh, I will send you a copy.

33:55Come on. Of course. Thank you, my friend. And I'll send you a copy of Brutal Black as well. And, uh, before we go, I do want to ask you the second question I ask every guest on every episode, which is, Frank, what is the best advice you've ever received from a coach or a mentor? I thought you just told me. I, I mean, the best advice.

34:15Uh, I'm sorry to hesitate, but it's a really good question. And I've heard so many different things for so long. I think it's an amalgamation of 2 or 3 different mentors kind of saying the same thing in different ways, which was, it's not about you. And I have suffered from imposter syndrome, like many people. I will probably today at 3 in the afternoon, my typical regular imposter syndrome appointment..

34:46And I've had, you know, people get frustrated with me or something goes wrong, or I feel like I've made a mistake and this and that. And wise people who I trust very much and I know love me have come to me and said, hey, this is not about you. Yeah, you, you're fine. Keep doing what you're doing. Be your authentic and genuine self.

35:12This is something else. And because man, even the littlest sort of thing, the little bit of destructive feedback or a little bit of what I felt was, you know, somebody thinking less of me, I would ponder on it for weeks. It would still come back in flashbacks. You know why? Because you give a shit. That's why. And there's, there's, there's a section in the book about not giving a shit, uh, not giving too much of a shit about the wrong thing.

35:48Uh, you know, you, you like, you need to focus it in. But yeah, I think that was the best piece of advice. Like now when something happens around me or near me, not to me, I look at it and go, what evidence points to the fact that this has anything to actually do with me? None? Okay, then, then why are you thinking that?

36:09And that is, it's been very, very helpful for me. Love that. Hey, we're about 150 episodes in and I just gave the audience an Easter egg because I never cuss on my podcast. And so, oh, I've realized that any, I'm going to, I'm going, I mean, I'm going to say that word a lot in my career now. Uh, but it's also, it's also letters and it's not letters.

36:31It's a dollar sign. A hashtag, an exclamation mark, and a plus sign. And each one of those is a symbol that represents sort of the mindset of what we're doing. That's cool. Well, you know, what's interesting is I— so I was facilitating a training years ago, almost a decade ago, and had an attendee come in. He was a franchisee for an incredible organization.

36:48And he was like, you know what, I just— I want my team members to have some gas. Yes, yes. I want them to give a shit. That's what he said. Right. Okay. I can get on board with that. So anyway, Frank, man, I really appreciate you being here. Really pumped for your book. Pumped for you. And Hey, Facilitator Fridays. If you're listening or watching this episode, be sure to tune in and check out Facilitator Fridays and Frank Zieti on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on Instagram.

37:12Help the audience know where, where can we get in touch with you, Frank? Uh, I have a website for the first time in 22 years. I realized I need one of those. Uh, it's ftzinc.com. So it's me incorporated, ftzinc.com. Uh, you can find contact information there, but LinkedIn is where a lot of my con— I, I decided 3 years ago that that's where I was gonna pour my heart and soul into.

37:35Yeah, and I do every day. I have an Instagram page, but that's only for filmmaking. And then I have a Facebook page, but that's really only for family stuff. So I don't put those things on there. But, you know, I'll share, I'll share this thing everywhere. But yeah, LinkedIn and my website are the two main areas of focus. Excellent. And you're killing it on LinkedIn, man.

37:54I really appreciate what you do on LinkedIn and how you do it. And, and I enjoy watching and, you know, watching your videos that I have seen and then checking out the posts that you make. And I'll be sure to make sure that I'm I'll be sure to make sure I'll be tuning in on every Friday. I'll be sure to make sure.

38:10Make sure. There you go. That's a lot of sure, sure, sure-ing happening. That's a t-shirt right there, man. Be sure to make sure, uh, otherwise you're not gonna be sure. That's right. All right. Hey man. Well, thanks again and thank you everyone for tuning into another episode of the Limitless Leadership Podcast. As you know, we look to tap into unrecognized potential to achieve limitless results.

38:27So thanks again. Have a great day everyone. Don't forget to smile today. Tell your loved ones how much they mean to you. I'm Josh Parnell reminding you to keep leading well.