What Does Being Present Mean? How Leaders Recognize Their Moment

0:03Welcome to Leadership DNA, a podcast for those who aspire to be a better leader. Alongside Arturo Gomez, I'm Rob Cressy. Today's topic and oh my excited for this one, the moment. Arturo, what is the moment? Well, without sounding redundant, I guess it's that defining point in your life, in your career that really, I think, solidifies a change or a pivot. And I think that, you know, some of us are fortunate enough in our lives to have experienced multiple moments.

0:46And, you know, as a leader, I think it's certainly our requirement, an emphasis to actually try to jar these opportunities out of people that we potentially see that are just kind of waiting for somebody to kind of push them into that moment. To kind of catapult them into the next phase of either their career or their life.

1:12And so, I mean, there's a really, to me, there's a lot of depth in this question and this discussion because, one, from a leadership standpoint, you know, we're constantly, as leaders, we're constantly evolving. A lot of it is driven by a better understanding of psychology. And so, as we get deeper into our leadership careers, we are constantly getting to know people at higher levels.

1:40And I say not individuals, but people in general and how people work. And so, I think there's little defining moments throughout that leadership journey as we begin to really kind of understand what is going to actually motivate people at higher levels. I think there's a conversation that we certainly will have and should have about the defining moments that people have in their, certainly in their professional careers outside of leadership.

2:09You know, there's things that occur throughout our lives that really make us bring some clarity to the world that we're living in and also motivate us to, you know, potentially change directions or actually to hunker down and to really dig in and keep going in the direction that we're going. But I think, you know, again, like I said, everybody has these moments.

2:34And if you're fortunate enough to have multiple moments through your life, I think that those are, in any regard, that type of change, whether it's something that was traumatic or something that was kind of eye-opening, it always leads to, in my opinion, to hopefully, the experiences that I've had have always led to greater change. And deeper happiness. But yeah, so there's various levels that we can discuss.

3:03Yeah, 100%. And I think one thing that would be good for us to do at the top is to share a moment or a few moments that we have had in our lives. And I know I can think of two, actually three of them that have been defining moments for me in my life. One, I went to college at Miami University, just north of Cincinnati. And I wanted to move to Chicago because I was 26 years old.

3:31My friends were all getting married, having kids, and I was a single guy. And all I wanted to do is move to Chicago. But guess what? I bought a house during the time when all the housing market was going in the wrong direction. So I'm a 26-year-old kid with a house trying to sell it. My house was on the market for a year and a half. And I couldn't get it sold. And I got to a point where I said, you know what? I don't care. I am leaving and going to Chicago. Amazingly enough, one month later, my house sold.

4:00But moving to Chicago is one of the greatest decisions I have ever made in my entire life. I mean, I'm talking to you right now because of it. But it is just absolutely amazing. And then I think about fast forward since I've been in Chicago. I was doing digital advertising sales very successfully for a while. But I had this dream in my head. I was like, you know what? I know I can do more. I know I want to work in sports and be a creator.

4:28And I was working on my sports blog at work as much as I was working. So it was like a 50-50 relationship. And I think a lot of people who are thinking about starting an entrepreneurial journey get to that point when there's this thought in their head that won't go away. And you dream of this time in which you're like, wow, it would be so much better when. And you just keep doing it. You keep doing it.

4:55And the moment for me was, one, I knew I belonged. I knew I was as good or better than the rest of the industry. And number two, I had to know. I said to myself, I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't give it a shot at making my dreams happen. And it was upon that. And it wasn't an exact moment. It was a culmination to get to the moment that I cut the cord and went all in and said, I'm never looking back. I'm building the world in my image.

5:23And it is something that is both difficult and amazing. For me, it was not scary. It was freeing. And it was just the best thing in the world. I wish I could give that gift to others. And then the last one is when I had a near-death experience. When I was running a marathon, and I'm at mile 25 and a half, and I'm about to finish the marathon.

5:49And then all of a sudden, I wake up, and I'm in a medical tent, completely packed in ice, completely naked. And people are saying, Rob, and they're trying to keep me alive. And I woke up to this world. And I was like, oh, my God. What in the world is going on right now? And the reason this was such a big moment is I had the ability to have fight or flight response. So, when put in this crisis mode, I was never scared.

6:17I was focused on listening and doing what I could to get to the next moment to stay alive. And I credit all of the personal development training that I had because I quit my job and became an entrepreneur. And because I left Cincinnati to move to Chicago. And literally, I know the domino effects of everything I had done until that point helped me save my own life. So, those are three of my moments. What about you? How long do we have?

6:47I mean, we can go as long as we want. This is our podcast. Well, let me actually start because, you know, we obviously, the intention of our podcast has always been about, you know, discussing leadership. And so, for me, as a young leader, you know, I mentioned the psychology and kind of the understanding of what really is going to motivate people and how to evolve that. And I think I started as a young manager in the ways that a lot of people do and really kind of thinking that there was two aspects to my management style. One was that I was going to manage by friendship, that I was going to become friends with all these people. And the other was that once I moved a little bit beyond that and realized that that was not going to work, I took a very authoritative style and was almost, you know, happily in this position as a leader, as a tyrant.

7:43And so, realized also very quickly that that wasn't going to work. It did for me for a little bit, but I think I was getting the benefits and the output and the results that weren't really driven by my heart and my passion. So, it was actually being just driven by, it was force, you know? And so, it was going to be my way or the highway. And so, again, as I started to really continue to move down this path and really understand that human psychology has a depth that we are just barely scratching the surface on, that I started really understanding what was going to really motivate people and drive the train, so to speak, and get people very motivated to march behind this kind of common idea. And so, I think that throughout my entire leadership career, there's been many moments like that where you continue to understand individuals and the efficiency of leadership continues to increase. It should. It really should. I mean, people should continue to evolve in that way if you are a manager of people or somebody that considers yourself a leader. The other thing is the idea of mentorship being brought into the equation where you have individuals that you know for a fact need to be brought into a moment.

9:07And so, can you be the catalyst to create the moment for somebody else? And the answer is absolutely yes. And so, there's various examples throughout my career where there were people, individuals that I thought had, they literally were at the fork in the road and there was a decision they needed to make. And in most cases, they made the right decision.

9:30And I would probably speculate that that instance is a verifiable moment in that individual's career and individual's life because they really became a much better version of themselves. And so, again, many examples of that. But as leaders, we have the responsibility. We have the requirement to foster, to cultivate, to help create moments for people. And sometimes in creating those moments, you actually lose that individual.

9:59I mean, there's so many people that I kicked out of the nest and said, you know what? You've outgrown what you came to do here. And so, it's time for you to go pave your own way. It's time for you to, you're no longer the student. You are now the teacher. And it's time for you to move. And so, those have been really hard discussions that I've had. Not because it's a hard dialogue to have, but it's because you don't want to lose somebody that has that much value to your, you know, to your establishment or to your organization. So, those are a couple points that I wanted to address and kind of just bring up from a leadership standpoint. Now, I'll circle back on some of the things that I've gone through. And, you know, there's probably five or six things that I can say that are defining moments. I would say the first one is, and by the way, these are all, when we talk about these defining moments, I mean, these are all really, when you go back to the idea or the conversation we had about purpose, these are, I hope, and at least for me, they have been, it's all this chase of purpose. And so, we don't really know it at the time. I think that we are kind of being driven by something in the back of our mind that's telling us that we should be in Chicago or we should be in sports or we should be doing something.

11:18Those are things that I think we are starting to listen to our subconscious and we're listening to this idea of purpose that's sitting there telling you that, hey, you should be really, you need to be over here. I think for me, the first one, the first moment was probably the decision that I made to leave home and to leave my group of immediate friends and to go to the University of Michigan.

11:45It was such an extreme eye-opening experience for me because of the, I think, from the level of academia and also just the diversity of individuals that were there. And so, for me, it was like a shock. But it really, I think, pushed me to really understand and to know that there was tremendously more out there in life than the small little place that I grew up.

12:11So, I think post-college would be the other moment. Post, I think there was like an awakening for me when I left college and moved to Chicago. I started to understand that beyond academia, there was this idea, this thing of entrepreneurship that we really hadn't discussed. I mean, in the 90s, in the late 90s, which now I'm dating myself, but in the late 90s when I was graduating from college, entrepreneurs weren't really discussed at any real level.

12:41I just, you were either going to go to the university to become a doctor, you were going to be a lawyer, or you could maybe go to business school, but that was really to go work for somebody else. And so, I think that there was also this understanding or this new reality that I had a lot more depth to who I was in terms of my mind, realizing that I had both right brain and left brain tendencies, and that these were kind of coming together in a very interesting way and allowing me to get myself immersed into entrepreneurship. The next big moment was probably in my late 20s when I actually started to, I was already probably six years into my career as an entrepreneur in the hospitality space. And I think the realization was that I had real potential, that there was something that if I actually dug in deeper, that I had the potential to really be successful doing what I was doing. Um, so that was, that was a, a huge opportunity. The next, the next one that I identified was, uh, just a real, a leadership shift for me that I, that I started again to realize in my late twenties and early thirties, that I had the ability not only to do things and be productive for myself and to be this kind of lone wolf, uh, high achiever, but that I had the ability to start motivating others and actually bringing people to a level where they could actually go do some of these things on their own. Um, and then, you know, I think the next one would have been when I, when I decided to leave everything that I created. And so that was in my, you know, I just turned 40 years old. I'd spent the good portion of 19, 20 years building a company that I, that I decided that I no longer, um, was motivated by or happy, uh, doing the day-to-day things that I was doing. And in the challenge there, or the, the impetus or the push was that I felt like, um, there was more depth to what I could do that, you know, that I had to kind of put myself in a position where I was looking at myself as a one trick pony kind of thing. And, uh, and so even though that wasn't the case, I think I was obviously being a lot harder on myself, but, um, it was a push and it was a motivation that, um, now looking back on it, changed the entire course of my life and really set me on a path that was much deeper, um, it towards happiness, but much deeper towards an entrepreneurial path. And also, you know, there was, you know, a bunch of trials and tribulations along the way. And that was, you know, five years ago now. Um, so I'm 45, made that decision. Actually, it was probably four years ago, closer to four years ago.

15:31Um, and then the last one would be, you know, about a year and a half ago, or two, is it two years, a year and a half ago, um, came to a realization of what my purpose was. And, uh, and that had a substantial impact on me just in terms of, because I felt like I was chasing that, um, that idea or that concept or just trying to understand what it was really for my entire adult life.

16:01And, uh, and so that brought a lot of clarity as to the decisions that I had made in the past. It brought clarity to the decisions that I need to make in the future. And also really just kind of, uh, I think de-stressed a lot of things for me because it really simplified, uh, who I am. And so, you know, that simple purpose was, I came to the understanding that my life is driven by, uh, empowering other people and making them happy.

16:30And so, uh, I look back on the, you know, 23 years that I've been post-college and it, that explains a lot. It explains a lot about why I've, I've been so passionate about being experienced, like an experience driven individual in terms of the hospitality side. It also explains a lot about my passions around leadership and, you know, wanting to always see people get better. So, um, so I think those are those, I mean, there's a lot there, but those are the things that I can remember that will be kind of chapters in the story of my life, I guess. Um, so very happy to have had them and they've all certainly impacted and changed the course of who I am today. So now let's talk about how we can all work on this or do it because we've talked about a few different things. One, there's the moment for us, the leader.

17:25There's also the moment for us to be able to help somebody else with their moment. So certainly going through our own moments and our own experiences, we now can give better guidance to someone when one of these fork in the road moments happen, because guess what? Going to a school or moving to a new city, that's going to be on a lot of people. And that's something that's never going to end. Where you're going to say, you know what? I may have outgrown this city where I live that I love.

17:53I mean, certainly with everything that's gone on right now, people are really starting to reevaluate their priorities. What's important to them? They're also asking hard questions. I think we really need to ask the right questions and the hard questions for ourselves of the things that matter. What are your thoughts on some other things that we can do to work on to sort of discover the moment and or be prepared for the moment?

18:20Yeah, I mean, I think for discover the moment, I think, you know, we had a podcast where we kind of dove into passion versus purpose. I think, you know, having those hard conversations with yourself and really and also being a great listener and a listener to the signs and the things that you're experiencing, not just to other individuals and other conversations, but having those tough questions or forcing yourself to really dig into answering the question of why I'm here and what is this? What is this? What am I meant to be doing? I think those things to me really are, one, those are profound questions and it's hard for anybody to really dive into those things. And I think that some people spend their entire life searching for the answer to those questions. But I think that if we are really truly giving ourselves some space and allowing us to actually listen in, that we're going to really come to a better understanding of those things and of the decisions that we need to make. So that would be, to me, that's a great exercise. And it requires actually, it requires quiet. It requires you stepping away. One of the conversations I just had recently with somebody that, you know, that I care about is actually a former employee is that, you know, right now there's never been a better time in history through this pandemic to actually answer those questions. I mean, we, the entire globe has literally come to a halt. And so all the things that we knew as normalcy, all those things have gone away. All the things that we used to do and all the noise that was surrounding our lives has suddenly kind of quieted down.

20:14And so if you don't come out of this pandemic with having challenged yourself in different ways to at least improve some aspect of who you are and really try to identify some of those questions. And because some people are being forced to look at different careers. I mean, I talk to people frequently in the hospitality space that are like, I don't know what to do. And so those are, those are, those are questions that you, we all have options. Everybody has options. Okay. I don't care who you are, what you've been doing for your entire life. We all have options of things that we can do hard conversations that we need to have. But right now is a really good time for us to, and it's not over. I mean, we're going to have another four months where we're going to be able to really kind of dive in and evaluate where we want to be. But I, and I think understanding that you're never too old or it's never too late to make a shift.

21:10And that's something that's really important for people to understand. So, you know, it, it takes time. You can't tomorrow. You can't just decide you want to be an astronaut and get in a spaceship. You can't decide tomorrow. And I'll actually, that's a, probably an extreme example. You know, somebody who wants, I've had conversations with people who said, Hey, I'm going to go get into real estate because I want to make, I want to make great money. I said, okay, well, there's great opportunities certainly in real estate, but you need to understand it's going to take two to three years, two to three years for you to actually fill your sales pipe for you to actually get to the point where you really are starting to realize those things that you're looking for. So do you, one, is it, are you chasing it just for money? Are you chasing it for some other passion related interest? And do you have the stamina to stick, to stick it out? Because it will be a very tough long and arduous process to be able to get there. And so it is about stamina. It is about listening and, you know, understanding that we have choices.

22:10And that makes me think about something that I say to anyone who wants to start a podcast. There is one tip that is the game changer of all game changers. I ask this question, I'll be like, Arturo, are you interested or are you committed in launching a podcast? Well, why is that? Interested is the person who wants to make a lot of money in real estate. The person who's committed says, I don't care how long this is going to take. I am shifting my life. My past life is done.

22:40The interested person is dabbling here and there, and they're not fully committed to it. And when you're committed to something, and certainly you and I know what commitment is about. That's why I love the term burning the boats. When there's no looking back at my past life, my mom would call me early on in my journey and be like, well, why don't you just go back to your old job? You're making such good money. Like you could just do that. And she obviously means well, but that is all based around comfort. And it's something that we all need to challenge ourselves on because being comfortable is very comfortable. But guess what? Nothing great ever came from your comfort zone. So when thinking about the moment, it's a lot easier to shy away from the moment because you're comfortable with where you are right now because you don't know what's going to happen. You leave a six-figure salary to make $0 overnight.

23:37And it's like, oh my God, and I've got a wife or you have kids. Like we hear the same things over and over again. So you now really need to ask yourself, well, are you willing to do this? And I think one of the biggest things people need to overcome is fear. So, so often in everyday life, but when it comes to the moment, we can be paralyzed by the fear of the decision of the unknown.

24:03Hey, I know what it's like to make six figures with where I am right now. Maybe I don't like my job or this isn't my calling, but you know what? Life is pretty good. But there's this fear thing that stops people from saying, well, you know what? This isn't where I want to be. And you can feel it inside your bones. And the challenge can oftentimes be when the leader of a household, whether it's just you or you in a family, you've got other people to look for. So now your decision-making of, well, why would you go and chase your purpose right now? Because you're just so you're all in, but guess what? That's the narrative that you're telling yourself because we all have the ability to make anything that we want happen in our minds. It's all a matter of what you're willing to do in order to make that happen. Totally. And, you know, I think it's important too, to note that, you know, these moments or these opportunities for change aren't just in our career and our professional lives, right? I mean, these are decisions that we can make on calling our loved ones with more frequency and staying in touch with our friends or making a decision to drink less or to stop smoking or to, I mean, our life is filled with these decisions that have lasting impacts.

25:26And so these moments, these opportunities, sure, they're going to be in front of you and they're going to be presented from a career standpoint. But I think that we all have to make sure that we're not so blindly consumed with, you know, with these career decisions. I mean, at the end of life, there's going to be some things and some realizations that we all have. And it's not going to be about how much more did I work? It's going to be about what did I do the things that I really, truly loved? And did I follow my heart? And did I ever come to a realization of what my purpose was to be in being here? So I think it's easy in the leadership dialogue to really kind of bring that closer to corporate or business or entrepreneurial or whatever. But I think that in order to be better leaders, we have to be better versions of ourselves. And that requires having those conversations and developing that understanding of when our moment has arrived and when that time is here to make those changes that'll make us better. The thing that will not be on my tombstone. So as I was looking at my old life, you know what? I got tired of slinging banner ads and text links. I didn't wake up every day being like, yes, I cannot wait to email 10 more ad buyers about this ad inventory that I have. Because guess what? That is not going to be on my tombstone. It's not going to say, here lies Rob. He was great at slinging banner ads. No, that is the dumbest thing in the world. And there's actually something that I'm consciously doing right now to work on this because I love that you mentioned this is more than just business. So I am part of this thing called the Big Ass Calendar Club. It was put together by Jesse Itzler. And the goal of this is to make the next 12 months of your life the best year of your life. And what the real framework is scheduling the things you want to do in your life before your business. Because so often we allow everything that's going on in our business life to dictate everything. But for most of us, business is 40 hours a week. Well, not all of us, but for a lot of us, it's 40 hours a week. But what about that other 100 plus hours that we have? Are we being conscious about designing the things that we want? So often we're living in default. And one of my favorite quotes, which I learned from my branding coach is live by design, not by default. I'm someone who designs my life and everything that I do up to this podcast, you and I are doing right now, Arturo. And I highly recommend people check out what Jesse's doing with his Build Your Life resume program in the big ass calendar club. Because sometimes to get your moments, you just need to be more intentional about it. And how do you be more intentional about it? Getting something in front of you all of the time. I'm part of a community of people who are on fire for their lives. I'm seeing people who are hiking mountains, running marathons, doing races in dream cars, going fishing with their kids. Like the simplest things that we all wish we would have more on. Because we're all going to remember these experiences.

28:47These are the things that I want to go to the grave with is the ability to go fishing with Arturo or something one day. We're like, man, that was just an amazing opportunity. As opposed to this rat race that we so often follow into. And we just need to be intentional. And here's another tip for you out there is to write this down. So Arturo, you mentioned that being silent with yourself. Well, another thing that you can do is I'm big into journaling. I do morning pages. So if you're having this internal dialogue with yourself about a potential moment or a big decision, start writing it out. Get it out of your head. And the next thing you mentioned about, hey, if you want to quit smoking or something else, call your loved ones more. You know what I do? I've got an accountability chart. I've got just this giant ass piece of paper in front of me. And every day when I do something, I mark an X. Well, why in the world would I do that? Because every day I step into my studio, I look and there's a giant piece of paper that says, call my sister. Put in a giant X right there.

29:47Guess what? You are going to call your sister a lot more when you see it every day in front of you and then you just give yourself an X and God forbid you say to yourself, you know what, Rob? If you call your sister seven times this month, you can go ahead and go to a nice dinner with your wife. Why do you do that? It's a reward system. So often I have found playing games with myself makes life a lot more fun. Why is it that when we were in elementary school, we would get stickers for doing things good?

30:16Well, why don't we do that exact same thing when we're older? Nice and simple. I like it. So any other thoughts on this, Arturo, before we wrap this up? Yeah, no, I think it's, yeah, I mean, it's just, there's so much depth to it, right? When we're talking about the opportunities or the moments that we all have as individuals and then just the idea that there's people around us that just need a little bit of push and a little bit of help to get themselves. And to me that the, you know, I think I'm one of those people that doesn't give myself enough, I guess, enough self-love or enough credit, which is fine because it's, you know, I think that that's just where my happy space is. But I get so much more from seeing other people achieve their moments or surpass their moments and get to another level that that's, you know, that to me is a tremendous driver, literally on a daily basis. It's like, where can I get my, that's my fuel, my emotional fuel. How can I make this person better? What can I do to help or empower them? That's, those are the things, you know, to me. And I think that some of the other, you know, leaders that I've seen or that I've read about, individuals that are just transcendent in the fact that they are committed to making sure that other people are having their moments. So I think that's it. I think we just dig deep, understand that, you know, there is no, it's never too late, but that life is short. And so we have to address these things that we want to do and we have to get after it quickly. And what I would add on, I completely agree, make a choice.

32:12Don't worry about if it's a right or wrong choice. So often we're going to self-audit ourselves on is this the right thing to do as opposed to taking action and living with it. Because guess what? There's a million different paths that you can take in life. And I even design things in my life where I'll be walking down the street. Then I'm like, I'm just going to turn right here real quick and just see what happens. And guess what? Something just randomly happens. And that's the way you need to think about this moment. It's not a right or a wrong. I want you to take a conscious action.

32:42And that action could be, you know what? The path I'm on is the correct one. Cool, you thought about that. But what I don't want is inaction. So I've got a few books and podcasts and movies to actually share about this one. One, a podcast, The Moment with Brian Koppelman. Brian Koppelman is the creator of Billions. He also wrote Rounders, one of my favorite podcasts in the world. He brings on other talented artists, performers, entertainers. Brian's very much a creative.

33:12It has them talk about their moment. And certainly in the world of Hollywood, there's so many stories about what did it take for you to get to where you are. Number two, a book called The Power of Consistency by Weldon Long. I have recommended this before. Well, why is this important? Because Weldon outlines his story, but then how you can be consistent at staying aligned with your dreams.

33:38So often, we just don't think about our dreams enough to make them a reality. But for me, every single day, I read a file that says consistency to my dreams. So for the last seven years, I have read my dreams every single day. So that's how I'm going to be consistent about making my moments happen. And the last one, the movie, A Star is Born with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga.

34:05And I think about one specific moment that gave me chills during the movie. And this is everyone I assume has seen the movie or a large majority of them. I haven't. You haven't. Amazing. Well, this won't spoil the movie for you. But there is a moment where Bradley Cooper is the musician and he's on stage in front of this large crowd right there. And Lady Gaga is on the side and he tells her to come on stage.

34:33And this is going to be the first time ever that she does this. And she is frozen. And you can just see the fear and the gears turning in her heads of, oh my God, I can't do this. I can't do this. And it took me back to the moments in which I've had that feeling when I was doing improv for the first time. And I was standing on stage and someone's being like, give me a food. And it's going to be like, watermelon. You've just got to go. And how you can be paralyzed with fear. But then she took that step.

35:02So she waited 30 seconds and took that first step. And when you take that first step, all that fear goes away because you've replaced it with action. And for me, it was one of the most relatable moments around the moment I've ever seen in a movie because I could relive that exact fear that I've had. But I also relived that exact first step, like jumping out of an airplane for skydiving. It's just incredible. Highly recommend checking it out.

35:32So Arturo, do you have one takeaway or action item for the listener? Yeah. I mean, I think it's just a takeaway. You don't, you know, I think I've already mentioned it and kind of drilled down on it. It's never too late. Listen to yourself. Also be open to identifying where other people need help to kind of, you know, turn that corner.

35:57And just be gentle with yourself and understand that there's a process to all of this. Things do not happen overnight. And, you know, so it's, you know, we all hope that we have long lives. And so there's a good amount of time there to get exactly where we want to be. So have some faith, but you got to put the work in.

36:20And my action item is I would like you to think about one area where you would like to make positive change. Just sit with that for a moment. Maybe you just identify what that was and see what goes and happens with it. And we would love to hear from you. And you know what I'm curious about hearing Arturo? I would love to hear about the moment that other people have had.

36:46Is there a defining moment in your life, in your business, with your family, anything? Yes. And the conversation that we're having and share with us what your moment was.

Transcript cleaned up for reading. Sign-off trimmed.