In this episode of Built by People Leaders, host Daria Rudnik sits down with Jim Carlough — Leadership Identity Architect and author of The Six Pillars of Effective Leadership. With over 30 years of experience scaling organizations from $100M to $1B, Jim shares a powerful perspective: leadership isn’t about skills alone — it’s about identity.
Together, they explore why most managers fail not because they lack knowledge, but because they never evolve into leaders. Jim breaks down his proven “Six Pillars” framework and explains how organizations can build strong, loyal, and high-performing teams — even in times of uncertainty and change.
From reducing attrition to creating psychologically safe environments, this conversation is packed with practical insights for CEOs, HR leaders, and anyone responsible for developing talent at scale.
Together, they explore why most managers fail not because they lack knowledge, but because they never evolve into leaders. Jim breaks down his proven “Six Pillars” framework and explains how organizations can build strong, loyal, and high-performing teams — even in times of uncertainty and change.
From reducing attrition to creating psychologically safe environments, this conversation is packed with practical insights for CEOs, HR leaders, and anyone responsible for developing talent at scale.
Key Takeaways:
https://www.jimcarlough.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimcarlough
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Leadership Development
02:50 The Importance of Building Leaders
05:47 Corporate Culture and Leadership Responsibility
08:50 The Six Pillars of Effective Leadership
09:47 Integrity: The Cornerstone of Leadership
13:44 Compassion and Empathy in Leadership
21:43 Stability and Focus in Leadership
26:38 The Role of Humor in Leadership
29:20 Personal Insights and Rapid Fire Questions
- Why the biggest leadership gap isn’t skills — but identity, and how to bridge it
- How strong leadership directly reduces costly employee attrition
- What truly builds trust in teams (and why it’s nearly impossible to recover once lost)
- A practical approach to leading through layoffs while maintaining engagement and loyalty
- Why mentoring — not one-off training — is the most underutilized leadership development tool
- The six timeless leadership pillars that remain effective across generations and industries
https://www.jimcarlough.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimcarlough
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Leadership Development
02:50 The Importance of Building Leaders
05:47 Corporate Culture and Leadership Responsibility
08:50 The Six Pillars of Effective Leadership
09:47 Integrity: The Cornerstone of Leadership
13:44 Compassion and Empathy in Leadership
21:43 Stability and Focus in Leadership
26:38 The Role of Humor in Leadership
29:20 Personal Insights and Rapid Fire Questions
Daria Rudnik (00:01.276)
Welcome to Build by People Leaders podcast brought to you by Hydra AI, your AI-powered coach for leaders in tech. I'm your host, Daria Rudnik, and this show is for HR and L &D leaders in fast-growing companies and scale-ups, those building real impact from within. And if you go to dariarudnik.com, can download the AI Ready Team framework that will help you build team maturity for organizations in the age of AI.
And today we have a very special guest. I'm so excited about this conversation. Jim Carlo, leadership identity architect, a battle Tesla C-suite executive with 30 plus years of experience who spent 15 years scaling organizations from 100 million to $1 billion. He's the author of the Six Pillars of Effective Leadership, a roadmap to success, an international impact book award winner.
and the creator of a proven framework that helps technically skilled managers close the gap between what they know how to do and who they believe they are. Jim's mission is simple but powerful, prove that leaders aren't born, they are built. Welcome Jim, I'm so excited to have you on the show. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
Jim Carlough (01:17.73)
Well, first, Daria, thank you for having me. just, I love talking to people across the pond and spreading the word further than just the United States. So I'm just really happy to be here. I've been looking forward to it. So I have been, so I think I gave away my age and saying how many years I've been doing this kind of stuff. And that's probably a thing I'd have to stop doing. But yeah, I'm an old guy that's been around a long time.
And one of the things I've really enjoyed about leadership is I take pride in the fact that it's my responsibility to build the leaders of the future. And I think we often miss that opportunity to do that. And I've only worked for two companies in my career where they had a true mentoring program for up and coming leaders.
And so in doing that, even after I stopped working at those companies, I continued to mentor people and I continued to learn from them and learn the things that they struggled with. And so the purpose of the purpose of me starting to do podcasting and stuff was just to start to say, we need to get back to teaching people how to lead people. And, and so I did develop a framework. I did write a book for it.
And I know it can benefit people that are in your audience. And I'm just happy to dive into any questions that you have.
Daria Rudnik (02:50.464)
Well, thanks Jim. Well, absolutely. You have an amazing experience being a senior executive, helping leaders, build leaders. Why is it important? Because like, why would I care? Being a CEO, or CIS with leader, HR leader, why do I need to build leaders? I just, can just hire someone.
Jim Carlough (03:12.802)
Well, the cost of replacing, so the thing that we, so I'll talk about our experience in the US. In the US, voluntary attrition ranges between 10 and 15%. But the cost to replace that person is anywhere from 100 to 250 % of what they were making. Which means you've got downtime, you've got recruiting time, you've got interviewing time, you've got onboarding time, then the person has to get up to speed and you're.
It's a $1.7 trillion problem in the United States. We can't survive with 10 to 15 % attrition rate. My attrition rate historically is under 5%. And one of the reasons is I build very loyal, dedicated and committed teams and they don't want to leave. Some get fired, but that's not voluntary, but not everybody is going to make it.
But the one thing is I try to instill in them are certain principles that can help them not just in their professional life, but also in their personal life. And so, you know, from that perspective, my responsibility is to help them grow and develop. And if we're not doing that, we're doing a disservice to our organization and to the people that we're working with.
Daria Rudnik (04:34.934)
You know what I'm curious, again, you're leading a sales function and organization. Whose responsibility is that to develop leaders? Is it your as a functional leader? Is it HR? Is it CEO? Who is it?
Jim Carlough (04:51.798)
I think it's got to be part of the corporate culture. I really believe that it starts at the top and we have to start fixing the problem and not with spot solutions. So for example, a lot of organizations, they know they have a challenge, so they bring in somebody to help us communicate better. Okay, but does that solve the problem? Communicating better isn't going to solve the attrition problem.
So what do we bring in to solve the attrition problem to get people managing better? And that's where I focus on the leadership identity. That's where that comes from. Because most people enter management as what I call an accidental manager. They're a terrific individual contributor. They're technically proficient. And management reaches in and says, Jim,
we're gonna make you a manager. And I get excited, I get a pay raise, I go home, I tell my wife, I'm gonna be a manager, and my wife says to me, you've never managed anybody. And then the sweat starts, like now I'm worried, what am I gonna do? And so I think it's all of our responsibilities, including HR, to help bridge that gap. And I know that over the last decade or so,
the funds available for training and things like that have diminished. And so my crusade is trying to do leadership training at scale, whether it's a book, whether it's a webinar, whether it's a whatever, to give the tools to the people that I've used that have made me successful. I am a firm believer, and you've already said it, that people are not born leaders, they're developed. And it takes time.
and deliberate effort to develop that capability. If you think you learned it in college, think again. They don't teach a lot of this in college, but it's very important that we get back to educating leaders or what we're going to be stuck with is going out in the market and finding people who may have been a manager, but have no idea what we do as a company, which again, takes time to train and learn people as opposed to developing
Jim Carlough (07:20.438)
an internal system of growing the leadership talent throughout the organization.
Daria Rudnik (07:27.349)
I mean, I agree. Most leaders, how do you know how to lead? Okay. I see my manager, which is not always a great example. I go do some training course. Okay. I learned some things and then I go back to work and then I see my manager. So which way am I going to lead?
Jim Carlough (07:45.774)
And that's the challenge because we've all had managers that have had flaws because they were never taught how to lead. And those are difficult. And I've worked for, I have had some tremendous leaders in my career who I've reported directly to. I've had very few, two in my entire career that were less than
what I would have expected from a leader.
Jim Carlough (08:21.005)
Ciao!
Daria Rudnik (08:22.785)
So tell us about how leaders, organizations, HR can build and develop those leaders.
Jim Carlough (08:31.566)
I very much believe in mentoring. And I think the first step is having a mentoring program within an organization, which I think is something that HR leaders can do. Second to that is giving them not just spot training on specific things that they're going to forget on Wednesday, but giving them things that will resonate with them that they'll understand.
Daria Rudnik (08:35.265)
Mm-hmm.
Jim Carlough (09:00.054)
and that they can implement rather easily. And so my workshops and in my book, I do some unique things. I talk about the framework. I talk about why that item is important. I talk about how to implement it. And then I also talk about other world leaders that use that characteristic in their leadership style.
with references so that people could look those people up and read about them as well. And I'm a big proponent that leaders need to always evolve because leadership evolves. And it means that if you, if you're going to dedicate yourself to be a leader, you're going to be a leader for the rest of your life. And you're going to have to continue to read and stay up on all of the latest trends and things that are happening because every generation is different. However,
The framework that I talk about is timeless. You go back 40 years ago and you look at these characteristics, they work. You look at today, those characteristics, if they're implemented, they'll work. They're consistent and they'll live throughout time.
Daria Rudnik (10:15.371)
So tell us about those six pillars in the both your books.
Jim Carlough (10:19.712)
Okay, so let's talk about the first pillar, which to me is non-negotiable, is integrity. Integrity and transparency.
I don't want to make this a political statement. It's not meant to be that way. But we've lost our way around the world with integrity and transparency. It's not just a problem in the U.S. It's a problem in other countries. And I've been on podcasts in South Africa, Nigeria, Australia, India, Asia, Germany, three times in Germany, two times in...
Israel and they all agree that we've all lost our way with integrity. As a leader, if you operate with absolute integrity and are always going down that center line, your team will believe in you and follow you. If you don't operate with integrity, you won't build the trust with your team and your team will never have that psychological safety.
feeling that they have to have that they're safe. I mean, we live in a crazy world today. so employees want to feel psychologically safe. So let me tell you a story about how I got introduced to integrity. And I like telling stories. I graduated, I'm gonna give my age away again. I graduated college in 1983. You probably weren't even born yet. So don't even answer that question, but regardless.
The year I graduated college, I ran for a local political office in the town I grew up in. Town was only 12,000 people. And I won. And a couple days later, the city manager called me in and asked me to come sit down with him. And I sat down with him and we talked for a while and he talked about the election and he talked about how well I would do. And then he got to a point where he says, Jim, I need to ask you to do me a favor.
Jim Carlough (12:27.49)
And I said, what's that? He said, every night when you put your head on the pillow, I want you to ask yourself two questions. Question number one, did I do anything today for my own personal self-benefit that was at the expense of another individual group of individuals or organization? And if you answer yes to that question before you can rest peacefully,
you need to figure out how to unwind that. And the second thing you need to do is figure out how you're never going to repeat it. And that hit me like a brick to the side of my head. And I looked and I thought about that for a long time. And really what he was saying is really the golden rule. Treat others like you want to be treated, but really about
Integrity being the cornerstone of your foundation. To me, integrity is the center pillar that holds up the highest peak of the building or the house that has to be the strongest. If you lose integrity, you will lose the trust of your employees. If you lose the trust of your employees, it is virtually impossible to gain it back.
And that's where you see departments and people fail and things start to fall apart.
Daria Rudnik (14:03.411)
I love that. So many times we can see in organizations when you kind of see values on the wall, but when you look at how leaders and even people or employees behave, you understand, okay, something is not right. Something is not right. Either change the walls or change the behavior.
Jim Carlough (14:24.302)
Correct. And it's easier to change the walls. It's harder to change the behaviors, but it's the behaviors that you have to change. And it's that identity change which I help people with, is getting that and adopting those principles so that they can build trusting and lasting teams. What you want is, like in my career, I've...
When I, I've left position A and I went to another company, people who worked with me at that prior company, I'm usually their first phone call when they are going to go look for a new job. And they'll say, Hey, Jen, do you have any openings? I'd love to come back and work for you. To me, that's the best compliment I can ever receive when you get a note from a former employee or whatever who says, Hey, you know, do you have an opportunity for me that I can come work for you again?
Daria Rudnik (15:20.119)
Okay, what's the second?
Jim Carlough (15:22.55)
So I'm going to combine the second two, which are compassion and empathy. They're very much similar, but they're different. Sympathy in my book is I can express sympathy towards you, but I can't remove the pain for you. I can't solve the issue for you. Empathy is similar, but I can identify with the problem.
Daria Rudnik (15:25.846)
Mm-hmm.
Jim Carlough (15:51.15)
and I can help you fix that problem. So I'll give you an example. Back in the year 2001, 2002, I worked for a technology company that made claim systems for insurance companies, for health insurance companies. So doctors would send bills in, these systems would process the claims. I had a department that was responsible for our first generation product.
which was built on old green screen technology. You may not ever remember green screen technology. Somebody like me who was around decades ago lived that. That was before Microsoft came out with the mouse. Anyway, in an executive meeting, we decided we were gonna sunset the green screen technology and replace it with the Windows
the capabilities that we had. We had 36 customers on the green screen technology. We knew it would take us about three years to convert everybody. So my job was I had to tell this team of 20 some people that their job was going away, but that I couldn't afford for them to leave. And how do I keep them there motivated and still
deliver for the customer. Because if somebody told me my job was going to be going away, I'm going to be on the internet 24 seven trying to find my next job. So I wrestled with what to do. So I finally came up with three things and I met with the team as a whole, told them what we were doing. You could see it in their face scared as could be. And I said, but here's what we're going to do. We know it takes eight to 12 months to implement.
the new technology. So if you're supporting customers that were transitioning in the next eight to 10 months, I'm going to tell you upfront, your job will go away when those go live. So you'll have a runway of at least eight months, if not more than that. However, if you want to stay with the company and learn the new technology,
Jim Carlough (18:12.96)
so that when that time comes, we can move you over into those departments. I will make that training available to you during the day, not at night, not in the morning, not during lunchtime, during the day. We'll make time for it. My responsibility. I didn't stop there. I then said to him, if you decide you don't want to work in that department or for our company,
I will personally help you find a job on the outside that fits your skill set, that also fits the financial requirements that your family needs to be sustainable. And I will work with you until you have a job during that timeframe, that runway that we'll be giving you. Now, my only goal was that I would have nobody leave before it was their time to leave. I achieved that goal.
Daria Rudnik (19:10.306)
Mm-hmm.
Jim Carlough (19:11.096)
but something else happened that I never expected.
About two years into this, I get a call from Human Resources, and they asked if they could come and visit with me. And this will resonate with your audience. And they sat down with me, and I said, how can I help you? And they said, well, we want to talk to you about your team in California. I said, OK. And they said, you're downsizing that team, right? I said, that's correct. And they said, OK, we don't understand something. I said, what's that?
Now we have 22,000 people working for this company. They said, well, about 90 days ago, we did an employee satisfaction survey and I went, crap, how bad is it? And they said, well, that's the challenge. Those people are the happiest people in the entire company and we don't understand it. Their job is going away. Why are they so happy? What are you doing? And I said,
I didn't know what to say to them. So I thought it was my responsibility to help them. And here are the three things I told them. And they just sat and looked at me. And they said, how did you come up with that? And I said, well, quite honestly, I thought, what would I want to hear from my manager if my job was going away? I would want to know how long do I have. I would want to know.
Is there any assistance for me or whatever? They were so impressed with what I had done, they made that the corporate policy for whenever we downsized any department in the future. And to me, I'm very proud of that fact that they were the happiest people considering the circumstances and that they stayed committed to the organization until it was their time to move on. And...
Jim Carlough (21:12.172)
I think only two people left the company. The rest stayed.
Daria Rudnik (21:15.96)
That is a great story. That is really a great story. we all hear that people are not leaving companies because of bad processes. They're living because of bad managers. We see that people are staying because of good managers. And I know if you remember during this layoff period a couple of years ago, we've seen lots of things over internet and we've seen lots of ways companies handling that from
Here is your AI bot to help you with anxiety because we fired you. Managers, HR leaders, being there online, looking for jobs for the people that had to go because of the, I mean, they just could not stay in the company, but they did everything to help them finding out a job. Looking for job openings, giving them recommendations, giving them training.
Jim Carlough (21:47.022)
you
Daria Rudnik (22:09.491)
lots of things to help them and support them through this transition period. So that's absolutely a great example of how companies should behave.
Jim Carlough (22:15.81)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of organizations offer outplacement service, but it's, and outplacement service is good and it has its place. But if the employee is trusting you as the leader and they believe in you, I think it's our job as leaders to help them as best we can. And if that means that somebody's going to leave the company, I want them to leave happy.
Daria Rudnik (22:38.967)
Mm-hmm.
Jim Carlough (22:43.936)
and be happy with the next job that they get. And I think that's important. I think that's part of my responsibility.
Daria Rudnik (22:53.067)
All right, so we have integrity, have compassion and empathy. What's next?
Jim Carlough (22:58.196)
Stability. And when I think stability, it is showing up the same way every day, despite the circumstances that we may be in. An employee will not feel psychologically safe if their leader or manager flies off the handle when something small goes wrong or gets overly excited and
isn't that same calming force regardless of the situation. So to me, stability is extremely important. I also have to see that in the employee. And I pride myself on being able to recognize when you come to work, if I'm sensing your morning has already started off poorly. If you walk in every morning with a cup of Starbucks coffee or any coffee,
and you're always smiling and tomorrow you come in and you've got your Starbucks coffee, but you're not smiling. Something's wrong. I need to do something to get involved, to figure out if there's something that I can do to help you. And that's what a leader should be doing. A leader should not be just sitting behind their door. I mean, to me that's leaders who just constantly have their door shut are not leaders.
Daria Rudnik (24:18.007)
Mm-hmm.
Jim Carlough (24:25.076)
You need to be able to hear what's going on. You need to be accessible. And a closed door shows that you're not interested in talking to your people.
Daria Rudnik (24:33.212)
Well, that's interesting how you do that when all your team is remote.
Jim Carlough (24:37.774)
Correct, correct.
Daria Rudnik (24:38.911)
You don't see, you don't see, you see a cup of coffee and smile.
Jim Carlough (24:43.406)
Correct, correct. It's very easy. And somebody asked me on a podcast one day, well, when does leadership start? And I said, when does it start? And they said, yeah, does it start when you get to the office? And I said, no, it starts when your feet hit the floor in the morning and you get out of bed. Because at any point from then onward, whether it's with your family or the people you interact with, you have an opportunity to inter...
to interject, intercede, and have a conversation. I know of a CEO at one time who used to park at the side of the building, enter a side entrance, and take a freight elevator up to their office so that they didn't have to interact with the employees. That's not what you do. I mean, I would interact with anybody. And...
In fact, my wife sometimes hates that when we go out and I'll walk up to people I don't know and I'll talk to them. But the reality is that's important. That's important. And not only with stability, but the next pillar, which is focus. We all have to be focused on the same goals and not waver from them. And if something is not going right, being able to identify that. And I'll give you an example that's not from me, but of Jeff Bezos of Amazon.
In Amazon's early days, after he moved out of working out of his garage into an office, that's how long ago we're talking. He, they had a terrible reputation for customer service. And he went to the head of the customer service department says, we have a problem and we have to fix it. And it is so bad. I just want you to know that I'm moving here, a desk down into the customer service department tomorrow. And I'm to report to that desk.
till I can figure out how to fix it. He was so focused on that because he knew he was the only one doing what he was doing. And if he wanted to expand to the way he's expanded, he had to fix that problem. And I think as the story goes, he sat in that department for six months, came out of that department, developed how they were gonna change, went back to the leader of that department and said, this is what we're going to implement. And they dramatically changed
Jim Carlough (27:09.282)
the perception of their service in the market, and it helped them with their trajectory northward.
Daria Rudnik (27:16.823)
It's great. I mean, I like this being where the problem is being where you need it the most. And I remember in one company I was working for, we had a HR business partners and those HR business partners, had their places like in HR department with all the HR people. But what they did, they actually changed their places and went to the business units that they were serving and they were sitting with them because that's where the problem is. So they kind of had two places, one leg in HR, one leg in...
in the units to really understand how they can be of help. How can they help things there? What's going on with all those people? So yeah, it's a great strategy.
Jim Carlough (27:57.464)
So the last pillar.
Daria Rudnik (27:59.193)
Mm-hmm.
Jim Carlough (28:01.23)
People always question it, but the last pillar is humor. But I don't mean being the comedian at the water cooler at 10 a.m. every morning telling all kinds of jokes. To me, I've used it as a strategic tool in certain situations. Number one, I'll always kick off a meeting with something humorous. Number two, if somebody's in disagreement and there's tension,
I'll use humor to diffuse the tension. If we're in a meeting and we're getting off topic, I'll use humor to bring the topic back to the center of the agenda. And those are strategic areas. And there's more where you can interject human, a human aspect of yourself through humor so that the people see that you're just like they are. And to me, it has worked wonderfully well.
And you don't have to be a comedian. You really don't. You don't have to get a book of jokes. In fact, today, society is so hypersensitive. Years ago, you could tease someone about the color of their hair. You can't do that anymore. So the humor I use is self-deprecating. Something stupid that I did, or something funny that I did, or that I can laugh at now that wasn't funny back then. And I have a lot of those that I can pull out of my memory banks to be able to
to tell people, but the purpose of it is to really level set with everybody and get them back to the task at hand or to dissolve the conflict. So humor is the one that generates the most interesting questions from people, but I think it's important enough to be a piece of the framework because again, we spent a lot of time with our coworkers.
Daria Rudnik (29:41.4)
Yeah, I love that.
Jim Carlough (29:57.184)
If we're not able to have fun with our coworkers, we're not going to be happy at our job. And so that's really where that comes from.
Daria Rudnik (30:04.726)
Mm-hmm.
Daria Rudnik (30:08.821)
And it's also about like being humble. Okay, you can make a joke about yourself and you show that you're not perfect. No one is perfect and it's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to make fun of yourself and it helps to build this emotional connection. So I really love this emotional humor part. And again, fun. Yeah, we've spent so much time at work. Let's have fun then. So that's a great
Jim Carlough (30:10.188)
minutes.
Jim Carlough (30:30.338)
Yeah, let's have fun.
Daria Rudnik (30:31.731)
It's a great framework. will be integrity, compassion, empathy, stability, focus and humor. And with that, you can grow as a leader you want to be. So I'm, yeah, I think your book is amazing describing those things and how leaders can build those qualities in themselves. And for those who listen to us, please still see the end because I know Jim has a surprise for you so that you make sure you want to hear that.
Yeah. I'd love to ask you some kind of personal rapid fire questions to get to know more about you as a person. Are you ready for that?
Jim Carlough (31:13.102)
I don't know, but let's go. We'll have fun with it either way.
Daria Rudnik (31:17.799)
Okay, so are you a tea person or a coffee person?
Jim Carlough (31:22.412)
Am I a web person?
Daria Rudnik (31:23.873)
Tea or coffee, tea person or coffee person? Do you come in the morning with a cup of tea or a cup of coffee?
Jim Carlough (31:30.316)
I don't have either. I have Coke Zero. Truthfully, I don't like the smell of coffee. And I know that's odd. There's a woman that used to work for me, actually at two different companies, her name's Leslie, and she would always walk in in the morning and she would always come in and sit down at my desk just to say good morning. And she always had her cup of Starbucks.
Daria Rudnik (31:32.106)
Okay. Wow.
All right, I don't have that.
it is.
Jim Carlough (31:59.99)
and she would put it in the center of the desk. And I would say, Leslie, and I know she did it as a joke, she knew I couldn't stand the smell of it. I said, can you please move that cup closer to you? I don't know why I dislike the smell so much, other than the fact that when I was young, a lot of my aunts and uncles would always come and visit. And they were always drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.
Daria Rudnik (32:27.618)
Okay.
Jim Carlough (32:28.474)
And the combination to this day, I don't like cigarette smoke, I'm not a smoker, and I don't like the smell of coffee. However, I will drink tea. Not frequently, but I would drink tea.
Daria Rudnik (32:44.663)
Do you like dogs or cats?
Jim Carlough (32:47.406)
Stop.
Daria Rudnik (32:49.889)
Would you rather take a message or a phone call?
Jim Carlough (32:54.914)
I'd rather take a phone call.
Daria Rudnik (32:59.467)
What did you want to be when you were a kid?
Jim Carlough (33:04.5)
I grew up in a very small town and the mail system, the postal service in this small town was delivered by mailmen who walked door to door. And at four years old, I used to walk with the mailman on his route. And one day he said to me, what do you want to do when you grow up? And I said, I want to be a mailman. He said, no, you don't.
No, you don't. You don't want to walk in the snow. You don't want to be out here in the rain. You don't want to be a mailman. And I said, OK. He said, what do you think you want to do? I said, I'm four years old. I don't know what I want to do. And he said, well, when you think of what you see on TV and what would you like to have? And I said, you know what? I'd like to have a big desk. And he said, a big desk? He said,
you need to be a lawyer. And I went through school telling everybody I was going to be a lawyer. I went to college and studied psychology because I knew that if I was going to be a lawyer, it would come in handy. It turns out it comes in handy with everything that I do. But I never went to law school.
Daria Rudnik (34:27.019)
But we still had a big desk, right?
Jim Carlough (34:29.304)
Correct. I had the goal. I opted out of going to law school because I wanted to make money and start to grow as an individual.
Daria Rudnik (34:41.047)
What's one rule that you've broken but don't regret?
Jim Carlough (34:49.815)
One rule that I've broken.
You know, when we ask the integrity question every night, I've never said yes to that question in all of these years. And to me, would be, if I had ever broke that, that would be a serious thing. One rule that I've broken, okay, I tend to drive faster than I should.
Daria Rudnik (35:09.815)
Mm-hmm.
Jim Carlough (35:21.71)
But I am not the type of person for those in the you so we have some wide roads in the US and people have this bad habit of being in the far left lane, which is the fast lane and then they go across four lanes in one dart to hit the exit and That drives me crazy. I am NOT that driver. I am NOT that driver But I do tend to drive
a little over the speed limit. Not Autobahn, not Autobahn speeds, not Autobahn speeds.
Daria Rudnik (35:54.205)
We all have flaws.
All right, Jim. Well, thank you so much. It was an incredible conversation. I loved learning about your framework. I know that you still have a surprise for our audience. But before that, please tell us how people can reach out to you, how people can find you and your book.
Jim Carlough (36:14.734)
So my book's available on Amazon. It's also available on Barnes and Noble. If you can't find it, I know you can get it Amazon around the world. I know you can get it on Amazon around the world, because it's set up to be able to be distributed. There's also an audio book that you can get from Amazon if you prefer an audio book or the Kindle version or whatever. I have a website. My name is on the screen. If you just push all those letters together and put dot com at the end.
You can get to my website, which will have information about the workshops that I do and some of the individual coaching things that I do as well as having information on the book and some free resources as well that people can download that don't cost any money. And so that's the best way to find me. I mentioned earlier that I believe in mentoring. I can't mentor any more people than I already am mentoring, especially when doing all these workshops.
But if you have trouble finding a mentor, shoot me an email through my website and tell me the problem you're having and I'll try to help you with some solutions on trying to find a mentor. And a mentor should not be your boss. It should not be your boss. It could be within the same company. It could be outside of the company, but you always have a mentor.
Daria Rudnik (37:23.278)
that is a very generous offer.
Mm-hmm.
Daria Rudnik (37:36.733)
And well, all the links to Jim's resources you can find in the notes to this episode. All right, so to the surprise.
Jim Carlough (37:45.504)
Okay, so because you put up with me for 30 some minutes, I'm offering to the first five people who comment on this episode, good or bad, on Daria's LinkedIn page when it's produced, I will send you a free copy of the ebook version of the book. So first five people will get the book for free. Now the price is about to go up on Amazon.
So you still will get it for free from me, but the first five people. Now, please don't put your email address in social media. I'll reach out to you separately to get your email address and then I'll send you the PDF version of the book. So.
Daria Rudnik (38:34.049)
Great. So make sure you go to Build by People Leaders LinkedIn page. You can find the link to it on my LinkedIn page. Like everywhere there'll be a link to this episode. So go there on the Build by People Leaders LinkedIn page, make a comment and Jim will send you a free copy of a book. I mean, I think that's very generous. Thank you so much, Jim. It was great having this conversation with you. I learned so much from your framework and I'm sure our audience.
Now people listening to it also learned a lot. If you like this episode, please give it a five-star review on Amazon, on Apple podcast, on Spotify, subscribe to YouTube channel and stay tuned for the next episodes. Bye-bye.
Welcome to Build by People Leaders podcast brought to you by Hydra AI, your AI-powered coach for leaders in tech. I'm your host, Daria Rudnik, and this show is for HR and L &D leaders in fast-growing companies and scale-ups, those building real impact from within. And if you go to dariarudnik.com, can download the AI Ready Team framework that will help you build team maturity for organizations in the age of AI.
And today we have a very special guest. I'm so excited about this conversation. Jim Carlo, leadership identity architect, a battle Tesla C-suite executive with 30 plus years of experience who spent 15 years scaling organizations from 100 million to $1 billion. He's the author of the Six Pillars of Effective Leadership, a roadmap to success, an international impact book award winner.
and the creator of a proven framework that helps technically skilled managers close the gap between what they know how to do and who they believe they are. Jim's mission is simple but powerful, prove that leaders aren't born, they are built. Welcome Jim, I'm so excited to have you on the show. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
Jim Carlough (01:17.73)
Well, first, Daria, thank you for having me. just, I love talking to people across the pond and spreading the word further than just the United States. So I'm just really happy to be here. I've been looking forward to it. So I have been, so I think I gave away my age and saying how many years I've been doing this kind of stuff. And that's probably a thing I'd have to stop doing. But yeah, I'm an old guy that's been around a long time.
And one of the things I've really enjoyed about leadership is I take pride in the fact that it's my responsibility to build the leaders of the future. And I think we often miss that opportunity to do that. And I've only worked for two companies in my career where they had a true mentoring program for up and coming leaders.
And so in doing that, even after I stopped working at those companies, I continued to mentor people and I continued to learn from them and learn the things that they struggled with. And so the purpose of the purpose of me starting to do podcasting and stuff was just to start to say, we need to get back to teaching people how to lead people. And, and so I did develop a framework. I did write a book for it.
And I know it can benefit people that are in your audience. And I'm just happy to dive into any questions that you have.
Daria Rudnik (02:50.464)
Well, thanks Jim. Well, absolutely. You have an amazing experience being a senior executive, helping leaders, build leaders. Why is it important? Because like, why would I care? Being a CEO, or CIS with leader, HR leader, why do I need to build leaders? I just, can just hire someone.
Jim Carlough (03:12.802)
Well, the cost of replacing, so the thing that we, so I'll talk about our experience in the US. In the US, voluntary attrition ranges between 10 and 15%. But the cost to replace that person is anywhere from 100 to 250 % of what they were making. Which means you've got downtime, you've got recruiting time, you've got interviewing time, you've got onboarding time, then the person has to get up to speed and you're.
It's a $1.7 trillion problem in the United States. We can't survive with 10 to 15 % attrition rate. My attrition rate historically is under 5%. And one of the reasons is I build very loyal, dedicated and committed teams and they don't want to leave. Some get fired, but that's not voluntary, but not everybody is going to make it.
But the one thing is I try to instill in them are certain principles that can help them not just in their professional life, but also in their personal life. And so, you know, from that perspective, my responsibility is to help them grow and develop. And if we're not doing that, we're doing a disservice to our organization and to the people that we're working with.
Daria Rudnik (04:34.934)
You know what I'm curious, again, you're leading a sales function and organization. Whose responsibility is that to develop leaders? Is it your as a functional leader? Is it HR? Is it CEO? Who is it?
Jim Carlough (04:51.798)
I think it's got to be part of the corporate culture. I really believe that it starts at the top and we have to start fixing the problem and not with spot solutions. So for example, a lot of organizations, they know they have a challenge, so they bring in somebody to help us communicate better. Okay, but does that solve the problem? Communicating better isn't going to solve the attrition problem.
So what do we bring in to solve the attrition problem to get people managing better? And that's where I focus on the leadership identity. That's where that comes from. Because most people enter management as what I call an accidental manager. They're a terrific individual contributor. They're technically proficient. And management reaches in and says, Jim,
we're gonna make you a manager. And I get excited, I get a pay raise, I go home, I tell my wife, I'm gonna be a manager, and my wife says to me, you've never managed anybody. And then the sweat starts, like now I'm worried, what am I gonna do? And so I think it's all of our responsibilities, including HR, to help bridge that gap. And I know that over the last decade or so,
the funds available for training and things like that have diminished. And so my crusade is trying to do leadership training at scale, whether it's a book, whether it's a webinar, whether it's a whatever, to give the tools to the people that I've used that have made me successful. I am a firm believer, and you've already said it, that people are not born leaders, they're developed. And it takes time.
and deliberate effort to develop that capability. If you think you learned it in college, think again. They don't teach a lot of this in college, but it's very important that we get back to educating leaders or what we're going to be stuck with is going out in the market and finding people who may have been a manager, but have no idea what we do as a company, which again, takes time to train and learn people as opposed to developing
Jim Carlough (07:20.438)
an internal system of growing the leadership talent throughout the organization.
Daria Rudnik (07:27.349)
I mean, I agree. Most leaders, how do you know how to lead? Okay. I see my manager, which is not always a great example. I go do some training course. Okay. I learned some things and then I go back to work and then I see my manager. So which way am I going to lead?
Jim Carlough (07:45.774)
And that's the challenge because we've all had managers that have had flaws because they were never taught how to lead. And those are difficult. And I've worked for, I have had some tremendous leaders in my career who I've reported directly to. I've had very few, two in my entire career that were less than
what I would have expected from a leader.
Jim Carlough (08:21.005)
Ciao!
Daria Rudnik (08:22.785)
So tell us about how leaders, organizations, HR can build and develop those leaders.
Jim Carlough (08:31.566)
I very much believe in mentoring. And I think the first step is having a mentoring program within an organization, which I think is something that HR leaders can do. Second to that is giving them not just spot training on specific things that they're going to forget on Wednesday, but giving them things that will resonate with them that they'll understand.
Daria Rudnik (08:35.265)
Mm-hmm.
Jim Carlough (09:00.054)
and that they can implement rather easily. And so my workshops and in my book, I do some unique things. I talk about the framework. I talk about why that item is important. I talk about how to implement it. And then I also talk about other world leaders that use that characteristic in their leadership style.
with references so that people could look those people up and read about them as well. And I'm a big proponent that leaders need to always evolve because leadership evolves. And it means that if you, if you're going to dedicate yourself to be a leader, you're going to be a leader for the rest of your life. And you're going to have to continue to read and stay up on all of the latest trends and things that are happening because every generation is different. However,
The framework that I talk about is timeless. You go back 40 years ago and you look at these characteristics, they work. You look at today, those characteristics, if they're implemented, they'll work. They're consistent and they'll live throughout time.
Daria Rudnik (10:15.371)
So tell us about those six pillars in the both your books.
Jim Carlough (10:19.712)
Okay, so let's talk about the first pillar, which to me is non-negotiable, is integrity. Integrity and transparency.
I don't want to make this a political statement. It's not meant to be that way. But we've lost our way around the world with integrity and transparency. It's not just a problem in the U.S. It's a problem in other countries. And I've been on podcasts in South Africa, Nigeria, Australia, India, Asia, Germany, three times in Germany, two times in...
Israel and they all agree that we've all lost our way with integrity. As a leader, if you operate with absolute integrity and are always going down that center line, your team will believe in you and follow you. If you don't operate with integrity, you won't build the trust with your team and your team will never have that psychological safety.
feeling that they have to have that they're safe. I mean, we live in a crazy world today. so employees want to feel psychologically safe. So let me tell you a story about how I got introduced to integrity. And I like telling stories. I graduated, I'm gonna give my age away again. I graduated college in 1983. You probably weren't even born yet. So don't even answer that question, but regardless.
The year I graduated college, I ran for a local political office in the town I grew up in. Town was only 12,000 people. And I won. And a couple days later, the city manager called me in and asked me to come sit down with him. And I sat down with him and we talked for a while and he talked about the election and he talked about how well I would do. And then he got to a point where he says, Jim, I need to ask you to do me a favor.
Jim Carlough (12:27.49)
And I said, what's that? He said, every night when you put your head on the pillow, I want you to ask yourself two questions. Question number one, did I do anything today for my own personal self-benefit that was at the expense of another individual group of individuals or organization? And if you answer yes to that question before you can rest peacefully,
you need to figure out how to unwind that. And the second thing you need to do is figure out how you're never going to repeat it. And that hit me like a brick to the side of my head. And I looked and I thought about that for a long time. And really what he was saying is really the golden rule. Treat others like you want to be treated, but really about
Integrity being the cornerstone of your foundation. To me, integrity is the center pillar that holds up the highest peak of the building or the house that has to be the strongest. If you lose integrity, you will lose the trust of your employees. If you lose the trust of your employees, it is virtually impossible to gain it back.
And that's where you see departments and people fail and things start to fall apart.
Daria Rudnik (14:03.411)
I love that. So many times we can see in organizations when you kind of see values on the wall, but when you look at how leaders and even people or employees behave, you understand, okay, something is not right. Something is not right. Either change the walls or change the behavior.
Jim Carlough (14:24.302)
Correct. And it's easier to change the walls. It's harder to change the behaviors, but it's the behaviors that you have to change. And it's that identity change which I help people with, is getting that and adopting those principles so that they can build trusting and lasting teams. What you want is, like in my career, I've...
When I, I've left position A and I went to another company, people who worked with me at that prior company, I'm usually their first phone call when they are going to go look for a new job. And they'll say, Hey, Jen, do you have any openings? I'd love to come back and work for you. To me, that's the best compliment I can ever receive when you get a note from a former employee or whatever who says, Hey, you know, do you have an opportunity for me that I can come work for you again?
Daria Rudnik (15:20.119)
Okay, what's the second?
Jim Carlough (15:22.55)
So I'm going to combine the second two, which are compassion and empathy. They're very much similar, but they're different. Sympathy in my book is I can express sympathy towards you, but I can't remove the pain for you. I can't solve the issue for you. Empathy is similar, but I can identify with the problem.
Daria Rudnik (15:25.846)
Mm-hmm.
Jim Carlough (15:51.15)
and I can help you fix that problem. So I'll give you an example. Back in the year 2001, 2002, I worked for a technology company that made claim systems for insurance companies, for health insurance companies. So doctors would send bills in, these systems would process the claims. I had a department that was responsible for our first generation product.
which was built on old green screen technology. You may not ever remember green screen technology. Somebody like me who was around decades ago lived that. That was before Microsoft came out with the mouse. Anyway, in an executive meeting, we decided we were gonna sunset the green screen technology and replace it with the Windows
the capabilities that we had. We had 36 customers on the green screen technology. We knew it would take us about three years to convert everybody. So my job was I had to tell this team of 20 some people that their job was going away, but that I couldn't afford for them to leave. And how do I keep them there motivated and still
deliver for the customer. Because if somebody told me my job was going to be going away, I'm going to be on the internet 24 seven trying to find my next job. So I wrestled with what to do. So I finally came up with three things and I met with the team as a whole, told them what we were doing. You could see it in their face scared as could be. And I said, but here's what we're going to do. We know it takes eight to 12 months to implement.
the new technology. So if you're supporting customers that were transitioning in the next eight to 10 months, I'm going to tell you upfront, your job will go away when those go live. So you'll have a runway of at least eight months, if not more than that. However, if you want to stay with the company and learn the new technology,
Jim Carlough (18:12.96)
so that when that time comes, we can move you over into those departments. I will make that training available to you during the day, not at night, not in the morning, not during lunchtime, during the day. We'll make time for it. My responsibility. I didn't stop there. I then said to him, if you decide you don't want to work in that department or for our company,
I will personally help you find a job on the outside that fits your skill set, that also fits the financial requirements that your family needs to be sustainable. And I will work with you until you have a job during that timeframe, that runway that we'll be giving you. Now, my only goal was that I would have nobody leave before it was their time to leave. I achieved that goal.
Daria Rudnik (19:10.306)
Mm-hmm.
Jim Carlough (19:11.096)
but something else happened that I never expected.
About two years into this, I get a call from Human Resources, and they asked if they could come and visit with me. And this will resonate with your audience. And they sat down with me, and I said, how can I help you? And they said, well, we want to talk to you about your team in California. I said, OK. And they said, you're downsizing that team, right? I said, that's correct. And they said, OK, we don't understand something. I said, what's that?
Now we have 22,000 people working for this company. They said, well, about 90 days ago, we did an employee satisfaction survey and I went, crap, how bad is it? And they said, well, that's the challenge. Those people are the happiest people in the entire company and we don't understand it. Their job is going away. Why are they so happy? What are you doing? And I said,
I didn't know what to say to them. So I thought it was my responsibility to help them. And here are the three things I told them. And they just sat and looked at me. And they said, how did you come up with that? And I said, well, quite honestly, I thought, what would I want to hear from my manager if my job was going away? I would want to know how long do I have. I would want to know.
Is there any assistance for me or whatever? They were so impressed with what I had done, they made that the corporate policy for whenever we downsized any department in the future. And to me, I'm very proud of that fact that they were the happiest people considering the circumstances and that they stayed committed to the organization until it was their time to move on. And...
Jim Carlough (21:12.172)
I think only two people left the company. The rest stayed.
Daria Rudnik (21:15.96)
That is a great story. That is really a great story. we all hear that people are not leaving companies because of bad processes. They're living because of bad managers. We see that people are staying because of good managers. And I know if you remember during this layoff period a couple of years ago, we've seen lots of things over internet and we've seen lots of ways companies handling that from
Here is your AI bot to help you with anxiety because we fired you. Managers, HR leaders, being there online, looking for jobs for the people that had to go because of the, I mean, they just could not stay in the company, but they did everything to help them finding out a job. Looking for job openings, giving them recommendations, giving them training.
Jim Carlough (21:47.022)
you
Daria Rudnik (22:09.491)
lots of things to help them and support them through this transition period. So that's absolutely a great example of how companies should behave.
Jim Carlough (22:15.81)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of organizations offer outplacement service, but it's, and outplacement service is good and it has its place. But if the employee is trusting you as the leader and they believe in you, I think it's our job as leaders to help them as best we can. And if that means that somebody's going to leave the company, I want them to leave happy.
Daria Rudnik (22:38.967)
Mm-hmm.
Jim Carlough (22:43.936)
and be happy with the next job that they get. And I think that's important. I think that's part of my responsibility.
Daria Rudnik (22:53.067)
All right, so we have integrity, have compassion and empathy. What's next?
Jim Carlough (22:58.196)
Stability. And when I think stability, it is showing up the same way every day, despite the circumstances that we may be in. An employee will not feel psychologically safe if their leader or manager flies off the handle when something small goes wrong or gets overly excited and
isn't that same calming force regardless of the situation. So to me, stability is extremely important. I also have to see that in the employee. And I pride myself on being able to recognize when you come to work, if I'm sensing your morning has already started off poorly. If you walk in every morning with a cup of Starbucks coffee or any coffee,
and you're always smiling and tomorrow you come in and you've got your Starbucks coffee, but you're not smiling. Something's wrong. I need to do something to get involved, to figure out if there's something that I can do to help you. And that's what a leader should be doing. A leader should not be just sitting behind their door. I mean, to me that's leaders who just constantly have their door shut are not leaders.
Daria Rudnik (24:18.007)
Mm-hmm.
Jim Carlough (24:25.076)
You need to be able to hear what's going on. You need to be accessible. And a closed door shows that you're not interested in talking to your people.
Daria Rudnik (24:33.212)
Well, that's interesting how you do that when all your team is remote.
Jim Carlough (24:37.774)
Correct, correct.
Daria Rudnik (24:38.911)
You don't see, you don't see, you see a cup of coffee and smile.
Jim Carlough (24:43.406)
Correct, correct. It's very easy. And somebody asked me on a podcast one day, well, when does leadership start? And I said, when does it start? And they said, yeah, does it start when you get to the office? And I said, no, it starts when your feet hit the floor in the morning and you get out of bed. Because at any point from then onward, whether it's with your family or the people you interact with, you have an opportunity to inter...
to interject, intercede, and have a conversation. I know of a CEO at one time who used to park at the side of the building, enter a side entrance, and take a freight elevator up to their office so that they didn't have to interact with the employees. That's not what you do. I mean, I would interact with anybody. And...
In fact, my wife sometimes hates that when we go out and I'll walk up to people I don't know and I'll talk to them. But the reality is that's important. That's important. And not only with stability, but the next pillar, which is focus. We all have to be focused on the same goals and not waver from them. And if something is not going right, being able to identify that. And I'll give you an example that's not from me, but of Jeff Bezos of Amazon.
In Amazon's early days, after he moved out of working out of his garage into an office, that's how long ago we're talking. He, they had a terrible reputation for customer service. And he went to the head of the customer service department says, we have a problem and we have to fix it. And it is so bad. I just want you to know that I'm moving here, a desk down into the customer service department tomorrow. And I'm to report to that desk.
till I can figure out how to fix it. He was so focused on that because he knew he was the only one doing what he was doing. And if he wanted to expand to the way he's expanded, he had to fix that problem. And I think as the story goes, he sat in that department for six months, came out of that department, developed how they were gonna change, went back to the leader of that department and said, this is what we're going to implement. And they dramatically changed
Jim Carlough (27:09.282)
the perception of their service in the market, and it helped them with their trajectory northward.
Daria Rudnik (27:16.823)
It's great. I mean, I like this being where the problem is being where you need it the most. And I remember in one company I was working for, we had a HR business partners and those HR business partners, had their places like in HR department with all the HR people. But what they did, they actually changed their places and went to the business units that they were serving and they were sitting with them because that's where the problem is. So they kind of had two places, one leg in HR, one leg in...
in the units to really understand how they can be of help. How can they help things there? What's going on with all those people? So yeah, it's a great strategy.
Jim Carlough (27:57.464)
So the last pillar.
Daria Rudnik (27:59.193)
Mm-hmm.
Jim Carlough (28:01.23)
People always question it, but the last pillar is humor. But I don't mean being the comedian at the water cooler at 10 a.m. every morning telling all kinds of jokes. To me, I've used it as a strategic tool in certain situations. Number one, I'll always kick off a meeting with something humorous. Number two, if somebody's in disagreement and there's tension,
I'll use humor to diffuse the tension. If we're in a meeting and we're getting off topic, I'll use humor to bring the topic back to the center of the agenda. And those are strategic areas. And there's more where you can interject human, a human aspect of yourself through humor so that the people see that you're just like they are. And to me, it has worked wonderfully well.
And you don't have to be a comedian. You really don't. You don't have to get a book of jokes. In fact, today, society is so hypersensitive. Years ago, you could tease someone about the color of their hair. You can't do that anymore. So the humor I use is self-deprecating. Something stupid that I did, or something funny that I did, or that I can laugh at now that wasn't funny back then. And I have a lot of those that I can pull out of my memory banks to be able to
to tell people, but the purpose of it is to really level set with everybody and get them back to the task at hand or to dissolve the conflict. So humor is the one that generates the most interesting questions from people, but I think it's important enough to be a piece of the framework because again, we spent a lot of time with our coworkers.
Daria Rudnik (29:41.4)
Yeah, I love that.
Jim Carlough (29:57.184)
If we're not able to have fun with our coworkers, we're not going to be happy at our job. And so that's really where that comes from.
Daria Rudnik (30:04.726)
Mm-hmm.
Daria Rudnik (30:08.821)
And it's also about like being humble. Okay, you can make a joke about yourself and you show that you're not perfect. No one is perfect and it's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to make fun of yourself and it helps to build this emotional connection. So I really love this emotional humor part. And again, fun. Yeah, we've spent so much time at work. Let's have fun then. So that's a great
Jim Carlough (30:10.188)
minutes.
Jim Carlough (30:30.338)
Yeah, let's have fun.
Daria Rudnik (30:31.731)
It's a great framework. will be integrity, compassion, empathy, stability, focus and humor. And with that, you can grow as a leader you want to be. So I'm, yeah, I think your book is amazing describing those things and how leaders can build those qualities in themselves. And for those who listen to us, please still see the end because I know Jim has a surprise for you so that you make sure you want to hear that.
Yeah. I'd love to ask you some kind of personal rapid fire questions to get to know more about you as a person. Are you ready for that?
Jim Carlough (31:13.102)
I don't know, but let's go. We'll have fun with it either way.
Daria Rudnik (31:17.799)
Okay, so are you a tea person or a coffee person?
Jim Carlough (31:22.412)
Am I a web person?
Daria Rudnik (31:23.873)
Tea or coffee, tea person or coffee person? Do you come in the morning with a cup of tea or a cup of coffee?
Jim Carlough (31:30.316)
I don't have either. I have Coke Zero. Truthfully, I don't like the smell of coffee. And I know that's odd. There's a woman that used to work for me, actually at two different companies, her name's Leslie, and she would always walk in in the morning and she would always come in and sit down at my desk just to say good morning. And she always had her cup of Starbucks.
Daria Rudnik (31:32.106)
Okay. Wow.
All right, I don't have that.
it is.
Jim Carlough (31:59.99)
and she would put it in the center of the desk. And I would say, Leslie, and I know she did it as a joke, she knew I couldn't stand the smell of it. I said, can you please move that cup closer to you? I don't know why I dislike the smell so much, other than the fact that when I was young, a lot of my aunts and uncles would always come and visit. And they were always drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.
Daria Rudnik (32:27.618)
Okay.
Jim Carlough (32:28.474)
And the combination to this day, I don't like cigarette smoke, I'm not a smoker, and I don't like the smell of coffee. However, I will drink tea. Not frequently, but I would drink tea.
Daria Rudnik (32:44.663)
Do you like dogs or cats?
Jim Carlough (32:47.406)
Stop.
Daria Rudnik (32:49.889)
Would you rather take a message or a phone call?
Jim Carlough (32:54.914)
I'd rather take a phone call.
Daria Rudnik (32:59.467)
What did you want to be when you were a kid?
Jim Carlough (33:04.5)
I grew up in a very small town and the mail system, the postal service in this small town was delivered by mailmen who walked door to door. And at four years old, I used to walk with the mailman on his route. And one day he said to me, what do you want to do when you grow up? And I said, I want to be a mailman. He said, no, you don't.
No, you don't. You don't want to walk in the snow. You don't want to be out here in the rain. You don't want to be a mailman. And I said, OK. He said, what do you think you want to do? I said, I'm four years old. I don't know what I want to do. And he said, well, when you think of what you see on TV and what would you like to have? And I said, you know what? I'd like to have a big desk. And he said, a big desk? He said,
you need to be a lawyer. And I went through school telling everybody I was going to be a lawyer. I went to college and studied psychology because I knew that if I was going to be a lawyer, it would come in handy. It turns out it comes in handy with everything that I do. But I never went to law school.
Daria Rudnik (34:27.019)
But we still had a big desk, right?
Jim Carlough (34:29.304)
Correct. I had the goal. I opted out of going to law school because I wanted to make money and start to grow as an individual.
Daria Rudnik (34:41.047)
What's one rule that you've broken but don't regret?
Jim Carlough (34:49.815)
One rule that I've broken.
You know, when we ask the integrity question every night, I've never said yes to that question in all of these years. And to me, would be, if I had ever broke that, that would be a serious thing. One rule that I've broken, okay, I tend to drive faster than I should.
Daria Rudnik (35:09.815)
Mm-hmm.
Jim Carlough (35:21.71)
But I am not the type of person for those in the you so we have some wide roads in the US and people have this bad habit of being in the far left lane, which is the fast lane and then they go across four lanes in one dart to hit the exit and That drives me crazy. I am NOT that driver. I am NOT that driver But I do tend to drive
a little over the speed limit. Not Autobahn, not Autobahn speeds, not Autobahn speeds.
Daria Rudnik (35:54.205)
We all have flaws.
All right, Jim. Well, thank you so much. It was an incredible conversation. I loved learning about your framework. I know that you still have a surprise for our audience. But before that, please tell us how people can reach out to you, how people can find you and your book.
Jim Carlough (36:14.734)
So my book's available on Amazon. It's also available on Barnes and Noble. If you can't find it, I know you can get it Amazon around the world. I know you can get it on Amazon around the world, because it's set up to be able to be distributed. There's also an audio book that you can get from Amazon if you prefer an audio book or the Kindle version or whatever. I have a website. My name is on the screen. If you just push all those letters together and put dot com at the end.
You can get to my website, which will have information about the workshops that I do and some of the individual coaching things that I do as well as having information on the book and some free resources as well that people can download that don't cost any money. And so that's the best way to find me. I mentioned earlier that I believe in mentoring. I can't mentor any more people than I already am mentoring, especially when doing all these workshops.
But if you have trouble finding a mentor, shoot me an email through my website and tell me the problem you're having and I'll try to help you with some solutions on trying to find a mentor. And a mentor should not be your boss. It should not be your boss. It could be within the same company. It could be outside of the company, but you always have a mentor.
Daria Rudnik (37:23.278)
that is a very generous offer.
Mm-hmm.
Daria Rudnik (37:36.733)
And well, all the links to Jim's resources you can find in the notes to this episode. All right, so to the surprise.
Jim Carlough (37:45.504)
Okay, so because you put up with me for 30 some minutes, I'm offering to the first five people who comment on this episode, good or bad, on Daria's LinkedIn page when it's produced, I will send you a free copy of the ebook version of the book. So first five people will get the book for free. Now the price is about to go up on Amazon.
So you still will get it for free from me, but the first five people. Now, please don't put your email address in social media. I'll reach out to you separately to get your email address and then I'll send you the PDF version of the book. So.
Daria Rudnik (38:34.049)
Great. So make sure you go to Build by People Leaders LinkedIn page. You can find the link to it on my LinkedIn page. Like everywhere there'll be a link to this episode. So go there on the Build by People Leaders LinkedIn page, make a comment and Jim will send you a free copy of a book. I mean, I think that's very generous. Thank you so much, Jim. It was great having this conversation with you. I learned so much from your framework and I'm sure our audience.
Now people listening to it also learned a lot. If you like this episode, please give it a five-star review on Amazon, on Apple podcast, on Spotify, subscribe to YouTube channel and stay tuned for the next episodes. Bye-bye.