So the big question is this, how do recruiting leaders like us who have 12 to 15 other job responsibilities win at this game of recruiting? How do we build a system that allows us to recruit effectively in a minimal amount of time while motivating recruits towards meaningful change? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Richard Milligan and welcome to Recruiting Conversations.
Hey everybody, it’s your host richard milligan with the another recruiting conversation podcast welcome back and today’s a big day it’s the first day like we all have these cool beginnings in life where big things happen and i is my first day officially as a grandfather which is crazy because in my mind i’m way too young to be a papa or a pops or whatever the name is that they end up coming up with for me but today is that day and in the background you hear someone laughing and the person here laughing is the voice of someone that’s new to the podcast to this point it has only been me myself and i and i’ve been responsible for providing the entertainment value and the day is no longer just on me today you have a co-host and the co-host is our chief strategy officer at 4c recruiting his name is james dutton and ladies and gentlemen i give you james james welcome to the podcast yes sir it’s good to be here it’s an honor to be here especially we’ve been trying to figure out if we’re going to call richard grandfather grandpa pops wants pops i think it is the name like yeah i got a lot of gray hair but there’s just there’s a part of my brain that’s broken will always be a kid if we take this to an instant poll i think we might need to let the people decide on this one but i can’t no i’ve got to be oblivious to growing old but holding that little baby last night actually made me feel young all over i was like i remember this like six pounds 10 ounces like i remember when they were little it’s just a quick season they’re big you know but yeah it’s cool there’s a cool day i’m glad to have you on the podcast you’re just so that people know your role is going to be really guiding the conversations participating also and bringing some value from your experiences but you’re involved you’ve any conversations that i’m involved in you’re hearing you’re involved in those conversations you have value to bring and um i’ve been around you enough to know you have a ton of value to bring this audience as related specific to leadership there’s this intersection where leading and recruiting overlap we talk about on the podcast and um that intersection is a critical intersection because great leaders are great recruiters and a lot of people are highly focused on becoming a great recruiter first but i can teach you everything around recruiting and if you whiff on the leading part is a very short lived window where you’ll have success because you can’t entertain your people so true now absolutely and the one thing we’re going to be talking about today is we’re going to be understanding our why and i’ve had the opportunity and the honor of sitting under your voice quite a lot and hearing you unpack to different individuals who you’ve sat with coached and unpacked this idea to and especially i think it’s it’s kind it’s it’s i wouldn’t say ironic serendipitous um that you know you just had a you just had your first grandchild and one of the last conversations i heard you talk about um the why you talked about a grandfather passing away you talked about his life and what you experienced at a funeral and we get into that in a little bit later but um i’m just excited for your listeners to hear your take on why because i think not enough people they understand the what they understand the how they understand the who but there’s not this intrinsic motivator that they can pinpoint articulate or communicate very well even to themselves about why they’re getting out of bed in the morning why they’re doing what they’re doing why they’re investing money or time or resources in a particular place and so um i don’t think you really i don’t think your listeners know how excited they should be to hear you unpack this idea but um yeah i mean one thing hey how many all-nighters did you have in 2017. can i start well that’s a that’s a good place to start because this was probably three months ago i was in a conversation with a mega producer this guy is the one tenth of the one percenters in the industry that he’s in and i was coaching him i was in like the third coaching session with him and we were we were really working on identifying his core values uh really becoming formulating the vision for the next decade and identifying as why and as we’re having this conversation organically he just he just positively says can i ask you a question it’s like sure his question was what do you do when you can’t find motivation and um and immediately i knew when someone says that you can’t find motivation you have really you established a low bar for why you’re doing what you’re doing and it primarily almost always these conversations revolves around money and um and and essentially this guy had gotten recently gotten a seven figure sign-on bonus to leave one company go to another company is making over seven figures a year in the role that he’s in has a ton of money right i think most people think money is there it would identify money as their primary motivator here you have someone at the peak of what most people would think was his career and i knew i was asking that question what do you do when you can’t when you can’t find motivation and the way the conversation went was he admitted in in a conversation with me is that money has only been his motivator for the last year or even one of the major reasons why he left one company and went to another company because he was seeking seeking energy seeking a way to motivate himself to to become more to do more and that’s problematic for those people that don’t have big whys and i’ve been i’ve been in two seasons i’ve spent a big season in my career early on i was primarily motivated by money i was motivated by success you know i get to 2007 so in 2007 i was 34 years old i’d been in the i’d been in the corporate world from the beginning i went to six months of college left college i couldn’t handle uh classroom learning and begin my journey of self learning through following guys like zig ziglar jim rohn brian tracy les brown and then having success in my career but i get to 2000 2007 had the first major loss in my career and i can’t figure my way out of i’m frozen i’m literally in bed in those moments unsure i’m gonna get my feet out of out of the covers and onto the floor i’m that unmotivated and that was a season for me where my why became very clear and i don’t know that you have to go to a place where you’re losing everything financially and you’re in facing the worst failure of your life to come to that conclusion but that’s what it took for me and so i think it’s really important for people to identify this because being a recruiting leader if you’re listening to this podcast you’re most likely a recruiting leader we say this internally and you and i have had conversations around this a lot which is that we believe that the recruiting leader has the most difficult job inside any organization and it’s because they’re a professional juggler they’ve got 15 to 17 balls in the air at all time right if someone said put all of your real roles and responsibilities into a checklist they wouldn’t be able to have three to five people probably encompass what they’re actually doing and then we say you’re also a recruiter one of your primary roles and responsibilities and depending on the organization that can be up to six as much as 60 of your role is recruiting that’s a role in itself and so it’s a very difficult job you are going to get to these places where you’re stuck why am i doing this and if you’re not clear on this you will move away from this because it’ll be too hard that’s excellent i think that’s a great starting point what what have been some practical ways uh that you have kept your why in front of you or identified your why and then um i i believe you talked about a document that you keep on your desk um where you keep your specific why’s for your life your family your organization directly in front of you and so what i guess what would be great is is for us to help us understand a little bit how you identified your whys and then how you kept those in front of you so i do there’s 19 daily affirmations that i do i do them at the top of the morning how i start my day when i get up is i start with those daily affirmations and two of the first three are revolve around my big wise the the first three are in priority my wise jesus is first in my life i exist to serve and to glorify him number one i’m not playing for what’s here on earth i’m playing for eternity that’s a big part of my why so what it does is takes the focus off of the 80 years if i’m blessed i get 80 85 years here on earth and it focuses on the things that i’m doing will they last into eternity that’s number one i start there number two that i love my wife and i will lay down my life to serve her my second big why right that um that i want that relationship to identify um you know a big part of why i’m doing what i’m doing and so that allows me to not think about money not think about this immediate short-term win but think on bigger things like will lee and i be married for 50 years when i’m 80 years old and what will my family legacy look like and that takes me to my third affirmation which is that my children will love god and they will serve him with their whole hearts that i i will equip and empower them to do more for his kingdom than they can imagine and that’s my third part and so there you have it immediately those are my big three um that um that allow me to keep them focused every single day i come back to them over and over and over again now the second part you reference is is a wide document that i have which is an organizational document here why we do what we do and we’ve in the and i and in the beginning when i started 4c in 2017 i sat down and just said why will we do this and some of the things in that document are that you know relate to how we believe leaders create a butterfly effect that a leader impacts um someone underneath their care that impacts a child that impacts the spouse it impacts the community and so when we impact a leader one change can change everything we believe that and that’s a big part of our why and so we’ll fight for um you know some hard things in coaching some hard things in growing this business because our larger vision is to impact 10 000 recruiting leaders by the year 2027 in one year and so we’ll fight for those things because we know that when we do that that there’s a ripple effect that takes place so those are another part of that is i have an app called think up this would be the last part of this and if i was to play that app here on the podcast what you would hear is that i’ve recorded that why we do what we do which is a decent-sized document inside think up and every single day i listen to myself say why we do what we do go back to 2017 why would i why would i invest probably i didn’t count them exactly but it was somewhere between probably 12 and 20 all-nighters in 2017 to get this company jump started because i was very clear on why i was doing it i wasn’t doing it for me i was doing it for other people that’s right that’s a key part of it yeah i i i’m glad you said that because i didn’t want um everyone to miss that that if if you go back through your first three and then the vision for your company it’s other centric and i and i feel like that’s such an important thing to emphasize because the some of the most affluent wealthy influential individuals that i know are some of the most hollow unmotivated unsatisfied and unfulfilled individuals because they’re why if they even have the time to identify it has been about them have been self-aggrandization um putting together wealth or estates or titles or board shares or impact and ultimately reflect their legacy not for their children not for their wives not for their family name not for their children’s children which is what i’ve heard you say many times that a wise man leaves inheritance to his children’s children it’s talking about legacy and there’s something that there’s almost like there’s almost like a piece of motivation that can’t be tapped into i don’t know if this is god’s economy or the way he set this up but there’s almost a piece of internal motivator that you can’t tap into when it’s just about you um there’s something that’s deeper richer more fuller that comes from identifying motivations that are centered around how you benefit and impact those around you and you went multiple levels you went you went your family you went your community and then you went eternal right and so there’s a way to look at your framework of life which is what you’re illustrating what i’m hearing where it’s your why is not just about amassing wealth for the sake of amassing wealth for your individual person but in fact you have a duty you have a calling you have a purpose and the why behind that is your residue your impact on the individuals who have been entrusted to you there’s been so for people who are listening you’re some of you are a father a mother a son a daughter a husband a wife and the reality of it is that there’s somebody in your life who needs what you have to offer and there is a duty there is a responsibility and it comes with great weight that you have to bear which turns into a wide understanding that there are these people in your life who have been placed there for a reason on purpose for a purpose and your why impacts not just you it’s not about you and i think one the sooner we can get over that it’s not actually about us about those around us i think the why becomes a lot easier to identify and apply but anyways um i will let me down i have no problem with letting me down i have no problem not making the date on a project i have no problem eating chocolate cake instead of working instead of a protein shake and working out it’s like you know that i will let me down but i will when i look in the face of my kids and you’ve heard me say this before is that i’m a first generation wealth builder and i say that on purpose that’s an identity that i’m assuming because i come from a place of poverty generational poverty i’m breaking that in this generation that’s part of my why right has nothing to do with me what i hand to my kids when i leave right um is part of that legacy piece and for leaders you got to get clear here and this is the only way you do this james is by fighting for it like we’re drowning in noise today right we see they say we see an average american season worth five thousand ads thank you social media if you look inside every second or third post you’re seeing an ad um my phone from cold calling you know bots calling me goes off non-stop my text messaging goes off non-stop my my linkedin messaging goes off non-stop right it’s like we’re drowning in that noise today a leader cannot get clear on their larger purpose their intrinsic motivators okay by setting in that space you have to get out of that space a leader that i coach she literally found a location put two leaders on a plane set them in a cabin in the woods for three days because she wanted them to clear on their vision one of them to get clear on their why one of them be clear on their core values wow that you have to do some weird wild things like that because what is normal today is all of this noise that we set in unnormal is getting outside of that and saying what do i want the end to look like right and that’s really it go all the way to the end what do i want to look like when people are standing at the microphone at my funeral what do i want that to look like and that for me and you know the story that has been an impactful moment for me an epiphany for me which is that i you know about a decade ago um i left a funeral and i was just broken and it was i didn’t even i’d never i take that back i think maybe once or twice met the individual at the funeral i was there because i was closely connected to someone who was a family member and this was a 80-some-year-old grandfather that had died and people they did an open mic people and they asked this large audience there was i don’t know three or four hundred people at this funeral they asked this large audience to anyone that has a story they want to share with the family or with friends please get up to the mic only a couple of people got up and the stories they shared were were surface stories at best like you know he loved to cook shotgun biscuits like that was one of the stories and wow and and i just left that um i left that funeral and my wife leah was there with me i looked at her i just said i just feel empty like like that’s the end like we get to the end we’re 80 something years old and that’s the end that’s our legacy that’s what we leave to people and i just vowed a decade ago that that my funeral would have a line out the door and and i’m living my life in a way that um that that will take place because and it’s not about me right it’s not about i won’t even be there when it happens but it’s a framework a clear framework that when i’m not here what does that line look like and that will motivate me to think beyond like the next dollar that i earn because a lot of people will do anything to earn the next dollar to get the next client you got to think bigger than that and that is a visionary approach you know visioneers what they do is they look up they look at the horizon they look out long distances most people are very goal not future-centered uh think about it in jesus terms jesus said i must be about my father’s business he knew the life that he was living he’d read the prophecies yeah right he knew what the life that he was living he knew the end what it was going how it was going to take place and he knew what he was doing was about his father’s business and so for us as leaders getting clear on what business we are about is critical in making the sacrifice that is a cost to us it’s an emotional cost a time cost a physical cost right we do these things at our own expense for other people right that’s why jesus is the great visioneer when i think and i think just on that note is that if you look at his life ultimately i mean he wasn’t he wasn’t living for him he was living for everybody around him and then into eternity it was the same principle and so the greatest litter literally the greatest leader in history lived his life to benefit others and those around him and then his legacy was impact generation after generation into all time and so one thing i’ve heard you say multiple times is that you can do anyhow when you’re clear on the y and i know we don’t have too much more time left and so i just wanted um to revisit the the fact that there’s it’s so easy to get bogged down in the how or the what or the who but all of those all of those are secondary all of those are are after the fact and i think there’s going to be one i just encourage whoever’s listening right now when you get done to take a moment don’t rush into the next thing richard was talking about being connected 5000 apps you get 168 characters you got phone calls text messages multiple different notifications popping off you have technology companies who are a lot smarter than you and wiser than you and more affluent than you who have invested in keeping you distracted so much information and really really difficult to identify truth and so when you get done i would encourage you to stop and reflect on what’s been said here and ask the question do i know my why my how is difficult right now potentially for some of you out there my how or my what maybe my who my relationship you might have forgotten why i’m doing this job or why i’m in this relationship and or you haven’t identified in the first place and so my encouragement to you is to either listen to this again and then sit in silence but reflect on what’s been said here because this the application of this on a micro and macro level can pivot the entire trajectory of your life and very well should and very well should but um yeah i think you gotta you gotta think uh you gotta have to go against the grain right of what is normal what’s normal i’m sitting in the noise i went to nashville tennessee rented a house on airbnb sat all with the house backed up to the cumberland river on the way to the house stopped at staples and picked up a big thick pad of this white sticky white uh paper when i got that house i took the photos down i lined the walls with it that’s a little bit weird people would have come in that moment they’ve been like where’s where’s the medicine that richard was supposed to take right and and went through this process and this process is what what’s everything that is in my heart that i want to accomplish i went through that i just dreamed what i want the future to look like what i who do i want to impact um you know where do i want to take this business specifically in that season was why i did it right and i went all the way to the end and created the framework what does it look like in the end and then i began to work back to the beginning and so the process was i got everything out because they’re the leaders listening to this podcast have dreams in their heart that no one else has right like your your dream is unique to you right and if you don’t facilitate that dream which is going to be hard right like uh i once heard a great leader say that anything worth having in this life you will have to fight for it your dream whatever that dream is that’s in your heart is not going to be easy it will be difficult the way will be difficult the obstacle is the way right so so you’ve got to start with this piece otherwise you will never accomplish the dream and a lot of people start with the dream and say what’s that goal is to get there there’s not enough motivation right and if it’s big enough like one year fine but this was a 10 year vision right i was sitting in a closet at my house with a plan to to to impact 10 000 leaders specific to recruiting leaders right that was going to be hard i knew it was going to be hard i had to get real clear on the why otherwise i had no chance at seeing this through and as leaders you have no chance whatever your big thing is you got no chance of seeing that through if you don’t start here get clear here you listened to and part of what teed this up for us here in the last five minutes was a conversation with a couple leaders that i’ve been coaching and um you want to give them the framework for that kind of how you saw that conversation i mean i thought it i mean i thought it was excellent because it was a conversation that um could have been perceived as offensive um if if it wasn’t viewed through the eyes of improvement or the eyes of the future but it started with richard kind of assessing where they’re at and how much time they spend and specifically is this situation recruiting um and where if they had that rank they’re on a scale of one to ten where did their motivation land and some were like they had some reasons and they were good that there’s this season life wasn’t allowing for them to be as committed and they said you know a three um you know or if i think i think both of them were three or three or four and and richard stopped the conversation and it became it became not about uh improving them as recruiters he said you don’t have strong motivators and it sounds like you don’t understand why you’re doing what you’re doing specifically in recruiting in that area but this is so applicable what he dove into principles are applicable and they’re timeless right so they can be they they can be form fit into any given situation um if they’re based in truth and this is i think one of the most phenomenal intrinsic important foundational truths that anybody could put their hands on and we move past it because a lot of things are louder and a lot of things are more and for them louder was personal production what for them louder was the numbers at the end of the month that resulted in how much was coming into their bank account it was an investment into a greater why it wasn’t seeds planted for a later harvest it was i got to get this done because this is my bottom line and so right there you go back to it their their motivation was money and and you could hear almost it was a it was a decaffeinated recanting of where they are at in life or what was taking place it just there was no oomph there was no go there was no rev there was no red line it was almost the disposition of which as many men is just kind of a shrug living and and it sounded like kind of just silent desperation in this area like i don’t know but i’m doing it still and not picking on him just reality of i’ve been there i know richard you’ve been there there’s been many people who have been there and it was very difficult for them to identify and richard just went into unpacking the framework of end to beginning and understanding your why personally who you impact what what your future looks like and being able to communicate it and richard was able and one thing that they said that was i thought was interesting they said they said you were able to uh you have incredible recall on that and then and then regurgitate it on command how do you do that and really richardson was like well essentially i live here wise can’t be a a something that it’s just a singularity this can’t be something that’s that’s one time it sounds like a good idea so you’ll write this podcast on a sticky note put it on your wall and hope that it changes your life it’s not rich is talking about retreats he’s talking about removing himself from his normal environment being intentional about changing his surroundings making maybe sacrifice in his schedule sacrifice monetarily no one was paying him to go put up these white sheets on on a cabin wall anywhere he was doing that of his own volition i did something similar where i literally was in a time and place where i needed to understand my why and i went out into the wilderness with a packet with a case of water and a hammock okay and just hit the reset button because it was difficult with all of the with all of the stimuli and all of the input and all the opinion and all of the right all the things taking place in my life it was difficult for me to find stasis and my true north so i had to remove myself and and i think i feel like we’ve lost the art of solitude and finding um the ability to hear uh whether if you’re a man of women of faith hearing the voice of the holy spirit hearing your own internal dialogue that’s not melded with somebody else’s and being able to say okay i’ve been doing this for a long time why am i doing this and what’s next and if i don’t you know we’ve lost this is what we’ve lost james we’ve lost desire yeah it’s so real right desire like desire um is a it’s a it’s an interesting thing because it can take you to great places and dark places but it drives you there right a little desire will drive you there and when you get clear on why you’re doing what you’re doing in a larger lifetime framework right desire exists yeah and most people what they don’t have is desire money will only provide so much desire it only provides so much freedom so much convenience so much beauty so much it only provides so much and there’s an end to that and there has to be more and and so what lacks at the end of money is the ability to motivate yourself which is desire and that’s why going external versus internal in terms of like me myself and i external what about my spouse what about my family what about my community um i have a you using this i’ve got in this in this desk in front of me i have a packet of 46 kids that are orphans in uganda that all have um a story and and we as an organization we support that mission and that’s another part of that why why would you work so hard why would you sacrifice yourself why would desire and that desire that desire is a holy desire right not a self-centered desire and so as leaders this is something you’ve got to fight for yeah you gotta be intentional about it we’re not coming as on the timing of this is perfect this podcast is gonna kick off about mid-december you got the end of the year coming um no better time than to take that window time between christmas and new year’s to carve out some space because most businesses slow down in that season to find a a moment in time where you can truly take it from what’s in your heart and your mind and click a pen and pull out a piece of paper and begin to dream and to begin thinking about the future because something will happen in that space when you meet yourself in that space something will happen and then you have to fight not just for the idea on the piece of paper but for more clarity more clarity refinement of the idea right yes why can i say jesus is first in my life i exist to serve and glorify him i love my wife i’ll lay down my life to serve her by children will love god we’ll serve them with all hearts our nurture equip and empower them do more for his kingdom than they can imagine because i have refined that yeah right it’s not on a piece of paper anymore it’s ingrained and you sit there and you fought for it yep the fight did not end when you wrote it on the paper beginning thousands that was the beginning that was that was the planting the seed in the ground that was not the harvest when you identified it was you had to fight for it and you continued to do so and the fruit came later that’s a good word that’s a good word to end it on we’re um i’ve got a couple seconds here before i got to jump in another meeting james this has been great it’s easier doing this with you thank you i’d love to hear that it is the conjure of a podcast me myself and i and to bring energy i was listening to yours and i was like he’s this is good but he’s he like yeah you just need i think it’s just that being able to bounce and then synergize and your thoughts and then they sprout off into different so yeah i love it thanks for helping with this thanks for bringing a value can’t wait to record the next one and we will be back with another recruiting conversations to co-host next time i’ll still introduce you i don’t have to introduce you as much it’ll be the richard and james co-hosting the next podcast i can’t wait until we see until we talk to you again or you see this video we’ll see you again on the next podcast have a great week everybody
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