TOMS shoes, Lululemon, Virgin, & Southwest Airlines | The Methods Behind Their Success (with Jackie Freiberg)

Audio Transcription

How does southwest airlines continue to stand alone as one of the only consistent profitable airlines when most commercial airlines lose money year after year and then inevitably gets subsidized by the government? What are the systems and processes that Tom’s shoes, Lulu, limit virgin in southwest airlines, use to build trust with consumers, employees all while enriching the lives of the people around them? Why do women control 86 percent of the US economy? And how can we benefit from this knowledge? As an entrepreneur, what are 73 percent of consumers willing to recommend companies that stand for something meaningful and why does Bruce Bocce the three time world series winning manager for the San Francisco giants? Recruit athletes in baseball players based upon attitude, and not just skill all this and much, much more. With our interview with New York Times bestselling author Jackie Freiberg,

Welcome back to another mind expanding, expanding time show on your radio and podcast download. Now, on today’s show, we’re interviewing Jackie Freiberg, who’s Jackie Freiberg. Well, I was first introduced to the work of Jackie and her husband, Kevin, in 2005 when the president and CEO of the 11 point $5 billion dollar company, convenient store chain known as quick trip, recommended that I read the book nuts, the head of a massive convenience store chain called Quiktrip, told me that he benchmarks against southwest airlines and that I, as the founder of the nation’s largest wedding entertainment company, needed to read Jackie Freiberg book, nuts, southwest airlines, crazy recipe for business and personal success to scale. I left confused. I didn’t know why he would recommend this book. I read the book. It changed my life. Jackie Freiberg, welcome onto the show. How are you?

I’m terrific. I’m even better now that I know that one of our books changed a life or maybe a couple of lives. That’s great.

I have an incredible wife of 17 years and five kids so I can. I can verify there are six lives changed in our companies now employ hundreds of employees and I could definitely tell you we would not have scaled without the knowledge in your book. So I have to ask you, what inspired you to devote so much time to research southwest airlines?

Well, I’ll tell you, um, my husband first stumbled upon herb Kelleher during his master’s thesis and I’m actually learned about the, his leadership style and the incredible difference at southwest airlines was making in the industry in terms of leadership, service, innovation, employee engagement before they were even calling it that. Um, and he thought, man, we got to take a deeper longer look here. And so he ended up writing a doctoral dissertation on herb Kelleher as a transformational leader. And then in watching him do his research, I realized that there was something far more powerful. Although herb is a remarkable, remarkable leader, I realized there was something way more powerful than just one man at the top of a corporate hierarchy who is affecting change in an industry and an accompany and in people’s lives. And so I went back to do my dissertation there and so both of us spent lots of time and energy, dedicating ourselves, your shift, their service strategy, how they’ve innovated, and we wrote dissertations and realized no one would ever read them, but the information in them about a company that was a benchmark for others was really valuable. So that’s what caused us to want to write the book, not. And it launched and became an international best seller.

It is a phenomenal book. And I, I mean this thrive nation, it’s on my bookshelf. I’ve read the book. My uncle flew for southwest airlines. John Tune, he retired, was a southwest airlines pilot and I started realizing in that book the book says at Southwest Airlines a jacket you identified, they only fly 7:37. And I thought to myself, my Dj Entertainment Company, I have all these different kinds of speakers and brands. I need to only fly pioneer dual deck does CD players. I, I only need to use the same speakers. And I’m going, oh, that’s good, that’s good. And then you start talking about the merit based pay. We started talking about there’s a lady in the, in the book you talked about who a, I believe she removed the logo, she sued, she suggested removing the logo from the trash bags, from the trash bags to save money and talking about employee innovation and it was just, it was so good. When you finished writing that book, how did you, how did you know you were done? Because I feel like there was, I mean it was such, so, so well researched. How do you decide that the book was ready to put out there? It is so good. It was so good.

Oh, that’s a great question. It was hard because there were countless stories and um, countless examples that were left on the editing room floor. I’ll tell you if there’s anything that the fibroids are guilty of, its overwriting and editors have, you know, have really their guests when they work with us because they’ve helped us see what really is most valuable and we have a tendency to tell, you know, we make a point and then we want that point to be exemplified through three different examples. And the editor will say, choose the one that makes the biggest bang. So that’s what we had kids,

the nerds out there. I appreciate all the case studies, all the examples your books read. I mean, so many times when you hear a case study, you go, oh, this is going to be boring. It’s just, it felt like I worked for southwest airlines. The level of detail. Do you have like a certain. I mean, do you, do you sort of have a certain process or a certain because your books are so easy to read, do you have a certain author hero that you look up to and say it has to be better than that before we. Before we, before we released the book? Or what’s kind of your criteria before you say we’re done?

Um, you know, I think what we’ve done in going into any book project is we never just hear about a company and then read something about that company and then rewrite about that company. Our strategy, the entire, you know, 30 years that we’ve been doing this is really if we’re gonna, if we’re gonna write about someone they have to have a longterm or some company, they have to have a long term track record. They can’t be like the latest and the greatest, the new up and coming. We want it to have a track record of longterm profitability, not just profitability but giving back to people performance and profit and purpose. Um, so, so we’re looking for that and then we go in and we, we pretty much start with a grounded based approach to writing where we let the story itself speak to us. We don’t go in with any sort of thesis about this is what we’re going to find and we’re going to look really hard to make sure we can record it. We go in and say, tell us about your service strategy. Tell us why you only fly one airplane. Tell us why you wanted to dominate this guys, tell us what caused you to go, you know, three different rounds to the supreme court. Tell us a bit about those things. And when someone tells a story, you can mind incredible gifts and incredible nuggets and learning and lessons and strategies from a story. And people will remember a story way more than they’ll remember a series of bullet points.

Oh, you, you’re, you’re, you’re such a good author and you’re a great interviewee that I can’t handle it. Okay. So now you’ve written seven books that I know about. Um, when, when did you first decide to become an author?

Oh, you know, I don’t think it was ever. I can’t tell you that I had a direct north star that said, you know, I want to be an author. I want to be a bestselling author. That was never the case. The case was really. We started investigating, learning, stretching, growing our mind about this thing called through master’s degree and, and through a doctoral degree. And you know, the more we started reading and learning about what is leadership and who exercise and crept, who exercises, incredible leadership and who’s toxic as a boss and sex, the life and energy out of people. And, and how do we come up with really vivid. I’m awakening, enriching examples of that and I think what happened is the more we started looking at organizations and then again getting to know people at a relational level, what would happen is we’d be so inspired by, like you said, the life they live, the impact that they have, that we’ve said our stories and our books emanate out of our own life lessons, places and times when we’ve just screwed up royally and places and times when people have shared where they’ve done the same.

And then on the other places and times where we’ve just succeeded and it’s not necessarily by luck. Oftentimes it’s by your APP, you’re in the right place with the right people at the right time and you choose to say let’s go. And um, that’s, that’s really what caused us to want to write and then share those writings. And people I think are hungry for stories that don’t push stuff, Adam and don’t try and sell stuff to him, but in essence give them a lesson that could enrich their life and make them better, draw them up to a better place. So that’s really how it happened. It happened serendipitously, not necessarily as a, I want to be an author.

When you write a book, when you and Kevin write a book, you do exhaustive research and you really dig down deep to get all the facts, statistics, the data stories, every time it’s facts, statistics, data stories. It’s so good and it’s a tapestry of some people who can’t learn unless there’s a statistic. They love your books. The people that want case studies. Love your books. The stories at all. Where did you first get the inspiration to write one of your newest books, a bocce ball, the chemistry of winning and losing and baseball business in life, or where did that inspiration come from?

Well, um, thanks for asking. I think it goes right back to what I just said and we’ve had a 24 year relationship with Bruce Bocce and um, he, he started managing the San Diego padres. And when he came into town, a friend of a friend connected both to my husband and boats were saying, look, I’ve been a catcher. I had been a ball player. Now I’m going to manage and I know I have to be in front of the media and this new management coach role and I know I can get coaching to become better. So he’s a coach who believes in coaching and so my husband pushed back on him and said, look, boats, if you want to be, if you’re serious about this, then we’ve got a with the Marine Corps where we teach marines how to give speeches and if you want to go through the Marine Corps speech training with our team and prove that you’re serious about this, then we’ll consider, you know, working with you in both being a player.

I mean, seriously. That is figurative and symbolic and literal. Um, he said, yeah, I’m in. So butch went through the Marine Corps speech training and rock did. He had to give a speech. Why? I love the why I love the ball club, what, what my job is in the ball club to be in a ballplayer. And then an anger speech around that. In that you do you do five speeches in two days in front of a video camera in front of military instructors and in front of someone like me, a civilian instructor, and he did it and from that point on we realized, man, this is a guy who wants to learn how to speak. He wants to learn how to coach even more than he already knows how he wants to know how to play. He wants to know how to lead and he and the journey that we’ve been on with him from the back seat watching, he is a remarkable leader in baseball. And we thought, wow, a lot of people want to learn about leadership from business, but what could we learn from a champion in baseball that could translate into business and in life? And so the Bocce Ball, the, you know, all about winning, losing and business baseball in life.

No, I don’t. I don’t expect you to. Cyber Stalk me to the green, to the degree that I. Cyber Stalk you, but I would say this in preparation for interviews and then just in this case, I, I, I honestly, I mean you’re like an answer to prayer. Your, your, your books are so good, but the way that your, your book, if somebody says, Gosh, I just, I struggle sometimes with case studies. If you look at Bocce Ball, if you open the book up, there’s a lot of pictures in there. The way you right now, it’s very visual. It’s visually attractive. I mean, I know it’s an intentional change. It is now very culturally relevant. It’s very fluent. The way you’re writing it feels like I’m reading a magazine, but it’s deeper than that. Can you explain the way the book is laid out? Because I think everybody, if you’re listening today, come on, it’s the holidays. Thrive nation. You know what I’m talking about? We’re headed into the holidays. You know somebody in your life who loves the game of baseball and you’re going, okay, what do I get this person? Can you explain how the book bocce balls laid out?

Yeah, it’s laid out. You know, we’ve got all kinds of innings and um, it really does speak to the whole concept of what does it take to be a winner in. Again, baseball is sort of the backdrop, but it’s really we’re borrowing. We have 30 years that we have accumulated of business content. What does it make to make your business or what does it take to make your business thrive? And we think it takes character. You have to choose the right people or in baseball, the right players. And it also takes, it also takes culture. Um, and so that means not only do you have to choose the right characters and the right players and the right people and the members of your team, but you have to make sure that they’re fit for your culture and you can’t force them into being a fit.

You have to make sure that they truly are. I’m a fit and they gel and there’s chemistry among them. And thus chemistry, where what does it take to create a draw for the right characters who are then willing to work together to create the right culture, who were then willing to play together to create the right kind of chemistry so that you can in fact become champions. And although the San Francisco giants were not champions this year or last year, they were champions three years, every other year, 12, 14 and 16. That was remarkable. And she had a team. He didn’t have the biggest, you know, payroll, like, like the couple of the teams that were in the series this year.

No, he had A. I’m a big fan of the New England patriots and I would argue that bill bellacheck and Mr Bocce share the similar values. And as I unpacked the book, it’s, you know, talent sets the tone really sets the floor. But character is the ceiling and that book is just, it’s such a good book. And you know, a clay stairs, just a little commercial for clay clay as a former school teacher, he was an award winning teacher and then he decided to become an entrepreneur after running a camp and it was called shepherds fold and he’s gone on to become a millionaire entrepreneur. And Clay. You worked with a lot of entrepreneurs say that really struggled to recruit good people. Yes. Do you have any. Do you have a question for Jackie about this? Because you’re in the trenches every day working with real entrepreneurs as it relates to recruiting the right people because Jackie’s the expert.

You’ve got the questions. Oh Wow. Okay. Jackie, again, thank you so much for being on the show today and is a real honor to be able to talk with you about some of these questions. But, but yeah, I just today I was talking with one of my clients in North Carolina who has been struggling with finding the right people. We have a system that we walk people down to help them find, uh, the right people that fit in their company. But I was getting some real pushback from this client when I was talking about fit in front of talent in skill and uh, you know, the whole idea of higher character trained skill and he’s going to clay, I don’t think you fully understand my company and Blah, blah, Blah at how, what language could I use with this client or even when I do send this podcast to this client. Oh, nice. You talked about about it kind of support this idea of higher character and train skill. Look for that fit. I love the three words that you have here, this character culture and chemistry of as if you were talking to him, what would you say?

I would say, um, maybe the language that could resonate a little better or be more impactful for him would be hire for attitude and train for skill because characters sometimes is, wait, what do you mean by what are those character virtues are? And I would, I would say, look at Your Business and say what are the attitudes that are going to be reflective of your play at the top of your game player or, or employee who, who on your team currently plays at the top of their game. They’re all in. They bring the right skill and the right attitude, I would say do a profile on those individuals for the job and the requirements and responsibilities that you’re looking for. And then what I would do is I would say, look, in the bigger scheme of things, you can actually train people to, um, to do the house, the skills of the job, but training people to take on and bring the right mindset, the right go for it attitude, the right risk, um, you know, fast and move on attitude, whatever it is you’re looking for, the right service attitude, the right drive, cost out attitude, whatever it happens to be.

Hiring for that is, is, is more, is more difficult. But if you can hire for attitude, you can pretty much train any kind of skill into someone. And, and I, I would use southwest as an example because southwest’s book, they would say, even with pilots, there are certain skill requirements that are required when you come to fly one of their 7:37. Do you already know because of the type rating that you have been going into the interview, southwest knows they can fly the heck out of that seven, 37, they just can’t. But regardless of the skillset that they come in with, then southwest says, if you can fly that airplane better or as good as anybody else out there, do, you also bring the right kind of service spirit to southwest airlines, to the colleagues that you’re going to be working with and to the customers that you’re going to be serving. So they would do attitude, no screenings as well. And that’s what I would ask.

Challenge your colleagues to try and do attitude. I want to pile on your jacket. You would like the story. My uncle John tune retired as a pilot after, I believe, I believe he flew for 30 years of southwest airlines. One of the first pilots, they had former navy guy by the way, and he had this routine. He did. I was, I was attending a wedding reception for my cousins and uh, he and some former southwest airlines pilots through all these buddies, they hopped on the mic and they do this Hans and Franz routine and Jack your account or attempt to imitate it. But this is what they do whenever they have a rough landing, you know, when they land because of turbulence, they hop on the mic and they would say this, ladies and gentlemen, we apologize off with a rough landing.

We do not, not allowed. It is not the planes vault, it is the asphalt.

And they would do that. And I’m going, no way because I wasn’t super familiar with southwest airlines at the time before reading your book. And then I saw a flight attendant one time that saying the flight announcements and I’m going, what is happening here? Because I grew up, I didn’t have money growing up. You know what I mean? So I wasn’t on a lot of planes. You know what I’m going, is this normal? Then I go on like united or Delta, other airlines, no one’s singing. I get a lot of. They’re very serious, very focused, very focused on. Oh yeah. Can you, can you, can you just educate us about this? This is so powerful. Hiring for attitude over skill. Yeah, this is great.

Well, and I think part of what you can do is you can, you can actually that that through. There’s a system that’s a super, super simple. I mean I like to use simple models because there’s so many things up in my head. I can’t keep, keep track of everything. So there’s a star interview model that you can use where you as the interviewer are going to ask someone you know, what’s the situation at hand and you know, they, they might give them a, you know, whatever attitude they’re looking for. Hey, I’m looking for how you have risen above a difficult situation in your job in the past. And then you say, describe the situation, define it and describe it for me. Describe which is then described the t the task that was at hand. Okay. So what did you have tuition? Who were you dealing with and then describe the action, the action that you as the individual actually took, and then you described the R, which is the result of that and you’re going to help. You’re going to get at. That’s a past past behavior that’s going to help us figure out what future performance is going to be like as well. So any attitude that you’re looking for, come up with a question you could ask that would get the candidate to talk about something or some attitude that they either deployed or to utilize in a situation similar to some situation that they might be in, in your own new position, so to speak.

That is so god in you. You. The thing about you, Jackie is wicked. Go so deep on so many topics and for sake of time I want to. I want to talk about this book cause a business strategy for standing out in a sea of sameness. I I’ll repeat cause a business strategy for standing out in a sea of sameness. We’d recently interviewed Seth Godin, one of my friends, and a great art, great author, and Seth wrote, obviously the book called Purple Cow. I’ll do another book, purple cow, how to stand out in a crowded marketplace, but I feel like your book cause really takes this idea of standing out to the next level. Could you share with our listeners what the book cause is all about at its core?

Yeah. It’s really about the fact that these days, in order to be an employer of choice, in order to be a brand of choice, in order to be a service or a product of choice, what you have to do is you must not just be an organization that is profitable, but people also want to work with organizations that are purpose driven. Um, Edelman trust barometer that measures all things that are important to people all over the world and also in our country. Um, does this annual trust barometer and all kinds of different categories. And what they discovered is they actually asked Middle America, the average person in our country, who do you think is most equipped to solve our societal challenges? The social problems that we’re up against today and likely to be up against for a long time in the future. And do you think it’s business or do you think it’s government and hands down, 80 percent of the people surveyed said absolutely it’s business, but they didn’t.

They said it’s not just any business. It’s businesses that are profitable and business purpose as well. So mission cause driven businesses. And look, most businesses these days do something in the space of sustainability. Do something in the space of, you know, social services back out or philanthropy or give backs. Um, if you’re not bragging about it, if you’re not talking about it, if you’re not finding a way in your own words, did space within your industry to attach the work you do to some purpose or some cause that enriches lives. People will choose to work for the business that does and people will choose to do business with the business. That does because when we worked for those companies, it makes us feel better about our contribution. And when we buy and connect and engage with those companies, it makes us feel better about our spending and ourselves.

Okay. Let’s repeat that. Just so many knowledge bombs. I’m going to try to break them down, but I’ll quickly. I have to hit my knowledge bomb button here and then I have to go. Harry Carey.

Oh, oh.

And then I need some more cowbell here to get together. Somebody at my callback. Okay. So let me break it down. So Tom’s shoes, Lululemon, virgin, southwest airlines. Your saying employees would rather work there because they give back. They’ve attached themselves to some kind of. Cause that’s not just about our overall caused. Our overall mission is to make copious amounts of money so I can buy new things. I mean they have a bigger cost, something huge. I’d like to go one by one if I can. Toms shoes. For the listeners out there that aren’t as familiar with toms shoes, how, what are, what are, what is their mission? What is there? How were they able to build trust consumers, employees, and, and give back to benefit others?

Well, they’re, they’re known for the one for one program, so you either buy a pair of shoes, you buy a pair of glasses and they’re into so many different products now, but if you buy one another product in that same space is donated to a person in a country or in a place that can afford that. So people who are who perhaps are migrant workers who sunglasses. We’ll get a pair of glasses if you buy a pair of toms glasses. People who are in remote locations and villages where they can’t afford shoes but not wearing shoes, makes them susceptible to diseases that will literally kill them. And when they don’t wear shoes and don’t have shoes, they cannot go to school. So when you buy a pair of toms shoes, you know that there is another pair of donated to a person who now can wear shoes and perhaps go to school, get an education and be free from disease and more healthy and well.

So when we spend $100 for a pair of shoes, we think it’s super cool because we first liked the shoes, but even as important. We love the fact that in buying that shoe, we’ve given a shoe to someone else or buying those glasses. We’ve given a pair of glasses to someone who couldn’t necessarily afford them, so it makes us feel better about that purchase. So again, and people who work there say, man, when I go to work every day all day and I’m donate, not donating, but I’m, I’m giving, I’m sharing, I’m contributing my gifts, my ideas, my talent. I know that at the end of the day I didn’t. I didn’t just make profit for the business and make my job more secure, but shoot, I had an impact on countless lives who couldn’t have shoes or have glasses or have things that we provide for them in our one for one program

at clay stairs. I thought about, I thought about what will be the most articulate way to ask Jackie Freiberg this next question. So this is kind of the most articulate. And again, I’m kind of like a. If you look at me, my partner and I, we’ve been blessed. We built 13 multimillion dollar companies as a result of shamelessly implementing systems found in your, in your books, but I’m kind of like a billy madison of life, but this is, this is how I look at it. A lot of listeners go, uh, I just feel like there might be a lot of woo woo crap out there. He does a lot of woo woo crap,Jackie Freiberg. Woo, Woo, Woo, Woo, Woo Woo. And your book is. Your books are not written that way. They’re very specific. They’re very processed, driven, very checklist driven, very actionable. So I’d like for you to give the listeners an example like what’s this? Talk About Lulu limit because your book again cause you talk about Tom Shoes. Lulu, lemon, Virgin Airlines. Let’s, let’s, let’s talk about Lulu Lemon. How does Lulu Lemon engage and build, build, build trust with their employees, with their customers, by enriching the lives of people in need us some good. Like my daughter, my daughter loves this store. She does, yeah. All women do.

Yeah, and I think the thing about Lulu Lemon honestly is you either love them or you hate them. There’s no real gray area between the leverage of Menhaden, um, but I would tell you that, you know, for they attract, um, a, a very healthy, a very active group of employees, people who are either dancers, people who are yoga people, people who are, you know, um, riders, runners at all that, that kind of stuff. And so the people that go to work for them already loved their brand and their brand and then they’re wearing their brand on the floor. And so they’re kind of their models throughout the store. Lulu Lemon is attracting customers who want that lifestyle and the more they were and engage in that, that a clothing line, they feel more ready and more comfortable in west thing. And then they have these chalkboards that actually create communities.

You can do yoga at you move, you can learn about what the next big run is there that you can partner up and meet, meet people who are into the same sort of fitness or wellness program that you’re interested in. And so not only are there trying to sell you stuff, but they’re saying, look, when you come to our store, you’re already cool. It’s not like when you come to our store and you buy our stuff, then you get cool. They’re saying, look, when you come we already know you’re cool. We just want to learn who you are and then we want to talk about it and share it with other people who want to get to know you too. So there really in the business of business building community and initially they were really connected to women. And look what we know about women in all buying categories is women are relational and they like to be in relationship with the people who they’re doing business with. And Lulu Lemon tried to capture that

early on. I never get a yes to this question, but do you spend a lot of time in Tulsa, Oklahoma?

Uh, I’d spent a couple of times in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Well next time you’re in town, by the way, they did. Do you remember? What year did your book cars come out? Do you remember the year that came out?

Yeah, it was two years ago.

Yeah, so it was fairly recent and I’m. One of the things that I, I have one of my companies is called elephant in the room. It’s a men’s grooming lounge and what we do is every time we cut somebody’s hair for the first time, we donate a dollar to the boys home and we have four stores now. And then Oxi fresh and brand I work with. It’s the world’s greenest carpet cleaner with 386 locations. Every time we clean your carpet, we donate to a, uh, organization, water.org that drills wells for people in need in third world countries. And in your. So I know personally that it works. I know that it works, but for people who’ve just read your book and the last two years you write in your book, you wrote 73 percent of consumers are willing to recommend companies that stand for something meaningful. Can you break that down? That is a powerful stat.

Yeah. Yeah. And I’m actually gonna step. Just take a side step in addition to giving back to, you know, different causes or missions that you want to contribute to and participate in. One of the things that we landed heavily on in cars is national life, which is a life insurance company that’s been in business for 170 years and we, we chose to write about them because their business is a cause. They chose 170 years ago. The story is a doctor in New England was treating a man who died and he had no provision to leave for his, his family that had that he left and his death and the doctor had to go to that family and tell the woman and her children that your husband has died. He’s left nothing. And Dr Dewey at that point said, look, this is just not right. We need to provide provision.

We need to provide life insurance products for people who who you know have that sort of misfortune and national life for 170 years has been assuring not so wealthy, but middle America because they say, look, we provide a life product that you don’t have to die to benefit from. If you live longer, then you expected. If you get to retirement, maybe you’re a teacher, maybe you’re, maybe you’re a police officer, maybe you’re a firefighter and there was all kinds of stuff that was promised to you and you might not be able to live the same lifestyle. If you have one of our products and you live beyond retirement way longer than you expected, you can draw from our policy. You don’t have to die. Or if you get injured or you get sick in, in your journey through life, you can borrow from this policy. So they’ve got these provisions in the policy that allow people to live through life unexpected. And 70 percent of people in this country will have unexpected things happen that can literally take them out and they can become bankrupt as a result. So is a company whose business is a cause. It’s not just that they’re giving back in huge ways and they’re very sustained. They’re very, um, committed to sustainability as well. But the business itself is caused, driven, assuring Middle America.

You have a lot of our listeners will listen to our shows multiple times and you, you’re just a wealth of knowledge. You are like a Cornucopia. You like a buffet of knowledge. So could you repeat the name of that company one more time? Just all the listeners can write it down and check it out.

Yeah, it’s, it’s national life group and they have agents all over the country. And let me just tell you, I am not an agent for national life, but we learned about this, this company and their president and CEO said to me seven years ago, what do you think about life insurance? And I kind of laughed and I said, I think what everyone thinks about life insurance, they’re like, sorry, used car salesman. I don’t want you to get too close to me. And he said, you know, know when you, when you get to know us, Jackie, you’re going to change your

sounds great. Yeah.

Oh, he is great. His name is Iran and Saudi and this, the book cause speaks to what national life has done to create a cause around their business model.

Drivers out there that aren’t familiar with him. Have you spell that? M E H R a n n a Saudi. Saudi.

Yup. Okay. I’m putting on the show notes so that listeners can get it there. You, I mean you think about your writing is if it is possible for a lot of people that don’t like to read books, the books are there, real page turners and you have this ability to write like you’re talking and you’re very good at communicating. You give speeches all over the world. I mean you’re very good. And one thing that I’ve picked up on through your recent talks and just sort of the videos on youtube I could find is you’re very passionate about this. Twenty 2 trillion. We estimate a $22,000,000,000,000 female directed economy that sort of untapped out there. And I’d like for you to be able to share why you’re passionate about this, untapped, what you believe to be or what we believe we believe to be a $22,000,000,000,000 female directed economy. Talk to us about this.

You said it really well. She, the female economy is a $20,000,000,000,000 economy and the economy is growing. Um, women control 85, 86 percent of US spending almost every single buying category. It used to be that she would control his money and today it is more she controls his money, her money and their money.

That is skeptical of this because I’ve seen a lot of studies where it shows that 75 percent of women are and control. And I’m married to an incredible lady. I know anecdotally as well as personally as well as the stats I found work in somebody who’s looking for research on women controlling purchases. I work with the largest home builder in Oklahoma, Shaw homes. And they say almost all purchases are made by the women. If somebody’s out there is looking for some stats that could prove that women are in fact making decisions, is there a place you would direct them to go,

I’m there. All they need to do is google, you know, the women’s economy or the economy. There was a great article that’s actually entitled the economy. I’ve written a piece that’s on our website. You just, um, you know, go on the website and then punch in search, lead together, which if you look at that word, it actually can say lead to get her. And it really talks to how many different buying slash bending categories, women control. And what’s even fascinating is, you know, you’d think that, you know, even in the sports category where, you know, it’s sports apparel and you know, sporting stuff stuff related to professional ball clubs. You’d think that men have the higher spending power in that category. Don’t they just don’t. Women do. And um, and so we, I say that not in the spirit of being, Oh, you need to pay attention to women. That’s not who I am. I’m saying in the spirit of, look, if you market to women, if you sell to women, if you hire women, if you work with women, if you live with women, get to know who she is, get to know what her preferences are, just like we would if we’re, if we’re hiring men or if we’re hiring another gender, get to know their buying preferences so that you can best target them and build relationship with them so that you will be there. Go to brand of choice.

I feel like this is another book that you’re working on it since the past and every book you’ve written is what you know. Again, I, I’ve only known you now for 41 minutes, but the thing is for all of the books I’ve read, it seems like you start with something you’re passionate about. You start to research it. You start to kind of maniacally obsessed about it in a good way and then outcomes a book a couple of years later. Or is this something. Is this a future book? Are you working on here? Could have a future book?

I hope so. I’ll tell you though, I was just at an event where we were talking a lot of future stuff, a lot of future in terms of, you know, they were talking about the fact that 20 slash 20 is going to be a year when we’re going to be a card lists society, so all payments and processing things are not even going to be affiliated with cash and cards, but it’s going to all be virtual and that was just a small piece of what we’re talking about. But someone was talking about the power of storytelling and that’s what you’ve been noting. We love to do w, we don’t consider ourselves authors. I don’t consider myself as speaker, nor does Kevin. We consider ourselves storytellers. And that’s why if you look at Bocce Ball, if you look odd, if you look at nuts or any other book, you’ll find that all of our books are loaded with color picture because, um, because a picture and a story are, are, are built, they’re worth a thousand words.

Right? And I heard someone say something yesterday said, look, today, sadly most people don’t read. So you don’t read books. But they’ll flip through a book and then if they see an intriguing picture, then maybe that picture will cause them to want to read and then that story will cause them to want to read a little bit more. But then they went on to say they went on to say a picture’s worth a thousand words and today have video is priceless. So the reason why even bring that up is I’m almost wondering if I have. I’ve done a video around the sheer economy, you know, around this $22,000,000,000,000 economy and I almost wonder if maybe the better way to approach something in the future would be some sort of no video graphic or video that.

Yeah,

because people are going to watch that versus read or maybe it’s a compliment, a combination of both.

It’s interesting that you said that, but I just interviewed a guy today named Charlie rocket and he is a. He won a grammy working with two chainz the rapper chance the rapper, and he actually sent, submitted a video which you would love to watch. By the way, if you just type in Charlie rocket, you’ll find on youtube and that video became the Nike Commercial with Colin Kaepernick and he is really, I mean Nike featured him in the commercials. If you watch the commercial, there’s a guy with who has a brain tumor who lost a lot of weight. That’s. That is Charlie rocket and it. It’s interesting to the power of video is, is it’s unbelievable how captivating and how powerful it is and I consider you to be. I will henceforth never referred to you as an author. I’ll refer to you as a storyteller, but you, you are a great storyteller. You’re also a great entrepreneur. Therefore, I am curious about this question. How do you spend the first four hours of your typical day? Because so many people have an idea to write a book. They have an idea to become successful, but you and your husband have done it, so what do you do on a daily basis? What are the first four hours of your of your day look like?

Coffee first. I’m not a human being without.

Got It. Coffee first. I’m putting on the show notes.

Um, and then reflection I where were very prayerful, were very spiritual. We’re very, very, very faithful people, so I really start my day trying to ground myself in the fact that this is not about me. It is so much bigger than me and you know, only through me because of my relationship and my faith with God is that, that that’s where work really becomes really powerful when I’m trying to do it on my own. Um, it’s Kinda hit or miss.

What did I do? What time do you wake up? Are you talking like 9:00 AM? Seven am? What time are we getting up here?

Oh, I wish it were 9:00 AM. You know, I’m all over the map because I am literally all over the map. It depends on even if I’m speaking and I have to be in for an ab check at 7:30, I will get up, you know, a couple of hours ahead of time so that I can have my coffee, showers, spend time, you know, getting grounded spiritually and then getting my head in the game and then going on stage. That’s when I’m on stage, but um, when I not, and when I’m in the office, it’s, I generally get up between, it depends on what my morning is, but oftentimes I’ll get up about 5:45 and um, I’ll do what I just described and then I also will kind of cruise through what’s happening in social media so that I can stay at least ahead of or on top of what’s running, what’s current, what’s timely, what’s time lists. And then, um, I started rock. I start to rock into my day and oftentimes by about 8:00 I’ve got some phone calls or 9:00 anyway, I’ve got some phone calls set up and I always try and get a workout in there because if I’m not working out then I’m not creative.

So you worked out in the morning, is that kind of like a 6:00 AM? Seven am?

No, it actually work out depending upon where I am, what my schedule allows them, what, what opportunity I might have it. If it’s a beautiful day, I might go for a bike ride. If it’s not, I might stay in and use the elliptical. If not, I might go to a pilates class, I don’t have a typical day, but I have, I have routines that I like to play in there where they fit, but I never compromise. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t do some sort of a workout, some sort of grounding, have a copy and I don’t drink a lot of coffee. I drink one and um, and then really start to tap into who needs me, what else can I learn from other people? I’m a big learner. I love my job. I love to learn what my company’s, what my clients are doing. Every time I get connected to a new company, I learned a little bit to be dangerous.

Female economy. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but this just in you work with your husband, what does that look like? Is it like a, you two working together collaboratively? Do you have your own office? He has his own office to you. I would say clay stairs. What 80 percent of small business owners do you work with? Work with their spouse in the house. Am I correct that at some level the spouse is involved and so much of our time can quickly go to marriage counseling and either it’s copacetic like my wife and I, you know, she does all, my wife does all the accounting, all the strategic accounting budget. You know, it’s interesting. I do all the marketing and so often it is the wife that is doing the, the office, the management, the accounting and stuff like that. So, and I had a good friend of mine, she started a company called rustic cuff and she plays authentic marketing, vision, the product and then he, the husband plays defense, accounting, that kind of thing. So I just want to ask you, what does that working relationship look like with you and your incredible husband?

We have separate offices but we oftentimes when we’re in the same city together, we oftentimes will have coffee together and walk together in the morning and do our ground, our grounding in our, you know, our faith together. And then we kind of part ways and it’s always. Everything is collaborative but I won’t tell you, you know, we write the same way. We write really very, very different. I tend to be that first cut. Let’s just get to the point. Let’s get this focused. Kevin likes to go super deep. Kevin’s also the big visual guy. Most guys are visual, very visual. Loves to look at a thousand different things and I’ll go, let’s cut to the first three or the top three, but we’ve been doing this for 30 years.

I know

it has it. Has It always been easy? No Way. Sometimes it sucks. I mean sometimes because we can’t figure out something business wise. We reckon entire weekend. I mean we’re real people. I don’t think we do that as much now that we’re 30 years in and we realized let’s not pull volt over that. That’s really a mouse turds. So let’s move on and just say, okay, we agree to disagree. Um, but uh, we now know, I think that he’s gifted in certain spaces and he should take a real, a real focus, intentional approach to the creative on things. And I should then edit his draft. He should do the first cut and then I get to go in and really work on. Okay, how are we going to massage this? How are we going to make it a little bit better? How are we going to enhance it? So now we know, but it was a journey.

No, I don’t know if you’ve been on the Internet and if you’re receiving you what a lot of people are going to google right away. Jackie Freiberg and when we google you, I don’t know if you’ve seen you but you, you appear to stay in shape. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this or not. So a lot of listeners out there, entrepreneurs are, are curious, what is she eating? Do you just eat like a little piece of Kale every day or what is your, what is your daily routine look like? Oh, do you want to know this? This is the stuff people want to know. I mean, what are you, you’re a successful entrepreneur and you appear to be, be in shape. So what, how do you do it? What, what, what are you, what are you eating?

Well, my workout is my medication of choice. If I didn’t work out everyday and workout hard, um, I would be probably a highly medicated woman and so I worked out hard. Um, I, I would be on my bicycle all day long if I could, but life won’t permit that so I can ride for hours, hours, hours. I’m, I’m. But I also, when I get on an elliptical like a lot of people think they can read and work out and let me just tell you, if you’re reading them working out, you’re just not working,

right? Yeah, I agree with sweating all over those pages.

You know, this music that inspire you and an enlightened you and enriches you and keeps you going. Whatever motivates you, listen to it while you’re working out. And in terms of food, every my family lasted me because I’m all. I’m a second portion Gal. I just have been, um, I have a big appetite, but I guess that’s because I work out hard, but I, I’m a Vegan. Um, and it has nothing to do with. I’m freaked out about people who had animals. That’s not who I am. And I appreciate people who are that way. I am it because it works for my body. I digest things really well. It when I eat vegan and um, and it just, it’s just something that I love to eat. So, um, so that’s how I eat and um, you know, I have a cocktail and I love line and so there’s nothing like I’m not, I’m not, I’m not afraid to have sweets or treats, but if it has a mother, I don’t need it.

I know I have, I have, I have two final questions for you that I want to ask you because you again, are a very successful entrepreneur who happens to tell stories as your method. You know, how, how you earn your income. I’m most successful people. We’ve had on the show, we just interviewed Craig Rochelle the most, has the largest church in America right now. It’s called life church. They have over 100,000 members. They have three. They have to check this out. They have 350 million people that use the Bible App they created every day. I mean, it’s crazy. I mean, it’s, it’s like a video game numbers, but all successful people tend to do things differently than everybody else. They have kind of a different thing. Is there, is there one thing that you do every day that most people don’t do that you believe has allowed you to have massive success?

Oh Wow. That’s a great question. Did he answer that question?

Well, Craig, this is what Craig was explained and he does this daily gets to work. That was wonderful. Just buy yourself some time. No, no, no, no. Greg gets to work at 5:00 AM pretty much every day. He does his daily meditative stuff and then he doesn’t really talk to people it sounds like until the first three or four hours of his day and he’s planned out his day and then he goes and gets it done. You know? It seems like he says No. I would say to summarize, he says no to so many things, but he gets up every day and plans out his day between 5:00 AM and it sounds like about 8:00 AM, and then he just puts it on the schedule and goes and gets it. He says no to things at one. One guy interviewed who uh, um, one of my clients actually kind of fun, but one of my clients is a Colton Dixon who’s a top 40, a Christian contemporary music artist.

He’s been on Ellen and uh, American idol and now he just got signed to Atlantic records and one of our, one of the guys that interviewed said, I listened to Colton Dixon each morning. And I’m like, oh wow. He’s like, yeah. I like, I like positive uplifting music. It’s not a Christian thing or not. It’s just uplifting and I love his music and it’s uplifting. And I bet you Jackie, you, you would love Colton Dixon and music. And so there’s this, like everyone has their own kind of daily Mojo. Do you have kind of a thing you do that’s abnormal? People say, oh, that’s so weird. Jackie, why do you do that? Is there something you do that

I don’t know if it’s abnormal, but I’ll tell you what is sort of our life mantra that we’ve been really tried trying to commit to and live true to and that is even in hiring people, even in the clients that we choose to work with and the way that we engage with our friends and the way that we engage with one another by Kevin and I and the way that we engage with our children, we really want to make sure that you know, everything we is a set so, you know, are we engaging in an opportunity, are we engaging in an evening activity? Are we engaging in something that’s a fit in is also, you know, it, it also makes us fit healthier. Are we engaging in something that is fruitful, which means you know it. When we, when we say yes to a client, it’s fruitful in terms of it.

There’s fruit, but it’s not one way. It’s got to be reciprocal. We have to be planting seeds where it’s, it’s fruit bearing on their side as well. And then, um, fun, we want to do fun stuff where, you know, licensed too short, we want to make sure that what we do in a day, there’s fun involved in it, and then all of that is encircled by fate. So we’re always doing it with our faith, top of mine, so fit, you know, fruit full fun and faithful. Those are the apps that we tend to live our day and ultimately live our life and you know, engage with people through those apps.

No. My, my final question I have for you is Jay Papasan. We just had Jay Papasan on the show. He wrote the book with Gary Keller called one thing and apparently you guys might share the same publisher. Is that accurate? Do you know of. Have you met J dot pathen?

I don’t think I have.

We had him on the show. He wrote the book called the one thing if you google search it with Gary Keller, who’s the founder of Keller Williams, and I mentioned your book. And he’s like, Oh yeah, Oh yes, yes, yes. She’s the best. We share the. I think he’s, I think he said, I feel maybe I’m misquoting. I feel like you guys are, are, I mean, have you guys, if you ever. Have you ever met Jay Papasan or, or Gary Keller?

I don’t think so.

Oh, you got itch. You’ve got to meet the guy. Apparently they love your style. I, his books. Pretty much every airport I go to, you’ll see the book. One thing, the one that, the white covered book and one of the things he talked about and a lot of our authors we have on, we’ve had so many New York Times bestselling authors on the show, Gretchen Rubin was one. I mean we had some great people. It seems like finding an agent is so hard for people, you know, it’s so hard to get into publishing the find that agent. What advice would you have for an author, a storyteller out there who, um, is looking for an agent? What advice would you have?

Oh, that’s so hard. People ask us that question all the time. Or how do you get published? Or how do you get. How do you get approval to be marketed through speakers bureaus, you know, it’s almost like the chicken or the egg syndrome. Um, I, my, my thinking is a lot of people want the agent so the agent can help them then explore what to write and honestly, you know, you, you almost have to do it in the reverse. You have to write something that matters. Something that adds value, a story that’s making a difference story that meets a need, a writing or, or something that is going to, you know, scratch an itch or minimize a pain point for, you know, someone out there that you want to target your primary audience. And then once you’ve got that and if it’s somewhat novel or if there’s a way to differentiate your, you know, story around that over someone else’s, then go to the agent or go to a couple of potential agents and try and pitch it or talk to some people who have successful relationships with agents and see if they might be able to help pave the way.

Um, but you know, you, you, you can’t ask for that sort of partnership unless you first have something that’s of value and need in the marketplace.

Got It, got it. You have been just an awesome interviewee and I am honored to have you. I’m no longer super nervous when we get off the show. I’ll just be less nervous and I appreciate you for not just mentally dominating me. I’m a, I’m, I’m a simple man and your books and made very complex ideas. Simple. Is there a certain book that you’d recommend our listeners check out? You have so many great books. Is there a specific book of yours that you would say, hey, you know what, if you’re new to the Jackie Freiberg bookclub, here’s the book I’d recommend you checkout.

You know, again, I go back to everybody’s different and everybody’s got their own, you know, frustration, pain, point, desire that they want or something in them that they want to fulfill or they want to change or they want to learn about, you know, there’s no pressure. Go to our website, look at our book page. Read a little description on what each book is about. If something resonates for you and you go, oh yeah, I could use some insight on that then, you know, check that one out, but our website has a full district in each one of the books and rather than say, go do this one, I’m going to go be drawn to the book that most

for you. Could you give your domain?

Yeah, if it’s Freiberg’s, F, R E I b e r g e s Dot Com

and I’ll put a link to it on, on the show notes, and we like to end every show with a boom which is around here. Boom. Stands for big, overwhelming optimistic momentum. And so typically we say three, two, one, and enclosed yours will boob. Yeah. Would you be, would you be willing to partake in, in a, in a show concluding. Boom. Boom. Here we go. Here we go. You Ready? I’m ready. You’re ready? Ready? Here we go. Three, two, one. Patient over here. Here’s the deal. I need you to share this podcast with at least one great American like yourself. Somebody out there who’s a hard working entrepreneur, a diligent doer, because I know that I can’t help them to achieve success unless I get a chance to know them, so will be a little secret between you, me, and the hundreds of thousands of listeners out there.

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