4 Stages of Building Influence
So it was a couple months into starting the business. This software startup that it had a pretty fair amount of capital injected into it early on, had me out to do what we now call team alignment session where we were gonna establish the essential infrastructure for this rapidly growing team that they were building to launch this new product. And, right before is probably the day before I was gonna get into Dallas to meet with this crew, the founder called me and he said, hey, Alex, we also want to tack on some team building time since we typically all work virtually. We'd like to do something together. We were wondering if you would be a part of it.
Alex Judd:I said, that sounds great. What are we gonna do? And he said, we're probably gonna do an escape room if that sounds good to you. To which I was quite frankly bummed because my idea of a good time is not being locked in a room with people have being forced to solve puzzles. Like, that's not how I enjoy doing things.
Alex Judd:But I was like, yeah, for sure. I'll be there. And and that was the game plan. And so I get to the airport the next day and they pick me up and we're driving to the office space where we're going to be doing the team alignment session and then the team building sessions after. And I said, so are we still doing the escape room tomorrow?
Alex Judd:And he said, no, we decided to do something different. You're still in though. Right? And I said, yeah, what are we doing? And he said, we're going skydiving.
Alex Judd:To which I was like, oh my gosh. I I was never necessarily opposed to skydiving, but it was also not something that I like actively sought out. And he was like, I hope you're in because we bought your ticket. Like, you're coming. And and so I was like, okay.
Alex Judd:Game on. I guess we're going skydiving. And there's so much I could say about that experience. But what blew my mind about the skydiving experience on that day, jumping out of a plane. Right?
Alex Judd:Where, you know, I'll never forget the thing that surprised me most that day was we're sitting on the edge of the plane about to jump out. It's my turn. And the thing that shocked me most was how calm and at peace I felt. And that just blew my mind. And I thought about that.
Alex Judd:Like, why do I feel so calm? Why do I feel so at peace right now? And I said, oh, the answer is actually really simple. It's because I really trust this person that I'm attached to right now, the guy that I was gonna be skydiving in tandem with. In reflecting on that, I had a little bit of what I think about as a content crisis Because while skydiving was this unbelievable experience, I I had to really reflect on what I taught about trust and influence and leadership because I've been teaching trust and influence for years, and I always talked about the fact that it has to walk through these four stages that we're gonna walk through in this episode.
Alex Judd:And I've, like, taught this to, I mean, if not thousands of leaders around the country saying this is truth. This is how you build trust. This is how you build influence. And then I was attached to this stranger jumping out of a plane, and the reason why I felt good jumping out of the plane is because I quote unquote trust him. And I thought it blew up my entire framework.
Alex Judd:And I was like, my gosh. I'm a fraud. But then what's wild is I spent some time actually thinking about it, and in reality, it actually affirmed the framework. When I actually think about the steps and stages that we walked through that day leading up to jumping out of that airplane, it actually overlays the framework perfectly. And so now it's my go to example for how I teach building influence because it's the best I've ever experienced it being done in an accelerated and intentional way.
Alex Judd:And so that's what I was hoping we could walk through today.
Ben Loy:Nice. Okay. So so break it down. You have this framework. What is the framework?
Alex Judd:What we're gonna say is there's gonna be four stages. Right? It it's not like these are steps that once you you skip step or once you move through step one, you don't have to return to it. Rather, I think of them as stages because they're continuing. Right?
Alex Judd:But I do think that you need to go in order. I also believe that you cannot skip a stage. However, you can accelerate the pace at which you move through the stages. And and the example that I'm gonna give is a perfect example of that. The way that you accelerate the pace at which you move through the stages with someone in terms of building trust and ultimately building influence is extreme, extreme, extreme intentionality.
Alex Judd:And so I think that's so cool because what we can understand as leaders is that if we want to be people of influence, the type of people that when you speak someone listens, when you ask a question people pay attention, when you make a phone call they pick up the phone, when you initiate a change or a new strategy, when you put a new product into the marketplace that people follow. That's what it means to be a person of influence at every single level. Well, if you want to be that type of person, you can get there by following these stages and you cannot skip a stage. The question is how much intentionality are you going to exercise? Because if you exercise more intentionality, you're going to accelerate the process.
Ben Loy:So what are the four stages?
Alex Judd:Relationship, results, trust, influence. And with each stage, there's a question. I'm gonna give away the final question first, and then we can probably start from the beginning. But but with influence, which is what we're pursuing, John Maxwell says leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. The question people are asking with regard to influence is, should I follow them?
Alex Judd:And that's really the the litmus test of your leadership is when you move in a direction. If leadership is helping people go from here to there, when you move in a direction, do other people actually follow you? And the most effective leaders we know is people aren't just begrudgingly following, they're willingly and excitedly following. That's the type of influence that I want to have. And so that's our aim.
Alex Judd:That's our destination. That's what we're trying to pursue. And then from there, we can go back to stage one.
Ben Loy:So within the context of relationship, what's the difference between a relationship and acquaintance?
Alex Judd:Oh, interesting. Relationship and acquaintance. Well, the question associated with the relationship phase is do they care? Like, when you walk into a room, people are always asking subconsciously or consciously, especially if you have a leadership role, do they care? Do they care about me?
Alex Judd:Do they care about us? Do they care about this? Do they actually care is what people are asking. And what's crazy is when I think about that example of going skydiving, I I almost immediately was like, well, how could he have cared about me? Like, and how how could he have shown that he cared about me?
Alex Judd:Like, clearly, blows up my framework, like, because he didn't have to do that to build trust. But then I actually thought about the scenario and I'll never forget. We got there to go skydiving that day and we were standing around in the hangar. We had just watched this like cheesy prep video and I probably made way too many jokes during the cheesy prep video. And then we were standing around waiting for the the experts that were gonna come in the room.
Alex Judd:Right? The people that we were gonna be attending with. And never forget this guy walked into the hangar and goes, Alex, Alex, where's Alex? Alex, raise your hand. And I raised my hand and he goes, you're my guy.
Alex Judd:You're my guy, dude. He came up and grabbed my shoulders and shook me a little bit. He's like, dude, we are gonna have a blast today. I'm so pumped to do this with you. And then he immediately pivoted.
Alex Judd:And what did he start doing? He started asking me a billion questions that had nothing to do with skydiving. He said, are you from Texas or where are you from? I told him no. He said, where do you live now?
Alex Judd:Like, what do you do for work? Oh my gosh. You just left your full time job. Tell me about that decision. Oh my goodness.
Alex Judd:And I hear they have great Mexican food in Phoenix. Talk to me about that. Like, he just asked me all of these questions that had nothing to do with skydiving. And in that moment, like, my mind was like, I'm connecting with this person as a human being, and he cares about me. Right?
Alex Judd:I wasn't consciously thinking about that, but when I think about the path to influence, the path to trust that he walked, he started with relationship. He started by getting to know me. He started by actually caring, and he already put my mind at ease as this is a guy that I can follow. This is a guy that I can trust. And so it always starts by caring.
Alex Judd:Now, tactically and practically, it's interesting. We live in a time now where it's like, there's all these books written, particularly in the sales arena, but also in the leadership arena where it's like, here's great tips and tactics to convince people you actually care. You know the greatest tip and tactic to convince people you actually care is to actually care. Like, to actually put people's best interest first in your mind and to remember that this is a person that has hopes, dreams, fears, problems, challenges, all of that. And that when you remember that the person sitting across from you is not just a number, is not just a unit of production, is not just an employee, right, but rather they are a soul, made in God's image, you start to bolster your care for that person, and they can smell that from a mile away.
Alex Judd:So it starts with relationship.
Ben Loy:Well, the other thing that's interesting about that scenario specifically is he wants to get home too, and he's attached to you. So Yes. In the context of leadership, like, he he's also he has he can relate in the fact that, like, he also wants to make sure that this goes smoothly so that he can get home to his family. And so he has that ability to relate to the people that he's leading through this process.
Alex Judd:You're smarter than I am because you are jumping ahead in the framework but that's absolutely right. No, you're totally good. That's absolutely right. But really in this first stage it was like literally just remembering he's a human being, I'm a human being and he cares. And, and I found this to be true.
Alex Judd:One of my first jobs out of college was taking cancel calls for a monthly subscription program associated with a leadership development program. And a lot of times, the people that I was talking to that I was taking these cancel calls, obviously, my job was to convince them not to cancel. And these people were calling not because they hated the program or any or had a bad experience even. They were just like, I'm so busy because they're they're a business leader. Right?
Alex Judd:Of course. They have a billion things in their plate. They're like, I'm so busy and I want to do this stuff so bad. I'm just not making time to grow as a leader right now, and so I can't do this right now. And I would be the person on the call that's just like supposed to help coach them towards making time to grow as a leader because that's the only way to get out of that hamster wheel.
Alex Judd:Right? That was my job. And what I found a couple months into that job is those calls go way better if I spend twenty five of the thirty minutes not talking to them at all about didn't even mention monthly subscription, the program, the leadership development content, what they could watch, what they could do, the way they could grow as a leader. Didn't even mention it to him for 25 of the thirty minutes we had scheduled. All I did was ask them questions about their business, about their life, about their leadership.
Alex Judd:And anytime they would try to mention the program, I just asked them about something that was more directly related to them. And it became way easier to do that when I reminded myself this person on the phone with me right now is fascinating. That's the thing you have to have in your head to really, really care sustainably over time. I promise you this. The people you are talking to every single day are fascinating.
Alex Judd:And if they're not fascinating to you, it's not because they're not fascinating. It's because you haven't dug hard enough yet. Everyone has a story. Everyone has hopes, fears, dreams. Everyone has a background, and people love sharing it.
Alex Judd:They actually love sharing it, but oftentimes, they're not forthcoming with it because they don't think anyone actually wants to hear it. And so if you actually are the one that slows down to truly care, that treats that person as fascinating, I mean, my mind has often been blown by what people tell me just in the process of curious, care oriented questions.
Ben Loy:So let's move on to results.
Alex Judd:Yeah. What do you have
Ben Loy:to say about results?
Alex Judd:So so relationships is stage one. Stage two is results. And here's how this played out in the the scenario with regard to skydiving is this guy asked me a bunch of questions, and finally he let me, get a question. And of course, the first question I wanted to ask him was how many times have you done this? Right?
Alex Judd:It's it's what I asked him. And I don't know that I was, like, really asking in an erotic way. That was just my genuine curious thing. And and but he probably saw that I was a little bit nervous. I'm sure that he deals with people that are a little bit nervous, jumping out of an airplane.
Alex Judd:Right? And I said, how many times have you done this? And he goes, this is my first time.
Ben Loy:And then then he grabbed
Alex Judd:me on the shoulders again, he said, no. I'm messing with you, man. He's like, Alex, I have done what we are about to do today over 3,000 times. He's like, I kid you not. I could do what we are going to do today in my sleep.
Alex Judd:And it was crazy. Almost immediately, if I was to look back, you would probably see my heart rate drop, my shoulders sink, me to start breathe easier. Because the second question people are always asking, the first one is, do they care? The second question is, can they do their job? Will they do what they say they will do?
Alex Judd:People are looking for results. We we know those leaders, and we certainly know those people that they crush the relational game, and they're so good there. They're nails there. But then when it comes to actually doing their job and being competent, they suffer. And because they suffer in that area, they may be the most likable person on the planet.
Alex Judd:They will not have influence because over time, they prove that they don't actually get the results that they say they will get. And so this is really why it's critically important that for the areas that we've been given to steward to be responsible for, we are incredibly competent in those areas. Like, we gotta be really good at what we do so that people will start to have that level of understanding that when they say they're gonna do something, when they say they can achieve an outcome, like, they will be able to achieve that outcome.
Ben Loy:Let's say someone's listening to this, and they're like, okay. I'm trying to build influence within my team. I have a relationship with everyone. I'm I'm producing results. How do you prevent from, like, over indexing on on results?
Ben Loy:Because I think oftentimes, especially high achieving individuals can almost place too much of their identity or emphasis on the result side of things, and then it it turns into this you I think you start to spiral from there and, like, putting your worth into what you're doing and into how people relate to you. So what would you say to someone who maybe has a risk of over indexing on results?
Alex Judd:Yeah. Well, as someone that has a risk of over indexing on results, I can just speak from my personal experience. When you tie too much of your identity to the results that you're getting, you're actually going to sacrifice the relational piece. So the thing that you actually think is gonna help you be successful in building influence is going to be the thing that actually sabotages it. And what I mean by that is if you don't have a good relationship with yourself, you will never have a good relationship with others.
Alex Judd:Right? And that really having a good relationship with yourself, I actually think starts with having a good relationship with And so if you don't have a good relationship with God where you know, man, I'm his son or daughter, he, he is good and gracious regardless of my performance and, my worth and value comes from him and not from anything I do. If you don't have that, but rather you're tying your identity to whichever line graph you're looking at for the moment related to your business or whichever dashboard you're looking at for the moment related to your business, you're going to be incredibly inconsistent. And that inconsistency starts with you, but it doesn't stay with you. That inconsistency is going to breathe into your relationships.
Alex Judd:And ultimately, you may be really good at getting the results, but people aren't going to know where they stand with you relationally. And as a result, you're building on a faulty foundation. And so what's the phrase and principle we always focus on? Your work is not who you are. Your work is where you serve.
Alex Judd:That's what we have to know and then we have to regularly be reminded of so that we can embed results in the proper context.
Ben Loy:Let's move on to the third stage.
Alex Judd:Okay. So relationships, results, trust. So in some ways, relationships and results over time create trust. So if you can consistently make deposits in the relationship and consistently get results, do your job, you're going to start to see trust show up. Now trust, a lot of times we talk about it as black and white.
Alex Judd:In reality, exists on a spectrum. It's typically not, oh, I trust this person or I don't trust this person. Right? I trusted the guy that I jumped out of a plane with enough to jump out of a plane with him. I'm not positive that in that, you know, hour and a half time span that we spent together, I would trust him with taking care of my daughter for two days.
Alex Judd:Right? Like, just because there wasn't relationships and results related to that desired outcome. And so trust exists on a continuum. It's actually not a black and white thing. But here's the thing I really want leaders to remember about trust.
Alex Judd:The question associated with trust is not do they care or do they get results? Because you can do both of those things and people still actually don't trust you. What what people are asking whenever it comes to the deepest level of trust is whose best interest are they operating in? Which hits on exactly the example that you gave earlier. Right?
Alex Judd:Is they wanna know, are they operating in their best interest? Like, is this dude just trying to get 3,001 jumps in and he doesn't and, you know, it doesn't matter whether I succeed or not, or is he operating in our best interest? That's the question that we're really asking. And what's crazy is, this is where I, again, thought the framework fell apart because I was like, I don't know how he would have possibly convinced me that he was operating in our best interest or certainly in my best interest in the, you know, forty five minutes we spent together before we jumped out of an airplane. But I'll never forget it.
Alex Judd:The plane was literally, it had taken off and it was so loud and there were like eight of us in there and I was already attached to him. Right? And I was sitting behind him and, or no, I'm sorry. He was sitting behind me and I'll never forget this. I'm learning that this was his thing.
Alex Judd:He grabbed my shoulders again and I think he could probably see that I was starting to get tense again. And obviously, like, as you're taking off, like, this is about to happen. And it was so loud. It was breezy, all of that. And he just yelled into my ear.
Alex Judd:He said, Alex. And I said, what? And he said, just remember, I wanna get to the ground just as bad as you do. And it's like, oh my gosh. That's so helpful because he he aligned our interests.
Alex Judd:He helped me realize, like, this is the guy that cares. He has all of this experience. He's done this over 3,000 times. He could do this in his sleep, and he has a vested interest in seeing what I want to accomplish be accomplished. And it was crazy.
Alex Judd:Like, I felt better in that moment. I took a deep breath in that moment. It was like this sense of relief. So often as leaders, we're trying to initiate change or we're trying to point people in a new direction or we're trying to grow or trying to build something, and we feel hesitancy or resistance from the people that we're trying to lead. And oftentimes, they just aren't yet aware that you're trying to operate in their best interest.
Alex Judd:And and sometimes we think, like, they should just know that. And in reality, it's really helpful for you to grab their shoulders and say, just remember, I wanna win just as much as you do, or I'm trying to see you win just as much as you are, and and connect the dots for them that that's actually your driving motive and that's what you actually care about.
Ben Loy:What are some practical ways a leader can do that?
Alex Judd:When you say do that, are you saying align our interests?
Ben Loy:Connect the dots, like reassure the team that that you are operating in everyone's best interest and not just your own. What are some examples or maybe some practical things that a leader could do to to inspire confidence in that?
Alex Judd:Here's one that I'm learning about in the past year a lot. Find out what motivates them, and do not do not do not assume that it's the same thing as you. If I was to think about mistakes that I'm realizing I made early on, I just assumed people would be motivated by the same things as me. And so therefore, whenever they did those things, I would reward, recognize, celebrate those things. And then I'd be like, why didn't that seem to move the needle for that person that I noticed that or that that was such a big deal or that I gave them that opportunity or anything like that.
Alex Judd:And turns out they are motivated by different things than I am. Right? And so first, identify what is actually motivating this person. Is it career growth opportunities? Is it money?
Alex Judd:Is it the ability to make a difference? Is it time with family? Right? What is actually motivating this person? And then number one, I would say celebrate when you see those things occurring in their life or in their work because that's the thing that they care about.
Alex Judd:That's what's in their best interest. Right? Is they're saying this is the thing that motivates me. This is the one of the reasons why I get out of bed in the morning. And if you if they see that, like, that's not just this thing that's individual to me, but my leader actually cares about that as well, that's gonna mean a lot to them.
Alex Judd:But then also, if you can make one of your motivators helping them achieve their motivator, you'll build trust. Right? If they can see like, hey, you know, I use the example of, you know, someone has been planning and hoping to be able to go on a two week European vacation with their wife for the past five years, and they've been saving and they've been planning. Like, if you can have conversations with them about how do we make that more possible, and if you recognize that's something they care about and you cannot say, I wanna give this to you, but rather say, like, how can we collaborate together to make that happen? And then when they go on that vacation, you're the one that buys them a gift certificate to, like, the best restaurant in France or something like that.
Alex Judd:Right? You are aligning your interest with their interest. You're saying the things that you care about, I care about, and that's gonna go a really long way for them.
Ben Loy:I feel like I've seen you practice that. Like, I've On
Alex Judd:my on my good days.
Ben Loy:I've gotten that question. I mean, I've gotten that question from you at least at least twice, you know, as I've been working for you over the last ten months. And, like, I'm sure other people have as well. So that's really cool.
Alex Judd:And maybe one practical thing that I've learned in that area is I have a wife and a daughter now, and I I know for sure that the things that are motivating me today are very different than what motivated me four years ago. Sure. And so I think that's probably why you've gotten that question from me some is because I'm trying to put myself in, like, dating Alex mode. Right? Like, you're dating someone right now.
Alex Judd:I'm like, what was I motivated by back then again? Like, I'm trying to remember what life was like that because it's radically different. Right? Like, your whole framework and mindset is different. And, like, I'm trying to remember, like, what would Ben what would actually move the needle for Ben in this situation?
Alex Judd:So I'm glad that you've experienced that.
Ben Loy:Let's move on to influence.
Alex Judd:Yeah. So so let's walk through them. Relationships. Do they care? Results.
Alex Judd:Can they do their job? Trust. Whose best interest are they operating in? And then we already shared the question associated with influence. It's should I follow them?
Alex Judd:And ultimately, what we're really saying here is the path to influence, the path to people following you is to be a leader that's actually worth following. Right? If we were to sum up the whole episode, that's what we're actually talking about here. Now we could record probably a whole additional episode or an entire series on not just how to build influence, but how to sustain influence. But what I would say is that the destination should not look all that different from the path.
Alex Judd:If we're not careful, we'll think I'm going to spend all this time building relationships, getting results, creating trust so that I have influence. And then it becomes this well that I can endlessly withdraw from. What we should really say is now I've built up this well that I have to endlessly deposit into. Because every time you ask people to follow you, every time you announce a change to your company, every time you launch something new, that is really a trust and influence bid that you're making. And every time you're doing that, you're you are withdrawing.
Alex Judd:Now now oftentimes that withdrawal creates a return in with interest, you know, because it proves out to work. Right? However, you are withdrawing. And so if you're not depositing and your output exceeds your input, your upkeep is gonna be your downfall is what I would say.
Ben Loy:What happens when you try to skip all these other steps and jump directly to influence?
Alex Judd:Well, have you ever been that person that enters into a new job or company and then just starts to change things? How do people respond to that person? It does not go well. Right? I'll never forget, it was, I think, my final year at the University of Texas.
Alex Judd:They hired a new athletic director, the guy that was gonna be following a guy named Delos Dodds who is literally like a Texas legend. The street outside the stadium is named after him. Right? And he's just an icon. I mean, Texas is the single most valuable college sports entity in the world, world.
Alex Judd:Right? Like, as a brand. And there will be Ohio State people that call me and Michigan people that call me and try to argue with me, and I will send you the articles that prove that what I just said is true. Right? But all that to say, this gentleman, I won't name his name, he followed Delos Dodds, and he probably had some good ideas.
Alex Judd:He had some good experience, not necessarily in college athletics, but, with the San Antonio Spurs and other pro organizations. And, people thought he was hot stuff. I think the problem was he thought he was hot stuff. And he came in, and he immediately instituted all of these changes. And some of them were probably actually good ideas and necessary ideas because some things have probably gotten stagnant and.
Alex Judd:However, he did an awful job of building relationships with his biggest donors. He didn't really show anything in terms of his ability just to do the x's and o's blocking and tackling results of the job before he started making changes. And as a result, people didn't trust him. What was crazy is this guy that came in with all of this fanfare, I mean, it was a couple years before he was fired. And the reason why he was fired was because the entire fan and donor base had completely turned against him.
Alex Judd:And it's like he was making all of these changes to the experiences and everything. Meanwhile, the head coaching hires that he made were not going well. Mhmm. And I think it's such a good example. Now we can point at that guy and be like, that guy is so dumb.
Alex Judd:How could you do that? I'm so capable of doing that. I'm so capable of walking into a a new scenario even with our existing team and being like, oh, well, I'm a good guy. I'm sure they believe that I'm a good guy. They're just gonna follow me, and I don't have to do any of these steps to build rapport, to to show that I can get results, all of that.
Alex Judd:Like, they're just gonna trust me and follow me automatically. And the minute I start assuming that, that's when my downfall starts.
Ben Loy:What would you say to someone who oh, they go they, you know, they look at the they look at the facts of their life. They're listening to this episode. They look at the facts of their life. They're going, okay. I have I have a relationship with my team.
Ben Loy:I've created results. I feel like we have a good understanding of trust within that, but I don't feel like I truly have, like, influence over this group. Like, what would you say to someone like that? Like, their feelings don't necessarily match the reality of the relationships they've built and the team that they've they've created.
Alex Judd:Yeah. I'm interested to know you have a specific person in mind because there's specific business owners that I've met with and worked with that I'm thinking of as you asked that question. But do you have a person in mind?
Ben Loy:I could probably think of specific people, but I I feel like I've I've seen this theme a handful of times, and so I'm just curious what your thoughts are.
Alex Judd:Yeah. I would say the first thing is that your feelings are not reality. Your feelings are real, but that doesn't mean that your feelings are reality. Right? So you could say, I don't feel like I have influence.
Alex Judd:What we should really be looking at is do you have influence? And, and the way that we do that is like we could just ask the people that would be interesting. Right? It can be really helpful to do like a 360 degree anonymous review or have an outside facilitator do a review where they ask your employees about your leadership and you can learn a lot by doing that. Right?
Alex Judd:So get outside perspective, get outside input to see if you actually have influence. But then really what you really have to look at is when you announce something new, when you request people follow you through change, when you go through a hard time and you ask people to hunker down and double down, when you lead something, do people go with you? And do they go with you voluntarily and willingly and excitedly, or do they go with you as a burden and as something that they have to do because it's their job? And if it's the latter, then it might not be a feeling that you don't have influence. It might be real that you don't have influence.
Alex Judd:And we might have some work to do. And and the the issue might be that you think you've got it as it relates to relationships, results, trust, but you don't actually got it because people aren't actually following you. The the split side of that that I often see taking place is people do actually have influence. What they lack is confidence. And you don't go somewhere to get confidence.
Alex Judd:Confidence comes from taking action. Right? I I had a business owner once that said their home run for the call that we were on, he said, just wanna leave here more confident. And I told him, can't do that for you. And, he said, why?
Alex Judd:He's like, I thought this is what I was paying you for. And I said, you're confident. We had talked through the scenario he was working on a lot. And so it wasn't that he needed to verbally process anything. I said, your confidence now is going to come from action.
Alex Judd:You have talked this thing into the ground, and the only way to become confident is gonna be doing the thing and learning either that, like, oh, I can do this thing or learning that even when I make mistakes or fall or fumble, they're not fatal, and I can just keep moving forward. He thought he was seeking confidence. What he was actually seeking from me was certainty, and that was something I could never give to him. If you're gonna go get confidence, that's always gonna happen in motion.
Ben Loy:Is there anything else you wanna say about just the topic of trust and influence before we close out?
Alex Judd:From a leadership perspective, it can be really easy to think like, man, this just feels like a lot of work that isn't my job. Like, I run a marketing agency. I, you know, we do landscaping architecture. Right? I want I run a vet hospital.
Alex Judd:I run a pool company. These are all people that we work with. Right? It can be really easy to think what we're talking about on this episode is like my side hobby work that I do, but the pools, the vet hospital, the landscaping, that's my job. What I would tell you is if you are a leader, this is your job.
Alex Judd:Influence is your job. And if you get better at this, you'll be shocked at how well your company does the pools, the vet hospitals, the landscaping, all of it. And so to put this as something that's important but not urgent, I think is to miss the mark. I think the, constant development of influence is both urgent and important right now for every leader listening to this. Thanks, Alex.
Alex Judd:Thanks, Ben. Well, there you have it. Thanks so much for joining us for this episode. If you want any of the information or resources that we mentioned, that's all in the show notes. Hey.
Alex Judd:Before you go, could I ask you for one quick favor? Could you subscribe, rate, and review this podcast episode? Your feedback is what helps our team engage in a sequence of never ending improvement. We wanna amplify what's valuable to you and obviously reduce or even remove the things that aren't. Also, you leaving a positive review is what helps us connect with, build trust with, and serve other leaders around the country.
Alex Judd:So thanks in advance for helping us out on that front. Are you a leader that wants to grow your business in a healthy way, serve people exceptionally well, and glorify God in the process? Go to pathforgrowth.com to get more information about our community of impact driven leaders and schedule a call with our team. Hey. Thank you so much to the Path for Growth team, Kyle Cummings and crew at Podcircle, and the remarkable leaders that are actively engaged in the Path for Growth community.
Alex Judd:Y'all are the people that make this podcast possible. Y'all know this. We're rooting for you. We're praying for you. We wanna see you win.
Alex Judd:Remember, my strength is not for me. Your strength is not for you. Our strength is for service. Let's go. Let's go.
Alex Judd:Let's go.
