Mhmm. Yes. Dale Carnegie.

Yeah. One of one of my favorite books. So in chapter two of that book, he reads this poem that was super popular in the nineteen thirties and translated into hundreds of languages and read all over the world, and it's called A Father's Lament. I'm pretty sure that's the name of it. Mhmm. Basically, the story is, you know, there's this father. He's very busy. You know, he gives his his son a hard time. You know, you're putting your elbows on the table. You're not brushing your teeth. You know, your your knees are dirty on your pants. And then the son, you know, before before he the son goes to bed, he comes and gives a big hug, and he's busy reading his newspaper. And it kinda hits him. And then he goes up to the room of his young son, and he sits by his bed. And he says, I've been measuring you with the yardstick of a man, and I have to remember you're just a little boy. You're just a little boy. You're just a little boy. And rereading that, and at the time having a three year old, son, it just hit me right in the chest, Lisa.

Mhmm.

And I realized every time he asked me to do something, my answer is going to be yes. Yeah. Unless it's a safety thing, of course.

Right.

Right. You know, every time he says, daddy, can we play this or can we do this? It's yes. I I wanna enjoy every moment with him and and treasure that and and give him that kind of nurturing and love that he needs and not be diving into my phone or answering emails or whatever it is. And so that's the priority for me is spending time with my with my son and with my family.

Right. Well and it goes so fast, Andrew.

Yes. That's right.

Two adult children. I mean, it's like you blink your eye, and they're a teenager. Right? Yeah. So I just I love I love that. You know? And, I mean, we've all I I mean, I've been there too. I just think about when we were building our company. I mean, there's sacrifices. Our family made sacrifices. Right? Our children made sacrifices. And you do get to that point where you're just like, I'm just not willing to do that anymore. You sacrifice my family for whatever it is. There's nothing too, too grandiose, you know, to to substitute your family. So how do you think fatherhood has reshaped how you lead?

I I think it definitely has. I think one of the things that I that I've struggled with in my career, this this is really, gonna be honest here, is is empathy. And I think I think fatherhood gives me more empathy. I don't I don't see my team as my children. I I mean, I really see them as my peers. But, you know, being being a father and having empathy for your children and seeing them as kind of you, you know, two point o and watching them grow, I think that does give us more empathy towards others. And I hope that that translates well to my team. You know, I I'm I've done this many times. I've got lots of experience. I know how to do things fairly well in the cybersecurity side, so I might come across sometimes as kind of a steamroller. But I really I really try to to sit back to let other people give their ideas. I really believe in that kind of diversity of thought. Mhmm. And, and it's hard for me sometimes to hold my tongue or or not, not jump all over ideas. But, I think that empathy helps us to to be better leaders and kinda sit back sometimes.

Right. You know, that's funny that you mentioned hold holding your tongue because I talk about in my book something extra, the very first chapter is humility.

Yes.

And one of the one of the things that oftentimes a leader has to struggle with, Andrew, is you do think you have the answer or you have the way that Ford. Right? And sometimes you just have to bite your tongue and let your team talk first. And I heard somebody say recently, she has a lot of scars on her tongue.

I've never heard that.

And I thought that was really funny. I'm like, okay. You know, I want a lot of scars on my tongue too because, yeah, that's that's funny. Well, you already mentioned this, but I know that one of your practices and one of your disciplines is no phone or zero phone taste.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Now tell us about that, Andrew. Boy, how hard is that?

It's pretty hard. You gotta so one of my one of my friends inspired me to do this because he did it on his birthday. And, one thing you gotta do, and he didn't do this, is he didn't tell anybody who's gonna do it. And so people are you know, it's his birthday, and people are calling him over and over and over. He can't reach him, and they're worried about what's going on. So I told my older kids ahead of time, like, I'm gonna do this. And then I told my wife and and and so in the morning, I said, okay. I'm not gonna do my phone at all today. I I learned this phrase recently called fubbing. You know what fubbing is?

Have no idea.

Fubbing is phone snubbing. So it's the it's the verb for when a parent is looking at their phone and their kid is talking to them, hey, mommy, daddy. I wanna do this thing, and the parent's just locked into the phone. That's called fubbing. And, actually, having a word for it makes it more real to me. So, you know, you can do it. Anybody can do it. And especially, you know, I I I know I don't care how demanding your job is. Especially on Saturdays or Sundays, you can do it. Yes. There's also ways that people could reach you in emergency. So, like, you know you know, someone could call your spouse or your partner or your friend or whatever and say, hey. We have an emergency at work. We really need you to jump in. Okay. Fine. So I'll I'll break my zero phone date. But, it's it's very refreshing. And you realize that, hey. We used to live our lives before we were, you know, super connected all the time, and it was fine.

And it was fine. Yeah. Yeah. That is so true. I mean, I remember, Andrew. Just funny story. I, I cooped. I was an intern at McDonald Douglas, originally from from Kentucky

Uh-huh.

Cooped. And one time, I was driving home after work to Kentucky, and I got completely lost. You know? And so I'm, like, just looking for a place to pull over to get the the, you know, the put the quarter in the phone.

Yes. Yeah.

I mean, people don't even remember having to do that, but I didn't have the GPS. I didn't have any of that. Yeah. And we survived.

Yeah. I had the Thomas guide. Right? I would whip that thing out and

Yes.

Go to page, you know, thirty three and look at quadrant h five and, you know, find where it's supposed to go.

Oh, no. Yeah. It's just completely foreign though, I think, to our kids today. Well, I love that you, you know, you talked about, going from manager to leader. You know, where do you think leaders get this wrong sometimes? Like, managing, like, managing people versus leading people.

Yeah. So, two two things I've seen where leaders get this wrong. One is to surround yourself with yes people. And a great example of how to not do that was Abraham Lincoln. So I'm sure you know this, but Abraham Lincoln, once he was elected president, his whole cabinet were all people that had run against him. So he wanted people who had an opposite point of view to help, you know, bounce all of his ideas off. In fact, in our IT executive group, we have a rule called obligation to dissent. So when someone gives an idea, at least one person has say, hey. Here's a reason I think that might not be a good idea to help everybody kinda think about it. So that's one. And the other thing I think is is really leaning on using authority to do things. Right? That should not be the reason that people are doing things because of fear or your authority. It should really be, like, you're leading with a vision. You're inspiring people to say, hey, here's how we wanna go. Go. And and then get them on board with your vision and and your goal, and not, you know, pushing people or threatening or any any kind of, you know, fear or anything negative. And, certainly, you see those in business all the time. You see people who who lead in those ways, and that's not the right way to do it. You know? I I've I've been I've worked for leaders who are wonderful and leaders who are absolutely awful, and it's a great lesson of how not to do it when you see the second one.

For sure. Well, you know, and John Maxwell calls it positional leadership.

Mhmm.

Positional leadership, when you look at the five levels of leadership, Andrew, that's the lowest level. Yep. It's positional. You know? Just because you've got the title. Right? So, yeah, so, you know, one of the one of the, I think, the major things that a leader can do is to remove roadblocks.

Absolutely. That's one of my that's one of my two leadership, goals there is removing roadblocks.

Yeah. And that allows people to get their best work done. Right? Yep. Let me ask you this. I know that you have led eleven, I think, eleven or twelve different reorgs. I know it's one of your least favorite things to do, Andrew, too.

It was a skill that I never wanted to get good at, that I got really good at. So

Yeah. That there's so much emotional weight there. I mean, how did you personally carry that emotional weight? There were some really tough decisions in those

So I I grew as a leader in my maturity of being able to do that as it went on. The first time I did it, I really believed that we were transforming and that we were doing things better and that we were going to, you know, make a difference. And in some cases, we kinda did. Right? Like, the first one that I did was really, like, merging four orgs together and then eliminating three fourths of the middle management that we didn't need anymore. Right? You don't need four, you know, database managers. You could just have one.

Right.

And it's not necessarily eliminating jobs, but just changing the organizational structure to match that. But as it went on, you know, having to let go people that you've worked with for ten or fifteen or twenty years that you know them, you know their family. I mean, it's it's really it's really hard to do.

Brutal. Yes.

So I don't I don't have, like, a secret for how I did that. You know? I would say the last, probably four or five years of my career where I was having to do that were the worst because it it just kept coming more and more often. There was more squeezing of finances. And

Mhmm.

One way that I like to do it is called, early retirement programs. So, you know, you realize that you have a bunch of people in your workforce who are close to retirement, and you bridge them to retirement. You give them, you know, you take care of their health care until Medicare kicks in. And this is a positive way to do this. So, you know, if you're thinking about doing it in your organization, if you have any way to do an early retirement program, it's a great way to let people retire early, you know, and they're happy to do that. And then you can bring in, you know, kind of more entry level talent to help, to help, boost the org. But it's, Mhmm. That's the only positive way that I that I that I remember doing.

Right. That's a good word of wisdom. That's a good word of wisdom. Alright. Let's talk about this. So high performance. You know? If every professional thought of themselves as a corporate athlete, what would they do differently tomorrow, Andrew? I like that. Athlete.

Yeah. A corporate athlete. My gosh. I so I guess I guess you would have to train for everything that you're gonna do. You'd have to provide the the right fuel for everything that you're gonna do. I think it would really change your mindset. I think a lot of people go to work every day and just thinking, like, what is it that I have to do today? And they're not focused on a, a long term goal like an athlete is. Mhmm. So maybe seeing daily tasks as training opportunities, looking at ways that they can make things better for themselves. You know, athletes are always trying to be incrementally better, kind of following a continuous improvement mindset.

Right.

So maybe that's it. Maybe that's it. Boy, that's one question I wish you would ask me ahead of time. That's a fun one.

That's a loaded one. Right?

Yeah.

Well, I'm just thinking about daily disciplines.

Yeah.

Right? For really high performers and elite performers, it's like what you said, you know, the training, the, like, how can we make this better? That mindset is so important, I think. Right? If you want a high performing organization, you gotta have high performing individuals because individuals make up the organization. That's true. Yeah. Let's, gosh. I've got so many more questions here. But I tell you what, I think we're gonna take a quick break, and we'll be right back with Andrew Wilder on the Something Extra podcast.

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Well, welcome back everyone to the Something Extra podcast with my friend, Andrew Wilder. So, Andrew, I wanna talk about this subject that is on the tongue of every IT leader I know, and that's AI. You call it the beauty and the beast. Tell me your ideas around AI.

So when we think about AI from a cybersecurity perspective, we think about three things. So the first part is, how do we enable the business to use AI? Now if you would ask me about this three years ago, I would have said that we would put a bunch of controls around it. We would be very cautious about it. I think that time has ended. At this point, myself and all of the, you know, top level CISOs that I know, are are embracing AI, are jumping feet first into it. All businesses that are wanting to succeed are going, you know, AI initiatives. There's top down things saying, hey, we need twenty percent, incremental improvement across the board in every department on leveraging AI. You go and figure out how to do that. So I think from a from an enabling the business perspective now, what you really wanna do is you wanna understand, how they're using AI. You wanna have visibility into it so you can start to control it. I think that's the that's the enabling the business part. The second part that you wanna think about with AI is how the attackers are using it. So I'm sure you've seen the news around Mythos recently

Yes.

And Anthropic. Yes. Mythos is really, really good at finding zero day vulnerabilities. And zero day vulnerabilities have have previously been fairly rare. But if there's a tool that can find tons of them very quickly, then the attackers will have a huge advantage. And that means if they want to attack somebody, they can, no matter how well you think you're gonna be doing cybersecurity. So, and then the third part is how do you combat the attackers? So we like to say fight fire with fire. Right? So we are leveraging AI as much as possible using agents to do, what I would consider kind of lower value activities to allow the team to focus on higher value activities that hopefully will help to, prevent or disrupt the attacks, that people would bring against us from a cyber perspective. So that's that's the beauty and the beast, and that's the three ways that we think about AI today. Probably gonna change in a week, but, that's where we're at right now.

That's right. That's right. Well, you know and I just wanted to mention this because I I read this about you that you love The Diary of a CEO podcast I

do.

Is one of your favorite resources for really learning about AI and leadership. And so I just wanted to mention that for our listeners in case they wanna check that out.

Yeah. My second favorite podcast after the Something Extra podcast is Diary of the CEO. Yeah. He has had some incredible guests on there. And the thing that I really like about it is I wouldn't it doesn't, like, nerd out too hard. Mhmm. Right? It's very it's very like, my mother would listen to it. Right? It's very palatable, and it's very interesting. One quote that I really like from a guy named the godfather of AI, and I don't know if he gave himself that name or not. But, he was asked in the podcast, if you were telling your your your eighteen year old, you know, what sort of job to get into today that's gonna be that's not gonna be disrupted by AI, what what advice would you give? And he said, very plainly, he said, plumber.

Plumber. Yeah.

So, I mean and and some at some point, those will get disrupted by, you know, robots and things like that. But I think I think plumber or HVAC, you know, those are things that probably today are not gonna be disrupted

by AI.

I agree. If you're a developer, you know, my my heart's out to you right now.

We talk about it all the time. We talk about it all the time, especially the entry level. You know? I I feel like it's gonna go away.

Yeah.

What, gosh. I mean, Andrew, this is, like, not saying that you got a crystal ball, but with AI, I mean, five years from now, how how is it gonna look different the way that we work? I mean, what do you think?

So it it will continue to completely transform the way that we work. Once once Mythos is introduced to the general public the difference in how AI is being built today versus how it was being built over the last two or three years is that now AI is building itself. And so if you hire if you're anthropic or or OpenAI and you hire a thousand developers, that's one thing. That's cost. That's people. They can only work eight hours a day ish. Right? And they're doing the best that they can. If you're using AI to build AI, it scales exponentially. So the speed with which we'll start to release newer and better versions will will will continue to to shorten. And and what will happen is those major companies will start selling, like a like a human AI agent to do things. Here, I'll give you an accounting agent, or I'll give you a, you know, a sales agent or whatever it is. And they those will replace human jobs. Now that doesn't mean that human beings will be out of work. It means that what human beings will do will transform. Now I can't tell you exactly how that's gonna work or what that's gonna be. I don't have I you asked me about my crystal ball. But in terms of AI, those are things that I know is going to happen Right. Or I'm I'm very sure about, I would say.

Yeah. And we need to have our eyes open, you know, to that. Right? And and as leaders even be thinking about it. And, you know, if you're a leader and you're thinking, oh, you know, it's something that I can push off, you've gotta start thinking about it because

You cannot push it off anymore.

You cannot push it off. Right? Because your competitors are out there figuring out how to leverage it and, you know

Or a brand new startup has just been started with only five people, and they're leveraging it fully, and they're gonna come after you as fast as they can.

Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. Well, you know, Saint Louis, we're very lucky, I think, in the Saint Louis. Yay, Saint Louis. I mean, we have a very strong CISO community here.

Saint Louis is the is the number one CISO community in the world. Now we say that, but no one has ever challenged me on that. So, you know, we're gonna keep saying it.

Yeah. I mean, it's so good. I love it. You guys, you have a very tight knit community. You know, let me let me ask you this. I mean, because you've been in boardrooms. I mean, what does a boardroom conversation look like when it comes to cyber and risk? What does that sound like, Andrew?

Yeah. That's a fair that's a fair question. I think the the real answer is that it depends. You know, some some boards have people who understand cybersecurity at some level. Some don't. Some of them are looking at it and focusing on it. Some are not. I think if you are a chief information security officer, your one of your main goals is to make sure that your board understand the cyber risk, and that you're able to translate that into business risk. This is another thing I would say that happened to me about mid career is where I realized what my role really is is a subject matter expert on cybersecurity risk. And when I would go present to the board or the executive suite, what I would say is, hey. Here's a risk, risk a. There's three different ways that we can control that risk. There's a very expensive way that can really reduce it. There's a, you know, kinda middle of the roadway that's less expensive that'll reduce it a little bit, and there's a kind of an ignoring it way. And what is the risk appetite of the business in terms of how you wanna pursue these things? And prior to that, I would just get focused on a specific solution, and then I would say, we gotta do this solution. And then I realized, that's not my job. My job is to say, here's a risk. Here's the ways that we can control it. You tell me which of those you want to do, and then I will go and implement that thing. So, you know, unfortunately and you see this a lot of times with cyberattacks and companies like Drizly and some others that were in the news where, you know, they had a cyber attack, and then it was clear that they they, you know, they may have put something in their eight k or their ten k or whatever, but they really weren't paying any attention to cybersecurity risk. And the unfortunate thing is you're either gonna pay attention to it, you know, before you get breached or after you get breached. So I would recommend to do it before because it's probably, you know, better.

Be a lot less expensive probably before. Right? You know? Because those penalties and and that can be really, really hefty. You know, how I mean, you talk about being a ruthless prioritizer.

Yes.

I just, have another friend, and he we were talking about time management, you know, and he, like, does his time in thirty minute blocks. You know? How do you decide, Andrew? We can't do everything. How do you decide what not to do?

There's a there's a quote that's attributed to Warren Buffett, but I'm not a hundred percent sure it's it's him. But I'm I'm gonna go for it anyway.

Just go for it.

So he says, write down a list of the ten most important things that you need to do, and then rip off the bottom half of that list. Yeah. Right? So what I've always done is I have my team focused on the top, let's say, three. We usually do three. What are the top three things that we're going to do that we're gonna transform? And in VetCorps, we call them our glass rocks. Like, what are the things that we cannot drop?

Yes.

Now we still need to do the other things, but those other things can we can slow them down, or we can pause them, because what we really need to do are those glass rocks. And I you talked before about removing roadblocks. I think one of the things that we need to do for our teams is to surround them with this kind of safety where they can focus on doing those three things really well and not get wrapped up into the thousands of other things that will be thrown at them. Say, hey. CEO read this article in the news today about Mythos and AI security. What are we gonna do with this? Okay. Well, we're gonna do something about it for sure, but we need to we need to work on our glass rocks right now. We need to figure that stuff out first.

Yeah. I love that metaphor so much. The for our listeners that don't know that, there's glass rocks and there's plastic rocks or, you know, rocks the rocks that will break, and the glass rocks are the ones that you you just cannot break. I mean, you can't you can't compromise on those. I love that. I know that you've got a favorite book, and I just I wanna I wanna talk about because, you know, you've you've scaled many programs, and you've like I said, you've had just this illustrious career, and you've had a lot of different roles. But there's a book, Andrew, that I read that you really love, and it's called The First Ninety Days.

I do love it.

Michael d Watkins. Yep. What do you love about that book? And, you know, I think about, like, even a new president. You know? It's the first hundred days when you're in maybe there's a listener out there that is getting ready to take on a new role, Andrew. What would you what would you say to them? I mean, what do they do in the first ninety days?

So I have to give credit where credit's due. My mentor, knew that I was starting a new role, and he gave me that book.

And the John, or is this a different mentor? Was this John or a different mentor?

No. A different mentor. A different A Lewis based mentor.

Yes.

So the the first ninety days is really about how do you hit the ground running in any new role, and how do you maximize the amount of value you can deliver from day one? Now, obviously, day one is not really possible, but, you know, the first thirty days should really be spent on understanding the organization so that you can make a plan of what you're gonna do. And then within that second thirty days, you're already starting to begin some sort of quick wins. And within that first ninety days, you've already accomplished some of those quick wins, and then you can start to look at what is your longer term horizon for adding value. But the ability to add value within the first ninety days is huge because most people joining a new organization, it takes them about ninety days to ramp up to where they're giving value. And your idea is to how do you how do you hockey stick that? How do you, you know, get ahead of that curve so so that you can start delivering value to the org as fast as you

can? Mhmm. I love what you said, though. The first thirty days is just understanding the organization.

Yeah. You're never gonna have the time like you do in your calendar's never gonna be that open as it is in the first thirty days. So really get that. Go out there and interview people, meet people, get an understanding.

Yes. I've had I've talked to so many leaders, and and at first, they're doing listening tours. That's all they're doing. Right? It's just getting out there and listening. I wanna talk a little bit about this because I know that you work with CyberUp.

Uh-huh. Yes.

Yeah. Tell us a little bit about CyberUp, and then, you know, I've got a couple more questions for you, and then we'll talk about something extra.

Yep. So I know that you're big in the Saint Louis community, and CyberUp is such a such a light in the Saint Louis community. And and for those of you of your listeners that don't know about it, so CyberUp is a nonprofit, and what they do is they provide, free training to people who are career transitioners who are getting into cybersecurity. And we've had all kinds of amazing stories of people who come through there. A lot of military, ex military, people who are in sales or warehouse workers or whatever it is have gone through there, and they what happens is they get the free training. At the end, they they get a cybersecurity certification, and then we place them as apprentices in, great businesses throughout throughout Saint Louis. And many of those people have gone on to have really great careers in cybersecurity. If you come to the graduations, you'll see some of the alumni who come back and give a speech about how it transformed them. And one of the one of the the most emotional parts of it for me is going to the graduations and seeing the families of these people and and seeing what that's like for them. That's not just, you know, one change. That's a that's a new mortgage payment. That's a, you know, a better life for their children. I mean, everything transforms for these folks as they go through that program. So it's so it's really wonderful to be part of that. I'm super lucky to be the president of the board there. I never thought that that would happen either, but I met Tony about, oh, eight or nine years ago and was really struck by, you know, the the organization and what they were doing. And I just wanted to get involved, and I'd kinda pester him every time I'd see him. And finally, he let me join the board, and then I, you know, I kept doing good stuff for him, I guess. So

Yeah.

And it's great. The other thing that they do, by the way, is they also have this, thing called PowerUp. And PowerUp is where they go to k through twelve students, and they go and teach them about how to be safe online for for the younger kids and the older kids, what it's like to have a career in cybersecurity. And they meet with people who are in there, and they talk about, you know, hackers and and, you know, how to prevent that. And it's an exciting thing for kids to see too. And some of those folks who have been inspired have gone on to join the program later on, and then get a certification and get places in apprentice. What a what a wonderful story.

That's awesome. I see. Yeah. That's a part of what they did that I did not know that they're starting younger. Yes, that's wonderful. It's

They're one of the only organizations who who does that cybersecurity career training that also funds that Power Upside program.

Yeah. That's so good. Well, Andrew, what what piece of advice would you give someone if they are thinking about getting into cybersecurity or a leadership role?

Yeah.

I mean, they could go to CyberUp, but what else would you say to them?

So, again, I I'm gonna give a quote from one of my mentors who told me, no one is ever going to care more about your career than you do. Mhmm. So what I would say is figure out what is what is the job or the career that you want. Figure out what the gaps or opportunities that you have to get there. Like, go read the job description and say, hey. I'm really good at this. I'm okay at this. I'm not so great at this. And for any of the things that you're not so great, create a development plan for yourself and go and start doing those things. One equation that I like for this is one to the three hundred and sixty fifth power is one, But one point zero one to the three hundred sixty fifth power is, like, thirty seven. So what that means is if you just go one percent One percent. Towards your goal every day, you will get thirty seven times closer to your goal, by by the end of the year than than had you done nothing towards it. So really know what your goals are and do things, incremental things, to get yourself towards that goal. And then go out

there. What a great what a great, way to look at it. I love that. I'd never heard that before, Andrew, and I love it. And so it's whatever. I mean, that can, that can apply to your career. That can apply to running a marathon, whatever it is that your your goal is. Right? So, and and most people will be like, I can do one percent more

Exactly.

A day. Yep. You know? So very good. Well, I've got just a quick little couple little quick lightning round morning routine. Do you have a morning routine?

Morning routine. I do. It's mostly focused on spending time with my son, but I do I do about fifteen minutes of, of core exercise. Mhmm. I make breakfast for the family. Always a smoothie that has, fruits and vegetables in it. That's one of our secret ways to get Enzo to eat vegetables. And then, you know, he gets up. We have breakfast together, and I take him to school. That's my morning routine, and that gets me, psyched for the day. That's a lot.

That's so good. You know?

Not to read your emails, get some sunlight maybe.

Oh, yeah. For sure. I love that. Getting taking him to school. That we call that windshield time.

Windshield time. I've not heard that. I like that.

Yeah. Windshield time, and it's, just a beautiful way to

to Yeah. Tell me about tell me about the circulatory system. Okay. I wasn't wasn't ready for that question.

He sounds like a really, smart little smart little boy. We've already talked about, you know, podcasts that you like to listen to, you know, some of your favorite books. You know, what what would you tell our listeners? Like, is there any other, you know, advice that you would give, like, in growing? You know, having a growth mindset, Andrew, is so important.

Yep. What I would say is, go find yourself a mentor. So find someone that you look up to, that you wanna be like, and go ask them to be your mentor. And the worst thing that can happen is they can say no. And the best thing that can happen is it can absolutely change your life. And there are organizations out there that provide mentoring to people and organize mentorship, so go and find that. But the best way is to find a person that you like or look up to. Go ask Lisa if you want to. And, find a mentor for yourself, and that will help you to to make those plans that we talked about before, to, you know, to advance in your career or your life or whatever it is, incrementally and, and move forward for yourself. So I've I've been lucky to have some amazing mentors that have really helped me in my career and my life, and and I encourage others to do the same. I'm trying I'm trying to give back myself as well.

Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Do that and then pull somebody else forward with you. Right?

That's right.

It's really important. Well, Andrew, this is called something extra. I ask every guest this question. What do you believe is this something extra that every leader needs?

I believe the something extra that every leader needs is empathy. We talked about that before. I think, you know, running a mile in someone else's shoes, seeing what it is that they're doing. I think too many leaders are are up on a up on a pedestal, if you will. I think really getting down and understanding what other people are going through in an intimate way and being able to understand their programs. There was that TV show number of years ago called Undercover Boss. Yes. And I just imagine Undercover Boss. You know, I imagine the CEOs after Undercover Boss must have had such a better understanding of their organization and the challenges that people were going through. So get down, from your pedestal and get out there and see what your your folks are doing, And, and it'll help you understand them better, and it'll help you be a better leader.

That's so good. Andrew, thank you so much. This has been so much fun. Thank you for making the time to be on the show today.

Thanks for having me, Lisa. I really appreciate it.

And I will see you soon. I know. We're in a lot of the same rooms. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Something extra with Lisa Nichols is a Technology Partners production. Copyright Technology Partners Inc twenty nineteen. To learn more about this week's guest, check out the show notes at tpi dot co slash podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, consider leaving us a review. Thank you for listening to Something Extra.