Pride in the Digital Workforce: Ron Thurston on Job Market Trends

Speaker A: Started working at the Gap in the late 80s and never stopped. I spent 35 plus years. You're not going to walk away saying, uh, I'm going to change what I do. You're going to walk away reading Retail Pride saying, oh my God, like this guy worked in the business.

Speaker B: I agree because I think we worked for really incredible brands at times of entrepreneurial change or growth. Welcome to the Positive Effect Podcast Podcast. My name is April Sorrell. I am the host and today I am so excited to have a really good friend of mine on the show, Ron Thurston.

Speaker A: Thank you, April.

Speaker B: I'm so excited to have you in my living room. You are my neighbor now. We are neighbors.

Speaker A: We are neighbors.

Speaker B: And you came across the bridge to the island from the mainland to come and talk to me about your book.

Speaker A: I did, I did. It's funny how we both ended up in Miami because we were in new. We met when we both lived in New York. I lived on the road, which we can speak about for over a year and ended up here and then you ended up here and so, so many people like us together and now we live in the same city. So I know it's great.

Speaker B: I know it's funny. It's like I'm following you around.

Speaker A: I think I'm following you either way.

Speaker B: It's fantastic. So we're going to, we're going to talk about your book today, Human Pride. Um, but I want to go back a bit before we get to this because we're going to talk about this a lot because there's so many good reviews coming in. I see it posted all over LinkedIn. You're inspiring so many people. You inspire me every day. But I want to go back for any of our listeners that don't know your journey and how you got to this because I think we both have a retail background. We have a love and hate for it, but we love it. Um, but we're going to get to how this is evolving you beyond retail and what your next steps are.

Speaker A: But yeah, thank you.

Speaker B: Take us back to the beginning of, I guess being an author. Well, you can go back a little bit into your career. Yeah, but like becoming an author, I'd love to.

Speaker A: So I like you long time retailer. Felt fell in love with it ah at a young age. Started working at the Gap in the late 80s and never stopped. I spent 30, 35 plus years in stores and I feel incredibly like honored and excited to have worked for the brands that I did. I felt often like I was at moments in History in this industry at the right brand at the right time gap during those kind of early 90s. I was there until early 2000s, went on to help launch West Elm and build that, you know, under the Williams Sonoma umbrella. Went on to run Apple stores and launched some early iPhone products. And we share that.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, in common. And I think there's still today no one that does retail as well as Apple. And I was really proud to be part of that early experiment when we were just opening stores and, and when you still had to wait in line for three days to buy an iPhone and you know, I was there working the line and handing out snacks and like, we're going to be right with you. Like, you can't replace that.

Speaker B: I know. I remember, like my, uh, second launch was an iPad launch.

Speaker A: I was at. I, uh, we were there at the

Speaker B: same time, Showway Gardens. And I remember and, and everybody was like, how are you going to keep people motivated? And I had. This is really funny. No joke. You know, me and my games, I had a Twister pad in the back room and it was dance Twister. So I'd be like, okay, we've been half an hour talking to everybody. Let's go and do a Twister dance. So it was so funny. Anyway, sidebar. But yeah, Apple does do it really, really well.

Speaker A: They do and they still do it really well. And I, um, and it was great to be part of that early experiment. Um, went on to run Tory Burch from the west coast, um, again, very early in her journey of opening a brand and kind of what that meant at the time, 24, no, actually 2010, um, female led, foundation driven. You know, that was so personal to her. You know, this idea of photographs of her family in the store and her furniture is in those stores. I opened the flagship on Madison Avenue, opened the flagship on Rodeo Drive, like important moments in time. Um, and moved to New York City, helped launch a men's brand called Bonobos. Uh, went on to run St. Laurent on the luxury side for north and South America and until a few years ago was running Intermix, which was back under the Gap umbrella. And one of the, is the biggest, was, um, the largest multi brand women's luxury business in the country. Um, so just loved, loved retail, love. I love the people, I love the business, I love the entrepreneurship. There's just not, there's nothing about this industry and I think it's still true today. Done well, that prepares you for life. There's nothing else like it.

Speaker B: I agree because I think we worked for really incredible brands at times of entrepreneurial change or growth. Because I always say that when I was uh, in back in London working for Gap and met Don and Doris Fisher, I mean, at 22, I didn't know who they were. You know, like London had Gap stores. But like now looking back and I go, wow, look at that. And then meeting Howard Schultz when I was a mere store manager at another Starbucks store in London. And so these pivotal moments of meeting and working with these amazing brands and their founders and their leaders definitely gets you ready for entrepreneurship because you're creating things and you're, you know, building things and building teams, which I love to do. Um, but yeah, it's really incredible. And the fact that I just trained Tory Burch's team when you work there. So I feel like I am following.

Speaker A: Maybe you are. But the other piece around that, that I think so interesting about our industry is that it's so self taught and that, you know, we'll talk about retail pride in a moment. But you know, when you work in an industry where your success or not is based on your ability to learn on the job and like, how quickly can I learn this? How quickly can I deliver feedback? How, what brands have I chosen to work for? Who are the leaders I've chosen to work for? Or not chosen ended up in your life by accident. Like there's so, it's so rooted in this idea of you didn't come from a certain education, you learn it on the job and then you fall in love with it and then you get good at it. Or, or you say, you know what, this is too hard. But you and I both know thousands of people, um, that who absolutely love this industry and you know, writing a book for them was important.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I go back to retail pride and, and share how that came about. But you actually coined the phrase accidental career. That was you because. Yeah, it's so, and it's, and it's so resonated with me when I heard that because nobody really goes into retail in the field. Operations, you know, head office is a bit different, buying's a bit different, you know, marketing, that kind of lane. But when you're running stores, you literally start in a store and you think, this is what I'm going to do until I do something else. And then you fall in love with it. And I remember many times just going to dinner parties or talking to people in my late 20s of like, what do you do? And not wanting to say, I worked in retail because it was like kind of looked down upon, kind of like a server. And so that that coined phrase of accidental career, because it is a career.

Speaker A: It is.

Speaker B: It's a huge industry with so many people that work in it. And it's global. I've traveled to three countries with retailers, you know, so. So talk to me about Retail Pride. How that. Because you, you talked to us about your retail career. How did Retail Pride come about the first book?

Speaker A: So part of that was I recognized after decades of work that there was no one speaking to these people who I knew were so proud of what they did, so proud of their career, their customer, the teams they led, the brands. Because you and I both traveled to stores, did a lot of visits. People who worked in corporate offices with us would like, oh, I love spending time in stores. I get so much energy. And it's because you don't have that same level of energy and pride in corporate careers often. And so the more I thought about it, I said, I need to write a book that is for these millions of people that is from like the heart of being proud of your work in a language that is not about telling them how to do their job, not saying you're doing it well or this is how you can do it better or different. The book is a rallying cry in many ways, and I call it kind of a motivational speech in a book. It is.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You're not going to walk away saying, uh, I'm going to change what I do. You're going to walk away reading Retail Pride, saying, oh, my God, like, this guy worked in the business and wrote a book for me. And I hear that it's four and a half years later. I hear it all the time. I hear people stop me on the street, they stop me in the mall. They're like, retail Pride. And so I know that the impact that this book had was so positive and for the right reason.

Speaker B: Yeah. And it's funny because it came out right at the time around the pandemic M when we were all essential workers.

Speaker A: Exactly right.

Speaker B: Like really well timed as well. Which you couldn't afford.

Speaker A: It was accidental.

Speaker B: Accidental, yeah. Accidentally came out at the right time where I remember putting a post on LinkedIn and it was a picture of a Target team with red T shirts and it said, we are essential workers. And it was like, for me, the number one post of all time, it had millions of views on it. And it came out right about that time when everybody needed that and that feeling to feel good about what they were doing. And it was. I really Want to thank you for that because for the. For the years that I had worked in retail and not been proud about saying what I did until I got to multi level. And then people started going, oh, okay, you're managing multiple stores. Oh, okay, you're managing millions of dollars. Um, and they started looking at me differently. But it just made me feel proud of my career in retail.

Speaker A: That's really good.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I think it's. It's so misunderstood. Part of also this industry is, you know, well, what. What actually do you do all day? I've had that same. My family, even in a multi store. Well, what do you do all day? Well, I lead. I lead teams to greatness. Okay, well, but how. Like what is. So I do think that there's this internal language and understanding of the importance of this business and, you know, the very intentional use of the words. The guide to celebrating your accidental career. Celebrating is a very intentional word. And so you think. Because so many people, like you said, I never planned to do this. I have a fine arts degree, but I worked part time while I was in college, and here I am 20 years later.

Speaker B: Yeah. And nobody had really talked about that until you did with that book. Nobody had really talked about people just staying in it and making it something that they're really excited to share. So I think you really shifted the perspective on it and probably educated more people than just the people in retail that we're now proud to say that they worked here, but just educated the whole people around us on what we actually do.

Speaker A: I think that. Or people's families. Someone actually just recently here in Miami stopped me on the street and recognized me and the book and said, I love your book. But more important, I gave it to my parents who never understood what I did. And it changed my relationship with my family because now they're like, oh, this is a legitimate career. Here's a book about a career in retail. It was a store manager, and it's like, how can you replace that? Then you know you've done a good job as an author. When you've made impact beyond just the reader or that people give it to others, or the conferences you and I both get to speak at. They buy it for the audience. Done a lot of store meetings where brands buy it for new hires, recruiters buy it for new hires. Like, welcome. We're really proud to have you here. Here's a book celebrating your career. Brands.

Speaker B: Um, I love that. It's really interesting because when I wrote the Positive Effect, um, there was a lot of Debate around it should say, um, uh, a retailer's guide to Changing the World. And people were like, you shouldn't put that on it. Because if you just put the positive effect, it would open it up, uh, beyond retail, and it would make it very targeted, because you did put that on it. But when I wrote it, it was because I was the retail leader that wanted to change the world. That's the perspective I was coming from. So I think Retail Pride was really smart as well, because it was Target. And I know we're doing, you know, we do a lot of other things now, but do you think that played into the success of it?

Speaker A: I do, because I. I do because I knew exactly the audience that I wanted. It's not restaurant pride, uh, it's retail pride. And I. And. And the audience is massive. You know, it's tens of millions of people, and the book sells all over the world. So this. And the funny part is that I've had virtual speaking engagements in Australia or Latin America or. And they all have the same challenges and they have the same pride, even in different languages.

Speaker B: Interesting.

Speaker A: So they. It's not different, but I knew the audience was big specifically for retail.

Speaker B: So let's go to this one, um, because this is. This is the new one that just came out. Amazon bestseller, hit the list. So congratulations. I see everywhere. I love the COVID First of all, what made you write this book? Then after the journey of traveling across. We didn't get into traveling across country, but I want to get into this because a lot in this. And by the way, if you want to learn more about Ron's podcast, it's called, uh, retail in America. Um, and so you can go and listen to all of those and learn more about his travels across the country. But what made you write this one?

Speaker A: The joy of being able to be on stage because of retail pride. Also, recognize the fact that often at conferences on big stages, there's so much conversation about technology and AI the last two years, yet we stray further and further away from talking about people. And often you and I are sometimes at the same conferences, and we say, no one's talking about people, or Ron's the only one on stage talking about people.

Speaker B: It's true. Out of, like, four days of thousands of speakers, you go to your, um, events where you're, you know, having panelists, and you go, thank God somebody's talking about the people that actually work in the stores.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And run the business.

Speaker A: It's true. And so I thought about that beyond Retail Pride and said, we actually Have a much larger opportunity here, uh, as the workforce changes and AI continues to grow and no one can predict tomorrow. But what I know is being self reflective and knowing your own core values, your own strengths, your own, um, contributions as a leader or as a job seeker or for, for yourself. If you're confident in those foundations, you will add value no matter how your work has changed. And that's where I think I noticed just the fear around so many people about what's the future of work. The linear kind of path that I expected to have doesn't exist anymore. The idea of, uh, where is my place, how do I find those opportunities. But I find people so worked up on trying to understand technology. Let's work on ourselves first.

Speaker B: Yeah, I would. I was really fascinated because when I first heard you writing this book, Human Pride, um, and I was so excited for it to come out and then didn't realize actually one thing that surprised me and I don't know if people have told you this, but I was surprised it was written for a job seeker.

Speaker A: I didn't know that that was not my goal.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Was not what I intended to do. But I recognized the last year how the job search for two years has so changed. And I felt like we've taken humanity out of the job search.

Speaker B: But explain that to me because I know that you have a recruitment company too, right? Aussie, you founded a tech platform. And I don't hire and do recruitment. I mean with my own team. But I'm in the training space. Right, Coaching training space. But you're working with people looking for jobs. So how has it changed? Because I'm not applying for jobs. So I don't know how it's changed. But how has it changed?

Speaker A: It's changed dramatically. So part of the challenge of headcount, uh, for any industry the last several years is that a lot of the workforce reduction has come in learning and development, as you know. But it's also in talent acquisition, hr, um, all of those roles. There are fewer people in those jobs. So what they've done is capitalize on technology to speed up the hiring process. And so a lot of it has become first interviews are often AI based, where you're on camera, questions are flashed up that you just need the recording you answering questions.

Speaker B: That's actually happening.

Speaker A: It's happening, it's happening and it's becoming more and more common. So you have to get really good at on the fly, answering quick questions, which is really hard to do.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: If you don't practice, I would not

Speaker B: get hired because I was always the one in the meetings. If they wanted a quick answer or a creative thing, I'd be like, I need to go walk away and think about it and then come back. And I'd have to think about it. I am not in whatever color profile it is, yellow and like high engaging and like fun. So if I'm thrown a question like that and I'm behind a camera, I, I think I'm going to have a challenging time coming across of who I really am.

Speaker A: I think that's true of many people who are not comfortable. So it's, it's that and it's also, you know, AI is screening almost every applicant prior to even the AI interview. So technology has completely integrated into keyword searches on resumes, cover letters. You won't make it further along. I don't think it's a good thing. I think again, we've taken the speed at which we needed to hire over the last kind of post. Covid when many brands were in a serious hiring crunch, put technology as the first resource to do that. Well, we're not in the same place today. And so now I actually think there's this revert back to slowing the hiring process down, having more conversations, almost too many now. It's almost become this meme of like, you know, I heard I saw one today of like, you can hire the pope in two days, but it takes, you know, a remote worker, seven interviews to get a job, you know. So I think that there's this balance that we need to have around how to use technology to optimize the hiring experience, but at the same time make it efficient and effective for the candidate. There's this balance.

Speaker B: So if I was a candidate today and you were going to coach me on how to actually navigate this new world, is this what this book's going to do?

Speaker A: We'll do that. And part of it is not to become better at technology. It's actually to be better at telling your story. And so the first question that I often ask, I'm sure you do too, is tell me your story. Like, what is your 62nd version of yourself? And whether you are a recent college graduate or someone that's been doing this for a long time, you need a 60 second pitch of tell me about yourself. And many people, I would say most struggle with that.

Speaker B: And I was in a networking event this week with a card in front of me that was like, name who you, uh, are, what do you do? And they put us on a timer, you know, like, and all of those groups. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm so nervous right now. There's so much I do. How am I going to get it out of me in 45 seconds and legit? I didn't listen to anybody else because in my head, I was just going over and over again what I wanted to say. And then I said, stop, April, what do they need to know? And that is a trick that I learned when I was a public speaker in the John Maxwell team. Was the last thing that you ask yourself before you go on stage in front of anybody, you say, what do they need to know? And it takes the attention off you and it puts it on the person in front of you. So then I was like, okay, I just do this, and this is what they need to know. But that's nerve wracking.

Speaker A: Nerve wracking. So it takes practice.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so this idea of, how do I understand how I tell my story? What are my core values? What am I looking for in that in the company? And so this. When you're really grounded in your values and proud of the work that you do, your likelihood to stand up for yourself, ask tough questions in interviews. This is full of. Here are questions you could ask in an interview. If these are aligned to your core values. Here are questions you could ask.

Speaker B: Oh, I like that. So it's like, um, you're asking us, first of all, to get aligned with our core values. What do we feel is important to us? And then giving us the tips and tricks to ask the questions to the company to see if they align.

Speaker A: Correct. Align. But I think great candidates ask hard questions. So this is one example that I've used with a lot of college, uh, students happen, uh, to be primarily. The groups I've had are primarily female. So I'll say to them, is it important for you that the company you're going to join has women in senior leadership roles in the company? I'll say yes. I said, okay, so is it important to you that there are women on the board of directors of this company? They would say, yes. Is it important to you that there are women of color in senior leadership roles? Is it important to you that those women were promoted internally through this brand? So think like, what's important to you? Then go into the interview and say, so tell me the story of the last woman that was promoted internally into a senior leadership role in this company. And if the interviewer can't answer that, then this may not be the right company for you. That's so, like, don't be I, uh, do find people are afraid to ask the hard question and they're willing to settle.

Speaker B: But are they afraid because they want to just get the job and present themselves and not challenge somebody? So will this book help them ask those questions in the right way?

Speaker A: It will. Because then when you're really showing up and saying, I understand my value, I understand my strengths, I understand what I'm going to contribute to this company, I'm m interviewing you as much as you're interviewing me and that's the way that job interviews should be. And instead when jobs are tight, we almost become desperate. Become desperate Survivor. And then what, you know, I guess I appreciate but I'm also frustrated by sometimes is then six months later I get people coming to me and saying, wow, Ron, like I should have asked more questions. Uh, this place is terrible. And, and I'll say, well, tell me about the questions you asked in the interview. Well, you know, they didn't ask any and they just. Or you know, how do you, how do you continue to be good at negotiating compensation? Proud people who are confident in their values and their strengths are not afraid to talk about compensation and stand up for themselves.

Speaker B: That's really, I've never really heard that proud people because it comes back to again, value or valuing yourself is believing that you're worthy of. And so what you're igniting is letting that self doubt go, really finding who you are, uh, believing in it, standing up for it and then come from that place of abundance.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: That's so cool.

Speaker A: And, and I know it's uncomfortable for people. All of this is uncomfortable and it takes practice. But if you settle for less, then you know that you're worth. Or maybe you're right, you don't actually even know that yet. You haven't done the work to say here's my value, then you're going to settle for less. You're going to have a terrible boss, you're going to stay in a job that you don't like. There's all, all of this becomes so like really distracting to your success. So I really, I wanted to. So half the book is for this, on this conversation.

Speaker B: Yeah, I love it because first of all I love the way that the book's laid out. It's beautiful.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker B: Um, you can pick it up and read any page and find a golden nugget in there. Like you don't have to read it from the front to the back because it's not like a, a life story. It's like a book of advice. That's kind of what I'm hearing.

Speaker A: Advice and self work.

Speaker B: And self work, yeah, yeah. Like asking you the questions to do the work. And I love that. Obviously me, you know, I'm all about leadership and good bosses. So. So I love the way that it's broken up for the job seeker, uh, for the leader and for yourself. So how did that come about or explain what does that even mean? Like for the job seeker, for the leader, for yourself.

Speaker A: As the book evolved, just the writing journey that, you know, which was most of 2024, uh, I continued to think about this. Well, this isn't just a book for one specific audience. This is actually if I'm a job seeker, I could pick up this book if I'm in a leadership role, uh, not even looking, but maybe I interview people. I should read about this, about what's the job seeker's experience. Because the great, the best jobs are done and interviewed by people who are really good at it. Great interviewing is also a skill as well as being a good interviewer. And so I wanted it to be very clear of wherever you are, here are the parts of the book that make the most sense. It's a job seeker leader and for yourself. And there was a lot of other content that didn't end up in this book around what you could learn from retail because clearly we could talk about that all day.

Speaker B: But this, this is for anybody industry though. This is not just for retail.

Speaker A: It's not for retail. Um, but I'm already just based on the reviews. A lot of retail people are reading

Speaker B: this, of course, because you are the National Retail Federation's voice of retail, the first one ever that's been named. So of course they're going to read it. But I mean it's such a big industry, but it will spread that ripple. You know, I'm a ripple maker. I'm all about the ripple. You touch one person, you touch another person, you touch another person. And that ripple effect. And that ripple effect starts a lot of times in our own networks. Then they pass it on to somebody else. Retail touches so many people's lives. So it's just going to keep having that report. You just made me think about when I was a recruiter at Apple and I remember having this training and them saying to us, you know, as a leader interviewing, getting ready to interview somebody for a job, think about the person, the candidate, how much preparation they could have done for an interview. They probably called a friend, they probably googled the interview questions. They probably role played a couple of times. And what you're just going to show up with 5 minutes of prep time is that really respecting the value of the candidate that they've done three weeks of prep or stress to show up because it was Apple, but you're just going to show up just like willy nilly. Yeah, winging it. Right. Because a lot of people do. And that always stuck with me because I was like, that's so true. So whenever I would train business owners on interviewing, I'm like, show up and bring your best self. Bring the energy, bring the prep. Look at what's on their resume. Think about the questions you're going to get asking, you want to ask, get curious. And don't just show up and like give them a lazy ass interview. That's just not fair. That doesn't go along with the human pride message. You know, but so many people do that and then they say there's no good. The one thing that kills me, there's no good people. April, I'm like, there's so many great people. Like when I worked at Apple, I remember them saying there's no good people. In Toronto, we hired 450 people when I was there, uh, six months. And corporate had said before I got there it was taking them like two years to even get like 10 or 20. And they said that there was no good people. I'm like, no, there's great people, but we need to show up as the leader, ready to find them and look for the good, ask the right questions and also train them, train them. There's so many good people that are not trained and if you don't train them, they won't be great, they won't be great.

Speaker A: And um, I think in your world training creates pride in your work. And so this idea of, you know, am I, am I happy in my job? Um, and I, I try to flip that and like, but are you, Is your work optimizing your strengths? The subtitle of this book is again, very Intentional words. Optimizing your human potential in a digital job market. I chose every word for a reason. And if you're not optimizing your potential and then, and uh, say you're optimizing training that's available to you. Training improves your skill sets. Being conf. Improves your confidence. Confidence creates pride in your work. You show up, I know what I'm going to do. I understand who's around me, I understand the influence that I have. I understand the training that I need to continue to have. Like, all, if all of that is really Clear. Then you can go into any situation and be ready and proud to show up that way.

Speaker B: And we learned that running stores, that running stores, if you open a store and didn't have anybody trained or interviewed well and just put anybody on the floor and didn't train them, the store was not going to be successful. But if you spent the time finding those right candidates, right, really looking, you know, spending the time doing the right interviews, whatever that required, and then training them with the great expectations and making sure the managers were trained, because that's half the battle. Then your story is going to perform, will perform.

Speaker A: And that. I think the word pride we didn't really use much before. We didn't. But that's what they are. Yeah, they come. You know, I love all those. I have just. I have thousands of pictures on my phone of me and stores with really proud teams standing around me. I didn't actually know that's what it was.

Speaker B: Yeah, you're right. I didn't know that either.

Speaker A: But that. But that's what we had created. I'm proud to work for this company. I'm proud of the work that we do, the results that we deliver, and that applies to any business. And if you can't describe it that way, it may not be the right opportunity for you.

Speaker B: Yeah. It's funny, because in our training we say two things really matter. Igniting positive emotions in others so that if they're on your team, they feel really good, which is pride, which we never articulated. You're right. And then two, building skills and abilities. You get those two things right, you got to. You got a winning team.

Speaker A: Right. You're unstoppable in so many ways, but there's so many layers for that to be done well. And so that's.

Speaker B: It sounds easy, right?

Speaker A: So easy. You and I could. Oh, my gosh, you know, positive and pride. And like, you and I use these words, but it's. They're so much deeper. They're so rooted in everyone being aligned, everyone having clear goals, everyone being confident in their skill set. Every part of this great organizations are investing at every level and creating that space. Space. And you can see it when brands do really well or they're outperforming or you're in their businesses. You understand why they're so successful.

Speaker B: Yeah. Somebody said to me in the training the other day, because we were training coaches now, said, um, well, is it our job to make. Is it a leader's job to make somebody happy? And I said, well, it's not your job to make Somebody happy, but it's not your job to make them unhappy. Like, period. Right. So you're not going to make somebody happy in life, but you're going to make sure you don't make them miserable at work. And that will trickle because we spend so much time at work. So you have these opportunities to ignite that, and then it ripples and trickles out into their lives.

Speaker A: And happy is not even a word that I use. I don't even. I could probably search this book. I don't know that I use that word because, uh, it's almost a replacement happy. So as our pride, emotions that are hard to describe, but am I happy or am I proud of this work? I think there's a very. So, uh, I would flip that on them and say, is it my responsibility to create pride in my team? I would say, yes, it is. That is your job. That's your job as a leader. To create an environment where people are proud of their work. Because then you have things like conversations about time and attendance. Proud people don't show up to work late. They come in and they're ready to go. They care, they want to do a great job. They show up that way. Uh, that emotion actually trickles into so many different areas that are part of just general store operations. Clean, neat, organized, consistent, timely. You could apply anything in any business. And if you've created an environment as a leader where people are proud of their work, much of that is solved. And again, sounds really simple, but it's highly. It's very difficult to do at scale.

Speaker B: You're making me think about just. There just needs to be a whole online course about building pride. I don't think I've ever seen that. I see confidence. I see different terms, but I don't think I've seen that. I think it's attached with other organizations, but that particular. Just having pride in what you do. I love that message. Yeah, we're going to start wrapping up. Um, but why should we go get this book? And where can we get it?

Speaker A: So today, uh, Amazon and all over the world, um, it's available. And so that Kindle paperback, uh, and so that's number one, I think, ultimately, in some big retailers across the country as it spreads. Um, why. I think today we live in a world where optimizing your own human potential and your own communication skills, your own commitment to greatness, your own confidence, um, in what you do has never been more important. Because you can't control where AI is going to take work, where it's going to change your work, how it's going to create a new industry, how it's going to diminish others. You can't control that. None of us can. I mean, there are a handful of people in the world that can, but I'm not one of them.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So what I would say is, then do the work on yourself so that the chaos that is often around us feels less out of control, because you can only control your own experience, and you're celebrating your own great potential.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, um, what I love about your message from the first book to the second book is AI can't replace human connection. It can't replace context. It can't replace empathy. It can't replace those skills. So now your humanness is your superpower, right?

Speaker A: That's exactly right. And it's yours as a leader. So it's easy as a leader to also be distracted by all the technology that's being infused into your work. What I would say is, whatever time you saved through technology, if it's two hours a week, four hours a week, a whole day of work, put all of that back on your team. Say, wow, my calendar just freed up. I can, uh, now have eight more touch bases a week. How would you like me to be communicating to you, April? Would you like to have another call every week and talk about your goals or give you feedback or provide training for you? I don't know anyone that's going to say no. So use technology to your advantage as a leader to give more time back to your team.

Speaker B: I have a theory that ours should go back into the stores now and into the field, because now we can say functions in the office. So that's a whole other topic.

Speaker A: But it's true. That's the gift that we've been given.

Speaker B: Well, thank you so much for joining me in my warm living room in Miami. Um, go get his book, Human Pride. You can find it on Amazon. Um, just Google it. He's awesome. Um, listen to the podcast. Buy the other book, too, but this one, I think, and gift it to somebody. And I'm going to ask that you write a review as an author, a fellow author. Reviews, reviews, reviews. Can't say that enough. People say, oh, we loved your book. And we go, did you write a review? And I know it sounds tiring, but write a review because it helps other people find it.

Speaker A: It's true.

Speaker B: Right? So thank you.

Speaker A: Thank you, April. Thank you so much fun.