Why You Can't Wait For Someone Else To Fix It With Doug Lennick

by Patrick Veroneau

Empowerment springs forth when we embrace the truth that we are the architects of our own growth. Choose to stop waiting for someone else to fix you and instead take charge to transform yourself into the best version of yourself. Join Patrick Veroneau as he interviews Doug Lennick, the CEO of think2perform and co-author of the enlightening book, Don't Wait for Someone Else to Fix It. In this thought-provoking discussion, Doug sheds light on the significance of taking responsibility and proactively improving oneself, transcending the boundaries of traditional leadership perceptions. He discusses how you can enhance your leadership skills and make a profound impact not only in corporate settings but also in your personal life and any other environment that calls for your presence. He shares the power of personal accountability, letting go of the tendency to shift blame, and embracing self-improvement. Doug explores the transformative journey of becoming a better leader and fostering positive change in every facet of your life. Don't miss this episode, which will ignite your motivation to step up and make a difference!

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Thank you for joining me on another episode of Learning from Leaders. I'm so happy you could join me. This was an interview that I had with Doug Lennick regarding a book that he co-wrote with Chuck Wachendorfer. The book is titled Don't Wait for Someone Else to Fix It. I love the title, especially in the environment we're in now. I feel like so many people want to point the blame at somebody else and, “It's not my fault. It's yours,” and not take responsibility.

This goes right between the eyes and in a very empathetic way as well of saying that we need to take responsibility for our environments. He talks about how to improve as a leader and as a follower and how to look for opportunities to improve ourselves so that when we do that, we also have an opportunity to improve the lives of those around us. Again, don't wait for someone else to fix it. Let's get into it.

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Doug, I want to thank you so much for being on the show and talking about your new book. My energy level is so amped up now on some of the things that we were talking about before. Your book, the title alone, Don't Wait for Someone Else to Fix It and the subtitle of it is, 8 Essentials to Enhance Your Leadership Impact at Work, Home, and Anywhere Else That Needs You.

That is so important in the environment that we're in now because we get so stuck on leadership as being it's in a corporation and leadership is everywhere. We can all have the ability to be leaders first off. I certainly want to tackle that but the beginning of this, the first part of this book to me was even more striking, Don't Wait for Someone Else to Fix It. I was wondering if we could start there. What was the intention of that title?

To your point, Patrick, and this has probably been true. Mark Twain said, “These are interesting times,” and he remains correct. We've gotten to a place in the world where pretty much everybody is gifted at seeing what needs to be fixed. Don't you notice that most people are good at pointing out some things that are wrong? “It would be nice if that got fixed. It would be nice if somebody did something about that. Our government should do something about that. Businesses should do something about that. Education should do something about this.”

We're all pointing to all these things that need to be fixed. The truth is, we are part of the fix. You mentioned leadership. Everyone has the ability to be a leader. The truth is, everyone is a leader. They're either good at it or they're not. They don't get a choice. Everybody is a leader. The reason that is so is leadership as we define it, is that which one does to influence the behavior of another. Every one of us does something that influences somebody else. By the way, every one of us is also influenced by somebody else. Not only are we leaders. We are also followers. The opportunity is to improve in both of those capabilities.

It's interesting as you say that. I can certainly think it's almost like we've come to this point where it's always somebody else's fault of why something is going on as opposed to what you are talking about and saying, “We've got to take ownership for this.” We all have the ability to somehow impact this thing in a positive way. I would fully agree with you. We've too often pushed it to somebody else to say, “You are the reason why this isn't,” as opposed to saying, “How can I impact this myself?”

The opportunity lies with self. The opportunity lies with me being able to do something to make things better now. This is a today game. This is a seven-day-a-week game. This is not a go to work then go home and live another life. This is to live your life all day long. I found it interesting when businesses said, “We're open 24/7.” People were already living 24/7, so thanks for opening up. That's great but we're already 24/7.

The opportunity lies within yourself. The opportunity lies in your being able to do something to make things better today.

What Chuck and I are trying to do with this book and the great help of Kathy Jordan is to help people understand we, ourselves have an opportunity. We even have an obligation to do something. We're part of humanity and we have a role to play and it's our turn to pick it up. Everybody needs to step it up. All of us need to realize that what we do, others are observing and we're influencing them.

When we do something nice to somebody or for somebody, somebody notices that and they might pay it forward. There are little things we can do and there are big things we can do but everybody can do something. What we're saying is not only why but we're also talking about what and most importantly, how. This is a how-to book. This is a use-it book.

It's laid out that way in terms of throughout the book, there are opportunities for you either knowledge checks or examples but also questions that you can be asking yourself to assess, “Where am I?” In each of these things, we talk about.

There are little exercises you can do. That's right. By the way, thank you for reading the book and for inviting me to this show. I've been much looking forward to it.

As I was reading and as I hear you talk about leadership, it's everywhere. We all have this ability. It reminds me of a quote that I often attributed to John Quincy Adams but Dolly Parton is the one that seems said this. It was, “If your actions inspire somebody to do more, dream more, learn more, and become more, you're a leader.” As I read through your book, it is about our actions that inspire others to do those things. That is leadership or we uninspired people. As you said, you're either a good or bad leader.

That's right. The truth is everybody is influencing the people around them. I don't know if you've ever noticed this, having had the opportunity to be in many different organizations in many different states and countries around the world. I found it interesting that I can walk into almost any building here in downtown Minneapolis, go to any floor on any building and any company and I can find a group of miserable people.

They cluster. Have you ever noticed that miserable people hang out together? They don't even have to talk. It's like, “There's a miserable group.” I often ask people, “If you hang out with a bunch of people who complain, you should ask yourself, ‘I wonder why they include me.’ I assure you it's not because you're uplifting. You will be rejected from the group. You're all influencing each other. Life sucks. Your boss sucks. Work sucks. The president sucks. The future president sucks. Everybody sucks. Let's talk about that. That sounds productive.”

Move away from that because those people are influencing you. My mom, long deceased, always said and she was right, “Who you hang out with, Doug, matters. Pick your influences. Pick the books you read. The books you read matter. Choose to read this one. It matters not because I want you to buy the book for the book's sake. I want you to buy the book for your sake. I want you to use the book.”

It reminds me of when I was in high school. As most would know, our vice principal is an authoritarian right there, for the discipline part. I had many conversations with this individual. I remember him saying to me one day, “Mr. Veroneau, if you hang around dogs, you eventually get fleas.” That always stuck with me. To your point of who you hang around with, it matters.

It does matter and sometimes people have to make difficult choices in terms of, “Who am I going to hang out with?” The people I'm hanging out with are not helping me progress. I will say this and I'm sure, given the conversation you and I had for a half hour before, you feel the same way. Humans have an insatiable appetite for growth.

We can't get enough and we need to surround ourselves in an environment where our personal growth is encouraged and fueled. That's why we want each of us, the authors and the readers of this book, to not wait for somebody else to start helping out here. Other people are going to need to do things also but don't wait for them. There's no reason to wait. Tomorrow is our enemy. Today is our friend. This is a today sport.

The human appetite for growth is insatiable. We need to be in an environment where our personal growth is encouraged and fueled.

There's so much research that backs up what you said in terms of the potential that we all have if we are able to tap into it. Along those lines, one of the things as somebody's reading this book and I'm sure you would agree with this. If you are in that group, you're then trying to break away to take a different path, to get on that development. That crabs-in-the-bucket mentality of as you try and climb out of the bucket, other people are going to be trying to pull you back down to keep you in with them.

Gravity is a strong force. Anytime somebody wants to change their own behavior, their existing gravity will suck them back to their habitual behavior. We have the authority to override that. That's what we're talking about in this book. You and I, both of us, have the authority to use our minds to override the impulses of our brains and then behave.

You remind me of something, Patrick. I told this five-frogs story. There are five frogs that are sitting on a branch. Frogs, as we know, are adult tadpoles. I grew up in North Dakota and I loved the frogs because, in the Spring, the little tadpoles would be in the little mud puddles then they would grow into frogs. An adult tadpole is a frog.

These frogs are sitting over this lazy river and it's a hot summer day. There are five of them. They're all sitting on the log and they're looking down. There are a bunch of other critters that are enjoying the coolness of the water. The frog in the middle is sitting there thinking, “It's hot. We're going to die up here.” He decides to jump in. How many frogs are left on the log?

Four?

Five, because there's a difference between deciding and doing. What happens is gravity conformity. The frog that decides to jump in looks around and sees the other frogs left and right. None of these frogs are jumping. They must know something I don't know. There must be a reason that we are supposed to sit here and boil to death, so nobody jumps. The difference is you got to be willing to take the jump. Many people have decided many times to do the right thing, but then they don't do it. This is an action sport. This is moving from deciding to doing.

Self-awareness is the foundation of it all. The concept is essentially the effective leadership of others. I'm going to substitute the word leadership. I'm going to say effective relationships with others. For those people who are struggling with the word leadership, use the word relationships because you have a relationship with somebody.

Effective relationships with others or effective leadership of others is a function of effective management of self. How well I deal with me has everything to do with how well I relate to you. That, in turn, is a function of decision-making and a function of self-awareness, so bottoms up. This is not a drinking joke. As you know, I'm a recovering alcoholic.

Self Improvement: Effective leadership of others is a function of effective management of oneself.

It starts with self-awareness first. Effective decision-making, second. Effective management of oneself, third. Effective relationships with other people, fourth and it all starts with self-awareness. People who lack self-awareness don't know because if they knew, they would be self-aware. That is a fly in the ointment.

Part of what we do is point out that self-awareness is critical and then we help people learn how to become more self-aware. You can become more self-aware. Most people overestimate how well they know themselves. As a result, they don't manage themselves as well as they could and their relationships are less than optimal.

It reminds me of research that's done around Dunning-Kruger. This belief is that we overestimate our own ability. One of the studies that I will reference is about emotional intelligence. These managers or leaders especially overestimated their own self-awareness and ability to work with others. We need to recognize that. We all do that from time to time. We overestimate our own abilities.

A lot of times, what happens to people who have ascended to positions of seniority in organizations who some people mistakenly think of as the leaders of the organization? They are leaders in the organization. They may or may not be the leaders, the people that people follow because followers choose leaders. I choose who to follow. You don't pick me. I pick you.

I'm going to pick people who help me get to where I want to go. That's who I pick to follow. I'm going to follow someone who wants to help me. What we find is people, once they get to realize at an ideal level, almost everybody is a pretty wonderful human being. That's why we start off by saying, “Know who you are ideally,” so self-awareness. The first thing I need to know about me is, “Who am I ideally? Who is the ideal Doug Lennick? Who's the ideal Patrick? Who am I ideally?

We take people through an exercise that helps them get in touch with who they are from the inside out. This is taking charge of your life from the inside out. This is not waiting for the outside to get better. This is for the inside to get better so that you can create better outside. It's a totally different game than waiting for someone else to fix it. I'm not going to wait for somebody else to fix it. I'm going to fix it and it starts with me.

Again, it's along those lines of you can't be there for somebody else if you don't even know how you operate yourself. You can't do it and that old cliché about putting your own mask on first if you're on a plane and they drop down. You have to make sure that you are in the right place first or you won't be there for other people. That's how I understand as I was reading that.

One of the things we say all the time at our company to perform is that. You can't give away what you do not have. If I do not have an understanding of how to become self-aware, how am I going to teach you? By the way, nobody lives perfectly here. The logic chain begs the question I find. The question that it begs in my mind is, “How will I know I'm managing myself well?” The answer to that is, “I will be day-to-day, moment-to-moment the guy I identified I would ideally like to be.”

You can't give away what you do not have.

When I'm that guy, then I'm managing myself well. Wonderfully, when I'm the guy I ideally want to be, people like me, and my family likes me. People I work with like me. My clients like me. Everybody's more productive. We're all happier. Why? It’s because I am being the guy I ideally want to be. Try it out. Do it for a day as a reader. Take one day and you say, “All day, I'm going to be my ideal self.” See how it goes for you. Do it one day. Don't make a lifetime commitment. That's so long but you might find that having an ideal day feels so good. You might try it again.

Along those lines, though, I do think there's a need for patience with myself and kindness toward myself to be able to do this. Part of it is to give myself the space to try this on and to grow. I was thinking about that but then I don't think you phrased it this way. I thought you need to be patient with other people once you have changed so that they can see that it's real that you have changed.

We all do this. We make changes and we think, “I'm changed. Everybody should be fine now.” It's not the way it goes. We need patience and I like that you brought patience up. One of the metaphors that I use for myself is inside of oneself, there is a couple that is dancing. One party to the dance is patience. The other party to the dance is urgency. One of the essentials is deciding wisely.

We need to have the wisdom to decide which party should lead which dance. Should this dance be led by the wisdom of patience or by a sense of urgency? Sometimes, I got to do the sense of urgency and I got to get going now. Sometimes I got to do it now. The late great Stephen Covey would talk about quadrants of time management. Quadrant one was important and urgent. You got to do stuff that's important and urgent.

Quadrant two are things that are important things but not urgent. A lot of people don't do those things but that's the key quadrant. That's the quadrant you want to live in. Do important things now. It's a today game. This is what I've discovered. Patrick, I'll be interested. You probably find the same thing. When I woke up, it did not feel like tomorrow. It felt like today. What I've come to realize is tomorrow comes disguised as today every day. If I wait to do it tomorrow, I wake up tomorrow and I'm not there, so I have to wait another day. I'm going to do this tomorrow and I'm not in tomorrow. I thought I would wake up tomorrow but I didn't. I woke up today. Tomorrow is our enemy.

It's interesting you say that because I think of a very close friend of mine whom I went through a coaching program with many years ago. His name was Tom Brown and he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He sent a letter to me and in the letter, he was talking about living life to the fullest. He said, “Live life today because it's the only place that life happens.”

I love that.

We can't live in the past. We can't live in the future. Live in the moment because it's the only place where life happens.

Yesterday's history. Tomorrow's a mystery. All I got is today. It sounds trivial but it is so true. The thing is I hope I can help people say, “This is my life and I'm not going to wait for somebody else to fix my life and because I'm not going to wait for someone else to fix my life, I'm going to be part of the fix for the world around me.” Don't wait for someone else to fix it includes don't wait for someone else to fix me. I'm going to fix me and the essentials.

Don't wait for someone else to fix yourself.

By the way, each essential works all by itself. Optimization happens when they work together. Somebody could say, “I don't want to work on eight things. That sounds like too much but I like that one on deciding wisely. Let me work on that.” If you learn to decide wisely, it'll change your life. If that's the only thing you do, great. Would you like your readers to get a game? We could teach them now. They could practice now. It'll change their lives now.

Let's do it.

Here's the game. It's a freeze game. All that happens in the freeze game is I say freeze and when I say freeze, you stop and answer three questions. What was I thinking, how was I feeling emotionally, and what was I doing? Answer to the third question, by the way, a clue, there is no nothing. We're always doing something. Freeze. With that, Patrick, I said freeze. When I said freeze, what were you thinking about?

I was thinking about where I had read some of the information on a study that's similar to this but on the impact that this has that we spend. Am I focused on the moment or is my mind wandering to something else that's not even present in what we're doing now?

Everybody else who's answering that question has a different answer, which is wonderful to know about you and me. How are you feeling emotionally? What emotion were you feeling when I said freeze? Do you remember?

For this whole interview, it's been exciting energy. I'm still in that space.

Physically, what were you doing?

Eyes open, leaning forward as I am now.

Now why is it important that we understand what we're doing?

Often, we don't. We are going through the motions on things as opposed to what isn't going on now.

People are looking at you. When I look at you, how many of us can tell? In our own mind, we come to an awareness, a thought, or a conclusion as to how Patrick is feeling based on the look on his face. I had a boss one time who always looked angry even when things were great. I always tell this story and he doesn't like it that I tell the story. I even name his name but I won't now for his sake. Jeff, I'm saving you.

I remember going into his office one day and I said, “Jeff, how are you feeling about everything? Business is booming.” He was the CEO of the company. I was the guy that reported to him. I was the Executive Vice President. We're doing this and he says, “Everything's going great. Why?” I said, “People are wondering. They're asking me all the time and you seem upset.” He said, “Everything's fine.”

I said, “If everything's fine, would you mind telling your face? It would be super. If you told your face, then people wouldn't have to ask me about it because your face is talking to people and they think you're upset. If you're not upset, tell your face. When people get on the elevator with you, they'll see a happy face instead of the guy that they see now.”

How did that end?

It ended not that well that day but overall, it ended well. That day, that was the wrong thing to have said but overall, he and I are best friends to this day. I've learned a ton from him. His name is Jeff Stiefler and he taught me. He said, “Everybody wants to be in a groove. No one wants to be in a rut.” The problem is grooves become ruts and if we don't pay attention to these essentials, we will get stuck in the rut. There are a lot of reasons why. I don't know Simon Sinek but I love the title of his book, Start With Why. I can't claim to know him but I like the book. I like the title because if people know why, what, and how, it makes sense.

Doug, as you mentioned, as I was going through this book, there are essentials. I can pick this up at any point and say that I want to work on this piece. When I think about leadership too, I often think of the importance of the need for vulnerability. You demonstrate your own vulnerability in this book in a story that you tell around alignment. I was wondering if you could speak to that because it meant a lot to me as I was reading that. The power that had in terms of walking the talk in a sense or being in alignment.

Thank you, Patrick, for mentioning that. We identify eight essentials. The very first essential is to aim to be your ideal self. Each chapter opens with a story, a real person. This particular chapter opens with my story. My story was not a story of being my ideal self but being out of alignment with my ideal self. My story tells the story of me going to treatment. I mentioned earlier I'm a recovering alcoholic.

When my family met with me, we had a family intervention. I was a functioning alcoholic professionally. My last year of fighting the disease before treatment was the pandemic year. The pandemic was not good for me in drinking. Towards the end of that year and the beginning of the next year, my family met with me and shared the behavior that they observed in me and how I was destroying the family, which was very hard to hear.

I was deflecting all of that. At some point, my son says, “Dad, you're out of alignment.” I had created the Alignment Model and I was out of my own model. The Alignment Model simply starts with, “Who are you ideally? Aim to be your ideal self.” Our ideal self is represented in the principles and the values that guide us. Who are we ideally? Ideally, I value family, happiness, wisdom, integrity, service, and health. Every day, I interact with those values.

I use water as a trigger to remind me to reflect on my values. I put verbs in front of them. I drink water and while I'm drinking water, I say this, “Love your family. Be happy. Seek wisdom. Behave with integrity. Do something of service for somebody else. Make healthy choices.” I set that water bottle down, smile to myself, and say, “You made one just now,” but I was out of alignment.

I have to aim to be my ideal self. In order to aim to be my ideal self, I have to know my ideal self, self-awareness. I tell my story. Living in alignment purposefully and on purpose is not a lifetime achievement award. This is not something you arrive at and you have forever. Anybody can get misaligned. I have had, the way most people would measure it, a wonderful life. It is not wonderful to recover from alcoholism.

My life is wonderful. Zoom out, I got a wonderful life. Zoom in, that little segment is not so wonderful. Once you figure out that you're out of alignment, you can decide to get back in it. That's what I decided, self-awareness. I was now aware. “Doug, you're out of alignment. Make a decision. Get back in alignment. Manage yourself better. Your relationships will get better.” That's what's happened. Thanks for asking that question.

Once you're aware that you’re out of alignment, make a decision. Get back in alignment, manage yourself better, and your relationships will get better.

Again, back to me as I think about it from the standpoint of alignment of walking the talk is that as leaders, we're there to inspire others. To me, that says so much. You talk about at the end of the book that this is an action sport. When I think of action sports, it's dirty. You get beat up at times. It's bloody but that's part of life. Your vulnerability in saying that, you could have easily said when he says, “Dad, you're out of lineman,” deflected some more and said, “That's not the case and you are wrong,” but you didn't. You went along with that. As leaders, it demonstrates an incredible sense of character that we all can demonstrate that inspires others to want to follow us when we speak that truth.

Thank you for saying that. I would say this. Everybody that has any mental health issue or addiction of any kind needs to know somebody who is anonymous. I respect the concept of Alcoholics Anonymous. When I speak to AA groups, I tell them, “All of you deserve to know somebody who belongs to Alcoholics Anonymous.” I'm in that group. Now, I like this meeting because I get a lot out of them but I'm happy to tell you my name is Doug Lennick. I know this is a disease of shame. If people need to shame somebody, shame Doug Lennick, then leave everybody else alone.

Thank you so much for that.

I'll have water on that.

Doug, there's so much in this book in terms of the ability for people to come work on different parts. We're coming hopefully into more of a normalcy, which I believe a lot of people trying to figure out how we go forward from here in terms of relationships and connections with other people. If you have somebody that's out there that they know inside, they need to do something different, what would you recommend for them as a starting point? Aside from encouraging everybody that's reading this to read this book. That's number one but aside from that.

Take one action. Do one thing. This sounds so trivial but let's say somebody has decided, “I've not taken care of myself physically and I need to start doing something.” Do this. Go for a short walk now. Don't wait till tomorrow. Get out of wherever you are sitting and walk. Walk five minutes if you can. If you can't, walk a minute.

Here's what I will tell you has been true for me. I ultimately have decided that everything falls over. I remember growing up playing dominoes. I know people still probably know the dominoes thing but there's the first domino. When the first domino falls, the other dominoes fall. If you can find a first domino, take it. My first domino was walking. A few years ago, I could barely walk. For the last year, I've averaged 11,500 steps a day. I have not been under 10,000 steps a day. Even on holidays or birthdays, not one day since mid-October. In any time zone anywhere in the world, I'm doing 10,000 steps.

By the way, I didn't start there. I remember that at treatment, I could barely walk to lunch. I had neurological issues. I had all kinds of things. I thought I was done. Get up and do one thing now. Practice the freeze game now. If you practice paying attention to yourself, you will change your behavior. You will notice things about yourself that you didn't notice before. We've all read a book, for example. We got to the end of the chapter and we wondered, “What did I read?” Imagine that, you're reading to yourself and not paying attention. That's how little self-awareness we have. If you practice the freeze game, it will become a habit. If it becomes a habit, you will change your behavior, guaranteed.

Self Improvement: If you practice the freeze game, it will become a habit. If it becomes a habit, you will change your behavior, guaranteed.

Doug, thank you so much for this.

Thank you so much, Patrick. This was great.

Again, the book, Don't Wait for Someone Else to Fix It, is so appropriate here in terms of the conversation we've had. I'm encouraging anybody that's reading this, this is a book that you need to add to your list.

Please do it and use the book. Thank you so much, Patrick, for allowing me to join your audience.

Thank you. Wishing you all the best. Peace.

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About Doug Lennick

As an author, speaker, CEO, and co-founder of think2perform, I lead a skilled team that serves the needs of executives and their organizations. I leverage my 40+ years of experience as a Fortune 100 executive, a seasoned small business owner, and entrepreneur to help clients achieve optimal results. We help clients improve their bottom-line results by enhancing revenue growth.

Our clients can expect to receive integrated executive coaching and business advisory services to help them realize their full potential individually and organizationally. Our coaching results in continued career advancement of the executives we serve.

Areas of Expertise: Executive Coaching, Leadership Development, Sales Effectiveness, Behavioral Financial Advice, Behavioral Finance, Emotional Competence, Moral Intelligence, Performance Psychology, Recruiting, Strategic Planning, and Tactical Execution.

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