163: The Simple Habit That Expands Your Influence and Boosts Your Career with Jeff Brown the Author of “Read to Lead”

Dr. Brad Miller here with you, my friends on the

beyond adversity podcast where we look to help you to navigate

adverse conditions in your life to achieve your life peace,

prosperity and purpose is our privilege today to have a great

author with us a first time author but a great author

nonetheless. His name is Jeff Brown. He comes from the world

of radio originally, and has been in podcasting for the last

several years. He is an award winning radio producer and

personality. He formerly had a nationally syndicated Morning

Show. But after about 25 years or so, but eight years or so

ago, he transitioned into the world of podcasting, and became

boss free in his life. And he has a nominee for the best

business podcast. And he's been privileged to interview hundreds

of great leaders, including Seth Godin, Simon Sinek, john

Maxwell, Liz Weissman, Dr. Henry cloud, several others, including

Alan Alda. I also know him as a as a personal mentor, and the

husband of a wonderful woman named Annie, and kind of the dog

dad of a couple of cool little dogs. And also importantly, in

my life, at least, an Indianapolis Colts fan. So

Welcome to Beyond adversity, Jeff Brown.

Well, thank you, Brad, for for having me. It's a

thrill to be here. And I appreciate the invitation very,

very much.

So good to have you with us. I mentioned that you

are a first time author. And your book is called read to read

to lead and you have a co author, Jesse was iski. And but

we're talking to you today. And we just love to hear some more

about the book and about you and your journey here. But I want to

start in this kind of a place that may be a little different,

perhaps, I'm not sure if you've spent much time in elementary

school classrooms recently. But over the years, my I've been in

various parent teacher conferences and things like

this. And it seems like in every elementary school classroom,

there's a big poster on the wall that says reading is

fundamental, with an emphasis on the fun like an underlined and

bolded out word fun. And then fundamental. So we're gonna get

into your story a little bit. But what do you think, makes

reading fun? and fundamental? Or perhaps not? Because a lot of

people have struggle with reading?

Yeah, I think a lot of people who don't read and

that's that's most of us, unfortunately, most of us in the

US don't read in part because they're not aware, like I was

not aware for so long, that there are actually books out

there that they would love to read, they just haven't been

able to find them yet. So often in school, we grow up having to

read things we don't want to read about subjects we're not

interested in. That's just the way the education system has

been designed. And in my view, no offense to educators. It's in

need of an overhaul. There's a lot of industries in need of an

overhaul these days. And that's just one of them. I teach my

sister is an educator and a great one. But, you know, I went

from having this love of reading as a child, that my mother

instilled in me to having the desire to read, I would argue

educated out of me, then not until my early 30s rediscovering

a love for reading and I rediscovered that it became fun

and fundamental to my career. Because I discovered there were

books out there written about topics that I wanted to learn

about and topics that interested me and people that interested

me. And I find that when when you focus on reading books about

subjects, you're fascinated by about people you're fascinated

by, you'll never get bored with reading, reading will always be

fun. Certainly, there's fiction, and you know, much of what I

read is nonfiction. And I think fiction is great for, you know,

sort of building your creativity, muscles and that

sort of thing. But I really want to learn, I want to soak up

knowledge, I want to take the things I'm learning and put

those things into practice. And I do that primarily through

reading biographies about people that I am fascinated by and

about reading through reading nonfiction books on a number of

different topics, you know, like personal growth and mindset and

leadership and business and jobs and career entrepreneurship,

etc. So I never get tired of learning new things about any of

those areas. And it's why I've been able to maintain a

relatively modest by some standards, pace of, you know, a

book a week for for quite a number of years. So, thankfully

that love for reading that was educated out of me has has made

a comeback little less than 20 years ago and shows no signs of

slowing down anytime soon.

Well, certainly That is the case not only

writing this book, but also, you know, the topic of your podcast

is read to lead. So you've obviously made some significant

transition. What do you think were some of the factors? You

know, you mentioned how he was kind of educated out of you, I

found that an interesting statement, because I think

that's relatively common, you know, that folks have some love

of reading in elementary years or whenever. And then as adults,

somehow it becomes less impactful or less important.

What were some of the factors for you that transitioned you

some of the actions that you either took or happened to you

that helped you lead you back to reading after being apart from

it for so long?

Yeah, great question. I was working at a

company at the time radio company, where the leader of

that company understood the value of books and continual

learning, lifelong learning. And so, you know, he sort of allowed

himself in my view to get caught reading by staff, too. By that,

I mean, he practiced and he allowed other people to witness

that. And so when the time came, when he had the idea to start

sort of an in staff in house book club, the reception was

pretty positive, because that's something we saw him doing. We

saw him bringing those ideas, he was learning to meetings and saw

his enthusiasm for reading. And so when he offered to supply

books for us, and bring us together once a week to talk

about books were reading together, most of us were pretty

excited about that idea. And even even me, someone who at

that point wasn't doing a lot of reading was excited about that.

And so one of the first books I remember reading was Seth Godin

purple cow, I was desiring to learn more about marketing

anyway. And so you know, that book just hit me at the perfect

right time. And as I read it, I absolutely loved it fell in love

with reading all over again, thanks, in large part because of

this leader, Matt, and Seth, coming together, though they've

never met, they came together to help, you know, sort of reignite

my love for reading the stars and planets aligned, if you

will. So, as I began to read more and more, that was just the

starting point, I began to see opportunities come my way that

weren't coming to other people, colleagues and others in my

industry. And I attribute that sort of, you know, hockey stick,

type projectory of my career, beginning, because of that

habit, I was practicing that nobody else around me was really

practicing. And that being intentional and consistent

reading. So as I began to practice that more and more, I

saw more and more opportunities come my way that

Jeff, you mentioned about how you basically had Seth

Godin as a kind of a virtual mentor through a book. And then

also you had a mentor, who led you into who by example, was

reading and so what, tell us a little more about that situation

in the workplace, how that impacted you.

Yeah. I had a leader was fortunate enough to have a

leader who understood the value of lifelong learning and was

practicing that himself. And we were able to see that practice

to see that he was in his office a lot of times reading a book, I

remember the first time seeing that and thinking, why is he not

working? Why is why is he Why does he think it's okay to read,

while he's at work to be doing that on his own time. I mean,

that's how limited thinking was at the time he it was all about

making himself a better leader and a better employee for the

organization. But over time, I kind of came around to realizing

that and it wasn't long before he offered the rest of us an

opportunity to learn from the same books he was learning by,

you know, buying books for the staff and urging us to come

together every week to talk about the books that we were

reading together. And then the first book I remember, reading

in that group was purple cow by Seth Godin, that was sort of my

reintroduction into nonfiction. Not having really spent any time

in nonfiction. For the entirety of my adult life. I fell in love

with that book and fell in love with Seth and his work. And that

just reignited in me a love for reading that has not ended that

began to practice this habit, consistently and intentionally,

I began to see the doors swing open for wonderful opportunities

for me as an employee of that organization and outside the

organization that I don't believe ever would have come my

way had it not been for practicing that habit on a

regular basis.

So I just think it's awesome that you had your

you know, your personal mentor, if you will, within the

organization, but also the virtual one through through

books. And I think that's an important distinction. However,

they really through books, you can be mentored through Socrates

and Plato and Lincoln, anyone for the past, as well as

contemporary thinkers as well. You could speak into your life

that led you to do This and to lead you to be back into reading

some more. Then what were some of the impacts of that? what,

how, what was some of the results of that? How did that

you've? The second part of your book is the leadership part. How

do they influence your career, your leadership, your your

application of your career and what you do now?

Yeah, early on, in that period of time, when I

began reading, as I mentioned, I began getting lots of

opportunities to do things others weren't getting the

chance to do. And that started with speaking with getting up in

front of other factions within the company, I was experimenting

based on what I was reading, I was experimenting with marketing

ideas, I was experimenting in the areas of social media,

ubiquitous. And as a radio company, we were trying to

figure out, you know, what do we do with this? How do we leverage

these tools, more intimately connect with our listeners. And

so I was reading books on these topics, and begin practicing

what I was reading the things that I practiced and experiment

with that didn't work people quickly forgot. But the things

that I tried that work, people noticed. And so I was asked to

then, at a national level, speak to all of our operations

directors and share with with them when I was learning, I was

asked on a national level to speak to our entire sales team

about how to leverage some of these tools and what they were

doing. And that eventually led to the president of the company

at one point, decided he had wanted to land on a new vision

called it and he was going to be like a good leader does he was

going to be visiting several of the radio stations to get input

from local stations as to what that vision should, should

include contain. And so my leader, the gentleman who had

started this book club, went came to me and said, I want you

to be the one that presents on our stations behalf as to how

you think our direction should go these next 10 years, which

was itself an honor. And I attribute that again, to a lot

of what I was doing with regard to reading. And so I put that

presentation together, ran it by my boss, he signed off on it

presented to the president of the company, and our staff when

he came by. And that led to two major things. One is he then

invited me to come to Colorado Springs to the home office and

present to the executive something that rank and file

employee had never done before. That that same presentation. And

then later when he would go to put together his communication,

and communicated to the rest of the world. He asked me to build

that presentation for him after seeing what I had done. Now the

presenting I was doing and the presentations I was creating, I

had never really done presenting much for everything I was doing.

I was learning from books, both delivery and content, and how to

present what your what your what you had to say, I learned all

that from the books I was reading. And so it was again,

books and the reading I was doing that made all of those

things possible. And no one not one single person I worked with

in that entire company was seeing opportunities come their

way. Like this I was the one person that I know of that was

reading on an intentional and consistent

level transformation took place

opportunities that came plays as a direct direct result of your

reading and application of your reading to in your workplace.

And so that's a part of the key here is the when we read stuff

to comprehend into to use it and to allow it to be a change agent

in your life. And so I want to visit with you just a few

minutes here, Jeff, about this whole matter of you know, when

people get stuck in whatever they need to you know, adversity

is some situation people get stuck, I believe, and they have

to take actions to get out of but that transformation is more

than just an intellectual thing. I believe intellect is a part of

it, to tell us what about how reading in your case? What other

other people's cases can be transformative of the mind, the

spirit, the emotions, how do you think reading can be

transformative on deep, deep, deep levels?

Yeah, a lot of ways. The cool thing is, is whatever

you're facing, whatever the issue is, be it health related,

like you were talking about or being some hurdle you're trying

to overcome, you're not likely to be the first person to have

had that struggle to experience that struggle. And the other

thing to realize is that more and more often than not more

likely than not someone else who's been up against that same

struggle has written about it has come on the other side of it

and written about their experience having come on the

other side of it and how they did it. And so virtually no

matter what you're facing, what hurdle, what problem, what

issue, what setback, there's probably somebody else who's

experienced and is also written about it. And so anytime you

face a problem anytime you face an obstacle, an obstacle issue,

whatever, search for books on that topic you're likely to find

not just one, but several, grab two or three that that

fascinates you based on description, you judge a book by

its cover if you have to, and then dig in. And if you get

partway into a book, and it's just not doing it for you,

you're not obligated to finish it set aside and go to the next

one. You know, maybe maybe it picked up a lemon out of the

group. Nope, no harm, no foul, go on to the next one. It was

a $20 book, and you come away with just one great idea or one

great thing you can implement that can change your life. That

was that was a great investment that was 20 bucks. well spent.

So I think with regard to your question, you know, how can or

what are some of the ways books can help us I think the, the

ways that books can help us are too numerous to mention. The

beauty is, is that no matter what you face, there's a book

out there are books out there for you, they're gonna help get

you through it.

Let's get personal for a second, what are some

books that may have been impactful, some specific titles

or some things in your life that may have been impactful that

were transformative, either on, you know, business related or

personal or spiritual or anything of that nature with

that,

I would say on the business side, I mentioned Seth

Godin, his purple cow that's always going to have a place in

my heart just because it was so part of the process of kind of

bringing me back to reading and recognizing that love that had

been dormant. I'm a big fan of Liz Wiseman's multipliers, how

the best leaders make everyone smarter, in large part because I

feel like it was written about that leader I was mentioning

earlier who brought books into the workplace. He is a

multiplier type leader, the type of leader that Liz talks about

the type of leader who isn't intimidated by the fact that

they've hired people smarter than they are in the areas

they've been hired to, to, to come in and grow. And so he

understood how to leverage the collective brain power of the

room. And that's what a multiplier leader type leader

does. And that's what Liz writes about. In her book multipliers.

I'm a big fan of the work of Todd Henry. Die empty unleash

your best work every day is one of my favorite books from him.

And of course, books like Seven Habits of Highly Effective

People, Stephen R. Covey, How to Win Friends and Influence People

by Dale Carnegie, some of those classics, Dan Miller's 40 days

to live the work you love personal level, you know, a lot

of the books that I read, are really for sort of the business

side. When it comes to the personal side, I would say you

know, books on communication, I just finished one speaking of

communication called listen like you mean it by a Mina, bingo,

chia. And to think about how to pronounce her name, Ian homina

vengo che listen to like immediate, great book on

communication. So that's one near and dear to me. I'm reading

a book right now, this is really public speaking and related, but

it can serve you in so many different ways called Do you

talk funny, recommended to me by a former guest on my podcast,

read to lead. And it's a book about just implementing humor

into communication and in presentations and that sort of

thing, but I'm getting a lot out of that.

But what is compelling What is it is our

common theme about these books that cooks you they get you that

makes that makes you say, Okay, I want to read this book, and I

want to read more by this author, or I am just hooked into

this whereas some other titles you mentioned, we may just look

you know, gloss through it and say, Okay, go to Goodwill pile.

Yeah, you know, a lot of authors touch on in one

way or another, the topic of mindset to a degree now there

are books just on mindset that focus solely on mindset, like

Carol Dweck, mindset, or john a cuffs soundtracks, which is

really a book about mindset. And I find it a lot of authors will

hit on that topic at one point or another. It's mentioned

briefly in my book even read to lead. But mindset is something

that just add this, the negative mindset for many of us is

something that just so adversely affects us more than we realize.

I think when you have enough self awareness to realize that

things like happiness, attitude, your reactions and responses,

things of that nature in your life, or a choice, you get to

decide today, whether or not you're going to be happy. You

get to decide today, whether that roommate that you consider

lazy, is really lazy or not. Or if that's just your attitude

toward them, you could change your attitude toward them

actually impact their level of what you just you feel to be

laziness, just in how you approach them. So you have more

you know, control then then you think The way to approach life

is with an abundance mindset. versus a scarcity mindset. It's

so many of us approach it. And I even fall into this. Even though

I know better. having read a few books on the topic, I fall into

it occasionally just like anybody else. But knowing that

you get to choose in any given day when those feet hit the

floor, that you can say things like today is going to be a

great day, and truly mean it. And then do your darndest to go

out and have a great day and roll with the punches if and

when they come. Or you can wake up like a curmudgeon who got up

on the wrong side of the bed. And that can affect every

interaction you have throughout the rest of the day. That your

energy and the energy that you bring to every interaction

situation you're in, has a ripple effect.

And that is such an important factor in overcoming

adversity, which happens to all of us. We choose how we react to

add adverse events. And you're saying that this particular line

of books is compelling to you, to help you with your mindset.

And so in sharing that with others, which you share on your

podcast, and now through your book, what are some ways for

instance, if you're going to gift somebody a book? Or maybe

you do this? What are some books that you might give someone to

help them

have a good question? Well, I've gifted How

to Win Friends and Influence People a few times, especially

to young people. I think of a nephew of mine, DJ who I gifted

that book to when he was 13. He's 17. Now, he devoured that

in a couple of days, I think the classics like that I mentioned,

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Some of those books that

have been around for you know, 30 years or more, are great

books to gift to young people. I think for someone new in the

leadership realm, who's maybe been thrown into a position

where that that requires him to then lead a group of people

maybe they've never done that. Have them read multipliers Bible

is my you know, if you're like I was back in my days, and radio,

suddenly thrown into the marketing side of radio and

something that at the time I had no experience in, you're at a

job or suddenly you're having to, to help with the marketing

or marketing ideas or, or understand you know, what that's

about read purple cow, Seth Godin, I would, I've gifted that

book, I've gifted all those books I've just mentioned

numerous times, depending on the situation and the individual.

Yeah.

And that has to do with building on relationships,

that, you know, that's what I'm trying to get is we invest in

relationships, and one of the ways we could earn investor

relationships is through the gift of reading. And I do have

done that with my own children and with others as well. gifted

differences together as better by Simon Sinek is one of the

books I've gifted out. But let's I want to just as we kind of

bring us around here, one of things I really loved about your

book, Jeff, is that you had some of the things we've been talking

about here about the kind of the theoretical type of thing and

the transformative type of saying about books and about the

importance of books and the reason some scientific data and

things like that, which I find fascinating. But it also you

talk about some of the actual habits and disciplines and the

things we got to do to develop a habit of reading, but give us a

few nuggets, a few things that if we're speaking a life of a

young entrepreneur or a young business man or woman, what are

some disciplines or some habits that we could help learn from

your book that can be helpful to us?

Yeah. When folks tell me that they struggle with

finding time to read one of the first questions I ask is whether

or not they're scheduling their reading time. And more often

than not, the answer to that question is no. People think

well, I want to read more and then think, well, I'll, when I

think to do that, I'll do that thing, or I'll, I'll get up in

the morning and read or I'll breathe before I go to bed. And

it's it's no more than a thought. But I think if you're

going to build that habit, on a consistent basis, or anything

else, for that matter, it's got to be something that you're

intentional about. And that means scheduling it, what gets

scheduled gets done, Michael Hyatt says and so that means I

schedule my reading, that's the only way I'm able to read a book

a week is by setting aside time carving it out in my calendar

and on my day planner, which means it's protected. And nobody

else can, can take that time unless I give it away. Right.

And so that's that's step number one. And step number two, I

would say is don't be afraid to start small. Or as BJ Fogg, Dr.

BJ Fogg in his book tiny habits calls tiny and he suggests, you

know, building habit recipes, and attaching those to things

like anchors, he calls him and so let's say you want to read

more, let's say 30 minutes a morning, but what are you

already do in the morning, without any effort at all that

you don't even have to think about? Maybe if you're like me

that's drinking a cup or preparing a cup of coffee or

several cups of coffee, well, then your habit recipe might be

something like when I start the coffeemaker or when I when I say

Down with my cup of coffee, I will read for 30 minutes may not

sound 30 minutes may not sound tiny to you, if that's the case,

and you can strip it down even further you can, it can be, when

I sit down with my morning cup of coffee, I will read page one

of this new book or I will read paragraph one or I will read

sentence one or I will read the Table of Contents contents or I

will sit down with my cup of coffee. And I will open the book

to first date. And that's that's that's your goal is to open the

book. And the next day the goal can be the same, I will open the

book to the first page, do that for several days. And also

celebrate that as silly as that sounds like give yourself an

Attaboy or a tiger woods style fist bump or a victory sign with

your arms in the air kind of a thing. program your brain to

want to do this again because it felt good. In other words, even

if it's something as simple as opening the book to the first

page. Eventually you'll get to the point where you're like,

well, I'm here anyway. Why not? I just read for a little bit.

This worked for fog, a more personal example to him. When it

came to flossing his teeth. His goal was to have a great, great

anchor for him was brushing his teeth, which he did anyway

without thinking about it. So his recipe was after I brush my

teeth, I will floss one tooth. And that was the goal. And when

he floss one tooth he celebrated. And eventually that

led to much like I described earlier. It's like, well, I'm

here, why don't I floss a second tooth? Well, why don't I do one

more. And before you know it, you're flossing all the teeth or

you're reading for 30 minutes instead of just opening the book

to the first page. So schedule time to read. And then don't be

afraid to start small. If you have to

sell you're trying to find ways to make it fun and

fundamental. Good. Well, hey, I just got one more question for

you, really. But before I ask you that question, is there

anything that you really want us to know about your fourth book

here read to lead that it's just foundational debt that I've not

touched on here that we've not touched on here.

And I've kind of hinted at this, but it's just

this idea that it is this, if this is something that you you

kind of innately know you should be doing more of No, you need to

do more of it. You're just looking for some something that

will help you get over that hump that I would encourage you to

grab the book is going to help you understand why this is a

habit you need to develop if I haven't already done a good job

of that in this interview. It's going to help you understand

where to begin what books to start with, based on where

you're at. And then the third section, the book is just going

to help help you understand how to make the most of the habit

how to get the most out of what you read and put what you read

into practice. And if you get the book before August 31 that

read to lead book calm, there are about $500 worth of bonuses

including a mini course you get the audio book for free if

you're if that's more your style, when you purchase a

physical copy, the audio book comes for free. There's some

other bonuses there as well, autograph book played even. And

depending on who you purchase the book through when you go to

read Tilley book calm, you can even get 40% off the cover

price. So it's like 11 bucks and chain so you just for that you

get all those bonuses, so I encourage you to check it out.

Again, it's retailing book.com.

And we'll have connections to all that in our

show notes at Dr. Brad Miller calm here on beyond adversity.

We got one more quick question for you. It may or may be quick

maybe for another topic another day. But this is your first

book. Congratulations around your first book. What did you

What was this one nugget you learn from reading all these

books that you applied to writing? Yeah, what did you

learn from your all your reading that you've done? That was

impactful and writing a book?

Gotcha. Yeah, a lot of a lot of which is I knew I

wanted to include a quote, a favorite quote to begin each

chapter I've seen their called epigraphs. I've seen other

authors do that. And I knew I wanted to do that. I knew I

wanted to end each chapter with some sort of over to use

segments like okay, now it's your turn to kind of think about

what you've read and, and, and run with this. Here's some tips

on how to do that. I knew I wanted to end each chapter with

some book recommendations. And those were ideas that you know,

I got from, from reading so many other books. And then just the

writing process in general, I knew was important to me to

begin most chapters with a personal story, whether it was

for me or my co author, Jesse to really you know, draw the reader

in, to sort of anchor them into the chapter before jumping into

the content of the chapter. So those are just some of the

things that just reading so many books I took away from that I

knew I wanted to implement in this book, what's a stellar

reference,

the book is called read to lead and the subheading

that the subtitle is the simple habit that expands Your

influence and boost your career Jeff's Brown. Jesse was this key

where our guest today on beyond adversity, the author of read to