The Failure Gap | A Conversation With Justin Nassiri, CEO, Executive Presence

Justin Nassiri, founder and CEO of Executive Presence, joined Julie Williamson to explore what it really takes to move from agreement to alignment, especially when leaders know they should be more visible but struggle to act. Justin traced his leadership journey from drum major to the Naval Academy, nuclear submarines, Stanford, and multiple startups, landing on a key insight Julie reinforced throughout the conversation: leadership is never finished; it keeps evolving as you do. A powerful moment came when Justin shared, realizing, at 45, that he was experiencing true partnership with his leadership team for the first time. Julie named it clearly: that moment shows what leadership can feel like when alignment is real.

Together, they unpacked why leaders often agree they should work on self-awareness, emotional regulation, or presence, yet don’t align to do the work. Justin explained that personal growth doesn’t come with clean metrics or fast wins, unlike most business skills. Julie connected this directly to the Failure Gap, where good intentions stall without commitment, patience, and the willingness to sit with discomfort.

Episode Takeaways

• Leadership is not a destination. It’s more like a subscription you have to renew with humility
• Personal growth fuels leadership growth: emotional regulation and self-awareness create space for more honest, productive team dialogue
• For entrepreneurs: don’t confuse “co-creating everything” with alignment. Sometimes the visionary’s job is to sketch the destination so the team can build the route
• “Simple is better” plus repetition wins: if you can’t rattle off your values, your team definitely can’t. Turn the volume up 10x
• LinkedIn success comes down to three things: a compelling why (usually service to the business), clear measurement (what does “good” look like?), and a system (motivation is a flimsy employee)

Justin’s closing “align on this” is deceptively hard: listen better. Reflect back on what you heard, slow down the hot takes, and watch the temperature drop. In a noisy world, the most executive thing you can do might be to stop talking for a second.

Connect with Justin on LinkedIn here or learn more about Executive Presence here.
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Creators and Guests

Host

Julie Williamson, PhD

Julie Williamson, PhD is the CEO and a Managing Partner at Karrikins Group, a Denver-based, global-serving business consultancy. Author, Keynote Speaker, and Host of The Failure Gap Podcast, Julie is a leading voice in how alignment can transform leaders and organizations.

Guest

Justin Nassiri

Justin is a serial entrepreneur with 15 years of experience building companies from the ground up. Before Executive Presence, Justin launched multiple successful startups that were eventually acquired. He holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BS in Electrical Engineering from the United States Naval Academy. Justin’s earliest career days were spent at McKinsey & Company working for one of the world’s top business consulting firms. Justin also served as a Navy officer aboard nuclear submarines, leading large crews on advanced naval missions. About Executive Presence We specialize in helping companies build trust and visibility by elevating their leadership, particularly on LinkedIn. Our premium, fully-managed service is designed to position executives as thought leaders while strengthening overall brand recognition. Our approach includes comprehensive content strategy, creation, and analytics. Each client works with a dedicated consultant (“Engagement Manager”) who develops a customized strategy, conducts monthly interviews to source content, and oversees content creation. We continuously analyze performance to refine messaging and enhance engagement.

What is The Failure Gap ?

The Failure Gap podcast is hosted by Julie Williamson, Ph.D., the CEO and a Managing Partner at Karrikins Group, a Denver-based, global-serving business consultancy. Julie delves into the critical space between agreement and alignment - where even the best ideas falter without decisive action. Through candid conversations with a diverse mix of leaders, this podcast explores both the successes and failures that shape the journey of leadership. Featuring visionary leaders from companies of all sizes, from billion-dollar giants to mid-market innovators, to scrappy start-ups, The Failure Gap uncovers the real-life challenges of transforming ideas into impactful outcomes. Tune in to learn how top leaders bridge the gap and drive meaningful progress in their organizations.

speaker-0 (00:00.088)
Hello and welcome to the Failure Gap, where we talk with leaders about closing the space between agreement and alignment. We love talking with interesting people, and today we're joined by Justin Nassiri. Justin is the founder and CEO of Executive Presence. He and his team help leaders build trust, visibility, and influence through authentic executive thought leadership on LinkedIn. Justin, welcome to the Failure Gap.

Thanks for having me, Julie.

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this conversation because I think there are a lot of people out there in the world that are a little bit stuck in the failure gap when it comes to building up their own presence in socials and in digital environments. So looking forward to that. But before we get there, I would love for you just to take a few minutes and share with our listeners a little bit about your journey to leadership. How did you come to be the CEO of Executive Presence?

I haven't thought of this before, but I'll maybe take this in chapters. I grew up, I was the youngest in my family. So maybe not a lot of leadership opportunities in my family of origin, but the first chapter was actually in high school. I was our band's drum major. in retrospect, I think I had learned a lot about leadership just from that opportunity. And then for undergraduate, I went to the Naval Academy, which they call the leadership lab.

And I did find that my four years at the Naval Academy had a lot of responsibility, a lot of opportunities to lead and see how others led and really start to define how I wanted to be as a leader. And that brought me to my next chapter where I served on nuclear submarines for five years. And that was, you know, so much to learn about having a lot of responsibility at a very young age and learning different tools to employ as a leader.

speaker-1 (01:47.598)
When I got out of the Navy, I went to business school at Stanford and I think there learned about leading other leaders. You get a lot of A type personalities in there and in different capacities, organizing things and leading other leaders. And then after that, I started a series of companies. My first company was a venture packed tech company, learned a lot about leadership there.

My second company was all freelancers. was more bootstraps. It was a very different leadership muscle. And then my current company, Executive Presence, which I've run for almost four years now, we've got 17 employees continuing to learn about leadership today. And I think the great thing about leadership is that as you grow, your leadership style grows and changes. And so I feel like I'm learning just as much today about how I want to be as leader as I did back in high school.

You know, Justin, I really appreciate that narrative because it shows, for one thing, the variety of leadership opportunities that you've leaned into, but you're also bringing it full circle with where you are today. That leadership is not a destination. It is a growth mindset. Like you just have to keep learning and keep adapting and finding different ways to be a leader because there is no one right way. And all of those examples that you gave, I'm sure you had to show up in a very different way for each of them.

but they built on each other and you were able to take those experiences and continue to grow as a leader.

I'll share a quick story there. It's pertinent because literally this morning I posted about it on LinkedIn and it coincided with me getting together with my two leaders for an offsite that we're starting today. And what I wrote about was as a leader at our last offsite in Q4,

speaker-1 (03:35.946)
It really was the first time I met with my executive coach right afterwards. And I was like, I'm really embarrassed to admit this, but I think I just experienced partnership for the first time in my life and I'm 45 years old. And what I had found was in working with my fractional COO and my primary internal leader.

really had that experience that hopefully every listener has had before now of just working with the leadership team and feeling like, wow, the sum of this is better than the parts. And as someone who's historically a lone wolf, realizing like, wow, when you have the right leadership team, you really are able to accomplish things that you cannot.

do in isolation. But the reason I wanted to share that is that with my executive coach, I had a lot of embarrassment of like, how can I be 45 years old and really for the first time be feeling like I'm experiencing partnership? And what I took away from that conversation was better to experience that right now. I've got a long life ahead of me and I could build off of that, but really understanding what my view of success looks like as a leader and what I want for a team and being

was pretty relatively new to experience that, excited to carry that forward with me.

Yeah, I know that is such a wonderful story, Justin. I appreciate you sharing that because it can be sort of a wake up call, right? Like, this is what it should feel like when it's working really well. So let's try and recreate that as we go forward. And I think having that moment of realization and having the self-awareness to be like, I'm in this moment right now. This is it. This is what I want. I want more of this. That's such a wonderful testament, I think, to your level of self-awareness, but also again,

speaker-0 (05:21.474)
that growth journey in your leadership that you continue to grow into what it means to be a leader.

I love that. And I'll say one more thing. And then I know you have other things you probably want to talk about. But I really, you I really do feel like our ability to grow as a leader is really tied to our ability to grow as a person. And as I look, you know, I've had many different chapters in the military and out of the military as a leader. When I kind of view my recent growth as a leader, I can really tie all of that to a lot of the personal growth work that I've

done of meditation practice and going on silent meditation retreats and doing men's group work and doing therapy and doing coaching. And all of these things are so much focused on me as a person and my own healing and my own increased capacity and emotional regulation and all of these things that really are very personal.

And when I look at the growth I've experienced as a leader, it all comes from that. It comes from catching myself a little bit sooner. Like even today, I can notice when I start to become closed because I feel, they're criticizing me or, I feel really nervous because I think we're feeling.

When I can recognize that emotion and relax into it, it makes space to have a much more honest and direct conversation as a group of leaders that then unlocks more things. But that growth was really tied to things that had nothing to do with leadership and had everything to do with, you know, desire to deepen as a human, as just an individual.

speaker-0 (06:59.894)
Yeah, you know, it's so interesting when when you were talking, I was just thinking to myself, I actually think that this is a failure gap place for many leaders where they think, you I should be better at emotional regulation, or I really should understand my reactions more or be able to take that pause. But people really struggle to move from agreement that it would be a good idea if they were better at those things to getting aligned and doing the work to

become what they think they need to become. And I wonder if sometimes leaders get a little bit stuck because either they don't know where to start or it feels really off track maybe from a leadership development perspective to do that kind of self work. What do you think about that?

I think for myself and I imagine for many others, I think what makes it so hard is that it is not just a different muscle. It is an entirely different measure of success and progress. And when I first started with meditation, it was through my therapist.

God, know, a long time ago, several decades ago. And I remember saying like, oh, like, I can see how this is the work that takes years to get better at. And he's like, no, no, this is, this is the work of decades to really, um, to really catch our own reactivity and kind of notice our emotions as they arise. It is, it is so much different than learning about a P and L or learning how to do a sales process or leading how to, uh, do a performance management system.

I think that many of us that have earned the right to be a leader, we have done it because we are traditionally better at school or working or achieving. And that's like a great muscle and a great skillset. But for me, as I have explored different areas of personal growth, it is not measured linearly. It's not measured by, I can't hustle and white-knuckle my way through it. It's a very different process. And I think that that ability

speaker-1 (09:09.59)
to tolerate the discomfort of not knowing what good looks like or success looks like or having something that is really five steps back and one step forward. I think that that's for us as leaders where we have to like commit and be willing to go because it is such a different universe than the one that we've excelled at.

Yeah, and I think as you say, it doesn't have clear markers. Like sometimes the business achievements have, you numbers behind them. Like you either made your P &L or you didn't, or you grew a certain percentage, or you feel like you can check those things off. But what you're talking about is that really hard work of self-discovery that is, I like the way you said it, not linear, right? You have to be willing to kind of go on that journey. And so I would say to people who are listening to this, something to consider as a leader is to...

Really think about what is it that you're looking for in terms of validation. And if it's to check those boxes in terms of leadership accomplishments, those are great and those are necessary. Like you need those accomplishments to earn the right to be a leader. And there is another track to explore if you really want to open up your leadership in your own individual development in a way that might not be as comfortable or as clear cut.

Love that.

Yeah, yeah, that's a great takeaway for I think anyone who's listening. And you know, I think the failure gap comes up in lots of different ways in our individual lives, and also in our work lives. And I'm curious, when you think about this idea of agreement to alignment, you're building a company, you've built several other companies. For entrepreneurs who are listening into this, what are some of the things that you've observed either for yourself or for your companies or in others from an entrepreneurial perspective where people

speaker-0 (10:58.518)
might be stuck in agreement that something is a good idea, but they struggle to really get aligned and get it done. There's entrepreneurs out there listening. What kind of observations do you have to share with them?

I'll show a couple things that come up and we'll see if they relate. One is as someone who really values consensus and agreement and really is conflict diverse, I think one thing that I'm really intentionally working on as a leader is leaning more into how I identify as an entrepreneur, which is more of the visionary model where there's a visionary and an integrator. And I'm actually realizing that there are times

that I go to my team and I want them to work together to come up with a solution, because I want them to have agency and empowerment and ownership. And I'm actually realizing that there's a lot of times where if I bring my superpowers of visionary, I can actually give them a lot of scope and definition that they don't have to figure out. It's more of like, hey, this is what I know that I want and I need a lot of the details filled in, but here is the sketch and that, you literally today in our leadership offsite,

was that we're talking about our three year and one year goals and even a quarter ago it would have been let me let them talk and let me let you know let me hear what they think let's come up with it together and co-create and I'm realizing like you know actually my role as an entrepreneur is I do actually have a pretty clear vision of what I want and the details is why I've hired these people to figure out but I can actually do better if I give them more guidance and structure which which might not to me it doesn't always feel like alignment because I feel like I it's

that we have to come up with together. So that's one thing is like really leaning into being a little bit more direction giving and a lot more asking them to do a certain thing rather than expecting them to come up with something from scratch together, believing that that will create more alignment. I have other thoughts, but I'll just pause there for a second to make sure that even makes sense.

speaker-0 (13:05.57)
No, I think that's actually so fascinating because often I think there is this oscillation in leadership between the really tight command and control, I'm gonna tell you exactly what to do and then you go do that exact thing. And then there's the, like, here's the vision, here's where we're going and you have the agency and the ability to figure out how we get there. And I think it always reminds me of the old expression, right? In the law, there is freedom, right? When we know what the...

rules are, then we can act with a lot of freedom in terms of how we play the game, for example. And so I like your articulation of you growing into this visionary role of being able to set the destination and maybe also create some structure around it. Like, you you're going to stop at the stoplight and go the speed limit, but you can choose what car to drive and what path to take and what route to go. So I think there is that emerging balance for many leaders about

which muscle do you lean on for what situation and how do you grow your business? You can't do it yourself, so you've got to be able to give people agency and the degree to which you do that might be a challenge for you.

100%, 100%. And it kind of makes me think of the second point, which is, and I will make a parallel to LinkedIn, because that's where I spend a lot of my time, but I do feel like good LinkedIn content is also good leadership. And I'm just continuously reminded of how important simplicity and repetition are and leadership. And so, you know, from a LinkedIn standpoint, oftentimes when we're working with someone, for the repetition, we're really trying

to figure out and the great thing about LinkedIn is there's a lot of data but it's trying to figure out like where is the expertise that you're sharing.

speaker-1 (14:52.91)
really getting traction. Where are you seeing a lot of comments and likes and reposts you've struck a nerve versus you're talking about something and it's falling flat because people might not value your perspective or expertise. And once you find that bedrock of like, wow, people, you know, we have a client, people really value hearing about this person talking about being a 65 year old CEO and why that actually might be a good thing compared to the 21 year old we're seeing in kind of social media.

so it took a while to figure out that artery that he hits, but then that's where a lot of his content goes is telling that story a million different ways and doing it in a very simple.

bite-sized way that people can consume on social media. And I view leadership through the same lens as like as we come up with goals, as we come up with our mission, we're continuously trying to refine that to make it as simple as possible so that it is something that people can carry along with them on a daily basis amidst so many demands in their work and personal life. But then also realizing that as a leader, man, I gotta find a way to say the same thing a million different ways and have it be interesting.

And, and, and sometimes it's like, you know, I pictured that the carnival game where you're trying to get the bean bag or the ball through like a really tiny hole. It's like, man, you really have to get good at pitching to your team and really hitting the bullseye every.

time and having a level of precision while also bringing variety to keep it interesting, telling stories that reinforce that mission, telling, you know, feedback from clients that reinforces that spotlighting employees that reinforce that. And I think that that's what I'm working on as a leader is can I simplify that message to my team of what I need from them?

speaker-1 (16:41.58)
why we're doing this, what good service looks like, and then kind of find ways to reinforce it to keep that alive and to keep it ways that people can access.

You know, simple better, right? It's so interesting how often we want to overcomplicate things. Maybe there's some ego in there. I think it makes you feel smarter or, I don't know. There's all sorts of reasons why we overcomplicate things. But simple better, I think, is a great mantra. I think, you know, we see that in strategy too, by the way, right? So, I mean, I have been in so many client organizations where...

the CEO or senior executive will say to us, everybody knows the strategy. You don't need to worry about that. And then we go out and we ask people and they have no idea what the strategy is because they heard it one time a year ago and it was super convoluted and they had like a big town hall presentation or whatever, right? And then they never heard about it again. And, you know, to tell these executives, you've got to keep hitting that strategy message every single week. You should be talking about the strategy and they're like, people will get bored of it. And you're like, no.

because people don't remember, right? Or it's too complicated.

We work with a lot of CEOs and it is embarrassing and I would put myself in the same category. It's embarrassing the number of times I've been talking with them and they're like, man, our values, we have a Slack channel, we do this, we do this, we do this. great, what are your values? it's this, this and let me look it up. I'm forgetting the third and fourth one. like, you are the CEO and I've done this too but it's like literally, you are the CEO. You just told me how much you guys hit on the values and he was the CEO, can't rattle them off. It's like indicative of like, man,

speaker-1 (18:19.56)
need, you got to turn the volume 10x up on these things we want people to remember because our ability to hold these things in our head are just, I think, far, far less than we would like to admit that they are.

Yeah, but it's, know, at the same time, we're asking people to do big, complicated jobs and we're keeping them very, very busy, right? With a lot of different work. So it, you know, to me, it's understandable. You've got to cut through that noise on a regular basis. And so I really appreciate that push for simple, better, also consistency, right? Don't miss an opportunity to bring the message forward, but have your message be super tight. Yeah. Yeah. I like that too. We're going to remember that for people.

Love that.

speaker-0 (19:02.414)
When you think about moving through the failure gap, I do think when it comes to things like posting on LinkedIn, there are, again, a lot of people who just sort of know they should be doing it or, you know, they kind of agree that it would be a good idea if only they did it, but they don't quite get themselves inspired to build a habit around it. And I wonder if you've observed anything in all of the work that you've done with many executives over the years.

Are there a few things that you think really hold people back beyond the messaging piece of it? I think some people just maybe don't know how to put the message together, but what else gets in the way for people around getting aligned and getting that done and building up their presence in the digital space?

I think, I think, you know, we'll go through them one by one, but I think it's having a really powerful why, knowing what to measure and having a system. And, you know, we've done this work now with over 300 executives, five of them CEOs of publicly traded companies, and then a lot of privately held leaders as well. But the first one is the why. 90 % of the time, you know, I'll talk to 500 CEOs a year, 90 % of the time when it's in a sales context, they'll say like, oh,

I'm not on social media. I really don't want the attention for myself. I don't want to do this, but my team is asking me to or I know I need to. And so just kind of know at the outset that at least from my perspective, 90 % of the people in the world, they're not really wanting the limelight. They're not really wanting the attention. Although that's the perception is like, all these people on social media are really in it for themselves. At least the leaders that I talk with.

That's not, they're not trying to get, they would be happy if no one ever knew they existed. They're really have a why that's deeper. And usually when I'm trying to align their mindset, it really is from taking a stance of generosity of they are tolerating the discomfort of being in public. They're tolerating the discomfort of sharing things that they know because

speaker-1 (21:06.25)
it will help their organization. And the way that it helps kind of depends on the organization. It might be helping them get more credibility with their buyers. It be helping them with fundraising to get acquired. It might be helping them with talent acquisition. But I find that we often have to root them back to that why of like, I know you've got a lot of competing group priorities. The reason we're doing this is it's going to help you get the right people on your team, or it's going to help you build the brand for your organization.

will trust you and see you as an expert, even though there's competing voices out there with less expertise and less value, we're getting a lot more attention. And so I think really being clear about that why is essential for everything, but especially for LinkedIn of just knowing like this is the reason why. And we can double click on that. That's literally what we're talking about this week with our leadership team as we've started to map back the reasons why people do this and really what is the why behind the why.

But that's the first one. The second one is measurement. And I think this is always interesting because again, in preparing for our offsite, I looked back on hundreds of sales calls and using AI, was trying to tease through and say like, okay, when people come to us and they reach out to us to do this LinkedIn work, what do they say success looks like? How are they gonna measure that this works?

And what I found is that over half the time in these sales conversations, people who are very excited to be on LinkedIn, when I put the question on them, they're like, I really don't know. I don't even know what the good looks like. I don't know how to determine that successful. so, you know, based on the why the measurement might vary, but I think it's always good to have some sort of sense of like,

What does good look like? What am I looking for? I have clients where it's pretty simple. They want to get a lot of views. They want to post occasionally to go viral and for a lot of people to see it. Okay, great. That probably isn't what I would recommend for most people, but for them, that's great. I have other clients where they're very precise and they say, look, we sell to these enterprise CTOs and these geographies, these industries. I don't care. There's not a lot of them. I don't need a million likes, but I want them.

speaker-1 (23:20.382)
seeing my content. And thanks to LinkedIn's analytics, we can actually look at that now and say like, Hey, your post only got viewed by a hundred people, but guess what? It's your ideal client persona. So you are hitting the bullseye. Let's keep going. But regardless, you really want to be clear on how you're measuring what you're doing. I like that phrase that you've probably heard a million times as well. What gets measured gets managed.

And I think that it's always nice coming into this knowing that, you know, it might not be about followers. It might not be about impressions. It might not be about cold imbalance, but like, let's get clear on why you're doing this. And then we get clear on how you're going to measure it. And then the third thing is really a system. Almost always when I talk with people, they'll say some variant of, know I should do this. I know it's important for my business, but...

Like social media, I don't have the time, I don't have the energy, things like that. And so it's like anything else. LinkedIn is a compound game. If you're going to show up for one month or even six months, it's kind of meaningless. Just like exercise, just like saving for retirement, unless you have a way to do this week in and week out for the next several years, you're not going to really pierce through the noise. You're not really going to accomplish your

And that means you have to have a system. You can't rely on motivation. You can't rely on getting excited and coming out of a conference and sharing ideas and then being dormant on LinkedIn for the next six months. You really have to find a way to add value and to say something meaningful every single week for the next several years. And that requires either a system, which we can help you do, or it requires working with someone like us.

like a personal coach who's gonna make you be successful with minimal input from you, with very strategic and precise input. But that's probably the third reason I see people, you know, in my newsfeed, see friends blow up on LinkedIn. I can tell they got a jolt of energy somewhere and they show, it tapers for, you know, tapers after three or four weeks because they didn't have the supporting system or maybe they didn't have a compelling enough why to continue doing it.

speaker-0 (25:34.368)
Yeah, you know, all three of those really resonate with me. And I want to go back to your first one for just a minute, because I will say full transparency for me. I very much have had to learn to I love your expression, sit with the discomfort of being out in the digital space as much as I am. You know, I would prefer if nobody knew my name in that way. Right. But it is what is necessary to build the business. And it's my obligation to my colleagues.

to Kerikin's group and to my passion for making how matter that I do it. And that's my why behind it. It's not because I love posting about things that are going on, right? But I have over time learned to make my peace with that and to sit with that discomfort. And now it doesn't bother me. I wouldn't say that I look forward to it, but it doesn't feel like a huge lift to share things about myself or what's going on in my world or what's happening with the business. It feels

a lot easier just because I've spent a couple of years just being very intentional about it. So if any of our listeners are sitting in that boat where they're trying to figure out how to sit with the discomfort, I would say that it does get easier over time. And measurement and systems do help with that because you can see the progress that is being made and you can start to understand the impact that your consistency is having.

And just to get granular so people can get their arms around that discomfort. I have spent literally over an hour on a single post and it is burying my soul. And I think about every word and I really pour my heart and soul into a post and I'll put it out and it gets three likes. And that sucks. That really sucks to like pour so much of yourself into something and to have it not be noticed and to not be noticed in such a

way that anyone who would look at your profile would be like, that didn't work. And that's part of the discomfort you have to be comfortable with is like, it's social media. Sometimes it's arbitrary. There's an algorithm. There's people going about their day. There's other competing events. And so that's something you have to get used to is that not everything is going to get noticed in the way that you want it to.

speaker-1 (27:52.384)
You know, I have had clients that they get friends texting them and being like, Julie's really, Julie really knows a lot. She's sharing a lot. And it's their own insecurity getting projected, but you might get friends giving you a hard time. Might be investors giving a hard time. Employees giving you a hard time. There's a very specific discomfort here that you have to become used to when you take any public stance. But the great thing is, you know, the people that we work with and the people I usually speak with our leaders.

That's like, you've, if you have become a leader, you've had to become comfortable with becoming uncomfortable because you are taking a stand because you believe in something and you have people who are going to take pot shots at you and people who will misunderstand you and people who will mischaracterize what you're saying or doing. And that's just table stakes to be a leader. have to be willing to put up with that. And so it will be a different type of discomfort, but in the same, your mind in the same mountain that you're already.

as a leader in LinkedIn, but it is, think, a muscle that benefits you of just a thicker skin and being more tolerant to finding your voice in a very public setting.

Yeah, I think there's something about being tough enough to take it and open enough to adjust where needed.

Yeah, love that. I love that. That's a beautiful way of saying it.

speaker-0 (29:12.95)
Yeah, yeah. Well, know, Justin, really feel like, like I said, I know for myself, I have made my peace with needing to sit with that discomfort and be in service to my company and my colleagues and also the other people who have really invested in the idea of making how matter. I hope that other people who are listening to this might be starting to think about for themselves. What is it that

makes this important for me as a leader, not because I want to be out in front of the world, but because it matters for who I am and for what I'm trying to do with my business and with my leadership. And I think I really appreciate that connection to what's behind that. What's the motivation behind wanting to see this level of consistency? I want to click just a little bit on your comment that you spend sometimes an hour on a post. And it's funny because

I have gotten to the point where I don't spend an hour on a post. And I do think people sometimes worry about that from a time perspective. I know you and your team really help leaders to streamline that process a little bit and to be able to mine some stories for multiple posts, for example, or being able to leverage their content across different types of angles or different angles for the content that they're sharing.

Tell me a little bit about that because I do think there's a lot of people who are stuck in the failure gap because they worry about the time commitment. Maybe they're not good writers, maybe they're not confident in their voice, but they struggle with the idea of spending an hour or two on a single post.

Yeah, so, you know, and to be fair, so on Saturday, I was at an indoor playground with my kids and I had this interaction and I literally wrote the post at the playground and I posted it the next day. And that post, it was kind of like such a fully formed idea. It probably took me definitely less than five minutes, but maybe two to three minutes to write that because it was just like one of those moments when you have clarity and you're like, this is such a clear lesson for me. And that post did really well and that was very effortless.

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I actually think that the one of the systems that works best for everyone is most of us are far better at speaking than we are at writing.

And so as an example, I'll ask Julie for the transcript of this afterwards. And there's things that I said, like I've never actually said before, the why, the measurement and the process. That was just something that, because I think a little bit better out loud, I kind of said that for the first time and I'm like, that's actually a great LinkedIn post. And so I'll take the transcript and I've probably got 90 % of a post there. A lot of it's trimming. I'm to take the transcript. I'm to trim out a lot of the verbose that doesn't need to

be there and I might have a new thought. But that's a process that I think we've basically built our company around is we do an interview format very similar to a podcast where we could ask really good questions of a client that they will say things in a conversational way.

that will then translate into LinkedIn when we write it for them, because we understand a lot of the best practices and things like that. But that's something you can approximate really well. And if you do podcasts like we're doing right now, that's a clear way. But you can also approximate the system that we do. You can have an employee or a partner or a team member or a friend ask you questions like, hey, why did you start this company? And I promise you it will be a different energy and a different interaction. If you sit down, this is why I started the company.

that all of us, think we just get activated in a way. If it's over Zoom or if it's in person, you have a voice recorder, just something where you're speaking to a person. And the great thing about this is the stuff that I would want you to talk about on LinkedIn. You are already talking about it. You are talking about it on sales calls. You are talking about it in team meetings. You're talking about it in one-on-one meetings. So if you find a mechanism to capture what you're saying, you'll very often start to notice like, I just said this in a sales meeting.

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more than one person would benefit from that and you can translate that on to LinkedIn. And what I love about this is I think that as we work with clients, they really do start to develop a new muscle of paying more attention to what they're saying. And so we'll always start an interview and we'll say, Hey, Julie, is there anything you want to share with your audience before we get into the prepared questions? And the clients that we've worked with longer, they'll have a piece of paper, they'll have a note on their phone. It'll be like, actually, you know what? I just had a meeting last week

I made a note, I had a meeting with an employee and they said this and then you think this. It's almost like they're developing this habit of reflecting and ruminating on what's going on in their work life and then expressing that in a way that holds value to themselves because they've now created meaning out of something that they've learned. But then in expressing it to others, it's going beyond them and it's helping more and more people. So when we get back to that why of generosity, they're really ringing out a lesson

from a failure, from a mistake, from something that happened at work. And they're creating meaning for themselves and creating that space for reflection. But then they're also sharing that with others. Not only does that help others, but it starts to reveal the type of leader you are. You know, in this post I did about the interaction on Saturday, one of my big takeaways is like outrage is overrated, but really gratitude is what we're wanting more of.

And I had made a point of telling this 15 year old at this climbing wall, like you are doing such a good job. that's still, it's, well, it's a lot of emotional meaning of like the, the obligation we have as leaders to like, see good behavior and to like call that out to get to like, leave this 15 year old with a sense of like, the world needs more of this, like keep on, keep on doing it. And it's, and it's so hard to take the time.

to do that. And so that was like the point of that, the post, but I did, it kind of got meaning for myself. Like, why was this one interaction so significant? Why did it jump out emotionally as like, there's something I have to learn here and I could probably share something here that would help others. And I think that's really what we're going for. But if you can capture what you're saying, it makes it a little bit more scalable because some of the things you're seeing will surprise you.

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Yeah, I love that. I saw your post, by the way. And I do think this idea of generosity, also, you're very generous to share that experience with us through the LinkedIn platform and to just give people a little nudge, right? At Kerikin's group, talk about nudge is not shoves, right? It's a little nudge to take that action for yourself in life, right? So the next time you see a serving person at a restaurant or

somebody who's at the park or a coach on a team or something like that, what's your opportunity to be generous with that person and to thank them or to let them know that they're doing a good job? yeah. Well, Justin, this has been so awesome to hear your perspectives on how people can move through the failure gap, especially around something like sharing themselves on these digital platforms and really starting to be generous with their leadership and their leadership lessons or

100%.

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the things that they're great things that are going on at their business or with their teams or their colleagues. How do you create a spotlight that you can shine on things that are happening in the world that can inspire other people or help communicate the value of the work that's going on in your organization? So I know there are so many people who agree that they should be doing it, but they are just having a hard time getting unstuck. And you've given us some great ways to start to think about that, knowing your why, creating some measurements.

getting some systems in place. think really those are great tips for people who wanna move forward and also working with somebody like you and your organization to try and make it a little easier. And people can build the muscle, they can build the habit and then they can start to really see results come. But I really wanna go back to something that you pointed out earlier, which is they're not gonna come in a month or six months. It takes a long time of being really consistent to start to see results in this space.

So, you know, what's that old expression? The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago and the next best time is today. So I would say start planting.

And, you know, one thing I would add is that...

A lot of times, you know, the people I want to hear from the most are kind of the least likely to say what's going on. And I think that's because oftentimes they will say like, there's so much noise out there. There's so many other people talking. I don't want to contribute to that. I would really challenge listeners. Like if you are a leader, there's clearly something you have to say and authenticity is the name of the game. And so if you bring your unique vantage point and your unique experience and your unique personhood, will 100 % be different.

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differentiated it will be different than all of the other noise out there and I think that we are conditioned today to expect hundreds of millions of viewers or whatever and I think that the impact always starts on a small level and so if you share something that impacts 30 people that's amazing right if you found a hundred people who read something and gained something that's great so don't let this fear that you have to be Joe Rogan that you have to have 300 million listeners like that's not

usually even the goal for many of us when we have a niche focus and we have a niche area of expertise, we're not looking for millions. We're looking for our tribe of people who can benefit from what we have to say. And if you are a leader, there are definitely more people who can benefit from hearing that perspective. So don't let that self-criticism put the mute button on you. Like have that courage to put your voice out there because I guarantee you that there are people who would benefit from something you have to share.

Yeah, absolutely. I agree with that completely. And that authenticity piece really comes through. You can't just be parroting what other people say or reposting or something like that. You need to actually have the willingness to share yourself and to share your authentic experience as a leader. Yeah, yeah. Well, let's bring this home with a couple of questions for you, Justin. If you were talking with somebody about anything, whether it's being on LinkedIn or anything else,

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and they're feeling like they're stuck in the failure gap. They agree that it would be a good idea if they did something, but they're having trouble getting it done. What would be a couple of things you would recommend to them to get the ball rolling?

I mean, I'll, I'll steal it from Tony Robbins who talks about changing your state, but I'll take maybe a different tack than he does. Um, I do, you know, this is a reminder myself as well. Like when we get stuck, change gears, you know, go for a hike, go for a walk, take a cold shower, you know, put, put yourself in maybe some discomfort shift gears. think that like the number of times that I want to just break through a wall when, know, just, you know, doing a short meditation or Wim Hof breathing.

if you can have ever done that. Like there's things that we can do that are fairly short, but they get us out of the routine and they might help us see the problem from another perspective. Journaling is something I do a lot. think that that sometimes helps me through things. Therapy or coaching are also other tools. They're just ways of introducing some new content into some stuckness that we're experiencing.

And whether that's a personal dynamic or a business challenge, think universally any of those things could kind of help us get some fresh air and then things settle in a different way. That's probably the first one that comes to mind. Let me think about that as well. I think that, know, I think that

One of the things I love, we work with an organization who does a fractional COO service. And even today in our dialogue as a leadership team, he said at one point, says, I think that what I'm hearing here is this is actually about X instead of Y. And having that almost, as we've worked with him for almost a year now, oftentimes he's more of an observer of seeing the pattern of stuckness and seeing where we become

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confrontational or adversarial or see where we're talking. You know, there was another time today where he's like, you guys are going down solving a problem. Let's, let's stick with the topic, which is this.

big goal here. And so to have someone external or as facilitator can be really helpful. So everyone on the leadership team can play full out, but you have someone almost as a referee pulling apart when you become stuck or realizing like, you're stuck because you're actually solving the wrong problem. Let's bring this up to a higher level and solve this problem is going to make all these other problems go away. And I don't know that that can be done without some sort of external force helping you.

Yeah, I think that outside perspective can help so much to level the playing field, as you say, so that all of the members of the team can really lean in and be fully present. Yeah. Well, I love the change your state. I love to have somebody who can hold you accountable to what you're doing in that space and how you're leading there. I think those are great ways to take a step towards alignment as a team and ways to move out of the failure gap. So thank you for sharing that.

I told you our last question is going to be a big one. It's if you could get any group of people, whether it's your leadership team or your colleagues or a community you belong with or family, a group of people that you would love to see get aligned and doing something together, what would that be?

Hmm. I mean, there's no shortage there. I think the one that seems most poignant right now is just listening. I think that, you know, even from a social media standpoint, we are biased to speak and we are biased to

speaker-1 (43:17.774)
say things, we're biased to contribute, and I think that's great. I want everyone to feel like they have a voice and that they have something to say. I think that we are at a state of stalemate in politics and in many areas of our world.

because we're not slowing down to listen. And I did this practice decades ago called nonviolent communication. And it was about reflective listening. And it's something we do a lot in our client interviews, but you would be amazed at what changes in the dynamic when you, rather than jumping ahead to what you want to say, you literally say like, man, there's a lot there. Let me just make sure I'm tracking you right. It sounds like what you said was A, B, C. You know, that's a lot of what Julie has done really effectively today.

She's kind of pulled out key points or reiterated things. But when you do that in a conversation, you see the other person relax because they actually feel heard. You often will uncover that there's things that you didn't understand at all. Like, no, actually, I didn't mean that at all. I meant this. And so you start to get to the, to a true sense of understanding. And maybe you might understand a little bit more about what their perspective is. Then that generally leads to more rather than, you know, I'll get in points where we're just shouting at each other or just saying this.

same things rather than like dropping a level to actually understand and move a conversation forward. And I think that starts with listening. And I don't think that many of us, myself included, are nearly as good at listening as we are as we think we are. So that one thing would be like, can we just kind of listen to each other and slow down the pace here? And I think that's going to get us to a much better outcome than this rapid responding and talking. And it's just, it's just too noisy for us to even process.

Well, listeners, you heard it here. There is a call to action from Justin for all of us to work on our listening skills and really think about how we're hearing people and letting them know that they're heard, not just absorbing it, but actively engaging in that process of listening and reflecting and letting people know that you may or may not agree with them, but you have heard them. And I think, Justin, if we could all get aligned.

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to doing a little bit of a better job of listening, I do think you're right. The temperature comes down, people relax, and we start to understand things in a really different way. So thank you for that call to action as we close out this episode of The Failure Gap. I want to say a huge thank you to you for taking the time to talk with me today. I really appreciate it hearing your leadership journey. You're inspiring around the idea of continuing to grow as a leader and always finding those opportunities to expand your thinking.

I think as we think about moving from agreement to alignment, the idea of changing your state, I think is really wonderful because sometimes we do get stuck because we're kind of stuck in a certain state that we just can't shake the energy off. So if we can change our state, do something different, go for a walk, change your breathing, do a meditation, whatever it might be, you might find the impetus to get out of the failure gap and start getting things done. And I really appreciate this call to action.

to listen a little bit more carefully and a little bit more fully and be really present in that space. So Justin, thank you so much for joining us and for being my guest today.

Thank you so much, Julie.

It's been wonderful for all of our listeners. Just a reminder, if you've enjoyed this episode, like it, comment on it, share it with others. We'd always love to hear your thoughts and ideas as well. If there's anyone that you'd like to hear me talk to, please feel free to send it in. We'd love to hear from you. And for now, I'll just remind you that we say at Carrickans Group, to go fast, go alone, to go far, go together, to go far fast, get aligned. Thanks so much.