Welcome to The Chemical Show, the podcast where Chemical means business.
I'm your host, Victoria Meyer, bringing you stories and insights
from leaders driving innovation and growth across the chemical industry.
Each week we explore key trends, real world challenges, and the
strategies that make an impact.
Let's get started.
Victoria: Welcome back to The Chemical Show where Leaders Talk business.
Today I am speaking with Jeff Cher, who is, has navigated the path
from the army into being corporate leader and now is a leadership
expert running his own business.
Jeff has recently published a book, firm Feedback in a Fragile World, which
we will link to in our show notes.
And we're gonna be having a great conversation about leadership feedback
and frankly, how we all can be successful in our careers and leading teams.
So Jeff, welcome to the Chemical Show.
Jeff: Man, it is good to be with you, Victoria.
I love what you're doing to support your industry and certainly to support leaders.
Everything rises and falls at the hand of a leader, and I'm
looking forward to the discussion.
Victoria: Yeah, absolutely.
I'm so glad that you're here and of course, you yourself host
a really successful podcasts.
Um, And so we might get a chance to talk about that a little bit and
certainly wanna give, encourage people to listen to your podcast as well.
Jeff: Sure.
Victoria: Absolutely.
So Jeff, what's your origin story?
What got you onto the path that you are today?
Jeff: I'll give you the Cliffs notes 'cause that could be a long episode.
But, I grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania, about 20
miles south of Pittsburgh.
Grew up in rural America.
Born into poverty.
Had, two parents that never worked a day in my life.
A mom that battled a disease called lupus, a dad that battled chronic
osteoarthritis that led to, tons of surgeries on his feet and amputation.
It was really, really rough, uh, growing up.
You know, when I became a teenager and had some freedom, the things got worse.
There wasn't a lot of direction.
My parents were good people, uh, but they were literally fighting for survival.
And, being a teenager with not a lot of direction led to a lot of bad decisions.
I.
brushes with the law, the wrong friend groups, you name it.
Uh, I felt like me and my brother kind of felt like the walls were caving in on us.
And when I graduated from high school, I never really saw
college as an opportunity.
One because of affordability, but two, I just wasn't a great student.
But I knew I wanted more and I didn't really know what to do.
So I had a couple options.
I could go into the coal mine, I could go into the steel mill,
or I could join the military.
And I joined the military just because I wanted to experience
a something different.
So I find myself in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in basic training,
running Tank Hill, and doing all the things that a new soldier does and.
After I transitioned from the military, I was gonna use that GI bill to go
to college, which was unheard of.
Like nobody had ever done that in my family, but I had this GI bill,
so I was gonna give it a shot.
And I was, a few weeks from starting and my dad called and made me aware they
were sending my mom home in hospice.
And we had gotten that call before, where she would get really, really sick.
This time it was different 'cause this time would be the time that my
dad was also having a leg amputation.
And Wow, my mom was being sent home in hospice.
Victoria: Gosh, that is a lot
Jeff: it's a lot.
Victoria: and a young adult to grapple with.
Jeff: Yeah.
And I mean, so you have all of this going on.
My brother's in a career, so I did what anybody would do and I put college
on the back burner and I helped get all the nurses set up and get things
a little bit stabilized, helping my dad through, rehabbing, you know,
how to figure out how to use an artificial leg and all this stuff.
And, um, I didn't wanna be a burden on my, on my parents.
So I went and looked for a seasonal job.
I didn't have a lot of skill, so I needed some kind of grunt work.
And I ended up applying to be a truck driver at Cintas Uniform Company.
And what I thought was gonna be a seasonal job ended up being nearly a 25
year career in that Fortune 500 company.
And I went from.
Entry level fill in truck driver to a senior leader in that company.
And it's, it's not because I'm anything amazing, I worked hard.
But I had that level of success because I had leaders that, had a lot of belief in
me and supported me along that journey.
And I thought I was gonna retire from that company.
And in early 2019, I started a leadership podcast.
To kind of give back to what's been given to me.
And that led to a lot of great feedback and a side hustle of doing leadership
trainings and, executive coaching.
And in December of 2019, I felt the, the conviction very strong to leave the
company I loved and all the Unvested stock and the risk of starting your own company.
And I branched out and started, uh, Jeff Hancher Enterprises
and it's been an amazing ride.
So.
Victoria: That
Jeff: That's kind of the cliff notes.
Victoria: Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I think it's great and I think, um.
your point, there are people in our lives along the way that are powerful
stewards of our journey, right?
Jeff: Hmm.
Victoria: us the right support, the right mentorship, the right belief,
because who would've thought, right?
That you'd go from a seasonal worker
Jeff: Yeah.
Victoria: uh, a senior leader, a and then, and then beyond.
So that's really cool.
Jeff: Yeah.
Victoria: you know, when we think about this, and of course
you've been working a long time.
You started out in the military.
different today?
Right?
So when you look at leadership, and I know you're a student, of leadership,
what's different about leadership today versus one, what it was 25 years ago,
Jeff: I say it's never been harder to lead.
make no mistake, we are very still, very much so post pandemic.
You know, are we coming back to the office?
Are we still gonna stay hybrid?
Is it gonna be a blend?
Well, if you make me come back to the office, I'm quitting.
I don't wanna come back to the office.
You know, we had to, we, we had to battle through the great resignation.
Probably every leader listening to this episode has an open requisition.
They're not fully staffed.
It's harder to attract top talent than ever before.
It's harder to retain top talent than ever before.
And leaders are tasked, uh, like never before with these types
of challenges, mental health.
It, the numbers of mental health are on the rise like Neville never before.
And guess what?
Mental health is coming into your workplace and leaders that are quote
unquote unqualified to manage that are needing to lead teams that have that.
And this is left a fear, I think, in leaders of don't rock the boat,
just get through another day.
Don't call out the problem.
Don't challenge people just.
Don't cause don't no ripples like, and what we know is, is that,
uh, that's not good leadership.
You know, we're all a product of feedback.
We're all a product of a tough conversation.
But I think now more than ever, leaders are fearful of it, because things
are already so fragile, they just don't wanna rock the boat anymore.
There's plenty of challenges.
Leaders are navigating.
Victoria: Yeah.
That's so interesting because, you know, I, I certainly hear, and you
hear it from both sides, right?
With where people struggle with having a not great leader and a not
great boss, and they can't believe, certain things that are happening or
that certain people get away with.
And then, you know, on the same side, uh, leaders, leaders are struggling.
So, you kind of touched on some of these things, but.
We've got this whole aspect of all these changes.
You've touched on some of them.
I think about ai, digitization, the whole return to work.
Are you in the office?
Are you not in the
Jeff: Hmm.
Victoria: What the holy heck are you doing?
Jeff: Hmm.
Victoria: certainly in the chemical industry, we're in a period of right?
So tariff supply chain,
Jeff: Hmm.
Victoria: depending on where you sit, there's some major shutdowns taking place.
As.
The world shifts a bit.
How is that influencing corporations and leaders when
they think about going to work and
Jeff: Hmm.
Victoria: lead effectively?
What does that even look like today?
Jeff: Yeah, it's challenging, because, uh, guess what, last
I checked, leaders are human.
They have feelings, they have emotions.
You know, leader leadership can be a heavy load, but what I've learned about the
greatest leaders is it's not the load that weighs you down, it's how you carry it.
You know, if you wear a backpack low to your back and there's 50 pounds in it,
it's gonna feel like a hundred, that same 50 pounds though if it's secured
tightly to your back and high on your shoulders, it might only feel like 20.
It's not the load that weighs you down, it's how you carry it.
Here's, here's the thing about adversity.
The greater the adversity, the greater the opportunity for impact.
And I, I'll tell a story to drive this point.
You know, if you think about, , a trauma surgeon, you know, this is somebody that's
spent 10 to 13 years of their life to get started to be good at what they do.
This is a person that covers the most traumatic.
Events that come through an emergency room.
This is gunshots stabs, head on collisions.
They've been trained to take care of the most adverse acute health situations
that come through the hospital.
And can you imagine being a, a trauma surgeon and day after day, day after
day, day after day, not one case comes through the er and you find
yourself one day sitting there.
As the trauma surgeon and you look over to the nurse and you say, this really stinks.
And she says, or he says, what stinks?
There's no trauma cases coming in.
And the nurse says to you, the trauma surgeon, are you saying
that you want people to get hurt?
And you, the doctor sit there and you think about that and you say, that
is kind of a, a crazy thing to say.
Victoria: Yeah.
Jeff: I really don't want people to get hurt, but it's what I've been built to do.
So much so that if trauma's not happening in this city, I'm
gonna go find a city where it is.
Why?
Because I've dedicated my life to this.
It's what I'm good at, it's what I'm built to do.
I can make a difference in the most serious of situations.
If a leader takes this posture, I.
When the chemical industry is under attack, it's under political strain.
You, all of these things are happening.
There's gonna be a leader that represents a brand that's gonna look at all this
adversity and say, this is my moment.
This is the opportunity that I've been waiting for.
And, and I will tell you, when you take on this posture, what we know
is, is that everybody listening to this show is gonna face adversity.
You're gonna face death of somebody that you love dearly.
There's people right now that have just been told that their
15-year-old is addicted to drugs.
There's somebody listening to this show that have just been told that the, their
husband or wife has stage four cancer.
This is real Victoria.
This is the real work force that we're leading.
But here's what I know.
None of us are gonna escape tragedy.
None of us are gonna escape adversity.
There's gonna be competitive pressure, political distress, social injustice.
It's all gonna happen and it's gonna keep happening.
The leader that steps up and says, you know what?
This is my opportunity to shine.
I have developed myself in a way that this adversity is actually, it's
gonna give me a competitive advantage.
Those are the leaders with that mindset that are gonna win and dominate.
Victoria: so, so it prompts a couple questions here from
me, Jeff, which is number one.
How do you develop those skills?
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Victoria: And number two, do you recognize the opportunity
and when to apply those skills?
Because I think many of
Jeff: Hmm.
Victoria: excellent practitioners, but sometimes we just apply that
at the wrong time in the wrong way and it screws things up, so,
Jeff: Yeah.
Victoria: how do you build the skills and how do you apply them correctly?
Jeff: Man, that's, that's a great question.
You know, I always say that everybody on Planet Earth is in one of four camps, and
Camp one is, I hope it doesn't come up.
Camp two is, if it comes up, I'll wing it.
Camp three is, if it comes up, I'm ready to talk about it.
But then there's Camp four people.
And Camp four people have this mindset of, if it doesn't come up.
I'm bringing it up, not because I'm arrogant, because I see it
as a duty and an obligation.
Think of somebody, um, you know, you're at Walmart and somebody yells, help, help.
They're not breathing.
And you know, CPR, you've been trained in CPR and you hear this
cry for help in this moment.
You're in camp four.
'cause you know, CPR, you know how to use a defibrillator, so
you run to the lifeless body.
You're not thinking this is arrogant.
You're not.
You're not waiting for somebody else to do it.
This is a Camp Four moment, so you run, you forget everything else, and you run to
death and breathe life into it adversely.
If you don't know CPR, you hope it, you are walking into Mar Walmart,
hoping it doesn't ever come up.
So then the question comes, which is your question, how do you get into Camp four?
Well, it's really simple, but not easy.
Camp four requires you to consume and to get around people that
have been where you want to go.
You know, this is this, I need to be hungry for knowledge.
I need to be in the workshop.
I need to be, and by the way, we're talking to people listening
that believe in this, that's why they're listening to the show.
But I need to get content.
I need to watch YouTube.
I need to pay out of my own pocket if need be to go to the leadership workshop.
To hire the executive coach.
Why?
Because I know I can't.
Do I need the knowledge?
you're not gonna get something by doing nothing.
So we have to invest in our growth, but it can't stop there because we're
not here to win leadership trivia.
You know, you can be book smart and not be effective as a leader.
That would be like trying to be great at golf and reading Tiger Woods's golf book.
That doesn't, that's never gonna make you a great golfer.
It'll make you more knowledgeable about the game, and you might win
trivia at night, but you're never gonna be an effective golfer.
Now, if I could go play 18 rounds with Tiger every Sunday, the odds of me being
a pretty good golfer are gonna go up.
So you have to consume, but so many people spend their life consuming and
never executing when you get mentorship, which is basically what people are
doing by listening to this show.
Is they're saying, I wanna get around people that have been where I want to go.
So those are the staples that I would tell you that's gonna
build a foundation of confidence.
When you have confidence in something, that's where the execution comes to,
which is the second part of your question.
One of my favorite quotes is this, from Marcus Garvey.
He said this once, he said.
If you lack confidence in self, you're twice defeated in the
race of life, but with confidence you have won before you start.
This confidence thing is, is the ultimate wild card for anybody and especially
a leader because when you have all of the knowledge and you understand
through mentoring or leadership how to execute it, now you're in camp four and
you can run into the biggest problem.
Victoria: Yeah, that's really great.
And I do think this whole aspect, you know, to me, I, it points
to maybe a growth mindset and being around, , the right people.
And you and I both know, having gone from corporate to entrepreneurship,
first of all, inside of a corporation, you may or may not
have those right people around you.
I, I have had the opportunity in my career,
Jeff: Hmm.
Victoria: to have some great leaders and mentors who.
Sewed into me who were great examples, who, when I had a
question about all kinds of stuff.
In fact, the thing that comes to mind is, uh, I met somebody a couple
weeks ago in an event I was speaking at, and we were talking about his
wife was going back into the office five days a week, blah, blah, blah.
They have a young family and just this whole aspect of, managing a family
while you're also corporate and and I said, you know, I still remember
is I had some great women around me when my kids were very young.
I mean today as well, but when my kids were very young and I was at Shell working
in corporate, who basically taught me how to like have a nanny and what do I do with
the nanny and how do I help balance this for my family because that was something.
needed to learn, and I needed people to show me.
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Victoria: some great leaders, uh, that help me with the commercial
aspects of my business and commercial acuity, the great leaders that help
me be a leader, a leader of people.
Um,
Jeff: Hmm,
Victoria: I think this aspect of, of having that around you, and then
if you don't have it, creating it,
Jeff: Wow.
Victoria: it inside your company, outside of your company, and, you
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Victoria: As an entrepreneur running a small business, you have to go out
to create that community and create that mentorship, and make that happen.
Jeff: Man, that's so true.
And think about like what you said, some of the things that you just said.
They transcend business results.
Like somebody that sat you down and said, this is how you can still be a good mom
Victoria: Yeah.
Jeff: and be successful in business.
You know, I had a leader that took me in the men's room once and taught me
how to tie a Windsor knot because I, I just became a white collar worker
from a blue collar world, and I didn't know what collar stays were,
and I didn't know how to tie a tie.
I didn't know anything, and it wasn't his responsibility.
Victoria: yeah.
Jeff: me those things.
He went beyond the business results to make deposits into me, and I'll bet,
I'll bet this if, if I were to ask you or anybody listening to think about
your Mount Rushmore of leaders, these are the people, for people that you
would say, I would not be who I am if these people never came in my life.
I'll bet you if I were to ask you the question, were those
four people tough on you?
They probably all were.
But if I were to follow that up and say, did you know they cared?
Yeah.
Because they also taught me how to be a great mom,
Victoria: Yeah.
Jeff: and they also taught me how to tie a tie.
And they also took me, this leader did to Joseph, a bank and taught me how to
dress like, now here's what happens to your example, and this is why mentoring
and getting around great leaders matters.
Because when you achieve that, what you just talked about
and what I just described.
You're no longer a boss that people report to.
You're a leader that people don't wanna let down.
Now you wanna earn the right to have a tough conversation in the face
of quiet, quitting, high turnover, , trying to attract top talent,
you wanna be a leader that leads with confidence and
doesn't fear tough feedback.
Earn the right, because then you become a leader.
People don't wanna let down, and we know.
That the best recruiting and retention tool there is on planet
Earth is the leader that's listening.
Victoria: Yeah,
Jeff: truth.
Victoria: Absolutely.
And so this is perhaps a bit of what your new book is about, right?
So you've just published firm Feedback in a Fragile World.
When we look across, heck, every industry, but let's talk
about the chemical industry.
There's a lot of what we do that is kind of just required, right?
We need to have a safe operating environment.
Um, Compliance from a regulatory product perspective, dealing with operational
complexity, safe and secure supply chains, so many different things.
, Things can go right, things can go wrong when things go wrong.
Tragedy can happen and, and of course we all seek to avoid that.
How do you deliver that tough feedback?
What is, is there a formula for tough feedback?
Without breaking trust, or employee morale and continuing to build on that?
Jeff: Yeah, there is a formula.
You know, uh, the framework we talk about, in the book is that of expectations,
feedback, and accountability.
You know, making sure expectations are clear, reasonable.
People understand why the expectation is good for them.
They've been adequately trained to meet or exceed the expectation.
But then this feedback piece, I'm a big fan of, frequent and scheduled one-on-one
debriefs for everybody in your company.
And I always get pushback and I'll hear people say, we don't have time for that.
Well, then you need more leaders because at, well, last I checked, you're only as
good as the people that you're developing.
You could have the best product in the world, and if your leadership is
weak, you're going to lose adversely.
If you have superior leadership with moderate or, or even inadequate
product in service, you're gonna be a fierce competitor because what
we're talking about here is culture.
And I talk about this in the book, but it, it leads to then,
well, why is it that leaders fear.
Or have this anxiety about having a tough conversation.
You know, we've all had that tightness of the chest, that sweaty palm.
Whenever you have to address that employee that, degraded you or
interrupted you in front of everybody in the team meeting this morning, and
by the way, there are peak performer and if they quit, we're gonna be screwed.
That person, and we gotta have this tough conversation.
I talk about the acronym FEAR in the book.
And of why there's this feedback avoidance.
The F is fallout.
What if I have this hard conversation and people don't like me anymore, or
it ruins my, my brand or my reputation?
Then you have the E, which is emotion, which if I have this conversation
and they get angry or they feel embarrassed, or if they cry.
Here's what I'll tell you.
If you haven't made anybody cry in leadership yet, you're
probably not doing it right.
Not that we want people to cry, but we gotta have hard conversations.
The A is amateur, which is probably a big one, and this doesn't
mean, you're new to leadership.
Amateur means you've never really been taught a framework
of how to deliver feedback.
You could be in leadership for 15 years, and believe me, these are
the people coming to my workshops.
Who at the end of a workshop say, nobody's ever told me this.
Victoria: Hmm.
Jeff: I know that's common response.
So you might feel like an amateur.
And an amateur means, you know what, I'm not gonna do anything
'cause I'm afraid to get it wrong.
But then you have the R, which is retaliation, which is very
prominent in the corporate world.
What if I have this conversation?
It doesn't go like I want it to, and they report me to hr, or they tell my boss.
You know what?
I don't wanna rock the boat.
I'm not gonna do anything.
Well, the good news is this, if you have confidence, and we've already
proven that the leaders that have made the biggest impact on you were tough
on you, that means you gotta get tough.
What?
What I'm not saying is be aggressive because there's a leader listening
that says, see, I'm doing it right.
I'm not talking about getting a stick out and whacking people.
I'm talking about finding the balance of earning the right
to have a tough conversation.
That's the framework in the book.
Expectations feedback, meaning feedback's not the same for any two people.
You know, you Victoria might need supportive feedback in the morning,
but by the time afternoon hits, you might need collaborative feedback.
That new employee, they don't need collaborative feedback.
They need directive feedback 'cause they don't know what they're doing.
That peak performer that has stopped performing for you,
they need supportive feedback.
So we have to at least understand that there's multiple types of feedback and the
best scenarios to deliver the feedback, which is what we talk about in the book.
Victoria: Yeah, I like that.
You know, and it's, it's actually a great segue to one of my other
questions, which is gonna be around, you know, when people are under stress.
Leaders, employees, everyone, we sometimes would, but if you're a
leader under stress, a lot of times you revert to like your worst behaviors.
Right?
So you've been really good, great feedback, consistent.
And then whatever your old comfortable habits, ways of communicating, ways
of giving feedback, whether it's being directive or explosive or what have you.
Often come through in those stress moments.
do you maybe recover from that, right?
If you recognize that, but also how does that change, the way feedback is received?
How do you just find your path through it?
Because the reality is we've all seen this, right?
We've, we've lived it, we've experienced it, we've been it at times.
Jeff: Oh yeah.
Victoria: how do you navigate that?
Jeff: Yeah.
Well.
What we know about the greatest leaders that have ever walked the planet
is they all have one common thread.
Probably many, but one of them is they're composed.
Great leaders are composed, you know, rarely, rarely, not never,
but rarely is anything personal.
You know, a lot of times a leader can get bent outta shape
because they become triggered.
Because somebody said something they shouldn't have said, somebody did
something they shouldn't have done.
And we become emotionally triggered.
Remember, remember this?
Um, and this is gonna set somebody free, I hope today.
They're not trying to hurt you.
They're trying to help them.
They're not trying to hurt you.
They're trying to help them.
This isn't personal.
If they show up on your porch with clinch fist, now it's personal.
It's rare that that's going to happen.
Think, think about it this way.
You, you're driving down the road one day and you see a stray dog.
You can see its ribs.
You can tell like this dog is probably days away from dying.
It's been neglected.
And so you pull the car over and you say, Hey, Skippy, jump in the car.
I'm gonna save you.
The dog's not jumping in the car.
It's not doing that, so, so you walk over to the dog and you talk nice and
you say, Hey, I'm here to help you look like you're having a bad time.
And you go to pet the dog and what's that dog do?
It bites you.
and you say to yourself, how dare you?
I'm just here to help.
Well, why is the dog biting?
Because it's been beaten, it's been neglected, it's been abused.
It hasn't eaten in days.
And here's the thing, you, you don't give up on the dog.
You go and you get treats and you can maybe get a blanket and you sit down
in a less intimidating posture and you start feeding the dog some treats.
Why?
Because it matters to you so much to save the dog.
And you know, you have to build trust.
So over time, the dog starts to trust you and it gets in the car,
and now you're able to help it.
It.
Now look all due respect to animals, but this is a dog.
I find that too often leaders give up on people too fast.
They're not trying to hurt you, they're trying to help them.
That dog wasn't trying to hurt you.
It was trying to protect itself.
Composure is having a perspective that's completely different than average leaders
that I'm not moved by my situation.
And I always know I can either change my perspective or change my environment.
This adversity, it sucks compared to what?
That's freedom.
This sucks.
Compared to what?
That employee just called me a jerk.
That sucks.
Compared to what?
Fighting for your life in an emergency room, being in a foxhole, taking bullets.
This sucks.
Compared to what?
Like we have to fight for perspective and we have to realize.
We are leaders that have been put in this position to navigate challenges.
You know, a fireman never says, oh, here goes the alarm again.
Looks like we gotta go into a burning building.
No, in some kind of sick way, they get excited about it.
'cause it's what they're ex, it's what they get to do.
When we feel this emotion that we're losing composure, that's
when we gotta take a breath and we gotta check ourselves and we gotta
build this level of confidence.
And our, and change our perspective so that we can lead
through the toughest of times.
You know, we're not literally going into battle, that's a
whole different level of stress.
We're navigating business challenges.
So that would be my advice to somebody that is fighting to not be so emotional.
Victoria: Yeah.
That's really great.
So, you know, you've talked a lot about firm feedback and we've been talking
about feedback and, and mentorship here.
Can you share a story maybe from your own experience or from
working with a client where.
Giving or receiving feedback created a real breakthrough situation because
I sometimes think, we think of feedback as a correction and you know,
Jeff: Mm.
Victoria: kind of keeping people on the, inside, the straight
and narrow, so to speak.
But when does feedback create breakthroughs?
Do you have any
Jeff: Hmm.
Victoria: around that?
Jeff: Chapter one.
Yeah, so I'm a truck driver.
I'm a blue collar guy.
Dirty job, picking up nasty, dirty clothes.
I would see these really fancy looking people around the office.
You know, they wore nice suits and.
Nice ties and had shiny shoes and they drove these real fancy cars.
You probably heard of 'em, Honda Accords.
I mean, these were fancy people.
And I inquired about who these people were and I heard that they were
salespeople and I wanted to be that.
And I finally get my break and I have a sales manager, Sean, and
you know, he took a chance on me.
I was a good driver.
I, I won awards and trophies and I was a hard worker that was known.
But he, he was taking a chance.
I had no sales experience at all, and uh, this guy would stay after
work with me and role play with me.
He would teach me interest, creating statements and how to overcome objections.
He would jump in the car with me and go on sales calls and coach me after a call.
He would take sales calls and let me observe the master doing it.
He's the guy I told you about that taught me how to tie winds or not.
They told me what a collar stay was, so my collars weren't flapping.
He's the guy that took me to Joseph, a bank on a lunch break
once, and taught me that your belt and shoes were supposed to match.
And the difference between a sport coat and a suit, you know, this is a guy
that went way beyond a balance sheet and a key performance indicator, and
I gained so much respect for him, and I was fighting hard in this position,
Victoria, because I came from nothing.
I have two sick parents that are still living in the high
rise one bedroom apartment.
My mom, um, many times would cut pills in half because spread 'em out.
'cause the copays were so expensive.
Like, I wasn't trying to buy a Rolex.
I was trying to give my family a better life.
Victoria: Yeah.
Jeff: And I was on my way to my first sales call one morning and I got a
call from my dad and he said, um, I just arrived at the hospital with mom.
And, um, Jeff, I th I think it's different this time.
And so I did what I did hundreds of times and I drove to the
hospital and dad was right.
You know, this day it was different.
This was the day that I would hold my mom for the last
time, and, uh, she would pass.
And Victoria it broke me in, in every way imaginable.
It broke me.
I went into a very dark place emotionally.
I didn't care about the Honda Accord anymore.
I didn't care about the fancy suits anymore.
The very thing that I was working so hard for it was gone.
I didn't care about work anymore.
Victoria: Yeah.
Jeff: I would show up, I would be a shell of a person.
I was emotional.
I would, uh, I would sit in the stall sometimes and cry
at work like I was a mess.
And one day Sean pulled me into his office.
This was after about two weeks after we had buried my mom, and
he said, um, enough's enough.
Enough's enough.
I'm not gonna let you continue to do this.
My heart breaks for you and your family, but I've spent the last
how many months pouring into you.
I see your potential.
You have an 18 month, year old son.
I have an 18 month old son.
You want to have a more family.
Your dad is still here and he needs you, and you're about to throw all
of this away, and I'm not gonna sit by and watch it, but you know what?
I'm gonna give you 24 hours and we're gonna meet again, and
you're gonna make a decision.
You're either gonna become the person that I know you're capable
of being or you can't be on my team.
This was a crossroads.
I thought about quitting.
Who's this guy to tell me?
I'm not gonna be told what to do.
I'm over it.
I'm done.
And I came back the next day and I looked Sean in the face.
it was a turning point.
Victoria: Wow.
That's, uh, that's amazing.
So thank you for sharing that because that, I know is a, is a very personal
story and very vulnerable story.
Jeff: yeah.
Victoria: but to, to your credit.
to Sean's credit, to have somebody that was that committed personally to you
Jeff: Yeah.
Victoria: critical.
and he probably stretched the boundaries of what was, you know, typical acceptable
boss activity at your company, right?
At, at Cintas, right.
So big company, it's not like it's, uh, and to be able to do
that, to feed that into you, and, and then obviously, here you are.
Jeff: Yeah, think about that.
Victoria: so to speak,
Jeff: Yeah.
Think about what's happened since then.
Victoria: at that point in time.
Jeff: Yeah.
Victoria: have that level of trust between the two of you to
Jeff: Hmm.
Victoria: like that is is huge.
Enormous.
Jeff: I mean, think about it.
If you don't earn the right and you have that conversation.
I mean, you might get punched for goodness sake.
That's extreme, but it's like he earned the right to have that
tough conversation and think about what's happened since then.
I had, from that moment of that tough conversation, I went on
to win multiple Presidents clubs awards in sales, 11 more promotions.
I launched a business, a podcast, a book.
Victoria: Yeah.
Jeff: I, I don't know.
But I wonder often had he not done what he did and was the leader that
he was and leaned into the tough conversation, would I be who I am today?
And I honor him in the book and I honor that story in the book
because I want leaders that read that chapter to say, you know what?
This is bigger than.
Climbing the Fortune 500 ranks, there are people that are counting
on leaders to show up and lead well.
That's what has to happen.
And when you do that, guess what?
It's great for business.
Victoria: Yeah.
I, I, I think it's great.
And I think that the takeaway for me on this, as well, Jeff,
is have a conversation, right?
We often have regrets.
We let people maybe stew in their miseries a little bit of a strong
phrase, but it's, you're, we're afraid.
We're afraid sometimes to have those conversations, to say, Hey,
okay, I know this really sucks.
I was gonna use that word.
but I need you to buck up.
I
Jeff: Yeah,
Victoria: team needs you, you, yourself, need you.
And, and having those tough conversations, is really critical.
And it's, and it's hard for both people.
'cause I'm sure for Sean, it was not an easy conversation for him to have.
Jeff: that's right.
Victoria: just as it was not an easy conversation for you to hear.
Jeff: Yeah, it's true and, and I often get asked, especially because of the.
You know, recognition that the book's getting, you know, I'll have leaders
been messaging me on LinkedIn and so forth saying, I want to be that leader.
How will I know how, how will I know when I'm doing it the right way?
Victoria: Yeah.
Jeff: I, there's this one little report card that I give.
do you think it is more impactful to tell somebody, good job, or, I'm proud of you.
What would you say is more impactful?
Victoria: I'm assuming I'm a, I'm proud of you,
Jeff: Yes,
Victoria: right?
It's
Jeff: but here's the thing.
It's, it's, it's no doubt about it.
But here's the thing.
Not everybody earns the right to use that word.
I'm proud of you.
If you can look somebody in the face and say, I'm so proud of you,
then you have hit a different level of leadership.
Now check this out.
They're doing something they shouldn't do.
What hits different?
What were you thinking or what you did really disappoints me
Victoria: With a disappointment every time,
Jeff: every time.
Victoria: Catholic guilt, by the way,
Jeff: Yeah, but, but you can't, you can't say that.
It feels so weird to say proud or disappointed unless you've earned it.
Unless you've earned it,
Victoria: Yeah.
Jeff: you won't say it because you'll, you know, if you haven't earned it
and you say it, the other person is gonna give you body language
that says, I don't really care.
I don't really care.
Who are you to tell me you're proud of me?
That's, that's designated for my grandmother, not you.
When we can earn the right to say these two words, we are on the right track.
Victoria: Yeah.
and I would also say we should be willing to use those two words,
Jeff: Yes.
Victoria: uh, I, I think sometimes we hold ourselves back from giving that kind of
feedback, positive and negative, right?
Um, and yet it's powerful.
Jeff: Yes.
Victoria: the right people, it can't
Jeff: Yes.
Right.
Victoria: right?
So it's not that, uh, to your point, you have to have the right
relationship in order to do that, but we should be using those words.
Jeff: Absolutely.
Yes.
Victoria: Yeah.
Jeff: They're impactful.
Victoria: So, Jeff, this has been really great and, and
you've given us so many nuggets.
But I always like to, to ask my guests, as we close, you know, you've, you've
obviously had a really successful corporate and entrepreneurial
career and quite a journey.
What advice would you give to someone in your career, in their career,
maybe a young Jeff Cher, that wants to achieve your level of success?
Jeff: I talk about my mentors throughout the book from feedback in a fragile
world, and I would tell you mentoring has literally changed my life, and I
don't mean just in the business sense.
You know, I've been around some amazing husbands that taught me how
to be a good husband, not perfect.
I've been around some amazing fathers that have taught me how to be a better father.
Certainly I've been around some amazing mentors that are sales
experts that taught me how to do that.
I would tell you early in your career, and it should never stop,
quite frankly, is seek mentoring.
We do polls and, and so forth at our company.
It, it's sad to me how many people have never had a mentor, and a
lot of the things that I hear is, well, Jeff, I wouldn't even know
how to, how do I even get a mentor?
There's a lot of strategy that goes into that, but I'm gonna give you,
if you are listening, and this is you, I'm gonna give you one question
that can expand your network and at least give you greater odds of finding
mentors that can change your life.
When you're done talking to your boss, when you're done talking to somebody
at church, when you're done talking to somebody at the family reunion, let them
know what you're trying to accomplish.
I'd love to be a better dad.
I'd love to be a better husband.
I'd love to be a better salesperson someday.
I'd like to be a leader.
Leader.
Before you close that conversation, you asked this question, who do you know
based on our conversation that I don't know that you think I should meet?
This will start opening up.
You know what?
Based off what you said, Jeff, you should meet my buddy Joe.
Now you go and you meet with Joe because now you got an introduction
to Joe and you go to that meeting.
Very intentional.
You have questions ready.
When Joe gives you advice, you execute.
You report back to Joe what you did.
This starts to build.
The greatest gift that you can give a mentor is execution and results.
You do that they will come running for you.
obviously you have to consume.
so mentoring number one, consume number two, and I don't mean, um,
well, Jeff, I do consume my company.
They, we have training every Wednesday morning.
Listen, if you do what everybody else does, you're gonna get
what everybody else has.
You know, there's a, there's a, a scripture that I love.
It says, uh, where your treasure is.
your heart is, I believe this is true.
I could tell you.
How serious you are about success.
If you gave me your last 12 months bank statements, how much is
on your bank statement for your personal growth and development?
When's the last time you jumped on a plane to go hear a speaker?
That could literally change your life.
When's the last time that you paid to go to a chamber event paid a hundred
dollars out of your own pocket?
Or are you waiting for your company to help you be successful?
I hope that they do, but it's never gonna be enough.
You have to go chase success.
That would be my advice to somebody that's starting out.
Victoria: Love it, love it, love it.
Such a rich conversation.
Jeff, thank you so much.
Thanks for
Jeff: Thank you.
Victoria: really, really appreciated this conversation.
Jeff: Grateful for you.
Grateful for your listeners.
Victoria: Thank you.
And thank you everyone for joining us today on The Chemical Show.
Keep listening, keep following, keep sharing, and we will
talk with you again soon.