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💥 Ignite your company culture with the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast!
We bring together incredible leaders, trailblazing entrepreneurs, and expert visionaries to share the secrets to their success, explore real-world challenges, and reveal what it truly takes to lead with energy, passion, and purpose as a 🌟VIBRANT🌟 Leader.
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[00:00:00] Announcer: This is the Build A Vibrant Culture Podcast, your source for the strategies, systems, and smarts you need to turn possibility into purpose. Every week we dive into dynamic conversations as our host, Nicole Greer, interviews leadership and business experts. They're here to shed light on practical solutions to the challenges of personal and professional development. Now, here's your host, a professional speaker, coach and consultant, Nicole Greer.
[00:00:33] Nicole Greer: Welcome everybody to the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and they call me The Vibrant Coach. And I have another amazing guest just for you, my friends. Let me tell you a little bit about Lasada. All right, so first of all, I love this name. I'm gonna find out if it has a meaning, okay? Lasada Pippen, otherwise known as LP, is a former computer engineer. Okay, so he's a total nerd turned powerhouse keynote and motivational team building speaker who helps organizations and professionals break barriers and elevate their impact. He channels inspiring storytelling-- and you all know how I love to tell a story, so the two of us are gonna get along like peas and carrots --and to ignite purpose, perseverance, and dynamic results. His signature keynote is called The Climb. He equips audiences with the mindset and tools to rise higher personally and professionally. All of my friends out there, please meet Lasada. How are you?
[00:01:29] Lasada Pippen: I am doing so awesome. Nicole, thank you so much. That was a brilliant introduction.
[00:01:34] Nicole Greer: Oh, you're welcome!
[00:01:34] Lasada Pippen: One of the greatest I've ever heard, so thank you for having me. So excited to be here.
[00:01:38] Nicole Greer: Okay, and so like do your good friends call you LP or does everybody call you LP?
[00:01:43] Lasada Pippen: Most people call me LP these days, so Lasada is drifting away at this point.
[00:01:49] Nicole Greer: Okay. Well, okay, so where did your mama get that name? It's really unique and it's beautiful. Where'd she get that?
[00:01:55] Lasada Pippen: You know what? I have no idea. My parents, you know, they're older, so who knows what they were creating during that time. You know, I think they were just coming up with some stuff that sounded good, so.
[00:02:06] Nicole Greer: Well, I love creative parents. See, that's where you get it. That's where you got that creativity.
[00:02:11] Lasada Pippen: That's right. Yeah. Yep.
[00:02:13] Nicole Greer: That's fantastic. All right, so used to be a techie and now you're on big stages talking about The Climb. And of course I had a little reference what's the gal that sang the song _The Climb?_
[00:02:25] Lasada Pippen: I think, no, no, no, no, no,
[00:02:27] Nicole Greer: Miley Cyrus?
[00:02:28] Lasada Pippen: Miley Miley, Miley Miley. I was thinking Lady Gaga. But it is Miley. Yes, yes, yes,
[00:02:32] Nicole Greer: Either way we win Lady Gaga or Miley Cyrus. Either way we win. Okay. So immediately following the podcast, everybody pull up The Climb by Miley Cyrus. It'll make you so dang happy. That's a great song. Yeah. Okay. All right. So you talk about leadership at every level, and I love that because, you know, I'm trying to teach people how to build a vibrant culture and a culture is every human in the building, every human remotely that is helping us. So will you define for me what you mean when you say there's leadership at every level.
[00:03:01] Lasada Pippen: Yeah, absolutely. The best example that I have, Nicole, is think of a movie, any popular movie you want to think of, right? There's a lead star or a main star, and then there's a co-star as well, right? Leadership at every level simply looks like this. It is not just about the main star, it's about making a starring role out of the role that you do have. That's what leadership at every level looks like in its simplest form. Whatever role you are in, whatever position you are in, whatever your job description says, it doesn't matter. You can make a starring role out of whatever role that you're already in. Think about all of the Oscar nominations. Think about the Academy Award winners. They have an Academy Award for best supporting actor. A lot of times the best supporting actor steals the show or performs better than the main star. So leadership at every level means that you have taken full ownership and responsibility wherever you are in any company or any organization. Make a starring role out of the role that you do have. That's the leadership at every level.
[00:04:03] Nicole Greer: Oh, I love that. And when you say this acting metaphor that you're using, I immediately thought of my favorite supporting actor. Who is Stanley Tucci. Okay. So Stanley Tucci, he was in _The Devil Wears Prada_ and a hundred other movies. And he's got his own show now. And Tucci, he's Italian. And so he has this whole show about going to Italy. So everybody write that down. Watch, watch Stanley Tucci and his Italian eating. It's all about eating food in Italy. You know, if you can't go, you might as well live through Stanley Tucci. All right? Yeah. And I think what you're talking about is like this ownership, right? Like people really own it. And I love what you said, like you can be a star in that position.
[00:04:43] Lasada Pippen: Mm-hmm.
[00:04:44] Nicole Greer: And I think a lot of times people think I'll wait till I get there before I give it a hundred percent, but giving a hundred percent now is gonna make you a star. That's fantastic. All right.
[00:04:53] Lasada Pippen: I was gonna add just a little bit more to that. You know, I have this thing to where I say, when you get up every morning, try to get to 120. We want to operate on 120 every single day. We want to go beyond the 100%. If we can, let's get to 120. And I'm gonna paraphrase this just a little bit. I believe this is a true story about the NASA janitor. They asked him, what is your role or what is your purpose here at NASA? And his response was classical. He went viral for this response. He simply said, I am here to help put a man on the moon. As a janitor, he said, I am here to help put a man on the moon. He knew something about leadership at every level. He understood it. He caught it. He captured the vision. He was fully operated in the mission 120 every single day. I just wanted to add that little bit.
[00:05:43] Nicole Greer: Yeah. No, that's fantastic. I have heard that before. And that's one of the essential things about building the vibrant culture is that no matter where you are on the org chart, we're still trying to get to the vision, the ultimate goal. So that is beautiful. Thank you for adding that.
[00:05:56] So, you know, you help people make big changes when you go in and you say to them, you know, let's climb to the next level in your keynote. So what are the hallmarks of a culture ready for change? What do you think a culture needs to do? Because, you know, a lot of times I'm hired to help them, so you can help them too.
[00:06:11] Lasada Pippen: There you go. Yeah. Curiosity is one of them, and simply embracing the inevitable. Change is going to happen whether we like it or not. I would rather be in control of the change than for the change to just spring up on me, per se. So once you realize that a culture is ready for change, they have adopted the mentality of we are going to embrace novel and innovation. We're gonna embrace those two things, and we're gonna be curious about what does this change look like? Most people who, most companies who are ready for change, they're not afraid of it. A lot of times we get caught behind the fear of change. And if you are not afraid of it, you can embrace it better and you can proceed forward much more aggressive and much more powerful if you are not afraid of it.
[00:07:03] If you can just outcast the fear just for a moment or how I would say it is, learn how to coexist with the fear. Your faith and fear, they operate on the same level and that's totally fine, but we have to embrace it and we have to be curious about what can this change possibly bring because it could be better. So we can see that obstacle as an opportunity? Everything changes.
[00:07:26] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Oh, what you said right there at the end is really great. So there's this book out right now, Lasada, oh, excuse me. I get to call you LP. I'm on the, I'm on the inside circle now, so
[00:07:36] Lasada Pippen: You made it.
[00:07:37] Nicole Greer: I made it, I made it to the big time. So, I just got certified in this coaching program called Positive Intelligence. And Shirzad Chamine is the gentleman that started it. And he says, "Every obstacle can be turned into a gift or an opportunity." So you're mirroring exactly what he says. And I think that's true, too. It's just the perspective we have. And, you know, you and I are all about a culture of getting change-ready. And I know that psychological safety is a big part of that. What's your thoughts on psychological safety? How do we get that inside our culture? How do we make sure people feel safe?
[00:08:12] Lasada Pippen: Yeah I think it, it comes down to that fear factor that I was talking about. If you say you have an open door policy, but you have a closed off attitude, that's not an open door policy. You know, if people feel like they have to walk around on eggshells, if they feel like they can't voice their concerns, their ideas, without being shut out or without being degraded because they have an idea or concern, you know, that creates this environment of fear, kind of a dictator environment and psychological safety embraces that it's open for everyone. It allows people to voice their concerns, voice their ideas and share openly without fear hovering over them. And so a lot of times it's fear. We don't want to operate environments to where fear is the ruler of all of these things. We want it to be open, we want it to be free, you know, and sometimes that can feel like a load of chaos, but that's how we want to operate if we want people to feel safe, if we want them to feel valued, seen, heard, all those things, we can't have the environment to where fear is hovering over the top of that. Because it's gonna overshadow it almost every single time. And so if we can just minimize the perception of fear in the workplace, people will feel safer than ever.
[00:09:33] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I think that fear is definitely in the workplace. It's sad to me, really. And hey, everybody, guess what I have in my hands right here. I have Lasada's book, it's called, it's Not Just Common Sense. And he's, and he has got six principles. And I love what it says here, it says, " It's just the principle of the matter. I learned early in life that principles are far more powerful than policies." I think that, I think that is a great line right there. "Policies can change at any moment, but principles are the conducts that you hold true to. Principles are the standards, and whatever principles are established in your life, that's the foundation of your actions. So these six pragmatic yet essential principles will improve your relationships." And I think the antidote for fear is trust. And that's your first principle?
[00:10:22] Lasada Pippen: Of course.
[00:10:23] Nicole Greer: Yeah.
[00:10:24] Lasada Pippen: You know, I heard this one time. I want to say it was George McDonald, a late philosopher who said this, and I thought this was so powerful. This was, I thought this was such a great concept, such a great principle. And he said it this way. He said, trust is a greater compliment than it is to be loved. And when I heard that, when I thought about that, I was like, wow, trust. Yeah. It's a greater compliment to be trusted than it is to be loved. And I started with trust in that book about those principles because I think trust is the foundation for any great relationship, for any great company, organization. I think trust is the foundation that we all need and we have to lay that trust properly.
[00:11:11] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And you say in the book on page eight that there are several things you could do to get the trust principle up. And I think this is totally applicable to culture, is that the people inside the organization, if there's been a lot of fear is that there's a desire to restore trust.
[00:11:28] Lasada Pippen: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:29] Nicole Greer: Yeah. So what are your, what are your thoughts about restoring trust? How do we get that put back in place?
[00:11:37] Lasada Pippen: So one approach could be simply that if someone makes a mistake, you don't want to immediately chastise them. And when I say chastise, that can be in the form of a writeup. That could be a form of a suspension. That could be in the form of what do you call those things when you put people on performance evaluations?
[00:11:57] Nicole Greer: It's called a PIP.
[00:11:58] Lasada Pippen: PIP, PIP, PIP. Yeah. Yeah. I should know that because the first three letters, my last name why? Right.
[00:12:05] Nicole Greer: The Personal Improvement Plan for all of you folks that don't know the acronym.
[00:12:09] Lasada Pippen: There you go. Thank you, Nicole.
[00:12:10] Nicole Greer: You're welcome! This HR gal over here I got yeah, I know all those things.
[00:12:15] Lasada Pippen: Yes, there it is.
[00:12:17] Nicole Greer: Unfortunately I know about PIPs.
[00:12:19] Lasada Pippen: Yeah. But you know, if you're, if you make mistakes, if you have errors, if you don't always get it right, it shouldn't have to revert to one of those three harsher options. There should be something that we call grace. Grace should be extended to every employee, and that doesn't mean that performance should lack or that performance should be weak. It just simply means that there are times to where the learning curve is a little bit sharper than others, and that's totally okay. Trust is really about, I know this guy by the name of David Brown. He is the world's fastest blind sprinter. And I am gonna connect all of this to trust. Watch this. World's fastest blind sprinter can run the a hundred meters in under 11 seconds, two time paralympic gold medalist. Now the question becomes how is he doing that as a blind person? Well, he's connected to what they call his guide. And so when they're running, it looks like one person is running. They're connected by this thing that looks like a little shoestring at the tip of their fingers. And so here's what happens. David Brown has to trust that his guide is just as committed, is just as ready, is just as driven as he is. His guide has to be just as fast. His guide has to have the same mentality of a champion in order for them to become a gold medalist. That is not going to happen if trust is broken in that relationship.
[00:13:55] Nicole Greer: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:56] Lasada Pippen: Now, I am sure there are times to where they had mistakes where, you know, where their feet wasn't lining up properly. I am sure there were times where that happened, but you work through those progressions. You work through it, and if you believe in the people that you have, and so this can point back to the hiring process, if you believe in the people that you've hired, that you've brought into your environment, that you've brought into your culture, if you believe in those people, you will invest the time, the energy, and the effort to work through various progressions that is going to rise up, that will come up. And so we have to be willing to work through those various progressions, and that's how trust is built. That's how the foundation is laid and trust is earned in that process. When we go through a few things together, when we learn the strengths and the weaknesses of everyone that is around us.
[00:14:45] Nicole Greer: So good. Yeah. And I love one of your points about the desire to restore trust. As you say that, first you have to believe that trust can be restored. Yeah. I think a lot of people, they say stuff like this, don't they, LP, they say, I can never trust him again. They make
[00:15:03] Lasada Pippen: Never is such a strong word.
[00:15:05] Nicole Greer: Right. Right!
[00:15:06] Lasada Pippen: Are you sure about never? I don't know about that? You know?
[00:15:10] Nicole Greer: Right, right. It's just a little too strong. And then you say, you've gotta have the willingness and the readiness to work. Yeah, 'cause trust is not gonna build itself back. Right? Yeah. So, what are some ways that we could think about, enacting this rebuilding of trust. And you know, LP, a lot of companies I go work with, there are grudges that have been in place for a long time. It's like, when did that happen? They're like, 1987.
[00:15:36] Lasada Pippen: Oh, my gosh. Like, you're still back there? Okay.
[00:15:37] Nicole Greer: Yeah, right, right. Let's come on up to 2025.
[00:15:40] Lasada Pippen: Yeah, yeah, yeah,
[00:15:41] Nicole Greer: So what, how can I actually restore trust? What do I need to be doing?
[00:15:47] Lasada Pippen: Yeah. It's really it's a personal thing. It really starts with introspection of yourself. And think about this, when you spell the word trust, T-R-U-S-T, if we go right to the center, it talks about you. That's right in the center of trust, and so if we're going to restore trust, if we're going to rebuild it, if we're going to allow people to earn our trust, again, it starts with you and you have to be open to the idea that trust leads to vulnerability and that you have to be okay with that idea. You have to be okay with the risk. That your heart could be broken again. You could be let down again. There's a possibility that they won't live up to maybe some of these expectations that we've created. Maybe they won't live up to that, but trust really starts with you. I'm a very optimistic person. I kind of look at things very positively from the get go. You have to lose my trust more so than you have to win it or earn it, per se. And I believe that that is a powerful approach. If we can approach things optimistically, if we can look at appreciation over expectation, it changes how we approach trust. And it can be rebuilt and it can be restored if we focus on ourselves first. It starts with you, and you, meaning that you have to have the perspective, and you have to have the right outlook in order for trust to be rebuilt and to be restored.
[00:17:11] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah. So I think that is absolutely essential to building that vibrant culture and getting the fear out of there is building this trust. And you know, when I talk to people about trust or there's a trust issue, I say, well, like you said, it starts with you, the letter in the middle of the word. Like, am I someone that can be easily trusted, right? So am I trustworthy?
[00:17:30] Lasada Pippen: Yep. First.
[00:17:31] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And then secondarily, you have to be willing to extend trust, right?
[00:17:38] Lasada Pippen: Of course, of course.
[00:17:39] Nicole Greer: I'm gonna give you a chance, I'm gonna give you that grace that you talked about. That's so lovely. Now, on page 20, if you get the book, you gotta get the book. _It's Not Just Common Sense_ by my good friend LP here. He's got eight different trust affirmations that you can use every day. So if you're in a position where you're like, oh my gosh, the trust factor is low, the fear factor is high. His first one is I will decide to trust. I will decide to trust myself, and then I will trust others. There's the being trustworthy and extending. I will trust but not be naive. I will trust that the best is yet to come. Oh,
[00:18:12] Lasada Pippen: Yep.
[00:18:12] Nicole Greer: I love that one.
[00:18:14] Lasada Pippen: Yep, yep. And they're all so positive. If you just listen to them, it's, they're all positive facing. They're all, you know, future thinking, forward facing. We're not getting stuck. We are moving forward, but we're making a decision to do that. And it is much easier to extend trust if you first are a trustworthy person. Now, that can be a blessing and a curse at the same time because sometimes we can be too trusting. I get that side of it as well. But when you're a trustworthy person, you don't really think about the negative effects of extending your trust. You, you don't think about it that way. But again, it starts with you. If you're a trustworthy person, you will be totally okay or at peace with extending your trust to other people.
[00:18:59] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And the final affirmation that LP has in here is he says, "I will trust that I will trust." So you gotta trust yourself.
[00:19:07] Lasada Pippen: Yes.
[00:19:07] Nicole Greer: So good. So good. All right. So we want to build a vibrant culture and we want to build it full of trust. All right? Now you've got your second principle in here, which is called the preference principle. And let me read what it says here. It says, "Everyone has a preference. However, preferences are just that. Preferences, not stones. To choose is the best choice in the world." Tell us about that. Tell us what the preference principle is.
[00:19:32] Lasada Pippen: Of course. How does this apply to the everyday organization? How does this apply to leaders? How does this apply to managers, CEOs, executives? Preferences. Think about this. Everybody will have a way of working. Everyone will have a method that they apply. A lot of times we get so caught up in the details of the _how_ it's being done instead of allowing that person the freedom or the preference in how they choose to get it done.
[00:19:59] The main idea is that, is it getting done? Is it getting done effectively? Is it being done efficiently? This is where preference comes in. People are different. Not everyone is cut from the same cloth. Not everyone has the same background, the same history. Not everyone processes the same. So because people are so different, you want to have space and you want to have room for preferences to be built into the culture. This allows freedom for people to work at their pace. It allows them to work however creatively they are. It allows that. That's what the preference principle does, is that they're preferences. They're strictly that. It doesn't impede on anything else. But it allows people the freedom to express and get the work done in how they see fit. I believe this was... um, ooh, Nicole, Nicole, help me out. Four Seasons. Four Seasons hotel.
[00:20:47] Nicole Greer: Oh, I love me a Four Seasons hotel!
[00:20:49] Lasada Pippen: Yes, yes. Amazing, right? They, they had this principle. I'm gonna call it a principle, because it wasn't a policy. This was a principle built into their culture. They show so much trust to their employees. They told them, do whatever you think is right whenever you're serving the customer. So do whatever you prefer that you think is right when you're serving the customer. That's what the preference principle is about. It's allowing people to do what they think is right when serving a company, when serving the organization, when serving their team members, when serving leadership, when serving the customer. It's freedom. That's what preference is.
[00:21:28] Nicole Greer: Yeah. That's so good. That's so good. And I'll just put a little short shout out to my other new friend, Stacy Edgar, who was on the podcast before this one. She's the CEO of this company called Venture. Listen to this, LP. She is a benefits specialist. So in my world of HR and everything, like benefits, you know, everybody wants them. But it's like getting people to embrace the benefit package. Well, you know how you join a company, they're like, this is our benefit package. Well, her company helps you put a preference package in place so you can pick whatever you want from this menu of benefits. Right? Because
[00:22:04] Lasada Pippen: I love that.
[00:22:05] Nicole Greer: It is so fantastic. So everybody go listen to that episode. It's so good. Because what Stacey's saying is you know, a 59-year-old woman and a 28-year-old woman are in two different places. And they need different things. And same for, same for all the fellows, you know? Really important. So I love the the preference principle that you have in here. And I think, too, you put in here, one thing that we're gonna have to do is change our attitude and be patient that people have different preferences.
[00:22:32] Lasada Pippen: Of course. And again, because everyone is different, everyone processes differently. Everyone moves at their own pace. As long as it's efficient, you know, again, we have to be patient. When we're dealing with a lot of people, when we're dealing with different personalities, that's a lot to deal with. And so we have to exercise patience in situations like that so that we can get the best out of everyone. When everyone is operating from a preferred method, you get the best out of every person areas. If they have to operate in some type of box or in some type of circle that's not catered towards their strengths or towards their preferences, the performance will change. So we want to have patience around that. What does it look like? What does this look like every single day? How does this navigate and weave in together amongst one another? And so we need patience to see that unfold properly.
[00:23:26] Nicole Greer: Yeah, a hundred percent. And you know, I have this certification in the Strengths Finders, and I'm sure you're familiar with it.
[00:23:32] Lasada Pippen: Yeah.
[00:23:33] Nicole Greer: And so that's what we preach when we teach that is we're like, listen, there's these 38 Strengths, you know, and we can give two people, we can give Nicole Greer and Lasada Pippen the same project, and they're gonna come at it a different way. Just as long as we, we hit the mark, or we get the result that's needed, that's a really important part.
[00:23:52] Lasada Pippen: That's the most important part. And if we can just focus on that, you know, we won't get frozen at how somebody does something that could be totally different from, like you said, you and I, we may do it totally different, but we're not gonna be frozen by the differences.
[00:24:07] Nicole Greer: That's right. That's right.
[00:24:08] Announcer: Are you ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with their strategies, systems, and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy, and results. Your organization will get lit from within! Email her at nicole@vibrantculture.com and be sure to check out Nicole's TEDx talk at vibrantculture.com.
[00:24:36] Nicole Greer: Okay. The third principle you have is-- I love this one, okay, because this is a little bit about like our biases. So I like this one. It's the perspective principle.
[00:24:48] Lasada Pippen: Oh, that's my favorite.
[00:24:49] Nicole Greer: And it says in here, let me tell you what you wrote.
[00:24:52] Lasada Pippen: Okay. Tell me, please remind me.
[00:24:54] Nicole Greer: On page 35 you said, and I quote, "The way you see a person is more important than who that person really is. And the same for you."
[00:25:05] Lasada Pippen: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:07] Nicole Greer: That's, that's X-able! We don't say tweet anymore. It's X-able people. Isn't that dumb? Why'd they do that? Come back
[00:25:14] Lasada Pippen: I haven't heard that one. X-able. I like it.
[00:25:16] Nicole Greer: I mean, we used to say it's tweetable, like what? They messed up. What are they doing?
[00:25:20] Lasada Pippen: I like it.
[00:25:21] Nicole Greer: Okay. All right. So what does that mean to have a good perspective on everybody? What's that about?
[00:25:26] Lasada Pippen: Yeah, kind of like you led off. It is really about the biases, the stereotypes, the prejudgments, the old saying you can't judge a book by its cover and so forth. It is really kind of a, a wrapping of all of those things. It's just packaged a little differently. And so the most important thing about that is what you just read, is that if I see you a certain way, it will be impossible for me to see what your real value is if I don't see you in that light. And so it is important to have a very proper perspective of people. Come with a blank canvas. So whenever I meet people I always try to have a blank canvas. I don't make any judgements. I don't try to figure out where they from, what's their background, what's their history. I don't want to know any of those things because those things will shape my perspective. They will shape how I see that person. I want to see the person for who they really are. I want to see them for the strengths, the value that they would bring to my company. That's how I want to see them. I, I don't want to fabricate or place a perspective on them that doesn't apply to them because it probably doesn't fit a lot of times.
[00:26:39] And if we're honest enough to assess our own perspectives, a lot of times we place perspectives on people that does not match or they, they're possibly unfair. And so that's why I say it is more important because how you see that person is gonna be more important than who that person really is. Because a lot of times we only can see through this one lens of the perspective we've adopted about this particular person, and we don't want to do that. We want to allow the freedom and the blank canvas approach of who this person really is. And can I see the value in this person? Can I see what they really bring to the table? Can I see what they bring to my company? Can I see all of that without putting the filter on top of my perspective? That's what it looks like.
[00:27:20] Nicole Greer: Yeah, that's so good. And I, you know, a lot of times I'll go in and I'll work with teams and, LP, I'll be talking to people and I'll say, well, you know, what's your story? How, what you know, what do you do here? How do you contribute to, how do you contribute around here? And and I'll get everybody all friendly and everything. And I'll have two people be like, well, when I first started working here, I didn't really like him. And now we're best friends. And I'm like, oh, I've heard that a million times because we judge at the beginning, right? And we don't take a really good look at what people really got going on. And I'll tell you another thing that I think is important is to be curious. What do you think about that from the perspective principle? I think you've gotta practice curiosity to get to know people. Like you gotta be interested in others. What do you
[00:28:02] Lasada Pippen: Yeah, I think, I think you have to, and I, I think you have to practice. You know, I said this a little bit earlier, but I think you have to practice appreciation for people more than expectation from people. So it's appreciation for people, not expectation from people. And when you're curious, you are asking because you genuinely want to know about that person. You're not asking to figure out what can I get out of this? What would be my benefit? That's not why you're asking that's not curiosity, that's something else. Real curiosity. You genuinely want to know about this person. You genuinely want to know what type of person they are. And you really want to know, Hey, how can I build a genuine relationship with you?
[00:28:41] How can we become a better team together? And, you know, it doesn't mean that you have to be best friends with everyone, but curiosity will always lead to a deepening of the relationships. Because it's genuine, it's, it is not about what you're expecting from that person. You're genuinely showing appreciation for that person and not expecting anything back or anything in return.
[00:29:03] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And I love that. So, I've got a little tool all you listeners that you're thinking, how do I get to, how do I be curious? I have a little exercise, it's called Vibrant Identity and, LP, when I do this exercise, I have teams who are either trying to get to know each other or want to deepen the trust, the things that we're talking about. They fill in these three circles and the first circle is what I was given when I popped on the planet, right? So it's, it is also a great thing to see the diversity of everybody, right? So LP would write in there, my mama gave me this name, Lasada. I don't know where she got that from. You know, whatever. Like, you write that in there and it's fun and it's funny. And people put what they've been given.
[00:29:43] And then the next thing is they put in there like what they've chosen in life, you know? And you said, hold on, I want to go back 'cause I think that dovetails beautifully. Hold on. I got his book all marked up here. 'Cause you, you say, to choose is the best choice in the world. Okay. That's in the book everybody. _It's Not Just Common Sense_ by Lasada Pippen. So what you've chosen in life, and I tell everybody, only write down the things that are positive that you've chosen 'cause we've all made really dumb decisions. So don't write any of that down. Just write the good stuff you've chosen. And then in the middle is the core. Like who do you think you are at the core?
[00:30:20] And you know, nobody ever writes in their ugly stuff. Like they're at the core, I love people. I'm a family guy. I am this, I'm that. All these beautiful things. And when I do that, the perspective principle, your perspective principle, in fact, I'm gonna reference it from now on. I'm gonna say, listen, you gotta, you gotta get the book. But people will say, I've worked with you for 20 years and I didn't know that about you.
[00:30:42] Lasada Pippen: Yeah.
[00:30:42] Nicole Greer: You know, so to be curious, to go deeper with people, to get a proper perspective, not an assumed one. I think your principle is fantastic.
[00:30:50] Lasada Pippen: You know what Nicole also along the lines of that is that this is the real challenge or this is where the real growth occurs. Can you reset your perspective every day? No, that's probably too much. Can you reset your perspective quarterly? And here's what I mean by that. If you have people that have been working together for 20 years, you usually shift from perspective mode to assumption mode because you do think that you know them. You do think that you know your, their tendencies, their habits and all this kind of stuff, and you're probably spot on with some of those things. That's perfectly fair, but can you reset that quarterly to keep it fresh, to keep the relationship new, because that allows for people to grow, to change, to develop. That allows that space for that. If you can reset the perspective, at least quarterly, and even if you have been working with a person for 10, 15, 20 years, don't develop the assumption mentality that, oh, because of how you did this 10 years ago, it's probably gonna be the same in year 11, 12, 13, and so forth. So try to reset your perspective quarterly. I just wanted to throw that in there real quick.
[00:31:58] Nicole Greer: Oh, so good. So good. I love it. Yeah and you know, and this can occur through a team outing, bringing in myself or bringing in LP, we'll do a little team building thing where everybody gets to know each other. Yeah. That's what we're absolutely talking about. And and I think people are surprising in a great way. People are capable of way more than we think, you know, so I love it. Don't be into the, assuming we all know what happens when you assume.
[00:32:22] Lasada Pippen: That's right.
[00:32:23] Nicole Greer: Look, look it up on the ChatGPT. All right? Okay. She'll tell you. I've decided ChatGPT is a female. I don't know, I just think that's what it is. Anyway, all right. Chapter four is the problem principle, and don't miss, all my great listeners. You're getting six principles from Lasada Pippen. All right, so the problem principle: "The problem is not the problem itself. The way you respond to the problem is more important. Your attitude towards the problem is gonna determine the outcome." See, and that is X-able as well. All right, so,
[00:32:57] Lasada Pippen: There we go. I love it.
[00:32:59] Nicole Greer: All right, so tell me about what you're talking about, like the problem's not the problem. What do you mean?
[00:33:04] Lasada Pippen: Of course. Do you believe, let me ask you this, do you believe that there's an answer to every problem or just most problems?
[00:33:15] Nicole Greer: Oh, I think there's, I don't know. How do you fix, how do you get world peace? How do you feed all the hungry people. How do you get the homeless housed? Some of these problems seem very overwhelming, but I mean, if we could all get on the same page, if we could all work together.
[00:33:35] Lasada Pippen: See there, there's
[00:33:36] Nicole Greer: It's a big ask.
[00:33:37] Lasada Pippen: It is. But there you, you started going towards the right direction. If we can all align, if we can all get on the same page, of course you can. I'm of the mentality that for every problem there is a solution, whether we have found that solution or not, that's a different question. That's a different answer. But I am of the mindset that for every problem there is a solution. And if we just spell the word I'm just nerdy like that. I just like words. Looking at words and figuring out, you know, all these little things. If we just spell it, right at the beginning of problem is the word pro. So if you can become the "pro" in problem, it changes how you look at every single problem that you will face. I believe that there's an answer for every single problem, but we have to become a pro. We have this thing that we do here in my company that for every problem that you bring or that you identify-- and this will help a lot of companies with just building resilient teams and creating critical thinking and environments to where people can process-- for every problem, we call it one equals three. And so for every problem that you have, you have to have at least three possible solutions to that problem that you found, discovered, or that you have. If you don't have the three, you can't talk about the one. That's the process. That's the rule one equals three, and what it does is you'll be surprised that it highlights that maybe this is not as big of a problem as I thought it was. That's one highlight that we can see. It also cuts the chatter to where people won't complain as much. They won't nitpick, they won't find an issue in everything that there is, because you do have some of that as well. So if you kind of implement this strategy of one equals three for every problem that you find, discover, you have to have at least three possible solutions. So the problem is not the problem itself, it's just how we look at it and how we respond to it. But we gotta become the pro in the problem and it changes how we approach that.
[00:35:47] Nicole Greer: Hmm. That's so good. That's so good. And you know, I was thinking about after I mentioned like those biggies, homelessness, and hunger, and hunger and war, world peace and all that. You know, I like your little pro thing so much. I like you picking apart these words, keep doing it. It's really good. Because it's kinda like I can't fix it globally, maybe by myself. But I can like help where I am.
[00:36:13] Lasada Pippen: Of course.
[00:36:13] Nicole Greer: Right, what's three solutions for, you know, Concord, North Carolina, or where you're from, Marietta, Georgia. Right? Like, if I can get one person housed, one person fed, one person, you know, put down his gun or whatever, then I'm in great shape. Right. I'm doing, I'm being the pro in the situation. That's fantastic.
[00:36:30] Lasada Pippen: Yep. And that's taking initiative. Yep. That's leadership at every level. See? See how that connects and all ties back in. That's what that is. It can start from anywhere and it can start with anyone, so, yeah.
[00:36:42] Nicole Greer: Right. And it's it's his, I think his name is Darrel Seaver. Hey, y'all don't right now, keep listening to LP and me right now, but after this is over, I want you to go look at this video by Derek Sivers, and it's called How to Start a Movement. And
[00:36:57] Lasada Pippen: Yes, I've heard of that one. Yes.
[00:37:00] Nicole Greer: That, just thinking about that video just makes me the happiest chick in the world because it's about, there's this, it's this video, LP and these, this guy is dancing at this concert and it's obvious that he has had a lot of fun at the concert, if you know what I mean. Like he's.
[00:37:15] Lasada Pippen: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:16] Nicole Greer: He's got a wristband on if you're with me right now.
[00:37:19] Lasada Pippen: Totally. Yes.
[00:37:21] Nicole Greer: And so he's dancing, he's dancing full on, no inhibitions, and all of a sudden another young man comes up and starts dancing beside him. And this is your message. Derek Sivers says, be the Dancing Man. But the second lead, the second guy comes up and joins him. And what he's says is you know, the second leader, the leadership at every level, like LP's saying he's the one that started the movement. It wasn't the first guy. Because the first guy was a lone nut, a dancing crazy person. But then when somebody joined him, they're like Hey. And then it just shows all these people coming off this hill in the concert and they're all dancing like a bunch of crazy people. It is fantastic, fantastic. And it's only like eight minutes long. Y'all go watch that after this. Okay. All right, so your next principle, we got two principles left, and we only have so much time, so we have to get moving here. All right, so the moment principle. "Now" is more significant than your past.
[00:38:15] Lasada Pippen: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:16] Nicole Greer: I love how you say that. The moment. Yeah, like get in the moment, people. Talk about the moment principle.
[00:38:21] Lasada Pippen: Yep. Now is the best timeframe that we have on Earth.
[00:38:25] Nicole Greer: Right. That's right.
[00:38:26] Lasada Pippen: It's not yesterday. It's not tomorrow. It's not the, the anniversary that's, that's coming up in a few months. It's not the birthday parties in a few months. It's not your past trophies. It's not your yearbook picture. It's not your MBA that you got a few years ago. It's none of those things. "Now" is the best timeframe that we have on earth. It's right now in the moment present, full, alive, well. You know, and thinking about building towards a better future, but it starts right now. Most of the time, if we don't do things right now, we procrastinate and we never do them. So I'm all about doing it right now, implementing everything right now. Not looking backwards, but constantly looking forward. But looking from the perspective of right now. It's the best timeframe that we have. That's what the moment principle is, is being present right now.
[00:39:11] Nicole Greer: That's right. And he talks about procrastination on page 70. And then you also talk about gaining momentum on page 73, that if you're not focused on the right now, you're never gonna get to where you want to go in the future. It's one thing to dream about the future, but you got to get stuff done. Right. You gotta move it forward. Yeah. And that, oh, that's so crazy. I said that and I looked down last words on page 78 in that chapter. Move forward. Look at
[00:39:35] Lasada Pippen: Move forward that. That's
[00:39:36] Nicole Greer: LP, there's something special happening here. I'm just saying. Okay. All right. All right. So here is the last principle. It is the contentment principle. All right. So, we've been talking about moving forward and doing all these things, but there is this element of contentment and you say in here contentment is the key to faithfulness. Talk about that a little bit. Bring us home.
[00:39:58] Lasada Pippen: I heard this statement before and I can't credit where I heard it, but the statement was, "Don't try to get happier than happy." Don't try to get happier than happy, and a lot of times contentment is usually robbed by comparison. When we compare ourselves to other people and we just, most of the times it's only two outcomes when it comes to comparison. Somebody's gonna feel superior, somebody's gonna feel inferior. Those are the only two outcomes. And usually if we start focusing on comparison, it takes us out of contentment. And again, contentment feeds from the moment of now. Contentment is if you just simply look around, if you look up, if you look within, and then if you look forward, you will find so many things that you can be content with.
[00:40:55] Nicole Greer: Mm-hmm.
[00:40:56] Lasada Pippen: But a lot of times we just don't pause. Take a moment to look around to see what we can be grateful for, to see how good we have it, and if we can just pause and, you know, savor in those moments you'll find that you have a lot to be content with. There's a lot. But we just need to pause and slow down and get away from comparing ourselves to other people because comparison is the thief of all joy. And so we want to stay in the space of contentment and don't try to be happier than happy.
[00:41:29] Nicole Greer: Hmm. That's so good. That's so good. And okay, so everybody, just imagine your culture at work, right? And you are sitting around, you're like, we need to have some principles that we operate from. You know, here we've got them for you. Let's just go through them one more time. Pens at the ready, everybody.
[00:41:48] The trust principle. I've got to extend it and I've got to be trustworthy. I've got to really respect, that's what I'm gonna say, respect people's preferences. The preference principle,
[00:42:00] Lasada Pippen: Yep.
[00:42:01] Nicole Greer: And then have proper perspective. Quit judging. Have y'all heard this one? Lest judge. It's a thing.. All right. Okay.
[00:42:09] And then the problem, the problem is not the problem itself, it's how you respond. Let's problem solve, let's come up with three solutions. Like LP said, the moment principle we're working in the now. You know, we're not saying that's why it's always been done. We're not living out some vision all the time, although I love a good vision. And then we are content, right? And we're faithful to the work we gotta get done. Man, that would build a vibrant culture, wouldn't it, LP?
[00:42:34] Lasada Pippen: I know. I think it would be awesome. Implemented in any culture, easy implementation as well.
[00:42:39] Nicole Greer: That's right. That's right. Well, if you need help, you can call Nicole Greer and you can call the LP and you can get a copy of this book. Whoops, I covered up his face. All right. So there it is. It's not just common sense. Okay. It's like real, real. All right. So Lasada, if somebody wants to find you and put you on some stage at their employee conference or do something with you, what how do they get ahold of you?
[00:43:01] Lasada Pippen: Yeah, that's pretty easy. I'm a pretty easy guy to find. Everything is just simply @LasadaPippen. You can visit LasadaPippen.com. You'll find a lot of videos there. You'll find some coaching there. You'll find everything that you need is at lasadapippen.com, and all of my socials are just simply @LasadaPippen.
[00:43:19] And if you haven't had me on your stage, if I have not worked with you doing an event, you don't know what you're missing, so check out @LasadaPippen and LasadaPippen.com.
[00:43:28] Nicole Greer: Okay, everybody, you heard it, check him out and then do this. Before you leave, go down, press that button, it's the thumbs up button. And then if you really liked all of these principles, will you please leave, my friend, and hopefully your new friend, LP, a little love note on whatever platform you're listening to this.
[00:43:45] Okay, everybody. I'm grateful. I'm grateful to you LP! Everybody have a great rest of your day.
[00:43:49] Lasada Pippen: Thank you Nicole. Awesome.
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