The Living Workplace - People-First Leadership, Employee Engagement, Team Building & Teamwork

This episode is a conversation about the kind of leader you want to be remembered as and the intentional shifts that will draw you towards people-first leadership from leadership consultant, and new author, Nick Reich.

Have you ever wondered what the leaders you admire most were doing that made them different from all the others?
Do you have a quiet sense you're leading on autopilot, but you're not sure what to do differently?
You would love to hear some inspiration about leading with heart, intent and purpose?

In this episode...
Nick Reich is a US-based leadership consultant working with organisations like Toyota and Delta, and the author of a new book launching September 8, Every Player is Bigger than the Program: A People-First Playbook for Building High Performing Teams. I can't recommend this book enough. It should be on every leaders desk!
 
In this conversation we explore the gap Nick spends his days trying to close where most people can name one or two leaders who genuinely built them up, and on average the six who we remember broke us down. His first book weaves that basketball story together with his leadership playbook, bookended by purpose and legacy, with direction, connection, excellence and enablement in between.
 
Nick shares why leadership isn't about getting louder, it's about getting closer. Why real self-confidence as a leader shows up in being able to say "I was wrong" and "I don't know." Why we so often replicate the leaders we've seen before, even the ones who hurt us, and what it takes to lead on purpose instead. He calls leadership love with standards, and in this episode he unpacks what that actually means in practice.
Whether or not you're a sports fan, this is a conversation about the kind of leader you want to be remembered as and the small, intentional moves that get you there.

Pre-Order Nicks Book – Release Date: Sep 8th, 2026
https://abundantempowerment.com/about/team/nick-reich/
https://www.peoplefirstplaybook.com/
https://abundantempowerment.com/resources/the-book/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GJYJ3TJX?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback
https://www.dymocks.com.au/catalogsearch/result/?q=Nick+Reich+Every+Player+Is+Bigger+Than+the+Program

If you're ready to lead differently... 
Let The Living Workplace podcast build your thinking one conversation at a time. Start with the free Leadership Self-Assessment and find out exactly where you and your team are right now. Or investigate The Olive Tree Method and how to reveal the conditions around your people and open up ways to engage and evolve together differently. Reveal the Conditions. Lead the Rebuild.

Resources:
Podcast - > www.theolivetreemethod.com/the-living-workplace-podcast
Where Are You Now? - > www.theolivetreemethod.com/leadership-self-assessment

Next Steps:
Step 1: Take the Leadership Self-Assessment - www.theolivetreemethod.com/leadership-self-assessment
Step 2: Curious about revealing the conditions around you and your team - www.theolivetreemethod.com
Step 3: Reach out if you have queries - josey@theolivetreemethod.com
Step 4: Listen to other episodes:
Episode #01 – There is a Better Way to Have a Better Day
Episode #02 – Are You The Reason Teamwork is Tough? What No-one Says About Leadership

Subscribe & Review:
If you found value in today's episode, please subscribe and leave me a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite listening platform. I’d be incredibly grateful. Your feedback helps evolve the content to bring people-first service and stewardship into the workplaces of today.
If you’re curious and ready to lead differently. I’m so glad you’re here.

What is The Living Workplace - People-First Leadership, Employee Engagement, Team Building & Teamwork?

Is your team not quite clicking and you can't put your finger on why? Are you carrying the weight of holding everyone together while the business keeps moving? Feeling disengaged at work and not sure how to turn things around.

The Living Workplace Podcast is a space to think about the conditions around your team, what's actually driving the energy, the friction, the disengagement you can feel but can't name, and what the world's best organisations do differently.

I'm Josey. I led a team turnaround years ago by doing things I later found out are called people-first leadership. I sat on what I'd learned for two years before deciding to share it after learning so many of us are disengaged and struggling with our workplaces. I am so passionate about this knowing how people-first can change lives.

If you've been leading on autopilot, or you've got a quiet sense there's a better way to do this, you're in the right place.
If you want somewhere to start beyond the show, the free Leadership Self-Assessment at theolivetreemethod.com is the doorway into the wider ecosystem I am evolving.

I'm excited you're here. There is a way to a better workday.
Ciao.

Josey Atoa – Introduction to the Episode (00:05)
Hello welcome back. I am incredibly excited about this episode. It’s my conversation with Nick Reich who’s based in the US, who years ago started his career as a school social worker who accidentally became the school’s basketball coach. Under unlikely circumstances, with a deep commitment and connection to each other to succeed, that team went on under Nicks guidance to win the US state championship.

Nick has spent the fifteen years since working to close the gap between leadership that builds us up and leadership that can break us down. It was a privilege for me to interview someone so passionately driven and actively working to impact humanity.

His first book is out in a few weeks, September 8th. I can’t recommend it enough, Every Player is Bigger Than the Program. Nick weaves his coaching beginnings, with his Playbook on leading with intention.
If you've had that quiet sense that you're leading on autopilot, this one's definitely for you.
Hang in through the intro. I trust you’ll be as inspired as I was.

Podcast Intro (01:15)

Josey Atoa (01:44)
So you're a dad with two boys, highly credentialed. I've seen a title for you for Future Leader Strategist, which I think is amazing. You are a speaker, writer, contributor to the leadership industry. You were nominated in twenty twenty for the International Centre of Indiana's Global Impressions Award, is that correct?

Nick Reich (02:04)
Got yeah, you found all kinds of things back there, didn't you?

Josey Atoa (02:08)
That was for your work with Rotary?

Nick Reich (02:11)
Yeah, I've led all of the international work through the Rotary Club of Indianapolis since twenty twelve so this year I'm getting out my hundredth different international project in thirty-two different countries and then I was the executive director of a global health organization that did primary health care in Ecuador, Guatemala, and Dominican Republic.

Josey Atoa (02:39)
I could talk to you for hours about that. That's incredible.

Nick Reich (02:42)
Yeah, yeah. I love it's one of my favorite things I get to do is the international side there. So I'm hoping one of these days to connect the dots between the leadership development work and the international development work.

Josey Atoa (02:55)
That sounds amazing. And now you're in business with your partner, Andrea, running abundant empowerment. And you've built an ecosystem there for coaching, for inspiring leaders and teams, organizations, and you have the community hub with Colab and you've partnered with some of the world's best the biggest businesses. So congratulations. Heap of work, passion and care.

So, Every Player is Bigger than the Program and your experience in the book as a coach with your school team beating the odds by cultivating deep care, commitment to the schools, basketball team, and winning a state championship. You broke records and the ceiling for what's possible and have left a legacy that continues today, which is incredible. That story weaves its way from the start of that journey to the finish of winning that and aligns with your playbook and how to evolve as a human centered or people first leader. I'm fully behind you with what I do to achieve those types of results and successes.

You started your working career as a school social worker, that's right, helping kids in education.

Nick Reich (04:01)
Yeah, that's right.

Josey Atoa (04:03)
And you called yourself the accidental coach?

Nick Reich (04:07)
Yeah.

Josey Atoa (04:07)
When did you realize you wanted to start helping leaders rather than continuing as a coach?

Nick Reich (04:13)
Yeah, I got into coaching kind of by accident. I as you mentioned, I did not plan to go in and be a coach. I was asked to be the coach because I had a background in basketball. I played some college basketball. So you know, I started as the school social worker really with the focus on again just helping kids and giving them a path to graduation and life beyond, we had no expectation of building this highly successful basketball program. We did not have a gymnasium, so you know, we didn't really think much about building the program.

And then as we continue to build over the three to four years, four years of building the team, three years competing in the state tournament before we won the state championship so that was actually the last game that I ever coached was the state championship. I didn't get in it to be a coach.

I got in it to help kids, and we just happened to kind of grow up together and learn together and build something special together and then we all kind of went about our separate ways, or you know, just kind of into the work that we're doing. And I was taking kids on college visits and things like that, so I did not want to start all over. I had seven seniors on that team, so I was not interested in, at that point, continuing on, it was kind of a career versus coaching and my career took a different path.

Josey Atoa (05:56)
You referred to in the book the art of leadership, which I felt was gorgeous. And the art and the kind of arc of the way you've done the book I think is brilliant. Did that form before you actually started writing it? Or were you already coaching the playbook yourself?

Nick Reich (06:12)
Obviously the basketball story's been coming along for fifteen years, it's been something that every time I tell that part of the story, people say, this basketball story should be a book. But I didn't want to tell a 15-year-old basketball story. So the way that the playbook developed, really developed over time through my leadership and going on and leading organizations, but also working with leaders and organizations around the world, like what were the ingredients that allowed us to be successful when I was not the best coach, when we did not have the most talent.

So, what allowed us to do something that at that time, but well before and since, had never been done before? And what are the things that I've seen with leaders and teams and organizations that becomes this consistent thread for long-term sustainable success. And that's really where the playbook came together with the bookends of purpose and legacy, and then the pillars of direction, connection, excellence, and enablement.

Josey Atoa (07:23)
The reflections throughout the book, I thought that was brilliantly done. It's a coaching story, but then
you're actually coaching whoever's actually reading it as well,

Nick Reich (07:33)
Yeah, thank you. I always think it was a leadership book through a basketball story. You know, one of the things that was important to me was I want to make sure that someone can benefit and enjoy reading the book, even if they were not into sports or didn't like basketball so finding that that balance of really trying to make it as human as possible throughout so everyone could find a way to connect with the story, but more importantly to connect with the message.

Josey Atoa (08:02)
You've definitely done that. I mean, I think I emailed you before, if it was an actual book I would have scribbled and highlighted all over it. It's brilliantly written.

Nick Reich (08:11)
Thank you.

Josey Atoa (08:11)
You have some quite hard, raw moments that I believe create the connection as well while you're reading. And you naturally start reflecting on your own journey. But those parts through the book, they're very honest and ‘non perfect but human’, you're ‘still learning’, kinda lean in a little bit more to that.
Do you feel now that the book's completed you've said everything you wanted to say?

Nick Reich (08:36)
You know, that's a really good question, Josey I think one of the things it was challenging for me to to share some of the things, especially about me. The beginning was actually left out. I didn't share any of the personal things that I share in the book at the beginning. I was like, okay, this book is done. And I started getting feedback and pushback that I didn't share enough about my journey so I went back and opened that door a bit. So I think there's still more there that I'm sharing and continuing to sharing in some of the speaking and some of the things that I'm doing. But some of that push was important to be able to share a little bit of my journey.

I heard recently that we are all most well equipped to help the person we once were. And it dawns on me that if I want to help the person I once was, I have to talk about the person I once was.

So, you know, that that really is an ongoing encouragement. So I'm grateful for the fact that I was pushed in a lot of ways into sharing some of my story and being kicked out of college because it does create, you know, the path to who I am today, the type of leader I am today and one of the things that I find is as I reflect on the things with the book is you think about the people who lead us, and these could be our parents, our coaches, our teachers, our bosses, our managers, like they have an outsized influence and impact on our lives.

A great leader stays with us forever, but so does a terrible leader, right? Or a terrible coach.

Like, you know, I've met with so many people who said, I loved soccer my whole life until I had this travel coach that made me quit the sport. Or, you know, like we've all got these stories of really awful leaders that impact us forever.

And you know, the value, the importance of a leader that can build us up or break us down. Like we often do these things on autopilot and not with intention and purpose. And that's part of the goal, is just to be able to highlight that because we've all seen examples of great leaders and examples of just terrible leaders that you know, both of whom have impacts on us that can literally last a lifetime.

Josey Atoa (11:19)
Absolutely a hundred percent agree.

You're providing a story which is relatable, the concepts make sense and the reflections leave an impression, long after you read them. Credit to you that you've also got that ecosystem the resources available to follow up, which is brilliant.

Are you finding the conversations easier with the businesses that are coming to you and that more leaders are better informed about this way of living, or is that one of the reasons you decided to write the book was to provide more clarity and have a bigger reach?

Nick Reich (11:50)
We think of the challenges as being external, right? Even so often the leaders or organizations they come and it's like, you know, I've got this problem with my team or with, you know, this external thing that is causing the challenge. And so much of the work that we do, and that we reference in the book, is it really starts with you and it starts with your purpose and it starts with your self-accountability.

And what are these things that you know if you can't lead yourself, then you're gonna have a really difficult time leading others. So, you know, we always start with that and understanding ourselves and knowing ourselves and understanding our why, purpose, it's so important to that work. And I think it's critical to being able to start there.

And that's why I start with purpose as you know, really the foundation for that, because it's one thing for me to understand my values and my why and my purpose, but then I've got to help my people really find theirs and connect to theirs. And that's an important step that's often overlooked.

So I do I'm optimistic around the conversations that we have and being able to engage with leaders, but I do think it's a slightly different frame around how we think about, you know, we want to think about changing our teams and do changing our organizations, but it really starts with acknowledging and changing ourselves to be able to have that ripple effect that we really want to have.

Josey Atoa (13:25)
Yes. I love that you put that purpose in. So you link the purpose, people and performance. The three Ps. I've actually got them written somewhere. Before when I read it in your book, I was like, this is amazing.
But you clearly laid out in the book from my perspective, allowing someone to realign in that way.

Is the main objective that you have still equating to performance and financial success being people first is not the way?

Nick Reich (13:56)
Yeah, I always say, you know, the long-term successful impact of teams and organizations is people first, right? I truly believe that. And there I think there's data and there's, you know, the this the narrative plays out. And I mentioned in the book at one point, I hate that we have to make the business case for treating humans like humans. Right. I hate that that's that like that's where we are, but it's true.

When we have a long-term perspective, and I get why some organizations like you've got to find the balance between you know short-term quarterly results, especially for organizations that have to, you know, measure out to shareholders, but you know, long-term sustainable organizations really do view this from the perspective of you know building people and because it's the way that the work gets done and the more that we're able to build our people the longer term success and impact you know we'll have organizations that can have short term success or even sports teams for that matter that come in, you can have short-term success without building this, but it's not going to build the team, it's not going to build the culture, and it's not going to build the long-term sustainable impact that you really want to have without it.

Josey Atoa (15:22)
Absolutely. One of your lines is ‘presence is the most powerful leadership move we have’. What do you think holds people back from seeking help or that guidance?

To investigate it, you know, when you have that gut feeling like this isn't working, this isn't right, doesn't feel good, to push past barriers. What's the main thing for you?

Nick Reich (15:42)
Yeah, I mentioned in there that leadership isn't about getting louder, it's about getting closer. Right. And that's really a fear that most leaders have about expressing any level of vulnerability to really being able to build real connection with their people.

I was reading a book recently, they said true self-confidence as a leader is being able to say, I was wrong. And I don't know, right? And until you're able to say those two things, you don't really have confidence in yourself as a leader.

And so, you know, so much of that is we feel like when we become the leader or a leader or the boss, that we have to put up this wall and we have to pretend like we know everything, And I said we replicate the things that we most often see, whether it feels good or not, whether it works or not. So, you know, we find ourselves when we get promoted into these positions of leadership, trying to replicate the leaders that we've seen before, even when they weren't great and even when they had a negative impact on us, because it's what we've seen more often.

And you know it doesn't always translate to feeling authentic to who we are and who we want to be so until we can slow down and acknowledge those things and really start to lead, and we say, in purpose on purpose, then we're not able to build that real connection.

There's always that wall there between us and our people because we're not leading with authenticity, we're not leading with vulnerability to be able to really have a connection. And we're never going to be able to get through that if we've automatically built this wall up from the very beginning.

Josey Atoa (17:48)
A hundred per cent.
Talking about vulnerability, the story of Raymond, I won't go into it, but you know, that…

Nick Reich (17:53)
Ha ha ha

Josey Atoa (17:55)
…was empowering, one of those raw moments in the book.

Nick Reich (17:59)
Yeah.

Josey Atoa (17:59)
One of the four things that has been highlighted in the research I've done, the majority of leaders that are disengaged, is that trust has eroded between them and the people that are meant to support them, which I think can be inherited too, like you see that happening a lot in your career. You mentioned that there's the way that you see things happen, it does become the norm. And I felt like after reading that section about Raymond, there's a similar feeling when you have that trust that you might have had someone above you and it's not there. There's like a little grieving or a loss that you need to process. And you…

Nick Reich (18:37)
Yeah.

Josey Atoa (18:38)
…mentioned just being real about where you're at. And your book and the way that you kind of, you know, expose your own journey does give the person reading that permission to do that for themselves.

How do you think they could hold on to something positive going forward for them and their team if they're not too sure how to get through that?

Nick Reich (19:00)
You know, I think it's a challenge that we all go through. And one of the things that I think a lot about is we used to have this conversation around, you know, leave work at work and leave home at home no one's ever been able to do that because we're human and just acknowledging that first and foremost, right?

We've all had a bad day at work and went home and taken it out on the dog or the cat or the kid or the partner. Right? Like we you know, like we get impatient, some of those things happen. And we all deal with real things at home in our personal lives, loss, and divorce and illness and any number of things that absolutely have an impact on how we show up and the work that we do.

So just being able to acknowledge it first and foremost and recognize that it happens to everyone at different points in time really creates a different level of dialogue between our people.

And just being open to that because pretending that we're not experiencing these things that have an impact on us as people, whether it's at home in our community, and whether it's at work, like trying to hide that is damaging the leader, it's damaging the team, it's damaging the individual. So, you trying to create the space for our people to just acknowledge the experience that they're having and when it's hard and when it's challenging and how it impacts them, is you know the biggest thing that I think that we can do as leaders. And you know, for the individual, it is hard because we're not all in positions and organizations working with and for leaders who are in a place that allow us that. So I get that some people have different experiences with their leaders and with their organizations, and they don't feel safe being their whole selves in there. And it's quite a challenge.

And I think for them, being able to just recognize that again, they are human and it's not natural in and of itself to have to try to separate those things and giving themselves a little bit of grace to go through a process of grief and loss, whatever that looks like.

To recognize that it's okay to be human, it's okay to, you know, be impacted and be emotional and have to navigate through these things. And it's not linear. And it's gonna take time to be able to get through, you know, healing is not a a straight line, when it comes to any of these things that we navigate through and you know, being able to recognize that and how we show up for ourselves and how we show up for others is extremely important.

Josey Atoa (22:07)
Absolutely. And I feel like your book does do that. It definitely says, you know, the legacy isn't in the work. I think what's your it's ‘not what we do, it's how we do it’. That's very clear. Do you think that's your overarching message that you want to leave someone with the book, as well as being that kind of leader where you who you are at home, it just blends. Who you are comes through and so you don't focus on yeah, the work, it's on how you treat people and how you bring the people through that process with you, whatever your responsibilities are?

Nick Reich (22:41)
Yeah, no, you're exactly right. And think the, you know, the legacy piece, I talk a lot about it's who we build, not what we build. You know, one of the things that comes up a lot when I talk about legacy language is these kind of myths around legacy. You know, I'm not leaving a legacy, it's only for individuals that are wealthy or famous or whatever the case is, we are all building a legacy every single day in every interaction, in all of the action that we have, the question is just how intentional are you about the legacy that you're leaving? And so the more that we can get intentional around the type of legacy that we want to create, and it is in who we build.

We were able to raise millions of dollars and build a gymnasium within a couple of years, almost immediately after winning the state championship, and then you know, clearly the construction. And that's amazing. And they have basketball games there now, they've had graduations there, they built a choir program because now there's a stage and they've done plays. Like all of these students that I've never met over 15 years, like the gym is one thing, but the lives that are impacted because of that, but the players that I had that are parents that are coaching their kids, like that is the real legacy and impact. And I still get calls from you know players that I coached who are now like coaching their children telling me about lines that I would say in practice that they're using now on a regular basis, you know, with their teams and with their kids. And like that's where the real impact is, you know, not in building a gym, which is great, but the lives that get touched because of the things that we do, like that is a legacy that lives beyond us. And so again, we're all doing that every single day.

Right. It's the, it's how intentional we are about defining the type of legacy that we want to create and then aligning our actions, you know, as much as we can to, you know, building that legacy and having that impact.

Josey Atoa (25:08)
Absolutely. And that's incredible the impact.

Like I do love in the book how you work towards legacy towards the end, because in the book you've built the relationship up with the reader to be able end with that. But at the same time, for me when I was reading it, like if you start forming the legacy that you want to create, that can define the purpose that you have and start you forward. Because I think in the image that's actually first it's overarching the others that you have within your playbook.

Nick Reich (25:41)
Yeah, I actually have launched a people first leadership cohort. So I'm working with a group of emerging leaders who are working through the book and the playbook. And in session one, I actually start with purpose and legacy as the first session. To your point, like it's you know, kind of beginning with the end in mind. So we really start with understanding values and purpose and starting to build out a legacy statement with how we want to lead because the other things, those are the internal personal things. And then, you know, everything else builds off of that into how we show up and engage with our people.

So I love that you referenced that because in the work that I do with the emerging leaders and the cohorts, we actually start with purpose and legacy to be able to define that which creates the foundation for the things moving forward.

Josey Atoa (26:41)
That's so cool.

Nick Reich (26:43)
Yeah.

Josey Atoa (26:45)
My third favourite quote in your book is ‘Love is the only legacy that survives both’. I love that you use language like that through it, which is awesome. But you're referring to winning taught you how to lead and losing taught you why, which is very poetic, very real. And for me that came from a voice that has a deep love for humanity, which is obvious when you kinda look into your work and what you do as well as your experience, do you feel in lots of ways the book is an accumulation of your your past, your present and your future coming together?

Nick Reich (27:21)
Yeah, I definitely think so.

You know, the book was always kind of in there, right? In the basketball story, but it is a culmination of like you say I love the way you put it, it is a culmination of and it is a launching point to so it is this space of convergence in a lot of ways, of you know, the life and the story and all of the things that led up to that, but also now the possibility of what's to come. And you know, I love that you talk about the love piece because you know it's something I'm giving a talk soon here in the next couple of months and I called it leadership is a four-letter word.

And it really is about love and excellence is love with standards, right? And I mentioned love a lot in the book and also in the work that we do, because I believe that leadership is love with standards, right? It's the way that we're able to connect with people and really, you know, lead others. And I think that's the intentionality that that I keep coming back to. And intention is a word I probably use more than anything else. But again, we land on autopilot and just you know keep doing the same things over and over again until you intentionally break the cycle. Right.

And I had to do that as a parent. I was determined to raise my boys differently. Than I was raised, right? And you've got to be, we so often we just fall in these patterns. And that's real love to be able to acknowledge that and to be able to do it, whether it's a parent, whether it's a coach, whether it's a teacher, or whether it's a boss or manager, like that language remains consistent.

That we have to have that love, that care, that compassion. But the only way that it really works, like it's not soft leadership. You have to be able to drive, you have to be able to push, you have to be able to hold people accountable. You've got to be able to take people and push people farther than they think they can go. But you can't do that unless you balance it with the love and the care for the human to be able to get where you want to go.

Josey Atoa (29:43)
Yes so inspiring.

In the book it's funny you just mentioned the word launching pad, that was my next question, which is ironic. but in the book your end speech to the kids when they've won and they've succeeded against many odds, the teams united and celebrating, maybe a little bit numb from the impact of achieving a goal that they were working towards for so long and you chose to say, Don't let this be the highlight of your life, use it as a launching pad, a stepping-stone to bigger and better things. That blew me away. What inspired you to say that in that moment? Did you think about what you would say beforehand? Because that is it's such an amazing thing to say.

Nick Reich (30:29)
Thank you. And no, I didn't think much about it beforehand, right? You don't know if you're gonna win. You don't know what you're gonna say. I was, you know, trying to plan some of those things. But one of the things that I'm conscious of especially coming from the perspective of the kids that I coached, many of whom were, you know, high poverty neighborhoods, single parent households, you know, significant barriers to success and we've had to learn what success looked like and learn what winning looked like over the years. But you know, you meet so many people who the highlight of their life was something that happened in high school. Or, you know, I was a high school athlete. And those are people who, you know, maybe didn't have an opportunity to win a state championship.

So I was very conscious of, you know, we've all got to use this as a stepping-stone for what's next, not to be able to look back and say the highlight of my life was this event that happened when I was 18 years old.

And you know, we so often can fall in that complacency trap, just as humans, to be able to say, okay, well, I've accomplished something and now I'm gonna to ride off. And it's like, how do we continue to use each success and build upon it onto the next thing? And as you see and is referenced in the book, some did that better than others, some were able to really take that to heart and go on in college and you know, college athletics, different things.

And you know, everyone has a different path and journey. But it was just really important to me at that time and still today to be able to to acknowledge that to them that the last thing that I would want for them was to look back on their life when they're now in their early 30s and say, you know, my life peaked at 18 when I had this really cool experience. And that was certainly something that it felt important to acknowledge at the time.

Josey Atoa (32:43)
Yeah, that's brilliant. What's the game plan for you now? You're changing the needle in the world of people first. It's amazing you've got that cohort people-first that you're starting with other leaders.

Nick Reich (32:57)
Yeah, I think, you know, right now I wake up trying to figure out how to close this gap between amazing leaders that we've experienced in our life, which when I ask these questions, usually it's one or two that jump out.

And then when I ask about awful, toxic, terrible leaders you've had in your life and career, the average number that I've experienced from people hundreds of times I've asked this is about six, sometimes more. So if we know what great leadership looks like and we all can name the characteristics of those, you know, one or two great leaders that we have in our lives, why do we experience awful toxic leaders, three times on average, more than we experience great leaders. So that's what we wake up. I wake up every day trying to close that gap and to understand that again, you know, the people who lead us have a lifetime impact on those that they lead and they can build people or they can break people.

And if they're not doing it on purpose and with intention, then it's just left to chance. And we're often doing it on what was done to us. And then we end up with this three times greater number of leaders who break people down as opposed to leaders who build people up. And every single leader that we can impact to intentionally build and not break others is going to have an exponential reach on the people that they impact.

And you know, it's the ripple effect, which is often an overused analogy, but it's true that every single leader that we can, you know, change the mentality, change the intentionality, shift off of autopilot to intentionally build others has a dramatic impact on everyone they touch for a very, very long time.

Josey Atoa (35:09)
Sometimes you read a book and you know the intentions awesome. There is sometimes a little bit of a disconnect, the execution doesn't line up. I felt invested in your journey with the way that the book has been written and designed. I think leaders will just experience the same thing.

I felt like you were saying to me, what's it gonna be by the end of the book? You know, what's your decision? You're asking me to decide.

So I yeah, I truly think this is gonna be so successful and that it will shift people, whoever reads it. Especially if they've reached out and they're ready, it's a no brainer for me. Yeah. I can't wait to see how much it grows.

Nick Reich (35:53)
Well, it means a lot that you say that and I appreciate your thoughtfulness in in reading it and you know being able to kind of get that message. I'm so grateful that it came across and thank you for all of that. I'm excited to get it out into the world and be able to share and connect for sure.

Josey Atoa (36:14)
I imagine the schedule will be a bit full on from now building up to when it launches and is it September? You've got another month.

Nick Reich (36:21)
It is, yeah. Just over a month, September eighth, is the launch date, pre orders and things are available now. So you know, we're in a push and getting it out and a number of speaking events and conferences and keynotes and things happening this fall, which I'm really grateful for, and a couple of you know book related events. So yeah, it's very full, but I'm just so grateful to have the platform and the space to be able to share something that hopefully resonates with people and can have an impact on leaders and those that they serve.

Episode Summary
Josey Atoa (37:20)
I trust you enjoyed that short amount of time I had with Nick. I have so many things that I could discuss with him, his experiences and how he navigates the issues that leaders are facing today. I’ll of course add the link to Nick’s book and his business in the show notes. If there’s something you’d love to hear from Nick, that we could explore together, let me know. Otherwise, the next episode, we finally dive into is Communication Flow.

While I was doing research recently, a Gallup stat kinda threw me, that revealed that 78% of leaders worldwide are disengaged in their work; responsible for others, their results, their environment, feeling pretty flat. I completely understand how you’re feeling. I also feel there is data, and in my own experience, leading by putting people-first is the way to have a better day and change things. If you’re curious reach out. I’m in the process of adding a resource list to my website which will contain books to read, podcasts to listen to, youtube clips and inspiring leaders to follow. Comment where you can if you’re interested. I can send the resource list I have so far in a PDF to get you started.

Thank you so much for listening. Have the best day. Ciao.