Business leaders who foster a culture of gray areas are not great role models. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn discusses the dangerous game of compromising your values.

Ray Zinn: Hello there, Rob.

Rob Artigo: Ray, leaders often face intense pressure to compromise on core values like integrity or honesty. Whether it’s inflating metrics for investors, or overlooking ethical lapses for growth, or bending principles to close a deal, in your experience, what are the most common scenarios in high stakes environments like Silicon Valley where the temptation arises, and why do well-intentioned leaders rationalize these short-term trade-offs?

Ray Zinn: Because there’s a lot of pressure on the outside, either your board of directors or your investors. They tend to push you in a direction which benefits them, but won’t necessarily benefit you. And when you do that, you tend to compromise your values. I remember several years ago, now more than that, a couple of decades ago, that a company, in order to bolster their bottom line, they put bricks in their shipping boxes, the product shipping box, so that when they did the audit or when they counted the inventory, they would count those bricks that were in those boxes. And it just about folded the company when they discovered that they had done that. Now, I’m not sure if it was a whistleblower, or how they found out, but the auditors did find out that there were just bricks in those boxes, not product, because they were trying to bolster their bottom line.

See, that’s just flat out dishonest. Granted, they didn’t ship the bricks to the customer, but they just tried to fool the auditors to make them think that they had more inventory than they really did. And that’s one of the more famous ones, those that have lived as long as I have. And back in ’80s and early ’90s in Silicon Valley, that was one of the big stories that was out there is that this company, a very well-known company actually, that put those bricks in those shipping boxes. We find this a lot.

I mean, there’s this one, for example, on CES recently, there’s this battery, this solid state battery that was being touted as being 10 years ahead of its time as you would. And they were saying that how fantastic this battery is and they’re promoting it. It was the hottest item at CES this year. It was called a solid state battery. Probably a super capacitor is what it really is, but they wouldn’t disclose… They didn’t have any units that were actually functioning. They were just containers looking like batteries. There was nothing in them, of course. It was just false. And the same thing with the motorcycle they had, electric motorcycle.

Whether or not they really have that technology is debatable because they didn’t have any research and development backup on it. They didn’t, no disclosure with regard to a third party analysis of it, a UL type thing. Now they’re looked at as being as a skeptical company. They were out there trying to raise money. They managed to raise some money, by the way, but it’s in a dishonest way. It’s kind of like that woman, now her name escapes me, but she had that Theranos, that blood machine that would analyze your blood, and it was just a box with nothing in it. Of course, she’s serving time now in prison for being dishonest.

And we see that a lot. We see that companies try to deceive others. And deception only lasts a short time. You can fool the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time. It will come back to bite you. Yeah, you may get a temporary bump in it, but in the long run, it’s going to come back to bite you.

Rob Artigo: That was Elizabeth Holmes. I had to look it up too, because she’s been out of the headlines for so long. It’s easy to forget people’s names. And that’s kind of really a sad commentary on her. It’s like she thought that I’m a billionaire and I’m doing great. And the next thing you know, she’s forgotten.

Ray Zinn: Yep. Well, again, you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time. And that’s what we got to remember. And what will come back to haunt us is when you’re dishonest, and dishonesty breeds dishonesty. In other words, it’s just like success breeds success, dishonesty breeds dishonesty. And so you may get away with it sometimes, but not all the time.

Rob Artigo: So going back to the battery situation. They had empty boxes and they had that presentation. If they had handled it a different way, and been more upfront, for example, just saying, “Hey, look, we’ve got this great technology. Here’s what we’re working on. We’ve tested it. We feel like it’s going to work, but we didn’t want to come here and give you something that wasn’t perfect and blow the opportunity. Come here and ask us questions about it. Let us tell you all about it.” Maybe they could have done a better job, reinforced with people like you that they have some integrity and they’re upfront about the situation.

Ray Zinn: Well, the problem is, Rob, is that you’re either ready or you’re not ready. It’s kind of like you’re coming to an Olympic game, and they got the race set up, and your event’s ready to go and you say, “Well, I’m not quite ready yet, but let me tell you what I can do. I can get in the blocks and you can fire the gun and just pretend I’m running.” That’s not going to work.

When you’re at an event like CES, you have to be ready. They expect you that you’re going to demonstrate your product that’s going to be real. If you’re not ready, then you’re going to have to wait till next year. Jumping the gun or misleading people only increases the lack of trust of people. Especially if you’re talking about something that doesn’t sound realistic. For example, if you’re running a 100 yard dash and the world record is like, let’s say, eight, nine seconds or something, and you say you can run it in five, people are not going to believe you. And so if you can’t prove you can do it in five, you best not even say you’re going to do it. Don’t present something where you’re not ready to present it.

That’s what Elizabeth Holmes did is she presented her product to these investors as though it were really working. If you tell your investor that I have this product here, but it’s not working and I’m not sure when I’ll get it working, that doesn’t sound good to an investor. And I’ve listened to enough investor presentations to know that you can tell when it’s phony, when there’s not really meat behind the gravy, as you would. Don’t even attempt it. If you’re not ready, don’t say you’re ready to go.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. I see that with politicians as well a lot these days is that they say, “Oh, we have proof of this,” or, “We’re going to go after so and-so because of this.” And I’m like, don’t tell me until you show me the proof. Don’t just tell me that you’ve got all this evidence. Don’t just tell me that you have it. Show me the proof or shut up. And I think that that’s important. We had the company that had the electric truck, and when they demonstrated it was just plugged in because they really didn’t have a working product.

Ray Zinn: I know.

Rob Artigo: Remember they had that demonstration-

Ray Zinn: Yeah, they rolled down the hill.

Rob Artigo: … where they rolled the truck down the mountain? They’ll go a long way to pretend they got something that they don’t have. And like you said, if you walk in and you say, “Look, look at the size of my legs. I can run that 100 yard dash in five minutes.” I mean, five seconds. For me, it would be five minutes. But if it’s going to be five seconds, you just know that it’s not going to work. I have a rocket that’s going to go to Mars in three hours. Then you just-

Ray Zinn: Not realistic.

Rob Artigo: … roll your eyes and go, “Come on, come on. Give me a break. You’re wasting my time.”

Ray Zinn: Right.

Rob Artigo: Ray, I appreciate the podcast, and I really want the listeners to go to their favorite platform, wherever they listen to this podcast, and make sure they follow it. Follow the podcast and rate it because we want to build our reputation here and our reach at Tough Things First. We know it’s a top rated podcast in Silicon Valley. We’d like to make it a go to for everyone out there, not just people in Silicon Valley, but people in the world of business and business students.

Come on out, check it out, toughthingsfirst.com. You can start there, listen to the podcast and share it. Go to your platform. If you’re on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn, like Ray is, go to your platform, and share it with your friends there too as well. Check out Ray’s books, Tough Things First, the Zen of Zinn series also, one, two, and three. And upcoming, going into print right now, the Zen of Zinn Daily Reader, and that’s going to be great, and you’re going to love it. So I hope you’re ready to check that out. Also, The Essential Leader is on sale. That’s the 10 skills, attributes, and fundamentals that make up the essential leader. It’s essential reading for everybody. Thank you, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob. Good to be with you.

You can build resilience in your life and business so that no matter how bad it gets, you are ready. Ray Zinn knows a thing or two about navigating rough seas even when it seems nearly impossible.

Rob Artigo: At Micrel as CEO for so many years, your company was thriving in uncertain times, not just a survivor, it was a thriver. Resilience often starts at the individual level, especially during personal setbacks like health challenges. You lost your eyesight at a very important time in the company’s history, but you managed to get through that and stay as CEO until you finally left the company.

That could feel overwhelming, I’m sure those things… And they can feel permanent like vision loss. Hopefully, things improved over time, but you had that challenge. What practical strategies have you seen or personally used to reframe these hurdles as temporary, like rebuilding your inner strength and maintaining focus amid the uncertainty?

Ray Zinn: Well, that child story about the Little Train That Could is a good example. You just have to realize that life is going to have its ups and downs about half the time.

Ray Zinn Cont… In other words, half the time things are going to go well and half the time things are not going to go so well. You have to accept that. That’s something that’s like a basic law of physics is what I call it, where you just have to know that half the time you’re going to have downs as well as up. That’s flipping a coin, half heads, half tails.

And so, knowing that and not expecting everything to be on the upside will prepare you, then, for the downside because they’re going to happen. During my 37 years of running my Micrel, we had eight downturns, eight. I mean, significant downturns.

In 2002, we lost half of our customers, half of them. And our revenue fell in half. And we had to buckle down. I mean, we had to… Or buckle up, I guess is the term, and just stiff it out.

We lost money, but not much. We lost $50,000 out of several hundred million. And so, that was a real eye-opener for everybody to see how we… Because a lot of my competitors and customers went out of business when that dot-com thing hit, the downturn that happened.

The point I’m making here is that you got to expect downturns. They just come as sure as the sun comes up and the sun goes down. You’re going to have to deal with it. And just knowing that, you get prepared.

So, it’s like having a bumper on a car. You’re prepared to have an accident, as you would. I guess today’s cars are a little built differently. You probably don’t even remember bumpers on cars, but they’re there in case of an accident.

So you have to put bumpers on your company. You got to bolster your company to the point where it can withstand a downturn. That’s the key is making sure you have the bumpers on your company.

Rob Artigo: How can leaders cultivate this mindset for resilience? Seeing a setback and those times that are the worst times, like the most uncertain times, how do you see that as temporary and thrive or at least get through like the dot-com thing, like you said, a lot of companies were going out of business.

It took effort and focus by Micrel and you at the head to navigate that storm. How do you put it in your mind that it’s a temporary thing?

Ray Zinn: Well, a downturn usually lasts between a year and two years, and that’s the classical downturn cycle. I call it the first law of economics, both for every direction you have in one way, you have the opposite in the other.

What happens is when you do see a downturn, you fight it. In other words, you just dig in. That’s why a downturn doesn’t last as long as an upturn because you’re fighting hard to overcome that down cycle. It will turn around. As I said, a downturn usually lasts between a year and two years.

Knowing that, you get prepared for it. You say, “Okay, what do I need to stabilize my company over a year to two years?” And that’s what we did. We were able to get prepared because we knew it was coming.

And just like I mentioned earlier, you know the sun’s going to come at a certain time. The sun’s going to go down at a certain time and you just deal with it. You set your timer for your light to come on at dusk and your lights to go off at daylight. You set the timer.

So you get prepared. And if you are prepared, if you know that a downturn is going to happen and they happen every four to five years, you’ll get a downturn. These downturns are just as common as, as I said, the sun coming up and the sun going down.

Rob Artigo: There are all kinds of leaders out there, and I guess there’s a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. What do you do when you have somebody in your leadership circle, your inner circle, who is the pessimist in that environment and says, “Look, I don’t know. I’m very concerned. I’m so concerned.”

And they can be paralyzed by the worry about the situation. How do you get them over that and get them on board with your, “Hey, this is temporary. Let’s forge ahead.”

Ray Zinn: Well, you would like to hire optimists, not pessimists. Pessimists tend to look at the dark side. If you can’t get them out of that dark side mentality, then you best invite them to leave. What I did is I built optimists within the company so that we weren’t always looking at the dark side.

The pessimist is a deterrent in the company. Even during good times, they’re always looking for the down cycle. They’re always saying the downturn is going to happen any minute. And it doesn’t, by the way, I mean, an upturn usually lasts longer than a downturn.

But the pessimists will say the downturn is more frequent than the upturn. And so they tend to affect the morale of the company. And if you can’t turn them around, and most likely you won’t because it’s a personality trait to be a pessimist, then you probably should invite them to leave.

Because you want to surround yourself with optimists. And that’s what we did. We focused on an optimism as a weapon as opposed to pessimism. You can attract more bee with honey than you can with vinegar.

Rob Artigo: Elon Musk recently made a comment about that. I think if I remember it correctly was, it’s better to be an optimist and wrong than be a pessimist and right.

Ray Zinn: Exactly. No, that’s true. People who are focused on the dark side or that they’re looking for that worst case condition, they’re going to spoil the… One rotten apple spoils a barrel. They’re going to spoil your team because they’ll get them down.

And if you’re always preparing for a downturn, even during an upturn, you’re not going to get anywhere because you’re going to be actually afraid to leave the building, as you would. I agree with that comment about I’d rather be an optimist and wrong than a pessimist and right.

Looking on the bright side is the key to running a successful company because success is really built on failure. You can’t have a success without failure. And so, that’s all success is, is overcoming failure. You accept failure, you deal with it, and that’s how you build success is by fixing that which is broken.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, that’s building resilience in the uncertain times is that the tendency is towards the community of the company, the family that’s there. The tendency at Micrel was the first thought wasn’t, “Oh, this is horrible. This is the end.” The first thought is, “All right, let’s steady the ship and let’s move forward because this isn’t going to last forever.”

Ray Zinn: Yeah. You build your ship to withstand the worst storm that is out there, but you sail the ship as though the storm was never going to come. Otherwise, you stay in the harbor and you never will get out there and make any headway.

So, that’s what optimism does is that it believes in an upside and it digs in its heels and the downturn and fights its way through. You don’t want to build a fragile company. You want to build a strong company so that it will withstand these downturns, but you focus on the upside and not on the downside.

Rob Artigo: Well, that’s a great conversation, Ray, and I’d like to invite the listeners to toughthingsfirst.com if they have questions or comments. They are welcome there.

You can follow Ray Zinn on X, Facebook and LinkedIn. And, of course, the books are out there. Tough Things First, the Zen of Zen One, Two, and Three. And coming up, the Zen of Zen Daily Reader, which is going into print right now.

On sale right now also is The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader. It is essential reading. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

Integrity isn’t just an idea of basic ethics. As Ray Zinn tells us, in this Tough Things First podcast, a real commitment to integrity is a competitive advantage that leads to greater profits in business and benefits in life. (Watch Video

Rob Artigo:.. Ray, we have a great topic today. Integrity as the ultimate competitive advantage. So many leaders face pressure, as you know, to take shortcuts for quick wins. They cut corners or make promises, fudging numbers, or prioritizing short-term profits. In your experience, you did 37 years at Micrel. What are the most significant long-term costs beyond just financial penalties that companies may pay if they compromise on integrity, such as employee turnover, customer churn, or reputational damage?

Ray Zinn: Yeah. Well, one of our core cultures, as you know, we’ve talked about a number of times has been integrity. So the first one is honesty, it means telling the truth at all times. And then integrity is doing what’s right when no one’s watching. And I tell that story about the time that I was… It was in the winter and I was driving home from work. I’d been a little late, I had some issues that I was dealing with. And I ran the stop sign. And it was interesting that I looked around immediately to see if a cop was around or whatever. And it wasn’t a stoplight, it was just a stop sign. And anyway, my mind was not focusing on driving, I guess, and I just blew that stop sign.

I felt so bad about it that when I got home, because I said, “Well, just because a policeman’s not around doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be held responsible for the violation.” So I called the police department and told them that I had run a stop sign and that I was wanting them to send me a ticket so I could pay it. And that would clear my conscience to know that I had violated the law, but just because there was no one around policemen around to write the ticket, that I felt I still should owe that money.

Anyway, that person on the other end, they said, “What? Is this a crank call?” And I said, “No.” I gave them my name and my address and everything. And they said, “Are you kidding me?” And I said, “No, I’m just feeling guilty about running that stop sign.” Anyway, they said, “Well, we get enough crank calls and they just hung up on me.” So they thought it was a crank call, and it probably sounded like one, but at least I felt like I had done my duty by at least acknowledging that I had broken the law, even though no one had seen me break the law.

So integrity really is a lost art. But honestly, Rob, people don’t know how to be honest when no one’s watching. As you know, there’s a lot of investigations going on now with fraud, especially in Minnesota, and they’re trying to hide. They’re trying to hide the evidence. And so integrity really is an art that… And it is an art. It’s an art to be faithful and truthful and honest in the way you deal with everyone. And I think it’s gotten worse over the last 50 years in my life. Integrity has suffered. People don’t believe they have to have integrity. They figure if you can’t catch me, then I’m not guilty. And so they recently raided the election offices or something like that in Georgia, Fulton I think it was, because they’re looking for fraud.

And fraud really is the thing that causes companies to lose trust of their employees, of their customers, of their suppliers. And I remember a time when we had an issue with one of our customers where he was trying to reduce his inventory and he sent the product back as being defective. And so they were a good customer, and yet the parts were not defective. Well, I’m supposing that the product was good and they were trying to get rid of their inventory. So we took it back. We decided, okay, we take that product back. Even though it was not defective, we just figured that rather than getting into a battle with our customer, that we would just accept it. And we couldn’t put it back into inventory because the date code was… So the product was out of date, and so we couldn’t resell it. And it cost us a lot of money to actually throw that product away.

And so it’s tough sometimes. You really have to grit your teeth and bite your tongue, and even though it’s going to hurt you, you still got to do what’s right. And as the saying goes, the customer’s always right, even though they’re not always right, you got to treat them as though they’re always right. And your employees respect you for that. I mean, I know that many of the employees knew of that incident, and they respected us for doing it, even though it cost the company a lot of money. And you can’t call your customer a crook or a thief because you’ll lose them. So sometimes you just have to, even though it may hurt, you still got to do what’s right.

Rob Artigo: Well, I was going to ask you what practical steps or leadership behaviors have you seen that work best to embed integrity as core values in a company? But you talked a little bit about that. And I was also going to ask you about keeping promises and making ethical decisions and how that translates into a measurable competitive advantage. So you lost that product and you lost that money, but in the long run, doesn’t it translate to a profit because you build more trust with those customers, you get more business, and then in the long run, it pays for itself.

Ray Zinn: Yeah, that’s exactly what happened. Had we fought that return, we would’ve lost a customer, no question. So it wasn’t so much that… In fact, we had to bite our tongue because according to our analysis that we did on that lot of material that we accepted back, thoughts went through our mind about, man, this customer’s being dishonest, but rather than think the negative, we thought the positive. We said, well, okay, according to his measurements, they were defective and in our mind it was perfectly good.

I don’t want to get into the real details of it, but you’d have to question how much integrity the customer had to return that material because it was out of date. In other words, the date code on the material was dated, but it dated in his factory, not in ours, meaning that he had kept it a while and then the date was bad on it, meaning it was out of date for them. And so rather than for them eating the material because they couldn’t use it, they just returned it to us and we had to eat it.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. The net result, Ray, there, is that in the eyes of my crowd, this customer was knocked down a few notches in their integrity. So therefore, then you have to take some special steps with them because you’re a little concerned about them because that hurts their image in your eyes.

Ray Zinn: It does. I mean, you always run that risk. If you don’t have integrity yourself, then you run the risk of really causing your image to be defaced and you end up being hurt in the long run. So you’re not always going to win, even though you’re right. They say you’re right, but you’re dead right. You’re not always going to gain from every single transaction when you have to accept product back or accept the word of someone else when you know or you believe anyway they’re not being honest about it.

So the integrity is really taking it upon yourself the responsibility of being trusted and being fair, as you would. Anyway, that was one that I can remember that really concerned me because it was a big loss to our company, and it certainly looked like the customer was returning the product because it was out of date. In other words, the date code on it was old, and he just wanted to get it off his shelf and then put it back on us. So there’s a lack of integrity in our mind with our customer, but to have integrity ourselves, we went ahead and took it back.

Rob Artigo: Well, Ray, this has been a great podcast, and I want to remind the listeners that it is on video. And if you go to toughthingsfirst.com, you can click on this podcast, you can see where it says, watch the video. And you’ll go to Ray’s YouTube channel and watch the video there if you want to get this back. Because actually there’s a lot of really great information in here and actionable ideas and thoughts based on Ray’s long experience at Micrel with over 37 years as CEO of that microchip company.

So Ray, I want the listeners also to know that they should go to their favorite… Wherever they listen to this podcast, rate the podcast, give it five stars, five buckets of popcorn, whatever they do, and we’d love to have you give us feedback there because this is a very popular podcast and we’d like to boost its profile as much as possible.

And if you have any questions or comments, they’re always welcome. Ray Zinn is also on X, he’s on Facebook and LinkedIn, and of course he has the books, his first book being Tough Things First. There’s also the Zen of Zinn series 1, 2 and 3. And coming out very soon, going to print right now is the Zen of Zinn Daily Reader, which is going to be fantastic and I hope people will pick that up. On sale now, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader, get that book right now because you can get that anywhere you want to purchase a book. Thanks again, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob. Good to be with you.

Taken from a page of Ray’s book Zen of Zinn 3, in this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn discusses how honest assessment is the difference between gambling and investing.

Rob Artigo: Ray, let’s turn to page 89 of Zen of Zinn 3, your book in the series of three books. Page 89, and this is what it said, very short writing, “Gamblers are not investors. To gamble is to take a chance on a random event. Don’t gamble on your future. Have a strategy that eliminates or at least reduces the chance for failure.” Tell us a little bit about that.

Ray Zinn: Yeah. Okay. So I was trying to differentiate between a gambler and an investor. So a gambler is one that’s investing in a random event, which not necessarily has high degree of probability of success, because gambling, again, is based on a random, very low probability of success.

So when you talk about investing in something, whether it be education, whether it be a marriage, whether it be your business or a job, make sure you study it out, make sure you understand the pros and cons. You should have as many cons as you do pros. List them out on a piece of paper, write down all the cons.

What most people do is they have two or three times as many pros to a decision as they do a con. And what I do is I know there’s opposition or there are cons to every event, whether it be a marriage or starting a company or where you’re going to live, the job you’re going to take. List down all the cons, because I don’t have to tell you to list all the pros because you’ll do that automatically. But make sure when you make your list that you have as many cons as you do pros as to why you should not enter into that venture. That way you can better establish a higher probability of a good outcome if you do that.

And I know it sounds silly because if you have equal number of cons you do pros, you say, “Well, I might as well just flip a coin.” No, that’s not what you’re doing. You want to look at all the downside. In other words, look at all the things that can go wrong. And then it’s Murphy’s law is what can go wrong will go wrong. That’s Murphy’s law. And all the downsides, all the reasons why something will not succeed, if you do that, you have a better chance of making a good decision. So again, equal number of cons as you do pros.

Rob Artigo: Well, a lot of gamblers would say that, “Oh, I have a strategy for this.” They’re in a casino. “I have a strategy for playing this game. This is my strategy.” And they use a lot of the lingo, but they’re really just gambling.

And I think recently of this big story about these millionaires and some former NBA player and an actual player right now getting ensnared in this gambling scheme. And I’m not going to say that they’re guilty or whatever, that’ll be dealt with in other ways. But to see, and this has happened before where you have people who really have money to invest, and money to even pay somebody to help them with a strategy, take enormous chances with the money that they have and ended up losing a lot.

Ray Zinn: Well, Ponzi schemes, it was a classic example of that. But the purpose of this podcast is to reinforce the need for having, sitting down, write down the pros, the reasons you want to do it, and then the cons, the reasons you shouldn’t do it, and they should be equal.

As we know in life, there’s ups and downs, and so you want to make sure that your ups are countered with as many downs so that you can make the proper decisions and prepare for these probabilities of a poor outcome or a bad outcome.

That’s when I ran my company, I was always looking at also the downside. In other words, what’s the downside to working with this customer or this product? And part of the approval process for developing a product was my engineers had to list and the marketing people had to list all the reasons why we shouldn’t do it. And therefore, I know that they’re looking at all the downside.

Unfortunately, we always look at, they say optimism, you want to be optimistic. Optimistic is okay because it also relates to you want to see what all the reasons why something won’t work, and that’s also being optimistic. In other words, or realistic maybe is a better term. You want to be realistic as you proceed down a particular path.

Rob Artigo: Well, it’s a great reading. Zen of Zinn series is a lot of writings like this, and some of them are a little longer, some of them are a little shorter. There’s always great wisdom in here.

And I guess maybe we’d take a minute as we get ready to close this out to just talk about why you felt… This is something that has grown over a lot of time, and I remember you telling me once that your wife would say to you, once say, “I don’t know how you come up with this stuff, it’s so many things, so many ideas in your mind.” But tell us a little bit about why these writings are put together the way they are.

Ray Zinn: Well, again, the purpose of the Zen is Zinn is to give people some ideas, some thoughts that they can think about that’ll keep them really on the straight and narrow, as I call it. If they get a chance to read these, I guarantee you that if you follow these passages that I’ve written in these three books so far, actually we got a fourth one coming up called the Bedside Zen of Zinn, but if they read those and they follow through with them, I guarantee you, you won’t go wrong.

Rob Artigo: That forthcoming book is all set. We’ve got the cover ready to go and it looks like we should be able to get that out pretty soon. And I hope people will take that and really run with it, because that’s a 365 kind of thing, that’s one daily reading and it gives you something to power your day and grow with, so it’s going to be a fun book.

Ray Zinn: I agree.

Rob Artigo: Thanks, Ray. I’d like the listeners to join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Your questions and comments are always welcome.

Follow Ray Zinn on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And of course, pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First, and the Zen of Zinn series 1, 2, and 3, which we were just talking about. And on sale now, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader, an Amazon top seller. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

In this Tough Things First podcast with Ray Zinn, Ray looks at what creating a personal culture does for the people around you and what it really means for you.

Ray Zinn: Hello, Rob.

Rob Artigo: You had the idea of talking about culture and suggested that people should define their culture. For starters, you asked the question, who do you most admire?

Ray Zinn: Yep. Well, you have to have a mentor, somebody that you believe and you, as they say, worship. And so that person’s culture is the one you want to emulate. In my case, is Jesus Christ, is my mentor and one that I want to follow. So I look and see what culture did he have, and then I try to emulate that culture in my life. So that’s what I meant by defining our culture. Who do we most admire? And that will actually define our culture.

Rob Artigo: And then by culture, what are you talking about? I know that you had culture at Micrel semiconductor for those many years, and that was established what it was expected amongst the characteristics of the folks at the business. So is that what you’re talking about here, culture, or are you talking about an overall way of life?

Ray Zinn: It’s the same. Okay. So it’s the same thing. So when I was looking at establishing the culture at Micrel, it’s going to emulate the culture of Jesus Christ. So that’s the kind of culture that we set up, honesty, integrity, dignity of every individual. In other words, not using condescending or vulgar language and doing whatever it takes, no go excuses. That was the culture that I believed Jesus Christ had. And I implemented that culture at Micrel. Not that I required everyone who worked for us to accept Jesus Christ as their mentor, but that the culture of Jesus Christ was established as the founding culture of the company.

Rob Artigo: You believe that some of this stuff is established very early on, when you’re a child, maybe you have those lessons you learn when you’re a kid, the failures that you’ve had. And then also the mentors that you thought were the right ones and turned out to be the wrong type of influence. And you realized that their culture was not favorable to what your goals were. Like you said, you can have a mentor who you admire a lot and find out that they are really not interested in the fact that you want to be a Christian. Then there’s a breakdown there.

Ray Zinn: It didn’t require everybody to be a Christian, obviously. I just required them to be a good person.

Rob Artigo: Well, I meant, Ray, that if you had a mentor that rejected your Christian, you found out that you aligned in a lot of character areas, but they were hostile to you being a Christian. That’d mean that you’d have to find a different mentor, don’t you think?

Ray Zinn: Yeah. Well, certainly. I’ll give you an example. Several years ago, we were having a company picnic, and one of these individuals came up to me. He wasn’t an employee of the company, but his wife was an employee. He said, “May I speak to you for a moment?” I said, “Sure.” And we went over to a grove of oak trees out of the sun and he said, “Before my wife joined your company, Micrel, we had filed for a divorce. We were getting a divorce. Now, she’s the one that wanted the divorce and not me, but still we were on the road to do a divorce.

But after she started working for your company, within three or four months of being involved with Micrel, she came to me and said, ‘I’d like to go into counseling, marriage counseling, and let’s postpone our divorce.'” And then he said, within a few months after that, they actually stopped the divorce. He said, “My wife became a totally different person when she began working for your company, and I just want to thank you.” And he gave me a big hug and he was just so grateful. So you can change. If you get into the right culture, if you get into the right circumstances, you can change. If you develop the right culture. And then his wife, obviously, because she was working at the company, I didn’t even know who she was actually, because we have thousands of people working for it, but apparently the exposure at Micrel was such that that became her culture and that saved that couple’s marriage.

Rob Artigo:

So once we define our culture and we’ve had a good mentor and we’ve worked on it throughout our lives, one of those things that we have to do to continue this is reinforce that culture on a daily basis. What are some of the ways we might do that so that we continue to reinforce the culture that we have worked so hard to develop?

Ray Zinn: Well, you have to say, “Here’s the things I will do and here’s the things I won’t do.” I had a commitment when I was just getting married, as you would, that I would not be alone with another woman except my wife or my children or my family. So I have never since then, by the way, since I made that commitment when I got married, that I would never be alone with another woman, I’ve not done that. I mean, here I am, been married 64 years, and I’ve never been alone with another woman except my wife. And that prevented a bad situation. If I didn’t have that culture, possibly I would’ve gone astray and got involved in areas that I shouldn’t. So you make commitments, you say, “Here’s things I will do, here’s things I won’t do.” And you establish those early on and you stand by those commitments. You make these promises to yourself and those promises then you work diligently to protect.

Rob Artigo: I read that as setting boundaries as well.

Ray Zinn: Exactly. Exactly what you do. You set boundaries. You say, “Here’s what I will do. Here’s what I will not do.”

Rob Artigo: Well, the listeners can join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Questions and comments are always welcome there. Follow Ray Zinn on X and Facebook and LinkedIn and pick up the books. Tough things first, the Zen of Zinn series one, two, and three, and now the The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader, and it is an Amazon top seller. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thank you, Rob.

Fear of risk, fear of  danger, fear of going it alone. Fear can be healthy, but it can also hold us back. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn explores the most important factor in overcoming fear.

Rob Artigo: Ray, many people are held back by fear. I know this personally, and I’ve had times in my life where I’ve avoided something because I just had a general fear of the possible outcomes. And some people just govern their whole lives based on fear. Is it possible to eliminate fear?

Ray Zinn: Sure, but you have to first recognize that you are fearful. Are you risk averse? Risk averse means that you’re not willing to take any chances. The more chances you’re willing to take, the more likely are to succeed. Now, there’s some righteous fear, meaning that you want to fear God as you would, respect them. You want to be respected. And so, you don’t want to be stupid and jump off out of an airplane without a parachute. I mean, that’s not overcoming fear, that’s just being stupid. Eliminating fear allows you to be more willing to take some chances. If you don’t take a chance, you’re just not going to accomplish your legacy or grow your career. Some people are afraid to go to school. I mean, if you’re wrapped up in fear, there’s a lot of things that you could do you won’t do. “Oh, I can’t do that,” or, “Oh, I don’t have that knowledge or that skillset.” As soon as you say what you don’t have and you can’t do, then you’re fearful.

So to be able to accomplish a lot, you have to eliminate that fear factor. Actually, it was a TV program sometime ago, a reality show was called Fear Factor. And the purpose of it was see if people could do things which are difficult, like eat certain things like bugs or something or seeing how they would do walking across a canyon on a bridge or on a tight wire with a… I mean, they did all kinds of really fearful things. How some people are afraid of swimming in the ocean. My wife is afraid to swim in the ocean because she’s fearful of those what she can’t see that’s in the water. In the pool, she knows there’s no animals in there, so she’s not fearful of the pool, but in the ocean, she’s fearful.

But that prevents you then from being able to explore in that environment. Some people are afraid to jump out of an airplane with a parachute, so they’ll never experience that because they’re fearful of it. And we all are fearful of the unknown, but if you restrict yourself to the point where you’re not going to do anything because of fear, you’re not going to succeed.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. You mentioned risk averse. That’s a really good example because you endeavor to do anything and don’t take any risk at all, you’re definitely not going to have any success. If you take some risk, you have a chance of success. If you are less fearful. But one thing that we may discuss in another podcast at some point is the idea that if you take a chance and you have a plan, you’re going to improve your chances of success. In fact, make your success likely to whatever level that ends up being is one story, but you have a really good chance of having success. That’s my little commentary there. And you mentioned healthy fears. So there’s the fear of God and that there’s a balance there. You have to learn some effective ways to eliminate fear so you’re not held back by them. But at the same time, not, like you said, do stupid things like a bungee jump with a rope instead of a bungee cord.

Ray Zinn: There are people who do things which are extremely dangerous, and yet they take the chance. Back when I was in college, I was a rodeo clown and I had to fight the bulls. Now, because I was raised around cattle and I raised around those animals, I was less fearful. And so, I could do it. But I did take a big chance because I was hurt severely a few times, not because of what I was doing. It was because of the way I was doing it. I was not being careful. I was exaggerating my ability as you would, and I just wanted to show the audience, the crowd, how dangerous it was. And so, I got severely injured a few times when I started to show off.

The name of the game is have a righteous level of fear, as we talked about, a righteous fear as opposed to being unrighteous. And even though I was skilled at what I did, I did some unhealthy and unrighteous things that caused me to get injured. Be mindful of the danger and then go for that, but don’t let fear be the stumbling block that prevents you from accomplishing your legacy.

Rob Artigo: In the business world, have you seen people who have been, they’ve held themselves back in work and success just because they were fearful of making a simple decision like switching jobs?

Ray Zinn: Yeah. I mean, that’s why people don’t change jobs because they’re fearful of the new company that they’re going to join or they don’t like change, and so they stay with what they know and where they are. So again, the objective is to have a healthy form of fear, the righteous fear, I call it, versus unrighteous. Unrighteous fear is doing stupid things. And when the potential for failure is so high that you actually will cause either your death or some other serious injury. So anyway, don’t let fear stop you from progressing and doing righteous things, but let your fear on unrighteous grow stronger as you would. Be fearful of doing stupid things.

Rob Artigo: That’s some good advice, Ray. The listeners can join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Questions and comments are there are welcome, so join us. Follow Ray on Twitter or X, depending on how you want to call it. Some people still call it Twitter. Facebook and LinkedIn are there. And of course, you can pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First, the Zen of Zinn series one, two, and three. And on sale now, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals that Make Up the Essential Leader. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thank you, Rob.

When you just start out in life, you may think very little about how you will be remembered. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn discusses why that approach may lead to very little legacy at all.

Rob Artigo: One thing you do at this podcast, and your books, and everything that you’re doing is you’re creating a lasting legacy. It’s one of those things that a lot of people don’t really consider until they get along later in life, but you’ve built, over a lifetime, your legacy. So what truly makes a legacy last?

Ray Zinn: Well, your legacy is the one you write over time, and the earlier you begin it, the more long-lasting it will be. For example, if I said, “What’s the legacy of Al Capone?” what would you say?

Rob Artigo: The legacy of Al Capone is, well, it’s one of crime, but it’s almost like a historical legacy of the history of the mob. Because he’s such a famous figure, and in some ways, he’s more of a legendary figure now than anything else. But he was not … There’s two legacies. There’s one that’s kind of the mythological one, and then there’s the one that’s the-

Ray Zinn: Yeah. Yeah. What I meant was, you said it right, it’s crime. Okay?

Rob Artigo: Mm-hmm.

Ray Zinn: So if you think of Hitler, you think of what?

Rob Artigo: The Holocaust.

Ray Zinn: Holocaust. Okay? Or dictator, murderer, dictator.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. Right.

Ray Zinn: Or if you think of Einstein, you think of inventing and being a genius, or Stephen Hawkings, or you can talk about George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. So what happens is you want to … So when you mentioned a person’s name, you want to say, “Okay. That’s who he is.” When you introduced this podcast, you said, “Ray Zinn, the Silicon Valley’s longest-serving CEO.” That’s my legacy. Okay?

So to be the longest-serving CEO, I’ve got to stay at it longer than anyone else. So when you talk about your legacy, you start that at a, quite a young age, and then you develop it over time. Your legacy is established or pretty much defined by the time you’re 40 or 45. That defines your legacy. I don’t know how you can look at yourself, who’s ever listening to this podcast, look at your age, and you can say, “Well, okay. I’m in my teens.” Okay. Well, you’re developing. You’re starting your legacy.

Then, if you’re 55 or 60, you’re pretty much done. There’s not much you can do to change it. It’s hard to change your legacy once you get to age of 55 or 60. Your legacy is already established. And so Rob Artigo, what is your legacy, Rob?

Rob Artigo: My legacy is 20 years in radio.

Ray Zinn: Okay.

Rob Artigo: I mean, I did get a book in there before I left my 40s, but I continue to work. I build on that legacy, but I guess I can’t change it. But I can build on it.

Ray Zinn: Well, when you introduced this podcast, you said, “This is Rob Artigo, Bay Area personality and announcer.” So you’ve defined your legacy when you said that. You think of other people that you know or are involved with, and depending upon their age, you can see what their legacy is going to be. I began writing church hymns recently, and the reason is I’m trying to increase the scope of my legacy so that I’m not known just as Silicon Valley’s longer-serving CEO. I want to broaden my legacy. And so the more things you get involved with … If you think of a famous Andre Agassi, what’s his legacy? It’s tennis.

Rob Artigo: Yeah.

Ray Zinn: Okay? Or-

Rob Artigo: Champion tennis player.

Ray Zinn: Yeah, or if it’s … I’m trying to think of one of the football players currently that are-

Rob Artigo: Tom Brady.

Ray Zinn: Okay. Tom Brady. Okay. Great quarterback, or if you’re Donald Trump or whatever, you define your legacy by what you’re accomplishing. So ask yourself, as you listen to this podcast, ask yourself, “What do I want my legacy to be?” And so to make it more enduring, you have to focus on it. You can’t just say, “Okay. I want to be known as world’s greatest tennis player.” You can’t do that by focusing on bowling or on chess or some other thing.

If you want to be known as a great author, book author, then you’d have to start writing some great books, and you can’t do it in your 60s. Again, the sweet spot of your legacy is when you’re in your 40s. That’s the sweet spot, and that defines, really, where you’re going to end up with the legacy that you want to achieve or be known for. So anyway, hopefully, that makes some sense to our listeners.

Rob Artigo: Well, Ray, for you, I see a generous amount of your legacy now being associated with your personal values being passed on to future generations, and that writing the hymns and things like that, I can see. The books that you’ve recently written have definitely contributed to that.

Ray Zinn: Thank you. Yeah. That’s true. I mean, I’m not trying to be just Silicon Valley’s longest-serving CEO. I really want to be known for my honesty, my integrity, my respect for everyone and dignity of every individual, and doing what it takes, no excuses. That’s really what I want to be known for and not just as Silicon Valley’s longest-serving CEO.

Rob Artigo: Of course, you also … I mean, look, you’ve gone across the spectrum in a lot of things that have helped develop this lasting legacy, and ZinnStarter is one.

Ray Zinn: Yeah. Well, ZinnStarter is an important program that I’ve instituted at seven or eight universities where entrepreneurs can learn to be entrepreneurs before they leave school, and we help fund that, their effort to do that. If their project or their company idea is accepted by the students that are involved in ZinnStarter, then we help fund that. We don’t take any ownership in it. We help fund it so they can start their legacy while they’re still in school.

Rob Artigo: Well, Ray, it’s a great conversation to talk to you about legacy. Because it, like we’ve discussed, it is very diverse, and it continues to grow and multiply. The listeners can join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com, and they can also follow Ray on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The books are out there. Please pick them up, Tough Things First, Zen of Zinn series 1, 2, and 3, and on sale now, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader, a top seller on Amazon. Thank you, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

Some people believe equality and equity are the same thing. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn dives into what equality really means.

Rob Artigo: … We fairly recently did a podcast on so called equity and inclusion. So, let’s turn our attention to what it actually means to be equal. Are we talking about equal outcomes like wealth, status, and happiness? What are we talking about here?

Ray Zinn: No, we’re talking about we’re all innately creating God’s image and likeness, but that we’re not all at the same status.

Ray Zinn: And so, it’s misleading to say that we all must be equal, equal in height, equal in skin color, equal in education, equal in goals and objectives, equal in the places where we live. We’re taking this equality thing way beyond what it was intended by our founding fathers. We should all have that right to happiness and a pursuit of joy and pleasure here on earth. We all have that liberty, I should say, life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. We all have that right, and then that way we are equal. So, we’re equal in our rights, or at least to have our right to have, as you would, but we’re not all at the same status, whether it be living the same area or having the same education and religion and so forth.

Rob Artigo: I remember, I’m trying to think of the quote. It comes from George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm. And the quote is, “Some people are more equal than others.” And it seems like that’s what we have in our society now is that you have, it’s like we want equality, but in actuality, you have some people, some groups that are considered more equal than others. So it’s, again, kind of an Orwellian doublespeak scenario where they’re saying, “Hey, this is equality, but we have to move these people up above this group because they have to be helped.”

Ray Zinn: We’re back to this. We’re more equal than they want to give us credit for. We have equal agency and we can choose for ourselves what kind of job we want to pursue, who we want to marry, how many children we want to have, where we want to live, how much education we’d like to have, what our hobbies are. We are all equal in that sense that we have that right to choose, as you would, whatever we’d like. Now, is liberty and access to everything equal around the world? No. Some countries have more regulation regarding where you can live, what you can do. I think in some of the communist countries, you’re actually told what kind of education you’re going to have, where you’re going to work. And those are the countries that supposedly are looking out for the little guy, the individual, when in fact they’re really not because to make it equal in their sense of words, you have to force people into certain categories.

But that’s not equality, that’s using force to make people have a certain education or have how many children can you have. Some countries limit how many children you can have. They limit where you can live. If you’re told to go here, go there, or you’re going to work for this company or that company, that’s not liberty. That doesn’t give you the right for you to choose. And the more socialistic that we try to make society, the more we lose our liberty. They said those who like socialism and communism, they believe that’s equality. That’s not. You’re forcing equality, in the sense of word that you’re forcing people to be at a certain place at a certain time and a certain way. That’s not preserving our liberties, our right to choose what we want to do when we want to do it. So, there are limitations. Of course, we have laws that ask you not to go over a certain speed limit or not to do certain things that are with a gun or any other form of personal liberty.

You can’t just go, I guess you could go shoot somebody and that you’re given that God-given right to choose to do that, but you’re going to pay a price for it. There’s a consequence for it. It’s like speeding. You’re going to exercise your right to speed, but you’ll pay a price for that. There’s that thing that people believe with all these laws and regulations, we lose our liberty, but we’re not. We still can choose, but we’re going to pay a consequence for a bad choice, or even for a good choice, there’s a consequence.

Rob Artigo: Well, you mentioned, since you talk about the legal system, equality also means having the same rules that everybody has to abide by them. So, the idea of blind justice is equality. And I think right now, we’ve seen an erosion of that in the justice system.

Ray Zinn: That’s that law fare thing where you’re taking away a person’s liberty by using the laws to do that. And there’s defund the police and all these other things that they think make it more equal as you would when in fact we’re not, because the more equal you make one person, you make the other person unequal. They say, well, reparations and other ways to try to make it equal doesn’t because then you’re harming, you took the money from to form that reparation. There’s a fine line between what you can do with laws and regulations before you start making it unequal. And so, what we try to do in this country, because we have a democracy, is we elect people that we believe will represent us, and then we expect them to go to legislation and provide the foundation for those legalities or laws that we want.

And while there is an apparent inequality in certain ways, there’s a fine line, or line in the road as you would, that you can’t step over. That’s why we have the laws based on the Mosaic law, as you would, which is called the moral law, and that’s more uniform around the world than the laws that are written by man, as opposed to written by God as you would, or the moral law. Being equal means you have that right to choose where you want to live, how you want to live, the kind of education, the spouse you want to marry, how many children you want to have. We try to make, in a true democratic society, we try to make it as equal as possible without infringing on the rights of others.

Rob Artigo: It’s an interesting topic. We could probably go on for hours on this one.

Ray Zinn: To be equal, you have a responsibility as a person to treat people equally. So, we’re talking about treating as opposed to living as you would. So, you treat your employees equally, treat your friends, your family. Don’t discriminate, to the degree you can, don’t discriminate in the way you treat other people. With kindness, love, and patience, and understanding, tolerance, empathy, and all those other words that describe how we should treat each other, that’s the key for true equality.

Rob Artigo: I’d like people to, the listeners to check out the website, toughthingsfirst.com, because if they want to continue the conversation, they can do it there. And questions and comments are always welcome. Ray, we have you on X, Facebook and LinkedIn, so our listeners can go there. And of course, we wanted them to get the books. Tough Things First, the Zinn of Zinn series one, two, and three. And on sale now, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader. Thanks, Ray.

Workplace conflicts are going to happen and the word “yes” can produce remarkable results to help your teams grow. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn explores the toughest workplace conflicts and the “Yes Principle.”

Ray Zinn: Hi, Rob. Good to be with you today.

Rob Artigo: Sure. Let’s talk about creative teams and managing conflict because there’ll be differences of opinion. There’ll be different directions people want to go in concepts that they’re developing. There may just be personality conflicts. So in your experience, what kind of conflicts are the most common?

Ray Zinn: Well, there’s a stone wall, in other words, where neither side is willing to back down. The good example of that is currently we have the shutdown in the government, and it’s based over some very strong principles that neither side want to bend on.

If you have a conflict where neither side is willing to bend, you’re dead in the water. There’s a saying that said, “Blessed are the flexible for they shall not get bent out of shape.” So you have to be flexible in order to have conflict resolution. And currently, as we have the shutdown, there is no flexibility. They’re stonewall opposites, as you would, between the two views, and they’re willing to keep the thing shut down forever, it sounds like, because they’re just not willing to budge. So what I do is I go back to the yes principle. I find out where we do agree.

Where can we start with an agreement and then go from there. Currently, in the Congress, we appear to be stonewalled. In other words, there’s no flexibility. And so until somebody budges, until somebody is willing to be flexible, we’re going to get bent out of shape. And we are currently being bent out of shape because absolutely there’s no flexibility in the conflict. I start again with the yes thing. Where can we agree? I start there. And so I minimize conflict at Micrel by virtue starting about, okay, where can we agree? Where do we start with the agreement? And then come down to where can’t we not agree? It’s interesting if you can always go with an agreement where we say, “Yes,” you can resolve any conflict. It’s just when you can’t say, “Yes,” that you end up with this conflict. Whether it be between Russia and Ukraine over whether or not there’s going to be a dividing line on the part of the country that’s already been established by Russia and Ukraine, or whether we’re going to keep fighting over the same thing.

Right now, there’s a stalemate. Russia not appears to be moving any further and Ukraine is just holding the line, but they don’t want to give up that territory. So that’s another one where there is an unavoidable conflict that’s not going to get resolved until there’s some flexibility.

Rob Artigo: Are you a big believer in being proactive to take those conflicts and turn them into opportunities for growth and stronger relationships? I mean, is that really even possible? You said, “You get to the yes.” What can we agree on? Then is there a way to take it, not just even out or smooth out the conflict, but to find a way to grow and have stronger relationships?

Ray Zinn: You can grow through conflict. I mean, because, sir, when you break a bone, it grows back stronger. Not that you want to find conflict, you want to avoid it when you can, but when there is a conflict, be like a bone mending back together, make it stronger. Because when you start with a conflict, maybe it’s unavoidable conflict, and you start with this yes principle. You actually build a stronger organization because you’ve learned how to resolve conflicts because we’re always going to have them. As long as you have people with different personalities and different objectives, you’re going to have conflict, period. End of statement, you’re going to have conflict. So learning to deal with conflict is like learning to deal with a broken bone. You learn how to mend it and mend it stronger. So I believe that by not avoiding, well, avoiding conflict if you can, but if you can’t, don’t just slam the door.

Try to find out how you can be flexible and how you can grow from that conflict. If you look at sports, you got two different teams, both of them want to win. And so there’s going to be conflict as you would, penalties and all kinds of things that are going to happen during the game, but we expect those. And it’s the teams that can resolve those conflicts that win, even in sports. So having less penalties, having less turnovers and so forth just makes you a stronger and better team. You want to avoid conflict if you can, obviously, but if you can’t, like in a football game or some other sports, learn to deal with it. Learn to deal with conflict.

Rob Artigo: Ray, the listeners can join us and continue the conversation and their education at toughthingsfirst.com. You can get a dose of Ray’s daily wisdom there and also on X, Facebook and LinkedIn. And of course, Ray’s books are out there, Tough Things First and the Zinn of Zinn Series 1, 2, and 3. The Essential Leader is out there on Amazon. Is a bestseller, 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

You have your “bandwidths”, your “synergies” and your “lean-ins,” to name a few and what do they all have in common? They are cliche’ and overused. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn says you need to cultivate a growth mindset, not a worthless vocabulary.

Ray Zinn: Hello, Rob. Good to be with you today.

Rob Artigo: We’ve seen in recent years, Ray, a movement toward workplace structures that have been controversial in the area of like, equity and inclusion. I want to talk a little bit about how real leaders can encourage continuous improvement and innovation in the workplace without getting tripped up by trendy concepts. So Mike Krell, the way you operated, you basically created safe spaces for risk-taking feedback and diverse perspectives that were drivers for both teams and personal development. Isn’t that true?

Ray Zinn: That’s right. Absolutely, very important.

Rob Artigo: Diversity, equity, and inclusion in my mind is really about just respecting every individual regardless of who they are. That was a major culture at Mike Krell.

Ray Zinn: Well, diversity, equity and inclusion is a buzzword, so that you basically focus more on inclusion than you did on their performance. And so, while we want everybody to feel included, we don’t want to make the decision based on, just to include them, as far as is they’re promotions or growth within the company, has to be based on performance.

So we want inclusion. There’s no doubt. And diversity is not that important. Even though the United States is a very diverse country, probably the most diverse country in the world, we don’t want to subtract as you would from performance just to get diversity.

I do agree that equity and inclusion are important. because We do want to make sure that that we’re equitable in the way in which we pay people and which way we ensure that they’re getting the proper income for their effort, irrespective of their race, color, creed, or sex or whatever.

Rob Artigo: Would you call that just being a mindful leader to take that approach?

Ray Zinn: Do what again?

Rob Artigo: It’s being a mindful leader.

Ray Zinn: Being mindful is making sure that you have… That was a third by the way, just to back up. That was the third quality of the company. The culture of the company was to have dignity and respect for every individual, regardless of who they are. That doesn’t mean you promote them based on diversity, equity, inclusion, is that you want to respect them. In other words, you want not to disregard whatever performance that they’re doing, whether it be a janitor or a vice president. You want to respect what job they’re doing and make sure it’s mindful. You’re mindful of what it is you’re asking them to do.

Rob Artigo: Like you said, it’s a buzzword, DEI, call it DEI. It’s a buzzword. We’ve sort of turned a corner, don’t you think? Where because of, I think Elon Musk might’ve been one of the first people, the first big names out there publicly to say, “No, no, we’re about, we’re performance-based here. And we’re going to get away from playing games with this. We’re going to do performance-based, but we’re going to give everybody a chance who does good or great to do better.”

Ray Zinn: Yeah. Well, again, we’re back to what it is that we’re trying to accomplish. As a kid playing sports, what we did is we lined everybody up and then we had the two opposing leaders of the teams, and then we would start picking our players, and I always picked the best ones that I could find. I didn’t necessarily pick them to be inclusive saying, “Oh, there’s a little short guy that’s going to be playing football. I’ll pick him.”

I tried to pick the best ones I could for my team because I wanted to win. This is where, when you’re being mindful, if you’re the little guy that’s left and nobody wants you, that you’re going to feel terrible. I am short anyway. And oftentimes I was the last to be picked because I was short, and it did bother me. But I recognized that that was just not my personal problem, it’s just my heritage, my genetics as you would. And I accepted it, but that made me more resilient.

In other words, because I was short, I wanted to make sure that that shortness was not a handicap. And so, I performed really well and established my reputation to be very quick and agile, and I found out that I was being picked actually early as a player on a team, because I didn’t let my lack of height, that you would, my vertical handicap. I didn’t let that become a hindrance. We want to offset that no matter what our particular handicap is, we want to offset that with our performance.

So it all goes back to performance. You’re only going to be not included if you let your handicap be your handicap.

Rob Artigo: If you get two team captains, and I remember that experience myself. There were times when I was picked last, and it was that gut feeling, that sinking feeling that, “Oh my gosh, don’t be last, don’t be last, don’t be last.” I mean, every kid knows that feeling when you’re in that situation.

But let’s say you get your two team captains. You want them to win. You want them both to want to win. And so, the goal is as the leader, you’re the team captain, so you’re the leader, is to pick the people that are going to help you win. And that’s it. So your analogy is just spot on.

Ray Zinn: Well, I let my handicap be my advantage. If you do have a handicap, and no matter what it is, work that to your advantage. Don’t let it be, your handicap become your handicap. In my book, Tough Things First, to tell the story, but I lost my eyesight when I was on the road show for our IPO in 1994, and first I thought this was going to destroy me as a leader of my company, because my vision was going to be a handicap in running the company.

But as it turned out, my handicap became my strength because I improved my memory and a bunch of other aspects of… I became more caring, more sensitive as a CEO when I lost my vision, because it required me to be more dependent on other people. So I let my handicap become an advantage, and as a result, we became a very successful semiconductor company, primarily because I didn’t let my handicap become my handicap.

Rob Artigo: Great conversation, ray. Our listeners can go to Toughthingsfirst.com and ask you questions. They can give you some comments there as well.

You can also find past podcasts. In some cases, you’ve got video podcasts, so you can just look down the list and find what you want. And also, follow Ray on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and of course, pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First and the Zen of Zinn Series 1, 2, and 3, on sale now, The Essential Leader: 10 skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals that make up the Essential Leader and Amazon Best Seller. Thank you, Ray.