Tough Things First

Hoping for short memories may not be the best way to regain trust once it is shaken. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn discusses the unfortunate knack some leaders have for rosy outlooks on everything without realizing they may lose support in the long run. (Watch Now…)

Rob Artigo: President Trump has recently tried to be encouraging, but what appears to be too much exaggeration, and that’s kind of his leadership. So that’s been his personality for a long time. And it’s kind of, I don’t know, people are responding, it seems, with losing trust in him because he says, “Oh yeah, it’s going to be the greatest thing ever,” or, “This is going to end right now.” And it’s not really panning out. Is this something that you’ve been thinking about a lot lately as you watch these ups and downs in the market, but also what’s going on on the world stage?

Ray Zinn: Yes. When we talk about giving encouraging outlooks, we got to be careful because if your outlook is not able to come to pass, in other words, if you’re not having a predictable outlook, then people start not believing what you’re saying. And since this podcast is for many listeners, I remember when we would, at Micrel, when we have our conference calls once a quarter, we would give an outlook, and that outlook was difficult to do because you’re looking into the future and you can’t predict the future really well. So on one hand, you don’t want to be discouraging or give a bad outlook because the stock is going to take a hit. And by the same token, if you give a really optimistic outlook and it doesn’t pan out, then they’re not going to trust you. And so they’re not going to give you a credit for your wonderful outlook. And so because sometimes your outlook is good, sometimes they’re not so good. I should say we did this once a month, not once a quarter.

But anyway, the outlook that President Trump has been giving on Iran has been more optimistic than actual. Even though he’s accomplished a lot, the outcome looks favorable. The timing of it is not panning out like it should. So that’s just an example. I mean, this podcast is really not about President Trump. It’s more about how do we, as leaders, how do we encourage or keep our employees encouraged, but not giving them some exaggerated outlook that we can’t bring to pass. While we think that people have short memories, certain things that they remember very well, and you have to be careful that you don’t exaggerate the outlook. Otherwise, if it doesn’t happen, your employees are going to lose trust in your judgment.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. Like you said, it’s not about politics. It’s about the timeless principles of effective leadership that people that listen to this podcast know very well. When a leader uses exaggeration to encourage people, even if there are good intentions behind it, the long-term to trust, I mean, it can be far beyond what you imagine. Like you said, people have short memories. In politics, they always say this. People have short memories and they go, by the next election, they will have forgotten this. But that’s not necessarily true when it comes to the way that they feel. If they lose trust in you, it’s really hard to get that back. I know we’ve talked about that on this podcast.

Ray Zinn: Yes. It’s interesting that … We hope people have short memories, but if the outcome is not good, that sticks in their mind. And so what comes around, goes around, you’re going to pay the penalty for it. So the future is very hard to predict. While we want to be optimistic, while we want to be encouraging and not deliver questionable news, by the same token, we want to be realistic. And that’s the key. The key is be realistic in your projections so that you don’t over-promise.

Rob Artigo: You often emphasize honesty and integrity as you call it a non-negotiable in those areas. It has been part of the culture at Micrel. It’s how you have operated as a CEO for so long. How do those ideas play into this as honesty and integrity be non-negotiable.?

Ray Zinn: Well, that’s part of it. Giving a realistic outlook is being honest. Let’s take an example. Let’s say that everything looks great, the quarter looks wonderful, the quarter going forward, I should say, is looking wonderful. And you really want to be very optimistic because you’ve got good news, the backlog is great, but then something happens. Somebody drops a bomb somewhere, some customer declares bankruptcy, and now you’ve given this outlook, even though at the time it looked realistic, but now you’ve got this dilemma that you’re facing, and you get blamed for that. I mean, honestly, the buck stops here, you’re going to get blamed. Even though it was something you didn’t know at the time, people don’t know you didn’t know that. And so they assume you knew it, even though maybe you didn’t, and you’re going to get penalized for it.

So we talk about caveats. They say God-willing or weather it doesn’t change or we don’t have this problem happen, we don’t lose a customer or important employee to leave the company. We have this one with Microsoft … I mean, with Apple where Tim Cook is now leaving and they got a new leader because that’s new and that’s going to be a concern for those next few quarters is how well the new CEO’s going to handle the company. So people don’t like to deal with unknowns. They hate unknowns. But unknowns are with us.

So what we want to do is have an honest reputation so that if when bad news happens, when we have a dotcom implosion, that people will recognize and understand that that’s an incident that happened. And now as long as you’re viewed with honesty and integrity, there is some forgiveness if the outcome is not as you projected it. Because as Murphy’s law is, that which can happen will happen, as you would. Bad things are going to happen. You’re not always going to have wonderful revenue projections and good news for your customers or your investors. You will have downturns and you will have difficulties. And the way we migrated through those eight downturns that we faced at Micrel was we were honest and we had a reputation of having integrity and our investors and customers stuck with us through thick and thin.

Rob Artigo: I guess the thing is to pause before commenting on something. And I think that’s what CEOs trying to protect their stocks also have to realize that there are analysts out there that are going to comment on those. It’ll sort of balance out what you say. But the idea being there’s got to be a better way to encourage without risking a loss of trust. You got to maintain that trust to stay there.

Ray Zinn: That’s why I said don’t exaggerate. Look at a more neutral position as opposed to exaggerating and then having to deal with that exaggeration. So the trees don’t go all the way to the sky. I mean, at some point you’re going to have a call to Jesus time where you’re going to have to own up to the projections or the outlook that you projected. Don’t underestimate or don’t mislead by not being truthful because then they’ll just say, well, you’re sandbagging. So don’t sandbag and don’t exaggerate. Just be known as an honest person with high integrity. And regardless of what happens, your customers and employees will stay with you.

Rob Artigo: I know that one thing I think about sometimes is Scotty from Star Trek. He said that he would say, tell the captain on the Enterprise, “Captain, I need six hours,” when he actually only needed four because that way when he came in under the six hours, he would sound like he did some kind of miracle and looked really good. So maybe downplaying it a little bit is a good way to show that you’ve had this great success because, hey, it was a tough fight. That’s that. That’s the Star Trek reference for the podcast for today.

So I hope the listeners will rate this podcast on their favorite platform. If you’re facing tough leadership challenges in your own organization, visit toughthingsfirst.com for more information and wisdom from Ray Zinn, including his books and resources. If this episode resonated with you, subscribe, leave a review and share it with a leader in your life or take it in for your own leadership challenges. Until next time, do the tough things first, starting with telling the truth. Right, Ray?

Ray Zinn: Exactly. Go truth.

Is the question, “which end is up?” The nagging question is where will this economy end with all that is going on. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn puts his well earned economist hat on and cuts through the chaos. – OR – (Watch Now!)

Rob Artigo: Ray, this is a special edition of the Tough Things First podcast. It is on video and I’d like to invite our listeners to toughthingsfirst.com. There is a whole pull-down menu for the podcasts, and we have all the history of our podcasts there, and you can check out any podcast you want. But if you find this one and you look at the little Watch Now button, you can click on that and it’ll take you to Ray’s YouTube channel. And Ray, people will go there and watch, and they usually turn out really, really good. So watch now if you want or just keep on listening.

Ray Zinn: Please share and subscribe to this. We would love your support.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, exactly, exactly. So Ray, you guided Micrel through 37 years, profitable, eight major semiconductor downturns along that time, that’s what I understand, without ever really relying on venture capital. So today we turn the attention to the present economy, which is really wild to navigate.

At the time of this recording, which is late March, just about April 1st almost, it looks like growth is holding at about mid 2% range, and the labor market cooled off a little bit. Unemployment about 4.4%. Inflation remained somewhat sticky above the Fed’s target, and there’s ongoing debate around interest rates, policy shifts.

And of course, Iran is looming large because of the oil situation. It’s not a crisis, but it’s not smooth sailing either, agreed?

Ray Zinn: Yes. Well, because there’s a lot of components to having a good economy. I’m asked often, because I am an economist educationally and also from work, they say, “Well, how is the economy?” And so if you read the news or if you hear the polling and so forth, they say, “Oh, the economy is the number one problem.” And so it’s a focus. When you focus on something, you tend to really put a lot of emphasis on it. That’s why we call it a focus.

Ray Zinn Cont.: Currently, according to the polls, the economy is the number one issue. But there’s something interesting here about this. The stock market is still up and still strong. Interest rates, albeit are higher than we’d like to see them, are kind of the average we’ve had for the last 50 years. The interest rate average over the last 50 years is 4.3%, and we’re a little bit below that. And so here we are. The interest rates aren’t all that bad if you look at it historically.

Labor, the unemployment is kind of where it is. I mean, it’s not terrible. It’s kind of the average of what we’ve experienced over the last 50 years. Inflation is about where it has averaged for the last 50 years. So if you look at all the metrics associated with what we call a stable economy, the economy’s stable.

Granted, we all like to see prices come down. We like to see interest rates come down. We like to see unemployment down, and we like to see gas prices especially down. They were down until a month ago when we had this conflict with Iran.

We need not focus on something that’s not really an issue. Even though the news media would like to conjure it up as an issue and get a lot of press going on it, a lot of people watching the news, as you would, it’s somewhat dishonest because if we look at things in terms of averages, and that’s what we do, then we can compare them with where we are or where we should be.

Honestly, Rob, everything’s kind of normal. I mean, the stock market is doing relatively well. Interest rates are at their historical average, unemployment, historical average, inflation, historical average. And so that should not be a focal point, because you don’t want to focus on something that’s not out of whack, as you would. Even though the news media would cause you to believe they’re out of whack for their own reasons, it’s just not true.

The economy is not the number one issue. In my mind, the number one issue is really this verbal civil war we’re having among political constituents with all this rioting and demonstration and attacks on one another. This is more of a concern to me. We need to figure out how to work together, how to overcome our differences, or at least mitigate our differences, that’s maybe a better way to put it, so that we don’t have these verbal civil wars.

These are never good. Verbal civil wars are terrible, and we can’t keep attacking each other if we’re going to have a successful life. That’s really where we get… peace and joy go together, and we can’t have peace and joy if we don’t have peace. And so let’s focus on what’s really important, working together, getting together, focusing on the good points, and let’s stop this verbal civil war that we’re doing.

Rob Artigo: Well, let’s shift gears a little bit and guide it back down to looking at the present economy and what business leaders or even households should consider. What are the biggest risks right now or opportunities you see for companies trying to grow profitably at the moment?

Ray Zinn: Well, they are profitable. I mean, most of the companies are doing quite well. The focus, of course, is to continue operating in a profitable manner. This Who Moved the Cheese thing about keeping up to date with the cycles that we’re in.

Typically, the economic cycle runs somewhere between three and five years. In other words, we go up for three or five years, and then it goes down. But what’s interesting is that we only go down for about a year or two, because we fight so hard. It’s kind of like how long can you hold your head below water. You can always hold your head above water and no problem, but when you start pushing your head below water, then you fight to get back up.

Kind of like what Socrates said. He took the student out into the lake and said, “Hey…” The student wanted to know, “How do I get more knowledge?” And Socrates held his head underwater for a period of time till he started to flail his arms back and forth. And he lifted him out and he says, “Student, what did you want more than anything else when your head was underwater?” And he says, “I wanted air.”

So we all want air. And so when we push our head underwater, we tend to come out quicker. So even though the upside is three to five years, the downside is only one to two years because we fight to get our economy back on track.

And so that’s the key, is if you do hit a downturn, and you will, I mean, that’s a normal cycle, you go up for a few years and then you go down for a year or two, but we do fight very, very hard to get the economy at least back on track.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. And you have lots of experience following that over the years, up and down cycles. They just happen. Ray, let’s invite the listeners to rate this podcast on their favorite platform. And you mentioned last time that you would like them to invite their friends to listen.

Ray Zinn: Yes, please. Please share.

Rob Artigo: If you are facing your own tough leadership challenges in your organization or even your home, you can visit toughthingsfirst.com. For more wisdom from Ray Zinn, also check out the links to his social media and the books. Thanks again, Ray.

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

Flashy leadership fails long-term, even when it seems to be sailing along carefree much of the time. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn explains why the remedy to loud overconfidence is quiet competence.

Rob Artigo: Ray, I think we got a great topic on this one. We see a lot of high profile leaders today who thrive on, well, I guess what you describe as hype, bold promises and personal branding, the whole thing where you put your face on a T-shirt and everything’s suddenly, you’re a hot commodity. Yet many of those approaches, they just burn out or crash when the times get tough. I’m sure you’ve seen that over your 37 years at the helm of Micrel. You avoided the spotlight, you focused on steady execution. So, what’s the fundamental difference and why does flashy leadership so often fail long-term?

Ray Zinn: Well, because the focus is not on solving the problem. The focus on grandizing egocentric people who prefer more to pat themselves on the back than to be honest and upright individuals like Theranos. That woman that started that company, it was more to just to promote herself than it was to help the investors, those people who put their money up in that company. She was focused on herself and not the investors or the employees. And so, as you said, the quiet competence are not the ones that are out there grandstanding and trying to get the accolades of the audience as you would, but more are trying to help others. Trying to be helpful, trying to be honest, have integrity, dignity of all individuals, own up to your mistakes. That’s the quiet competence.

Rob Artigo: Quiet competence seems to create something the flashy styles really just don’t do. There’s deeper trust, there’s loyalty, loyal talent, and there’s resilience through volatility. And at Micrel, you led with humanity, humility, consistency. You expected results rather than rhetoric. It’s a huge difference in leadership styles from what you’ve done and what your examples are compared to what we’ve seen in some cases where we have these guys… You actually mentioned Elizabeth Holmes, and she’s an example of a person who became a billionaire. And really, it was all based on whatever got her thrown in jail.

Ray Zinn: Well, as you know, those individuals who are quietly doing their job, those are not grandstanding, know that actions speak louder than words. False promises, shadow promises, indirect promises, all these promises that are not substantial or substantiated, those are the ones you have to watch out for. Look out for people who are trying to scam. And really, when you think of people who are scamming, they’re not being honest. They’re not looking out for others, they’re looking out for themselves. That’s what a scammer is.

Rob Artigo: How does this understated approach attract and retain the right people while building what sticks the company together? You talk about what you infused into Micrel, it was necessary in order to keep the right people so that you always had that solid team that did things acted with integrity.

Ray Zinn: Well, that’s trust. You want to build that trust with your people, whether it be your customers, your vendors, your employees. Your employees are first. Of course, you want them to trust you and believe in you. And that’s the key that we had at Micrel was the element of trust because they knew that you were looking out for them. And whether it be, again, your employees, your customers, your vendors, you want to pay your bills on time, you want to pay your employees on time. You want to give them an honest wage. You want to give an honest product for an honest price to your customers. If you have a problem, you don’t want to shove it under the rug, you just want to get out and solve it. And that’s the difference. I think the key here as we summarize this podcast is being honest, being humble, being gentle, and recognizing the importance of others.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. I think this is something you talk about in your book, The Essential Leader. As the essential leader, you had to do this at Micrel, so that you could have the people that are learning underneath you, the ones that are mentoring, so that they grow to be leaders that have this leadership style.

Ray Zinn: Exactly.

Rob Artigo: Well, Ray, I want the listeners to join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. They can offer some questions. They can make comments there. Also, follow you at X, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And of course, your books are available, Ray. Tough Things First.

Ray Zinn: Absolutely.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. And the Zen of Zinn series one, two, and three. And as we’ve talked about on this program many times is the new book, Zen of Zinn Daily. Don’t forget the, of course, we were just talking about, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader. Please pick that one up, as well. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

Yes, you can own the Ugly Truth by keeping your mouth closed, or own it by speaking up! In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn says, owning the ugly truth by speaking up is the fastest way to resolve serious problems. Even when it feels a little scary.

Rob Artigo: Ray, your slogan is … I’m not telling you something you don’t already know. Your slogan is, “Do the tough things first.” Let’s talk about owning the ugly truth first. Do you feel like the fastest way to solve a serious problem is to be the first person in the room to clearly name the brutal reality, not sugarcoating or blame shifting or anything like that?

Ray Zinn: Well, close to doing the tough things first. Of course, if you own the tough things, if you accept the tough things, if you accept the ugly truth, then you’re more likely to deal with it. None of us like going to the dentist or the doctor because we don’t want that ugly truth. The ugly truth, of course, is we have to go to the doctor or the dentist if we want to solve a particular problem that we have. Owning up or accepting the truth rather than, as they say, shoving it under the rug, then we’re more likely to solve it, get rid of it, deal with it. It’s all part of overcoming procrastination. That’s the thing that we won’t accept the ugly truth. We tend to shove it under the rug or, as they say, kick the can down the road. Have you heard that before, Rob?

Rob Artigo: Yeah, sure. And I would think that if you do something like that, you can compound the damage. What’s the real cost? And time, money, trust, morale of letting a problem live under softer language for even at just a short time.

Ray Zinn: As they say, getting off track is easy. Getting back on track is difficult. And because it is difficult, we tend to push it down the road or kick the can. Accepting it, dealing with it, getting it handled, put it in the past as you would. That’s the key to being the successful leader.

Rob Artigo: Have you ever seen a situation where everybody in the, I don’t want to say just boardroom, but in the room are sitting on their hands and biting their tongue and not saying anything. So if everyone in the room already knows the ugly truth, but no one says it, who actually owns the problem and who owns the delay?

Ray Zinn: All of them own it. Everybody in that room, everybody that knows the ugly truth owns it. It’s not just one person. That’s the way a team is. A team consists of a group of individuals that are trying to win the game, as you would. Maybe they’re not always the one that are completing the past and entering the goal zone, but we’re all part of that team. We’re all blocking and tackling and doing our part of the team. So even though we have different roles on the team, we all are working together to accomplish the same goal. And that ugly truth needs to be accepted by the entire team.

Rob Artigo: Well, think about famous company failures like Enron. We’ve talked about them on this program. Enron, WeWork, Theranos. We haven’t talked about Boeing 737 Max, but that’s a huge one. Or just a personal, anything that you might’ve seen in your career. What moment could someone have said the ugly truth out loud and dramatically changed the outcome?

Ray Zinn: Dishonesty. Admitting that they’re being dishonest. I know of a company in the Bay Area back in the day when they were making a disc drives, put a bunch of bricks in their shipping boxes to make it look like they had all this inventory. And when it was picked up by the auditors, it felt like it was full of something. They didn’t open the box because it was sealed. And so they cheated because they wanted to show they had inventory. They cheated by just putting bricks in boxes. And that’s one of the famous ones that I know of.

So generally, the thing that causes the team to break down is dishonesty. If you’re getting a lot of fouls, if you’re getting a lot of yellow and red handkerchiefs thrown, then you’re not being honest. And there’s nothing that’ll kill a team faster than dishonesty. And so you need to fight dishonesty. And that’s the ugly truth is they need to all look at each other in the face and say, are we being totally honest? And that’s the ugly truth that I see that is most difficult for a team and companies to own up to. Are they being totally honest?

Rob Artigo: I think some of the examples we gave when we’re talking about Enron and Theranos, and it seems like there is a point where nobody says the ugly truth, and therefore it festers for so long that, I mean, I believe the problem can become unsolvable.

Ray Zinn: Oh, because they don’t want to solve it. I mean, once you dig yourself in too deep, you tend to say, “Well, let’s see if we can just cover this thing up with some paint.” But ultimately the truth will come out. The paint-

Rob Artigo: Remember the electric truck? And they promoted it. One time they put the truck going down the hill so it would actually just coast down the hill, and it looked like it was driving at 80 miles an hour. And then another time when they were demonstrating it at an event, a major unveiling, they had to plug it into a wall in order for it to work. So like you said, they basically lipsticked on the pig and then had to eat what comes out of the pig in the end.

Ray Zinn: That’s interesting. Well, again, I think the ugly truth generally comes out when people know that they’re being dishonest or not being totally honest. I know it sounds strange because you’re either honest or you’re not honest. How do you be totally or completely or partly honest? But when they can’t look themselves in the eye or look in the mirror, I should say, and say, “Am I being completely honest?” If they can’t do that, then that’s the problem.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. And in the case of Enron, we know that some senior leaders conspired to make the major problems. They had a decent company in most parts, but then they had the one aspect that was doing all this weird shenanigans. Ray, we should have the listeners rate this podcast and build the reputation of Tough Things First, correct?

Ray Zinn: That’s it. Please invite your friends to share this podcast with them. Subscribe, be a participant. We need you.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, that’s right. And if you want to, go to toughthingsfirst.com. Ray has his links for his social media there, X, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and links to the books too, Tough Things First, the Zen of Zen series one, two, and three, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals that Make Up the Essential Leader. And on Sale now, joining the series, Zen of Zen Daily. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Yeah, please share and subscribe.

This time of year, many people around the world celebrate renewal, rebirth, and transformation. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn digs into his book Zen of Zinn Daily to say, “you can do better. Here’s how.”

Rob Artigo: Ray, as we record this, it’s March 31st, 2026. Your new book, Zen of Zinn Daily, compiles the best of your entries in Zen of Zinn One, Two, and Three. It’s a great series. The entries are daily entries, 366 days, because you include the Leap Year day as well. So for those people who are born on Leap Year day, you can celebrate your birthday and read the book at the same time.

You also then expand on your thoughts from those earlier versions of the book. You have really great little comments about that. Let me read this from page 45 of Zen of Zinn Daily for March 31st. It says, “Can you do better? Can you be better? This is a choice. It is your decision and yours alone. Do not be a victim. Be an advocate for good. Take control of your life.”

So here’s your response to that original quote. “This time of year, many people around the world celebrate renewal, rebirth, and transformation. Sometimes we renew completely to refresh our minds and bodies. Other times, we give or accept a new life, and yet other times we transform those areas of our lives that stand in the way of growth and potential.”

So Ray, the prompt declares that becoming better is a daily choice and rejects victimhood. How does this mindset separate effective leaders from those who stall in tough times?

Ray Zinn: Well, let me talk about the saying that I like to quote. “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow’s a mystery. Today’s the present. That’s why they call it a gift.”

Ray Zinn Cont: So we can’t do anything about yesterday. We can’t do anything about tomorrow. We can only work on what we have today. If you focus on doing your best today, not worrying about tomorrow or yesterday, do your best today, you’re going to have a successful life.

So focusing on what you can do now is better than focusing on what you did or what you’re going to do. I think the key here, can you do better, yes, but you can’t do better yesterday. You can’t do better tomorrow. All you can do is better today.

So it’s do it today, not tomorrow or yesterday. And I think that’s the key for this podcast is to focus on the present, not the past or the future.

Rob Artigo: Well, looking at the response, which came after the original quote, it highlights renewal, rebirth, and transformation. So in your experience at Micrel, how did you apply this idea of transforming obstacles into growth for yourself and your teams?

Ray Zinn: Right behind you is my book, Tough Things First. I focus on doing the tough things. Get those out of the way. The tough things yesterday and the tough things tomorrow are not going to help you today.

So you focus on what you can do, focus on those tough things that are nagging at you, that you can get out of the way, and do that first thing every day. Identify those. When you get up in the morning, identify the ones that have to get done first. And those are the bad ones. Those are the tough ones.

Eat that ugly frog first thing, as they say. The focus should be finding out what you don’t want to do. It’s called loving the things you hate. And that’s another one of my favorite sayings is loving the difficult things. That’s what makes you a disciplined person, because discipline is doing what you don’t like doing, that’s the things you hate, and doing them well.

Find out what’s nagging at you, what’s giving you heartburn, and learn to love those. Learn to get those out of the way. If you can love the things that are nagging at you, that are bugging you, it’s like Waldo Emerson said, “That which we persist in doing becomes easier. Not that the nature of the task changes, but our ability to perform it becomes easier.”

In other words, don’t give up, keep trying, persisting. And that’s the key. That’s what March 31st in our Zen of Zinn Daily focuses on is doing the tough things, persisting, doing those, and getting them out of the way.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, and I think that our listeners deserve to hear that once again. Briefly reiterate this. I want to ask you this question. What is the tough thing that they should do to stop being a victim, take control, and truly advocate for good in their lives and organizations right now?

Ray Zinn: Well, again, it’s not being afraid to face those trials, those tribulations, those challenges. Persist in overcoming them. You become a victim when you don’t accept, or at least validate, that these are the things that need to be done.

We don’t like change, and so we tend to ignore it, and so therefore we procrastinate. We put things off. Don’t procrastinate. Do them now. Get them out of the way. You’ll be happier, you’ll be more successful.

Rob Artigo: Join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Your questions and comments are always welcome. Follow Ray Zinn on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and of course, pick up Ray’s books Tough Things First, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader, and, as you know, the Zen of Zinn series One, Two, and Three.

And, as we read here, it includes the new book Zen of Zinn Daily. Pick them up and enjoy them. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

“Who’s on my team?” goes right to the heart of what appears to be a verbal civil war in public discourse. So, how do we build a team back after deep division? In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn has the answer. (Watch Now!)

Rob Artigo: Well, Ray, this is, as we do a couple of times a month, a special edition of the podcast where we’re on video. So if anyone wants to watch this instead of just listen to it, you can go to toughthingsfirst.com, find this podcast, and then click on Watch Now, and then you’ll be zoomed literally to Ray’s YouTube channel where you’ll be able to watch the video instead. And we look great on video, so check it out if you haven’t already. Today’s question, Ray, cuts to the heart of any organization facing division. Who’s on my team? Right now, I mean, not just in our organizations, but in our country, it feels like we’re in the middle of a verbal civil war. We have heated disagreements, fractured trust, and people questioning loyalties all over the place.

The tough thing is figuring out how to rebuild the team without papering over the real problems. So Ray, in your experience leading through tough times, what does it actually take to answer who’s on my team? And then bring everyone back together again in the end.

Ray Zinn: That’s a good one, Rob. This is one that I’ve been concerned about for some time. There’s just saying there’s no I in team, no I in team. And we talk about that a lot as we look at teams because a team that is focused on itself, we call those guys that are not team players. They’re grandstanders, they want to always have the ball and run with a ball, and they don’t involve the team. And the best sports teams are the ones that work well together. And I think it’s interesting that in the political environment, which is the thing that we’re focusing on today, there appears to be no team. Unless you look at the civil war that’s going on, the verbal civil war, the one group says, “Well, we are all working together.” And the other groups somewhat fractured, but they’re not a team in the sense of word pulling for the same goal or the same result. And that’s the thing we have to be concerned about.

So how do you pull a team together? How do you get the group dynamic to be together? Because you have to have a common goal. And I think that’s what’s missing is that defining what is the goal? No matter what the problem or issue is, we need to say, what is our goal? What is it we need to work together on? If we’re not together on the goal, then the result’s going to be chaotic. Again, going back to a sports team, if the goal is not to defeat the opposition, then what is the goal? Now, it appears that in the political environment, there’s a lot of, “Let’s defeat the opposition.” Instead of looking at, “We’re a team.” Even in a sports environment, if you say, “Well, our goal is to please the people that are watching the game.” Then you say, “Well, okay, can you please both sides?”

Because in a football game or basketball, there’s two opposing teams, but it’s called teams with an S, team. I found this true in running my company, Micrel, that if we don’t have cross-pollination, if there’s not a group dynamic where we’re all trying to achieve the same thing, we form these silos. I don’t know if all of us are rooting for the same team. Are we rooting for one political group or rooting for the other political group? But they don’t succeed in a common goal if they don’t work together. Going back to the sports example, if the common goal is to have a fun game for the audience, no matter what side you’re on, then you still work together. You still try to play your best, you do your best, but you don’t become antagonistic. The sports events that are at least attractive or fun to watch are the ones where there’s a lot of cheating, a lot of dishonesty, when people aren’t doing their best, when they’re just goofing off. That’s not going to be good for the audience.

And I see that in the political environment that we’re not trying to please the audience or the country as a whole. Whenever you’re running an organization, no matter where you are in that organization, you should seek to have a common goal, even if there is opposition between the two parties or the two silos or the two departments. So the first thing is define the goal. Okay, what it is that we want to achieve? And it should be common, meaning should be that we both want the same thing. Even though you may have differences, you try to find ways to work together so that the common goal is reached. So we’ll refer to this as the common goal. Let’s take, for example, this TSA thing. The common goal for that department, TSA, is to get the people through the line as quick as possible and onto their flight, not tying them up in endless lines and making it difficult and problematic for them.

That should be the goal. And then we say, okay, how do we accomplish that goal? Well, we have to have the staffing, we all have to have the procedures and everybody working at the same level, and then we try to move the people through as quick as possible. The common goal appears to be, and this is, again, using this example, the common goal for this TSA issue is to make the people who are trying to get to their flight angry and upset, but not necessarily at the TSA people but be upset at the leaders. So it’s up to the leaders, as you would, to see that common goal is to get those people through onto their flight as quick as possible. And if they don’t do that, if that’s not their goal, then they all should be fired. This is the situation that we face now. And the government especially, is that we don’t fire these people often enough.

We should have people that want to work together, even though they have differences. I think the key is to overcome the difference so that you don’t have this verbal civil war that’s going on. It’s very uncomfortable. I’m not enjoying it. I’m sure the people watching this podcast are not enjoying it. We need to find a way to have commonality in our objectives.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. And unfortunately, with the political environment, we have a lot of people who are very loyal fans of a very loud person, one loud person. And then over here, you have another group of people who are constituents of that or supposedly constituents of that person, and they make enough noise where they get all the attention, then they just move on. We’ll end this podcast, Ray, that was a great explanation of what was going on here. I want people to join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Your questions, of course, listeners are always welcome, also your comments. And if you want to rate this podcast at your favorite platform, please do, because we need the attention and we want it, and we appreciate whatever input you have. Follow me up… Yep.

Ray Zinn: Rob, what we have to do is we have to get our audience to invite others to join because these are difficult things to achieve, are these podcasts. And we need our audience passing the word along if they think it’s valuable, and help us get more activity on our website for these podcasts that we’re doing. Please invite your friends, share these podcasts, talk them up so that people can benefit from them. So we need your help.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, Ray, and we also would like people to check out your books. We have The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader. And that is a fantastic book by you. We have your flagship book, of course, Tough Things First, and the Zen of Zinn series one, two, and three. And what now, Ray? Zen of Zen Daily.

Ray Zinn: And what’s behind you, Rob?

Rob Artigo: Is my Tough Things First sign.

Ray Zinn: Yes. That-

Rob Artigo: Yeah. This is the Tough Things First cover for the book right here behind it.

Ray Zinn: And these are the Tough Things First podcast.

Rob Artigo: That’s right.

Ray Zinn: That Tough Things First is a very valuable book for you if you want to learn how to run a good company, that’s a good book to do.

Rob Artigo: Right. And we tackle some tough situations here and questions here at the Tough Things First Podcast, but you really expand on it in the books that you’ve written. And you’re always filling the world with some great wisdom, so we appreciate that. Thanks a lot, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Yeah, thank you, Rob.

A comfortable chair and money in the bank can shorten your career. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn discusses why discomfort moves people forward while comfort kills.

Rob Artigo: Ray, most people pursue comfort as a goal. If it’s comfort you’re after each day, you’re liable to just become lazy. Am I wrong?

Ray Zinn: No, you’re 100% right. Comfort defines lazy.

Rob Artigo: Where have you seen comfort creep into work environments? We talk about AI a lot on this podcast, and AI can be useful, but it can also lead to complacency where you use AI to draft emails, for example, and maybe you don’t even know what is in the email because you’re in the fast-paced environment. You sort of just skip over it. Oh yeah, well, it must be good because AI wrote it, but it can lead to a sense of being complacent.

Ray Zinn: Yeah, it is so true. It impersonalizes our relationship. Last night, I asked Alexa, “Where do you live?” And because it’s AI, she says, “I live in the cloud. I don’t have a physical address.” But it sounds like you’re talking to a real person, but you’re not. It impersonalizes a relationship if we rely too heavily on AI.

I can recall that when … Well, in fact, I think it was Elon Musk, I believe it was, that said that it won’t be too long before with AI, we won’t be doing anything at all. We’ll just be laying around being comfortable as you would. I think that comfort does inhibit growth and inhibit improvement in our lives. And so I don’t want to become lazy. I don’t want AI to take over all that I’m doing. That would impersonalize my relationship with my family and with my friends if I just become complacent, accept comfort as you would.

I remember this is several years ago, but I was giving a seminar at a school and it was in the Bay Area. The students came dressed in their pajamas. They were laying on beanbags. I was dressed in a suit and they were eating, I don’t know, cinnamon rolls and all kinds. They were just laying back and I was totally dismayed by the way that looked. They weren’t sitting in a desk with tables and chairs and stuff. They were laying in beanbags with their laptops laying on their legs.

And it was just pathetic. I thought, well, we’re raising a bunch of lazy kids. It wasn’t a very structured environment. And obviously structure has its downside and there’s nothing wrong with kicking back and enjoying life. But if that becomes your life, I guarantee you, you’re not going to progress. You’re not going to grow. You need to have adversity to grow. As they say, adversity is like manure. It stinks, but it helps us grow. So we need a little bitter in our life in order to enjoy the sweet. If we become too comfortable, then we will stymie as a person, as a nascent, as a people. We won’t grow.

Rob Artigo: Listeners out there can pick up a pen right now, and we’re going to give them a list of ways to make this part of your daily philosophy in the way that you operate. And I know this for you, Ray, obviously you believe that excellence isn’t accidental. It just doesn’t just happen. If that was the case, you could just sit around and wait for success to come and land on your desk. And that’s not how it works. It takes work to get there.

Ray Zinn: If nothing is happening, nothing will happen.

Rob Artigo: And really, that’s you. You talked about you get up in the morning every day and you start with exercise. You need to have your brain exercising during the day too. Comfort means that you’re not working on anything in your mind.

So number one on this list, calculated risks as a daily practice. That you’re starting out the day knowing what you have to deal with and you’re putting it into practice. And then there’s number two. Don’t wait for crisis. In other words, I mean, a lot of people can be prodded into action if they’re under enough pressure, but if they’re waiting for the crisis to happen for them to get into gear, then they’re wasting an opportunity, right?

Ray Zinn: Yeah. Well, it happened in 2001, that 9/11 thing where they hit the Twin Towers. That’s another example of waiting until it happens, as you would. We have to anticipate these sort of things in order to be prepared for them. Don’t wait for another 9/11.

Rob Artigo: Number three on the list, honest self-assessment. No sugarcoating. That means really being able to look at yourself in the mirror and be honest with yourself.

Ray Zinn: Yeah. And the key here is that if you don’t love yourself, you’re unlikely to love others. And to love yourself also means you have to be proud of who you are. And then you’ll look for the good in others. If you look for the good in yourself, you’ll look for the good in others.

Rob Artigo: Number four, virtually an assignment every week. You should be evaluating yourself honestly, like it says in number three, but also recognize where am I hiding? And I know that when you were CEO of Micrel, when you would ask for the pros and cons from people, you always wanted them to bring to the table a list of cons that are equal to the list of pros so that you were able to be really honest with it. This is a place where you’re saying, hey, you can be honest with yourself and ask yourself, what are the cons that I’m hiding?

Ray Zinn: There’s an ups and there’s downs in life. To say there’s only ups, which is the pros is just crazy. It’s insanity. So you know there’s going to be downs, and that’s the cons. And so knowing what those cons are will help you prepare and enjoy the ups, as you would, what the pros are.

In my experience, when I’ve asked for an evaluation of a particular product or idea, I get about twice as many pros as I do cons. They don’t want to show the cons because they think, well, maybe you won’t want to do the project if they see these cons. And it’s just terrible because that means they’re not looking at the downside and you want to be prepared for it. As you flip a coin, the heads and tails equally. So there’s an equal number of ups as there are downs or downs as there are with ups. So if you don’t look for the downside, you’re unlikely to really be successful in whatever project you’re going to pursue.

Rob Artigo: And last on the list, Ray, of course, it’s do the tough things first. But for the purposes of this list, we said eat the ugly frog first. I mean, really, if you’re going to make something part of your personal ethos, it should be start with the toughest things first.

Ray Zinn: Exactly. So it was called Loving the Things You Hate. So if there’s something I don’t want to do or don’t like doing, I’ll do it first. I’ll get it out of the way and then I’ll enjoy the rest of the day. So there’s a saying about that. Get it out of the way and you’ll enjoy the rest of the day.

Rob Artigo: And we learn that frequently here on The Tough Things First Podcast. I would like to invite the listeners to rate this podcast and follow it on their favorite platform, whatever it may be, wherever it happens to be that you’re getting this podcast right now. We like to direct you to toughthingsfirst.com where all of the podcasts are available and you can go there. And if you need to, you can read it because we have transcripts for those podcasts as well. You can read up on it, peruse it a little bit. And if you see a little watch now link, that means that you can watch the video of the podcast and enjoy it that way.

Follow Ray on X, Facebook and LinkedIn and pick up the books. Tough Things First and as you know, the Zen of Zinn series one, two, and three, those are must reads and so is The Essential Leader, 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals that make up the Essential Leader. Soft launch in March, The Zen of Zinn Daily. It’s a book of inspirational raisin quotes and action items that you can start your day off on the right foot every day. The Zen of Zinn Daily. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thank you, Rob.

Ray Zinn is not just the Longest Serving CEO in Silicon Valley History, he’s a man that does not retire or quit. In this special edition of the Tough Things First Podcast, Ray talks about his new book aimed at inspiring the next generations to do the same. One day at a time. Zen of Zinn Daily is 365 days of inspiration with action and you can start at any age. (Listen here or watch on YouTube)

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

Rob Artigo: Ray, this, we did it last year and we enjoyed doing it when you did The Essential Leader. Back behind me here, we have the Zen of Zinn Daily Reader. This is the cover of the book. When you’re looking for it, this is it right here. This is the new book, Ray. Congratulations. This is an excellent start to a new year is to get a book out. And this is very exciting. So we have the Zen of Zinn Series I, II, and III, but this, you take some of your favorite quotes from the series, Zen of Zinn, and then you expand on it and do some actionable items, some comments. And it’s basically a daily reader. It’s a 365. You start on Day 1, January 1st, and you can work through the whole book throughout the course of the year. It’s pretty cool, Ray.

Ray Zinn: I know. I’m really, really excited about it. So it’s like a calendar. So you pick a date and you look at that date, and then that’s the thing you should work on for that day. And so I had a friend of mine over a few days ago, back on actually February 26th, I think it was. And so what he was telling me about was you have to know, because he was having some issues, and he said that you got to know the bitter in order to enjoy the sweet. And he was just discussing that with me and talking about his situation at home and the issues he was facing.

And so I said, “Well, you know, it’s interesting.” I said, “I have a book that I just brought out called The Zen of Zinn Daily Reader.” And I said, “It’s based on helping people through difficult times.” So he says, “Oh, where do I get it?” And I said, “Oh, you get it on Amazon or your favorite bookseller, but I’ll give you one.” So I went to my stash, as you would, and I gave him a copy and he said, “Oh, let’s look at February 26th.” Because that was that day, and so he flipped the book open. And sure enough, that book talked about on that day, February 26th, talked about knowing the bitter and enabling you to enjoy the sweet. And so it blew his mind. He just was, “What?” He says, “This is crazy.” We were just talking about this subject. And there it was in the book, how to deal with the bitter in order to enjoy the sweet.

Rob Artigo: And that’s really what you hope to get from reading this book, that the readers will use it on a daily basis to adapt it to what’s going on in their personal lives. Whether it’s work or whether it’s a business life or whether it’s their personal life at home, there’s a lot of wisdom in these pages here. And like you said, there’s dates.

So we’re recording this on March 5th. And so I’m going to read what it says on March 5th here. “When push comes to shove means you are going to get ‘er done, come heck or high water.” And so you elaborate on that by saying, “To finish the tougher of tasks, I like to lean on the inspiration of phrases like these. They have such staying power in the American lexicon because they are easy to understand and stimulate a sense of self-determination and motivation. Today, embrace critical, decisive action as an ethos with these phrases in mind.”

So your original writing in Zen of Zinn takes on a special quality to it when you elaborate and say, “Hey, this is how you can make it work for you today.” And say, “Today, do something. Today, take this action.” And in this case, it says, “Embrace critical, decisive action as an ethos.” And I think it’s inspiring. The whole book is really inspiring.

Ray Zinn: Well, you know, you talk about this particular date, the push come to shove. There’s that saying, “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a present, that’s why we call it a gift.” You can’t deal with yesterday. You can’t change it. Yesterday’s done. Can’t deal with tomorrow because tomorrow’s not here. So the only thing you can deal with is what you can do today. And that’s why they call it a present. It’s a gift. Don’t worry about tomorrow or don’t worry about yesterday, just focus on what you can do today. That’s what that saying and that musing is all about is focusing on doing something of value today.

Rob Artigo: And I think that a lot of what is written in these pages here is critical for recognizing that today has value. Really, you start the day by opening it up and saying, “All right, so today is February 26th or it’s March 5th or it’s December 19th or something,” and then you open it up and you read it and it gives you a chance to reflect before you get started. And it’s really, we always talk about get the day started by doing the tough things first. I mean, it’s your famous saying. And this is the way to put that foot forward and make sure that you’re starting the day off on the right stride.

Ray Zinn: That’s like calling getting off on a right foot, that’s another saying. So let’s look at yesterday and so let’s see what we should have done yesterday as just a comparison or example.

Rob Artigo: And then I was just flipping through here and noticing that June 23rd, I don’t know the… We’re looking into the future now and we don’t know what people’s experiences will be between now and June 23rd. And if you are inclined to think about the future, I wouldn’t suggest people dwell on worrying about what’s going to happen tomorrow, but at the same time, we know that things change. We live in an existence of life where circumstances change and then you don’t know what might come up. And on June 23rd, perhaps you wake up in the morning and you flip open to June 23rd and you see that it says, “Come as you are if you are proud of who you are.” I have been trying to read this without my glasses, so this is really great. “I have been taught that if you are not your best, why aren’t you your best? Strive to be the best and you will surely be blessed.” And then there’s a writing here about how to apply that to your life.

Ray, I think that people will get a great deal of benefit out of this. You can call it a self-help book, you can call it an inspirational book. I mean, how would you characterize it?

Ray Zinn: I think it’s a motivational book. It helps you get started in the morning. It gets your day off on the right foot, as we talked about. So that’s the purpose of the Zen of Zinn Daily, is to get you to look at your day, not yesterday or not tomorrow, but looking at this day and saying, “Here’s what I need to do,” or, “Here’s what I should do.” And it will help you. It’ll motivate you, especially if you take it seriously, you will become a better person. That’s the whole concept of the Zen of Zinn Daily is to help you become a better person.

Rob Artigo: We talk about ethos, which we were sharing in a previous reading, is that’s part of your legacy, that’s part of your life. It’s been this idea that you want to be able to inspire people, and this really does it.

I want to open the book up just so people can see how it’s laid out on the pages. So each one of these has a date, and you read the little italic segment, which is from your original writing, and then you write a little bit on how people can apply that to their daily lives. This is the Zen of Zinn Daily Reader, and I hope that people will go out and get it.

I know that, for example, it’s a soft launch. We call this a soft launch for a reason because it takes a while for the tentacles of this book to get out to all the distributors in the paperback and also getting it out there in the digital form. And right now you can get it just about anywhere in digital. Some places take a little bit longer to get the paperback in place.

But BookBaby put this together for us and they do a good job, so a little shout-out to those guys. And if you want to go to bookbaby.com, you can actually buy the book right now if you want to get the printed version. And that’s really the best way to apply this to your life is to get the print version so that you can have it sitting there on your bedside table, which was the inspiration behind this. And Ray, any words of wisdom to get this… We’ll close out this soft launch for Zen of Zinn Daily. What do you have to say to the listeners?

Ray Zinn: Well, I recommend you get the hard copy or the paperback copy because it’s like a calendar. You don’t do all your calendaring online. We have a calendar in our drawer that we pull out and look at. So what’d be interesting is if we came out with an actual electronic calendar that when they clicked on it, that it would load up their digital calendar and then they could go grab their book and it’d remind them to look at their Zen of Zinn Daily reader. And so that would be an interesting one for us to do as a follow-on as to how we could populate that into their calendar, their digital calendar, not their manual calendar, their physical calendar, but their digital calendar. So anyway, that’s a suggestion.

Rob Artigo: I mean, if we could figure out how to get it to vibrate on the phone and just like…

Ray Zinn: There you go.

Rob Artigo: Hey, pick up your book and then set off on the right foot for the rest of the day.

And I want to thank all the listeners for joining us for this soft launch of Zen of Zinn Daily, and please get the book and the other books. We have Zen of Zinn I, II, and III, which is a compendium of all those musings and writings that you’ve done over the years. And then, of course, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals that Make Up the Essential Leader. That’s the, really, a must read for folks out there wanting to make it in the business world, and of course, in their lives. They can adapt that to their daily lives as well.

Right now, Zen of Zinn Daily available. Right here, you can see it behind me. This is the cover you want to look for. Get the book, check it out, and make it part of your life every day.

Thanks, Ray. A great contribution to humanity. Am I overstating it?

Ray Zinn: No. Well, it’s a launch.

Rob Artigo: All right. Well, it is a book, and it’s a healthy thing to do every day. Always be positive when you wake up in the morning. That’s the way to live. And I think that’s the message we get regularly from Ray. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Yeah. We have our other books, Potential Leader. And so our first book is the Tough Things First, and the series of Zen of Zinn, they can still get I, II, and III. And of course, the new one, The Zen of Zinn Daily. We’d invite everybody to grab those copies and put them on your bookshelf. And not just leave them on your bookshelf, but also read them. You’ll —

Rob Artigo: And you mentioned, Ray, that you have a stash of these books, and maybe one lucky listener will send you an email or something and ask for a signed copy or something, you know? You never know.

Ray Zinn: Never know.

Rob Artigo: All right, Ray, thank you.

Ray Zinn: Thanks.

The smallest daily rituals can be transformational if not ignored. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn explores the idea that what do everyday, when you least feel like it, builds grit unlike anything else.

Rob Artigo: Ray, I know this is a rhetorical question for you because I know the answer already in advance, but I’m going to ask it anyway. When you were CEO of Micrel for 37 years, if your morning routine was broadcast to your teams or the biggest competitors in your field, would you feel proud or embarrassed?

Ray Zinn: I’d be very proud.

Rob Artigo: I thought so. So you start out with a workout and then of course we know that you do the tough things first. Why do the smallest daily rituals done when you least feel like it build more grit than the biggest one-time heroic effort?

Ray Zinn: Well, because it’s the little things that build into big things. And so if you don’t exercise, if you don’t eat right, those sound like little things, but at some point it’s going to affect your health and your health is going to affect your ability to perform your job. Practicing and developing these little habits, as you would, they’re very routine, but they’re very important because little things become big things. We’ve read recently about a lot of airline crises that were associated with little mishaps happening along the way that caused our catastrophe.

So don’t minimize your daily routine. When you get up in the morning, I would start out with a good workout routine, either jogging or weightlifting or doing something that will help build your body physically because that strengthens you mentally also. Then have a good meal, a good breakfast in the morning, getting prepared for the day as you would. So early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. That’s an old saying. But those daily habits, those little tidbits of things that you do will be the ones that strengthen you.

And so it’s little bad habits also that can lead to some big bad habits. In my experience, a bad habit only takes a few weeks to develop and a good habit takes a few months. Avoid those little bad habits because they will become the wrinkle in your armor, as you would, and preventing you from succeeding as an employer or employee or as a father or a mother or whatever. Having those good little habits are the ones that are going to strengthen you and will keep you as a good, productive, functioning individual.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, it seems like a bad habit could be not just in the morning, but in the afternoon. I mean, if your habit is to go to happy hour every day after work, that’s going to weigh on your body a lot. And it’s another one of those things that once you start doing it, it’s really hard to stop. It’s a bad habit and it tends to be a problem for you. So Ray, how did doing the tough things first in the morning change I guess the power dynamic between you and your own excuses for the rest of the day? I mean, there must have been a time when you kind of switched from winging it to thinking, “I’m going to do the tough things first.”

Ray Zinn: Well, we started about that good little habits in the morning. If there’s something you don’t want to do, then do it first. I learned to love the things I hated. I know it sounds like an oxymoron, but loving the things you hate disciplines you in doing things that you don’t like doing and doing them well. So I focused on if there’s something I said, “Oh man, I don’t want to do that,” I did it first thing, got it out of the way so that the rest of the day went smoothly.

So even to this very day, this very moment, I can tell you that I focus on what … And when I get up in the morning or even the night before, I think about what is it I don’t want to do today? I know it sounds strange, but I say, “What is it I don’t want to do?” And that’s when I jump on that one, get it done first. And I can tell you that I have no regrets, and this is true, even at my advanced age, I don’t have any regrets. And I can tell you that I love things that I hated to do in the past.

I’m learning to write music and I hated that. But I’m learning. I mean, I’m focusing on doing that, even though I hate it. It’s like tap dancing. Somebody said, “Hey, how about at your advanced age as a great grandfather, how’d you like to learn how to tap dance?” I wouldn’t. That would not be on my list, but I would do it just because I want to learn to like something that I didn’t think I would like. So again, we tend to do things we want to do and avoid the things we don’t want to do. So what we got to do is learn to accept as part of our routine doing things that we don’t want to do.

Rob Artigo: So final question, and it’s a tough one, I think. Why does I just do it every day, no exceptions, sound so simple yet it feels really hard to accomplish?

Ray Zinn: Because it’s a routine. Getting into a routine, and we’re not talking about a rut, This is different than a rut, we don’t want to get into a rut. We’re talking about a good routine. Having that established good routine, exercise, eat good meals, go to bed early, wake up early, have a time with your family, and just developing those habits that are routine, but good, good routine, is key to being successful.

Rob Artigo: Well, for the listeners, rate this podcast and follow it. It’s a very popular podcast, but it could be more popular with your help. And also, if you want to join the conversation and continue your daily education, go to toughthingsfirst.com. There’s all kinds of information there. Ray is all over social media, X, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and he has books. He has the Tough Things First. Also, the Zen of Zinn series one, two, and three coming soon. The Zen of Zinn Daily, which you are going to absolutely love. And on sale now, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader. Thanks, Ray.

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

Bridging divides between veteran executives and younger talent, emphasizing mutual respect to foster innovation without losing foundational principles. Join Ray Zinn, the longest serving CEO in Silicon Valley history for answers. (Watch Now On YouTube…)

Rob Artigo: This is a special edition of the Tough Things First Podcast, Ray. It is available on video. If listeners want to watch it, they can just go to toughthingsfirst.com and find the podcast. Just click the link for Watch Now, and you’ll be all set.

Ray, this is an interesting topic, kind of a minefield in modern times, because there’s a lot of talk about generational gap. When you’re running a business or running teams in tech or whatever the environment is, navigating the generational gaps in teams can be somewhat challenging. You, Ray, have worked with many college-aged kids who are searching for the next innovation or something they can wrap their entrepreneurial spirit around. Kids often wind up getting jobs, and they’re in teams. They can’t really get a business started. They will end up getting a job, and they’ll end up in a team, a creative team, something, a design team, whatever it may be, and then they are there with much older, experienced people.

Do you remember a time when you caught yourself thinking, man, these kids, they don’t get it, or they’re saying, “These old timers are holding us back,”?

Did it turn out to be an accurate assessment, or was this just something that you kind of thought was happening?

Ray Zinn: Well, I don’t know if I thought it was happening. I have 22 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren, so I have a lot of generational gaps, as you would, in my relationship with my family, but I bridge those gaps.

The whole concept is to bridge it. I have to be able to think like they think in order to communicate. If I try to get them to think like I think, it’s not going to work because I’m a lot older. The whole concept of working together is to understand who your audience is, and I think that’s a key in the team. If you’re an older person, maybe a generation or two older than the rest of your team, or maybe it is half and half, you can be the builder. You can be the bridge builder by understanding and adopting, to some degree, their understanding of the world because a generation is roughly 20 years.

If you’re in your 50s, as you would, and you drop back 40 years, those kids are just getting started. Things have changed, and they change rapidly, especially if you, as the older person, didn’t have the benefit of cell phone or at least the technology of cell phones and computers, and you’ve had to learn. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, which is somewhat true. It’s hard to get older people to adopt the up-and-coming technology. Number one, they’re lazy. We are lazy. We don’t want to have to learn that. We think, well, we’re almost ready to retire, so why should we have to learn all that? But if you want to be an effective leader of your team as an older person, you have to get up to speed. You can’t just say, “Well, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” because that puts a stumbling block or a roadblock in the relationship between you and your team.

Rob Artigo: Ray, just a quick story from me on my side is that I think it’s always been this way. It’s kind of more difficult now, but I think it’s always been this way. When I was a young reporter, my dad went to the National Association of Broadcasters Convention in Vegas, and he came back with a little device called a MiniDisc recorder. And I bought a microphone for it, and I started using it. And you could edit on this device. You can edit the audio, and I could play off sound bites onto the phone with a speaker.

When I got hired at KGO, I’d been using this for a couple of years. I did it in Seattle at KIRO. And then I was in San Francisco with KGO, and I brought this device in. And the people who were there, who were roughly my same age, some a little bit older and had a lot more experience at KGO, they were still using tape decks. And they kept on using tape decks for years, even though I was using this device which was way easier to deal with, and they didn’t understand the concept I was trying to show them. But they didn’t understand the concept. That was a generational thing because I was an up-and-coming, new-generation kind of reporter, and they were great reporters, but they were still using old technology. And that happens, right?

Ray Zinn: Well, as I said, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. They don’t want to have to spend the time to learn how to do the new technology, especially if their older technology is doing the job for them. “Who moved the cheese?”, as they say. They’re not ready to go look for the cheese. They just want to stay with what they have.

We have to learn, as older people, to adopt new technology, new generation, or we’ll lose our team. Other words, we’ll be communicating on two different wavelengths. The focus has to be in developing a good working team is adopting the new technology or the new generation, as you would. I’m now doing AI material on my Tough Things First website and learning all about ChatGPT and some of the new AI technologies. And even at my advanced age, I’m digging in and trying to learn it and how to make it useful, functional in the things I’m doing with Tough Things First.

Even my books that I’m doing. And my teaching at the university. Staying abreast, staying up to date, no matter how old you are, is important if you’re going to bridge that generation gap. Otherwise, you’re just going to turn off those that you’re trying to lead.

Rob Artigo: For you, it’s not a matter of fear of missing out. It’s the idea that you want to stay up to date because, if you don’t keep moving forward, and that’s learning which you do regularly, then you fall behind. And when you fall behind enough, then you lose the plot, as they say. One last question.

I don’t know if there is a piece of hard-earned wisdom. But from the veteran side, have you noticed that there’s anything that the current younger generation is ignoring?

Ray Zinn: There’s that bridge between knowledge and experience. They have the knowledge, but they don’t have the experience. Just turning off the requirement for experience, I think, is a roadblock for the younger generation. They have to respect experience. And sometimes they say, “Well, you’re just not up to date. You’re living in the dark ages.” And they forget about how important experience is. Because the combination of knowledge and experience is what’s called wisdom. Older people do have more experience than the younger generation. That knowledge that they have, if it is based on keeping up to date with the technology, plus their experience gives them more wisdom than the younger generation has.

What the younger generation can do is help the older generation develop that discipline to learn the new technology. I know I said earlier you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but you can try. In other words, encourage them to stay up with the technology because, if they don’t, they’re not going to be able to bridge that gap between the younger generation and themselves. And technology doesn’t stay still. I mean, it’s rapidly changing. I never thought about the ChatGPT when I was in school 60-some years ago. I’ve had to adapt. I’ve had to learn. Here I am in my 80s, and I’m learning all about artificial intelligence.

Rob Artigo: It’s good to watch you doing it too. It’s fun. Lots of great ideas. And I want to thank the listeners for listening to the Tough Things First Podcast today. And also, if you did watch it on toughthingsfirst.com where you could watch the video, there is a link there at toughthingsfirst.com if you want to rewatch it. They can join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. If they have questions or comments, they’re welcome there. You can follow Ray on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, and of course pick up Ray’s books. I really want people to follow this podcast, also rate it, so we can boost its profile. In the public eye, it’s a very popular podcast, but let’s make it more popular.

The books are Tough Things First, the original book, his flagship book, 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, and coming soon, the Zen of Zinn Daily. We’ll be launching it in March, soft launch in March, and it’s actually available at bookbaby.com right now for pre-orders if you want to get it. You can actually get a copy of it right now if you go to bookbaby.com, and they have their bookstore there.

Thank you very much for listening, and we’ll see you next time. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.