Tough Things First

You might not think so, but interviewing a candidate for a job is not easier than being interviewed. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn explains the process from both sides.

Rob Artigo: This is a quote from page 46 of Zen of Zinn, your book, page 46, and here it is: “When looking for a job, are you looking for money or opportunity? Most employers will soon find out. If your focus is money, your chances are worse in landing the job. Employers are looking for loyalty and thus focus on your job history. If on average you change jobs every three years or less, this will not portray you as a loyal employee. Employers are looking for dedicated team members who have a track record of loyalty. When hiring, be aware of the same desires within each candidate.”

Do you ask questions about what their goals are and get them to kind of reveal, even if they’re trying to conceal it, but reveal that they’re in it for the money?

Ray Zinn: Yes.

Ray Zinn Cont: So one of the questions I ask is, “How did you like your last job?” If they said, “Oh, I didn’t like my job. I didn’t like my boss,” or, “I didn’t like the product line,” or they got all these negatives, that’s a red flag. If on the other hand they respond, “Oh, I love my job. I love the company. I love my boss,” those are all positives. And so you say, “Then why are you leaving?”

If you’re moving, if you’ve gone from one city to another, that’s understandable. But if you’re within the same, as you would, block of the new company you’re going with, then you have to say, “Well, they’re cutting back,” or, “I don’t see any more opportunity for me. I’m topped out in my current job,” then those are good responses. If you give negative responses about your previous job, then that’s a red flag for the people that you’re trying to hire. That’s what I meant by if you’re focused on opportunity, that’s one thing. If you’re focused on money, that’s another.

Now, generally, when you interview somebody or if you’re an interviewee, you won’t talk about money at that point in the interview, but you can find out if that’s the focus when you interview the potential or the applicant. You can ask them, “How was the pay? How’d you like your remuneration, the benefits or whatever at your previous company?” And then you’ll get whatever responses they give. But if it’s negative, that’s a red flag.

So again, if you’re an applicant that you’re interviewing with a company, don’t respond negatively. If you’re an employer talking to the applicant, then you want to look for negative responses. So you can ask different kinds of questions about how’d you like your work area, where you worked, your office? Was it an open space? Would you have your own individual office? You can ask them how did you like the benefits of the company or how do you like the employees that you worked with? Or how’d you like your boss?

And you can keep asking those kinds of questions, and if you get a negative response, be careful. And my advice is be positive. Make sure that your responses are truthful. You don’t want to indicate that you’re not loyal, that you’re an easy person to work with. You want to come across that way, not that you’re going to be a handful or a difficult person.

Rob Artigo: Let’s say a more cynical youth was listening to this podcast and they heard all that advice. And then they go into a interview and they decide that what they’re going to do is just tell the interviewer what they think they want to hear. Can you tell as an interviewer when somebody is just feeding you a bunch of information that is really just sort of cookie cutter, they think this is what you want to hear?

Ray Zinn: Well, sure, absolutely. You can ask different questions in different ways. And again, whether you’re an interviewee or an interviewer, you can ask. As an interviewee, you can also ask the interviewer questions that also talks about what kind of company you’re going to be joining. You could ask what’s your turnover. If they say their turnover is greater than 15 or 20%, then you want to stay away from that kind of company.

If you’re wanting to know about reviews, how often do you get reviews, you say, “Well, we don’t do reviews,” that’s a red flag. If you say, “Well, we review our employees every quarter or every three months or every six months,” that’s a good response. Annual reviews are okay, but they’re not as good. You don’t get as good a feedback. And then you can also ask an interviewer if you could talk to one of the employees in your interview process.

If you’re an interviewer, you can ask them about how often they did reviews at your previous company, how’d you like the way they did reviews? Were they more positive or more negative? I mean, there’s several ways you can get information depending upon which way the conversation or the interview process goes. So no, you can figure it out if they’re being honest or not, both in terms of the employer as well as the employee or the applicant.

Rob Artigo: It’s hiring people and getting hired seem to be equally as difficult.

Ray Zinn: Exactly.

Rob Artigo: So I want to tell the listeners they should rate this podcast and also follow it so that we get a little bit more traction. We’re doing well. It’s a very popular podcast and we want to continue that trend. Please rate it and let us know what you think also at toughthingsfirst.com. Follow Ray on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And of course, pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First, the Zen of Zinn series, 1, 2, and 3, and coming soon, the Zen of Zinn Daily, which is fantastic, a combination of a lot of those books. And on sale now, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn explores the often maligned idea that, when it comes to leadership, kindness and positive reinforcement are more effective at persuasion and achieving desired results than an iron fist.

Rob Artigo: You have been an example of servant leadership leading with grace, not power. That’s part of your philosophy. In your book, The Essential Leader, you talk about why that’s an important attribute for a good leader, for the essential leader. The question I have for you is have you noticed if modern leaders rely on authority, control, or incentives to drive performance instead of what you would consider a singular fundamental leadership example, leading with grace?

Ray Zinn: I think because of the lack of understanding of servant leadership, most of our leaders, especially in the political environment, lead with power and authority. They can’t seem to lead with love and respect, which I think are the more important, which is grace. Grace is charity, benevolence, virtuous, kindliness. Those are the characteristics of a servant leader, someone who doesn’t lead with power but rather leads with love.

Ray Zinn Cont: I liken this again to that shepherd and a sheep idea. A shepherd doesn’t get behind the flock and drive them with the staff, he’s in front. The sheep follow the leader because he is respected and loved. He’s protective. So a good servant leader is a protector. He protects his flock and he shows love and respect for them and leads with charity and benevolence. The reason we have so much divisiveness in this country is because our leaders are leading with power and authority, saying how great I am, how wonderful I am, how spectacular I’ve been doing, and it’s all about me, me, me, me rather than about you, you, you, you, you.

And at Micrel, the company that I founded in 1978 and sold in 2015, I led it for 37 years, we had very low turnover. In our company, we did a study. We would try to determine why people leave. In other words, we do an interview with them, HR, Human Resources does an interview with each employee that leaves and ask them why they’re leaving the company. We found that 75% of all employees that are leaving the company leave because they didn’t like their supervisor. The supervisor led with power and authority rather than with love and respect. You like to be around people, your friends, look at your friends you have, who love you, who respect you, who compliment you, and they lead with a very kindly and benevolent attitude.

In Micrel, we had the lowest turnover in the industry. In fact, we had half the turnover of our competitors, and the reason is because we worked with our management, our leaders, and teaching them to be more Christ-like, more loving, more benevolent, more willing to be a leader and not a pusher as you would, or a driver.

So the whole concept of servant leadership is that you don’t put yourself out there as the big dog, the big chief. You’re more submissive, meaning you’re willing to be one of them rather than over them. So I don’t call it being under, I don’t mean that, but I mean do you want to be with them? I was helping somebody, somebody was doing something for me on a ladder and the ladder was up 14 feet. As he went up the ladder, I stood behind it and held onto it, and when he came back down, he says, “Well, thank you. I’m impressed the fact that you held onto the ladder.” And I said, “Well, I’m supporting you, I’m protecting you.” And he really appreciated that because normally when he climbs the ladder, no one’s there to help or to support.

So a good leader is there to hang onto the ladder, to be the protector, to look out for them, and they feel it and they recognize that that’s what your goal and your intent is. Those kind of leaders are the ones that are going to be the most loved. Again, we are not trying to make our employees submissive. We don’t want them to feel put upon. We want them to feel that they’re part of the team and that you’re not standing over them. Also, when I ran Micrel, I made sure that my salary wasn’t any greater than 10% higher than the lowest paid employee. That again, was to show that I’m there as a supporter and a leader, not a taker and a leader.

Rob Artigo: And I remember in your book, The Essential Leader, you made up a fake.com that was a startup in this story, which is funny, it’s a play on an old fable, but the CEO takes the advice of someone that says that in order to get more money and seed money and whatnot, you need to show that you’re in charge. So you need to be on the floor above everyone else. And he had an office that was basically the entire top floor and a big desk near a window. That was it. There was nobody else up there, so he was separated. You’re a walk around and talking to people kind of leader.

In Silicon Valley’s high pressure environment, many leaders default to that sort of fear-based tactics. One last thought on that, Ray, what do you think before we close out?

Ray Zinn: I think again, we need to look at our political leaders and to get an example of how not to be, rather than how to be. This concept of me, me, I’m the greatest, the Muhammad Ali kind of thing just doesn’t fly with employees. They like to see that the leader is a supporter, like I mentioned about holding onto that ladder while that individual that was working for me climbed up that ladder to fix something that was up pretty high. So again, be a supporter, not a driver, not a pusher, but a leader. Get out there in front and show your employees that you’re here to protect them, to support them, to give them guidance and direction, not as a driver or a dictator, but as a loving, benevolent leader.

Rob Artigo: For our listeners, Ray, I hope whatever platform they’re listening to this podcast on right now, they will click on whatever rating system they have and follow the podcast, rate it and help us out at Tough Things first. They can join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. There’s lots of ways to continue their education on the website. Questions and comments are welcome there. Follow Ray at X, Facebook and LinkedIn, and of course, pick up Ray’s books, the Tough Things First, and also the Zen of Zen series one, two, and three. Coming soon will be the … What is it called? Zen of Zen Daily … I forget. Zen of Zen Daily. You can get that at Bookbaby.com right now if you want it in print. But we will do a soft start in March and then we will have that for sale for everybody on digital as well as print. The Essential Leader, 10 skills and attributes and fundamentals that make up the essential leader on sale now. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks Rob. Have a great day.

A thousand dollars to open investment accounts for newborns. The hardest to change to make this a priority may lie with the parents. Is it worth it? Why Ray Zinn says the answer is simple in the Tough Things First podcast. (Watch Now…)

Rob Artigo: Ray, the Trump Accounts, we’ve been hearing a lot about them lately because they’ve just recently been launched. And I think this topic is of value for parents who will have the option of choosing this for their kids when they’re born, but also those adults who have been struggling with understanding the value of saving and investing and really starting at a young age. And this is something that we’ve talked about on the podcast. And this is an interesting development here on the federal side that may give many of these new parents a leg-up in advancing their child in the future.

Just to remind listeners, the Trump Accounts are new tax-advantage investments accounts. They’re for US citizens. They provide $1,000. A Treasury-funded seed money for babies born between 2025 and 2028. They’re designed to build wealth through stock market investments, and parents can contribute to up to $5,000 annually with options for employer and state contributions. So Ray, how did this strike you when you first heard about it?

Ray Zinn: Well, many countries do it already, countries that are already focused on education. The primary source for growth in any country is its youth. And I’ve always been a big proponent of education. We’ve funded, my wife and I, hundreds of scholarships around the United States to different universities. It’s similar to what the Trump Account is doing. Only ours is called the Ray Zinn Family Scholarship Fund. And it is available at least at five different universities. And it’s really helped out students. So I’m a big proponent of education. I wish our country was more of a proponent.

We had that COVID issue that really has injured significantly our youth that were affected by that shutdown. And as you know, many universities are having to do remedial math for students that are starting their freshman year in college because we’ve failed so poorly in funding education.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, it’s a shame. And maybe this will force schools to pick up curriculum in the investment area, almost like a home ec kind of class where they learn about investments and how to manage money because it’s important. So how does starting a Trump Account force parents to confront their own discipline gaps early before bad habits are passed down to the next generation?

Ray Zinn: They’re going to be thinking about education at a very early time, especially families that are just getting started, these marriages that are in their 20s. They’ll be thinking about what this means for their children. It’s also to encourage families to have children. It’s a twofold thing. One is to get them prepared for education, and the other is to get their family going.

Education is more than just book-learning. Education is disciplining. And I’m a big proponent of discipline. Discipline is doing what you don’t like doing and doing it well. Going to school is more about discipline than it is about just book-learning, as they say. So I would encourage all our listeners out there who have that capability of still rearing children to be optimistic and hopeful about what Donald Trump is trying to do with his Trump account.

Rob Artigo: I’m thinking about Silicon Valley here, and you give seed money to a business that’s a budding business. And I know that you have ZinnStarter as well, another one of the programs at college campuses that you use. And you help launch these new ideas, these young entrepreneurs who want to start a business. You have a whole process that you go through to do that, but it’s pretty cool.

In Silicon Valley, we have pivots or business turnarounds. What parallels do you see between seeding a startup early and using a Trump Account to invest in a child’s future resilience?

Ray Zinn: It’s the same. I don’t have the Zinn account, as you would, but we have ZinnStarter, as you pointed out. ZinnStarter helps fund these entrepreneurial students who want to learn how to start a company. That’s the similar thing that we do. So we don’t call it the Zinn account, we call it ZinnStarter. And then, of course, we have the scholarship funds funding programs that we have at different universities. I think at least at five.

Scholarships are important, and the Trump Account is basically a scholarship program, and it encourages young families at a very early time to start having a family, as well as also preparing for their kids’ education.

It should help education. If the money is invested correctly, it should help education in general, because you’ll have these kids coming in that are already well-funded. And it also would cut the cost of education, the part that the government has to do in supporting these different universities if the money is prepared for in advance. So it also helps the market, because there’s money flowing into the market to be invested. So I think it’s a pretty good program.

Rob Artigo: I’d say for the parents out there, I wonder if there’s a simple rule that they could set right now when they get their account. Like for example, contribute before spending on non-essentials, contribute to that account before spending on it, to make those Trump Accounts a gateway to create entrepreneurial thinking in kids.

Ray Zinn: Absolutely. I mean, well, it’s a new program. And of course, with anything new, there are wrinkles that have to be ironed out. Let’s see how it goes. I’m a proponent of it. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, I’m a proponent of education in general, not for the book-learning part of it, but just the discipline that it provides and a very early age that the youth are going to need as they mature and provide for their families.

Rob Artigo: Would you say that if there was one thing that these new parents can do that would set them on a road for success? For example, what’s the first thing you do, is when you get paid, you contribute $100 or $200, whatever you can. The limit’s $5,000 a year for the parents, but anything you can do to get close to that over the course of a year would really be beneficial over 18 years. And what a lot of people don’t understand is how compound interest works and how that investment grows in the process, right?

Ray Zinn: That’s true. Again, you’re investing in your children’s future, and that’s the goal. As I said, there are wrinkles that have to be ironed out, but any new program is going to require some adjusting and so forth. But it does focus on the parents having children or married couple having children and then getting them to be disciplined and providing for that.

Anyway, I think it’s a step in a right direction, and I hope that the young families will get their arms around it and adopt it.

Rob Artigo: Well, Ray, for our listeners, as we close out this podcast, obviously, you agree with this, and I do as well. I mean, might as well just say that because it is a great educational opportunity. Our listeners can rate this podcast and follow it as well to build the reputation of the Tough Things First podcast. Join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com with your comments. Follow Ray on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and of course, pick up the books, Tough Things First, and the Zen of Zinn one, two, and three. Coming soon, we have the Zen of Zinn Daily. On sale now, The Essential Leader. Got the book right here. The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader. Get it. Thank you, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

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.