Tough Things First

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ray Zinn: Do what again?

Rob Artigo: It’s being a mindful leader.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The world of information is transforming at light speed, and getting sucked into a misinformation vortex is a constant problem. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn says, “Just the Facts, Ma’am.”

Rob Artigo: Ray, looking at page 26 of your first Zen of Zinn book, Zen of Zinn one. It says, you wrote this, “Get it right and don’t be bamboozled by others. Think it through. Does it make sense? We are inundated by the news media and other sources that try to influence our views and opinions. You need to make sure what you are hearing is based on facts and not opinions made to sound like facts.” That sounds like good advice, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Yeah, that one got a lot of responses on when we wrote that one. It’s like being confused with AI. AI can tend to overload us with too much information, and when we get overloaded, of course, it’s like an engine. If you overload an engine, you’re going to blow it up. So having the right amount of information that’s been vetted properly is the key to making the right decision.

Rob Artigo: It is a… When you look at it this way, there are so many avenues now for information. And even AI, which I’ve noticed is that sometimes you are looking for some detail on something. AI spits back some information to you. It all makes perfect sense. But if you don’t check the details in it, you might find that it, because it doesn’t really discriminate against sources very often. It’ll find something on the internet and I’ll see it as, oh, there’s some evidence associated with this that says this is a fact, when really the evidence is only siloed echo chamber fact. Just people saying, oh yeah, that’s correct. And AI might give you a sentence or two that is not true.

For example, like quoting a law, like Schmo versus Schmo as case law, and you look it up and there’s no such thing, it might even give you a number and there’s no such thing. Somebody just pulled it out or made it up. So it’s hard to determine in today’s day, particularly with, think about it with the deep fakes out there, the AI videos that people can make, the AI images that all you have to do is suggest to crock, for example, put a crown on Trump’s head or something like that, and then it’ll create an image that looks realistic. It is hard to tell. You have to be discerning. That’s where you take your personal responsibility to determine what’s accurate and what’s not.

Ray Zinn: Yes, an opinion is an unsubstantiated fact because you try to make your opinions sound like they’re factual and that’s not correct. So you question everything unless you have personal knowledge, you should question everything and dig into it and vet it and make sure that it is accurate and properly reflects the information you’re trying to decide upon.

Rob Artigo: When I’m doing research for anything I’m writing or creative work, I’m working on what AI does, and obviously AI is important because it comes up so often in our podcasts. But what AI does for me is it cuts down my research time. I can type in a prompt and say American name, name a couple of Americans who contributed to American leadership but aren’t often heard of in modern time. And then it’ll spit out a few names and then it’ll tell me the sources on those and I can go to those sources and look at them and say, is this what I’m looking for? And so that’s what you’re talking about here is whatever it is, you can go find a source and you can go find an original source on something. And sometimes a quote is not attributable to anybody. It doesn’t mean it’s not a legitimate quote, it just doesn’t have a, it is so old that the actual origin of it is unclear, but it doesn’t mean it’s not a fact.

Ray Zinn: Well, I recently wanted to find out who was the President of the United States during the First World War and that was William Howard Taft.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, right.

Ray Zinn: Before, I would’ve had to look that up, as a kid I had a set of encyclopedias that covered a whole bookshelf and it would’ve taken me hours, not hours maybe, but take me at least a couple hours to go find out, get that information. So unless of course you’re a student of that, then you know right where to go in the encyclopedia. But now all I got to do is just ask the computer. I said, who was the president during the second war or during the First World War and within two seconds he gave me his name.

So you’re right, you can learn a lot more information more quickly with the search process that we have now available to us. I wanted to know what the speed, how fast an F-22 would go, and it took me two seconds to find that out where, I mean, it wouldn’t even been in encyclopedia back when I was a kid, that kind of information. So yes, we have information. We got to make sure it is factual that there is good reference material to back up that information. We are able to do more and learn more quickly than we could 30 or 40 years ago.

Rob Artigo: The one word that you could ask a college student today and they wouldn’t be able to define it for you is the word glossary.

Ray Zinn: Yeah, that’s true.

Rob Artigo: Looking in the back of the book for a word and finding out how many pages it’s on and then find the encyclopedia thing is a great example. People don’t buy encyclopedias. It used to be a big investment families would make is they would buy a new set of encyclopedia because their kids are going to school and they’re expecting that they would have sources and really good information right out on the shelf there. Now that’s obsolete.

Ray Zinn: Yep, it is.

Rob Artigo: Same for law books and that kind of thing. Well, Ray, I appreciate the conversation. We have so many great topics here on the Tough Things First Podcast. Listeners should be aware of the fact that they should be rating this podcast on their favorite platform and give us our thumbs up, four stars or five boxes of popcorn, whatever it is, what kind of rating system they have there. And join us once again for our next podcast here on Tough Things First. Your questions are welcome at toughthingsfirst.com. Follow Ray on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And of course pick up Ray’s books. The first one is The amazing Tough Things First. You also have the series, Zen of Zinn one, two, and three. And on sale now, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader, a best-seller on Amazon. Thank you, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thank you.

Will Ai help develop a new generation of leaders or turn human brains off to the idea of decision-making with out it? In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn explores the nature of this serious question.

Rob Artigo: Got a good topic here, Ray. Let’s dive into how emerging technologies like AI are reshaping leadership roles like decision-making and team dynamics in modern business. Ray, has AI improved how leadership is defined?

Ray Zinn: That’s difficult to answer because AI is so new. It’s hard to understand exactly how it impacts leadership. Maybe organization work function, AI will have an impact, but leadership is still a personal thing; it’s not an AI thing. AI, again, is relatively new, and there’s a lot of good capability of AI and helping us as leaders. It does a lot of the menial tasks as you would that we might have to do like answering the phone or maybe doing a podcast with AI or whatever, but that personal relationship I don’t believe is going to go away, even though AI can make it pretty personal.

Rob Artigo: I look at AI and I think of all the possible benefits of it, but also the drawbacks to it, and I think we’ll cover some of that here. What about decision-making? Do you think AI has helped or hurt the process for a leader?

Ray Zinn: Well, it depends upon how you make your decision. What I do is I examine all of the options, alternatives, and then I check my gut. I say, “Well, how does that feel? How does roll off in my head,” as you would, and that’s how I make my decision because not everything is black and white. A lot of it’s very, very gray, and so I don’t know how AI can take the grayness out of the equation.

AI is impersonal; there’s no feeling involved, so in decision-making, there’s a lot of feeling that’s involved in the decision process. They say, how’s your gut? How does it feel? How does that roll off your head? Because you can look at the gray area in the decision much better than AI can. AI will just, at some point, just come to a decision, but it’s not based on your gut or how it rolls off your head; it’s based on a bunch of parameters that will help you make a decision. So it’s not a problem using AI to map out the pros and cons of your decision; that’s a good part. But then you need to look at those options, the pluses and the minuses, and then come to a decision. You can’t be caught between two points. I mean, you either got to go one way or another, and that’s where the decision… The decision is what we’re talking about, not looking at the alternatives of the options.

Rob Artigo: AI can’t predict or can’t detect danger. For example, let’s say AI is driving your automated car and you’re going down the street, and it’s the middle of the night. Let’s say it’s following a map, and it’s going the fastest route to get to your destination, and it’s taking you through an area that you wouldn’t personally drive through because it’s late at night, maybe it’s in a place like… In San Francisco, they have these areas like open air drug markets and the streets get filled up with people who are just strung out and have problems, and AI doesn’t detect danger. A human being would go, “I don’t want to go there, I don’t want to go down there.”

Ray Zinn: Well, that’s true, but AI can map those areas that are dangerous. I mean, they would reroute you. I mean, if part of your concern… If you’re a policeman, then you want to go into those areas, but if you’re just the average citizen, you don’t want to, and so it will reroute you. Just like if there’s a pile up on the freeway, it will reroute you. That’s a form of danger, as you would.

No, AI is pretty good about looking at all the alternatives, but as I said, when it comes to making a decision, they’re mostly not black and white. They’re not flipping like a coin type thing; they’re gray areas, they’re difficult to discern.

For example, this government shutdown that we’re going through right now, these are difficult decisions to make, and you have these polarized views on which way we should go. AI can run itself to death trying to help them decide whether to do a continued resolution or to continue with the shutdown, but it comes down to a political belief, and AI can’t do that. AI can’t do personal thing, which is that political belief. It can talk to you about the ramifications, like what it might do for the election in ’28 or what it might do for some other bill you want to get passed, but when it comes down to making that decision, it’s a human decision, it’s a gut reaction and not just some computerized model that defines which way you should go.

Rob Artigo: Well, is it possible that AI may make future leaders, some future leaders, at least, lazy and really unable to make critical decisions without relying on AI?

Ray Zinn: Yeah, I mean, even in school. I mean, if AI takes hold the way it looks like it is, I mean, people are going to even forget how to read a book or how to analyze a problem, because it’s all being done by the computer, and so if somebody says, “Hey, what is your decision?” And he says, “Wait a minute, I got to check with my computer,” that’s getting to be nonsensical. We don’t want to lose that edge that we have, which is that uniqueness that makes us not a machine, but it makes us more personal. We like that. We like to know that it was analyzed by a person, not by a machine.

I mean, can you imagine trying to choose a wife, or not a wife, but a spouse by using a computer model? That’s insane to say, “Well, I chose you to be my spouse because the computer told me to.” That’s not very personal; that’s impersonal. And so I think there are some control or some limits that we need to place on AI or we will not be able to make a decision on our own; we’re going to have to say, “Well, I got to consult my computer.”

Rob Artigo: Do you remember the name Paul Harvey?

Ray Zinn: Oh, yeah.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, The Rest of the Story, yeah, The Rest of the Story. He would always say that self-government will not work without self-discipline. I think AI falls into that same category, is that it will not work well for humans if humans don’t take personal responsibility for it.

Ray Zinn: Yes. As I said a minute ago, how would it seem to say, “Well, will you marry me?” and the person responds, “Well, let me check with my computer”? I mean, it doesn’t roll off my tongue very well to say, “Well, before I say yes or no, I got to see what my computer says.” Or, “Whether or not I should accept a job at this company X, Y, or Z, I got to go check my computer.” If we get to that point, then we’ll lose the ability to decide.

Rob Artigo: Wow. Heavy topic, but good podcast, Ray. The listeners can join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Questions and comments are welcome there. Follow Ray on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First and 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 it is a bestseller. It got to number three in its category on Amazon, and we’re happy to say that it’s going to have its little label pretty soon, little gold label that says bestseller. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

Work life balance. Is it a recipe for long term success, or a surefire way to fail? In the Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn counters the case made by some enormously successful CEOs. (Watch Now on YouTube)

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

Rob Artigo: Well, Ray, this is a special edition of the Tough Things First podcast, because it is a video podcast. If the listeners would like to watch instead of just listen, they can go to Toughthingsfirst.com, find the podcast, locate this podcast, and then of course find where … There’s a little button to click for watching the video. It’ll take you to the YouTube channel where they post the videos all the time, so I hope you enjoy that, if you choose to do that. If you don’t, still, we’re happy to have you here listening. Ray, I found something that I’d like to talk to you about. This is from a Fortune.com article. It says, “There are many workers out there who are perfectly happy clocking in at 9:00 and heading out the door at 5:00,” and Cerebras co-founder and CEO, Andrew Feldman, said, “They can have a great life. However, if you want to launch the next billion-dollar company or innovate a product, you won’t get anywhere at 40 hours a week.”

This is his quote, here. “The notion that somehow you can achieve greatness, you can build something extraordinary, by working 38 hours a week and having a work-life balance, that’s mind-boggling to me,” unquote. That’s Feldman, again, leader of the $8.1 billion AI chip company. He said that recently on a 20VC podcast. He says it’s just not true in any part of his life. Apparently Jeff Bezos agrees with this philosophy. There are other industry titans that believe in this. You’re not one of them, Ray. Why is that?

Ray Zinn: Well, historically, the work day has been eight hours a day, five days a week, 40 hours a week. Yeah, so if you think about what your effective work schedule is, because you have to have time to eat and sleep and do other things other than just be at your desk slaving away at whatever product line or business you have, it’s inefficient. It’s ridiculous. If it requires 80 hours a week to be successful, then you don’t have enough people, so obviously, if you can’t afford to hire enough people so that you don’t have to work 80 hours a week, then I guess you’d have to work 80 hours a week. I mean, you’ve got to do whatever you have to do to be successful. I know people that have a beauty salon and they’re the only one, they’re the top talent for that, to do that particular service, and so he has to put in whatever hours he needs to cover his overhead. He recently had a few people leave, and so he was taking over their customers and he was working 80 hours a week, but it was killing him. In other words, he had no life.

As I mentioned, there’s 24 hours in a day, but you can’t spend 20 of it working, and so if you just do the math on it, 80 hours a week, you’re working 16 hours a day, unless you’re working seven days a week, so it’s not really efficient or not a good lifestyle to work 60 to 80 hours a week. I ran Micrel for 37 years, and I believe the longest work week I ever had was 50 or 60, and that was during the time we were preparing for our IPO and that sort of thing, which required a lot of my personal attention. Having to work more than eight hours a day just doesn’t … If you just divide the day up, you’ve got three eight-hour periods in your day, and it’s very, very difficult to not have some form of life other than your work. If you have to give up sleep, I mean, I don’t know how effective you’re going to be by not sleeping, but I do know that some people try to get by to three to four hours of sleep, and God bless them for that, but they’re not going to be very healthy. Your health is important too, as you try to be effective and efficient as a CEO or as a leader of an organization, so again, I disagree that you have to work 80 hours a week to be successful.

Rob Artigo: Do you think they’re factoring in some things like, you get off work and you go home. If you’re the leader or the CEO or or you’re in the middle of developing something, that you can go home, enjoy dinner, enjoy some time with your family, but at the same time your brain doesn’t necessarily turn it off. Could they be factoring in some of the hours that you put in working where you’re just maybe looking at technical manuals or something like that at home, and taking up your own time to do that, or are they talking straight, in the office, going hardcore and driving, and being either always on the phone or always having a meeting, or always trying to develop something?

Ray Zinn: It’s at work. I mean, obviously you can’t turn your brain off, but your family knows if you’re not focusing on them or on something other than work, they notice that. Just because you’re home, if you’re on the phone or if you’re doing Zoom or whatever with clients or employees, they notice that. We’re talking about now not having your total cognitive hours focused on work or work type activities. I know people who love to work 80 hours a week. I think Donald Trump says he works, I don’t know, he gets three hours of sleep or four hours of sleep a night. I don’t know how healthy that is for him, but I do know that, they claim anyway, he’s running around the clock and just barely gets any sleep time. Even his hours of where he eats and has other things to do other than just work, he’s still working. I mean, even at dinner, I mean, he’s got other people that he’s surrounded with that he’s talking to, and on the phone with different country presidents and so forth, and maybe he can do that for a few years, but to do that around the clock, I don’t think it’s healthy.

Rob Artigo: There’s diminishing returns, because if you are … You were talking about the cognitive impacts of, the positive cognitive impacts of getting rest, letting your mind rest, so you can actually go drive for 80 hours a week and really only get 60% and even less productivity out of it mentally, because you’re not thinking totally straight, than if you worked fewer hours and gave yourself a chance for your mind to recuperate.

Ray Zinn: Yep. Well, that’s part of it too. You can’t exercise 24/7. You have to spell off a little while. I exercise five days a week, I don’t exercise seven days a week, and so you have to give your body a little chance to relax and to recuperate. I’ve heard that there are people that even conduct business while they’re taking care of some personal business, as they say, or even when they’re at the dinner table, but to me, it’s not healthy. I mean, your stomach, you can’t have a decent meal and digest that meal effectively if you are arguing with somebody over the phone. I mean, your system recognizes when you’re upset or when things aren’t going right, and so pounding your fist on the table while you’re eating or yelling and screaming into the phone is not going to help your digestion. I think there’s more to life to be successful than just working 80 hours a week on your job or your work function.

Rob Artigo: If I hear you correctly, Ray, it seems like it’s a … Excuse me. It seems like it’s really a matter of saying it’s okay to work a lot of hours one week. You just don’t want to make it a habit of doing that throughout your career, because eventually it’ll run you down and you’ll be less useful.

Ray Zinn: Yeah, I know people that literally believe they have to work 80 hours a week or they don’t think they’re being successful, and that’s just a mindset. It’s not reality, and so if you think you have to work 80 hours a week to be successful, God bless you, because you’re not going to live a long healthy life. I ran Micrel for 37 years and I’m still working, even though it’s been 10 years since I sold the company. I’m still actively either writing books or doing podcasts or teaching at the universities, so I haven’t backed off doing things. I just don’t believe that I have to work 80 hours a week to be successful.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, you have your own private plane, and I’d be worried about you, your longevity if I found out, “Okay, I’m in New York, I’m heading to Dallas right now. I’ve got to be in LA by 2:00 tomorrow afternoon. I’ve got a meeting there, it’s an hour. Then I’m going back to the Bay Area.” Something like that, I would definitely find that a concern, but there are people who do that, and I think maybe that’s the kind of thing you do when you’re 25 years old, but when you start piling on those years of hard work, like you said, the longevity’s not there, and then you’re just burned out or we lose you too soon.

Ray Zinn: Well, in my mind, to be successful, it has to be more than just your work opportunity or your work objective. You have work at home to do, you’ve got your family to raise, you’ve got service projects to help others in your community, and it’s more than just pounding away at your job function. Remember, there is a balance you have to have, whether it be in the way you eat, the way you exercise, the way you interact with other people, your family. It has to be balanced. Anything that’s out of balance, as you know, doesn’t do well. Tires on a car that are out of balance, you know what that does to the car and to you, so balance is important.

Rob Artigo: Well, Ray, I want to thank all the listeners, and in this case, viewers, for those who watch this on YouTube, on your YouTube channel. Thank you for being here for the Tough Things First podcast. You can join the conversation at Toughthingsfirst.com. Your questions and your comments are welcome. You can follow Ray on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and of course, pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First. As you know, the Zen of Zen series is available, one, two, and three, and on sale now, The Essential Leader, which is this image you see behind me right here, 10 Skills and Attributes and Fundamentals that Make Up the Essential Leader. Thank you, Ray.

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

Change is the one constant. Handling it is a skill in itself. Ray Zinn has seen his share and you can benefit from that experience.

Ray Zinn: Hi Rob. Good to be here today.

Rob Artigo: Great to be back, Ray. Job changes, industry shifts, entrepreneurial leaps, what do these all have in common? They’re all big changes, right. They’re big. They’re big life choices, or sometimes not even by choice. So we’re bound to face these if we are in the business environment long enough, but we do know they just happen in life. So what are some ways to build resilience so that we can get through those tough challenges?

Ray Zinn: That’s the willingness to accept change. That’s what it starts. If you’re intimidated, if you’re under stress because of the change, then you don’t have that resilience.

So, to build resilience, it means you have to accept change, because change is with us. Whether it be our family, our health, our personal education, whatever it is that bringing about these change, change is with us. We’re not going to ignore, or we can’t resist change.

It’s part of life and something we have to accept. So your willingness, your ability to accept these career changes, is just going to be more to your favor. You can’t grow without change.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. A company can also hit that… those moments too. When you were CEO, there were times when you had to make some changes, and I think of it as pivoting. We talked about on this program a few times about what that means, a way to retool and get going in a different direction.

But your company may face a change that you have to lead the company through. And really, it’s important to have the ability to have that mindset of accepting the fact that change will happen so that you can anticipate events down the road, right.

Ray Zinn: Yeah. In fact, I did a study when I was getting my master’s about change, and GE was a good example, or was maybe it was Westinghouse, one of them. It was either GE or Westinghouse. What they were doing is they were actually changing the color of the walls on a yearly basis. They would change it to a different color, and they would move people around from position to position so they get used to change.

So if you get… if you’re resistant to change, it’s called being in a rut. And so a rut refers to those wagons that back in the early 1800s, where they were having these wagon trains, and they would form these ruts in the road… in the trail, and then if the other wagons would just keep deepening the ruts. And so pretty soon the ruts would get so deep that the wagons were having a hard time because of the friction on the wheel being down several inches into the ground.

It caused the wagon trains to have a difficult time. They had to add more oxen and animals to [inaudible 00:03:14] wagons because the ruts got so deep. So this referred to as being in a deep rut. You got to have change. You move over, so you’re not in the rut. You got to accept change and actually invite change if you’re going to progress.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. And it’s not always easy to do with… if you are… if you’re ill-prepared. So that’s why you have to be… you have to anticipate change, and you have to be able to accept the fact that it’s going to be part of what you do.

Ray Zinn:

Part of that book, Who Moved the Cheese, was a well-known bestseller and talked about these mice that kept going back to the same spot for their meal. And then when that cheese when that got moved, then those mice perished because they were so used to having the cheese in the same spot, and they weren’t willing to go and search out where the cheese may have been moved, that they perished. So you either change or perish.

Rob Artigo: Well, let’s talk a little bit about transferable skills. So if I’m going to be ready for change, I’ve got to be able to know what my skills translate into, right. When I think of transferable skills, I think of a skill that is useful in one job and useful in another job too.

Ray Zinn: Well, in 2015, when I sold the company, I was kind of forced, as you would into retirement. But rather than just go off into the sunset, I started writing books, started teaching at various universities. I started a program called ZinnStarter at these schools. So I had to accept change. I was no longer the CEO of Micrel, a semiconductor company. I was now a retired person having to adjust to a different way of life.

I didn’t have thousands of people working for me. I just had to find something else to do to continue progressing. I won’t just say occupy my time because that’s more laziness as you would. But I wanted to find something more productive to do, not just go out and sit on the rocking chair on the porch. So I said I started writing books. I started teaching. I just had to change. I had to move with the cheese.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. And nobody says that you have to go off into the sunset, as they say, when you retire. You can pivot, and you can keep on doing other things. But that’s what you do. You’ve made a great living after retirement just by getting out and being proactive and staying involved. And that’s an impressive feat in itself.

Ray Zinn: I was talking to a friend of mine who was a CFO of a company. It’s a chief financial officer. And so when he retired, I saw him down at Costco. He was doing food demonstration at Costco. And I said, “Well, gosh, that’s really strange that you would go from being a CFO of a very important company to now you’re just preparing these food samples for people at Costco.”

And he says, “Hey, anything to keep me busy.” So it was… He says, “A lazy life is a lazy mind.” And he says, “Yeah, I may be… I may not be crunching numbers like I was when I was a CFO,” but he says, “I’m crunching these goodies and I’m handing them out and meeting and greeting people.” So he said, “It’s not the money, it’s how I spend my time.”

Rob Artigo: Join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Your questions and comments are always welcome there. You can 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 on sale now, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals that Make Up the Essential Leader. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks Rob.

Leading with emotional intelligence is a major part of success in any leadership role. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn outlines what is at the heart of developing this difficult skill to master.

Rob Artigo: We have talked at length on this show about your management style, walking around, getting to know employees, and you’ve written about it in your book, The Essential Leader. So I want to unpack that a little bit though, and talk in more detail about self-awareness, which you have, and also empathy, which you also have an abundance of, and incorporating that with your interpersonal skills to be an effective leader.

Are these essential attributes, to coin a phrase from the book, are these essential attributes that you’re looking for in leaders that you hire, as well as what you expect of yourself?

Ray Zinn: Absolutely. My thought goes to what constitutes a good father or a good mother. It starts out, when I’ve heard eulogies given about a person who’s passed away, the thing I hear about them, “They were a good person,” and I’ve never heard a eulogy for someone who has passed that wasn’t considered their goodness, as you would.

When I hear somebody say, “Well, that person’s been a good father or is a good father,” Or mother, or whoever, it’s because of their goodness. The constitution of a good leader is their goodness, G-O-O-D-N-E-S-S. Goodness. Okay. So do we need to define what is goodness?

Rob Artigo: I think you did right there. What is goodness? It is, to me, a peaceful presentation of yourself, to show your empathy, and, really, your ability to communicate. And I think that’s where you get the reputation for goodness.

Ray Zinn: And a word is caring. A good person is a caring person. They care, meaning they honestly and realistically care for others. They put themselves subservient to others. A good father, a good mother, a good husband, a good wife, a good employee, a good leader, that they all start with good, G-O-O-D, good. Good means you’re respectful, you’re honest, you have high integrity, you show dignity and respect for others, and you’re willing to put yourself at risk doing whatever it takes. A good father, a good mother, they look out for their children. Good brothers and good sisters look out for each other. Good husband and good wives out for each other. Good leaders look out for their employees. They put themselves at risk for their employees, I should say.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. Well, and in the workplace with, Micrel is a computer chip company, and you had design teams, you had people that were in creative environments, and I’m wondering if this approach as a good leader helps build stronger teams.

Ray Zinn: Absolutely. I mean, that’s what you want, is you want them to know that you care, that you show respect in all respects. You show respect for others, whether it be your customers, whether it be your vendors, whether it be your employees. That respect has to be number one. And what is respect? It’s a caring attitude.

Rob Artigo: And everyone knows that workplace conflicts do spring up. I mean, even in the best work environments, you’re going to have some conflicts, and they can be creative conflicts, or they can just be personal conflicts, and you just don’t like somebody. But I wonder if empathy and interpersonal skills make a difference in resolving these issues.

Ray Zinn: Sure. We just talked about that. I mean, to be empathetic means you are caring. To be conflict-resoluting, that means you’re caring. You don’t condescend, you don’t use foul language, you don’t use words or definitions of people that are negative or disheartening to those that you’re addressing. They feel your love, and that’s the key, is feeling that love and that respect is what’s key. And so if we can highlight the most important principle or factor to being a loving, caring person, it is to show respect for all individuals.

Rob Artigo: Our listeners can join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Questions and comments are always welcome there. Follow Ray on Twitter or X, depending on how you want to reference it, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And of course you can also check out Ray’s books, and we invite you to. Tough Things First is the first one, as you know, there is the Zen of Zinn series, which is one, two, and three. And on sale now, The Essential Leader. Pick up the books. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks Rob.

Making timely, smart decisions can be an everyday occurrence. But what happens when the pressure is turned up and the stakes the highest you have ever faced? In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn discusses the key elements of navigating decisions under pressure.

Rob Artigo: Ray, as CEO of Micrel for nearly four decades, you have had to make countless decisions, and so I thought maybe we’d explore just on how effective leaders like you make confident, informed decisions when the stakes are really high. Obviously you’re talking about employees’ futures, the future of the company, people making decisions on investments when it relates to your company, and then also buyers; the people you’re selling to have to have confidence that your company’s going to deliver properly. All of those things are really high stakes in decision-making. So let’s talk a little bit about decision-making and how high stress impacts that process.

Ray Zinn: Sure. Well, what I’d like to do is start out by talking about the culture. Every company needs a culture. And at Micrel, our culture was, number one, honesty, the second was integrity, third was dignity of all individuals, and the fourth was doing whatever it takes, no excuses. So those cultures help form and transform the decisions that we make. All of the decisions that the company made were, whatever the reason, were based on those four cultures as it relates to employees, of course, dignity of every individual. So you make your decision based on that culture of dignity and respect. And then whether it’s dealing with customers or dealing with a bad market, honesty and integrity are very important. So those were the basis of the decisions we made regarding how we run our business, whether it be honesty, integrity, respect, or doing whatever it takes.

Doing whatever it takes is really an interesting one because it talks about how you go about making a decision. Your first decision is, how do I rectify this mistake or this problem that we’re facing and doing it in a way in which none others than yourself will have to suffer? You have to take the biggest hit. And I did that when I was CEO, is whenever we had a layoff or whenever we had a downturn, I took the biggest hit. I took the most time off, or I took the biggest pay cut by a factor of three over everybody else. So I put myself at risk more than I did my employees.

So if you start out with that basis that, whether you’re an employee or whether you’re the CEO, that you’re going to make sure that no one suffers from your mistakes, that you take that responsibility of correcting that mistake, will be key to how well your decision is going to be accepted. When we had to do a layoff or when we had to do a cutback, reducing salaries, they knew that I was going to take the biggest hit. We’re all in it together, as they say. So if your employees or your customers know you’re in it, you’re in it to win it, as they say, then they’re more supportive. And that’s what you need. When you have tough decisions, just make sure that your employees know that you’re on it, that you’re in it 100%, and that you’re not trying to put it off on someone else, that you’re taking full responsibility for that decision. And that’s the key. Just saying, by the way, “Oh, I take responsibility,” doesn’t mean anything. You have to show it. It has to be absolutely clear that you have accepted that responsibility.

So that’s the key to good decision-making is that willingness to accept the penalty, not just the words, the penalty for a bad decision. That’s what it takes. It takes that willingness to make the reparation for your decision and that you’re not putting others at risk; you’re taking on that responsibility, and they can see it. That’s what my people, the employees at my company, saw my willingness to take the penalty to suffer the consequences.

Rob Artigo: In my experience in the Army, we called that lead by example. And you’ve always been a leader in whatever you’ve done, where you’ve set the example, not just in creating the culture, but in living the life. So you’re out there not just talking the talk, you walk the walk, and people respond to that. And I’ve seen that.

Ray Zinn: Well, it’s that Congressional Medal of Honor philosophy. The way you get a Congressional Medal of Honor, and of course you know probably better than me because you’ve had a good career in the military, is that you have… To do something outstanding, you have to take whatever risks that are necessary to save your company or those around you. You’re going to put your life more at risk than anyone else, and that’s how you get the Congressional Medal of Honor. And maybe you could speak a little bit to what that means, because that’s what good decision-making is, is getting that Congressional Medal of Honor

Rob Artigo: Yeah. And most of the people who have the Medal of Honor, not withstanding the fact that… Because people have been getting that award for long enough to where a lot of people end up dying of old age, but they’re deceased when they receive it because of decisions that they made, selfless sacrifice. And I think that’s what you’re talking about here is you’re saying lead by example. Selfless sacrifice is in doing things that you know put yourself at risk, but you’re doing it because you’re living your personal ethos.

Ray Zinn: Yeah, so to be the one making the decisions is also the one who’s willing to take the hit and suffer the consequences. So be a Congressional Medal of Honor winner, either as a leader of your company or as an employee. Have that mentality that you’re going to do whatever it takes, no excuses.

Rob Artigo: Well, Ray, our listeners can join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Comments are always welcome there. You can follow Ray on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and of course, pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First and Zen of Zinn series one, two, and three, and on sale now, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills and Attributes and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader. Thank you, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

How do successful people master resilience for career and life success? In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn says it comes down to mental toughness and the key to that comes from within you.

Rob Artigo: Well, Ray, let’s talk about how we can develop mental toughness to adapt, to change, and overcome setbacks. This goes to mastering resilience for career and life success because we do need to be resilient. In doing so, we have to develop a certain mental toughness. I wonder if you have an idea of what mental toughness is in your mind.

Ray Zinn: Yeah, it is based on confidence. It’s all about confidence, and how do you develop confidence? Well, that’s the key to our podcast today is how do we get confidence? Actually a trait that we have to develop even as a young person, whether you’re primary school, child or teenager or college. Developing confidence is the key to having this resilience. The way to develop confidence, it goes back to what your standards are, what your beliefs are, what drives you to do anything, whether it’s work or play or school or whatever, is you have to have that confidence that you can succeed.

Rob Artigo: Can we be overconfident because we’re overestimating what we can accomplish?

Ray Zinn: Sure. The way you become overconfident is an ego. It’s all relates to your ego. So if you have a really a pretty large ego, then you’re going to have what we refer to as overconfidence, and of course that can lead to failure just as fast as a lack of confidence. So you want to have a kind of balanced level of confidence so your ego doesn’t get in the way of your progress or your insecurity gets in the way of your progress.

Rob Artigo: Well, in investing, we talk about being risk-averse. Can people be change-averse?

Ray Zinn: Yeah, I think change is difficult for almost all of us. We all resist change, whether you’ve got overconfidence or underconfidence, or whatever your problem is, you do have this lack of focus and that prevents you from developing the proper level of confidence as you would or the proper level of risk that you’re willing to accept. Risk-averse is a challenge for all of us. We all resist change.

It’s like when I was learning to swim as a five-year-old, my uncle, my dad was watching, I actually can remember it even though it’s many, many years ago. I can remember it as clear as day. My uncle told my dad, he’s not going to learn to swim unless you just throw him in. Okay, just letting him paddle around is not going to get him to… So here I am, five years old, he grabs me and he throws me in the pool and my dad was ready to jump in and my uncle stopped my dad from jumping in. My uncle said, “It is not going to hurt him to take a few gulps of water.” So how do you learn to swim? Is by not letting your head stander too long.

A student asked Socrates, “How do I gain knowledge and wisdom?” And Socrates says, “Well, I’ll show you.” And he says, “Meet me down at the ocean tomorrow morning at six o’clock and I’ll show you how to do it.” So the student was actually there by 5:30 and Socrates walked out into the ocean about chest high and he said, “Come on out with me.”

And so then the student went out to where the Socrates was standing in chest high water and Socrates dunked his head under the water and held him there until he could see him gurgling and swallowing amounts of seawater. And then he pulled him up and the student was spitting and shaking his head, and Socrates looked him right in the eye and said, “Now what did you want more than anything else while your head was under water?” And the student says, “I wanted air.” And so the Socrates said, “Well, when you want knowledge and wisdom as much as you wanted air, you’ll find a way to get it.” And that’s the way it was when my uncle threw me the pool, he turned to my dad and said, “Look, he’s learned to swim already.” So, anyway.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, I don’t know. I have seen this technique done before. I’m not sure I’d want to do it because, like your dad, my impulse would be to jump in the water and rescue. But I have seen this technique where they’ve taken basically babies and dropped them in the water and within a few minutes they’re swimming around.

Ray Zinn: Well, there’s that saying, Rob, sink or swim. You ever heard that?

Rob Artigo: Yeah.

Ray Zinn: Okay. That’s what we’re talking about is sink or swim. Years ago when they had that research vessel capsize in the Baja California or whatever it is that ocean in between Baja and Mexico, there’s that research vessel overturned. There were like 10 researchers that were lost in that tragedy. I think it was, what they call it, chubasco. A big storm came up and caused that vessel to overturn, but three of them made it back to shore. So seven were lost and three survived. They were interviewing them and said, “Well, how did you survive? And the others perished?” And the three said almost simultaneously, “We didn’t quit swimming.” So obviously that says something about persistence and what we’re talking about being risk-averse.

Sometimes you just got to keep swimming, as that saying goes, sink or swim. So if you don’t want to die, you better keep swimming. Like Socrates says, when you want knowledge and wisdom as much as you want air, you’ll find a way to get it. So this all ties together, Rob, about how do you have mental toughness and resilience is you just got to keep swimming. You can’t quit swimming.

Rob Artigo: Right. That goes for your continuing education, your physical fitness, all of those things work together to help bolster your chances of success. Well, Ray, join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Your questions and comments are always welcome. Follow Ray on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and of course pick up Ray’s books, the Tough Things First book and of course Zen of Zinn Series 1, 2, and 3, and on sale now, The Essential Leader. Thanks, Ray.

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