Leadership Secrets Unveiled: Chris Pienkowski’s Insights for High-Impact Influence and the Attributes of Top Leaders (What To Do and What To Avoid)

Unlock the secrets of high-impact leadership with Chris Pienkowski, a seasoned entrepreneur and leadership development expert. In this eye-opening episode, Chris shares transformative insights on building confidence, developing emotional intelligence, and creating a winning mindset that can revolutionize your career trajectory. Are you ready to elevate your leadership game and drive unprecedented success in your organization?

Guest Bio:

Chris Pienkowski is the Founder and President of Straight Arrow Coaching, a leadership development firm focused on small and mid-sized growing American companies. With over 25 years of experience, Chris has started and run four companies, led turnarounds of regional and national organizations, and coached small business owners through critical growth stages. His expertise in systemizing and scaling operations makes him a valuable asset to leaders aiming for exponential growth.

Content sample:

1. Discover Chris's unique "Winning List" system for daily productivity and goal achievement.

2. Learn the power of "conviction and caring" in leadership and how it can transform team dynamics.

3. Explore Chris's unconventional approach to annual personal planning that revolves around birthdays instead of New Year's resolutions.

4. Learn the key attributes that create successful leaders.

Key Takeaways:

1. [01:13] The importance of having clear career goals and building specific skill sets for long-term success.

2. [03:42] The crucial difference between confidence and cockiness in leadership, and how it affects team dynamics.

3. [07:50] Developing emotional intelligence (EQ) as a key predictor of leadership success.

4. [20:45] Implementing the "Winning List" system to boost daily productivity and achieve long-term goals.

5. [25:59] The value of personal annual planning on your birthday to set meaningful goals for the year ahead.

Memorable Quotes:

1. "The greatest predictors of success for leaders is number one, a level of confidence, believing that you can achieve the goals that you've set out for yourself, for your organization."

2. "Your EQ, you can continue to build and develop throughout your entire life. So that is a skill that you can always be working on, always be raising your emotional quotient."

3. "Do something tough every day and you'd be surprised at the results."

Suggestions:

Ready to transform your leadership approach? Start by implementing Chris's "Winning List" system in your daily routine. For more insights on leadership development and coaching, connect with Chris Pienkowski on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrispienkowski/.

For more insights on career evolution and growth, connect with Jolie Downs here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joliedowns/

If you enjoy learning from others, please give us a like, subscribe, and share with a friend. If you are looking to add talent to your public relations, marketing, communications, sales, or business development team with the best talent, and quickly, check us out at paradigmstaffing.com.

Ending Note:

As we conclude this episode, we challenge you to reflect on your own leadership style. How can you incorporate Chris's insights into your daily routine? Share your thoughts in the comments or reach out to us with suggestions for future leadership topics you'd like us to explore on Career Wanderlust.

Transcript

Chris-Pienkowski-Transcript

[00:00:00]

[00:00:00] Jolie Downs: Welcome to the Career Wanderlust Podcast, your compass for new career horizons. Today we are talking with Chris Pienkowski. Chris is the Founder and President of Straight Arrow Coaching, a leadership development firm focused on working with small and mid-sized growing American companies.

[00:00:18] Chris has more than 25 years of experience working with and leading companies ranging from startups to publicly traded corporations. Throughout his career, he has started and run four companies. He has led turnarounds of regional and national companies. He's led business coaching and leadership development programs in companies of all sizes and coached small business owners through critical growth stages by systemizing and scaling their operations.

[00:00:45] I am super curious. I'm really excited to learn more. Chris, thank you for joining us on the Career Wanderlust Podcast. Thanks for having me, Jolie. Oh, I'm excited to have you here. And I'm super curious about a lot of your knowledge, because as an expert leadership professional, you have worked with countless executives trying to make their best impact.

[00:01:06] I would love to know what you feel has been some of the most important career advice for people to hear and why. 

[00:01:13] Chris Pienkowski: Most important career advice is to have a clear goal of where you want to be and what you want your career to look like. I've seen people just wander through their careers and then feel unfulfilled or have difficulty finding their next job because they haven't been focused on building a specific skill set or mastery in something.

[00:01:41] And I'm not saying that being a generalist is a bad thing, but you've got to have some kind of baseline of expertise to be able to justify being a jack of trades for lack of a better word. 

[00:01:54] Jolie Downs: I think this is great advice. It boils down to knowing what you want, right? You can't be successful unless you really know what it is that you want.

[00:02:02] And when you have a clear picture of what you want and what you want to do, it allows you to excel in such a way. Otherwise you're wandering around all over the place without the focus if you don't know what you want, right? 

[00:02:15] Chris Pienkowski: You're right. And that extends to every part of our life.

[00:02:18] It applies to our career. It applies to our personal goals. If you don't have specific goals that you're shooting for, then you never know if you've achieved it, you never know how far you are away from getting there if you've surpassed it. So I'm a big fan of setting goals and career goals, professional goals, personal goals, because that gives you something to shoot for.

[00:02:44] It helps you to focus your energy. It helps you prioritize your day, your week, your month. And it really just keeps you focused. That's right. That's really the main word here. 

[00:02:56] Jolie Downs: Oh, I completely agree. It's a masterful thing knowing what you want.

[00:03:00] I believe that if you don't know what it is your personal goals are and what it is that you're working towards, then that means you are living other people's goals. You live in someone else's definition of success and possibly not quite as fulfilled as you could be, is going to be my guess. Right. I couldn't agree more. Now with working with all of these leaders, I am curious, what have you found to be some of the greatest predictors for success for leaders? 

[00:03:29] Chris Pienkowski: The greatest predictors of success for leaders is number one, a level of confidence, believing that you can achieve the goals that you've set out for yourself, for your organization.

[00:03:42] Understanding the difference between confidence and cockiness. People like to work with and for confident leaders. They do not like to work with cocky people. So it's understanding that you're not the master of the universe and that you have a team around you who should be smarter than you in a lot of ways.

[00:04:07] And the other thing that I think is a big predictor of success is having a mindset of win or learn. It's not win or lose because we don't win everything. I don't care who you are. You have to approach those losses as what can I learn from it to apply going forward. That is a huge predictor in my experience of successful leaders versus people that kind of fizzle out in their leadership track.

[00:04:38] Jolie Downs: That mindset is vital to have I completely agree. It's one of my favorite sayings, actually. There's no such thing as failure, only winning and learning. And I have found that the leaders who have this mindset are incredibly strong. They're incredibly innovative. Their teams are creative.

[00:04:53] Their teams are also very comfortable and confident in themselves to to make decisions and know that if there is a mistake, it's good. They'll be able to figure it out, make it okay. And learn from it and grow. Keep moving forward. I love what you said about the confident and cocky thing too, because to be honest with you, I was just having this conversation with my teenager. That transcends not only at work, but also in life I feel.

[00:05:18] And I feel that the confident yet having that humble aspect to yourself. You don't have the cocky you're just you're confident what you're doing, people want to help you rise. They want they want to build you up. They want to be a part of it, right?

[00:05:33] They're excited to be a part of it and help grow in that way. But when you crossed a cocky, and this doesn't matter if it's in business, even in personal, people just have this Iwant to take you down. This is what I've noticed psychology wise. 

[00:05:49] Chris Pienkowski: It can be such a detriment.

[00:05:50] And I know it's something that I dealt with early in my career. I've helped my one teenager with that as well. He's an athlete. He's a varsity wrestler. And he came to me with something that a teacher had said to him. And I said, it sounds to me. Like you're coming across as cocky and not confident.

[00:06:11] And when you're a teenager and your brain is still forming, it can be tough to wrap your head around it. But when you're a professional and you're moving along in your career, you should be able to distinguish between what it means to be cocky and what it means to be confident. 

[00:06:28] Jolie Downs: I agree. I completely agree.

[00:06:32] So on the flip side of it. What are some of the great mistakes leaders make, would you say? Besides being cocky. 

[00:06:40] Chris Pienkowski: Yeah. Some of the biggest mistakes that I see from a leadership standpoint is people get to a certain level within an organization and they believe that they should know everything when I like to say that's the complete opposite.

[00:06:57] You need to surround yourself with people who are subject matter experts and you need to empower them. And I see too many leaders trying to micromanage, trying to hold on too tight because they feel as though they've gotten to a level in their career that they maybe they need to protect themselves or they

[00:07:19] just are under the impression that they should know it all. And the best leaders seek advice from the people who were working for them and with them and put that power in their hands. So that's probably one of the biggest. And I would say that a second big mistake that I see is leaders who do not develop their own emotional intelligence. That soft skill of EQ is such a predictor of success.

[00:07:50] So back to an earlier question, predictor of success is people who are continuously building up their EQ and a mistake are the people that kind of plateau, don't even realize it, don't think that they need to develop their EQ. They look at it as touchy feely, which honestly, early in my career, I thought so too Oh, that's touchy feely stuff.

[00:08:15] But those soft skills really make the difference in a leader's ability. 

[00:08:21] Jolie Downs: I think they're magic. I really do. I think those soft skills, it's what keeps people on your team to wanting to stay there for lengths of time, which is how you get the best talent, which is how you get the best creativity and innovation from your talent.

[00:08:36] The soft skills are they're magical. And I feel like they have not been given enough credits, if you will. In the past, I feel like they are now it's definitely getting the attention deserves now. And I love to see the leaders changing their ways and really putting more focus on empathy, kindness, and EQ skills to bring to their teams.

[00:08:56] So 

[00:08:56] Chris Pienkowski: really important. The beauty of it is that people think about leaders being smart, right? Which is your IQ. When we're born, we have the same IQ throughout our entire life. It shifts within points, but your IQ is relatively stagnant. Your EQ, you can continue to build and develop throughout your entire life.

[00:09:20] So that is a skill that you can always be working on, always be raising your emotional quotient. So that's what I love so much about it is that it is flexible and you can continue to build on it. It's not fixed like your IQ. 

[00:09:37] Jolie Downs: And it's an absolute superpower. Really having a strong EQ is like having a superpower.

[00:09:42] I'm curious, do you give advice on how to build EQ skills by chance? 

[00:09:47] Chris Pienkowski: A little bit. And some of the advice that I give around building EQ is number one, this is also a leadership mistake, is that people often think about communication as me delivering a message to you, whereas communication is a two way road.

[00:10:08] It's the way that we deliver and receive information. So from an EQ standpoint, I will tell people to just shut up, like plain and simple. Let other people talk and you only interject when you need to. But by doing that, you're paying attention to body language. You're paying attention to the words, the context behind the words, and you're observing the room or the zoom room, wherever you are, physical or virtual. When you stop talking, it allows your other senses to kick in. And that's going to help with your EQ because that's all about knowing what's going on around you and how you're processing it. That's the one main thing is I just tell people to shut up and let others talk. 

[00:10:57] Jolie Downs: Listen. Yeah. And take it all in.

[00:11:00] Really listen, right? Yeah. Like exactly what you said. Take in the body language. Reading between all the lines of what they're saying as well. There's so much to learn when you're really paying attention. 

[00:11:10] Chris Pienkowski: And you also, when you're not focused on speaking and you're really focused on listening, now you're not just looking to be able to give an answer.

[00:11:21] You're formulating your thoughts. You're really going through what that person just said and your answers are purposeful and they're not reactive. So you're responding, not reacting. And that's also another way of boosting your 

[00:11:40] Jolie Downs: EQ. I love it. I'm curious about the tributes of successful leaders.

[00:11:46] Cause we went through a number of things here and I'm wondering if there's anything we haven't covered. that you think are important for leaders to be successful. And also, if you feel like there are certain attributes that are the most important right now because we are in such a rapidly changing world, I feel like there's so much changing for the future.

[00:12:04] Is there something that you think is the key for leaders to be focusing on? 

[00:12:08] Chris Pienkowski: Yeah. So it's something we touched on, but I think it bears some repeating. So I created a framework called high impact leadership, and it has five principles. The fourth principle is conviction and caring.

[00:12:24] So the conviction side is understanding and knowing my values, what the standards are that I hold myself to, what I hold others to, what are the values of the organization. But then the caring side, this is where I think a lot of leaders fall short is the genuine caring for their people. And it's not just caring about their professional performance, but it's caring about them as an individual.

[00:12:51] It's making sure that they're providing the resources that they need, providing that time off. I think people get into a leadership role and they want to go. And while that's all well and good, we all need some downtime. But I've seen leaders get stuck in this mental space of everyone needs to go at the same speed as I do.

[00:13:16] And if they let up, then there's a weakness. That's not a weakness. You need to let your people have a day off. You need to let them spend time with their families. It's the caring part that I think is going to be so important going forward. It ties back to EQ. And when you can be empathetic and caring with your people, I think some people confuse that and say, if I care too much, now I can't hold my people accountable.

[00:13:45] That is absolutely wrong. You can hold people accountable while being empathetic, while caring about them. Because at the end of the day, when you hold people accountable, it's you telling them that you care about their performance. Hey, you know what? We didn't meet our numbers last week. I care about you getting that bonus.

[00:14:06] I care about you keeping your job. I care about this company staying afloat. So I'm going to hold you accountable and high performers actually love accountability because, Hey, I made a promise. And if I'm slacking, I want to be told about it. You can be empathetic and hold people accountable and have absolutely great performance.

[00:14:29] Jolie Downs: Absolutely. And you have to hold them accountable. And like you said it's a loving thing. It's like boundaries. Boundaries are gifts while holding people accountable are also gifts that you're giving them, cause otherwise there's no growth, there's no learning, there's no advancing and it makes it very easy for someone to slide.

[00:14:48] If you will, when there's no accountability. 

[00:14:50] Chris Pienkowski: It does. Too easy. And also, when you're not holding your people accountable, then you're not in some cases leading by example, or maybe you are, and you're not holding yourself accountable. That accountability has to go both ways.

[00:15:06] Jolie Downs: I like that right there. It's a good point. So Chris, I think we learn a lot from stories. I'm wondering if you have a story that has either happened to yourself or perhaps it happened to an executive you worked with that was really impactful and you learned a lesson from it. And perhaps the listeners might learn something by hearing the story. 

[00:15:25] Chris Pienkowski: A story that I learned a lot from was during my time leading turnarounds and I was brought into an organization. Obviously they were in trouble, right? Otherwise they wouldn't have needed to turn it around. And the person that had been leading it wasn't let go. They were just repurposed.

[00:15:49] And this person had a lot of institutional knowledge, but I didn't want to hear it. This was maybe a cockiness issue, right? Or ego issue. My thought there was if what you have to say is so important, then your organization wouldn't be in the trouble that it's in and wouldn't need a guy like me to come in here and fix it.

[00:16:14] But in reality, I wish that I had asked him more questions. I wish that I had taken that time to hear from him that institutional knowledge so that I could see what three of the five things that he's talking about here actually could work and maybe they should just be executed differently as opposed to dismissing. You know what? I don't want to hear anything here because you've driven this into the ground. I always like to tell people don't dismiss the experience of others. And there's so much to learn from. It doesn't mean that you have to do everything that someone else tells you, but take advantage of that knowledge.

[00:16:58] And you never know how you can marry up that knowledge with something new and come up with a whole different solution that really takes your game to the next level. 

[00:17:08] Jolie Downs: I love this. It's such an impactful lesson because you know what? We can learn from every single person that we come in contact with and we don't look at it that way. So often I see people all time just dismissing people, if you will.

[00:17:24] I do believe that everyone has something to offer. Like you said, it doesn't mean you have to listen to it. It doesn't mean you have to take it and run with it, but it's always helpful to listen because even if it's not something that resonates with you or is something that you're going to do, there might be some piece of information in there that helps you bring together what it is that you need to do in the right goal in the right way.

[00:17:43] Chris Pienkowski: The byproduct of listening as well is I can never emphasize enough the importance of relationships when it comes to leadership. So in that case, from the very beginning, I made it very clear that I didn't want to hear what this person had to say. So our relationship started off on the wrong foot and it remained strained for the entire time that we worked together.

[00:18:11] But taking that time to listen to somebody even if you don't do everything that they're advising on, you're building a strong relationship and that relationship is going to really overpower other things. You're going to have challenges with people, but if you have a strong relationship, then that helps you to get through those tough times.

[00:18:31] Jolie Downs: Absolutely. People just want to feel seen and heard and when you give that to them it builds that foundation that helps you have that successful relationship. And it's something so simple that we can all do, right? 

[00:18:43] Chris Pienkowski: Yeah, I know. It's simple but not easy sometimes.

[00:18:50] Jolie Downs: I was just listening to this speech and he said it over and over simple, but not easy. Just like losing weight.

[00:19:01] When you say how to do it sounds simple. So I love it. What about for yourself? Has there been a big challenge that you faced in your career? What was it? And how did you overcome? 

[00:19:16] Many challenges in my career and I think that it's because I've never been afraid to put myself out there so I've always set audacious goals, haven't always reached them.

[00:19:31] Chris Pienkowski: So that's just part of my personality. I like to challenge myself. I like to set big goals and the way that I have been better at overcoming or achieving those big goals is being very systemized about the way I go about my day. Interesting. And this is something that I now work with executives and leaders at different levels.

[00:19:53] I set a goal, I reverse engineer. All right, if I need to be here in 90 days, where do I need to be in 60 in 30 and kind of work backwards. But the magic really happens everyday because the old saying is progress over perfection. So let's just make 1 percent better every single day and you'll be able to get to that goal.

[00:20:18] So a system that I've been using for probably five or six years now, I call it the winning list. And the winning list is the five most important tasks that I need to get done on any given day. I write them down in an actual book. I keep it on my desk every day. At the end of the day, I write it down in this book, and then I slot it into my calendar.

[00:20:45] I'm a very competitive person. I hate to lose. So there's part psychology in this. So if I complete all five tasks by the end of the day, I have won the day . If I haven't completed all five, then I've lost and I don't like to lose. So that helps me to focus my energy. 

[00:21:01] Jolie Downs: I love this so much because I also am a competitive person and I can see how this works.

[00:21:07] Yes. 

[00:21:08] Chris Pienkowski: And it works so well. 

[00:21:10] Jolie Downs: I'm fully going to do this.

[00:21:12] When I was younger, 

[00:21:14] Chris Pienkowski: I wasn't systemized about it. So I would set these big goals and I would wake up in the morning and what am I going to do today? And without having that purpose, I think it caused me to miss more things than I would have otherwise.

[00:21:30] Jolie Downs: Absolutely. 

[00:21:31] Chris Pienkowski: And the reason that I'd like to write it down in an actual book is because I can flip through these pages and I can look back and say, Okay, because at the top of every page I write a W and an L. So at the end of the day, I circled, did I win? Did I lose? And I can look back over the course of

[00:21:53] three months, six months. How many W's did I stack up? How many L's were do I need to be better? I like just writing things down, but it's part of my reflection. Having routines is something that has helped me in my own career, in my own personal life. Being specific, routine driven, I recommend for everybody.

[00:22:19] Jolie Downs: There's so much gold in this, so much gold. The routines, they help us stay on track and having something that you do every single day is, as a routine, it solidifies in your psyche and it starts to feel uncomfortable if you don't do it. Yes. So it's really brilliant.

[00:22:36] And then playing the game with yourself, because we love games. Okay. When you play a game with yourself, it's it's a win when you play games. So I've never done this form of play if you will. And I love it. I think it's brilliant. I'm absolutely adopting it. And the writing things down. Personally, I never wrote things down for years and years.

[00:22:55] And people would tell me to write things down. Sure. Let me write it down. It's right here. It's in my head. I've got it. I already thought it through, I don't have to write it down. No, you actually have to write it down. You really do. It is magic. I don't know. There's something that happens and you can, I'll write things down on my computer, but there is a difference when I write it down on paper.

[00:23:11] When you take pen to paper and you write down your goals or the things that you need to do or what have you. I don't know what it is, but I call it magic in the universe because it is more powerful. So I think all of this are great suggestions. And then just going back to the planning. This really hit home for me because as a recruiter, it was one of the things that was dug in our brain

[00:23:34] every day before you leave, you plan for your next day. You set a time before you leave for the day that's all for planning so that the next day you walk in, you know exactly what's going to happen. And you're really just so productive. And it worked amazingly well.

[00:23:49] And when I started my own company, I didn't have the boss and the team requiring me to do these things. And I stopped doing it. I wasn't doing my planning and I definitely, I faltered in, and it was like spinning of the wheels, if you will. And what I figured out was like, Ah, I'm not doing the planning. Just had to go back to that. And when you do the planning, there's magic. The productivity just skyrockets. You know what you're doing. You've got your plan. So this whole example was just full of golden nuggets. Thank you for sharing. How did you develop this for yourself? How did it come about?

[00:24:27] Chris Pienkowski: So I forget the name. There's a name of a system called the GSD, I think, is it David Allen maybe? But I remember taking a class or some kind of course probably 15 years ago about how to be more efficient and effective. And he talked about having a daily list of items, but he didn't gamify it the way that I'm like, all right, I need the win.

[00:24:54] I hate the lose. How can I just tweak it a little bit? I wish I could take credit for coming up with it and being original, but I just made some tweaks. 

[00:25:02] Jolie Downs: Look, gamifying things really work. It's just like with a bucket list, right? People have bucket lists. And so I gamify things that I don't really want to do by adding it to my bucket list.

[00:25:13] Chris Pienkowski: There you go. 

[00:25:13] Jolie Downs: Now all of a sudden it's something I get to do. So it just changed the way you feel about things. 

[00:25:19] Chris Pienkowski: One of the things that I do too, that I think is different. I haven't heard of other people doing this, but everybody generally starts the New Year in January with, These are the things that I want to do, my New Year's resolutions list. I think that New Year's resolutions are BS. That's my opinion because most people don't stick to them. By the end of January, the gyms are empty and everything's off the list. But I actually do personal annual planning on my birthday because in my opinion, for me, that's another year.

[00:25:59] It doesn't matter what the date on the calendar is. This is another year that I'm on this earth. So what do I want to get done between now and my next birthday? That's going to make my life better, make my family's life better, whatever. So I drive my planning around my time around the sun versus like the planet.

[00:26:20] Jolie Downs: I'm super passionate about this, Chris. I love it so much. And I agree with you wholeheartedly. I'm not a fan of New Year's resolutions. Personally, I believe we should always be having resolutions. We should always be thinking about what is that we want. And once a year, I believe that's exactly what we should be doing is sitting down and thinking, Okay, what is it that I really want out of this year?

[00:26:39] Like on all levels, with my relationships, with my own personal relations with myself, what do I want to learn? How do I want to have joy? All the different things, how do I want to grow my career? All the things and come up with that plan and then consistently be looking at that and then evaluate, is this what I still want, is there anything that's changing? So that

[00:26:56] you always make sure that you're on the track that means the most for you, right? Absolutely. I love this. Thank you for sharing that. So before you go I'd love to know because I'm really passionate about how we proactively feed our minds, right? Because we're always being fed whether we want to or not.

[00:27:13] So what's something that you've read or watched or listened to that really has a positive impact on you that you think others could benefit from as well? 

[00:27:24] Chris Pienkowski: Oh, wow. So I love listening to podcasts. I'm much more auditory. And I would say that one of my favorite podcasts is the Jocko podcast.

[00:27:36] Jocko Willink. He's I considered to be a role model for me. He's a leadership expert, former Navy SEAL. But talks about discipline, things that I gravitate towards. But the lessons that he talks about in leadership, he will read historical books and he'll draw those comparisons between, Hey, what happened in 1945 versus 2024?

[00:28:03] Not a whole lot has changed in the way that people, you know, human nature, way people lead, etcetera. So I love the Jocko podcast. The latest book that I've read is called the book on mental toughness. And it's by a guy named Andy Frisella. And it really is about the importance of being mentally tough to be able to get through hardest challenges in your life, to be able to make it to those goals that you want.

[00:28:34] Jolie Downs: Was there a key piece of advice in there? 

[00:28:36] Chris Pienkowski: What's that? 

[00:28:36] Jolie Downs: Was there a key piece of advice in there that you could share with us? 

[00:28:40] Chris Pienkowski: Yeah a few pieces of advice from Andy is that no one owes you anything. If you want it, it's yours for the taking and figure out how to make it happen. Don't rely on others to achieve your dreams. Have your own dreams and push yourself.

[00:29:00] Our comfort zone is there for a reason. And when you just stay within your comfort zone, your chances of growing or achieving goals that are aspirational or much less. So push yourself, put yourself into an uncomfortable position every single day. That's one of the things that I like to do.

[00:29:20] Chris Pienkowski: Like, all right when I wanted to get better at just talking to people, I would literally go to a store and I would make sure I had three conversations with strangers. I'm relatively introverted. So for me to be in a store and approach somebody and you start with a compliment, Hey, nice sneakers and go from there.

[00:29:45] But getting me out of that comfort zone, I can talk to anybody now because I spent time doing something that didn't feel natural to me. Do something tough every day and you'd be surprised at the results. 

[00:29:57] Jolie Downs: Brilliant, really excellent advice. And I really hope people listen to this and do it because it will open up your world.

[00:30:03] I love that example you just gave. Cause I also as an introvert, I've had to challenge myself in different ways to make it. And it does, it works. It shifts you, shifts who you are when you do these things. 

[00:30:15] Chris Pienkowski: Yeah. The other thing too is I think a lot of people are afraid to have those conversations or to speak to a stranger.

[00:30:23] But when you open it up with a compliment, Hey, nice sneakers, that's three words. Hey, nice sneakers. Not only are you coming out of your shell, getting out of your comfort zone, but that other person, who doesn't love to be complimented? No one makes an adult wear the sneakers that they're wearing.

[00:30:44] They made a conscious choice, right? To buy that funky red pair of sneakers. So for a stranger to say, Hey, nice sneakers. Like you just validated my decision. Now today I feel awesome. 

[00:30:56] Jolie Downs: Exactly. And they're going to go off and they're going to spread a little awesomeness somewhere else. That's right. So yeah, by doing something so simple, you're pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone.

[00:31:07] You're learning and growing. You give someone else a gift, they then move on. Give a little positive ripple and it just keeps going forward. Look at this magic. 

[00:31:15] Chris Pienkowski: That's right. Planting seeds of positivity. 

[00:31:18] Jolie Downs: I love planting seeds of positivity. It's my favorite. Chris this has been so wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us on the Career Wanderlust Podcast.

[00:31:29] It's been a great talk. 

[00:31:31] Chris Pienkowski: Thank you so much, Jolie. I really had a good time. I appreciate you having me on the show. 

[00:31:36] Jolie Downs: Me too. 

[00:31:37] Thank you for joining us on the Career Wanderlust Podcast. If you find value in learning from others, give us a like and subscribe. If you're looking to grow your communications, marketing, public relations, or sales and biz dev team with the best talent and quickly, check us out at ParadigmStaffing. com and submit a request.

[00:32:02] We are wishing you a most successful and fulfilling career. Until next time.