What does it take to rise from hourly employee to respected corporate analyst at a retail giant like Best Buy? Paul Young's remarkable 24-year journey reveals powerful leadership lessons that transcend retail and apply to any organization navigating today's complex business landscape.
Born in Jamaica and immigrating to the United States to attend the University of North Carolina, Paul's path to leadership began with a simple but profound observation from an early mentor who recognized that Paul's integrity in personal relationships would translate beautifully to business leadership. This moment of recognition changed everything, setting Paul on a trajectory that would eventually position him as a trusted guide during Best Buy's most challenging periods.
When the pandemic devastated supply chains and disrupted retail operations, Paul brought something invaluable to his analytics role – actual store experience and a deep appreciation for human relationships in business. While data-focused colleagues exhausted digital contact methods, Paul understood the powerful connections between salespeople and long-term customers. His approach revealed a cornerstone of his leadership philosophy: complete transparency. "Just tell the truth," he emphasizes. "I don't care how bad things are."
The conversation takes fascinating turns as Paul reveals his methodology for training new employees and implementing organizational change. Rather than using cookie-cutter approaches, he treats each person as unique, studying what motivates them individually. "You have to be a pseudo-psychologist," he notes, explaining how he gets people talking and then listens actively to understand their perspectives and concerns.
Perhaps most powerfully, Paul reflects on the value of occasionally pausing to evaluate one's professional journey. After decades of "tunnel vision" moving from project to project, his recent self-reflection allowed him to see the path he created and recognize the value of his accumulated wisdom. For anyone feeling stuck in day-to-day work without seeing their broader trajectory, this conversation offers a compelling reason to step back and take inventory of your journey.
Ready to transform your approach to leadership? Listen now and discover why human connection remains the ultimate competitive advantage in business.
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Follow The Brand! We hope you enjoyed learning about the latest marketing trends and strategies in Personal Branding, Business and Career Development, Financial Empowerment, Technology Innovation, and Executive Presence. To keep up with the latest insights and updates from us, be sure to follow us at 5starbdm.com. See you next time on Follow The Brand!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome everybody to the Final Brand Podcast.
This is your host, grantMcGaugh, and I am in Miami,
florida.
We're going to go all the wayto North Carolina.
We're going to interview PaulYoung.
I'll tell you just a little bitabout Paul.
How I met Paul was through oneof my friends that I've known in
the Miami area for about25-plus years, richard Thompson.
(00:22):
I did not know that they werelike best friends I mean like
super best friends, growing upfrom grade school all the way
through high school, and Paulhappened to see one of my
episodes that I did with Richarddown at Atlantis University
about LinkedIn, about LinkedInoptimization, how you can begin
(00:44):
to digitize your presence tokind of move forward.
He took a real good liking tothat and we became good friends
over this last month in which hewent through my brand blueprint
strategy together.
I want to showcase his storybecause it is impactful and I
think it affects a lot of peoplethat are in his journey today
(01:07):
as they begin to look like wheredo I go from here?
Where am I at now in my?
I call the fourth quarter ofwhere we're at in our lives or
how we want to live goingforward.
So, paul, would you yourself?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Well, yes, my name is Paul Young.
I was born in Kingston, Jamaica.
I immigrated to the UnitedStates in 1980 to attend the
University of North Carolina atCharlotte.
That's where I met my wife, butit was years after we met, uh,
(01:45):
before she became my wife.
Uh, after leaving UNC Charlotte, I joined the army and, uh, her
and I circled back to eachother Um, later in life, as it
were.
I've been married ever sincetwo um, young adult, uh,
children, uh, great people,people, very proud of them, and
(02:09):
that's, you know, that's whatI'm most proud of.
My family love my wife, love mykids.
And the kids just come over nowas young adults.
They come over when they findout dad's cooking on the grill.
You know they'll always findtheir way over.
But that's it.
(02:30):
Started working for Best Buy, mygoodness, right after 9-11.
Everybody can remember when youknow where they were on 9-11.
This was just after the birthof my daughter.
So she was my second child, Sonwas first, and then her, and
(02:53):
then went to work for Best Buy,Started out as an hourly
employee and later promoted to asupervisor and then to manager
and so on and so forth, and justkind of progressed up the ranks
Until now, I'm an analyst withBest Buy.
(03:14):
What do I analyze?
I analyze the things that gowrong and find out how to make
them more efficient.
In a nutshell, that's what I dohow to make them more efficient
.
In a nutshell, that's what I do, but that's the short.
That's the abridged version ofPaul Young, and here we are
today.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Man, great journey, great story Makes you want to
come over.
Now.
We're in the springtime, youknow Paul's going to be grilling
.
I might have to make a stopthere, to North Carolina for
sure.
I want to ask you this becausethis is important and during our
discussions this became evenmore apparent and what I was
(03:54):
interested in in that a lot ofpeople they see Best Buy, they
know where it's at, but theydon't know from the corporate
world and how it looks from anational lens corporate world
and how it looks from a nationallens.
I want to know in your 24 yearsof working at Best Buy, would
you say you had a definingmoment, that one moment that you
really realized that you couldhelp others with your coaching
(04:16):
and your leadership skills.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yes, it was.
Everybody has or should have orshould be fortunate to have
what I'd call a champion or amentor or some guide in their
career.
And I was fortunate to havethat earlier on in my career A
gentleman by the name of DavidDavid Massey name of David David
(04:49):
Massey.
He was at the time anoperations manager and I was
just an hourly employee and hesaid something to me that kind
of stimulated the thinking, asit were, and, you know, had me
thinking about where I could gowith my best by career.
And one of the things he askedme he said how long have you
been married?
And at the time I think it waslike seven years or something
(05:13):
like that.
And he says I can tell you havea great marriage.
He said that would translatewell into business.
Why?
Because you have to be inintegrity in your relationship.
And he said that, believe it ornot, that makes a good leader.
When you can be completelytransparent and honest with
(05:34):
people and do that withintegrity, you can lead people.
He says I can tell that aboutyou and I had never thought
about until that point makingBest Buy a career.
But he saw something in me thatI wasn't aware that I had seen
in myself at the time, but thatwas the genesis.
(05:57):
That's where I started thinkingabout being a leader within
Best Buy.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
That is a defining moment.
A lot of times when I've talkedto a lot of different people
and it's one of those momentsthat it passes through time.
You're not really thinkingabout it, but years later you
kind of go back because itchanged your mindset.
It started changing the way yousaw yourself in what you're
doing from a career standpoint.
(06:22):
Now you shared with me some ofthe and I thought this was
incredible as far as theoperational challenges, like
during the pandemic, in a storyyou know, in a business like
Best Buy.
Now, can you share a specificmoment where your leadership
made a measurable impact andwhat did you learn from that
(06:43):
particular experience you couldshare with us?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Oh goodness, when the pandemic started I was still
physically in the stores.
It was near the end of thepandemic where I transitioned
into my role as an analyst.
But by then the supply chainhad been so disrupted that there
(07:12):
was a whole cadre of leadersthat had to move the company and
move the company forward.
Severe interruptions in supplychains.
Orders that should have takento be fulfilled a month now took
three months, six months, andyou can imagine what that did to
(07:36):
sales and client experience.
So on and so forth.
One of the things that I broughtto the team when I transitioned
out of the store was my storeexperience.
A lot of people who wereworking in my role had never
(07:56):
worked in the store.
They were for the lack of abetter word they were
operational minded.
They came from the operationside of the business, even other
businesses who areoperationally sound.
They analyzed data very well.
They could tell you you knowwhy things happened.
(08:17):
But they were not necessarilythe best at translating what you
see in retail to how thatmanifests itself in the work we
do.
I'll give you a specificexample.
Oftentimes, as an analyst,we're trying to move orders
(08:42):
forward.
As an analyst, we're trying tomove orders forward and we're
looking at data that gives usclient information phone number,
email address, so on and soforth and, believe it or not,
when I came onto the team, therelationship of the salesperson
(09:03):
with the customer was not valued.
In other words, we had all thisdata at our fingertips phone
number, email address and wewould exhaust these contact
methods but never reach out tothe store, because we didn't
really understand therelationship that our
salespeople had with the stores.
Just this weekend, grant, I wasin my local Best Buy.
(09:23):
And why was I there?
My goodness, I was there, for Iwas picking up a new light for
my hue system.
And on the way out I saw acouple that had been lifelong
Best Buy customers, theFunderburgs and I stopped and I
(09:48):
spoke with them and they were sointerested to find out how I
was doing, grant, these havebeen customers for, oh goodness,
more than a decade at thislocal Best Buy, but their joy in
seeing me, finding out how wellI was doing, and so on and so
forth.
When you have that type ofrelationship with your clients,
(10:11):
it makes things like managingsupply chain interruptions much
easier, and oftentimes the bestpeople to explain what's going
on are those who are closest tothe clients who have that type
of relationship.
What's going on are those whoare closest to the clients who
have that type of relationship.
I think that's what I broughtto the team, that understanding
(10:35):
of not negating that clientemployee experience and how to
leverage that.
That's what I brought to theteam.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
I think what you just said.
I want our audience to trulydig in what you're talking about
.
We're in an age now ofartificial intelligence,
emerging technologies, a lot ofinteraction on the digital world
and there's a lot of buffersbetween that human to human
(11:01):
interaction to human interaction.
And I believe we devalue thatbecause the technological point
I've been in informationtechnology 25 years, you know,
and I love going to the Best Buy, see all the widgets all over
the place and whatnot but thatis to it should be to enable you
to communicate better.
(11:21):
It shouldn't be a bufferbetween me and myself, grant
talking to Paul, and I've seen alot of organizations.
They put a lot of other thingsin between that and they devalue
that.
And then people went to yourpoint.
Everyone knows there's allkinds of challenges that come up
in life and to present an imagethat, oh, everything's perfect,
(11:44):
like in life.
And to present an image that,oh, you know, everything's
perfect, like well, we know it'snot, but if you can explain
things in a certain way tocertain people, they understand.
Maybe your widget won't bethere on Monday because they're
Friday, but here's why.
But if that's done only througha technology, so to speak, that
just says, hey, you're shippingus to late, to Friday, and
that's it.
There's just no.
You know, you just lose thespirit and the soul of the
(12:06):
situation that's taking place.
And you know, when someonewants to make another decision
about, hey, do I go to Best Buy,do I do this online at Amazon,
do I go down the street toWalmart?
You know they can make thatdecision easily because there's
no emotional connection, and Ithink that's something that we
really need to understand.
(12:28):
Now.
You've talked about during ourconversations, about a lot of
inefficiencies in operations Iwanted you to talk about.
First of all, I want you tobring this one back up, because
this one's kind of struck mewhen you said during the you
know, during the pandemic, thatfor the first time, you had a
lot of orders that were orderedby individuals but they had
(12:50):
passed away, and this is on alarge level.
What do you do with all thatinventory?
How do you even think about it?
Just talk about some of thosethings that come up that you
didn't really understand andsome of the common mistakes that
you see leaders make when thesethings happen in business
performance, and then how canyou correct it let's talk about.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Let's take the last part first some of the common
mistakes.
Some of the common mistakes Isee are making assumptions and
not taking a deep dive intothings, asking questions, why,
(13:46):
why?
Right near the end of thepandemic, as things were
starting to open up and peoplewere returning to offices and
businesses were opening again,and so on and so forth.
What was really missed by, Ithink, the general public was
what happened to those ordersand product that were in the
pipeline.
You, grant, may have made apurchase, you know, 90 days ago.
(14:18):
You know his inability to getsupplies to complete the project
.
Or, you know, maybe havingemployees who were ill.
He was behind, so it leaves youbehind.
You've got thousands of dollarsworth of appliances sitting in
our warehouse, of dollars worthof appliances sitting in our
(14:42):
warehouse.
That's not moving.
How do you get all that back ontrack?
You can make a lot ofassumptions as a leader when
you're looking at situationslike that.
You've really got to ask thequestions.
You've got to get in, you'vegot to talk to the contractors,
you've got to talk to thebuilders, you've got to talk to
(15:02):
the clients and oftentimes whatI found was that these things
weren't happening in isolationContractors knew exactly the
challenges that you faced insupply chain because they were
facing it themselves.
The clients knew exactly whatwas going on with supply chain
(15:23):
because they had reflections ofthat happening in their own
businesses.
The only thing that peoplerequired was integrity.
You know, I understand it's bad, don't you know?
Just give it to me.
You know, just tell me.
Give it to me the good, the badand the ugly.
Don't sugarcoat it for me, justbe completely transparent.
(15:47):
And I think that went a longway.
That was my realization that,no matter how bad things get and
they were bad during thepandemic I think integrity is a
cornerstone of making thingsright with people, whether that
be business leaders that youdeal with, clients that you deal
(16:10):
with and definitely with theemployees that you deal with.
Just tell the truth.
One of the first lessons Ilearned from my father as a
young man.
He said to me you know, justalways be honest with me.
I don't care how bad things are, because I might have to go to
(16:31):
bat for you, but give me thetruth, tell me the truth.
And that was my firstleadership lesson, as it were,
and I learned that from from mydad.
It served me definitely duringthe time of the pandemic.
Just tell the truth.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
I love that.
Tell the truth, as I remembersaying that we say, especially
in the Midwest.
You know, tell the truth andshame the devil.
You know that seems to be acommon phrase, but it can't shed
light on a dark situation.
There's no doubt about it.
You're shedding a little bit ofyour light.
Your methodology, how youproject your leadership skills,
(17:12):
your knowledge, your mindset,how you do things, I think is
important.
You share with me that you haveread a ton of books and that
you're invited into a lot ofdifferent circles within the
Best Buy community to shareleadership and training.
Do you have like a methodologythat you use to get real
business results, like what isthe Paul Young secret sauce?
Speaker 2 (17:39):
real business results .
Like what is the Paul Youngsecret sauce?
Not a secret sauce.
Grant Success leaves cluesright.
The most successful people thatI have met inside of Best Buy
and outside of Best Buy arewilling to tell their story.
They're willing to share theirjourney.
I mean, who doesn't want to?
You know, shout from themountaintop.
(18:01):
You know the wins that they'vehad.
I think the challenge for a lotof us and when I say us, the
people who you know are inbusiness, in leadership or
aspire to lead people is tooftentimes just shut up and
(18:22):
listen.
Success is out there.
You can network with peoplethrough books.
My goodness, you mentioned thenumber of books that I've read.
One of the books that I readthat really jarred me and really
focused my attention on whatwas asked of me as a business
(18:46):
leader was the book.
It was called Execution, larryBoyd Bossy Bodicey I'll get the
name correct but one of theauthors of that book, the
Execution, and it just remindedme that the business leader's
first objective was to execute,to get it done, find a way to
(19:10):
get it done.
In fact, the subtitle of thebook the Discipline of Getting
Things Done.
Fact that the subtitle of thebook the Discipline of Getting
Things Done.
Everyone has opinions on how tocreate the you know the next
best gadget, and so on and soforth.
But you don't really have a legto stand on until you execute
(19:34):
based on what the company hasasked you to do.
And how do you do that?
You find people who are winningand get them to talk, share
what has made them successfuland guess what?
Oftentimes, when you duplicateit right, you can share in some
of the same success.
I've never been one to reinventthe wheel.
(19:55):
Uh, as it were.
I've.
I seek out people who arewinning, uh, and ask them to
share with me.
You know their winning strategyand uh, and put it to work for
myself.
And, like I said, that can bedone by reaching out to um a
person or uh through a book, um,even through uh, even through a
(20:17):
movie.
You know, you've got to becareful there.
But, yes, no secret sauce,grant.
Find the winners and find outwhat they're doing and duplicate
.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
I love that.
You know that's very pragmatic.
It's the I call the blockingand tackling of success.
When you look at some of thegreater I call the blocking and
tackling of success.
When you look at some of thegreater teams in the sports I
like sports analogies and youlook at how they got to where
they are, it's usually the mostdisciplined team at the skill,
not only just what you call theskill positions like let's take
(20:50):
football, for example.
Say you've got a greatquarterback, running back
receivers, but actually it'sthat offensive line that has to
be able to enable those plays tohappen, just like on defense
and things like that.
And you're teaching those thingsthat hey, if you don't do your
job, if you're not doing whatyou need to do, the rest of the
(21:11):
team, we can't get to the result.
That's another thing I loveabout your analogies.
Like we're here to achieve thisresult.
That's another thing I loveabout your analogies.
Like we're here to achieve thisresult.
How do we get there?
Let's not talk about the wayswe didn't get there.
Let's not, you know, all thethings that we throw out there
like well, we're not there.
That's like being on a shipright, or a boat.
(21:31):
You're trying to get to theother side, where there's land.
Well, just arguing betweenourselves is not going to get us
there.
What is an agreed upon planthat we have?
Hey, grant, you take this orI'll take this, or we're going
to row in this directiontogether and then we're going to
see progress as we get to thatother side.
(21:53):
By working together, you seemto be a person that can bring
that real life experience topeople where they can see their
role and what they need to do.
I wanted to ask you when peoplethink about you know Paul Young
outside of yourself, right, andthey say you know what?
This is a Paul Young situation.
(22:15):
We need to bring Paul in hereto help us.
Maybe it's with training Someof the people that haven't been.
They've only got a couple ofyears in Best Buy.
Maybe they're that new hourlyemployee, like you were years
ago and didn't really understand.
You know some of the skillsthat they have, some of the
things they bring to the table.
What kind of advice would yougive to those people?
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah, Wow, that's a heavy lift.
That's a heavy lift.
That's not easy to do.
A new procedure or a newbusiness direction, and I'm
(23:09):
called upon frequently in myrole now and previous roles I've
been called upon to do that andI think some of the skills that
I lean on were the skills thatI learned as just a salesperson
and I say just a salesperson.
The art of selling is just thatan art, and oftentimes I think
(23:32):
that that's especially thesedays with all the technology
right, that's lost on a lot ofpeople.
But in a nutshell, if I coulddistill it down into its core,
you can't treat everyone thesame.
Grant is different than Richard.
Richard is different thanSherry.
(23:54):
Communicating to my wife isdefinitely different.
Communicating a direction ofaction I have to take a
different tack with my wife thanI do with my daughter, and
understanding that you can'ttreat everyone the same I think
(24:19):
is one of the first things thatyou have to understand.
You got to study people.
Nobody told me when I wasgetting into this business you
had to be a pseudo psychologist,but you have to study people.
You have to understand whatmotivates people.
The same things that give youenergy, grant, may not be the
(24:42):
same things that give me energy.
There is no cookie cutter andthat's the first realization
that you have to have.
Not a lot of leaders grasp that.
There's a new businessdirective that comes out and
there is one message that goesout to everyone and the way that
(25:06):
that message is received is notmanaged right.
You could hear as an individual, you could hear something that
says, hey, you know what, thisis the right direction for the
company going.
Or another individual couldhear you know what, man, that
makes me apprehensive about myrole within the organization and
how I fit in into this newbusiness strategy.
(25:28):
But understanding whereeveryone is in, hearing that
message that was given toeveryone, I think is key to
getting people to buy into thestrategy or the direction or so
on and so forth.
And that really came out ofyears of getting to know people
(25:50):
through sales.
You know they always said thatyou know if you are talking, you
are not in charge of that sale.
Getting your clients talkingright, getting your customer
speaking, allows you to be incontrol of that sale.
So I get people talking to me.
Grant, tell me, what about thisdirection of the company?
(26:14):
What do you see in it for you?
What things give you energy,what things make you
apprehensive, and just shut upand listen and people will tell
you oftentimes how to for thelack of a better word sell to
them, how to get them to buyinto what it is that you're
(26:37):
doing.
But the art of selling is adying art, but it's been
extremely helpful for me andit's why I'm called upon again
and again.
I think to myself oftentimeswhy me?
Am I the best messenger?
(26:58):
Not really.
I just try to get peopletalking to me to understand
where they're coming from.
I hope that answered yourquestion.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
No, it did.
It did Because, again, I loveyour principles.
You're a man of principle.
I like that and I would figureif I were in a board meeting and
needed to get across a greatmessage, I would probably look
to a person like yourselfbecause people know you, they
like you right and they trustyou and your approach allows
(27:33):
them, you know, to share.
You know you don't want to bethat, you know, in the
organization.
Some of these organizations arelike just a bunch of yes men.
I mean everything's yes, nomatter what.
There's no pushback, there's nogathering of new intel of how
this is really going to work.
(27:54):
And, being a person like myself,I've been in information
technology again for a long timeand we've seen a lot of
projects fail, not because ofthe technology of itself, but of
the adoption of the technology.
Right, you know, it soundedgreat, but when you put it out
into the field, as I said, youput it out into action, you put
it out into the wild, really,how this was going to work, and
(28:16):
you say, wow, this did not golike we thought it was going to
go and it might fail completelymiserably.
And a lot of times you say, oh,that's poor tech.
No, it's poor leadership.
It's poor leadership becauseyou didn't anticipate this and
you made assumptions expensiveassumptions of how this was
really going to roll out.
(28:41):
I'm going to challenge you rightnow.
I want you to write the PaulYoung book.
You've got 24 years of retailexperience, understanding how
the retail business actuallyworks, even from a supply chain
area to a training andleadership area, to a training
(29:01):
and leadership area.
The retail business is probablyin the trillions of dollars as
far as in this country.
But leadership in this world islike how do you pick this up?
As you even stated 24, 25 yearsago, you're coming into this
business.
How do you learn this retailbusiness, not just your
particular role, butunderstanding the world of
(29:25):
retail from a lens that I canactually appreciate and want to
participate in even more.
I think you've got abest-selling book in you.
We want to know when it'scoming out.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
You, we want to know when it's coming up.
It's interesting that youshould say that Over the years
I've thought about doing it andit's how do I put it?
It's not necessarily a bookabout ins and outs of business,
success and so on and so forth.
(30:02):
Granted, it's a people book.
It's a book about people, thepeople that I've met along the
journey that I would behard-pressed to think that I'd
meet.
These people have theseexperiences outside of retail.
You know, quick story I wasworking for an organization.
(30:26):
This was before Best Buy, soI'm going back even before the
Army.
Goodness, I'm going backseveral years.
But long story short.
I started helping a client andfound out that he was Scottish.
Started helping a client andfound out that he was Scottish
and we were talking back andforth and so on and so forth,
(30:48):
and he asked me about myheritage and where I was from.
And Grant, my father, was aWorld War II veteran and he did
his service in England for theRoyal Air Force.
Well, come to find out, thisgentleman that I was speaking to
was in the same unit in WorldWar II as my father and he was
(31:11):
writing a book right about hisexperiences in World War II.
And you know I was able to gethim and my father to connect.
My father is now past the ripeage of 97.
But before he did he had tonsof stories and you know he
actually made a contribution tothis book.
(31:33):
I would have never met thisperson.
I am amazed at the depth ofpeople that I meet in retail.
That was just one story.
I don't know if you know thecoach, larry Brown.
(31:53):
He was instrumental in bringinga lot of teams along and his
relationship with player AllenIverson is legendary.
You know you've seen thatinterview with Iverson talking
about practice.
Are we going to talk aboutpractice, practice, not the game
(32:16):
.
But Larry Brown was his coach atthe time and what Larry Brown
was trying to communicate was alevel of professionalism.
Right, you are the leader, youare the franchise player.
You know there's a certainlevel of leadership.
I got a chance to meet LarryBrown.
So if I were to write a bookabout retail, the thing that
(32:37):
inspired me, that kept me going,that gave me energy, were the
people that I met, the storiesthat I learned and that real,
genuine love of people, theability to connect with people,
so on and so forth.
You know they say, if you'rereally enjoying the things that
(33:03):
you're doing.
It's not really considered workand I've really had a lot of
fun meeting the people that I'vemet and it's amazing.
I'm amazed that there arepeople in this world who would
rather work with computers andthat's fine, just work with
(33:26):
technology and numbers anddigits and so on and so forth.
But there are people that areenergized by working with other
people.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
When you find those people in your organization,
turn them loose, just set themon the path and get out of the
(33:58):
way and you know that's what thebook would be about
understanding kind of back tosome ground roots, about people
and the beauty of humanity.
That's a beautiful story youjust talked about, because you
don't know who you'reinteracting with until you get
deep with them and really have aconversation.
Then, all of a sudden, youstart tying together those
(34:20):
realities.
Someone said there's like sixdegrees of separation between
each human being.
We need to find out what thatsix degrees is by talking to
each other.
I want, before we conclude weworked together for the last
month or so I want you to sharethe audience like did you enjoy
this experience?
(34:41):
Did you find this helpful foryou?
Is this something that youwould share with others?
Speaker 2 (34:48):
It's definitely something that I would share
with others.
In my particular case and Iwould think that many people in
my role find themselves in thesame track, as it were.
(35:09):
You have your head down andyou're working day to day, month
to month, year to year.
You are participating in abusiness, you're growing a
business, you're raising yourfamily, you're paying your bills
(35:31):
, you get tunnel vision, andthen one day somebody asks you
to just kind of slow down for amoment and take a look and see
what your journey has been, andI think that's what this process
has done for me.
This is the first time in youknow, two decades that I've
(35:54):
actually slowed down, turnedaround and saw the path that I
have created, and saw the paththat I have created right and
started to take inventory of thethings that got me from there
to here over the two decades.
(36:15):
Until I started takinginventory, I didn't realize how
all these pieces fit together,and to be able to articulate how
the pieces fit together, tounderstand what value that has
(36:35):
in the marketplace and tomonetize that value is something
that I had not given a lot ofthought to.
Tunnel vision head down, day in,day out, week in, week out,
project, from this project tothe next project and just
(36:55):
waiting for the next project tobegin and to be called in again
and to bring my skills to bearon, you know, the next directive
to be assigned to the nextmission, that's.
You know, that's been my lifeover the 20 years.
But just stopping for a moment,turning around and says, oh my
(37:16):
goodness, look at that, that's apath there, right, that's a
path there, right.
That's been the mosteye-opening, one of the most
eye-opening things to me aboutthis experience and I definitely
recommend it to my friends,colleagues, so on and so forth,
(37:38):
Because oftentimes you don'tthink you have time to slow down
.
You go, go, go, go, especiallyin the corporate world.
You know, it's not what haveyou done for me, it's what have
you done for me lately, you know, go, go, go, slow down for a
moment and take inventory.
(37:59):
So thank you for for allowingme to do that.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Now, well, thank you for sharing your story, sharing
what is, I think, a very goodskill set that you possess, and
that you're sharing that nowwith my audience, and they can
really take stock to what youjust said.
Just stop for a minute, take alook, and it's very hard to see
(38:24):
yourself without another personhelping you along the way, and
that is what I do as a guide toget you to your next level in
life.
This has been wonderful talkingwith you today, paul.
Let the people know how tocontact you on LinkedIn and then
we'll'll wrap up and we willsee you again the next time.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
All right, you can find me at LinkedIn, Paul Young
at Best Buy on LinkedIn andGrant.
We will see you the next time.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Oh well, thank you, and I invite your entire
audience and the entire Best Buyfamily to tune in to all the
episodes of Follow Brand at 5.
That's number 5.
Star S-T-A-R B-D-M.
That's B for brand, d fordevelopment, infomasterscom.
This has been wonderful.
Thanks again, paul, for beingon the show.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Thank you, take care.
Bye-bye.
Welcome everybody to the Final Brand Podcast.
This is your host, grantMcGaugh, and I am in Miami,
florida.
We're going to go all the wayto North Carolina.
We're going to interview PaulYoung.
I'll tell you just a little bitabout Paul.
How I met Paul was through oneof my friends that I've known in
the Miami area for about25-plus years, richard Thompson.
(00:22):
I did not know that they werelike best friends I mean like
super best friends, growing upfrom grade school all the way
through high school, and Paulhappened to see one of my
episodes that I did with Richarddown at Atlantis University
about LinkedIn, about LinkedInoptimization, how you can begin
(00:44):
to digitize your presence tokind of move forward.
He took a real good liking tothat and we became good friends
over this last month in which hewent through my brand blueprint
strategy together.
I want to showcase his storybecause it is impactful and I
think it affects a lot of peoplethat are in his journey today
(01:07):
as they begin to look like wheredo I go from here?
Where am I at now in my?
I call the fourth quarter ofwhere we're at in our lives or
how we want to live goingforward.
So, paul, would you yourself?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Well, yes, my name is Paul Young.
I was born in Kingston, Jamaica.
I immigrated to the UnitedStates in 1980 to attend the
University of North Carolina atCharlotte.
That's where I met my wife, butit was years after we met, uh,
(01:45):
before she became my wife.
Uh, after leaving UNC Charlotte, I joined the army and, uh, her
and I circled back to eachother Um, later in life, as it
were.
I've been married ever sincetwo um, young adult, uh,
children, uh, great people,people, very proud of them, and
(02:09):
that's, you know, that's whatI'm most proud of.
My family love my wife, love mykids.
And the kids just come over nowas young adults.
They come over when they findout dad's cooking on the grill.
You know they'll always findtheir way over.
But that's it.
(02:30):
Started working for Best Buy, mygoodness, right after 9-11.
Everybody can remember when youknow where they were on 9-11.
This was just after the birthof my daughter.
So she was my second child, Sonwas first, and then her, and
(02:53):
then went to work for Best Buy,Started out as an hourly
employee and later promoted to asupervisor and then to manager
and so on and so forth, and justkind of progressed up the ranks
Until now, I'm an analyst withBest Buy.
(03:14):
What do I analyze?
I analyze the things that gowrong and find out how to make
them more efficient.
In a nutshell, that's what I dohow to make them more efficient
.
In a nutshell, that's what I do, but that's the short.
That's the abridged version ofPaul Young, and here we are
today.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Man, great journey, great story Makes you want to
come over.
Now.
We're in the springtime, youknow Paul's going to be grilling
.
I might have to make a stopthere, to North Carolina for
sure.
I want to ask you this becausethis is important and during our
discussions this became evenmore apparent and what I was
(03:54):
interested in in that a lot ofpeople they see Best Buy, they
know where it's at, but theydon't know from the corporate
world and how it looks from anational lens corporate world
and how it looks from a nationallens.
I want to know in your 24 yearsof working at Best Buy, would
you say you had a definingmoment, that one moment that you
really realized that you couldhelp others with your coaching
(04:16):
and your leadership skills.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yes, it was.
Everybody has or should have orshould be fortunate to have
what I'd call a champion or amentor or some guide in their
career.
And I was fortunate to havethat earlier on in my career A
gentleman by the name of DavidDavid Massey name of David David
(04:49):
Massey.
He was at the time anoperations manager and I was
just an hourly employee and hesaid something to me that kind
of stimulated the thinking, asit were, and, you know, had me
thinking about where I could gowith my best by career.
And one of the things he askedme he said how long have you
been married?
And at the time I think it waslike seven years or something
(05:13):
like that.
And he says I can tell you havea great marriage.
He said that would translatewell into business.
Why?
Because you have to be inintegrity in your relationship.
And he said that, believe it ornot, that makes a good leader.
When you can be completelytransparent and honest with
(05:34):
people and do that withintegrity, you can lead people.
He says I can tell that aboutyou and I had never thought
about until that point makingBest Buy a career.
But he saw something in me thatI wasn't aware that I had seen
in myself at the time, but thatwas the genesis.
(05:57):
That's where I started thinkingabout being a leader within
Best Buy.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
That is a defining moment.
A lot of times when I've talkedto a lot of different people
and it's one of those momentsthat it passes through time.
You're not really thinkingabout it, but years later you
kind of go back because itchanged your mindset.
It started changing the way yousaw yourself in what you're
doing from a career standpoint.
(06:22):
Now you shared with me some ofthe and I thought this was
incredible as far as theoperational challenges, like
during the pandemic, in a storyyou know, in a business like
Best Buy.
Now, can you share a specificmoment where your leadership
made a measurable impact andwhat did you learn from that
(06:43):
particular experience you couldshare with us?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Oh goodness, when the pandemic started I was still
physically in the stores.
It was near the end of thepandemic where I transitioned
into my role as an analyst.
But by then the supply chainhad been so disrupted that there
(07:12):
was a whole cadre of leadersthat had to move the company and
move the company forward.
Severe interruptions in supplychains.
Orders that should have takento be fulfilled a month now took
three months, six months, andyou can imagine what that did to
(07:36):
sales and client experience.
So on and so forth.
One of the things that I broughtto the team when I transitioned
out of the store was my storeexperience.
A lot of people who wereworking in my role had never
(07:56):
worked in the store.
They were for the lack of abetter word they were
operational minded.
They came from the operationside of the business, even other
businesses who areoperationally sound.
They analyzed data very well.
They could tell you you knowwhy things happened.
(08:17):
But they were not necessarilythe best at translating what you
see in retail to how thatmanifests itself in the work we
do.
I'll give you a specificexample.
Oftentimes, as an analyst,we're trying to move orders
(08:42):
forward.
As an analyst, we're trying tomove orders forward and we're
looking at data that gives usclient information phone number,
email address, so on and soforth and, believe it or not,
when I came onto the team, therelationship of the salesperson
(09:03):
with the customer was not valued.
In other words, we had all thisdata at our fingertips phone
number, email address and wewould exhaust these contact
methods but never reach out tothe store, because we didn't
really understand therelationship that our
salespeople had with the stores.
Just this weekend, grant, I wasin my local Best Buy.
(09:23):
And why was I there?
My goodness, I was there, for Iwas picking up a new light for
my hue system.
And on the way out I saw acouple that had been lifelong
Best Buy customers, theFunderburgs and I stopped and I
(09:48):
spoke with them and they were sointerested to find out how I
was doing, grant, these havebeen customers for, oh goodness,
more than a decade at thislocal Best Buy, but their joy in
seeing me, finding out how wellI was doing, and so on and so
forth.
When you have that type ofrelationship with your clients,
(10:11):
it makes things like managingsupply chain interruptions much
easier, and oftentimes the bestpeople to explain what's going
on are those who are closest tothe clients who have that type
of relationship.
What's going on are those whoare closest to the clients who
have that type of relationship.
I think that's what I broughtto the team, that understanding
(10:35):
of not negating that clientemployee experience and how to
leverage that.
That's what I brought to theteam.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
I think what you just said.
I want our audience to trulydig in what you're talking about
.
We're in an age now ofartificial intelligence,
emerging technologies, a lot ofinteraction on the digital world
and there's a lot of buffersbetween that human to human
(11:01):
interaction to human interaction.
And I believe we devalue thatbecause the technological point
I've been in informationtechnology 25 years, you know,
and I love going to the Best Buy, see all the widgets all over
the place and whatnot but thatis to it should be to enable you
to communicate better.
(11:21):
It shouldn't be a bufferbetween me and myself, grant
talking to Paul, and I've seen alot of organizations.
They put a lot of other thingsin between that and they devalue
that.
And then people went to yourpoint.
Everyone knows there's allkinds of challenges that come up
in life and to present an imagethat, oh, everything's perfect,
(11:44):
like in life.
And to present an image that,oh, you know, everything's
perfect, like well, we know it'snot, but if you can explain
things in a certain way tocertain people, they understand.
Maybe your widget won't bethere on Monday because they're
Friday, but here's why.
But if that's done only througha technology, so to speak, that
just says, hey, you're shippingus to late, to Friday, and
that's it.
There's just no.
You know, you just lose thespirit and the soul of the
(12:06):
situation that's taking place.
And you know, when someonewants to make another decision
about, hey, do I go to Best Buy,do I do this online at Amazon,
do I go down the street toWalmart?
You know they can make thatdecision easily because there's
no emotional connection, and Ithink that's something that we
really need to understand.
(12:28):
Now.
You've talked about during ourconversations, about a lot of
inefficiencies in operations Iwanted you to talk about.
First of all, I want you tobring this one back up, because
this one's kind of struck mewhen you said during the you
know, during the pandemic, thatfor the first time, you had a
lot of orders that were orderedby individuals but they had
(12:50):
passed away, and this is on alarge level.
What do you do with all thatinventory?
How do you even think about it?
Just talk about some of thosethings that come up that you
didn't really understand andsome of the common mistakes that
you see leaders make when thesethings happen in business
performance, and then how canyou correct it let's talk about.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Let's take the last part first some of the common
mistakes.
Some of the common mistakes Isee are making assumptions and
not taking a deep dive intothings, asking questions, why,
(13:46):
why?
Right near the end of thepandemic, as things were
starting to open up and peoplewere returning to offices and
businesses were opening again,and so on and so forth.
What was really missed by, Ithink, the general public was
what happened to those ordersand product that were in the
pipeline.
You, grant, may have made apurchase, you know, 90 days ago.
(14:18):
You know his inability to getsupplies to complete the project
.
Or, you know, maybe havingemployees who were ill.
He was behind, so it leaves youbehind.
You've got thousands of dollarsworth of appliances sitting in
our warehouse, of dollars worthof appliances sitting in our
(14:42):
warehouse.
That's not moving.
How do you get all that back ontrack?
You can make a lot ofassumptions as a leader when
you're looking at situationslike that.
You've really got to ask thequestions.
You've got to get in, you'vegot to talk to the contractors,
you've got to talk to thebuilders, you've got to talk to
(15:02):
the clients and oftentimes whatI found was that these things
weren't happening in isolationContractors knew exactly the
challenges that you faced insupply chain because they were
facing it themselves.
The clients knew exactly whatwas going on with supply chain
(15:23):
because they had reflections ofthat happening in their own
businesses.
The only thing that peoplerequired was integrity.
You know, I understand it's bad, don't you know?
Just give it to me.
You know, just tell me.
Give it to me the good, the badand the ugly.
Don't sugarcoat it for me, justbe completely transparent.
(15:47):
And I think that went a longway.
That was my realization that,no matter how bad things get and
they were bad during thepandemic I think integrity is a
cornerstone of making thingsright with people, whether that
be business leaders that youdeal with, clients that you deal
(16:10):
with and definitely with theemployees that you deal with.
Just tell the truth.
One of the first lessons Ilearned from my father as a
young man.
He said to me you know, justalways be honest with me.
I don't care how bad things are, because I might have to go to
(16:31):
bat for you, but give me thetruth, tell me the truth.
And that was my firstleadership lesson, as it were,
and I learned that from from mydad.
It served me definitely duringthe time of the pandemic.
Just tell the truth.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
I love that.
Tell the truth, as I remembersaying that we say, especially
in the Midwest.
You know, tell the truth andshame the devil.
You know that seems to be acommon phrase, but it can't shed
light on a dark situation.
There's no doubt about it.
You're shedding a little bit ofyour light.
Your methodology, how youproject your leadership skills,
(17:12):
your knowledge, your mindset,how you do things, I think is
important.
You share with me that you haveread a ton of books and that
you're invited into a lot ofdifferent circles within the
Best Buy community to shareleadership and training.
Do you have like a methodologythat you use to get real
business results, like what isthe Paul Young secret sauce?
Speaker 2 (17:39):
real business results .
Like what is the Paul Youngsecret sauce?
Not a secret sauce.
Grant Success leaves cluesright.
The most successful people thatI have met inside of Best Buy
and outside of Best Buy arewilling to tell their story.
They're willing to share theirjourney.
I mean, who doesn't want to?
You know, shout from themountaintop.
(18:01):
You know the wins that they'vehad.
I think the challenge for a lotof us and when I say us, the
people who you know are inbusiness, in leadership or
aspire to lead people is tooftentimes just shut up and
(18:22):
listen.
Success is out there.
You can network with peoplethrough books.
My goodness, you mentioned thenumber of books that I've read.
One of the books that I readthat really jarred me and really
focused my attention on whatwas asked of me as a business
(18:46):
leader was the book.
It was called Execution, larryBoyd Bossy Bodicey I'll get the
name correct but one of theauthors of that book, the
Execution, and it just remindedme that the business leader's
first objective was to execute,to get it done, find a way to
(19:10):
get it done.
In fact, the subtitle of thebook the Discipline of Getting
Things Done.
Fact that the subtitle of thebook the Discipline of Getting
Things Done.
Everyone has opinions on how tocreate the you know the next
best gadget, and so on and soforth.
But you don't really have a legto stand on until you execute
(19:34):
based on what the company hasasked you to do.
And how do you do that?
You find people who are winningand get them to talk, share
what has made them successfuland guess what?
Oftentimes, when you duplicateit right, you can share in some
of the same success.
I've never been one to reinventthe wheel.
(19:55):
Uh, as it were.
I've.
I seek out people who arewinning, uh, and ask them to
share with me.
You know their winning strategyand uh, and put it to work for
myself.
And, like I said, that can bedone by reaching out to um a
person or uh through a book, um,even through uh, even through a
(20:17):
movie.
You know, you've got to becareful there.
But, yes, no secret sauce,grant.
Find the winners and find outwhat they're doing and duplicate
.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
I love that.
You know that's very pragmatic.
It's the I call the blockingand tackling of success.
When you look at some of thegreater I call the blocking and
tackling of success.
When you look at some of thegreater teams in the sports I
like sports analogies and youlook at how they got to where
they are, it's usually the mostdisciplined team at the skill,
not only just what you call theskill positions like let's take
(20:50):
football, for example.
Say you've got a greatquarterback, running back
receivers, but actually it'sthat offensive line that has to
be able to enable those plays tohappen, just like on defense
and things like that.
And you're teaching those thingsthat hey, if you don't do your
job, if you're not doing whatyou need to do, the rest of the
(21:11):
team, we can't get to the result.
That's another thing I loveabout your analogies.
Like we're here to achieve thisresult.
That's another thing I loveabout your analogies.
Like we're here to achieve thisresult.
How do we get there?
Let's not talk about the wayswe didn't get there.
Let's not, you know, all thethings that we throw out there
like well, we're not there.
That's like being on a shipright, or a boat.
(21:31):
You're trying to get to theother side, where there's land.
Well, just arguing betweenourselves is not going to get us
there.
What is an agreed upon planthat we have?
Hey, grant, you take this orI'll take this, or we're going
to row in this directiontogether and then we're going to
see progress as we get to thatother side.
(21:53):
By working together, you seemto be a person that can bring
that real life experience topeople where they can see their
role and what they need to do.
I wanted to ask you when peoplethink about you know Paul Young
outside of yourself, right, andthey say you know what?
This is a Paul Young situation.
(22:15):
We need to bring Paul in hereto help us.
Maybe it's with training Someof the people that haven't been.
They've only got a couple ofyears in Best Buy.
Maybe they're that new hourlyemployee, like you were years
ago and didn't really understand.
You know some of the skillsthat they have, some of the
things they bring to the table.
What kind of advice would yougive to those people?
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah, Wow, that's a heavy lift.
That's a heavy lift.
That's not easy to do.
A new procedure or a newbusiness direction, and I'm
(23:09):
called upon frequently in myrole now and previous roles I've
been called upon to do that andI think some of the skills that
I lean on were the skills thatI learned as just a salesperson
and I say just a salesperson.
The art of selling is just thatan art, and oftentimes I think
(23:32):
that that's especially thesedays with all the technology
right, that's lost on a lot ofpeople.
But in a nutshell, if I coulddistill it down into its core,
you can't treat everyone thesame.
Grant is different than Richard.
Richard is different thanSherry.
(23:54):
Communicating to my wife isdefinitely different.
Communicating a direction ofaction I have to take a
different tack with my wife thanI do with my daughter, and
understanding that you can'ttreat everyone the same I think
(24:19):
is one of the first things thatyou have to understand.
You got to study people.
Nobody told me when I wasgetting into this business you
had to be a pseudo psychologist,but you have to study people.
You have to understand whatmotivates people.
The same things that give youenergy, grant, may not be the
(24:42):
same things that give me energy.
There is no cookie cutter andthat's the first realization
that you have to have.
Not a lot of leaders grasp that.
There's a new businessdirective that comes out and
there is one message that goesout to everyone and the way that
(25:06):
that message is received is notmanaged right.
You could hear as an individual, you could hear something that
says, hey, you know what, thisis the right direction for the
company going.
Or another individual couldhear you know what, man, that
makes me apprehensive about myrole within the organization and
how I fit in into this newbusiness strategy.
(25:28):
But understanding whereeveryone is in, hearing that
message that was given toeveryone, I think is key to
getting people to buy into thestrategy or the direction or so
on and so forth.
And that really came out ofyears of getting to know people
(25:50):
through sales.
You know they always said thatyou know if you are talking, you
are not in charge of that sale.
Getting your clients talkingright, getting your customer
speaking, allows you to be incontrol of that sale.
So I get people talking to me.
Grant, tell me, what about thisdirection of the company?
(26:14):
What do you see in it for you?
What things give you energy,what things make you
apprehensive, and just shut upand listen and people will tell
you oftentimes how to for thelack of a better word sell to
them, how to get them to buyinto what it is that you're
(26:37):
doing.
But the art of selling is adying art, but it's been
extremely helpful for me andit's why I'm called upon again
and again.
I think to myself oftentimeswhy me?
Am I the best messenger?
(26:58):
Not really.
I just try to get peopletalking to me to understand
where they're coming from.
I hope that answered yourquestion.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
No, it did.
It did Because, again, I loveyour principles.
You're a man of principle.
I like that and I would figureif I were in a board meeting and
needed to get across a greatmessage, I would probably look
to a person like yourselfbecause people know you, they
like you right and they trustyou and your approach allows
(27:33):
them, you know, to share.
You know you don't want to bethat, you know, in the
organization.
Some of these organizations arelike just a bunch of yes men.
I mean everything's yes, nomatter what.
There's no pushback, there's nogathering of new intel of how
this is really going to work.
(27:54):
And, being a person like myself,I've been in information
technology again for a long timeand we've seen a lot of
projects fail, not because ofthe technology of itself, but of
the adoption of the technology.
Right, you know, it soundedgreat, but when you put it out
into the field, as I said, youput it out into action, you put
it out into the wild, really,how this was going to work, and
(28:16):
you say, wow, this did not golike we thought it was going to
go and it might fail completelymiserably.
And a lot of times you say, oh,that's poor tech.
No, it's poor leadership.
It's poor leadership becauseyou didn't anticipate this and
you made assumptions expensiveassumptions of how this was
really going to roll out.
(28:41):
I'm going to challenge you rightnow.
I want you to write the PaulYoung book.
You've got 24 years of retailexperience, understanding how
the retail business actuallyworks, even from a supply chain
area to a training andleadership area, to a training
(29:01):
and leadership area.
The retail business is probablyin the trillions of dollars as
far as in this country.
But leadership in this world islike how do you pick this up?
As you even stated 24, 25 yearsago, you're coming into this
business.
How do you learn this retailbusiness, not just your
particular role, butunderstanding the world of
(29:25):
retail from a lens that I canactually appreciate and want to
participate in even more.
I think you've got abest-selling book in you.
We want to know when it'scoming out.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
You, we want to know when it's coming up.
It's interesting that youshould say that Over the years
I've thought about doing it andit's how do I put it?
It's not necessarily a bookabout ins and outs of business,
success and so on and so forth.
(30:02):
Granted, it's a people book.
It's a book about people, thepeople that I've met along the
journey that I would behard-pressed to think that I'd
meet.
These people have theseexperiences outside of retail.
You know, quick story I wasworking for an organization.
(30:26):
This was before Best Buy, soI'm going back even before the
Army.
Goodness, I'm going backseveral years.
But long story short.
I started helping a client andfound out that he was Scottish.
Started helping a client andfound out that he was Scottish
and we were talking back andforth and so on and so forth,
(30:48):
and he asked me about myheritage and where I was from.
And Grant, my father, was aWorld War II veteran and he did
his service in England for theRoyal Air Force.
Well, come to find out, thisgentleman that I was speaking to
was in the same unit in WorldWar II as my father and he was
(31:11):
writing a book right about hisexperiences in World War II.
And you know I was able to gethim and my father to connect.
My father is now past the ripeage of 97.
But before he did he had tonsof stories and you know he
actually made a contribution tothis book.
(31:33):
I would have never met thisperson.
I am amazed at the depth ofpeople that I meet in retail.
That was just one story.
I don't know if you know thecoach, larry Brown.
(31:53):
He was instrumental in bringinga lot of teams along and his
relationship with player AllenIverson is legendary.
You know you've seen thatinterview with Iverson talking
about practice.
Are we going to talk aboutpractice, practice, not the game
(32:16):
.
But Larry Brown was his coach atthe time and what Larry Brown
was trying to communicate was alevel of professionalism.
Right, you are the leader, youare the franchise player.
You know there's a certainlevel of leadership.
I got a chance to meet LarryBrown.
So if I were to write a bookabout retail, the thing that
(32:37):
inspired me, that kept me going,that gave me energy, were the
people that I met, the storiesthat I learned and that real,
genuine love of people, theability to connect with people,
so on and so forth.
You know they say, if you'rereally enjoying the things that
(33:03):
you're doing.
It's not really considered workand I've really had a lot of
fun meeting the people that I'vemet and it's amazing.
I'm amazed that there arepeople in this world who would
rather work with computers andthat's fine, just work with
(33:26):
technology and numbers anddigits and so on and so forth.
But there are people that areenergized by working with other
people.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
When you find those people in your organization,
turn them loose, just set themon the path and get out of the
(33:58):
way and you know that's what thebook would be about
understanding kind of back tosome ground roots, about people
and the beauty of humanity.
That's a beautiful story youjust talked about, because you
don't know who you'reinteracting with until you get
deep with them and really have aconversation.
Then, all of a sudden, youstart tying together those
(34:20):
realities.
Someone said there's like sixdegrees of separation between
each human being.
We need to find out what thatsix degrees is by talking to
each other.
I want, before we conclude weworked together for the last
month or so I want you to sharethe audience like did you enjoy
this experience?
(34:41):
Did you find this helpful foryou?
Is this something that youwould share with others?
Speaker 2 (34:48):
It's definitely something that I would share
with others.
In my particular case and Iwould think that many people in
my role find themselves in thesame track, as it were.
(35:09):
You have your head down andyou're working day to day, month
to month, year to year.
You are participating in abusiness, you're growing a
business, you're raising yourfamily, you're paying your bills
(35:31):
, you get tunnel vision, andthen one day somebody asks you
to just kind of slow down for amoment and take a look and see
what your journey has been, andI think that's what this process
has done for me.
This is the first time in youknow, two decades that I've
(35:54):
actually slowed down, turnedaround and saw the path that I
have created, and saw the paththat I have created right and
started to take inventory of thethings that got me from there
to here over the two decades.
(36:15):
Until I started takinginventory, I didn't realize how
all these pieces fit together,and to be able to articulate how
the pieces fit together, tounderstand what value that has
(36:35):
in the marketplace and tomonetize that value is something
that I had not given a lot ofthought to.
Tunnel vision head down, day in,day out, week in, week out,
project, from this project tothe next project and just
(36:55):
waiting for the next project tobegin and to be called in again
and to bring my skills to bearon, you know, the next directive
to be assigned to the nextmission, that's.
You know, that's been my lifeover the 20 years.
But just stopping for a moment,turning around and says, oh my
(37:16):
goodness, look at that, that's apath there, right, that's a
path there, right.
That's been the mosteye-opening, one of the most
eye-opening things to me aboutthis experience and I definitely
recommend it to my friends,colleagues, so on and so forth,
(37:38):
Because oftentimes you don'tthink you have time to slow down
.
You go, go, go, go, especiallyin the corporate world.
You know, it's not what haveyou done for me, it's what have
you done for me lately, you know, go, go, go, slow down for a
moment and take inventory.
(37:59):
So thank you for for allowingme to do that.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Now, well, thank you for sharing your story, sharing
what is, I think, a very goodskill set that you possess, and
that you're sharing that nowwith my audience, and they can
really take stock to what youjust said.
Just stop for a minute, take alook, and it's very hard to see
(38:24):
yourself without another personhelping you along the way, and
that is what I do as a guide toget you to your next level in
life.
This has been wonderful talkingwith you today, paul.
Let the people know how tocontact you on LinkedIn and then
we'll'll wrap up and we willsee you again the next time.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
All right, you can find me at LinkedIn, Paul Young
at Best Buy on LinkedIn andGrant.
We will see you the next time.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Oh well, thank you, and I invite your entire
audience and the entire Best Buyfamily to tune in to all the
episodes of Follow Brand at 5.
That's number 5.
Star S-T-A-R B-D-M.
That's B for brand, d fordevelopment, infomasterscom.
This has been wonderful.
Thanks again, paul, for beingon the show.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Thank you, take care.
Bye-bye.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.