It's Not Business, It's Personal with Ted Coiné 

Ted started his own business in 2001, making $20 out of his living room in the first month.  Four years later, it was worth $10 million.  He is the author of several books, including Five-Star Customer Services, Spoil ‘Em Rotten, and A World Gone Social.  He is also a serial business founder and 3-time CEO.  And currently finds time to teach at the Entrepreneurship Innovation Lab at Lorenzo Walker Technical College.

Inside this episode:

• The Progression Towards Nano-Corporations
• The Downside of the Gig Economy
• The Need for Authentic Communication as a Leader
• Balancing Stability and Flexibility in Our Economic Landscape
• How Uncertainty Affects Us Psychologically and Economically
• Navigating the Coronavirus Pandemic
• How to Limit Exposure to Negative News to Protect Your Mental and Physical Health
• The Need for Strong, Decisive Leadership to Create a Common Vision for Our Society
• The Impact on a Lack of Clarity on Both Individual and Corporate Consumers
• Lessons from the Victory Gardens in WWII for our Pandemic Society
• Balancing Self-Improvement and Self-Care
• Doing the Right Thing is the Right Thing
• Creating the Future Out of Lessons from the Past
• It’s Not Just Business, It’s Personal
• Being Altruistically Selfish to Create Positive “Selfish” Consequences
• Why We Need to Applaud People and Companies Doing the Right Thing
• The Role of Leaders Status Quo and Social Pressure
• The Need for Ongoing Key Conversations to Create Organizational Change

Connect with Ted on Twitter: @tedcoine

Ted's Books on Amazon

John Ryan
You're listening to key conversations for leaders. This is episode number eight. Welcome, everybody. Today we'll be talking about why it's not just business. It's personal with Ted Coiné . Yay. We'll be touching on a ton of topics, including the need for strong, decisive leadership to create a common vision in our society, creating the future out of lessons from the past, and the need for ongoing key conversations to create long term organizational change, and much, much more. In times of great change, we need great leaders, those willing to step up to take responsibility to create a vision and inspire others to join them in fulfilling that vision. A key part of that is having conversations with yourself and those who lead. That's what this show is about. Better conversations for better leaders. Hey, everybody, and welcome to key conversations for leaders. I'm your host, John Ryan, and today we have a very special guest, Ted Coiné . Yay. Ted started his business in 2001, making $20 out of his living room in the first month. Four years later, it was worth 10 million. He is the author of several books, including five star customer service, spoil them rotten and a world gone social. He's also a serial business founder and three times CEO and currently finds time to teach at the entrepreneurship Innovation Lab at the Renzo Walker Technical College. Welcome to the show, Ted.

Ted Coiné
John, thank you so much. I'm happy to be here.

John Ryan
Thank you. And first of all, I just wanna let you know that you are my social media hero. And it's not because you've been listed as a Forbes top 10 social media power influencer or an Inc top 100 leadership expert, or that you have almost half a million followers on Twitter. But because the truth is, I just love your voice. I think you're so funny witty and you're not afraid to have a position and I just want to start by asking how important is it in today's world? media world to number one, have a presence online. And number two, be authentic and find that true voice that we all have inside.

Ted Coiné
Well, john, thank you very much. That's, that's really kind of you. Um, I would say if you are not interested in being on social media then don't, because people who go on their out of duty to their career or something like that are horrible and everyone ignores them. Okay? So maybe get one of your kids to tweet for you once in a while.

That's really, really against a lot of things I've kind of spent the last 10 years doing but it's just the way I feel.

But if you do want to go on social media, yeah, be yourself because you know what, there's enough canned stuff out in the world. We don't need any more. If you are yourself, people either flock to you or tell you how horrible you are. If you're horrible again, please get off social media. But if you find your audience Then you find your audience being yourself. And that's really easy to maintain.

John Ryan
I love that. I love that in talking about your book, you know, this goes back a little bit a world on social, you shared how companies really must adapt to survive. That's that's part of the subtitle there. You mentioned the term nano Corp. Can you share a little bit more about what you mean by that?

Ted Coiné
Yeah, I can't. And it's really funny because I think we're going to get into the gig economy in a second. And it's just it breaks my heart that what I wrote about in 2015 has turned into what it is today. So what I was trading about was the idea with the nano corporation is that we can come together in small groups and form a larger organization for a short time to work on a project and then go all about our ways. So for instance, my my brother in law is a sound man. He does a lot of work out of New York, but he also travels the world and whenever a director needs somebody to do sound, they'll give him a call. he'll hold up the boom and he'll edit it after they're done shooting and all that he doesn't officially work for any of these directors, he does work with them. And that's the way that Hollywood has been working for over 100 years now, about 100 years. They they come together that could be you know, studio with a few thousand employees, but there could be, you know, individual actors who are represented by their agents and they're completely independent. There could be a, you know, CGI production group that that has 20 employees or something like that. They all come together to make the movie. What movie I just watched the other day has its current occasion, and we're watching a lot of movies these days. When movie I was watching said that, that the movie created 300,000 jobs to make this movie. Now granted, it's not 300,000 permanent jobs, those people made a movie and then they went off to make other moves. But the idea that we all need to work for one company for life and either we work for this company or work for, you know, competitor that's really old fashioned. It just doesn't turn out to be the way that employers employ us anymore. So we need to be flexible in our careers if we can.

John Ryan
So it's kind of like a company in and of itself. It's you've come together around a common vision, and people are going to naturally come and go anyway. So just recognizing that transit nature of life and it's also giving more opportunities for things to emerge in different ways.

Ted Coiné
Right, so your career will be one thing, and you may be a you know, a leadership coach, or you may be a human resources professional or a, I don't know, patent lawyer or something like that. Your career follows you around. But when you work on different projects with different companies with different individuals, that is the gig part of it. So, for instance, where I teach, we work really hard and helping the student Build portfolios, rather than just here's my resume, it's a piece of paper with a bunch of stuff listed on it. Here is the work that I have created, check it out for yourself. And by employers being able to see the work that this person can actually do, then they feel more comfortable hiring them. And it's the same thing with a career, you can say, Well, I worked on this project, that project, you can call this this lady who employed me for six months, and we did this project successfully. That's pretty much how a lot of us are working anyway. I don't feel it's as new as all that, although certainly, it is very new to a big portion of the workforce.

John Ryan
Is this. You mentioned the word gig. And is this the same as the gig economy? Or are they different?

Ted Coiné
The gig economy that makes you want to cry, because what that is, is instead of being a taxi driver, now you're an Uber driver, but you used to have, depending on the employer, the city and all that used to maybe have some set pay and benefits and and writes and now you're an independent entrepreneur. You're not an independent entrepreneur, the entrepreneur is the guy who started Uber or Lyft. Hmm, they're entrepreneur. You're a worker who gets paid when you work. When I was in college, I know also fears besides that, I waited tables and bartending and I was not an independent employee, I no work for the restaurant, the hotel, whatever. Um, that gave me some independence. And, you know, what we're doing with the gig economy is we're saying, hey, come work and we'll pay you for the work and then you go and you know, go get yourself some more work later. That's in theory, that's wonderful. It's not working out well, for literally 10s of millions of people.

John Ryan
It sounds quite different than than the nano Corporation in it, because it seems very when I first heard that term, it's seem very prophetic about where we are with the organic nature of our society. But you're saying there's actually almost a little bit of an exploitation perhaps I don't know if you would use that word. Yeah,

Ted Coiné
yeah. So what it is, I think I finally, you know, I've been thinking about this for years, where did I go wrong? And what I finally discovered is that it's high skill, high demand versus low skill and easy to swap out. So if you're somebody who drives that's not a high skilled job, I mean, you know, hopefully, you're a, you know, five star Uber driver, right. But, but that just requires you being friendly not getting into an accident and delivery people where they ask you to deliver them. That's not the high skilled job that enables something like a nano Corporation type of career. that's a that's a very low paid job, and you're easy to swap out with somebody else will do that same job.

John Ryan
So I think it seems like it's it's much more tentative than developing that skills and being a value, add with low replace ability, because otherwise you're a cog in the machine without having that certainty that you used to have in in a more permanent position.

Ted Coiné
Exactly. And you know, there are people who absolutely love work in the gig economy. And I'm not about to say that those people are wrong. So for instance, when I had my language school, and this guy who, at first I hired him to be a full time teacher, and I paid my teachers a salary. Well, he came to me a few months later, and he said, You know, I don't really want all these hours, what I love teaching, but I'm pursuing my art career, and I need more time to make my art. And so for him, being a full time employee with benefits and the responsibility of you know, 40 hours a week, etc. That didn't work out for him. And there are people like that there are definitely people like that when I was in college. I did not want a full time job. I wanted to be able to take a day off if I had to take the test or something like that. That's for an animal entirely from when people have no choice but to take low paying work where they can get it

John Ryan
Part of the difference is choice, flexibility, autonomy. And rather than, you know, fear, the uncertainty that can happen when you're just limited to that gig economy, as we said.

Ted Coiné
That's right.

John Ryan
Okay. So with the high skilled nature that would go into a model where there's more than nano corporations out there, are there any downsides that you would see of the decentralization of work? I know one of the things you mentioned is that the social aspect introversion versus extraversion Yeah.

Ted Coiné
Right. Well, one of the one of the things is that if you are an extrovert, you have an advantage in getting yourself more work. Although, you know, we'd like to think that our work speaks for itself it does, and we need to be out there, you know, making ourselves known. There are By the way, social media helps introverts act like extroverts, which is pretty cool.

John Ryan
I love it.

Ted Coiné
So my best friends on social media are a dyed in the wool introverts. And they would rather not meet you face to face, but they'd love talking to, you know, several times a day on social media. So that's,

John Ryan
That's awesome.

Ted Coiné
yeah, what we're what we're talking about with the flexibility that you want in your economy is really good. You want to be able to hire people without worrying about, you know, what happens if this person doesn't work out. But the bad thing is when there are times like today, with mass unemployment, it's really easy to shed employees. And that doesn't really work out well for the employees and it doesn't work out well for society as a whole as we're seeing. Hopefully, this is a temporary thing. But um, whenever, you know, whenever the economy goes south, the least skilled, least tenured employees are the first to go. And that's not good for them.

John Ryan
No, and as we're seeing, there's a ripple effect everywhere that goes in and hopefully things will recover quickly. And I know that you know, one of the topics that you speak you speak on A variety of topics. You've had a very, you know, experienced career with a lot of opportunities to different things. You identify one of the things you talk about is the future trends of business. Do you identify as a futurist of sorts?

Ted Coiné
Yes, I do. And I do that kind of like, I'm skeptical of the term because I know people who love to call themselves futurists, and then they're just braggarts. I really don't appreciate people who don't throw in chest. But I do like seeing what's going on now. And what some things are happening that are not widespread yet. I like looking for future trends. And sometimes, you know, I'm just off. But you know, turns out it's really funny. One of my kids, one of my children, found an old video of mine that I did for IBM, I think was back in 2014. Maybe. And she said, Oh my god, Daddy, I watched this five minute video that you did and you you're talking about people working for from home, you're talking about the gig economy. And that's pretty cool. I wasn't I wasn't correct in all of the, you know, prognostications I made, sometimes they'll say something is going to happen in 10 years, and it's going to happen in 50. Or sometimes it's not going to happen at all depends, you know, it's like reading tea leaves. But it is a lot of fun to see where the future is going. And it turns out, not a lot of people have that talent. So it puts it puts in demand.

John Ryan
Well, you know, I mean, predicting the future is a very risky business. And you know, babe, Ruth was a legend batting at 300. So if you're never going to get 100% on that one. And right now, we just don't have the data. We've never quite been through an ordeal like this. Where do you Where is your gut instinct telling you or the data perhaps, on where things are going to be six months from now or so?

Ted Coiné
Well, yeah, that's a really that question makes my stomach hurt. here's, here's the, God's honest truth is we all do not know. And uncertainty is the worst thing for psychology. It's the worst thing for the economy, people are terrified when they're uncertain. For one thing, we don't know if we're, we don't even know right now how many people actually have this disease and how bad it is. So our 4% of people that end up dying from this point 4% we don't know because there's so many people who haven't been tested yet. Once we get on top of the testing, and so we actually know you know, I'm all about the data, show me what I'm facing, and then I can make decisions and I think as a nation, what we're waiting for is okay, how bad is this? Actually, we know that it's really bad in places where the you know, the emergency room is swamped, and they can't you know, people are dying in the, in the hallways of the hospital before they even get treated. We know places That are bad. But is this the kind of thing that is going to go away with the miracle cure? I hope in a couple of months, are we going to cope with the vaccine in six months rather than the 18 months? They're telling us? Are we, you know, are we going to move past this? And until people stop this worrying, and they can judge for themselves exactly what it is that we are facing? We don't know. We This is the most uncertain time that I have ever experienced as an adult or in my childhood. I think we're all in the same boat there.

John Ryan
I think you're right. I mean, that's what we're really individually and as organizations looking for, what is the data? It's becoming clearer as we talk that I feel like you're consistently tracking the relationship between the organization as a whole whatever form that's going to be and the individual because after all, the organization is made up of individuals. Yeah, with the leaders that you will work with and you deal with on a regular basis? What do you what are they thinking about right now? What's going through their mind?

Ted Coiné
I think everybody is just shocked that and we're waiting, it seems that we're all you know, the different complaints that you hear from people and some of them are completely legitimate and some of them are, you know, where are you complaining about that you have a roof over your head. But, um, for the most part, I mean, this is a this is a real psychological as well as economic and health problem that we're facing, because we don't know what's going on. And we're all waiting for someone to lead us out of this chaos that we are experiencing right now. And so far, you know, I mean, Andrew Cuomo has done a good job leading state of New York but so far we don't have a strong decisive leader who makes us feel comfortable, who tells us, you know, things are going to be Bad for a while, but they're not going to be bad forever. And this is our plan to get out of it. And we will adjust our plan as we go. We need someone like that to kind of put everybody at ease. We also it would be very nice if we had a plan that said, okay, until people stop infecting each other, we are not going to do this, this and this. We can do a little bit more of this and this because the numbers are trending in our favor. That type of leadership also on a on a national and an international scale would be very helpful to business leaders, those business leaders will then be able to make comfortable decisions. I think one of the biggest problems that people are facing is they don't know what's going to happen. So individuals are tightening their belts not spending because they don't know if they're going to have money to to you know get by in a few months. And then how does a business plan when their customers are just not showing up at the you know, at the website or the door?

John Ryan
So part of the consumer behavior in in doing we just said constricting their their spending habits because of the uncertainty. The antidote, if I'm hearing you correctly is okay. We don't know all the facts. Well, okay, let's look into that. Let's start communicating that openly, transparently and create that vision so that we can start actually making some plans.

Ted Coiné
Right, exactly, exactly. Even if we knew that things were going to be terrible, for instance, so So you take, you know, what were two absolutely horrible, but everyone knew. We were mobilizing the country. We're going to build some, you know, weapons, we are going to support our troops. We're going to some of the people that we love, but we are this is our plan, and the ability of people to be able to take action, even in little ways. Like you know, I read an interesting tidbit, it said that the victory gardens that Americans planted weren't actually necessary. There was enough food that people didn't need to grow their own, but it allowed them to feel Like they were doing something, give them some control. Mm hmm. The people who weren't able to get in uniform and go fight overseas. And that's the type of thing that psychologically is priceless.

John Ryan
That's one thing we're missing right now is, is where can we direct our energy, especially as we're isolated, we're home. And it feels like we're in a bubble. Having that focus of Victory Garden sounds like a really, at least psychologically productive thing that we could do right now.

Ted Coiné
Right? Yeah. Like, you know, how can I help? And again, you hear the healthcare experts saying, you know, the biggest help you can do is just stay home. And that's not you know, it's important. It's very important, but it's not doing something. It's doing nothing. It's too bad

John Ryan
with people who are staying home and you know, obviously, some companies are doing fine. They're able to, you know, adapt and become home base very quickly. Some companies obviously struggling right now. What can people do to direct their energy? Do you have any thoughts on How we can stay productive and keep a more positive psychological mindset?

Ted Coiné
Yeah, a couple of things. One is check in with the news only occasionally, rather than non stop. That's hard. And it takes a lot of self discipline to do that, but I'm getting wrapped up in the news will cause you to spiraled into fear. That's one problem. Another problem is or another solution is, even if you can't meet people face to face zoom is much better than nothing. Or, you know, Skype or what have you. Um, and, you know, one thing that we're doing if you're in a position to do this, when we go out and walk the dog, we stay far away from our neighbors, but there's our neighbor across the street, we're having a little conversation, that human touch is nice. But don't beat yourself up if you're not able to self improve on a frantic scale. So, I've heard a lot of people say, you know, this is a great time to be Improving your your skill set so that you're more employable and more you know useful or change your career or whatever, when the economy bounces back, absolutely do that and that will give you a feeling of control but also forgive yourself for not having the energy to pursue that non stop

John Ryan
because then we beat ourselves up and saying I could be doing more should be doing more and that also can take us down that negative spiral that you mentioned.

Ted Coiné
Yeah, exactly. We are going through a prolonged Loki Loki trauma, and thank god it's it's a Loki Trump, but we are and we can't ignore it and we can't beat ourselves up because it's counterproductive. But yeah, you know, I have started writing again, which I hadn't been doing in years. I since I started teaching that allowed me to have the, you know, I need to express my thoughts somehow. And that gave me a way to express my thoughts. So, so I started writing again, which is nice. That's one way to I can kind of improve myself during this time of pause. But I'm also watching a lot of TV. So you can expect to be as as busy as you are when there's no endemic going on

John Ryan
The the TV that you're watching, is it a productive or is it just a pure enjoyment?

Ted Coiné
We're watching British crime thrillers. I don't know why.

John Ryan
What a great niche. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. So one of the things that really if I may ask caught my attention was your identification as an ethicist and a progressive capitalist. Can you talk more about what those terms mean to you?

Ted Coiné
Yeah, so um, I studied philosophy in college, thinking I was going to get a PhD. So here's what you study. That's the first that's my first chapter. out there. But I say what I found was that the courses that focused on social and political philosophy that you know, like what is just in a society, they absolutely riveted me. And, and so that's been my really my life like ever since I was a kid, like, you know, what is right? How do we know? How could we make things better? These questions have always absolutely fascinated me and I find them, you know, worthy of, you know, there's some things we do with their brains that aren't as worthy as I think it's a worthy pursuit. So what I find in working with leaders, and you know what i'm also training young leaders, I'm teaching 16 and 17 year old kids how to start a business and they're, they're doing that so awesome. I don't want to teach pets. I want my students to turn out you know, with the skills that they're going to have, as a result of being in my class I want them to, to also be positive members of society. So ethics is very important. And the idea that we separate you know, that line, it's just business that you know became famous in The Godfather and you hear it all the time. Sure drives me crazy. It's it's a gangster. It's actually the accountant for what's your name Al Capone, this guy who they called abracadabra because they're so magical with numbers. He is the one who said, it's not personal. It's just business. I don't want my business led by somebody who thinks that way. Who thinks that business has its own murky ethics? Doing the right thing is doing the right thing. And it turns out that that is a stronger, more sophisticated form of capitalism. Then the Milton Friedman, Friedman and Rand I don't cross your name on the you know, the Whole libertarian, leave me alone, but make money and if you have to sell your gets into slavery cool, more money for me, that whole outlook is it's not just selfish and horrible. It's also short sighted because when when all the members of society have more money and they're able to, you know, there's no such thing as working for people who work are able to be middle class. When that happens, you have more customers, you have customers who can pay for your products. So capitalism works best when it has safety nets to protect people who you know, we need the help and ways back into society of retraining people, rather than just throwing them away when they don't have the skills that you need anymore. That's a it's not pie in the sky. It's actually better for the economy, to be progressive and to not socialists at all. It's kind of, against what I'm

what I'm for. But um, you know, my kids, he's gonna teach capitalism class. But I do.

But progressive capitalism is more along the lines of what Adam Smith wrote about in 1776 Wealth of Nations. It's that companies need to do the right thing so that the government will not, will not take over control of the companies. That's just bad governance. It's foolish. And there's a lot of people who never got past page one of the Wealth of Nations and so they don't understand what capitalism is and they call themselves capitalism. And the kids who are becoming, you know, voters who are becoming late teens, early 20s. This rising generation does not like capitalists, they've got a really bad reputation and socialism has a stronger reputation. Because these so called capitalists have tarnished The whole idea behind it

John Ryan
with the you know, archetype of Wall Street and the concept you share it of it's just business. It seems like that there's a short sightedness to it. And yeah, if it's just business, but there's no customers, you're not going to be successful in the long term. It's what is it a cutting off your nose to spite your face?

Ted Coiné
Right, exactly, exactly. And one of the things I like to be painfully practice. So for instance, you know, Henry Ford's famous 100 years ago for more than that now for doubling the minimum wage for his factories from 250 a day to $5 a day. He didn't do that, because he was a nice guy. He did it because he couldn't keep people working in his incredibly boring factories. The assembly line took all the joint creativity out of work. So in order to keep people they had to pay them more, and they did, and that started a middle class movement that allowed people to have money to buy his cars. It was A really, really virtuous circle. But it was not something that he did out of the kindness of his heart. You don't have to be a pinko hippie in order to lead with good business practices.

John Ryan
So there's a lot of overlap there between what some might view it as being generous of the kindness of your heart to really looking at it, hey, yeah, sure I am taking care of them. But also that's going to benefit not only me because a rising tide raises all ships.

Ted Coiné
Right. And one of the biggest problems that we have as a society is that each individual business making decisions for itself Yeah, maybe the most logical decision is to to pay workers not very well to do pollute when you can get away with it, things like this on an individual basis that may pay. However, as a society, we all suffer. And we don't need people who put their social conscience ahead of Companies can destroy their company that's not helpful. But we do need is for society to be one where we applaud people who do the right thing. We shun people who do the wrong thing. And those business leaders that appears of the people who do the wrong thing need to be the ones who are showing that the peers of those who are doing the right thing need to hold their these good examples up and say, You know what, we need more people like them. Then when you get to the company level, when you are hiring, you want the most talented staff you can get. And one way to get talented staff is to create a company that people are proud to work for. It's a company where people are also you know, they're they're proud of the social mission. They're proud of the fact that your company does not pollute or does pair, pay. a fair wage, things like this. You'll attract higher quality workers and you'll keep them over time. And right now sure our economy's horrible suddenly, and people will scramble for any job they can get. First of all, do you want somebody who's just taking a job because it's, it's a job? Maybe Maybe this week that helps you. But this month this year, that's probably not going to be beneficial for your company. And the other thing is, do you when the economy gets good and people can move around again? Do you want them to move away from your company? No, you want them to you this is something Richard Branson says, slow train your employees so that they can leave treat them so well. that they'll never want to leave.

John Ryan
I love that. That's awesome.

Ted Coiné
Yeah, enlightens just by the way, that is, that is doing the right thing. And by the way, it has positive selfish consequences.

John Ryan
Positive, selfish consequences.

Ted Coiné
That sounds horrible. But um, maybe I phrased it wrong, but they it does benefit you to do the right thing.

John Ryan
Oh, I don't think you phrased that wrong at all. I think it's just expanding your sense of self from me to we and it doesn't take that much. Because what's good for me is also good for me. Exactly. Yeah. I want to ask you, and this relates, I think, on a behavioral perspective, because you talked about, you know, what's right. And we kind of as a society, based on our values perspective, determine what's right. And one of your tweets that you shared a little bit ago he said, This relates to obviously Coronavirus masks. He said if the boss is serious about masks, gloves and distancing, etc, it'll happen. If not, it won't. If the boss scorns masks and things like that, then workers will go along even if they don't necessarily agree with it. Because we're social animals. We have a fear of unemployment. So as a result, the boss lead. So what would you say if you have any thoughts or advice for someone who is working in an environment where the boss is not leading or, or they're scoring mask and not looking at the data?

Ted Coiné
I have a really happy follow up to that very tweet that I sent out the other day. So my computer broke down, I needed to get a new one. So I went to a workplace to get a new computer. And while it was there, I'm not going to know maybe names is not

sure. I will do my best to only call out the good, but

by name, but people weren't wearing masks. It was horrible, like just horrific to me. So I go into this place, and I'm the only one with a mask on. And then when I mentioned that they're like, Oh, yeah, you're like, Okay, good. I'm glad we established that I'm correct. You know, that's not my point. But anyway, so I talked to somebody about that. Say hello, you know, nobody else is wearing masks and I do feel an urge. That's why when I left, I was like, Okay, this is this is exactly how people work. You're afraid we just we need to belong. That's what humans are. We're like sheep dogs, you know, we need to be part of the pack, whatever the fact is we do. So, um, especially if you're low on the totem pole, you're not going to do something that has people making fun of you, or you know, you're afraid of you're gonna cut me when there's a job that has to be cut, because I'm the weirdo who wears the mask. Well, he sent me an email from their HR that said, Because of you know, Coronavirus and people paying close to each other and work. You must wear a mask. There's no choice so I just got that email today. Wow. This person shared the follow up to that story. And that is the leader somebody clearly way up the ladder and probably in a different location. got wind of this problem? and said well, we'll we'll we can do that. You know have anything else you don't want your whole workplace closed down? Because everybody's doing it right? Sure. So they, they sent this out and now it's not that okay, I'm choosing to wear a mask because other people are choosing to wear a mask. Now, if you go to work, you wear a mask, if you take your mask off your bus, well, you know, you would imagine a send you home. That is the type of place you know sometimes we need permission to do what is best for us and what we would like to do, but we don't comfortable. wearing a mask in Western society is still kind of weird. It's just become normal in the last couple of weeks. So any encouragement from up top that can make that more normal is really really important, encouraging.

John Ryan
So it has to be really reinforced, conceptually, top down, and also behavior laid out level two otherwise Like you said, the person who's got low status low man on the totem pole, they're not going to affect the change within because they're gonna be an outsider too much pressure. And we're social animals.

Ted Coiné
That's right and and you know, even people who are very, very high up in an organization still are afraid of being judged by their peers, and by the few or the one person above them on the totem pole. We all have somebody that we feel the need to, you know, impress her, don't want to cross. So it's not just the the frontline workers who are under the stress, it's also the people in the middle, they often don't get a lot of credit for, you know, being under this type of pressure.

John Ryan
So I think acknowledging that pressure and actually having conversation about it is really only where we're going to change, just like you said, rewarding ethical behavior and shunning behavior that doesn't fit for the whole interests of society.

Ted Coiné
Exactly. You know your whole what am I trying to say? I'm losing my words, Elson, your, your podcast here, your practice about key conversations. That is a key conversation that can carry on for so much longer than the actual you know, pandemic emergency because imagine you're a worker. And your boss comes in and says, Hey guys, listen up. We haven't been wearing masks here and my bad for not enforcing that not wear a mask myself, but we got the word from on high. We have to wear masks, and let's do it. Come on, please. That will stick with you say two years later. You're like, Well, you know, what kind of a workplace do I work in? The economy's good again. And, you know, my friend is telling me how great His job is or across town at this other employer. But you know what, I really just like it here and I'm not even sure why but it's just a supportive, ethical place to work. That's the type of thing where That key conversation two years before can have the effect that you want in your workforce to boost morale keep people around.

John Ryan
So true.

And the reality is if you can have these types of key conversations now, when it really matters and can be a life or death for some people, then you can you can talk about any issue going forward and really have discussion in progress towards a better place for everyone.

Ted Coiné
Exactly, exactly. I think, you know, I have a sign in my room, it says, my classroom says business is psychology. And really, you know, that's all it is. Because sure there's, there's money involved. There's machinery involved, stuff like that, but it's people interacting with other people. And the more we can look out for each other and set the right example for each other, and lift each other up, the stronger our organization will be as a result.

John Ryan
Well, you know, I think there's so much negative stuff out there, like you said, limit your exposure To get stay informed, but don't over invest in it. And and i'm gonna i'm going to share your Twitter credentials out afterwards as well. But because there's there's one more tweet I want to comment about that I think really made a difference in our household and if people haven't heard, I hope they can. And you said this, the Coronavirus is going to make all our lives more difficult for a while, possibly much more difficult than it will be over. We have to face the first while remembering the second. So I want to thank you because this has been the mantra on our household for my wife and I and and even for our seven year old son, which is so thank you. I think it blends hope and resilience without minimizing the challenges that we're all facing. What can we do as individuals for not just you and I but everyone here listening and everyone in your Twitter world? How can we share this type of message and help more people see the world this way?

Ted Coiné
Well, it's really important, you know, and you mentioned your seven year old son My 15 year old daughter And 15 year olds, is this ever going to end? And the poor baby had just started dating somebody went, Oh, man, this first foot. So, as far as I know, she has not seen him in, like six weeks. And I hope that's true. Because this is really as big as careful as we are. So anyway, um, you know, that whole This is never gonna end thing is it's a terrifying prospect. But the fact is, it will end you know, the the 1918 flu was much, much worse than this. We'll see how, how deadly this pandemic is when we're when all is said and done, but it was I think 2.5% of the population overall died of the flu if I'm not mistaken, and about a third of all the people in the United States and probably the world caught the flu. Right. So these are huge, huge numbers. Um, this isn't as bad as that. It's bad. But it's not as bad as that. The Black Death when it went through Europe killed about half of the people in Europe. Could you imagine if half of the people in your town died or half the people you know, heaven forbid in your family? Yeah, this isn't as bad as that. But it is bad.

But those things passed. This will pass.

John Ryan
And I think that's the hope we need to focus on. And in the meantime, you kind of mentioned let yourself off the hook. Yes. Use this time to develop yourself and develop skills and things like that. Is there anything that you're doing right now if you don't mind sharing like to? I know you said you're obviously enjoying some some television a little bit of the British crime dramas and things like that. What are you doing to kind of develop yourself and and stay sharp like you like you always do? I'm sure.

Ted Coiné
Okay. So one thing that has has really been beneficial to me is I've been thinking about writing a book, reading done thoughts about reading the book, you know, my, what, what is my next book gonna be it's been six years. And this crisis that we're all going through, has allowed me to sit back and say, You know what, whoa, write something that is going to last something that is going to make you proud not just make a, you know, a bestseller list or you know, something like that. So, um, that's why I added emphasis to my, my Twitter handle because, um, you know, I go and update that every so often. And I just, I'm really going to write about what a more just an ethical society looks like in the framework of vibrant capitalism because capitalism is my thing. That's what I teach my students. That's what I, you know, grew up believing in, but there are different ways to do it. And I want to Make sure that I'm not just teaching people how to build a business. I want them to learn how to build a sustainably

John Ryan
healthy business for all of society as well as for everyone within the business. That That seems fair. That seems really Justin, it seems like yeah, the word sustainability like you, you nailed it with that. Well, of course, thank you for teaching the future entrepreneurs that go through that school and share the message that you do. Is there anything that you want to share with our listeners that we haven't already talked about?

Ted Coiné
Keep an eye out for business for the rest of us. That's what I'm writing and I if I can figure out the technology, I may create a podcast out of it. So follow me on Twitter.

I'll keep you posted. Any other projects we should be aware of? What are you up to next? Well, it's

it's really funny, john, I'm in 2008. I am with a friend. We're seeing a lot of business plans. So we we started a what was going to be an investment fund and then You know, of course the economy fell apart literally a month later, Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. So, oops bad timing. Same thing. We were going to put out an event called the founders Invitational for businesses to come and pitch kind of like a national science fair for high school and college kids to pitch their businesses. Guess what happened? Coronavirus, nobody's traveling. Nobody's going to know. So I have some I have some amazing foresight. Let me tell you makes me think of starting a business. Maybe you should talk to me. Call me. Yeah, I may remind me that's when the economy goes out. But having said that, yeah, everything that, you know, building a website to help support my my students, we're building these phenomenal companies. And from there, we're gonna have events. We'll have the podcast because that's a lot of fun. I'm gonna have my students talk about their business. says,

John Ryan
oh, that'd be cool.

Ted Coiné
And yeah, you want to want to find out what I'm up to Twitter is definitely the easiest way to do that.

John Ryan
Ted, thanks so much for being here. I really appreciate all the time you spend with us today. Thanks, john, to connect with Ted and stay up to date with his upcoming projects, including a business for the rest of us. Follow Ted on Twitter, @tedcoine and he and you can find his books at Amazon.

Until next time, develop yourself, empower others, and lead by example. Thanks for listening to key conversations. If you'd like help finding and clarifying your vision and purpose, visit www.keyconvo.com/free and pick up a copy of my free eBook seven reasons why you need a big why.