How to Push Yourself Beyond Your Comfort Zone Into Greatness

Starting the conversation:

Why being bad at something new is the best step toward greatness – Embrace the power of the learning curve in business and leadership.

Transform your business approach: Discover the ‘art of magic’ in advertising, leadership, and overcoming the tyranny of shoulda, woulda, coulda.

Your decisions shape your professional path. There is an art of magic in advertising and leadership to build on each win and keep growing. Jimi Gibson, VP of Brand Communication at Thrive Agency, talks about why being bad at something is the new best step toward greatness with intentional BOLD moves.

Forget regrets. Every experience individually may not contain key knowledge; however, experiences over time not only yield powerful trends. The culmination of experience can be your spark for creativity and taking calculated risks, too. It’s in our thoughtful and direct communication with ourselves and the company we are a part of.

This program dares you to step into creative learning. You will hear about the faces of regret and how to overcome them, the power of defining your risk comfort zone by putting yourself in different situations, and being ok with being bad at something (especially in the early learning stages). Jess Dewell talks with Jimi Gibson, VP of Brand Communication at Thrive Agency, about looking to the future when experiencing new things.

Host: Jess Dewell

Guest: Jimi Gibson

What You Will Hear:

03:40 We have to take these unexpected turns.

• Jimi Gibson shares his unexpected career journey from aspiring magician to advertising and creative director.
• The conversation focuses on the impact of these career turns on personal development.

08:50 Coulda, shoulda, woulda.

• How you can face the “three faces of regret.”
• It is important to take action to avoid future regrets.
• Real reason to pursue passion: desire to live without regret.

18:00 People will respect you for putting yourself on the line.

• The behind-the-scenes story about what actually happens when stepping into an executive role.
• Confidence and direct communication in leadership are important.
• Lessons learned about authority and responsibility within an organization.

25:30 Try something new that will help you become who you need to be.

• The true value of starting with no knowledge and committing to improvement.
• Create a low bar with a goal at the center of habit building.

28:55 Put yourself in the position of greatness.

• Jimi Gibson shares about practicing magic with intention and purpose.
• The value of dedication and deliberate practice.
• Learning from other magicians’ techniques and applying them to personal growth.

41:05 You need to be more thoughtful in your approach.

• Importance of being considerate and aware in decision-making.
• Overcommitting and pushing too hard can lead to poor outcomes – more often than not.
• It’s vital to be thoughtful in leadership and team management.

46:55 It is BOLD to keep looking to the future as you learn and experience new things.

Resources

• Jimi Gibson on LinkedIn
• Jess Dewell on LinkedIn
• Unlocking Purpose Through a Help-Hustle at Work
• Digital Marketing All Begins with a Story: The 5-Finger Approach to Cohesive Branding

Transcript

Jimi Gibson 00:00
A lot of times, you just need to take a break. You need to think, you need to be quiet, and you need to listen to yourself and other people.

Jess Dewell 00:11
So without doing that framework preparation work, checking in along the way, we lack the ability to know how to adapt or flex when all the other stuff starts showing up.

Jess Dewell 00:20
I’m so glad you’re here. Thanks for stopping by at the Bold Business Podcast. We are normalizing important conversations. Yes, there are tips. Yes, there are ways to solve problems. More importantly are gonna be what do you need? For yourself to be able to solve those problems and make the most of the education, the training, and the programs that you are already using. This is a supplement to that. It can sit on top of it, fuel your soul, fuel your mind, and most importantly, regardless of where you’re at on your journey, maybe you’re starting out, maybe you’re ready to scale, maybe you’re going through a reinvention. The conversations we are having will help you at each of those stages. So hang around, see what’s going on, and I look forward to seeing you engaging with our videos.

Announcer 01:14
You are listening to the Bold Business Podcast. Where you will hear firsthand experiences about what it really takes to ensure market relevance and your company’s future.

Jess Dewell 01:26
Twists and turns in our lives actually set us up for who we are today. We need to keep taking those twists and turns and opportunities of uncertainty around us so that we can set up who we are becoming to do more, to give more, to achieve more, to fulfill why we are here right now in this world at this time. And what better way to do that than talk to a magician who also happens to be the VP of Communications at Thrive Agency? Interesting combination, huh? My biggest takeaways were this, that there are faces of regret, the should, the wood, the could, and it’s what we do with those and how we show up and navigate them for ourselves. Regardless of what anybody else says or thinks, what do we think about that and how are we going to show up? Passion and discipline are necessary for every endeavor, especially where we’re adding value by solving people’s problems, both in our professional and personal lives. So, how do we be disciplined? How do we apply our passion to continue to get better? Jimi tells us about that. The way to expand creativity is to learn different perspectives about what we already know, what we think we know, what we want to know, and what we think, we want to know, what we know about, what we want to know. That was funny, but you get the gist, right? To be creative, we have to consume information. Watching, listening, reading, talking, so that we can have more points of view because it’s only when we have a lot of points of view, can we understand where we are, what the intersection of all our skills and desires and goals are, and how we wanna show up in the world and make the statement that we can make, be the people we want to be right now. And I think you’re gonna enjoy this. So, let’s get to the program. Whatever path we take in our profession, sometimes to get to the awesome place we’re at right now, we have to take these unexpected turns. I wanna hear from you. What are some of the unexpected turns that were necessary for you to be where you are, who you are with the company you’re at right now?

Jimi Gibson 03:43
That is a question. Hopefully, we have time for me to dig in and you can pick apart whatever you’d like. I grew up thinking I would not go to college. I wanted to be a professional magician and my parents convinced me that you’ll need something to fall back on. And somewhere around high school, I started to work for an advertising agency in a promotional role doing magic. I was very intrigued by the advertising world and thought that’s like magic. You’re helping people shape. Their opinions of something. There’s some showmanship involved, production value. I decided that’s what I wanted to study in school. Out of school, I started working at various ad agencies, now digital marketing agencies, doing typical things that you would think. I went through the creative path and really rose to the level of creative director and was excited, but something that was missing. And one day I just decided I’m gonna quit. And of course, everybody thought I was crazy. I quit. Moved to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and opened up a magic theater, and from there we experienced 9/11. I was scheduled to go to a theater in Santa Monica. And that got delayed because nobody was doing anything related to public performances. There was a morning period throughout the country, and when that finally opened up, I packed all my belongings. I drove cross-country and lived in the theater for a few months. I would wake up, walk downstairs, do multiple shows during the day. And satisfied that itch of being a professional magician. Throughout that process, I had various agencies contacting me, wanted me to work on creative projects. I said, No, I’m not interested. Ended up moving back to the East Coast, thinking about, okay, I’ve been out. I’ve taken this journey across country, I’ve worked in this theater, and an agency started to really lean in and tell me that they wanted me to come work there. I said, I don’t want a job. Okay. What would it take to get you to work here? I said, I will work nine months out of the 12 I. You’ll pay me for 12, and I get to decide those three months that I get to take off, and they’re like, okay. I’m like, oh, wow. All right. That sounds like a good plan. So I started working with that agency and I found that my perspective on things had changed when I stepped away. So I’d probably stepped away for six to eight months. And that experience of doing what I did, informed how I went about my creativity and thinking through the campaigns that I was working on. About that time, I was set up on a blind date and was very interested in this person. I’ve used those three months to date this woman long-distance. We will be celebrating 20 years of marriage this year, so blind dates do work. I jumped back into the world of agency life. I was working at a pretty large Omnicom agency, which is a holding company for advertising agencies, and was the Creative Director. There were branches all over the country, all over the world. I think there were 23 branches in the US and the person managing the branch. Said they were leaving. They weren’t interested in doing that anymore, and so we’re all staring each other going, what do we do? What do we do? I raised my hand and I said, I’ll do it. And so I became the leader of that division. I was also the Creative Director playing the analytical role as the owner, the general manager, and then also the creative lead. And as I thought back through that journey. That was probably the best decision and the craziest outside-looking-in decision that people experienced, family, friends, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. So I would say that’s probably the biggest career detour I took. And yeah, there’s a whole lot behind each part of that.

Jess Dewell 08:09
You know what I realized? I knew. Here’s where my brain went. As I was listening to you, I’m like, it’s so cool. You lived in a theater. I’ve always wanted to do that. I didn’t know you could still do that in my lifetime. That’s something I associate with the twenties and the thirties and the forties when everybody lived and worked exactly where they were at, because housing was hard. Resources were hard, and it was easier to just. Go to sleep when you were done. Wake up the next day and start over again than it was to go home or come back or any of those things. That’s what, that’s the coolest thing ever that you gotta live in a theater.

Jimi Gibson 08:42
It was cool.

Jess Dewell 08:43
What were your biggest learnings? Quitting driving across the country, living in a theater? What were your life lesson takeaways?

Jimi Gibson 08:52
This, this monster we all wrestle, it’s called the Three Faces of Regret. Coulda, shoulda, woulda, and I didn’t want to let that monster win. You always hear stories about, I don’t wanna wake up when I’m ex age and regret doing this, and so I just said, now’s the time I’m gonna go for it. I don’t have any responsibilities to prevent me from doing that, so why wouldn’t I do that? When we think about making a decision, the decision is the hardest part. Then you have to step over that threshold into uncertainty and figure out what’s the next step. What’s the next step? Once you make that decision, then you’ve committed. If you look at story structures, there’s some incident that occurs that sends that person on the journey. I, I guess that was my defining moment, and so I had to unwind all of these things that I’d pretty much been in the agency world at that point for about 10 years. I felt like I was in a rut, and the only way I know to get out of a rut is to do something different. And so I could go to another job and have more of the same, or I could say, I’ve had this passion since I was a kid, let me go ahead and pursue that. And the life lesson was, I. Why not now? It can be anything. It could be pursuing a hobby. It could be applying for the job. It could be asking this person out that you’ve are interested in. It could be pursuing a coursework in your schooling. The theater of the mind can trick you into thinking that something is harder or you don’t deserve to pursue that. And so I think that’s the biggest thing that I learned was, we do have the ability to look into the future. I think we’re the only species that can time travel. I say time travel from a mental state. You can remember your past and learn lessons from that, and then you can project into the future. What might happen? And, I’ve always enjoyed the opportunity to step into that future, so trying to figure out just the logistics of how do I take this stuff from coast to coast? How long is it gonna take? What do I have to do? I’ll tell you a funny story related to that trip across the country. As I mentioned, it was right after 9/11. My older brother lives in St. Louis at that time. I drove from Myrtle Beach to St. Louis, which was a pretty long day, but I had time on my side because I kept gaining an hour every time I entered a new time zone. At that point, they were guarding all of the monuments in the US because they thought there was gonna be some terrorism. The arch in St. Louis was guarded. We ended up going down there with my nieces and they actually let us in. You just couldn’t get a vehicle near the arches. I left there and I was driving on my way to Las Vegas, I had a friend who lives in Las Vegas, and he was gonna let me spend the night so that I could go into LA the next day. I had all of my stuff in the back of a SUV, I was pulling a trailer behind it. I had a blanket covering up all my belongings. I needed to cross the Hoover Dam, another monument, and also a lot of water behind the Hoover Dam.

Jess Dewell 12:09
Exactly.

Jimi Gibson 12:10
And so they were stopping.

Jess Dewell 12:13
You have a trailer and I have a trailer and they’re stopping all traffic.

Jimi Gibson 12:13
And I’m like, okay, cars this way, trucks and trailers this way. I’ll pull over. The guy comes up to the window, the National Guard shines the light in my face. He says, what are you doing? Where are you going? I said, up. I’m going to LA. I’m spending the night in Las Vegas. As I’m answering, I see his flashlight move to the back of my SUV. All the seats are down. I have this blanket. Over my belongings, but on top of that blanket, I had a map on a bulletin board of the East Coast and little pens in that map with population counts of every city. And immediately his face just got white and he’s, what is that map? This is the point where times stands still. Right? So I’m thinking I have to answer truthfully and quickly. I said, I’m a magician. That’s my touring schedule. I’m planning out my tour when I get home. Without missing a beat. He goes, alright, Mr. Magician, step out of the vehicle and do a trick. I’m like, oh my gosh, what in the world am I gonna do? So I get out of the vehicle, I grab some change out of the cup holder, I do a little slight-of-hand. I knew I had him because of the way he was looking and where his flashlight was, and he’s, man, that’s pretty cool. Then he goes, Hey guys, come over here. I got a magician. And so for the next 10 minutes, I’m having to do this impromptu magic show for the National Guard in the Army. And everybody looking is, oh my gosh, this guy’s so going to jail. Um, so, alright, well, can I leave? Are you cool? And he is. Oh yeah, you have a good time. Go on your way. And I guess the life lesson was, we all have our own perspective. In his mind, he had his duty, he knew what he thought that map was. To me, it was perfectly innocent. And so to be able to put yourself in somebody else’s shoes and see the world through their eyes, can. Get you out of jail, can keep things going in a good direction, but it allowed me to have a new sense of empathy. So that was a fun story and there’s other things that happened along the way that I wouldn’t trade for the world.

Jess Dewell 14:19
You’re listening to the Bold Business Podcast. I’m your host, Jess Dewell. This is your program for strategizing long-term success while diving deep into what the right work is for your business right now.

Announcer 14:40
You’re listening to the Bold Business Podcast, hosted by Jess Dewell, a nationally recognized strategic growth consultant. She works with business owners and executives to integrate just two elements that guide business through the ups and downs of growth. Number one, know what work is necessary. Number two, do all the work possible. Schedule a complimentary consultation to find out more at reddirection.com.

Jess Dewell 15:09
I’ve done this a couple of times. Picked up from college, said we’re done. For right now, drove from the middle of Kansas to the greater Seattle area. I remember being grilled by my mom because she’s like, why would you do this? How come you would quit your college education? Neither of my parents went to college. It was an expectation that I would, and I was paying for it. So there were some perspectives and other dynamics in that, but I just looked at her and I said. I wanna go. If I don’t go now, the opportunity’s gonna pass. And what’s the worst that can happen? I have to come home. So here I am, this 19, 20-year-old person and I’m like, what’s the worst that can happen? I’d have to come home and that’s not, my pride will be hurt, but. That’s not that bad. Of course, between you and me and everybody who’s listening, there was no way in hell I was gonna go home. I was gonna succeed. That was the first time I think I have been in a situation like what you were describing here, and it sounds like you’ve had many to be able to look back and go, yeah, here are these life lessons. And going back to what you said about not letting the facets of regret win is an incredibly important thing. And I think that changes as we get older to your point about perspective and life experience. When was the last time you stepped out of your comfort zone and said, okay, I’m gonna do this again? That feels like the magnitude of back then.

Jimi Gibson 16:36
It’s funny how everything goes back to magic. There is a trick, very popular in sideshows and circus acts where somebody walks on a bed of glass. By this point, I’m married to this beautiful woman, Dana, my bride of 20 years, and she’s going out of town on a business trip. Unbeknownst to her, I’ve been collecting glass bottles, so she’s gone on a Friday. I’m gonna prepare this walkway of glass while she’s gone, and then I’m gonna perform this now. Don’t try this at home, please. Listeners, I studied, obviously, have some connections within the industry. It’s not a trick where you buff the pieces of glass and everything you step on is smooth. You’re actually walking on broken glass, but I had a pretty good confidence level that this was gonna happen again. I’ve always wanted to do this. I learned how it was done. I had everything prepared. I literally pulled out my cell phone and I dialed nine one in case I needed to complete the 9-1-1 call. And then I walked across that class and I. It was very just this rush of adrenaline and exhilaration. I’m like, oh my gosh, I actually did this. This is awesome. From a personal perspective, your brain can trick you into thinking, that’s why it works for an audience. They can’t believe that someone would do that. And then there’s some business things that I have learned along the way. We had a huge account that everybody was competing for. I got to sit with the person in charge of making that decision. We went out to lunch. And, it was this extended period of time that this conversation was going on. Very long sales cycle, and so at lunch the woman asked, why do you think it took so long to get this meeting? I said, I don’t know. I would love to know. I’d been in the business a while, but I had not been in an executive position very long. She said, you took too long to contact me. You were dealing with. The people that reported to me and at your level, you should have been contacting me directly. And so that was a confidence factor. I was probably scared to contact that person. I had not stepped into the role that was on my business card, and that was always a lesson I carried with me. People were, respect you for putting yourself on the line. I don’t condone going around somebody’s back in a business situation, I respect that. But at the level I was at, I had not fully embraced that. I think that was a factor in me stepping into a higher level of understanding of what it means to be a leader in an executive in an organization. Those are two things that shaped me.

Jess Dewell 19:21
So I gotta go back to the glass. I think that’s fantastic because the first thing I went to is how much did you walk around barefoot out on your beaches to get your callouses? That was my first thought. I’m like, do you have really big calloused feet? My husband would be enamored with you because that’s his, one of his things is to just be able to walk around barefoot anywhere, anytime, over anything, any surface and whatever. And so I’m just like, huh, this is so nothing like that. You really had to put your mind out in front of knowing that. Your preparation was all about the magic. It was not about softening any residual outcomes that might need attention.

Jimi Gibson 19:59
Yeah. Without giving away the secret.

Jess Dewell 20:01
Don’t give away the secret.

Jimi Gibson 20:02
Yeah. Sharp glass. There’s nothing on my feet. And I think that just goes into tricking our brain into knowing that you can do more than you think you can do..

Jess Dewell 20:10
Which is huge. And then how you tied that into being a new executive, which is interesting because you had been the leader before. You had been a vision holder before in a couple of different ways. So I’m curious the reflection. Was there just not opportunity for you to have learned that earlier or was it because it was a different kind of organization or structure of organization that you were able to get and receive that feedback and then decide to use it?

Jimi Gibson 20:41
There’s a lot of folks that throw around the term mentor, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a business mentor. I’ve had magic mentors, but I’ve never had business mentor. I’m a voracious reader. I think you can create your own mastermind of people that you’ve never met. Certainly through podcasts and courses and videos and all sorts of things, but nobody was really leaning into me and teaching me those things, and so I just had to learn by trial and error. The school of hard knocks, whatever cliche you want to use. That has now shaped the way I lead other people. I’m not stingy with talking about lessons that I can help younger folks step up, learn how things work, how when to step into their own skills and talents. Because I didn’t have that.

Jess Dewell 21:32
So you had magic mentors. Did they decide they were going to have a connection to you and then you ended up developing it, or did you seek them out and then develop a relationship? In the experience of where you had your mentors? How did they evolve?

Jimi Gibson 21:47
Again, I’m pursuing this goal and I’m putting myself in a situation where I’m gonna be rubbing elbows with these types of people. I think in any situation, whether it be a sports-related situation, a business situation, maybe you wanna learn how to play the guitar, what somebody is looking for is how passionate is that person and how disciplined is that person. Are they really going to listen to what I’m going to be teaching them? Through that process because I was committed and. Passionate about what I wanted to do and the craftsmanship of it. They were open to me learning from them. Now, they’re not just gonna walk up and say, Hey, I’d like to be your mentor. Here’s how it’s gonna work, but we’re gonna meet every Tuesday at three o’clock. I had to respect them. I had to recognize their tenure in the business. I would ask little questions here and there. If they told me to investigate something, then I would do it and report back. I would champion for myself, but also stay humble. There was a magazine article about a magician who did something that I wanted to do. I didn’t contact this person when that first article came out. I guess it was probably a couple of years after that and I would have a stack of these trade publications, and that one was always on top because I would keep going back to it. I tracked this person down. Called the person on the phone. They said, I am busy right now, I would love to talk to you. Call me back next week on Thursday at 11:00 AM Eastern. Okay. I waited, I called them back at 11:00 AM Eastern on the dot. I hate to do this to you, but something has come up, If you could call me back next Friday morning at 9:00 AM that would be great. Okay. I waited. I called them back next Friday morning, 9:00 AM Okay, great. You passed the three tests. What do you wanna know? Excuse me, you would not believe how many people contact me. I just finally had to say, if you can’t jump through three hoops, you’re not determined enough to get the answer. So you made it through the three hoops. What do you wanna know? I said, do you mind if I record this or you can record the call? No problem. That told me doors open. If you’re focused, if you are respectful, if you keep to the plan. And so I always remember that. If you’re thinking about that in business, how many times do you get the no thanks, we’re not interested. If you really believe that this relationship needs to happen, you’ll keep after it.

Jess Dewell 24:24
Sometimes it’s not as obvious that when you get to that third one and you pass those tests. Sometimes it takes years. Sometimes there’s other dynamics around, especially in the bigger organizations, that other dynamics and politics and people and priorities don’t align even though you or I or whoever’s listening are the right solution and to be in touch and repetitive, but to do what needs to be done to have that connection. Sets everything for the stage to be right and to have other introductions along the way. There are probably some significant other things that have come out of that for you. I know they have for me, which is an interesting thing, but I gotta go back to, you said at the beginning, I wanna rub elbows with the right people and I need to believe in, I have passion and discipline. I gotta know how you define discipline because it’s something I talk about a lot. You can think about it. Everybody always diverts to sports and since you’re a magician, I’m like, what is discipline to you? Are we gonna get a similar answer to that or are we gonna have something else? Jimi?

Jimi Gibson 25:27
So there’s an international competition of magicians that I’m always interested in. How can I plan the future and then work myself backwards from that? This competition was coming to Virginia. That was a convention, and people from all over the world were traveling. I wanted to compete. At that point. My father was a high school principal, and during the summer, I would beg him to take me to work with him, and so he would open up the theater. When we walked in about 8:30, 9 o’clock, I would take my lunch and I would practice a seven-minute act for eight hours every day during the summer. There was something each day that I needed to make smoother, some component of that seven minutes. And to me it wasn’t work. To me, it was making sure that every move, every turn, every nuance of that seven minutes was absolutely perfect. So that’s one situation where I knew I had to put in the flight time, learned my craft. Years later, I was hired to do a theme park production that required 350 shows in six months. Because I had already done the reps. This was a cast of 22 people. There were music cues. I have no musical talent, so instead of counting the beats, I had to count the seconds in my head for when the next cue was. I enjoyed doing 350 shows in six months, and so now I’m on this adventure to become better at video. I drew a line in the sand about 18 months ago and I said, I know nothing about video. I’ve been behind the scenes, art directing video shoots, but I’ve never been behind the camera or understand exactly what’s going on. So I said, I’m gonna figure this out. And so I’ve educated myself. I’ve tried to get advice from people that I know, whether it be through a course or contacting them in some way. And so this year I said I’m gonna film a video and put it on LinkedIn every day, Monday through Friday, this year. That’s 261 videos. Hopefully by the 260th video. I’ll be worth watching and I’ll make some sense out of it. But the only way you’re gonna be able to do it is be okay with being bad. And so that first run through of the seven minutes was horrible. I was dropping things. I wasn’t even talking. It’s just to music and it was a disaster. But then as you put in the time, it gets better and better. And so that’s the same thing with video. I read a story one time about a magician named Richard Ross, and there’s a famous magic illusion called the multiplying billiard balls. And so basically you have a white ball about the size of a billiard ball, and they multiply in your hands and make them vanish and appear. It’s one of my favorite tricks. I’ve done it for many years. I was smart and I said, Hey, I’m gonna be bad at the beginning. So I’m just gonna stand over my bed and when I hold my hand and they fall, I’ll just have to reach down and pick up that ball and carry on with my repetition. So it’s muscle memory and all those things. I read this bio of Richard Ross, uh, Dutch Magician, and he was practicing the same thing. He lived on the second floor of a building and stuck his hand out the window if he dropped the ball. He had to put the balls down, go down the stairs, out the door, pick up the ball, go back upstairs. There’s also a mindset of putting yourself in the position of greatness. What pressure are you gonna put on yourself to be excellent? That was another lesson I learned just from reading a biography about somebody else and how they accomplished something that I was interested in doing, the specific application. So then of course, I felt horrible about putting my hand over the bed because that was the easy way out. And so I think that’s what I’d have done. Yeah, just tried to put myself in a position where I had to get better because there’s some sort of deadline and being okay with being bad.

Jess Dewell 29:31
I actually think that’s the biggest part of discipline myself. It’s be okay with being bad, whether you’re thinking about the seven habits of highly successful people, where you have a beginner’s mind or plan with the end in mind, or whether it’s, I’m trying to think. Giraffes can’t dance and you do it anyway. That’s one of my favorite children’s books. It sits on my shelf in my office because every once in a while we need that. I’m like, you have a dance. Nobody knows what it is yet. That’s it. And how you put pressure on yourself, I think that directly relates to your desire. And how it influences other priorities. So you said eight hours a day. This was your craft and your work, and we hear things. Things that we talk about on this show all the time is how do you have your own deep work time? What does that look like? It, in an executive role, what does your executive time? How are you overcoming and dealing with constraints that may be planned, maybe not, or reprioritization for whatever reason? I was really excited to hear you say, I just had seven minutes and I put in the time and I did it for eight hours a day and I had something different every day. We forget in this world that moves so fast that there’s something to that. So now I gotta know your videos every day. How are you feeling about ’em so far?

Jimi Gibson 30:51
Good. I’m getting good feedback. They’re. A minute or so, a piece I like to batch create. I’ve probably got enough filmed right now to take me through March. What that allows me to do is sit back, reflect on what I’ve done, watch myself, because there is this disassociation with seeing yourself on video and hearing your voice. That’s crazy.

Jess Dewell 31:15
It’s so weird. I know.

Jimi Gibson 31:18
Yeah, because we hear our voice come out of our mouth and wrap around the corner to our ear. We don’t hear our voice the same way we hear somebody else. You gotta be comfortable with just sitting there critiquing yourself and watching them, and then figure out, okay, how can I level that up? What is the next thing that I can do?

Jess Dewell 31:34
I’m your host, Jess Dewell, and we’re getting down to business. On the Bold Business Podcast, this is where we’re tackling the challenges that matter most to you with actionable and achievable advice to get real results that lead to your success.

Jess Dewell 31:45
Okay. Now I’ll tell you a funny story about this whole voice thing. I throw the Bold Business, even though I listen to it, I’m part of the production, we’re doing all this preparation. I still want to listen to it in the podcast realm. It’s one way that I’m evaluating how we’re doing, what do I like, the flow, all those kinds of things. And one time. This show came on and it was so amazing. And I’m like, who is this lady? Why don’t I know? And then the intro starts. This is Jess with the Bold Business Podcast and my car laughing so hard because my voice was, I was so into whatever was going on. I didn’t even realize it was me. [That’s awesome.] So I was like, I think I’m smart. How is that for an outside perspective?

Jimi Gibson 32:32
That’s awesome. You were in the flow.

Jess Dewell 32:38
I was in the flow of something and surprised myself. It’s a really good point. I know people shy away from things because they’re afraid of whatever, right? I don’t have the right lighting. Am I gonna look washed out? Will I actually make any sense? Can I prepare beginning, middle, and an end? Are you doing it on the fly or are you preparing each one with your beginning, middle, and end if that’s how you’re doing it for your batches?

Jimi Gibson 33:00
I’m a preparer and I like to know what I’m gonna say. But that gives me the comfort to be able to go off script or to add some nuance to it. Some people say they wouldn’t wanna do it that way. There’s a big debate in the magic world. Should you script your show, should you not script your show? I’m a big fan of being prepared. I think that gives you a comfort, a piece, and then you can always come back to it if you need to. I’m preparing. I wanna be thoughtful. I wanna provide value. I don’t think I can do that on the fly. I think I can get more comfortable with maybe not doing that. The more reps I, I get in.

Jess Dewell 33:38
I feel you, and to this day, you’ve seen our process behind the scenes. I put together a shape with which I will prepare before we record. We may or may not use any of it, but at least I’ve put in the effort. I’ve made myself present for this so that I can be present and add value and to make sure we’re doing our best for your value to come through. I’ve always had a knack for it, but I didn’t understand where the talent ended and where the skill began. And so that was over the last eight years of the Bold Business Podcast. When we iterate and change things and experiment, sometimes show-to-show, it’s around that, can we find that? Where are we really good? Where are we taking things for granted? What are some of the things that help or hurt our process? Can we be better, more efficient is always great, but can we be better? Can we deliver more value? Are we putting in the time ahead of time? Even with video these days, I know a lot of people are trying it. If you’re one of these people, there is no judgment here. We all have to get in with two feet. There’s no judgment. They’re gonna talk for a little bit and then they’re gonna go, here would be my thought. Until we do it and speak out loud. We don’t know. I’m working with some middle school kids that are going to competition. They have to pick a topic, prepare it in 15 minutes, and then give a three to five-minute presentation. Yeah. And so we’re practicing and their biggest thing is they’re talking super fast. And so I’m like, your minimum is three minutes and anything under this you’re going to get penalized. So their one task for this preparation, Jimi, is set a countdown timer, like an egg timer on your phone watch or a separate egg timer device for one minute, and then pick a book and read out loud for one minute and do it 10 times because now you know how much time it takes and what that time feels like. To your point about scripting or not, I like to have some concept because then I understand the milestones regardless of what happens in between. Hopefully, we’ll see if that’s helpful to them. When we don’t hear our voice, when we aren’t used to talking three to five minutes at a time, how can we do that? How do we get that experiment? We’ll see how that works. Look at you. You’re doing all this preparation, but you’ve done magic shows that are a lot longer than one minute at a time.

Jimi Gibson 35:54
Oh, yeah.

Jess Dewell 35:55
Yeah. Was it easy to adapt your skill from magic into doing video and learning?

Jimi Gibson 36:02
Yeah. I think there’s some performance techniques and some skills related to messing with equipment and plugging things in, and understanding the proscenium of the camera. For those who don’t know, a proscenium is like the picture frame of a stage. The more you can study things like that, and the ability to communicate. You’re staring at something that’s not a person. So how do you have personality?

Jess Dewell 36:29
It’s the hardest thing ever. That’s why you’re here. And I don’t do it by myself, Jimi. It’s hard to do it on your own. Kudos to that.

Jimi Gibson 36:40
I have a guy that we’ve been masterminding with. We met at a conference probably 12 years ago, and we’ve talked every Friday morning for 12 years. We talk about everything and my wife will not let me get by with anything. I have those two people that I will show videos to and they are pretty brutal with their critique. Of course, lovingly, when I first started doing a couple of videos, I would show ’em to my wife and she says, what are you doing with your eyebrows? That is creepy looking. And I’m like, I don’t know. What about doing with my eyebrows? We’re often our worst critic, but then we have blind spots that we don’t see. The more you’re self-aware and the more you understand how you’re coming across, then you can play around with that. Somebody taught me, when you’re trying to manage all of these things, don’t change more than one thing at a time. You’ll freak yourself out and then just have a filter. Was it better or worse? If it was better, I’ll keep that. If it was worse, I’ll bring it back to the way it was, and so if you can just say Is what I just did better or worse than it was before, then that’s the easier way to attack something that you’re trying to make strides in.

Jess Dewell 37:45
You said, you’re an avid reader and I guess maybe consuming, I know some people say they read books and they listen, and I honor that immensely. Also, tell me how you’re reading, how you’re consuming and what you’re consuming. How about that?

Jimi Gibson 37:58
Yeah, so I consume everything I. Anyway, so it doesn’t matter if it’s a podcast, if it’s a course. I love a book that I can carry around. I have a Kindle that I carry on a plane, and also if I’m reading in bed and don’t want the lights to be on. Two things that I’m reading. One is a book by Jeremy Cot, C-O-W-A-R-T. It’s called I’m Possible. If you look at it, you think it says impossible, and that’s part of the book. He’s a photographer, but way more than that. He’s a humanitarian. He has made incredible impact around the world and it all from something his parents taught him when he was a kid. And it’s a very humbling book because you think about, yeah, I’m nice to people. I help out when I can. The trajectory of what he’s purposely done to put himself in a situation to help people globally is amazing. So that’s an awesome book. I’m in a new role in the company that I work for, Thrive Agency. One of our folks was wondering if we’re gonna post on TikTok. I have not. Investigated TikTok, all the stuff that’s been going on recently with TikTok, going down, TikTok coming back up and so I just said, I don’t know anything about it. I’m gonna read a book and I’m going to, so I searched for a person that I believe would give me the perspective from the angle from that I’m interested in, and it’s fascinating. I’m not really reading it as a TikTok influencer. I’m reading it as a medium to reach a lot of people and understanding from that perspective. I know one of the questions that you had sent previously is, what do you do to inspire creativity or expand your creativity? I think it’s something that if you have a strong opinion about in a negative way or you have zero knowledge about, go read about it. Go experience it. Go do it. I had a friend that was a photographer for NASCAR and I was not interested in car racing. How many hours can you watch somebody make a left turn? He said, do you want to go? I’ll take you in the pits. We’ll meet the drivers. And I’m like, sure, I’ll go. I had a new respect and admiration for what goes in to that sport. Learn more about something that I maybe am judgmental about or have a negative opinion about, or have a lack of information about, just so I can be aware of whether that opinion is well-founded. This is what’s really going on behind the scenes, the way we’re describing it.

Jess Dewell 40:21
I’m like, oh, critical thinking, how do we decide we have a point of view? And then how do we evaluate what’s around us to know what is coming in this point of view from this decision that has been made, and then being able to tie that back. Are we creative enough? Are we measuring the right things? Are we doing the work we said we were gonna be doing? Whatever those questions are, and I’m very curious about this. So being creative, having all of these things, learning and growing, how do you know when to measure a result of progress or change? And how are you doing that naturally, whether it’s self-development or whether it’s in your role at Thrive?

Jimi Gibson 41:05
We’re very focused on success and increasing revenue or our key performance indicators. A lot of times you just need to take a break. You need to think, you need to be quiet, and you need to listen to yourself and other people. I feel that when I find that I am pushing too hard and trying to force something to happen, that’s the worst place to be in because you’re gonna make bad decisions. You’re gonna piss people off, you’re gonna offend people, and you need to be more thoughtful in your approach. And that’s the way I have seen in the past that things happen for me in a better situation. The other thing you can do is overcommit and put too much pressure on yourself and your team to accomplish something unreasonable, and it’s gonna end up tanking. I’m all for stepping out on a limb, but over and over again is exhausting. That’s not a culture you can sustain for yourself or within an organization. With age, you think comes wisdom, but I think it’s more scars that, yeah, this is probably not gonna turn out the way that we want it to. So let’s rethink how this is gonna go and make sure that we set checkpoints along the way to understand if we’re moving towards the goal away from the goal, or we need to redirect what we think the goal is gonna be. And so I know that’s a lot of talk about how to set goals and how do you know you’re doing a better job.

Jess Dewell 42:36
Here’s what I took away. I think because it’s not data-driven, it’s not rich. You can’t communicate it when those goals are made. With that framework you outlined, we’ve gotta keep a pulse on everything that’s going on. Unexpected stuff happens that we have to throw into the mix. So without doing that framework preparation work, checking in along the way, we lack the ability to know how to adapt or flex when other stuff starts showing up. And so I agree with you that in general it’s fluff and it’s too bad it’s seemed that way because that’s where the real magic, that’s where the real possibility is at the beginning. And then execution is how do we, we have to MacGyver it or if we have to backtrack, we’re not actually starting from zero ’cause we have data that we have all these other things that people forget along the way.

Jimi Gibson 43:26
I was championing a restructure of the organization about two years ago. We’re a pretty large agency, close to 200 people, considerable number of clients. We were losing touch with team members working together and team members interacting with clients, and so we actually moved to a matrix organizational structure, which is basically, we divided the company up into four teams, and now we have the camaraderie of those four teams working together. So we basically created four boutique agencies within the larger agency. What’s the best time to do that? Not 19 years after you’ve been in business? Right. We actually decided we would do a test. We took a fourth of the company, fourth of the clients, and a fourth of the team, and we had a three-month window where we were gonna try to break it and make all the mistakes so that we can apply that learning to the other three teams. We actually launched a month early with the full rollout, and that was a wise decision that we all agreed would be that you’re gonna stink at it to begin with. So let’s go ahead and realize we’re gonna stink at it. And then every time something the monkey wrench gets thrown in, we’ll figure out how do we fix it so that we don’t have mass confusion across the entire company. We just have mass confusion across a quarter of the company, and we wanna make sure that we protect our clients’, uh, results, and we protect the health of the people who work on those projects.

Jess Dewell 44:59
How long did that project take to do that reorganization? From beginning to end?

Jimi Gibson 45:04
Yeah. We started working on it behind the scenes about eight months before we introduced it to the rest of the company. Then there was a PR tour where we go around, explain what’s gonna happen, answer all the questions, and get buy-in. We launched the first group in March and rolled the whole thing out in June of that year. We tweaked from June through the end of the year, but we felt stable enough that we wouldn’t have client churn. We wouldn’t have turnover within the team, that type of thing. So I would say that was actually pretty fast.

Jess Dewell 45:34
And so this is the other reason I think people forget goals that are longer than a year. Can’t be specific. So I was gonna tie that back to it’s actually not fluff when you’re looking at something that big, because we don’t know if there’s gonna be a trial group or a first run to fix everything before you go. How do we pull those people out and still keep our existing client base? I like your framework it is not fluffy at all because it’s big picture and it goes into change management and it goes into longevity and relevance over time. What came to mind, Jimi, was Gore-Tex chose a different organizational structure many years. I don’t remember. It could have actually been anywhere between 15 and 25 years. When they started, they changed their organizational structure a long time ago and the guy wrote a book about it. I remember reading it going, wow, that is so cool. It was the first time I really understood how. Some of those long-term change plans, all they are is the plot on the map and the path that you think you’re gonna take to get there, and then you arm yourself with the tools to get through the forest and maybe some food along the way and learn about the vegetation so you can eat when you run out of food and what might you encounter.

Jimi Gibson 46:49
That’s a good visual.

Jess Dewell 46:50
Hoover Dam and Nevada on your way to Las Vegas.

Jimi Gibson 46:55
That’s a good visual.

Jess Dewell 46:57
Oh, and so there’s a forward-looking piece to that. And that’s actually the reason I really like your story is that it was, here’s what we’re doing, but here’s what we could be doing. So how do we do that? Always looking to the future, which everything you shared today does. So I’m curious what makes it bold to keep looking to the future as you learn and experience and try new things we may not be good at right away?

Jimi Gibson 47:19
Yeah, and there’s nothing sure in life except for change. If you want to stay stagnant. The rest of the world is gonna change around you, whether it’s personally, professionally, whatever the case may be, and just being open to em, embrace that liminal state and that liminal state is that uncomfortable threshold between where you are now and where you want to be. And that’s a very fearful place for many people to reside. But it’s a muscle that. We all have these things in our head that it’s gonna turn out this way. It’s gonna turn out that way. And being okay with walking into the unknown if you believe and have the skills to navigate this adventure.

Jess Dewell 48:02
You’re inventor. I just repeated you.

Jimi Gibson 48:07
I believe the reward is great when we continue to push and improve and get better. Personally, I get bored with the same hole. When you hit a ceiling, break through the ceiling, I saw a picture one time about, it was a circle, it was a small circle, and you were this little dot in the middle, when you get close to the edge of that circle, if you break through, then that circle has to expand to. Include you again. Every time you break through your circle, it gets bigger and bigger so you can decide, do you wanna play in a big circle or do you wanna keep your circle small and be okay in this safe little world? Which again, you can say safe little world, but things are gonna change whether you like it or not. So you might as well have some ability to navigate those changes and don’t do it by yourself. That’s why we’re together in this journey. Grab some other people that can help you along and pick you up when you stumble.

Jess Dewell 48:58
Every single time I have a conversation, I take away something that I wanna share with 25 people. I know When you’re listening to this podcast, you’re also. Listening for that, and we’ll have something that you want to share in the comments I would like for you to engage with us. What is that thing that you wanna tell 25 people from this program? Here’s why it’s important. It’s important because yeah, there are gonna be how-tos. Yes, there are gonna be steps. Yes. You’re gonna be like, oh, I wish I wrote that down. I wish I wasn’t doing this. And I could actually take. Action on that right now, but guess what? You’re not so engaged right now because that one thing you wanna share with others will be the thing that you can figure out how to incorporate in your business, in your workflow, in your style tomorrow.

Announcer 49:46
Jess hosts the Bold Business Podcast to provide insights for building a resilient, profitable business by deeply understanding your growth strategy, ensuring market relevance and your company’s future. It is bold to deeply understand your growth strategy. With your host, Jess Dewell. Get more information about how to drive solutions and reset your growth mindset at reddirection.com. Thank you for joining us and special thanks to our post-production team at The Scott Treatment.