Crossing the Line with Steve Riat

[00:00:09] Hey everybody, this is Larry Little and you're listening to Crossing the Line, a podcast where we talk with leaders about the moments in their life when they cross that line from leading with their heads to leading with their hearts and then from leading with their hearts to

[00:00:22] leading with their heads. In other words, we find out what makes them tick. We find out about leaders themselves. And today, we're going all the way to Kansas. I want you to meet Steve Riat. Steve is an author and international speaker. He's also director of sales at NeXTec.

[00:00:39] He's a facilitator of peer groups and small groups, just a guy with a wealth of knowledge and it truly is an honor to have him on the podcast with us today. He has all kinds of awards and achievements that he has worked for, but perhaps the most

[00:00:55] important, well at least in my mind is he was recognized by HTG as a go giver. He was given the GoGiver Award for his contribution to the peer group community and what that

[00:01:07] simply means is he was given award because he loves to give to others and that's who he is. He's a servant leader. He's a great, great guy. You're going to enjoy this podcast.

[00:01:19] We just talk about a plethora of things, but also we take away some innovative new ideas around leadership. I don't want to spoil it. I'm going to be quiet so we can get right to the conversation with Steve Riat.

[00:01:39] All the way from Kansas today, we have Steve Riat. We are excited to have you. Thank you for spending some time with us today as we talk about life and leadership. Steve, welcome to the Crossing the Line podcast. Larry, couldn't be more excited to be here with you.

[00:01:56] Well, we're going to have some fun. I'll tell you that. You've done such an awesome job in your life of investing in others. You're a speaker and author. We've talked about all of that and sales guy and you lead peer groups do so much.

[00:02:10] You do so many things to use your skills and to use who you are to invest in the lives of others. So we want to learn a little bit about you. So I want to take you back.

[00:02:19] I want you to think about a day in the life of Steve when he was six, seven, eight years old. I want you to think back and tell me what was a day in the life like in your family.

[00:02:32] Get that family system up for me and tell me what was a day in your life as a young child? Yeah, that's probably those ages are probably impactful for me. I remember I'm eight years older than my youngest sister, my only sister.

[00:02:48] And so would have been expecting her at some point, right? Big change in life from a single child to a little sister had lived in a smaller town in Kansas. So I had lots of good friends that, you know, we had the whole block party, right?

[00:03:03] All the friends got together on their big wheels and on their bikes. And, you know, that's what I remember growing up at that age. I had a lot of fun in the community and just enjoyed life for sure.

[00:03:16] You know, you said something that we don't see a lot of unfortunately anymore. And that is children just playing out in the neighborhood, you know, to run free and to ride bikes. And it's a bit different these days, huh? Oh, yeah. For sure.

[00:03:28] I have, you know, that statement of the street lights come on. Come on. It's time to come home. That was that was absolutely true for me. And, you know, mom probably had very little idea where I was most of the time

[00:03:40] other than I showed up when I was supposed to. You know, I think and I've heard this from so many leaders through the years as we have interviewed and talked even on this podcast.

[00:03:50] You know, that idea of go out play when the lights come on, street lights come home. That that built a type of independence, a type of kind of, you know, we were out. We knew we had responsibility to get home, but we did.

[00:04:03] I think we're missing some of that today. I think that the pattern I see is in leaders that back in the day when we could do that and feel safe, I'm not saying that we could even do that today.

[00:04:16] But when we could and we were in that environment, I think it taught us about, you know, kind of being innovative and and going out and being on discovering, exploring all those things that, you know, true leaders have to have

[00:04:32] that curiosity with the responsibility of being home when the street lights, you know, when they're on you better you better book at home. So you're that's who you are. You're out riding bikes playing now. You're let's move up just a bit elementary school was was just kind of

[00:04:47] you're saying a fun we were out. We're playing what about junior high? Who were you in junior high? Yeah. So in the middle of that, we moved to a little bit larger city. Definitely impactful from my childhood went from a very small town to a very large

[00:05:03] town and learned very quickly that the things had changed, especially, you know, I lost some of that friend group that had surrounded me and learned in the bigger city that had offended for your own a little bit.

[00:05:18] And so was learning through that process of bending through your own, making a new set of friends through that time frame. But, you know, things are really positive, I would say, and still have some

[00:05:31] of those friends today for sure on both sides of that, you know, from the grade school side, you know, even the junior high and high school friends. So still moving forward, but grew up a little bit larger town in Topeka, Kansas, which is a capital.

[00:05:44] And, you know, that did have an impact from a standpoint that now I live in a much smaller town than either one of those made that choice to do that, but still can. Fend my own in the larger city when I have to, right? Isn't that interesting?

[00:06:00] You go to this big town and then you have to kind of find your identity. You kind of have to figure out who are you and who are you going to be. So were you when you when you were finding that out, you're trying

[00:06:11] to did you find yourself migrating? Were you Steve and junior high? Were you Steve the athlete? Were you Steve the tech guy? Were you Steve the how did you find that identity? What were some of the struggles you went through to get there? You know, that's fair.

[00:06:25] I actually I remember a simple story that when I moved from the smaller town in Topeka, I went back to go visit some of my friends. And I remember going to baseball practice with them. And between the year I had left, I could no longer hit a ball

[00:06:42] and I can no longer catch a ball. And that was a really interesting impact. And I couldn't understand it, how the kids can hit that ball and how they can catch that ball and outfield. And later that fall, I realized that these glasses came into the realm.

[00:07:00] But you know, you talk about something impactful. You don't know what you can't see until somebody points out you can't see the blackboard, right? I think that was a strong lesson for me because, you know,

[00:07:10] I literally had to remember having that feeling of how can they hit that baseball when you can see it five, you know, five feet in front of you. How can you catch that ball in the outfield when you can only hear it coming off the bat?

[00:07:23] But I didn't realize that they could see it and I couldn't. Wow, you know, that my wife had the same experience. She said when she realized all of a sudden she had glasses at the child and junior high. And she said, I suddenly realized that trees have leaves.

[00:07:40] You could actually see the leaves. So it was quite the experience. And that's kind of what you had. So you had that that sight issue, got it corrected. Then what happened? Yeah, so, you know, that really I wasn't very good in sports. I'm not a very tall.

[00:07:55] I'm not a very big guy. I think I graduated high school at 98 pounds. So it really set me down the path that I needed to be anyway. I really didn't do any athletics through junior high and high school, but I got into the more debate forensics world,

[00:08:11] which serves me well even today. How about that? The debate forensics world. Now, did you do that in high school? Is that where we are now? Yeah, I did that in high school. I had a gentleman named Ryan McKeithan. He was the coach slash teacher, if you will.

[00:08:28] And he taught me a lot. I tell the story that when I was in eighth grade, I had an English teacher that I couldn't diagram sentences. Still can't. So don't ask me to do that. Can use this. I can ask AI to do it today.

[00:08:43] But she informed me that I'd probably be nothing more than a garbage man at that point and that was not, you know, not that there's anything wrong with a sanitation engineer by any means, but it was not meant as a compliment.

[00:08:56] And that stuck with me a little bit. And then when I got into high school, Ryan invested me a ton of time, Mr. McKeithan, and taught me where some of my God-given skills were at. And that was that ability to be some improv ability

[00:09:11] to have a good argument, the ability to have great communications. And that served me far better than diagramming sentences. Wow. And those things had to have great communication, how to have improv. Those are really life skills, aren't they? They are.

[00:09:29] I have recently gone down a rabbit hole of improv. I was listening to some of the podcasts and specifically they were relating how improv can teach leadership. And the reason behind that is when you're leading in the moment, you're improv, right?

[00:09:49] Like we don't have words that we can communicate that are the same words in every situation. And the first law of improv that I discovered was yes and. And so whatever the person that you're working with is, you kind of have to do a yes and.

[00:10:08] And so you can't just say, no, your reality isn't true and an end of scene, if you will. You have to be yes and then add to it. And, you know, that's something I've just discovered here recently

[00:10:21] and I'm super happy to be able to share it that I've discovered that. And it also plays in another realm of my world of sales. It's the exact same concept too. Customers, you know, clients that you're talking with, you never know where they're going to take you.

[00:10:38] But if they tell you that they're having a particular problem, you can't tell them no, but you can do a yes and. And so we've enjoyed a lot on the team here, doing a little bit of improv lately.

[00:10:50] Um, learning some exercises to get our brains to listen a little bit better because that's the other part of improv, right? You can't improv if you don't hear the other person. So it's amazing how that all tied together here. 50, you know, I'm now 50 from those high school experiences.

[00:11:09] Well, you may be 50, but you look like you're 30, Steve. So there we have that. But what you're teaching us is so relevant and so important to speak, to listen well and then to speak into the language, to speak into the person, to speak according to what they say,

[00:11:28] to join them where they are instead of resisting or, you know, many times we have a prescribed methodology. I think in our world of leadership even or even and even maybe sales. And, you know, someone would say, I really would like a piece of chocolate cake.

[00:11:45] I think that's what I need. And we have a great wealth of knowledge and an arsenal with yellow cake. You know, we don't, we don't have chocolate, but so we spend a lot of time trying to convince them of what they need when we should be listening

[00:11:57] and using improv to figure out how to meet their needs where they are instead of trying to convince them that we have this scripted prescribed solution that probably isn't really what they need at all. Absolutely fantastic example.

[00:12:12] And probably the final piece that have been studied recently is I'm a fan of Chris Voss, that's the, you know, he was the chief hostage negotiator for the FBI and mirroring is one of the tactics he teaches. You're right.

[00:12:25] And you can't mirror somebody without listening fully to what they said and then being able to mirror their words. So I think you put all those systems together for you of, you know, yes, and a little bit of mirroring and, you know, active listening for

[00:12:43] the purpose of good. Right. Like I think all of these, all of this can be used in a not so positive way. And as long as you're aligned to that purpose of good, I think you get really positive outcomes.

[00:12:55] You know, Steve, we've known each other for a while and you're familiar with our system here. And as you were talking, I couldn't help but think about our personality work and learning the language of others, whether it's that competent camel, tranquil turtle, much love monkey leading line.

[00:13:13] The animals aren't important. What's important is learning to speak the language of those personalities. In order to do that, you have to listen. You have to, we call that blinking. You have to be able to blink who they are.

[00:13:25] You can't blink if you don't listen and then realize that their language is not your language. Right? Many times. And so you have to get to where they are and speak that lion language or that turtle language. And that's a great lesson, Steve.

[00:13:40] Thank you for teaching us about that. And I'm excited about your improv work. That sounds, that sounds really cool to me and that you're using it with your team. And I look forward to hearing how that's going. But I'm going to bring you back for a minute.

[00:13:54] All right. We're back in high school. We're moving out. You have, you know, you found your identity. You've worked your way through and now you're headed to what happens when you graduate, where you headed? Yeah. I went to college. I did live at home through college.

[00:14:11] Came out debt free. Enjoyed that very much. Congratulations. Well, thank you. You know, college was, you know, I got the paper at the end and enjoyed the experience work pretty much, you know, 30 ish hours a week at Radio Shack.

[00:14:32] And, you know, I think that's part of my story is I've really had three jobs, which is kind of interesting. I bagged groceries and, you know, like early high school, literally in the parking lot of the grocery store was Radio Shack,

[00:14:47] where one day I was in there checking out all the latest, you know, technology, love technology. And that store manager asked me if I knew anything about commissions and I said, well, not really. And he goes, well, more you sell the more you make.

[00:14:59] And I love that concept. And so I worked my way through college at Radio Shack. I remember I worked in the mall in Topeka, which had two of the great things I loved. Time to get my homework done at the counter because I didn't

[00:15:13] really get busy to the evenings, but also all the girls hung out at the mall and I worked out fantastic. It was a win-win. It was. So you, so you were, you bagged groceries. Yes, sir. And then you worked at Radio Shack. Yes, sir.

[00:15:30] And what, then was there another, was there another job that I hear you say you had three or no, just the one I said in now. That's the third one. So let me, let me finish that story. Wow. Yeah.

[00:15:41] I graduated college on a Saturday and on a Sunday, I got a call from Radio Shack district manager and I remember going, well, what are you doing tomorrow? I said, I don't know. I hadn't really thought about past graduation.

[00:15:53] And he goes, well, why don't you manage a store? Okay. So I took on my first store management job, I think two days later in Topeka. I worked there roughly six months. I remember it was October 30th because it was the day before Halloween.

[00:16:14] And I got another one of those phone calls. Hey, what are you doing tomorrow? I don't know. Maybe a Halloween party and he goes, well, how about you go manage the largest Radio Shack in the state? And I said, well, Kansas City sounds fantastic.

[00:16:26] And he goes, no, Hays, Kansas. Well, I knew where that was at. My mom was from Hays and it's pretty remote on I 70 out here. And so I literally picked up everything I owned in my apartment, moved within a few days with a couple buddies

[00:16:44] of mine out to Hays, Kansas and took over the Radio Shack there, which gave me a lot of blessings. I learned to manage a team pretty well out here. Again, we were several hours from kind of the closest other Radio Shack.

[00:17:00] But at that time this is in the 90s. I we sold a lot of computers because there was no web purchasing at that time really. We sold a ton of computers, made some of the best friends that I still have.

[00:17:13] In fact, I work with one of them still today directly and we had a great time. But that experience led me to every day having to go to the bank, you know, do the daily deposit, which I have my wife. She was the banker. How about that?

[00:17:33] And so that's that's where I met Jennifer 24 years ago. We'll be 25 this next summer. So pretty excited about that anniversary. But she's tolerated me all these years. And when we were looking to start a family, the retail world was not great kind of October through January.

[00:17:56] And we had a conversation and said, you know, you need to find another job. So I did exactly what I had done in the past. I walked across parking lot to Next Tech, which is where I work today 24 years later and been here ever since. But wow.

[00:18:15] What a story. I think, I think, you know, God led me to where I needed to be and I've grown my career from a frontline person here to the executive management team and really enjoyed every step of that path. So here's the pattern. You continue to search.

[00:18:34] You had to be assertive. You had to walk across the parking lot. You had to take a chance to go into Radio Shack. You had to go take a chance. I mean, you know, you walk in the next. That's a great. Great illustration, though.

[00:18:46] Of you knew you needed to make a change and instead of spinning on it, you did something. You didn't know if it was going to work out or not. But you made a decision. Hey, what I'm doing is not working out the way I wanted to right now.

[00:18:57] So, you know, you could sit and spin and moan and groan or you could do something. Yeah. And and and you did something. And and wow. And you've been there 24 now. I have to ask. Got to go back to Jennifer for a minute. All right.

[00:19:10] So look, you're going into the bank. And, you know, you've been known. You've already told us you walk into these places and things happen. How did you how did you convince her to go out with you? Well, so all the the banking gals, I say that specifically,

[00:19:26] they were gals at the time, many of which are still in our lives today. They said you ought to ask her out. And I had just recently broken up with a previous girlfriend. And so I thought that was a great idea.

[00:19:40] So I asked her out and she said, no. Oh, and they'd all told me that she was going to say yes. And she said no. And she said no. And so, you know, quite frankly, I moved on.

[00:19:54] And two weeks later, she called me and said, well, why didn't you ask me out again? I said, well, you said no. She goes, well, I'm kind of playing hard to get. What's the problem? I'm paraphrasing. I'm pretty sure she would argue that statement at some point.

[00:20:11] But she definitely told me no on the first time. But she called you. She did. Yeah. And so did she ask you out or did you ask her out again? You know, I couldn't answer that question to be honest. It worked out.

[00:20:27] I later she's going to be embarrassed. I tell you this story, but later found out that her parents lived where she lived with her parents about probably a football field away from where I lived behind the apartment I lived. And her and her sister had stalked me.

[00:20:45] They knew what cars were in front of my apartment. They knew everything about me. So she was not taking a lot of risk. She knew exactly what she was getting into. I love good for Jennifer. Wow, she had a little leadership going on on her own time.

[00:21:01] Didn't she? Good for her. So so you and Jennifer are married now. You're working, you've moved, you walked across the parking lot. You're at, you know, next tag. There you go. And you've been there for what? 25 years, 24 years, 24 years.

[00:21:16] So out of those 24 years, help me to know from from what you have, how have you grown from what you've learned from where you started, from where you are now kind of give us a synopsis of how you've grown and and what have you learned through that process?

[00:21:30] You know, transparently, I was pretty big idiot when I started. You know, I was a lot about getting what I needed to get what I wanted. There's a couple pivot points in my career. Obviously, the birth of my two boys was part of that.

[00:21:47] You know, your responsibilities change somewhere after my second child was born in Carson. I was a supervisor at this point. I had a guy that worked for me. His name was Brian and Brian had, you know, we'd done our weekly catch up.

[00:22:06] And I remember I can almost remember the call, but, you know, his flip phone days and had a call with him. And I remember him, you know, he was kind of chatty and we got done with all the business.

[00:22:19] And then he told me how proud he was of his family and you know, two year old girl and he was expecting a son soon. And I remember, you know, having that call with him, not to know that within five minutes of that call,

[00:22:33] he would run a stop sign and be killed instantly. And, you know, that taught me more in an afternoon than any leadership experience ever has. You know, I hope nobody ever has to go through that. But first of all, it taught me that, you know,

[00:22:51] being personally invested with your team is so important because I got to tell what the last things he talked about were to his family later, right? And, you know, today even one of MacArthur's friends is one of those children's of Brian's that we were talking about.

[00:23:12] So, so, you know, I get to see that, but, you know, still think about Brian frequently and never know who's going to be here for how long and wow, doing what we do. You know, we have to be accountable for the people that we work with,

[00:23:25] but that personal connection means so much more to me today. And I hope I live that every day. Steve, thank you for sharing that. And, you know, unfortunately, we learned through tragedy many times. And it sounds like that you have experienced it.

[00:23:44] That was a cornerstone event for you. That was a life changing event for you. That was a priority changing event for you. So thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And I love that, that you could go back to Brian's family

[00:23:57] and share with them his last words about them. That was, that's so powerful. What a great, what a great, great thought around leadership. And we could visit all day, but we need to bring this thing to a close.

[00:24:11] But I want to ask you to help us just for a moment. I want you to think about those Steve's who you were back then, back when you were at the, you know, the grocery store, the radio shack, or before you walked across the parking lot 24 years ago.

[00:24:25] There are those listening who were trying to figure this thing out in their leadership and they're learning and they're growing. But they, you know, they're searching, they're hungry. What would you tell them? What would you tell these aspiring leaders

[00:24:38] who are trying to find their way in life and leadership? Give us two or three things that you can leave us with to say, hey guys, this is what you need to think about as you continue your journey of life and leadership. Wow, deep question.

[00:24:54] You know, first I would say find a mentor that you can share your daily troubles with so they can help you find more empathy, more help through your journey. Find a mentor that has been there, done that. Just ask somebody. You'd be amazed who's willing to help you.

[00:25:18] I think that's pretty clear on that. And then the final piece is, you know, I think when we get done with this journey, you know, hopefully I'm only in the middle of mind, but hopefully when you get to the end of the journey,

[00:25:30] you'll remember the people, you'll remember the experiences. Hopefully you can celebrate your successes. But the people are probably the most, they are the most important piece of this. And I don't know that I always had that, you know, the beginning.

[00:25:46] And so I think if I could relay just that final piece of investing in the people because if you take care of the people, they'll take care of you and your business. And just do a great job of getting that done. Beautiful, Steve.

[00:26:00] Thank you so much for this. Thank you for sharing with us, your store, your life, some of the things that you went through, your struggles. It means so much. You have invested today. And I thank you for that.

[00:26:12] Thank you for investing your time and sharing in this podcast. It's been a joy. You're an amazing leader and a man, husband, father. Thank you for who you are. And thank you for what you do and your leadership.

[00:26:26] And we will look forward to watching you and watching the next time. I can't hardly wait for you to cross the parking lot again. Who knows what's going to happen? But we appreciate you taking the time to be with us today. Appreciate you, Larry. Take care.

[00:26:49] So have you ever thought about using improv as a tool and leadership? We do it every day. And Steve had a brilliant idea to really focus on that and strengthen that muscle. I really enjoyed my conversation with him. This podcast was chock full, I think of just nuggets,

[00:27:07] just ideas of getting to where people are, understanding that we have to take a risk and walk across that parking lot, understanding the truth about who we are and finding our identity, even when it's difficult. Steve is a great guy. He's a great leader.

[00:27:25] We learned so much from his time with us. I really loved his advice, his thoughts for aspiring young leaders. We hear it a lot, but it's so true. So I'm going to say it again just like he did. You need a mentor. Find a mentor.

[00:27:40] Just ask, he said. Just go do it. Just like he walked across the parking lot, asked for that mentor and invest in people. Wow, so important. You know, he had that significant moment in his life when he lost a friend and it reminded him about the importance

[00:27:56] and he's still living that to this day, that truth, that principle of it's important to invest in those around us. What great, great takeaways from Steve. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. I certainly enjoyed vesting with him. I hope that you'll think about some things.

[00:28:13] I hope that you'll take away some things that will help you to make a difference in the lives of those you love, live with and lead. We'll see you next time on Crossing the Line. This has been Crossing the Line with Dr. Larry Little.

[00:28:31] Thank you for joining us today. To learn more about our guest, you can find Steve Riot on LinkedIn. You can support our work by subscribing or hitting that like button. To find more episodes, you can find Crossing the Line on iTunes, Spotify

[00:28:46] or on our website in the show notes. If you're interested in being a guest on the podcast or want to learn more about us, contact the show through our website, eaglesinterforleadership.com. Until next time, thank you for tuning in.