Jay Papasan:
I’m Jay Papasan, and this is The ONE Thing, your weekly guide to the simple steps that lead to extraordinary results
Hey there, ONE Thing family. Got a very special episode for you this week. It’s actually the 500th episode of The ONE Thing podcast. That’s amazing. And we just went over 6 million downloads over the course of this podcast. We could not do that without you. If you didn’t show up week after week, have a listen, put it into work in your life at home and at work, to share it with your friends, it wouldn’t be possible. So, thank you. Thank you for being here, thank you for listening and thank you for sharing.
To celebrate 500 episodes, I asked Geoff Woods, our co-founder in The ONE Thing business, to come back to the podcast that he helped launch. Now, since Geoff left The ONE Thing organization, he’s done a number of roles that you’ll hear about, he’s become his own author, and we talk about the power of big questions – asking really, really big questions in your life. And Geoff really became an expert at this during his time at The ONE Thing. And the question that keeps showing up in this episode – and I want you to listen for it – is, who do I want to become? Who do I want to become? Geoff got very clear about asking that question even when he wasn’t sure of the answer, and that has led him to greater and greater success over the years.
I hope you’ll enjoy this episode. I hope you’ll take a lot of takeaways from it. Some bonus stuff there, he wrote a book about AI-Driven Leadership, and he’s got some amazing viewpoints on how to leverage AI as a leader, as a leader of yourself and a leader of your team. So, here we go, without further ado, is our 500th episode with Geoff Woods.
All right, Geoff, really fun to have you back. It’s been a little over three years, almost to the day, since you left The ONE Thing organization. You helped us down to start some new opportunities. And since then, you’ve been a chief growth officer, you’ve started your own company now, you’ve written a book. How have what you learned with The ONE Thing, being the person who led so many people to this book, as the podcast host and the head of that company, you were a practice leader for tens of thousands of people, so a lot of this was ingrained, how did you apply it outside of that organization? I know that’s a big question, but it’s not like I’m talking to you and like, you’ve been to jail or whatever. Like you’ve continued to trend up. You’ve continued to trend up. You’re being very successful.
Geoff Woods:
We talked about, who can you become?
Jay Papasan:
Yeah.
Geoff Woods:
This was fundamental for me as a chapter in who I could become because prior to being in business with you and Gary, I had just been a sales guy. You guys taught me to think and act like an owner, like a leader, and there are so many things that just got ingrained into my bones that I took forward.
A big part of it is just living 80/20 on steroids to the point where I literally see the 20% in order of priority, written simply, specifically, measurably, sufficiently. When I see the world, naturally, it’s like a checklist. Is this 20%? If not, don’t even worry about it. Is it in order of priority? If it’s not number one, don’t worry about it. Am I hyper clear on what success looks like within that? Otherwise, how would I know if I’m successful?
That was transformative because to the other opportunities I’ve stepped into, there’s all these things you could do, and then there’s the one thing you should do. And being able to get to that quick.
Jay Papasan:
One of the things that you were such a great practice leader within our community and organization was the 411. And that’s that weekly date you take with your goals to see what your priorities really are and how they change. And I think about the six plus years we worked together, you probably had a minimum of 350 chances to exercise the muscle you’re talking about. What’s the 20% of this and what’s the 20% of that? So, you had all those reps. And then, you also were doing it, a lot of times, publicly.
Geoff Woods:
Yes.
Jay Papasan:
So, that’s just one of the things. It’s like, when you started, can you remember that far back? November of 2015?
Geoff Woods:
November 1st, 2015.
Jay Papasan:
Yeah. Like, when you think about where you started with where you are today, what would you tell that person?
Geoff Woods:
You’re grossly underestimating who you can become. Amy and I were literally talking about this last weekend. We got up early. We were sitting in front of fire having coffee and It’s literally almost-
Jay Papasan:
Are you in Austin, Texas?
Geoff Woods:
Yeah, yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Yeah, I guess it is winter here. I just still don’t think about people sitting in front of the fire here. I was like, are you in Colorado or something?
Geoff Woods:
But we were reflecting. We’re like, November 1st of this year will officially be the 10-year mark of us coming to Austin and just starting this entrepreneurial chapter of our lives. And she goes-
Jay Papasan:
For those who don’t know, Geoff came from… you were in medical sales.
Geoff Woods:
Yes.
Jay Papasan:
And you were doing a podcast on your own.
Geoff Woods:
Yes.
Jay Papasan:
So, you were familiar somewhat with, kind of, this world, but it was a big change for you.
Geoff Woods:
Huge. And we were reflecting back on what our goals and dreams were in November of 2015, and what we hoped might be possible in our lives versus, now, you fast forward almost 10 years, and what life looks like today, what our reality is today vastly eclipses anything we could have perceived to have been possible when we look to the future. Every time I’m thinking big, I just realize I’m still thinking small.
Jay Papasan:
I love that. What a great answer, and I love that because I mean, I’ve also participated in it. Wendy and I gave a presentation in Portugal on The ONE Thing. And when on it, we were talking about the habits of success. And she dug up our annual goals from 2003. And I did not set a single professional or business goal in 2003. And I did not set a single professional or business goal in 2003. And people think of me as being so nerdy about all of that stuff. But back then, I didn’t have a single professional goal, which is so weird to go back and think that used to be me. And now, we operate so differently.
So, 10 years in Austin, you’ve changed the way you think, you’re thinking bigger, you’re thinking in priority on steroids. How were you able to use those tools to even decide which direction to run? Because you had all the options in the world.
Geoff Woods:
Oh. In that quote, “People don’t decide their futures, they decide their habits, and their habits decide their futures.”
Jay Papasan:
You still got it.
Geoff Woods:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. After we parted ways, I was mentally ready to take two years to just be with the family. We had just had the birth of our third, Aspen, and I was really ready to prioritize family, but not rush to the next thing. I kind of had this realization that, well, our whole chapter together was around goal setting to the now, priority, clarity, accountability but some of the most significant shifts in my life happened with somewhat of a divine intervention.
Like, there’s all these things that I can will into existence, but some of the greatest opportunities, like even us meeting, I didn’t will that into existence. Like, you happened to be the keynote at our national sales meeting. I happened to be focusing on upgrading my five. Like there are certain things that I just… there was more of a spiritual element to it.
Jay Papasan:
You also hounded me all the way to the car.
Geoff Woods:
And there’s some of that as well.
Jay Papasan:
Yes. And there’s some of that as well.
Geoff Woods:
Yes.
Jay Papasan:
There’s some divine nudging, but there’s also, I don’t know if it’s the St. Ignatius quote, I think it’s St. Ignatius, “Pray as if everything depends on God and act as if everything depends on you.”
Geoff Woods:
I think that is accurate.
Jay Papasan:
I think you got a little bit of both in there.
Geoff Woods:
I think that would be an accurate description. But at least in that chapter, I was ready to see what would show up. I wasn’t trying to will things into existence. And when I got a call from Naveen Jindal, Chairman of Jindal Steel, who was a client of ours when I was with The ONE Thing, and I had been his coach, he calls me when he found out that I’d left the organization. When he asked if I would come in-house, my question was, “What’s the job?” And he said, “You know our business, you tell me.” And that’s where…
Jay Papasan:
That’s a huge question.
Geoff Woods:
Yeah. And that’s where I looked at, who do I want to become? What are the skills that I want to develop? What are the habits that I want to form? And this is where I looked at, okay, there’s everything I had done with you guys. What are the skills I haven’t developed yet that he’s giving me the opportunity to flex in?
And so, I wrote a job description around that as a chief growth officer over all the companies. And it was gonna require a lot of work around strategy in terms of they had… it’s like imagine alphabet to Google, there’s about 10 different operating companies that were all operating on their own, but vertically integrated in steel manufacturing about 100,000 people globally. They were all playing on their own versus playing together. I saw that as a way to, how do we line up dominos? I wanted to learn, how do you drive strategy at a really high level around building enterprise value and a protective moat? How do you lead change management across different cultures as an American when everything is outside of the US from India, Middle East, Africa, Australia?
So I really thought about who I wanted to become, and then what were the habits and skills that I wanted to acquire and just put myself in a position that was forced to become that person very fast. Otherwise, I’d fail.
Jay Papasan:
Right. Those are really big questions. How do you lead change to an organization that large and that spread out? You didn’t have the answer.
Geoff Woods:
No.
Jay Papasan:
You just had a big question.
Geoff Woods:
Yes. And this I have realized has become a central theme of my life. I didn’t-
Jay Papasan:
Chasing big questions you don’t know the answers to.
Geoff Woods:
I didn’t realize it until at this point looking historically because I don’t even know if I ever told you this. My senior of college, I did this internship and right before graduation, I sat down with the CEO.
Jay Papasan:
Is this when you thought you were gonna be an accountant?
Geoff Woods:
Yes.
Jay Papasan:
Oh, yeah. Which cracks me up. Anybody who knows you today. Yeah. Go ahead.
Geoff Woods:
I asked him what job he thought I should get after school. And he looked at me and he said, “Geoff, you’re asking the wrong question.” And this was the first time in my life, Jay, that I think I was introduced to the power of asking the right questions. And he said, “You should be asking what are the skills I can master that are so valuable they’ll serve me no matter where I go, then go find jobs that’ll help me build those skills.”
So, he’s the one who told me to go into sales instead of being an accountant, which I did. Realizing I wanted to become a business owner, getting into business with you and Gary was all about forming those skills. And so, even getting in with Jindal, it was all about asking myself the right questions and bigger questions and searching for those answers that has been a thread that’s pulled through the various chapters.
Jay Papasan:
So, there’s probably a lot of people listening. Maybe they’re out there, you know, they’re on their exercise bike or they’re walking their dog or they’re driving to work. And asking big questions, I think a lot of people think they are, but there’s a governor that they have in their brain that doesn’t actually allow them to ask the big scary questions. And I’m just curious, because you’ve been asking bigger and bigger questions. Like, those are giant questions you’re asking in your, how do you jump from a small training and coaching organization to a large multinational one? How do you get past the fear of asking big questions?
Geoff Woods:
I got those training wheels with you guys. I mean, even in the book, you’ve got the size of the graphic of the X and the Y axis, where the bigger the question, the further you have to search for the answers. And most people, like when they set goals based on what they think is doable, they’re asking small questions. What’s within my comfort zone? What’s within my current constraints? Achievers will set stretched goals. They ask bigger questions, but the real growth lies in asking questions around possibility, questions that are so big that require you to reimagine who you can become. So, I became very comfortable when we were in business together, asking questions and searching for the answer, rather than expecting myself to have the answer.
Jay Papasan:
I’ve observed it. I’m just trying to… I know that a lot of folks step into this and maybe they’re in a position where they’re in a life transition and they’re afraid to ask the question. I’m wondering if you have advice for them. I know that you know the answer.
Geoff Woods:
Sure. My advice is you have to detach yourself from who you’ve been, so you can reimagine who you can become. And that means breaking free of the expectation that you should have an answer for every question because if you do, you’re not growing. Versus ask questions that are so big that you don’t yet know the answer and give yourself the grace to take a breath and to say, “That’s okay.” Now, I’m gonna close my eyes and I’m gonna search for an answer and I’m gonna keep searching until I come up with an answer. And then, I get to evaluate if it’s the answer. And then, you just start taking action from there. It’s like a muscle. You’re going into the gym for the first time. I’m asking you to curl a five pound weight. You’ll get stronger over time.
Jay Papasan:
I think that I love that answer. And you’re getting into this point about the fear people have about getting the wrong answer ’cause you said an answer, which I love, versus maybe it’s the answer. But this idea most people are going straight to is that the right answer or the wrong answer, and that’s a very subjective answer. But asking the big question allows us to open up doors that we wouldn’t open up otherwise.
Geoff Woods:
Correct.
Jay Papasan:
It allows us to even just go places. I mean, I know there’s books now out there, 10x is easier than 2x, all these people who are jumping into this, but allowing ourselves to think big, just opens us up to possibilities that would be closed if we’re just trying to play it safe.
Geoff Woods:
Absolutely.
Jay Papasan:
Love that. So you asked those questions, you had how many years that you worked with the steel company, Jindal?
Geoff Woods:
Two.
Jay Papasan:
Two. And then you decided to make another. And what was the question that drove that transition?
Geoff Woods:
Who do I want to become? Again, it was November of ’22 or December of ’22, I saw ChatGPT for the first time. And it was the morning I had called an offsite together. We had the C-suite of every executive team fly into Delhi to cast a vision for the future of leadership in the Jindal Org, because we wanted to really define the standards for a leader in the company. And one of my colleagues leaned over to me and said, “Hey, have you heard of ChatGPT yet?” And I said no. And he showed it to me and did a use case. And I had this light bulb moment.
Jay Papasan:
It’s on his phone.
Geoff Woods:
On his phone. ‘Cause this relatable moment into a remarkable experience. And I immediately thought this is really cool. And then, there were some limiting beliefs around, “I’m so busy. I’ll get to it later,” or “You know what? This is something I’ll delegate to the tech team.” But then I had that college CEO in my head, “This is a skill that’s worth mastering.”
And I just started to dive in. The deeper I went down the rabbit hole, the more convinced I was this was the future. And I was in Delhi one quarter at Naveen’s house, and I made the pitch. I said, “I think this is the future.” And he said, “I agree.” I said, “I think we should drive it through the whole company.” He said, “I agree.” I then said, “I think this is so important. You should own this as chairman on the board.” And he was, “I disagree. How about you do it for me?”
And me, being very comfortable with jumping out of the plane and not only building the parachute on the way down but going and shopping for the materials. I committed, walked out of his house and said, “Oh crap, I have no idea what I’m doing.” But this is what I remembered hearing, anytime you’re hitting a ceiling of achievement, you’re just missing a relationship. Bingo. Who am I missing? And that was something that I learned being in business with you guys is to start asking who, not how. And long story short, we partnered with Google and going down-
Jay Papasan:
Hold on. Let’s just hold that right there. That’s good. We partnered with Google, and we’re gonna take a quick break, and people will have to hear the rest of the story on the other side. Let’s take a quick break. And then, we’ll come back and you’ll hear what the end is for Geoff.
So, you partnered with Google, right? So, that was the relationship you were missing. What was that like? You just reached out to them cold?
Geoff Woods:
Somebody on my team reached out to them and said… I mean, Jindal Steel is like saying… that’s like Rockefeller in the US. It’s a big deal. So, when we said we’re from Jindal Steel, they said, “Can we partner with you to help you do AI?” So, now, basically, every quarter, I’m at their headquarters in Delhi and their team is teaching me, what is AI, how does it work, how do you identify use cases?
And as I started driving it through the company, I just saw a much bigger opportunity ’cause every leader knows AI is the future, but they have no idea where to start. They think they’re falling behind and all these tech companies are pushing it as a solution looking for a problem but they’re focusing on the wrong things. The tech has never been the difference. It makes a difference. It’s the leaders who harness it, but nobody was talking about the leaders. And that is when I was like, “Oh, I think I could become a global thought leader around the leadership and strategy side of AI.”
And so, I literally resigned and said, “I’m going to write a book and build a company about this,” before, frankly, I felt qualified to do it. It was literally a fundamental conversation I had with my writing coach. I said, “I know I’m going to hire you, but you’re saying I have to write a book that’s gonna build the company. I have no idea what the company is and I have no idea what the book is. How do I start?” And he said, “That’s a great question.” And I remember thinking, okay, I can wait to get that clarity and then start writing the book or I can make the commitment now and use this as a forcing mechanism for me to become the type of person who could write a great book about this and build a company. And I chose the latter.
Jay Papasan:
Okay. So, you’ve got a writing coach again. So-
Geoff Woods:
Missing a person. First call I made was, “I’m not going to do this by myself. I’m going to hire somebody that’s going to coach me.”
Jay Papasan:
And I think you used a mutual acquaintance, Charlie. Is that the one?
Geoff Woods:
Yes.
Jay Papasan:
Great. Yeah, he’s got a great reputation. He’s worked with some giants in the industry. So you got a great writing coach, ask big questions, be comfortable asking questions you don’t know the answers to, that’ll force you out of your comfort zone. Just kind of recapping how we got to where we are. And when you really don’t even know where to start, you’re probably missing a relationship. So go find the best person to help you forward.
Geoff Woods:
Yes.
Jay Papasan:
I had a moment there where I was thinking about advocating for the people listening. You were at this giant company that would get that relationship, one of the best in the world, to go, “Oh, we want to partner with you.” I wanted to make sure that there’s not a limiting belief out there. Well, Geoff could do that because he was working there. It’s not a question of where you’re working, it’s just about asking. Like, where would you go with that objection?
Geoff Woods:
You have to ask, what’s the one thing I can do such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary? For me, leaning into Google was an easy one. But even, like, Google only took me so far. I still didn’t feel qualified to write the AI-Driven Leader based on that. And that’s when I just had to say, “I’m going to become a real practice leader of this, and what’s the one thing that I can do every single day that if I keep knocking that domino down, because the dominoes are lined up, everything else is going to be easier or unnecessary?” So, you have to ask, what is that for you, and just start taking action.
Jay Papasan:
Great answer. Thank you. Because you’re leading me down a path where if people will get past that and start acting like the person they want to become, I believe, I don’t know the song it comes from but like this idea of game sees game, this idea of being a journey. And there are probably other people, other leaders in the space that can see that you are authentically trying, whether you’re succeeding or not, they could see your commitment. Like I believe that people who are also on that journey recognize people on the journey. And that’s when you can ask people that would normally never give you the time of day, but they recognize the commitment, the extraordinary commitment to do something extraordinary, and they’re willing to take a chance on you.
Geoff Woods:
100%.
Jay Papasan:
So, there would be a great takeaway, just right for anybody who says, “I couldn’t do that but Geoff could.” No, you just have to start doing it wholeheartedly with commitment and make it your one thing. And I believe that you will start to attract those relationships.
Geoff Woods:
1000% agree.
Jay Papasan:
Okay, so let’s jump back into the Geoff Woods story. So you’re writing this book that you weren’t sure you were qualified to write, but now you just start doing it. How long did that process take?
Geoff Woods:
Five months.
Jay Papasan:
Five months. How much ChatGPT or AI did you use to write the book or was it all the old-fashioned way?
Geoff Woods:
Every word is mine and I used it to write every word.
Jay Papasan:
Fantastic. Do you get that question a lot?
Geoff Woods:
Yes.
Jay Papasan:
Of course you do. So did you use it even as a research assistant?
Geoff Woods:
So, here’s what it looked like. The way I approach AI is different than most people because most people think of it like a Google to ask questions to, or an assistant to help them write better emails. I used it as a thought partner. So, I would tell it what I was doing, but I would turn the tables and have it interview me, like a coach, to help me clarify my thinking and then take next steps.
So, the first thing I did is I used it to interview me to identify the one person I was writing the book for, which Charlie, my writing coach said, “You have to write this for one person. You gotta be incredibly clear.” So, this was an innovative, ambitious, growth-minded, collaborative, C-level, non-technical executive of a mid-market company who knows AI is the future, has no idea where to start, thinks they’re falling behind, probably wants to delegate this to their tech team, but deep down inside knows they can’t delegate vision, strategy, or leadership.
Jay Papasan:
You spent a little time with this avatar.
Geoff Woods:
That’s my ideal reader. Then, I had it interview me to articulate a value proposition for the book. Then, I said, “Now, turn this into a table of contents.” Jay, it was a hundred percent wrong. But because it was wrong, it was so easy for me to understand what was right. And so I said, “This is a hundred percent wrong, but here’s…” Like, you know this in content creation, 80% of the work is getting to a first draft. This collapses that time into a second.
Jay Papasan:
It’s easier to fix something that’s broken than to create it from whole cloth.
Geoff Woods:
Bingo. So, then, Charlie said, “Great, you’ve got this table of contents. Go line up 20 CEOs on Zoom and just talk for two hours with the table of contents as your guide and have an AI note taker take notes.” So, I had a transcript that I then pulled back into ChatGPT and said, “Context: I’m writing this book. Here’s who it’s for. This is the value prop. This is the table of contents. Here’s a transcript of me talking about this. Your role is to act as a New York Times best-selling editor who specializes in business books. Interview me, ask me one question at a time, up to three questions to gain deeper context. But then your task is to create a chapter outline for every chapter adhering to this structure,” which Charlie gave to me.
Jay Papasan:
So, I just want to point out, because I think the theme of this interview, it’ll probably be in the title, it’s going to be something about asking better questions, of course. So, you’ve already pointed out most people are using AI as someone to bounce questions off of versus training it to ask questions of us. And that, to me, is just very in itself kind of a provocative, innovative use product. And then you’ve been using that throughout to actually create the book. And when you set the avatar and the value prop, by creating that clarity around your book, were you also then creating that clarity around your company?
Geoff Woods:
A thousand percent, yeah. Because I was also interviewing my avatar every day in real life. I interviewed over 200 people one-on-one for the book. So, I was so dialed into where the market was. Just like how you interviewed the 50 to relaunch the show, you get really dialed in really quick on where your ideal customer is at.
Jay Papasan:
Yeah. Well, it’s a fantastic way to kind of flip it around as to, one, you’re having AI interview you, and then you’re also then taking that knowledge to interview other people and you just keep recycling it again and again. Exposure to leaders. You weren’t just interviewing anyone, you’re interviewing very specific people.
Geoff Woods:
All C-level. Now, the key is, when it spat out the chapter outlines, I did not just copy and paste. And that’s the mistake people are making, is they’re actually allowing AI to replace their thinking or their work, versus I go, “No, that’s just a draft you gave to me, but now I’m going to react to it and make it mine.” And that’s kind of what the whole process looked like. Then, sending it to a real editor and so on and so forth. But I used it to write every word, and every word is mine.
Jay Papasan:
So, when you think about it, you’ve got the book is out in the world now. The book has now launched the company. Like you shared with me right before we sat down, like your company is about to take a giant leap forward. What questions did you have to ask this time?
Geoff Woods:
Oh! Who do we want to become? Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Now, it’s a we.
Geoff Woods:
Yeah, ’cause I knew from day one no one succeeds alone. And I wasn’t going to get there by myself. And I’ve been hyper clear on how do I build a company around me and my core strengths of being a thought leader of the brand, being a super connector and then being a visionary, but being really clear that actually delivery and sales, which are two of the things I spent most of my time doing with The ONE Thing, they’re areas of excellence for me, they’re not unique ability.
And so, I need to build a team that can do that for me. I’ve been attracting talent since day one and creating opportunity. But who do we wanna become? What’s the impact we want to make? Why are we in business? Like I just started with those questions from day one. And more importantly, who do we not want to be? What do we not want to do? Who do we not want to serve? I have been so focused on trying to narrow it down to the one person, the one product, instead of all the things, which I’m wired to just say yes to all the things.
And before you know it, we had five to six different offerings for a guy who had built a company on one thing and I took my own medicine and went, “What’s the one thing we’re going to do such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary? And if we’re going to say yes to something, how are we lining our dominoes up so when we do one thing, it makes everything else easier or unnecessary?”
Jay Papasan:
And then, one day, for people that are curious, I’m sure they’re all going to Google you or go to our podcast notes, it’s like, you’ve built a community of these C-level individuals. And I can’t repeat your whole avatar, these people who are maybe not tech literate, but they know that this is something they need to know, you’ve built a community where they can have the psychological safety to learn together on how to harness AI for leadership.
Geoff Woods:
If you try as a leader to know everything about AI, you’ve already lost versus the whole idea of we call it the AI-driven leadership collective, surround yourself with the right people, ask the right questions and tap into collective knowledge, so that you can then identify what’s the 20% I’m going to focus on to stay ahead of the curve and win in an AI-driven future.
Jay Papasan:
So, I also mentioned before we started taping, like you’re also one of the best salespeople I’ve ever had the privilege to work around. And I work in one of the largest sales organizations in the world. So, for you to say that skill in you is actually replaceable is a very big statement. And I don’t think everybody who’s listening to it can hear it because the easy button for you, launching a business where you have to not only pay for your own lifestyle, you’ve got other people depending on you doing well, the easy button would be for you to just be like, “Well, I’m gonna be in charge of sales.” How did you make the determination that was not going to be your long-term job?
Geoff Woods:
I was in a workshop and I was asked a question by my coach, “What are the intersections of the things that you are truly world-class at that bring disruptive value to the organization that you love doing all day?” And I originally wrote sales and delivery on that list, but then they asked a question, “If all you did was this, would you have more energy or less?” And I know that if all I do is delivery, I will be drained. And I know if all I do is sales, I’ll be drained.
But I can do this conversation literally all day, and you’ll think I took five shots of espresso. I could literally be outforming relationships with other people and I will be more energized. And I could be sitting in front of a whiteboard or casting a vision. And that’s when I realized, “Oh, my gosh. Sales and delivery are areas of excellence for me, but they are not the core strengths that I should be focusing on. Therefore, I actually need to leverage sales and delivery.” And I just made it a standard that it can’t involve me.
Jay Papasan:
Okay, and does your coach hold you accountable to that?
Geoff Woods:
He doesn’t even need to. And this is where I also learned, like I watched you with Carly, like when you hire an assistant or any team member, you just tell them what their job is, and then you hold them to it. I just told my team from day one, like this is on our business plan. By the end of year, Geoff will be investing 90% plus of his time in his core strengths. And they know exactly what my strengths are. My assistant tracks the time on a monthly basis that I am in strength versus out of it. And I’m just holding the team accountable to it.
Jay Papasan:
So, Geoff, after all of this journeying, do you have clarity around who you want to become now? I heard it at a certain point, you wanted to be a thought leader in this space. Is it more than that or is that mostly a…
Geoff Woods:
So, a different answer than you might be expecting. The six months after getting out of The ONE Thing are some of the darkest of my life. I made a mistake that I think a lot of people listening to this are making right now, which is I attached my identity to being the face of The ONE Thing. And when I was no longer the face of The ONE Thing, I didn’t know who I was. I’ve learned this is actually pretty common of people who sell their businesses. You know, for me, I was bullied as a kid and I grew up hating myself. Success became a way to put a band-aid over a wound that hadn’t actually healed.
So, for me, like stepping into this brand, like it came with a certain fame and notoriety. And all of a sudden, I’m going to these big companies, I’m the face of this brand. It fed every part of that seven to ten-year-old in me that was still hurting, that I didn’t know was still in there. It pacified that. But the moment I woke up literally the next morning was like, “I’m not the face of The ONE Thing,” it was like deep depression, because I didn’t know who I was.
But that prompted me to start to do the work of who am I? And I realized there’s a difference between attaching your identity to what you do, versus aligning what you do with who you are. And so, even going into Jindal, like a coach I was working with at the time said, “Be careful, this could go to your head quickly. Don’t attach your identity to the job, the title, all the perks that are going to come with it.” I did the same thing coming into AI leadership and writing The AI-Driven Leader, who I want to become. I, Geoff Woods, want to become the type of person that expands what’s possible for millions of people around the world.
And while I do that, I want to show up as an extraordinary husband, an extraordinary father, an extraordinary friend. Like, that’s my personal path. And then there’s, what do I want AI leadership to become? Which I want, we are on a mission to create a new category of leader. I think we talked about this a lot. So, leaders today have tolerated a world and a culture where people spend all of their time doing three things. Checking email, sitting in meetings, and focusing on their to-do list, most of which is consumed with the 80% that only drives 20% of the results they get at home, and they’re not at home because they’re still thinking about the 20% they didn’t get done.
I believe AI is not a great disruptor, but it can be a great liberator with the right leadership. And so, I wanna create a new category of leader that is the AI-driven leader, where we create a new standard where people harness their core strengths, focused on the priorities of the role in alignment with company goals and use AI to enhance people, because it can’t replace them.
Jay Papasan:
Great vision. I want to go back though, because you said something in there and I wanted to make sure we circle back. When you got clarity around who you were becoming, how did that seven to ten-year-old boy feel about that? Did that solve that problem?
Geoff Woods:
No, but it’s part of the healing journey of healing that past trauma that the body holds onto and becoming more confident in just who am I and finding internal validation rather than external.
Jay Papasan:
Well, that’s good. I’m glad you went there, because that’s so important not to skip past that and get really clear, because that’s the sort of thing that sneaks up you in those transition moments where you realize that there’s been a piece that you’ve been maybe compensating for a long time. Suddenly, it jumps out and reveals itself to you in unlikely ways. So, thank you for being so vulnerable-
Geoff Woods:
Yeah, my pleasure.
Jay Papasan:
… and sharing. I’m sure there’s a lot of people that identify with that moment in a transition where they thought they had one problem and they just realized that, now, they’ve got the problem that they’ve been ignoring for the last however many years. And they get to-
Geoff Woods:
It shows up.
Jay Papasan:
And they show up at the same time. Well, you clearly have moved past it. Congratulations on that. I’m very happy for your success.
Geoff Woods:
Thank you.
Jay Papasan:
And I’m happy that you found the person that you want to become. And I’m sure that there’s a lot of people listening to this, hopefully, inspired to do the same thing. Can I ask you for a challenge for our listeners?
Geoff Woods:
Yeah, let’s do it.
Jay Papasan:
So, at the end of every episode, we ask people to take one challenge. If after listening to our conversation, what’s one thing that they could commit to this week that they could take one tiny step?
Geoff Woods:
I’m reminded by this statement that I said for a long time–the path to getting everything you want starts by getting one thing at a time. Think big, go small, trust the dominoes will fall. I would really encourage you to sit down with a pen and a paper and to ask, fast forward 30 years, if I were able to sit down with my future self, who do I want to become? Who do I want to be sitting down with? What does that person look like? What does their life look like? How do they think? How do they invest their time? What are their values? What are the things that they would tell me that I’m doing that I should double down and focus on more? What are the things I’m doing that they may tell me to stop doing? And to give yourself the space to not immediately have the answer, but instead to close your eyes and to take a breath and search for it and then start journaling.
Jay Papasan:
Love that answer. Thanks, Geoff.
Geoff Woods:
Thank you.
Jay Papasan:
Well, I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. It was really great getting back in the studio with Geoff. Brought back tons of memories for me. We built so many things together over the years, and he is just an expert in living The ONE Thing. And I love how absolutely vulnerable and transparent he became at the end around asking that question, who do I want to become? I hope you’ll take the challenge yourself.
Now next week, I’m gonna do another solo episode. It’s that time of year when if you’ve got a nephew, a niece, maybe a child that is graduating and going off to college, maybe you’ve got a nephew, niece, a friend, a young person in your life that is going back to college. How can we prepare them for success using the principles of the one thing? That’s the topic next week. I hope you’ll tune in.
Disclaimer:
Any texts or materials generated by artificial intelligence, AI, should be reviewed for accuracy and reliability as there may be errors, omissions or inaccuracies. The use of generative AI is subject to limitations, including the availability and quality of the training data used to train the AI model used. Users should exercise caution and independently verify any information or output generated by the AI system utilized and should apply their own judgment and critical thinking when interpreting and utilizing the outputs of generative AI.
Disclaimer:
This podcast is for general informational purposes only. The views, thoughts and opinions of the guests represent those of the guest and not Produktive or Keller Williams Realty LLC and their affiliates and should not be construed as financial, economic, legal, tax or other advice. This podcast is provided without any warranty or guarantee of its accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or results from using the information.
