The Mid-Career GPS Podcast
How will you figure out what is next for you and your career? Building a Mid-Career GPS to create that next promotion, finding a new job, building your network, and crushing your next interview are just some topics we cover on The Mid-Career GPS Podcast.
John Neral had a mid-career moment that changed his path and direction. Building a Mid-Career GPS helped guide him to create what was next for his career. Now, he’s here to help you do the same. Join him and his guests as they share their stories, strategies, and tips to help you create whatever is next so you can find a job you love or love the job you have.
The Mid-Career GPS Podcast
271: From the Baseball Field to Leadership & Team Success with Mike Robbins
What happens when your childhood dream comes crashing down? Join my conversation with Mike Robbins, a former professional baseball player turned renowned keynote speaker and leadership expert. Mike's journey from the baseball field to the corporate stage is a testament to the power of resilience and reinvention. Discover how he navigated the challenges of an unexpected career change and why he believes that holding onto past dreams shouldn't dictate your future. Mike offers valuable insights into the often overlooked support systems for athletes transitioning out of professional sports, sharing what he wishes he could have told his younger self.
Team chemistry is not just for sports—it's the backbone of thriving workplace environments. We explore this universal element through real-life anecdotes, including navigating conflicts with colleagues. Mike shares his wisdom on fostering relationships, communication, and a shared vision to create cohesive and effective teams. As the dynamics of work shift with hybrid and remote arrangements, we discuss the crucial role of strong interpersonal connections in maintaining a vibrant company culture. Flexibility and adaptability emerge as key components in successfully navigating the modern workplace.
Leadership in the future demands more than traditional skills; it requires nimbleness, cultural awareness, and a focus on people. Through our discussion, we uncover the essence of executive presence and how confidence transcends generations in leadership roles. As we look toward 2025, Mike reflects on the qualities that will define successful leaders and emphasizes the importance of staying true to oneself. He shares practical advice on setting realistic goals while continuing to dream big. Tune in for a thought-provoking exploration of leadership, team dynamics, and personal growth, and learn how to leverage these insights for a fulfilling career.
Connect with Mike Robbins
Website | LinkedIn
Thank you for listening to The Mid-Career GPS Podcast.
Please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts here.
Want me to review your LinkedIn profile?
Learn more here.
Visit https://johnneral.com to join The Mid-Career GPS Newsletter, a free, twice-weekly career and leadership resource for mid-career professionals.
Connect with John on LinkedIn here.
Follow John on Instagram @johnneralcoaching.
Subscribe to John's YouTube Channel here.
In this thing called life, it's going to throw us some curveballs, whether personal, professional or both. How we pivot and adjust to those curveballs makes all the difference in how we handle those circumstances. For example, your company lays off some employees. Your organization gets acquired. You get a promotion. You don't get a promotion. You land your dream job. You're still promotion. You don't get a promotion. You land your dream job. You're still waiting to find it.
John Neral:Today, you will meet Mike Robbins and you'll hear his powerful story about how he pivoted from a career in professional baseball to where he is today. In this episode, you'll hear Mike's tips for overcoming adversity, how to improve company culture and the kind of chemistry every team needs to be successful. Whether you're looking for a new job or want to be a better leader, this episode is for you. Let's get started. Hello, my friends, this is the Mid-Career GPS podcast and I'm your host, John Neral. I help mid-career professionals like you find a job they love, or love the job they have, using my proven four-step formula. My guest today is Mike Robbins.
John Neral:Mike is a renowned keynote speaker, author and leadership expert who's known for captivating audiences with his insights on team performance and company culture. His five books, including his latest we're All In this Together, have made him a leading voice in the field, while his dynamic approach to public speaking has earned him accolades from some of the biggest organizations in the world. A former star baseball player, mike transitioned from the sports field to the corporate world after an injury ended his career. He quickly rose through the ranks in sales and business development, eventually founding his own consulting firm in 2001. Since then, he has delivered keynote speeches and seminars to such organizations as Google, microsoft, airbnb and Harvard University, showcasing his ability to resonate with everyone, from corporate executives to college students. To resonate with everyone, from corporate executives to college students, mike blends relatable stories with actionable advice, making complex concepts accessible and inspiring for diverse audiences. Mike's work's been featured on NPR, abc News, fast Company and the New York Times, as well as being a regular contributor to Forbes.
John Neral:I know you're going to enjoy this conversation, so let's get to it. Here is my conversation with Mike Robbins. Hey there, mike. Welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you with us today.
Mike Robbins:Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
John Neral:Mike, you've got this interesting story and I touched very briefly on it in the introduction, but would you please tell the listeners what was your mid-career moment?
Mike Robbins:Well, I've had a couple of careers and you know my mid-career moment was actually the end of sort of my first career, if you will. You know I grew up John, playing baseball, got drafted by the New York Yankees out of high school, didn't sign with the Yankees because I got a chance to play baseball in college at Stanford, and then got drafted out of Stanford by the Kansas City Royals and did sign a pro contract. As it happens, in pro baseball, you know you have to go into the minor leagues. So I'm in the minor leagues with the Kansas City Royals working my way up to the big leagues.
Mike Robbins:Unfortunately for me, my third season still in the minors, I went out to pitch one night, threw one pitch toward ligaments in my elbow, blew my arm out. I was 23 years old at the time. I had started playing baseball when I was seven. Two years, three surgeries later, I was forced to retire from baseball. I actually decided, officially decided to retire on my 25th birthday and I'm 50 now, so that was literally half my lifetime ago. Um, so that was kind of, you know, a major mid career sort of not even midlife cause. I was still so young but having spent 18 of the first 25 years of my life doing this one thing that I loved and was really good at, and then it ended. It was hard and it sort of sent me into a couple different iterations of my career that within a not that long after, a few years later, I started, you know, coaching and speaking and writing, which is what I've been doing for the last 23, almost 24 years now. But it was quite a quite an ordeal, as you can imagine.
John Neral:What would 50-year-old Mike say to 25-year-old Mike who is retiring and putting his professional baseball dreams to rest because of?
Mike Robbins:an injury. Well, first of all he would say good job, man, because you were scared at 25. You didn't want to be 50 sitting at the end of a bar drinking saying you know, I used to be someone or I could have been someone. Because that was one of my fears at the time, as devastated as I was that my career ended. It was like I don't want this to be the end for me. I don't want this to be the highlight of my life, even though I'm really sad that it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. But I also think 50 year old me would tell 25 year like look, it's going to be bumpy for the next few years as you figure stuff out, but you're going to find something that's as exciting, if not more exciting than this that you're going to get to do for a really long time. So just be excited about that.
John Neral:Does the organization at the times, be it the Royals or Major League Baseball in general, are there any kind of supports or services in place for players who get injured and then find themselves outside of the organization?
Mike Robbins:You know there may be now. There definitely wasn't then and I have a feeling probably not. Look, when I got, you know, I got hurt and I got drafted in 95. I got hurt in 97. I was out of baseball in 98 and finally retired in early 99. So we're talking. You know it was a while ago. They were just starting to implement like we had like a sports psychologist or a mental skills coach, but it was weird and out there at the time. That's sort of every organization has that kind of stuff and they have a lot more resources for mental health and other things.
Mike Robbins:I don't believe that when players get released, especially in the minor league level, there's much support.
Mike Robbins:You know, in fact it's interesting, john, you bring that up.
Mike Robbins:The first book that I noodled on for a number of years that I wanted to write was a book basically called what Happens when you Don't Make it, and it was going to be my story of not making it to the big leagues, but it was going to really be for anybody who's had something they were really passionate about, whether it was sports or something else.
Mike Robbins:That didn't turn out and then they had to pivot into something else. You know, again, it happens a lot in life in different contexts. It's not all that common that you're as young as I was doing that for such a long time than to have it all of a sudden sort of abruptly come to an end. But it definitely taught me a lot of things that I'm grateful for and I bring into my work. And when I talk to people who go through, you know, big pivots in their careers and big changes in their mid-career or their midlife. I don't know exactly what that path is for them because it's different than mine, but I had a pretty intense experience of that at a relatively young age.
John Neral:Yeah, one of the things that you talk about and part of your work focuses on is what makes a really good team. Yep, and of course we'll get to the leadership component as well. But when you think about the chemistry that needs to happen on a team for them to be productive, cohesive, effective, what are some things that come to mind for you that you love to see that make really good chemistry on a team?
Mike Robbins:Well, and just to take a step back, I love the question. It's like that was what prompted me. I came home and got a job working in tech and I worked for a couple of different internet companies in the late 90s and I had been so fascinated by team chemistry as an athlete I thought it was a sports thing. Then I realized, oh, that's not a sports thing. It I thought it was a sports thing. Then I realized, oh, that's not a sports thing, it's a human thing.
Mike Robbins:The relationships matter, the kind of vibes, if you will, on the team matter. How people feel about each other and the work and the leader and what we're doing all matter. So I started my consulting business in 2001,. Really with some questions and some curiosity about how do we create that? And now, almost 24 years later of studying and working with so many teams, I mean it really comes down to a couple of basic things, john.
Mike Robbins:It's like, do the people on the team really appreciate, value each other, care about each other? Right? Are people willing to be real with each other? Like, can we have an argument? Can we have a conflict? You know, as I often say, great teams talk to each other, not about each other. And then you know, thirdly, is there something going on in the team that's bigger than everyone else, that people are genuinely interested in? Right Like if we don't care about what we're doing or we don't care about what we're creating? It's hard to really have our heart be in it and you know, be that interested and that you know some work is more exciting than other work, let's be honest, but at some level, being inspired by the larger vision, not just can we hit our numbers or can I, you know, get to the next level and make a little more money. That usually goes into really creating that sense of team chemistry.
John Neral:Mike, we know that mid-career professionals have some baggage. Yes, right, they bring baggage into the workplace because they're of a certain age, they have experiences and stuff like that, right? So let's play out a scenario You're working with a team, I happen to be on that team. I don't like Sheila, and if people have listened to this podcast a while, they know I tend to use that name a lot. And if anybody's named Sheila- I apologize, it's just the name I go with, right.
John Neral:So I don't like Sheila. Ok, sheila's, throw me under the bus. She stabbed me in the back. I feel like she's out to get me in my career. Yeah, we're playing on the same team together. Yeah, how do you get me to care about Sheila and her success, even though I don't like her?
Mike Robbins:It's tricky, right. I mean, on the one hand, I'm not going to in any way try to coach you to like Sheila. You don't have to like Sheila. Sheila can drive you crazy. Sheila can get on your nerves.
Mike Robbins:You have a long list of reasons why Sheila is not a good person or why she's done all these bad things. Right, I get that. However, there's a couple of things. Sheila is not the last difficult person you're going to have to deal with, and you've been working long enough to know you're not going to work with Sheila forever. So that's the good news. You also have dealt with people like Sheila in the past, so you do have some skill.
Mike Robbins:What you want to be careful of is not being bitter and not then sort of doing what Sheila's doing, but in a different way and being justified. I see this happen a lot. So then we go and we gossip about Sheila. We don't necessarily stab Sheila in the back, but we're sort of not rooting for her and there's all kinds of sort of negative stuff that can happen.
Mike Robbins:The thing that I often encourage people is like look at Sheila if you can and I know this is easier said than done as a teacher, she's teaching you how to deal with difficult people. She's teaching you how to deal with people you don't like. She's teaching you how to set boundaries, how to have difficult conversations, how to engage with people and even potentially motivate people, even if she's just a peer. But eventually you might end up managing literally Sheila or someone like her. Like how are you going to manage that person? So there's a lot of value you can get from that relationship. If it simply just becomes isn't she annoying? Or I hate her, I hate people like her then there's no value.
John Neral:Right, and I love what you said there about, like, what is she teaching me? Yeah, right, you know, what do I get to learn from this experience that I get to take with me into the next hour, the next day, the next role, whatever that is? Yeah, it's one of those things that I'm sure you see quite a bit when you think about how teams are formed and the dynamic that teams have. And it leads us into this broader conversation about company culture. Yep, right, and so when, when you're out there and you're working with different companies, I'm going to ask you the question um, that's, that's not the easy one to ask, right, what's the, what are the things that are working against company cultures right now that are making it difficult for leaders and organizations to have truly effective teams?
Mike Robbins:Well, look, I mean, one of them is the hybrid working, remote working, and it's this weird paradox because, on the one hand, most people want to have jobs where there's flexibility, where you can work from home, you can work remotely, and most companies understand that that's important. At the same time, the more physically separated people are, the harder it is to build relationships. It just is, and I'm not here saying you have to go to the office every single day and get there at eight and stay until six or no, that's not. I mean, we can do that and you can still have a miserable culture with everyone in the building, right, no-transcript, unstructured time. Now, even in a pre-pandemic world, we weren't all working in the same office, but on the other side of COVID. Now that's a big factor for so many leaders and teams is like how do we do this thing where we're not all together and we're working at different times and it's sort of an asynchronous world? It's not a deal breaker, it's just like you have to work harder.
Mike Robbins:A second thing that really gets in the way of culture is just the nature of life today how busy we are, how fast paced it is and how the reality is. Most people don't go work for a company for you know, decades and sort of stay there. People are moving around all the time, which is a function of, you know, a good job market and also just the nature of technology and the way that we work. It does make it again more tricky for us to really build and sustain culture and relationships over time.
Mike Robbins:Um, and then I would say the third piece is that we just we have, you know, four generations in the workforce today. I mean, it's mostly, you know, gen Xers and Millennials and now some Gen Zers, but we still have some baby boomers, of course, and it runs the whole gambit. And so if you're, you know, 63 years old and you're working and you're working with someone who's 23 years old, that's always been a pretty big chasm in terms of difference of generation, but it's pretty significant these days and the way people think and the way people communicate and the way people work is vastly different, even if we just go down to someone who's in their late forties versus someone who's in their early thirties. It's just a very different worldview.
John Neral:Are you tired of hearing crickets in your job search? Throughout my career, and especially in the last several years of my coaching business, I repeatedly see mid-career professionals make mistakes that are simply holding them back from getting the job offers they desire. Do you want to avoid these mistakes? If so, I want you to grab a copy of my free guide From Stuck to Success Five Mid-Career Mistakes to Avoid in Any Job Market. In this guide, you will learn how to leverage AI more effectively in your job applications, why job boards shouldn't be your only way to find a new job, how to generate more interest with hiring managers and recruiters, how to dig more deeply when researching a potential company or job, and why hope is not an effective job search strategy.
John Neral:You can get your free copy at my website at https://johnneral. com/freebies. Let me help you get unstuck and less frustrated in your job search. Now let's get back to the episode, mike. As we're talking toward the end of 2024, getting ready to head into 2025, what would you say are the main things leaders need to be focusing on to improve their company culture and, more importantly, improve their team's culture?
Mike Robbins:I mean, look, I think investing in relationships, I think investing in well-being physical well-being, mental, emotional well-being is important because it doesn't seem to me that things are slowing down anytime soon. It doesn't seem to me that things are slowing down anytime soon and there's been so much enormous amount of change over the last five years. I mean again, just think, you know, here we are at the end of 2024. I mean, think of the end of 2019, right, and now it's like if I had told you here's what's going to happen over the next five years, you would have been like that sounds like some dystopian, weird thing that doesn't even sound like real life. And here we are, we've all lived through it and it's hard to have perspective as we're living through it.
Mike Robbins:And while I do think, collectively, we're in a better place today than we were five years ago on a lot of levels, I think people are still pretty exhausted and I don't mean to overuse this word because it gets overused but kind of traumatized by a lot of what's happened.
Mike Robbins:So I do think leaders and teams need to still tend to that and most likely the next five years are going to be filled with a lot of change, a lot of disruption with artificial intelligence, who knows what happens economically and socially and all these other things? So, so I just think continuing to invest in relationships and the wellbeing of the team, no matter what's happening in the economy or with technology or with AI or whatever, that's never going to go out of style and that's never going to not be important, and I think it's easy to get away from that, given the pace of things and given all of the technology we're utilizing. But, when it comes down to it, culture is really about human beings connecting with other human beings and then connecting to the purpose or the mission of whatever we're trying to accomplish together.
John Neral:I really appreciate how you phrased that, because taking us back to the end of 2019 really puts it in perspective of gosh what have the last five years been like and what are the next five years going to be like? So, all of the things that you've talked about, all of the things regarding team dynamics and leadership, I really wanted you to talk for a minute about a pain point that a lot of my clients are dealing with, and we're talking about mid-career professionals who are looking to level up. They wanna get that senior level executive type role. Some have aspirations for C-suite, and one of the pieces of feedback that I hear from them, as well as from people who inquire about coaching, is they need to develop and I'll do the air quotes here their executive presence, and I just want to like vomit in my mouth when I hear that, because it causes my clients a lot of stress and anxiety, and so I'm curious from you what does executive presence mean for you and how are you seeing that in your work?
Mike Robbins:it's funny you say that, because I do think, look, I think the concept, we all kind of know what that means, but it's this weird amorphous thing that's hard to articulate, it's hard to grasp onto. What does that really mean? I actually think of that more in terms of confidence and I don't mean to oversimplify it, but over the years, john and you know, look, I mean I live in the San Francisco Bay area, near Silicon Valley, and you know, when we talk about mid-career, I mean I know we're not talking about an age specifically, right, but depending on the industry, like you could be mid-career in the tech world and you're in your late 20s, relative to how fast things go, and like the CEOs in his or her early 40s. And you know, in most industries, when we're talking mid-career, we're talking about people. I mean you keep me honest on this. I mean I'm thinking like late 30s to late 40s, give or take right.
John Neral:Yeah, so yeah, typically the people I work with are between the ages of 35 and 50. If we go by the definition from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, we're talking 10 years after graduation be it high school or college. So you're right in line with that.
Mike Robbins:But I would say this because if you think about that, if you think about people 35 to 50 now we're mostly talking about millennials and then some younger Gen Xers right, like I'm a Gen Xer and come in 2025, generation X is basically going to be the youngest Gen Xers will be 45 and the oldest will be 60. And so, again, to reframe our minds around some of these things, but the point of all of that to say a lot of us have been taught about leadership from people older than us, right, the generation above us, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but what it looks like to be a baby boomer in leadership versus a Gen X or versus a millennial and it also depends on your industry is going to look a little different. So, to me, executive presence like when I sit in rooms with CEOs or C-level executives in their leadership teams, I'm often looking around the room and I'm thinking to myself I'm not usually saying this out loud like what is it that had these people get into these rooms? Clearly they have some level of intelligence, right, like they have some level of skill, but kind of like, even in sports, these are not the 10 smartest people in the whole company, let's say, if I'm sitting in with the CEO and the executive team of company X, it's a combination of their intelligence, maybe some good fortune, maybe they knew some people along the way but also this sense and belief in themselves that I belong in this room. It's not that they don't have fear or doubt or insecurity.
Mike Robbins:And, john, I learned this years ago as an athlete, because it wasn't always the most talented athletes that were the most successful. It was a combination of talent. You absolutely had to have the talent to play at a certain level, but it was a belief in oneself. There were guys that I played with who were less physically talented than I was and I wasn't the most physically talented guy who were better players than I was. They would go out and they would perform better because they believed hey, I belong here, give me the ball, kind of thing. And then there were guys that were way less talented than I was, who weren't as good as I was, which didn't make sense, because I'd look at him and go, he's six foot four and he throws 95 miles an hour. Why isn't he doing better? Because if I were six foot four and threw 95 miles an hour, I think I would be better.
Mike Robbins:So I say that in the context of a lot of times when I'm coaching, people like you are in that mid-career place or when they're thinking I need to expand my executive presence. How do I get to? You know, I'm a director, I want to be a senior director, I want to be a VP, and there's not a lot of difference between the director and the VP in terms of intelligence, in terms of skill. There is a difference in terms of mindset, and that's really the work around. The executive presence is more about not an arrogance, not a like I'm the smartest person in the room thing, but just like I believe that I can be at that level, even if it makes me a little nervous.
John Neral:So for someone who's listening, mike, who really resonates with everything you just said and I'm right there with you on this aside from hiring a coach to really help them build that executive presence and the mindset to help them get there, what would you offer them to put in their toolkit to help them at least take a step toward that next level or that next position?
Mike Robbins:I mean, I think hiring a coach is great. I think there's lots of great books and resources out there. Clearly, I mean, I think getting direct mentorship from someone that you trust, who's in that role, who's five years, 10 years down the road further than you, who you can really be real with and they can be real with you, is super important. Another thing that you can do in the reverse is sort of turn around and think about yourself 10 years ago, like you asked me the question right Of like what would 50 year old me say to 25 year old me? It's like well, what would current you say to 10 years ago you that you now know?
Mike Robbins:Over the last 10 years of your career, you've built your career to this point from where you were. Some of it was by dumb luck, some of it was by trial and error, but some of it was very proactive and productive in different ways. The same is true and could be true over the next five or 10 years of your career, if you're willing to look at it that way. You know what I mean, and so I think there's we have more wisdom, I think, sometimes than we realize. We take for granted some of the things that we've accomplished or that we've done. If you turn around and look backwards and go well, what have I overcome? What job did I take that I didn't think I was quite qualified for yet, and then I figured it out. What was I scared to do? But I did it anyway, and now it's like no big deal. We kind of forget, you know, and I think those are important things to remember.
John Neral:I think that's really good and it's really good advice for people to just kind of kind of take and run with in that regard, especially around the mentorship piece, which you know, sometimes people have a little trouble asking for that, but that's such a really valuable relationship, more so than ever.
Mike Robbins:Yeah.
John Neral:We're going to start wrapping up here in a moment, but I'd be remissed if I didn't ask you this. So, heading into 2025, what are two or three leadership qualities you believe leaders are going to absolutely need to demonstrate in the new year for them to be more effective?
Mike Robbins:I mean. First one, I think is just a level of nimbleness and flexibility. You know the world is changing rapidly. I mean, look, everyone's talking about artificial intelligence. I was at a conference about a year ago. John and one of the founders of ChatGPT was there and he basically said this was a year ago now. But he said we're like in 1990 of the internet with artificial intelligence, like we're in the early, early stages. So whatever this thing is going to ultimately look like and how it's going to change the way we work and the way we live, some of us who are even in the, you know, at the epicenter of creating it, we don't even know what that looks like. So I think for leaders it's just being flexible to know the world's going to change a lot this year and in the coming years and just can we be open to that.
Mike Robbins:Secondly, I think back to what I was saying earlier just like continuing to invest in our own wellbeing and our relationships with people, like being really people-focused and people-centered. I mean that's always been an important aspect of leadership. But I think just the nature of the way we work and all of the remote and hybrid working, like that's not going to change and go away necessarily. So, like, how do we develop those skills that allow us to connect with people, whether we're in person, whether we're on zoom and all the different platforms that we use?
Mike Robbins:And then the third thing I still think that you know, cultural awareness and cultural intelligence is so important. The world's getting smaller. We're doing business more globally with people from all different walks of life and backgrounds, and even if we're just dealing with people right here at home, you know, having some awareness of differences and different generations and different mindsets and different backgrounds, I mean, it's just the way of the world these days and it's okay to not know. By the way, it's okay to say the wrong thing or ask the embarrassing question Like I don't know how to talk about that thing or I don't know what that means. But I just think people appreciate an openness and a vulnerability around that and some of the leaders I work with now that get that really have a leg up.
John Neral:Yeah, that's really well said. I've asked that question quite a bit. I've never heard anybody use the phrase nimbleness, and I think that's so good. So thank you for offering that to us today. Mike, as we start wrapping up, what advice would you give everyone who's listening here? What advice would you give them to build their mid-career GPS?
Mike Robbins:Look, I think when you get to the middle point of your career, the good news is you know yourself better than, hopefully, you did at the beginning of your career, and I think it's about being real with yourself. Maybe you want to pivot in a different direction. Maybe you're not where you thought you would be and you're disappointed about that. That's okay. Like you know, if we can't own it, we can't change it. So I do think being real with ourselves, being real with the people around us whether it's a coach or a mentor or a therapist or whoever but just like our spouse, our friends, the people we're really talking to like being real about how we feel and what we want.
Mike Robbins:Because I think sometimes, as we move along in our career, we start to give up on certain goals and dreams and thinking like, oh, that's not going to happen for me, or I'm too late or whatever, but like I don't think that's necessarily true. I was just thinking about that this morning myself. Actually, what are some of my goals and aspirations for this next decade of my life? So I think it's really important that we keep dreaming and we keep hoping and we keep having those goals, even if some of them seem unattainable, but that's part of what motivates us to keep going.
John Neral:Yeah, it's really good. Yeah, I think, if we stop dreaming, we stop living right, exactly. Yeah, mike, I've enjoyed this conversation so much, and I'm sure the listeners have as well. If they want to connect with you, learn more about you, I'm going to turn the mic over to you. Tell us all the good things where people can find you.
Mike Robbins:Oh well, I'm on all the social platforms Pretty easy to find there, but best place to connect with me and learn more about my work is at our website, which is mike-robbinscom.
Mike Robbins:Great and tell us about your most recent book yeah, the most recent one is we're All In this Together Came out a few years back and then I wrote a revised forward to it as it came out in paperback. But it's really about leveraging our leadership capabilities, but also really engaging the people around us to be the best team possible. A lot of things you and I were touching on during this conversation.
John Neral:That's really good. I will make sure all of your contact information is in the show notes. Mike, thanks for being a great guest on the Mid-Career GPS podcast.
Mike Robbins:Thanks for having me.
John Neral:All right, my friends, if there's one takeaway or one homework assignment, if you will, from this episode, it's this you can do this wherever you are If you're washing dishes, running, pay attention while you're driving and pay attention while you're running as well. But you can think about this what would you say to yourself if you were talking to yourself 10 years ago or 20 years ago? What would be the advice you would give them? What have you learned or processed or reflected on, and how does that conversation fuel whatever is next? That's a big component to building your mid-career GPS, and I'm glad you were with Mike and me today to be a part of that, to help you build that next part of wherever that roadmap's going to take you. So until next time, my friends, remember this you'll build your mid-career GPS one mile or one step at a time, and how you show up matters. Make it a great rest of your day.
John Neral:Thank you for listening to the Mid-Career GPS Podcast. Make sure to follow on your favorite listening platform and, if you have a moment, I'd love to hear your comments on Apple Podcasts. Visit https://johnneral. com for more information about how I can help you build your mid-career GPS or how I can help you and your organization with your next workshop or public speaking event. Don't forget to connect with me on LinkedIn and follow me on social at John Darrell Coaching. I look forward to being back with you next week. Until then, take care and remember how we show up matters. Thank you.