Elevate Your Talent:

Jeff Walter (00:01)

Hi, I’m Jeff Walter and welcome back to the training impact podcast, where partner training meets strategic impact. My guest today is Jolyn Ledgerwood. Jolyn is principal at Elevate Your Talent. She has over 25 years of experience in learning and development. very wide experience spans hospitality, consumer goods, professional services, IT, and cybersecurity. She’s worked with several large companies, including PepsiCo, Brinker International, Frito-Lay.

 

critical start in Toyota and while she enjoyed her work with large corporate settings, she wanted to do something more and she found that LEGO series play really was drawn to its familiarity and clinical application opportunities and so she’s here to talk all about LEGO series play and her Elevate Your Talent. Welcome to the podcast,

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(00:51)

Thanks, Jeff. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m looking forward to it.

 

Jeff Walter (00:54)

So, first thing I always ask everybody, because I just find it fascinating, and we touched a little bit on the intro there, help me understand or help everybody here understand the journey. It sounds like a very great career, and then elevate your talent, kind of thing. And so how did you end up where you’re at, and what advice would you have for people?

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(01:18)

That’s

 

a great question because leaving high school, I decided I wanted to go to nursing school. And so that propelled me to start college. was a four-year program. I was struggling quite a bit in school. And at the time, this was a long time ago. I’m going to age myself. The dean of students offered to help me with some educational psychology, testing and whatnot to see what was going on.

 

Jeff Walter (01:33)

Thank

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(01:43)

I was doing really well in some areas of the study and others, like the tests, I was just bombing nonstop. was, it was crazy no matter how much I studied. So long story short, I was diagnosed with a specific learning disability, ADHD, and was given a huge list of all the accommodations that I would need to use in all of my classes to be successful. And at the time working in the restaurant and hospitality industry was amazing. I loved it. It fed.

 

every fiber of who I am. And so I dropped out of college and started working full time in the restaurant industry. I wanted to focus on acknowledging that not everybody learns the same. We’re all very different. Our brains are wired very differently. And it’s important to recognize, especially back then, that there are different ways of learning and different adult learning principles that apply to each and everybody in different situations.

 

And so working through the restaurant industry, I did a lot of self-learning on those learning principles. I worked with travel across the country to train managers on how to interview, how to hire, how to do line checks, how to, you know, all the things that are involved in that area. I worked a little bit in retail. And then in the last 10, 15 years, I kind of took a sideline to IT because I knew that it was growing and it was an area that I didn’t know that much about. then cybersecurity.

 

And all along I’ve had roles where I’m in training and development. it’s training a sales team or training, you know, new employees as they come into the organization, what’s important to us as the organization, et cetera. So onboarding training. And then in the last layoff, unfortunately, anytime there’s a reduction in workforce training is one of the first things to go. so, my husband challenged me and said, why don’t we start your business? You love.

 

coaching teams and individuals and you can do that at different companies, not just this one company. So it’s been a fun journey. I don’t advocate for people not going to college. I’ve encouraged my kids, you should probably go to school or find a trade that you love and be passionate about it and dive deep. And it’s been a challenge, know, trying to get jobs in an environment where so much of it’s automated.

 

not having that degree has really allowed me to rely on my networking skills, my connections, ask them for advice and help and next steps. And it’s been fun. I’ve loved it. I wouldn’t trade anything because it allowed me to be here where I am and working with you. So it’s fun.

 

Jeff Walter (04:09)

Thank you. It’s interesting you mentioned the college thing. was at the ATMC, ASC’s Trend Management Council meeting down in last spring. And there’s just a huge shortage of automotive service tax. I’ve talked to hundreds of that. We’re short of hundreds plus thousand. And the whole college thing came up.

 

And it’s really interesting because there are some jobs in some positions that like nursing. It’s like, want to be an RN, you got to go. It’s just that, you know, you want to be an engineer, but surprisingly few jobs require that, you know, a four year degree. And in today’s world, there is such a cluster of learning opportunities outside of the traditional university setting.

 

that you can learn anything you want. There are just a few jobs out there that you need that degree to get in the door. But the interesting thing, as you were telling us about your background, it reminded me of a principal, I was an entrepreneurial manager teacher back in grad school, they talked about the corridor principal, the hallway principal. And I was listening to it, and just…

 

popped in my head and they were talking about it from an entrepreneurial standpoint, but I think the same holds for people in their careers or just their life in general. know, and the corridor principle wants something like this. You’re standing at one end of the hallway and your goal is at the other end of the hallway and so you’re focused on that goal, you’re headed that way and you think that’s the right place to go. And then you get halfway down the hall and all of a sudden you see this other hall to your left that you couldn’t see from the beginning.

 

And you kind of look over to the left and you go, I think that’s a better place for me to go. And then you go halfway down that one and there’s a new hallway to the right that you didn’t know existed. And next thing you know, you’re woven your way and ended up at a destination that you never would have, you couldn’t even imagine when you started your journey back at the entrance of the building. Yeah, no.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(06:11)

Right.

 

And how I interrupted you and I’m sorry, how

 

many times when we’re looking or someone is looking down that hall, there’s other people or society proposed what that looks like to get to that end space, right? Like, so other people have said, you know, that because I’m in learning and development, I need to drive to be a VP of talent or, you know, chief people.

 

Jeff Walter (06:33)

Right.

 

Right.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(06:41)

training officer, whatever, that that should be my goal. And it’s not, like not everybody wants to be an executive. Not everybody wants the responsibility and some of the other things involved. And that’s kind of another reason why I jumped off of the corporate ladder is I was like, don’t want, I like working with the people, with the teams, with everybody else. don’t, I I respect those that can be chief people officers or, you know, that’s great and we need you, but.

 

That’s just not where I saw myself. I enjoy working with teams and with individuals on their individual journeys. And like you said, when they branch off here, you know, how can they still use everything that they were going straight with and maneuver that to take that next direction? I appreciate that.

 

Jeff Walter (07:24)

Yeah,

 

yeah, you know, well, it’s interesting because you just remind me of something else also, which is, you know, a lot of that societal pressure is to just stay on that track, you where you started at the entryway and just stay on that track to that exit or that goal at the end of the thing. And I remember myself in my mid-20s, you know, and I was kind of like that, but like there was no question I was going to go to

 

Right, like in my household, like my mother, know, both of my parents got their undergrads and graduate degrees while they were raising us. So like, like, so we were going to college, right? And then, you know, I remember waking up in my mid 20s and what am I doing? Like I’m on this track that was set for me when I was 16. And now I’m like 24, 25. And, and I, but that gave me anxiety. And I, and my, I have two girls and they’re in their,

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(08:01)

Right, well.

 

Yes.

 

Jeff Walter (08:22)

And and you know, I saw that same pattern of they got into the like mid 20s. They were on this route

 

I remember telling you, they didn’t want to disappoint mom and dad. They didn’t want to suck whatever the pressures were, And I remember saying to them, everything that we’ve done and all the education and training and knowledge and skills that you’ve built, it’s all to create opportunities for you. It doesn’t mean you have to go be the VP of dot, dot, dot.

 

It doesn’t mean you have to strive to go up the career ladder. You have been blessed with talent and you have developed that talent and because of that you now have the curse of opportunity. I can go to the left, I can go to the right, or I can keep going straight and you really have to look deep in your soul and it’s a metaphysical thing. It’s what brings you joy. And so much of us as a society,

 

Yeah, it’s that VP of this or CXO of that. And it’s like, but then that doesn’t bring you joy. Go and you have all this talent apply it to where you find the joy. so when you were saying that I was…

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(09:24)

Yeah.

 

There were many times in the restaurant industry where people would come in and they would just be like, mad at the world. And I’m like, if working here doesn’t bring you joy, then you shouldn’t be working here. I’m cool with it. You should be cool with it. Like go find something else that drives you to be happy at your work and, and challenges you in a way that makes you happy or, you know, at least looking forward to not, you know, slugging in that day and just, you know, it’s, it’s too defeating. I, I remember growing up.

 

Jeff Walter (09:44)

Yeah.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(10:03)

similar. parents, I mean, my dad was a banker and executive and kept going up that ladder. And that was the expectation that we’re going to go to college and get great jobs. my sister is a licensed social worker. So she has her master’s degree and she does kind of the same thing I do, but she charges insurance through people’s insurance to do it. And it’s so different, but yet there’s still

 

you know, where I was originally going with this story was that having that pressure of my dad, of I have to excel, I have to do really great, I have to, you know, always be pushing and going in that corporate group, that corporate groove, you know, I never thought, why don’t I just open my, like that just wasn’t something that I even imagined doing. And yet when I told one of my daughters that I had decided to do this, cause I knew it was going to be a big change for our family, she was like, mom, that is so great. I’m so excited for you. And I was like,

 

My biggest cheerleader right there. Like it’s not even me, but it’s her seeing that going into the office every day was just not a good place for me. And I was able to pull out and kind of reassess. So yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (11:08)

Yeah,

 

well, it’s funny your daughter did that. I think we tend to be our own most critical critic. And we tend not to treat ourselves as though we’re somebody who’s responsible for taking care of us. And these loved ones around us, and I’m sure you agonized over that decision. And yet, when you know…

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(11:17)

absolutely.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (11:36)

bring it out, and when you tell the people around you who love you, half of them are like, it’s about time. I’m so happy for you. I’ve wanted this for you for years.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(11:42)

Yeah, exactly.

 

Yeah. And in my brain, I thought that the safe place to be was at corporate because if I’m sick, they’re still going to pay my check. If my kids are sick, I can stay and take care of them and all the things. And I remember talking to my cousin about this because he’s an entrepreneur and has been for years. And he said,

 

How is it that working for somebody else is more safe than working for yourself? Because at any point, if they make decisions and the company folds, you had nothing to do with that. And now you’re left out on the curb. I was like, I mean, it was like a mind shift. thought that it makes so much sense. But again, my upbringing was dad works at a corporate job and these things. I love, yeah, yeah, I love now that there’s so much.

 

Jeff Walter (12:28)

Go to school, get a good job. ⁓

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(12:34)

variety in how people work today and how people show up and want to be their best selves, whether that’s in the office space or a hybrid or working for themselves, whatever that looks like. that’s exciting for me, for my kids and what’s to come in the future. Cause I can’t imagine the rows and rows of cubicles is ever gonna be a thing anymore, right?

 

Jeff Walter (12:58)

Yes, I don’t think so. Regardless of where you go, I wish I could remember who had said it. It’s like you’ve got a credit. But a long time ago, said, and it wasn’t a book, think, or a show or something, we are all CEOs of our own minds. And so when you said that about your cousin, the entrepreneur, I you said?

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(13:18)

My cousin,

 

yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (13:20)

Um, you know, there’s a lot of truth to that, but it, but it’s also perfectly okay to be your dad and be that banker that, but I remember when I heard that you’re all CEOs of our own lives. It’s like, well, no matter where you are, whether you’re climbing the corporate ladder or, you know, in a government job or an entrepreneur, like you got, you put that mindset on it. It’s like, I am, I am the boss of my life.

 

and how do I get my system to pay my rent, how do I keep it all up. It’s a different mindset, it’s really important. So okay, you’ll get to know me, I like to go down a lot of rabbit holes, my listeners know I do that, and they love me for it. All right, so you start and elevate your talent. It’s a training firm, we’ve briefly talked about Legos in the past.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(14:00)

Absolutely.

 

I appreciate it.

 

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (14:18)

early

 

in the session. So let’s start with, so it’s a training, you’re a training provider. And so why do clients engage, elevate your talent? What are they hoping to accomplish when they bring you in?

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(14:25)

I am.

 

I have two critical methodologies that I stand on. One is CliftonStrengths. It has been a game changer in so many different environments that I’ve seen. The one hiccup I see is a corporation will say, hey, let’s do the strengths finder thing. Everybody take the assessment and then everybody look at your results and then they don’t ever do anything else with it. And there’s so much more that can be done with strengths, finders, CliftonStrengths, whatever you want to call it.

 

where you truly do understand the strengths of the people on your teams. Managers are taught to leverage those strengths. So even if a specific task is not in somebody’s job role, if they’re good at it and their brains are naturally wired for it, the manager will let them do pieces like that. Now, strength finder is never a get out of jail free card. I don’t have to do my reporting because it’s, I’m not, that’s not one of my top strengths that it doesn’t work that way. Right. It’s more of understanding ourselves, how we work.

 

Jeff Walter (15:10)

Mm-hmm.

 

All right.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(15:25)

how we operate and what drives and fuels us. So for example, my number one is woo, which stands for winning others over. And that is why I love the restaurant industry so much is because I was able to show my personality and be boisterous and fun. And that was acceptable and encouraged there. And the second methodology, which is amazing, Lego series play. I found it from a friend of mine from Germany years ago.

 

And we met for coffee one day and he brings this bag of six Lego bricks and he said, build a duck. And I was like, what are you talking about? And it’s a very abstract. There’s four yellow and two red pieces. And no matter how many people are in the room, everybody’s going to build the duck differently. And it just, it speaks to, we all see things differently. We all have different backgrounds that have led us to who we are today. My perception of a duck.

 

To me, this is a duck. You may look at it and be like, well, I don’t see a duck, but for me, it is still a duck. So we’re both right in our duck builds. There’s larger kits that we use. We use it a lot when teams are struggling to find answers or if they feel like they’re roadblocked for whatever reason, whether it’s an impediment to the business or another type of barrier or siloed teams that need to combine and

 

understand each other a little bit better. When you work with your hands, you open up 80 % more brain power. And when you build, it unlocks your subconscious where some of these thoughts and ideas are able to come to your hands. And then when asked questions and, you know, reflecting on different builds, we can get more specific into what some bricks may or may not mean. Lego series plays a lot of metaphors. And so you’ll build something to represent

 

how you feel or what you contribute or et cetera. And it’s neat because you’re given a tangible object to then look at and ask questions on. And it’s not challenging to me as a person. I’m just explaining the build that I made and what each of those little pieces mean within each other.

 

Jeff Walter (17:31)

So, he said something really interesting that I hadn’t heard before. And that was, when you work with your hands, I think he said, you learn 80 % more or something like that, 80 % more brain power. So what, I’m having a, what does that mean?

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(17:43)

You open up 80 % more brain power. 80%. Isn’t that amazing?

 

It means that when we’re sitting in a conference room, team, it’s time to get together and let’s strategize.

 

Jeff Walter (18:01)

Right, now let’s brainstorm, get stuff off on the wall.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(18:03)

Right,

 

right. So I can throw out ideas and I can, but if I’m given pieces to make a physical model of, you know, let’s brainstorm. What do you see are some opportunities for our team moving forward and letting everybody have the time to build and construct your subconscious comes through. I tell my clients often, you know, don’t overthink it.

 

Jeff Walter (18:28)

Right.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(18:28)

just

 

start putting bricks together. It may not make sense to you, but just start putting bricks together, get them out there. And then they’re given an opportunity to share. so we look at what those models look like. And very often, someone will put something in a build that they don’t necessarily recognize that they’ve put in the build. I’ll give you an example. When I was going through my certification, one of the questions posed was, build your ideal CEO.

 

And I built a larger model, but within that model was one Lego minifigure with one leg up and both hands raised, like serving a plate of food or something like that. Both hands are raised up like a waist above waist level.

 

Jeff Walter (19:06)

Okay.

 

like a waiter

 

blint bringing out a trick.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(19:12)

Right, right. Again, with one leg up in the front. And the facilitator asked me, you know, what does, see that one of the legs is up on the minifigure. What does that represent? What does that mean? And I thought, I don’t remember doing that. I think it must mean that I want my ideal CEO to be forward thinking and have ideas on how we can grow moving forward that we’re not stagnant in this one place. And again, that’s not something that I built with intention, but it was in there and

 

When asked, I was able to own it and say that I want this person to be looking for our future and what can we do moving forward? And that was really helpful. And the teams there, you normally sit at tables of four to five. It depends on how many people are in the group, but they learn how to ask questions like that of each other. You know, I see that you used a green brick for this. Does that have a meaning or, and you know, sometimes a brick is a brick, like it’s no big deal.

 

But it’s nice because you’re able to challenge people’s thinking and challenge the builds and what individual parts of that build may represent. One of the activities we do is I’ll have you build something that you consider aesthetically pleasing. And so that’s a wide range. It can be anything, how, whatever. And then depending on the group.

 

I asked them to explain a specific word using the model that they just created that was aesthetically pleasing. So it’s taking out the context of aesthetically pleasing and now saying, explain to me how your build is a rocket ship. And so they have to think about it and think about, well, and it’s interesting because very quickly they come up with, well, this can be the cabin and this can be the propellers and this can be the parts of the rocket ship.

 

and how quick they’re able to make those distinctions. Excuse me.

 

Jeff Walter (21:01)

Yeah, well, I’m just thinking about the 80 % for in power and as I’m listening to you explain it all, the thought that comes to my head and it goes back to the original question I asked, it sounds to me like…

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(21:06)

you

 

Jeff Walter (21:16)

is the physical, you know, being engrossed physically with your hands, doing something that is a right brain activity. It’s a full body immersion in a right brain activity. And so much of what we do and so much of what our organizations do is very left brain activity, right? It’s like the process is set, you do ABC, you achieve D, right? And somebody figured out and unlocking the right

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(21:36)

Yes.

 

Jeff Walter (21:44)

hemisphere, which is the novelty, the creative. That’s interesting.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(21:48)

Uh-huh.

 

It’s the prefrontal cortex is what it’s opening up and it’s allowing that less linear thinking of building and using your hands and to open up 80 % more brain power. can be Lego bricks, can be Play-Doh, it can be watercolors. It doesn’t matter, but allowing our teams to…

 

have that experience to recognize that the conference room fishbowl doesn’t work for everybody. A lot of people don’t think that way. And if we truly want to get everything out of our people, we would find other ways to engage that prefrontal cortex. We would find ways to, you know, if it’s team building, great, but team building, working while we team build is really important. And sometimes going to a bar after hours,

 

Jeff Walter (22:18)

Yeah.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(22:38)

is not what some people consider team building. So this is a great way of build what your life looks like or build what your current work looks. I mean, there’s all types of questions that we can ask that can lead us to the desired response. I tell my leaders, you have to have a courageous mind because an

 

because when your team comes up with some ideas that maybe you haven’t even thought about or were not even on the table, you have to be willing to say, hey, let’s look into that and let’s dive a little bit deeper.

 

Jeff Walter (23:11)

Yeah,

 

I’ll go back to what you originally said, or what I was just asked. What outcome is somebody looking for, a client looking for to bring you in? And your immediate response was, they bring us in when they have an intractable problem that they can’t figure out a solution to? They’re stuck. so that’s the right brain thinking. That’s the I’m in a space, what is it?

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(23:30)

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (23:39)

How do I evaluate all that stuff? And when I never thought of before, it’s know, they work with your hands, opens that up. And then the next thing you’d said that was, find really fascinating was, and then we go around and ask people to explain it. And because a lot of times you’re doing exactly what you just talked about with the CEO is in the creative process, it’s not all cognitive. It’s a lot of subconscious and it’s a lot of, and you don’t know why you did it.

 

I don’t know why I put that over there. And sometimes a brick is a brick. And sometimes it represents something. But when you then ask people to explain it, it’s another one of those right brain thinking. It’s like, huh, why did I put the leg on? Or, my duck looks like this because I grew up on a farm down from a pond and there was this duck and he was blue. Everybody thinks yellow and I made a blue duck. whatever the…

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(24:35)

Right, right.

 

Jeff Walter (24:37)

whatever the reasoning being, but also forces them to think, well, why? Why did I do that? And opens up the creativity. And then if I understand what you’ve been saying is you kind of do that exercise. And also it’s an object that’s not you, right? So your ego is not tied up in the object. I created, I don’t have any Legos. Actually, I do have some Legos. Yeah, it’s over there. ⁓ But…

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(24:43)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yes, yes, that’s exactly right.

 

Exactly.

 

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (25:05)

I created this object and while I created the object, the object is not me. And so if the object gets criticized, it’s not me that’s getting criticized.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(25:09)

Yes. Yes.

 

Right, exactly. And

 

you piggyback on, I see that you put the leg up and then you have like yellow bricks below. mean, does that signify probably the yellow brick road, that there’s a path towards the future, whatever. And we don’t ever put ideas in people’s minds. We just ask questions to understand the builds better. So that as they’re describing their builds and as they…

 

Jeff Walter (25:35)

All

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(25:40)

It’s a pretty regimented process that we pose the question. They have time to build. then within each group, everybody will go around and share, just tell them everybody about their model. And then when that’s done, then other team members can ask questions about your model. So yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (25:43)

All right.

 

So, okay.

 

Well, so now, so once you go through that exercise, are we, like I can understand exercise really interesting. It’s opening up the right side of the brain and people exploring and looking at things in a new and novel way. But we’re still trying to figure out how to improve our product so that we can gain market share. Is the idea that you go through an exercise like that and it’s almost like a stretching exercise for the right.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(26:22)

Yes, it’s getting comfortable. It’s getting comfortable with the bricks. It’s getting comfortable with how they snap together, what different variety of bricks we have available for them to use. And yes, it’s absolutely kind of a warmup exercise before then we get to the, so we’re in a siloed organization. We have all of marketing at one table, sales, engineering, whatever, customer service.

 

Jeff Walter (26:23)

brain.

 

All right.

 

Yeah.

 

Yep.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(26:47)

build a model of what your team does and how you contribute to the company. Great. So they talk about it. They now modify your model to show how you work with these other groups that are within the meeting, whatever. And then when we bring those together, we can look at, I didn’t know you guys did this or I didn’t know y’all did that. Like, so we could use this for that. mean,

 

And they start seeing the synergies within those groups. They start seeing where there’s commonalities between us instead of just the differences. Or there’s light shined on their coworkers that they never saw before because the coworker didn’t have a safe place to reveal that about themselves or to say that I grew up on a farm with blue ducks. Like when else would that come up? Like, but it opens up these places for people to.

 

own who they are and to own their experience and to collaborate with their other team members on whatever that resolution, you know, whatever that resolution needs to be. We, we did a workshop with some educators down in South Texas and Texas is on the cusp of using publicly funded vouchers for kids to attend charter schools. So one of the people in the room was with the public school.

 

And so he built different pieces and then we built impediments to that success. So what are the, what are those impediments look like and how do they impact, you know, say these vouchers are approved. How does that then impact all the departments within the school, the students, the teachers, the parents, the budget, like all these different places. And then when you make those connections, you can kind of see.

 

I didn’t think that it would impact the teachers as much, but wow, if they’ve got fewer students and can have smaller classes, that might make those classes even better for the existing students. of just the snowball of realization when you see it built in front of you.

 

Jeff Walter (28:50)

So

 

it’s not just using the Legos to warm up the brain for, like when you were doing the dog, okay, you’re warming up the brain doing these things, prepping it for creative thinking. You keep working the bricks and then say, use this to represent something.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(29:05)

I gotcha. Keep working with the bricks.

 

Jeff Walter (29:15)

you know, that problem you’re trying to solve. That intractable problem that for some reason you just can’t get the process between the organizations working or, you we’re rolling out a new product or, you know, this thing is happening to us in a marketplace or regulatory-wise and let’s think through the ramifications and what we’re going to do about it. then, so then you’re still got that tactile, you’re engaging, you’re doing something physical.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(29:17)

Exactly.

 

Yes.

 

Jeff Walter (29:45)

which is really, yo, man, that’s really brilliant. Yeah, yeah.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(29:50)

Right? Right? Here’s the catch.

 

Like just last week, I was proposing to a company to do Lego series play and they’re like, you mean like the toys? Yeah. Yeah. We bring those in and they build and we talk about what they build and they make modifications. Yeah. I just don’t think the CEO is going to get behind that. I’m like, what are you talking like? Why? Why are we so stuck in?

 

It has to look like this in order to be successful and work and productive and bring monetary value. There’s so much value in this and it’s just so, I think I told you this earlier. LEGO series play was originally created like in 1999 by the LEGO group when they found that it wasn’t going to be as successful as they really needed it to be. Two of the creators of LEGO’s relatives, grandson, think, and nephew,

 

took on Lego series play and continue to modify, build, create all these. And so it’s been around for 26 years. There’s 15,000 practitioners in the world and only a hundred of those are in the United States. I’m like, that’s crazy. yet when I bring it up to people to network about it, to talk about what it is, to let me know if you have any referrals or whatever, nine times out of 10 I get, how do I get certified? That sounds amazing.

 

Jeff Walter (30:54)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, well,

 

well, you know, it’s the whole thing working with a, you know, what’s blowing me away and it goes back to that 80 % that you said first off, you know, I remember when I first started working, you know, I was a computer programmer, right? And I was in an IP consultancy. So it’s all bits and bytes and electrons flying around, right? And I, and I remember talking to the VP that was running the office, you know, so this is, know, like back to that. This is the guy I want to be someday.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(31:08)

Yeah.

 

Yep.

 

Jeff Walter (31:35)

Right now it’s just a 22 year old kid just, you know, just moved out of my parents’ You know, and, and we get talking, you like what do you like to on the weekends? And you go, you know, like, like, well, like, know, a couple long and a couple long. And again, I’m 22, I’m like, that’s as long. I’m like, I just moved out of my parents’ house. I never want to a freaking long again in my life. Right? Like that was my job as a kid, right? Was to cut the lawn.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(31:36)

Right,

 

Yeah, sure, yeah. ⁓

 

Jeff Walter (32:03)

And I’m like, you know, certainly, like he said, he’s a VP. What’s he doing cutting his own lawn? He can afford to pay somebody. I know when I get a house, I’m paying somebody to cut my lawn. I go, why are you cutting your lawn? And he goes, you know, we’re in the consulting business and we’re consulting about software. And everything is in tangible. Everything. Consulting is in tangible.

 

The software we create is intangible. You can’t touch it, smell it, feel it, it, anything. It’s all intangible. And I do that all week long. And then on the weekend, I got my yard. It’s a physical thing. I see what needs to be done. I get on my mower. I do it. I know when I’m done. And I can tactfully feel and see and touch my product.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(32:55)

That completion,

 

Yes.

 

Jeff Walter (32:56)

⁓ The thing I did,

 

I physically changed the world around me. then, really, doubt, fast food decades, a bunch of decades. I was talking to a friend of mine a couple years ago, we both own businesses, and we’re both in non-tactile businesses. I’m in the software business, he’s in the marketing business. And it was just really interesting.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(33:16)

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (33:20)

We both developed certain.

 

creative hobbies, I shouldn’t say we developed hobbies, we got involved in things, it requires you to work with your hands to do something and create something. And I won’t even cover mine or his, but we’re not even good at it and we don’t do it that often. And they’re completely separate things, right? And we were talking about one day and that conversation from Mike from like 30 years ago came back and it was like, I just need to…

 

do something physical. so, and there’s like this human desire to get to feel, touch and smell it. And so when you brought that up and you said that opens up the creative stuff, and then you use that same approach to tackle these problems that are not physical, you know, you know, they’re intangible. I was like, that is really important.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(34:15)

Yeah, see I like to complete things like Mike did. that’s another reason why I enjoy my Lego bricks is there’s times where I just want to sit and I’m fine with I watching a show or not or with my kids on their phones or whatever. But I want to just get a set out and build because I like to to see that completion. I like to see, you know, this is what my work accomplished today. I’ll never forget and I was working in

 

Jeff Walter (34:19)

Yeah.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(34:40)

one of the businesses that you mentioned earlier, and they had a sales kickoff for the sales team. It was a cybersecurity company. Beginning of the year, we’re going to have great sales, great numbers. And you take all the sales team, both business development reps and outside sales and corporate, you know, whatever sales enterprise, and you throw them in this huge hotel conference room at round tables of eight. You dim the lights and then you ask someone to talk about said cybersecurity thing.

 

Jeff Walter (35:00)

All

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(35:09)

for hours and hours and hours. And within the first hour, the sales team, various people would either be standing up behind their chairs, they’d be pacing the back of the room, they’d be on their cell phones or on their laptops, completely, they were there, but completely disengaged. And I thought, there’s gotta be something. so, complete whim, I stopped at Target that night, picked up a bunch of the small little Play-Doh.

 

containers and put enough on each of the tables for everybody to what’s the Play-Doh for? What are we doing? I like just whatever you want it for like and seeing the difference in engagement that next day. They were sitting in their chairs, not on phones or laptops. They were building. They would sometimes co-build so different people would use different colors to make something together. And I can’t help but think

 

Their retention was probably way higher the second day because they were doing something that kept them engaged. Now, a lot of salespeople, they don’t sit at their desk all day every day. They’re out networking, they’re making calls, they’re visiting offices, whatever that looks like. So then to throw them in a conference room and dim the lights, their bodies just like go into shock. What am I, I can’t do this. Giving them something to do allowed them to continue to be engaged. They stayed.

 

at their seats, whether it’s ADD or ADHD, whatever, they were engaged and listening to the presentations. It was a marked difference between day one and day two. And I can’t help but think it had nothing to do with the presenters. It had nothing to do with the setup, but just giving them something to do with their hands kept them engaged and kept that right prefrontal cortex engaged. Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (36:52)

Huh.

 

And now, unlike the structured thing you do, this was just on a whim, putting little things to play though, and there was no structured anything about it. was just, hey, that’s there for you guys to just, yeah, do whatever you want.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(36:58)

Yep, free build.

 

Yeah, there was

 

one guy that made like a tower of look like a little the old like just a ball of Play-Doh, but like those old stacks of like cannon balls that they would. Yeah. Yeah. It been the old war days. Somebody made this really intricate depiction of a motorcycle. Like the things that I was amazed. I was like this. mean, this is going to be like a sub, you know, in their office channel of creativity that we have.

 

Jeff Walter (37:19)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(37:35)

And I made sure from then on that they always have that at their sales meetings because the results that we saw showed that they were more engaged, they were more in tune, they were listening, they were sitting at the tables collaborating with each other. And it was amazing. I should have done a scientific discovery or evaluation of what do you remember from this day versus, but I didn’t, so that’s all right.

 

Jeff Walter (37:54)

Yeah.

 

Well, if

 

I can go off script for a second and ask for some free advice. ⁓ Well, so the International Franchise Association asked me to this workshop in their annual convention in June on scaling without sacrifice. How to go from an emerging franchise to

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(38:01)

Please, Yeah, absolutely. Love to.

 

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (38:17)

And I’ve been doing a lot of interviews on the podcast and research to try and know, what’s scaling about? How do you scale? How do you do it well? What are the pitfalls? And put my kind of old consulting hat on. And that I want to be this boring guy with the lights down, but know, so they go, okay, there’s a bunch of information compiled. How do I share it?

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(38:22)

Thank

 

Jeff Walter (38:44)

and

 

Yeah, I could share it in PowerPoint. Hopefully, not going to entertaining enough to keep somebody’s attention. And do it in a certain way. But you really on that, you really on the Plato thing just got me going, huh, if I put a thing of Plato in every seat, what, well, because it’s the first thing you said that just is blowing me away that it unlocks that right front.

 

frontal cortex which opens up the brain to new ideas. for folks that are not familiar, your right hemisphere is all about exploring the world and your left hemisphere controls the actual repetitive doing. So when you’re doing yourself just doing those things like eating, showering, these repetitive things in daily life, that’s all left brain activity.

 

If you get dropped in the middle of the woods in the middle of the night and with a flashlight you gotta find your way home, that’s all right. It’s the right hemisphere that starts going, okay, where am I? Where do I go? What’s the right direction? And all that type of thing. It’s an exploratory thing. And problem solving is a creative thing. Unless there’s already a standard operating procedure that says, when this happens, do these five things.

 

when you’re in a novel situation called right brain thinking. And so back to your cybersecurity thing, I think that’s really fascinating because you’re in this thing and you’re there to learn and you need all learning, all learning is novelty and it’s that right brain, it’s a right brain activity. so what would, if I was to take a chance and do something creative like that,

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(40:14)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah. What and what’s it?

 

What’s the worst thing that could happen? Somebody throws it in their bag or they don’t touch it at all. And that’s okay. Like it’s not required. It’s we’re doing this, you know, if and people may at what is this? Whatever you want for like you can save it. Give it to your kids. You can build while we’re talking whatever and it’s it’s fascinating to see someone at each table will start building. Oh, I remember.

 

Play-Doh as a kid. used to get so mad at my sister because she’d smash all the colors together and I want them to be separate and it creates a conversation and as some people start to build other people want to be part of the building too so they’ll get their Play-Doh out and build some and again seeing the collaboration between those builds was pretty impressive. Anything that you can use your hands is yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (41:15)

Well, and the thing that’s fascinating when you said about day two is the to the uninformed, which I would throw myself in that category. was like, well, I don’t want to do that because now they’re going to not pay attention to what I’m saying. Right. Their attention is going to be on building that motorcycle, that stack of cannonballs, whatever, you know, bugging their neighbor, you know, distracting the neighbors say, Hey, can I get some of your yellow Play-Doh? Like, ⁓ so.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(41:41)

Yeah, right.

 

Jeff Walter (41:44)

Why is, why doesn’t, why isn’t that the case? Why? You I’m saying?

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(41:47)

So they’re,

 

yeah, they were already distracted. Their brain was already not in tuned. Would I rather them have them distracted at the table with their peers doing something as a group or would I rather them be distracted at the back of the room, texting, checking emails, going to the bathroom, calling their girlfriends, know, whatever that looks like. I personally, I would rather them be distracted sitting at the table because they’re still part of the group.

 

I still know that they’re probably absorbing some of that information. Again, when you unlock the right, 80 % more starts to flow. And if they’re at the table collaborating with their peers, that to me is a win over them being completely checked out in the back of the room, having a side conversation with the senior VP or whatever that looks like. Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (42:23)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, well,

 

guilty as charged. Over my career, I’ve gone to a million conferences and sat in a million lectures and a million workshops.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(42:43)

Yeah. I mean, because

 

what great way to learn. Like, let’s sit at a table that we never sit at, turn the lights down so that I can see a PowerPoint presentation. What? Like, it’s completely counterintuitive.

 

Jeff Walter (42:54)

Yeah. Well, so back to the

 

unsolicited or the solicited advice. So if I was to do this, would you just, as a novice who’s never incorporated, just put it out there? Or are there any easy techniques to incorporate the build into the learning?

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(43:14)

Well, it depends. If your group is asking a lot of questions about what is this for, do we need it later? That, and if you don’t address it, that creates an anxiety that some people will not resolve. So you could very easily say, you know, many of you have asked about the Lego, I mean, the Play-Doh, I recognize that asking you to sit in a conference room is so far from your normal daily activities. So if you need to fidget, build.

 

Jeff Walter (43:30)

Yeah.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(43:41)

help yourself while we’re having the conversations. I encourage you to keep yourself busy and stay engaged in the conversations that we’re having. And that allows them to, cause you’re not saying you have to build. We’re going to grade your builds at the end of the day. It has to be, you know, look, no, it just gives them the freedom to use it if they want to. And again, I’m, some people will be kind of like, I’m an adult. I don’t need to play with Play-Doh, but by the end of the day,

 

Jeff Walter (44:06)

Yeah, yeah.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(44:08)

Those will be the stacks of cannonballs or the motorcycle, I assure you. Yeah. ⁓

 

Jeff Walter (44:11)

Yeah, you know, it’d be really funny since it’s a conference would be to do

 

or just an interesting not funny but an interesting observation would be to do that in because I’m on the my workshops in the morning and would be to do that. You probably get a couple people start playing with it and a bunch of people just take it and go with you. And I bet you if I do that at another session somewhere during the day, I’m going to see somebody whooped out a can of Play-Doh and start playing with something.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(44:23)

huh. Yep.

 

Yeah.

 

And it will become something that they look forward to when you present again. And it doesn’t have to always be, but I remember the, a follow-up meeting, someone was like, where’s the Play-Doh? I’m like, okay, I got you. Like, I’m cool. I got it. And it doesn’t have to be something that you do all the time, but at least inviting them to use your hands to play, to, you know, to think or build, you know, ideas of what you’re talking about. Like you can have them, you know,

 

Jeff Walter (44:44)

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(45:06)

Not again, not a force. want it to be a little bit more, however you want to do it,

 

Jeff Walter (45:10)

Well,

 

yeah, intuition would be to sit there and go, hey, studies have shown that if you’re engaged in something physical, like building something or molding, sculpting something with something like clay or labels, whatever, it helps open up the creative side of brain. And this is a workshop about scalability. And so there are certain pillars of what you have to do to scale your franchise. And we’re going to talk about marketing, sales, operations.

 

blah blah blah. But the workshop part of it, it’s not just me going blah blah blah, is we’re going to like have exercises. Well, what is your process? What is your culture? know, I’m going to be asking you to do a bunch of things that you may not have thought of before. And so, Mike, if I was to do something like this, would start off, I like what you just said. Give them permission to play, right?

 

And I would even go so far as say, that is a show that this really helps unlock your creativity. And so feel free to play all you want. If you don’t want to play, take this, give it to your kids, whatever. But then as we go, I would imagine if we did that and then we start doing these, OK, think about the culture of your business and write down of your franchise. What are the five biggest cultural elements, right, values and things like that?

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(46:17)

Absolutely, yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (46:32)

What are your lead generation channels in marketing? What is your sales closing process? What is your service delivery process? And what you see with emerging franchisers is there’s a lot of intuition up here of the founder and they’ve been successful. They tapped into something that the market was looking for. They’ve created franchises.

 

or they’ve got to a franchise model to try and scale that. But now, how do you do that? And it hasn’t necessarily gone from here in their head. You’ve kind of operated, lot of them cut to operate more on intuition, but I have to be able to communicate to others what these processes are. I have to define them, I have to get the technology to support them, I’ve got to train them on how to do that.

 

And I was just wondering if you would recommend I do something like the flavor of the leg up to just get the juices flowing.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(47:28)

Yeah.

 

Absolutely. I am. I’m happy to come and help in any way that you might need. We can work out a sweet deal. But that’s in what you’re mentioning. Hey, right. Totally fine with that. Totally fine. I see so much of the value in what I do and in this. That’s my husband’s like, OK, would you please stop doing it for free? I’m like, I just love it. What you were saying about how the founder

 

Jeff Walter (47:39)

I’ll you what, I’ll give you 100 % of what they’re paying me.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(47:56)

has this, but they haven’t figured out that that’s that left brain to right brain transition is they know what they’re supposed to do and how that’s supposed to work. They haven’t figured out the how and when you build and I’m going to specifically speak on Lego at this point, but when you build and you ask them, you know, what does your franchise look like in five years and they build that and then you ask them, okay, now make a separate build of what are your perceived impediments to that success.

 

within the next five years. And then you ask them to, how do we address those impediments? And are they real, tangible things? Or are they just limiting beliefs that we have in our own mind of things that we can or can’t do? And how do we acknowledge that impediment and lower that threshold so that we can still be successful? Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (48:47)

Yeah.

 

So, gears a little and getting back to the heart of the podcast. By the way, thank you for that. But I also wanted to go down that because there’s another thought that was, know, fumbling through my brain is, it’s very easy for me to see this applied to an internal learning environment, right? Like the example you used, I’ve got these different departments and they’re together.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(48:52)

Yeah.

 

⁓ Yes.

 

Jeff Walter (49:14)

And I find the technique fascinating. And then in my head, I’m like, OK, how do we apply this to an external learning environment? because, you know, so like onboarding franchisees, training franchise staff to be able to see them do, a lot of that training is more on the left-brain side. We’re, especially on a staff, we’re training you on the process.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(49:22)

Absolutely. Yeah.

 

Yeah,

 

right, right. Checking boxes.

 

Jeff Walter (49:42)

Right, to make sure that you know how to make the thing we do or deliver the service we do. But then there are some, like I was just talking to Chief Operating Officer of Wellness and Fitness franchise, and their whole thing is the instructor. It’s like the whole business is the certified instructor, and it’s more of a coach. And it’s not a thing, it’s not gonna make a blizzard. And it’s, so how,

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(50:08)

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (50:11)

How would you see something like this being, or how could something like this be incorporated into that external armament? And have you seen it, and how is, what’s the use case?

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(50:20)

⁓

 

Yeah, I mean, there’s even though the humans and the trainers are are

 

a little, I don’t want to say removed, but I’m trying to think of the right word. They’re part of the business and may not have direct impact on the business or is that, am I making sense? They still have stake in the business. So we still want to know what they see are their impediments because when they’re successful, the franchise will be successful. And when they’re able to acknowledge what

 

Jeff Walter (50:38)

Yeah.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(50:54)

they see may be an impact to their success and they’re able to address it. And maybe it’s been in the back of their mind, but they’re like, I don’t want to mention that because it may not be. And I, but building it and seeing it allows you to go, that’s, that’s what you’re afraid of. Let’s talk about that. And let’s talk about ways that we can either resolve it, work around it, or get over it and past it so that we can then be successful. The application.

 

ability for Lego series play is across the board. So many companies now are saying we don’t have time to do team building because we had to lay off 40 % of our staff. When in actuality, that is the perfect time to do team building because everybody that’s in there is still feeling the shock of their friends leaving. They don’t know how much longer they’re going to have to stay, but to invest in them and say, Hey, we kept you. We’re so sorry that we had to have this layoff. That was awful. Nobody wants to do that. How do we now take

 

the team of you that’s here and plan for the future. How do we continue to use your talents and strengths to help propel the business to be better so that we don’t have to do layoffs again? What does that look like and how does, you know, go in through some of those scenarios? Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (52:05)

Yeah, you

 

know, I’m curious because this is my engineering brain, my luck brain. How does one do a build of impediment?

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(52:17)

Yeah, so it’s really good question.

 

It’s again, it’s a lot of metaphor usage. So if I think an impediment to my success is networking, I don’t like networking and I don’t, so I can build a physical model of a lot of people in a row or different bricks lined up compact together. And maybe instead of the smiley face on the front of the Lego mini figure, you use the frowny face on the back or they’re all like.

 

gray or dark pieces that are together and just a big clump. And because I don’t feel comfortable, you know, inserting myself into the big clump of people. And, you know, that just makes me anxious and I don’t like it. that’s it can be that I that was first off in my mind, but they build it in so many different ways. You’re able to say, OK, they’re in your build. They’re all clumped together. But is that really how it is at all these events? And my guess.

 

Jeff Walter (52:58)

All right.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(53:11)

as a facilitator, not saying this, but they’re going to say, well, no, you sometimes there’s somebody at the bar. There’s somebody that just came in late or whatever. then, you know, so it’s not just this bunch of people, you know, would you feel comfortable talking to that one person that came in late to then go to the group together to introduce yourself, you know, kind of finding ways that they, they see this as the impediment where in actuality that is their perception.

 

But there might be some outliers or different pieces that they’re not seeing when they build it in particular.

 

Jeff Walter (53:46)

But you know, it’s really interesting. I’ve gone down another rabbit hole. But I was just listening to this episode on…

 

personal intelligence. And there was a professor at Ohio State, and I’m up here in Ann Arbor, so, you know, it pains me to say that. But it was really interesting. He’s a really interesting guy, and he’s focused on narrative, and narrative as intelligence. But the interesting thing, and I just thought of what you were going through that, it came to my head, is the whole thing about personal intelligence is…

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(54:01)

Yeah, yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (54:20)

we tend to categorize things and say, that’s a this, and I treat that this way, and not a unique instance of this. for those who are interested, go check out EconTalk. Their personal intelligence was really great. But what was really interesting, he was saying, is where you can get advantage. He does a lot of work with special forces. He’s done work with the NFL.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(54:43)

Mm.

 

Jeff Walter (54:45)

A lot of different work in a lot of different situations. Where you can gain advantage or build type of relationships is you identify that uniqueness. And he’s like in a competitive situation, you’ve got your plan, they’ve got their plan. the team that wins is the one that surprises the other team the most. And what you’re basically doing is finding that unique thing. So they’re not treating the opponent as a category of thing, but a unique thing.

 

But then he also was applying it to relationships and marriage. you get into your marriage, and he had been asked to talk to bunch of people about the divorce. And same type of thing, searching that uniqueness. So it’s really interesting when you’re giving that example of a network. And I didn’t think about this when we first started talking about the field. Part of what he was talking about was this.

 

trying to identify the uniqueness of the individual. And so we can sit there and go, oh, yeah, networking is an impediment. And 80 % of the heads in the audience will go, yeah, networking is an impediment. And networking as an impediment becomes a category of thing. And we just all go, hey, and I hate networking. But then the interesting thing about the build, and you started this with, you mentioned this about the doc, is, well, his physical manifestation of

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(55:42)

We. ⁓

 

Jeff Walter (56:00)

networking is different than my physical manifestation. And so when he explains his physical manifestation, it’s going to be on different dimensions and the uniqueness to him versus I thought of it this way. Yeah, maybe I just put, I didn’t assemble anything. I just put blocks all over the tabletop and it’s all disparate. Or I put all the blocks over on one side and I’m the block on the other side, right?

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(56:22)

Right, right, right, exactly. Right.

 

Jeff Walter (56:29)

So it’s interesting, it helps get at the uniqueness of the situation because we’re not trying to solve the category problem of networking, we’re trying to…

 

help that person overcome the unique impediment that they face.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(56:44)

Right. And what you just spoke to opens up a whole nother topic of LEGO series play that we haven’t even addressed and that is, all right, I’ll make it quick. Your viewpoints. know, sometimes when we have a build and we’re looking at it from one direction, it looks a certain way. But when we take a step back and look at it from a different direction or even dare say face down,

 

Jeff Walter (56:51)

Ha ha!

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(57:10)

it looks completely different. So that build of all the people together is one. Some people might look at that and go, that’s amazing. Everybody’s together. They’re collaborative. They’re wooing all over each other. And yet someone else is just like, I can’t. I need an entry point to get in with the group. I’m not comfortable being that person. to look at it from different perspectives.

 

Then when you look at it from this side, all you see is the bodies or the bricks kind of all conglomerated together and you go, yeah, I see how that could be difficult to penetrate or to have access to. And then like you said, working through for that particular person, their perception of that impediment and what it looks like and how they can overcome, achieve whatever that looks like for them. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (57:55)

That’s good.

 

Well that change in perspective really does open up gateways to solutions should ever solve.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(58:05)

It absolutely does. would be, um,

 

yeah, just, I was working with a high school basketball team at the local high school. And one of the builds they did was they were building to their success. And when you looked at it straight on, the coaches were kind of down here and then the team was up here, you know, celebrating their wins or whatever. And that’s when I, you know, talked about the perspective. If you look at it from the top down, you don’t even see the coaches. So.

 

Do you guys really need the coaches to help you succeed or is that something y’all can still accomplish? Yes, their support is helpful and encouraging, but you guys still have it in you to accomplish those championships and whatever that may look like. So yeah, it was fun. Yeah, it was fun.

 

Jeff Walter (58:43)

Yeah, that’s interesting. That’s very interesting.

 

Wow. So in incorporating this, so first off, sounds to me, you know,

 

It’s a technique or it’s a way of doing a training that is definitely applicable in your instructor-led training or in-person training. It would seem to be challenging in a self-paced setting.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(59:02)

Yes. Yes.

 

individually, it’s still applicable. I still use it with my individual clients regularly and that’s either remote or in person. it obviously you’re not doing team builds or you could over time, but individually they can build on their own and talk about what does that build mean and how does, you know, what is represented in that build and you know,

 

Jeff Walter (59:09)

All right.

 

Yeah, yeah, well, and so as I think about like how you use it next normal morning, a lot of times you bring on, let’s go with the franchise, franchise or not, or could be dealers, resellers, et cetera. A lot of times when you’re first starting off that relationship, you’re bringing somebody or bodies from that organization, and franchise models are franchisee, right? But into headquarters for a week to week.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(59:30)

Thank

 

Jeff Walter (59:56)

intense skill development, knowledge and skill development. There’s usually some self-paced learning that happens before they show up. we got some base level knowledge and then they show up at headquarters to develop skills. And, huh, that’s really interesting. I could definitely see how you can use techniques like that. It’s the opening up of the right side of brain.

 

making a tactile, which as beings were tactile, not just all cerebral. And that’s what I think it’s just actually believed about. You’ve got to be thinking seven things in different directions.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(1:00:21)

Yeah. Yep.

 

Yes.

 

Hey, I’m glad and I’d be happy to collaborate with you anytime. It’s so much fun. One of the things that someone has asked before is, well, you know, do you have any like notes, recommended notes for people to take if they’re watching? And in Lego series play, that’s a hard no, because if you’re in the room, you’re building with everybody else. So there’s no kind of outsider looking in. If you’re a leader, the coaches building with the team players.

 

Jeff Walter (1:00:34)

Okay.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(1:00:57)

the entire time and that dynamic shows we’re all in this together. We’re all sitting at the table. We’re all adding value in whatever capacity our brains are going to open up to us. It really does make a big difference in I’m just going to sit back and watch you guys do that team building activity versus, Hey, I’m in with you building this together. We’re going to build what we look, what our future looks like, where we want to go and how we’re going to, you know, all the things. Yeah, that’s it’s fun.

 

Jeff Walter (1:01:26)

So, Jolin, any other fascinating great pearls of wisdom that you’d like to share with anybody?

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(1:01:32)

Yeah.

 

Yeah,

 

I’ll just throw this last quote out. Some of you may recognize it. Some of you may be like, what in the world? In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and snap the jobs again. was Mary Poppins quote. And she was having the kids clean up the huge mess of their room. And you see it come alive in the movie and she makes it fun. I don’t sing songs, but she sings and.

 

encourages the kids to have fun while they’re doing what they’re doing. that’s just, if we could get back to that, like, I don’t know why we stopped playing when we go from like elementary school to middle school and high school, you don’t get recess anymore. You get PE, but that’s different. But for some reason we stopped playing. And if we could get back to that, we would truly be able to open up so much more of the brain power that we have inside of us to contribute in whatever capacity we want. If it’s…

 

a corporate environment, it’s a franchisee, if it’s a solopreneur, whatever that looks like, or just friends and life in general. We have a lot untapped potential that we need to find a way to tap into, to unlock.

 

Jeff Walter (1:02:43)

So, Jordan, if somebody wants to get a hold of you or elevate your talent or just learn more about LEGO series, what should they do?

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(1:02:50)

Yes.

 

Yes. So I’m connected with Jeff on LinkedIn. So you’re welcome to reach me there. JoLynn Ledgerwood. My company website is elevateyourtalent.co and my email is jolynn at elevateyourtalent.co. And I’d love to talk to you. If you have ideas, you know, hit me up. Let’s collaborate. I just love, love what I do for work and I really enjoy the conversations. Thank you.

 

Jeff Walter (1:03:14)

My guest today is Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talentof Elevate Your Talent. JoLynn, it’s been just an absolute blast and just very eye opening. So thank you. And thank you for the advice. And on behalf of the future participants of that workshop, that it’ll be much better than it would have been ordinarily. I’ll thank you for them as well. But thank you for your guests and sharing.

 

Jolynn Ledgerwood of Elevate Your Talent(1:03:31)

Love it, love it.

 

Thank you.

 

Jeff Walter (1:03:36)

And to everybody out there, thanks for listening. We appreciate it. And we’ll see you next time.