Lori Walsh: John T. Meyer is co-founder and CEO of Lemonly. It's an infographic design company based in Sioux Falls. They've worked with companies as far-ranging as Major League Baseball, Charles Schwab, and the World Health Organization. And early on, as the novel coronavirus began to spread in the US, Lemonly launched an innovative work from home plan. Today, it seems as if every business is in some form of crisis. John T. Meyer has become an important voice in helping business leaders adjust to this time, and we've asked him to join us today for innovation. Welcome back, John. Thanks for being here.
John T. Meyer: Hey, happy to be here. Happy Friday to you.
Lori Walsh: Happy Friday to you, too. So, you're one of the people that I look to if I'm kind of struggling and I just need a little pep talk, I go on Facebook, and there you are talking about how to handle a crisis, and the things that you might be struggling with, and how you've clarified those thoughts. I appreciate that. And I'm wondering who do you look to? Who are you kind of open to right now, as everybody has sort of experienced this massive change, all at once, really across the globe, and some of those voices are really rising to the top to say, "All right, let's get beyond just saying this is unprecedented and let's start saying how do we respond in a most effective way?" Who are you looking to for that kind of influence and wisdom?
John T. Meyer: Yeah, you're exactly right. It's a fascinating time and I think you're seeing a sort of this pivotal moment of leaders being tested. And I'm not just saying just political leaders. You've got business leaders, political leaders. I believe leaders are come on all over the org chart. You don't need a title, you don't need the salary. I think we just need more leaders right now, in this time of crisis. And so, a couple that I look to, I've a CEO coach, I guess you could call it, basically, an executive coach that I've worked with for a couple of years. He works with probably about a hundred entrepreneurs and founders. We have a Facebook group where he puts out a lot of positive messages and mindset and business strategies. And then also, I honestly really love to look back in history.
I think that's sometimes the best place to find mentors and leaders. I'm a big fan of a concept called stoicism, which is sort of a belief in understanding that you can't control the things that happen to you in the world, but the only thing you can control are your thoughts and your reactions to those events, right? So, if someone cuts you off in the highway driving and your reaction is to honk, or to be upset, to maybe curse them, but you don't really know what's going on in that person's life, or what type of day they are having. What you can control is how you feel about in that moment, and how you can give them some empathy and some grace. Stoicism is a concept of just really controlling your emotions.
And right now, when we all feel so out of control and helpless, even the thing we're being asked to do, which is just stay at home, sometimes feels like we kind of wonder if we're actually making a difference or making an impact. And so, that's another thing I look to. There's a really fantastic book I would recommend called The Daily Stoic. And it's actually built for the whole 365-day calendar. It's just a little one-page chapter every day, where they take some words from famous stoics, stoics would be like Aristotle and other philosophers, Epictetus, and then they take and translate some of their words into more modern-day language. So, those are a few things that I help try to get my mind right.
Lori Walsh: And for people who have a negative connotation with the word stoic or stoicism, it's really not. Think more broadly and look into, I own that book too, John T. and I really, I enjoy it, as well. There's a lot about humility, and if you feel resentment or you feel unrecognized, how do you sort of deal with those emotions? It's not a faith-based daily devotional book either, for people who are maybe not looking for a church-based resource, but it's a daily guide at the same time. Yeah,
John T. Meyer: Exactly. I think we think of that word is like emotionless or just like statue. It doesn't quite mean that, no.
Lori Walsh: It doesn't mean stuffing down your emotions, to be clear. Let's talk a little bit about leading in a crisis and what some of those fundamentals are. And I want to get into these innovative work, the way we're kind of doing our work in different innovative ways. But first, let's just talk about some of the people that you work for, people who work for you. There are emotional human beings, and people are doing things from trying to work with their kids dangling from their left arm, where they're trying to be on a conference call with their right hand, to people are getting sick or are losing loved ones. People are going through some stuff right now. So, let's talk about just really approaching daily interactions with other human beings. And this was always true, you never knew, if you went to the grocery store, you don't know what somebody else was going through, but all of a sudden, we realize more than ever, we're all living our lives out in the open in a way that we hadn't before.
John T. Meyer: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really what makes it so fascinating is that there's 7 billion people on the earth, and gosh, I would think six and a half billion of those people are going through this, if not all of them, unless you work or live in a very rural part of the world, maybe. Rich or poor, young or old, we're all in this together. I think, starts with a lot of grace and a lot of empathy for everybody. I think, you don't what's going on in someone's life and maybe they want to share, maybe not. I think picking up the phone right now and talking to someone and really checking in on people, asking how they're doing, is super important. I've found that when I talk to somebody, it sort of, you understand that we're all in this together.
When you hear what they're going through and not just like, "Hey, how you doing?" They're really having to have conversation. One thing that we're trying to do at Lemonly, is reframe sort of our metrics for success, I guess you could say. We're very transparent, open company. We have KPIs that we track, we have goals, we have a scorecard that we share with the team every Monday. You work at Lemonly, you know pretty much at all times whether we're having a good month, a great month, or a bad month. We're trying to reframe what we consider success right now. What I've been telling my team is, "Guys, maybe this won't be the most profitable two, three, four months in Lemonly's history. My guess is it will not be, but maybe we could think of success in a different way." So, we come out of this, it's not just about how we are doing as a company, but maybe how we're doing as people and individuals.
So, maybe success right now is really focusing in on our habits and trying to get better. If you want to exercise, or read, or become a morning person, maybe it's taking time to journal and breathe and meditate, or whatever it is, just be a more patient father, or a more dedicated partner, or whatever the labels or titles that you claim in your own life. I think allowing yourself to reframe, we live in this world that really up until about six weeks ago, it was just go, go, go, go, go, onto the next thing, and check the box, and go to the next thing. We've been forced to slow down and that's hard for a lot of us. So, then we also should force ourselves to rethink of what success looks like.
Lori Walsh: How do you keep that going then when, I mean, we keep talking about getting back to normal, or what a new normal is, or what life looks like in the after? But, for some people, some of those things are things that the innovations and the way we communicate with each other are things that we want to kind of keep incorporating. How do you avoid just... If there was some kind of magic bullet and everybody said, "Well, we can go back to normal right now." How do we keep some of those important innovations on board for, really, how we want to do things in the future? Because they are better in some ways. Some things are better.
John T. Meyer: Yeah, absolutely. I think there are going to be companies that come out of this stronger, maybe not like maybe on a balance sheet, initially, but they will be better companies because of it. I absolutely think there'll... We as people in a society, that's the hope, right? I think if you do study leaders, or lots of successful, whether it be presidents, or athletes, or CEOs, often there is a moment in one's life where they have some sort of trying test. It could be the loss of a loved one, a family member, an injury, an accident. And really, that becomes the defining moment that changes the trajectory of their life. Whether we like it or not, we sort of all, all of us in the world had been given a moment like that. And so, yeah, I think you're right.
But, the key then is to see is that, and to capture the inspiration or the motivation, and I know that that sounds like, "What is this guy talking about? Those are positive, optimistic words. This is a pretty negative time." But that's the opportunity, is to take that and really turn it into something that can kind of sharpen you and make you a better person. I hope that, just like we saw with community and patriotism post 9/11, there is a tendency for that to fade as the years go on, but I hope people recognize if there's ever been a time where you felt like, "Gosh, I wish I had more time in my life. I wish I could slow down how fast my kids are growing up." We've now just been given that. The brakes had been pumped. I think, yeah, you should take advantage of that.
Lori Walsh: I want to talk a little bit about people who are being forced to slow down or rethink things because of the isolation or the social distancing. But first, I want to talk about this group of people, and I count myself and my team among them, of we had to accelerate. There's healthcare providers and there's people in manufacturing and people, the Smithfield plant, and so many people whose jobs got more stressful, more intense, and some of them were working at pretty high capacity, in the beginning. There can be a separation between us and them of, as grateful as those people are to have meaningful work and to have their paychecks, and there's an awareness that what could happen in the future to them as they watch other people file for unemployment.
But, it's also a stressful time of looking around and seeing people leisurely saying, "Wow, I cleaned out a closet," or, "Wow, I took up this craft project," and you're like, "I can't even clear my... I mean, what's next? What's next? What's next?" So, talk about the people who are experiencing a rush of productivity and what are some of the lessons in that, that they can really say, "I'm going to use this time too, to be better, to be more innovative, but it's just going to look different from somebody who was sent home and is struggling in a different way."
John T. Meyer: Yeah, I think we have to be careful to play that comparison game, or frame one's challenges or struggles right now with someone else. I saw some commentary on Twitter of like, "If you've ever wanted to write a book and you can't write it now, then it's not a time problem. It's a you problem." Now, that is certainly coming from a point of privilege, right? That's probably someone who maybe doesn't have little ones at home, who maybe isn't working a double shift, or isn't certainly probably a healthcare frontline worker. So, I think that gets a little bit... A slippery slope of where we decide one person's trials and tribulations are more important than another. I mean, we're all stressed, we're all busy, and this seems like I said, it's impacting everyone.
And so, that's where I think going back to framing what success looks like, it could even be lowering that bar, right? It could be, "Hey, I'm going to try to wake up today and eat some vegetables because I haven't eaten a serving of vegetables in a week." Or, I think, really reframing what success looks like. "I'm going to read 10 pages of my book before I go to bed," because knowing that some people don't even have that.
And I think one thing, a mindset thing that I always try to use, is that there's a good chance that most of the people who are probably listening to this show right now, your worst day really ever, probably your worst day during this situation, during COVID-19, is somebody's best day. Somebody out there, that would be the best day of their life given the... You're probably at a safe home, you have food on your table, you have a car. If you do want to drive out to the countryside or go for a ride, or even a bicycle, whatever it might be. Our worst day is somebody's best day. And I think when you frame that, it helps you gain a lot of perspective. For those who [crosstalk 00:13:24] this moment-
Lori Walsh: You have clean air to breathe, right? Clean air, clean water. It's just, a toilet that flushes, yay. It's a pretty good day.
John T. Meyer: Yeah, a little perspective, right, because, "Oh, my bandwidth is too slow. My Netflix doesn't... I can't watch on my Netflix." It could be a lot worse. If you do have that privilege, recognize it, but then don't punish yourself. I mean, seize this moment if you're able to do something unbiased as more of an internet entrepreneur, but the world is your customer right now. And there are a lot of things that the world needs right now. If you look to some of the greatest companies we know right now of the past decade or so, most of them were born in that '08, '09, 2010 era following that great recession. We're going to see some fascinating innovation and companies in the next two to three years because of this.
Lori Walsh: When we talk about the class of 2020 and high school students that are graduating now and really how things, or college students that are going into the workforce, and how that's been derailed. I certainly do not want to minimize any of those challenges, but I am very much looking forward to seeing what this generation interrupted does in the years to come, that we can't even predict right now, how that affects an entire generation. Yeah.
John T. Meyer: I graduated college in May of 2008 and the articles for the first four or five years of my career would say 2008 was the worst time to graduate, setting you back financially, and all this stuff and jobs, unemployment. And now, I think that's probably been kicked to the curb from the class of 2020. But, yeah, out of the ashes rises the innovation and the ingenuity. And so, yeah, I agree. I think when our backs are against the wall is when we thrive as humans, and I think the opportunity or the call to action is how can we do that together because doing it alone or by yourself is too tough of a road to hoe and right now, we all need a little bit of community. It may not be physically together, but checking in on people, calling them, video, Zoom, whatever it might be.
Lori Walsh: Do you think, John, when people are evaluating what can be done in the future, as far as going back into offices that they have currently vacated, or opening a restaurant that is currently closed, there are some people who are discovering things now about how they prefer to work, that maybe they didn't know before? Maybe you're realizing that those interactions with your coworkers are way more important than you realized, or maybe you're realizing you're way more productive at home. Do you think employers are challenged, coming in days ahead, to really rethink individual work preferences of people, or is there just going to be so many people who have different things to say that bosses and business owners are going to be like, "Just, everybody get back to work"? Is it an opportunity to say, "Can we do this, could we have been doing it differently the whole time?"
John T. Meyer: Yeah. One thing I've been telling even our team is like, "Don't judge, don't assume that this is remote work forever." Right? Because this is the unique remote work. This is a remote working during crisis, right? Because in the future, your children won't be tagging, pulling your sleeve right next to you, like you said, and then you're jumping on and off. Give work from home a fair shake.
But, yeah, I think employers are going to be looking at all options, and this idea of more flexible workspaces because not only does it maybe increase your availability of time, commuting, all that stuff that maybe you need to get ready during the day, come home at the end of the day. but also, I think there questions, every meeting, every email, every interaction or thing you had on the calendar, you're now wondering, a lot of them have probably fallen off your calendar, and you're starting to think, "Did I need to have that meeting, or could that meeting have just been an email, or could that email have just been a quick little text message?"
It does start to question how we all work. And I think what you're going to see is employees will eventually... Obviously, we need to fix the unemployment and that everyone back to work. But, employees will have more power and they'll decide to choose where to work. If they're a person who says, "I need that human interaction. I want to be in the office," or, "Yeah, I like the freedom and independence. I want to work remote," and you're going to be able to choose the companies that are willing to do that.
Lori Walsh: Yeah. And we're maybe all going to appreciate our jobs a little bit more, once we all collectively, we're terrified of losing them, as well. [crosstalk 00:18:17] Appreciate your employees and appreciate the... Yeah. Oh, John T. Meyer, I love talking to you and thank you so much for spending more time with us today, and we appreciate all the work that you're doing to use your voice and help other business owners sort of figure out how to navigate these waters. So, thanks for what you're doing, and thanks for joining us here. We'll see you next time.
John T. Meyer: Yeah, thanks for having me. Take care. Have a good weekend.