Questions From a Jar: Starting a Business, Interview Tips, & Sweets vs Savory
Welcome to the #culturedrop. Every Tuesday, Galen Emanuele emails tools to advance leadership skills, team culture, and personal growth. No spam, just great content. Sign up now to get it in your inbox.
This week we're doing something totally different and mixing it up with a fun new segment, I’m answering questions from a jar.
There’s a smattering of questions about business stuff, personal stuff, and a handful of topics.
Q.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
A.
Hmm, not what, who. Who did I want to be when I grew up!
I wanted to be the fox version of Robin Hood, from the cartoon, that's what I wanted to be when I was a kid. I was like, “That's what I want to do,” bow and arrow, and the reason is because I was in love with Maid Marian. I was in love with her, we were in love with each other, none of your business, but we were gonna marry each other, and that's what I wanted to be.
Q.
What are your best interview tips?
A.
So we did some recent segments around tips for interviews and asking great questions (Great questions to ask as an interviewee & great questions to ask as an interviewer), but here's one I think is really important that gets missed, I think it's really important in an interview to be excited.
It's such a valuable currency and thing to actually say out loud of your mouth, “I really want this job, I think I would crush it, I know that this would be a great fit, I would love to be here, I know that I will be awesome in this role, I really want this job.”
I think that people are kind of timid about saying that, but I've heard lots of stories about people who are trying to play it cool or whatever and end up not getting chosen, even if they're the top candidate, because the impression they gave was that they didn't seem excited, they don't actually seem like they want to work here. Do not underestimate the power of being like, “Hey, I am extremely excited about this job, I think I'd be a good fit, with everything we've talked about, I'm excited about this company, I know that I would crush it for you.”
It doesn't matter what the position is, no matter if you're a CEO or you're entry level, first job out of college, doesn't matter. Tell people you want to work for their company, I think that goes a long way, especially, if you work for a company and you're hiring someone, you're proud of your company, and you want people that want to work there.
Q.
What’s your favorite TV show?
A.
This is tough for me.
Okay I'm gonna pick two, feel-good and dark.
Feel-good show, I would say Queer Eye, I think it's some of the best things on TV, I can watch an episode of that, I can bawl my eyes out, it's sweet, it's loving, it's kind, it's very awesome, they do wonderful things for people. If you have not watched that show, I highly recommend that you check out that show. It's beautiful, just human and lovely.
And also, I will say Ozark, I love that show and I don't do dark TV, I can't watch Breaking Bad, it's just too dark, it's too negative in my brain. For some reason, I love Ozark.
Q.
If you could make one thing illegal, what would it be?
A.
Oh, I know what it would be. I would make this illegal, stop clapping during concerts.
They brought a drummer, they don't want you to clap. Or they didn't bring a drummer, which means shh. You are clapping off of the beat, people apparently can't hear that.
Don't clap along, unless the person on stage is motioning you to, then clap your heart out, but also try to listen to the beat at the same time. Real talk, just being honest.
Q.
Advice for people starting a business?
A.
This is a hot topic for me personally so I'm going to tackle it, but when it comes to entrepreneurship, let's say that you are a kite maker. You love kites and you want to make kites for people, or you want to make jewelry, or you want to do tarot or something.
If you want to start a business, the thing that people don't understand is that you don't get to do that thing.
Whatever it is that you love, you love to give massages and you want to be a massage therapist but you want to start your own company, you're going to get to spend 3% of your time doing the thing that you actually love, and the rest of your time, you're going to spend doing marketing, sales, business ownership.
If you're gonna hire employees, you have to be a leader, there's so many pieces to running a business and hardly any of them are doing the fun thing that you're passionate about.
My advice to most people is do not start your own business because you have no idea how much work it is.
But that being said, it's also rewarding and amazing, and go and do your dreams, but people need to realistically understand that if you're going to start your own business, you are a salesperson, you are a marketer, and then you get to do the thing you're passionate about a very tiny sliver for about 3 or 4 or 5 years until you build something up and then you get to actually do what you love.
But man, it is so much more work than you realize it is.
Q.
Favorite treat, sweet or savory?
A.
Okay, first of all, sweet, I'm a sweet tooth, big time.
Favorite treat, anything with chocolate. And if it's chocolate with more chocolate piled on top of it, great.
And then caramel, peanut butter, don't care, bananas, everything.
Just everything that's chocolate and add more chocolate things to it, and then jam it into my mouth.
That's it, my favorite treat.
Q.
What do I see is the biggest mistake that leaders make?
A.
How much time do you have? Just kidding! It’s not asking for feedback.
It’s very rare that leaders go on a regular basis to their employees and say, “How am I doing as a leader? How can I be better as a leader?” I think it's a huge mistake not to do that, it's an instant building of trust, rapport, goodwill for your employees. Take those things to heart and be like, “I want to hear the things that I'm not doing well so that I can be better, so that you can have a better experience as an employee.”
So simple, it costs nothing, it takes zero time, and the ROI of that in people's effort, and retention, engagement, it's huge.
It’s such a simple thing to do for leaders, and I don't know, this old-school, top-down, leadership only gives feedback to employees; it's garbage.
Go ask your people how you can be better, so simple.
Want more?
This article was created by Galen Emanuele for the #culturedrop. Free leadership and team culture content in less than 5 minutes a week. Check out the rest of this month's content and subscribe to the Culture Drop at https://bit.ly/culturedrop