Are you a trusted advisors in your organization? You may think so, but do the executives in your organization actually perceive you as a trusted advisor? Most auditors have not reached this status, and instead feel frustrated or ignored.

In this episode I’ll discuss a framework you can use for determining where you are currently, and what it would take for you to get to trusted advisor status. And I’ll warn you right now, the answers are not what others are telling you to do. In fact, if you listen to others, you will likely continue to be frustrated. You’ll also hear some questions to help you do your assessment and start making your plan.

We all just want to be big trusted advisors (and live in hilltop houses, driving fifteen cars … nod to Nickelback) and here’s how you can get there.

To fill out your application for membership in the Chief Audit Executive (CAE) Forum visit: http://bit.ly/cae-forum-join The open enrollment period is only open until Friday, 13 September 2019, so get your application submitted today or you’ll have to wait until the next open enrollment period.

To listen and for complete show notes and links to downloads, visit: http://www.jasonmefford.com/jammingwithjason/

To listen to this and other Jamming with Jason podcast episodes for CPE credit, visit: https://ondemand.criskacademy.com/courses/

The #1 #internalauditpodcast in the world has interviews and discussions (jam sessions) relevant to Chief Audit Executives and professionals in #internalaudit, risk management, and compliance.

Transcript

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Welcome to another episode of jammin with Jason and welcome back. My friends, I am glad to be with you again this week.

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Now some of you may have taken some offense at the title of this week’s episode, which is why most auditors are not trusted advisors. So let me get in and talk a little bit about that. Because what I want to do is go through and share with you, kind of a model that I’ve been developing

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To help explain better to auditors maybe why they’re so frustrated why they’re feeling ignored and not really feeling like they are accepted as a trusted advisor in their organization.

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Because there’s some different reasons for this. And what you’re going to find as you listen today in, like I said, I’m preparing another resource that I’ll actually be

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Sending out or sharing with the world here in another month or two as I’m finishing to develop it.

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But I think, again, one of the reasons why you’re feeling frustrated and ignored is you’re not actually viewed as a trusted advisor by others in your organization.

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Now, I know we all have this aspiration that well of course we’re internal audit we’re providing insight and we’re doing all these things and you know you hear the profession.

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Talk about all of these aspirations about how we should be viewed, you know, the kind of resources that we should get who we should report to

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And all of those things are aspirational. Now some people they actually have that going on in their organization.

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But what I find from talking to lots of auditors all over the world and working with Chief out of the executives and coaching them is most people don’t feel that way.

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They feel frustrated. They feel ignored and there’s some reasons why. And actually, the way to fix that is usually different than most people are telling you

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So if you continue to do the things that everybody else is telling you that you need to do in order to become a trusted advisor.

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Chances are you’re going to continue to stay frustrated and ignored. So what’s the difference. That’s what we’re going to talk about today.

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So I’m going to share with you a little bit kind of about the thought process here. And like I said, this has come from me working years you know decades technically in my, in my personal career.

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But also helping and working with people in internal audit and chief executives over the years.

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So I’m going to go through and talk about that and kind of explain and give you a different way to look at this and like I said, this is kind of a precursor for more that is to come.

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Because I’m actually going to be developing a whole resource that you can get more information on this, but I wanted to get this information out to you.

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Today, so. So we’ll talk about that kind of what some of the thoughts are around that and what you need to do. But I’m also going to give you some questions to ask yourself.

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For you to start kind of assessing where you are at and maybe some of the things that you need to do to improve that and move closer towards

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trusted advisor status. Now if if you’re in your car driving or you’re out, you know, exercising, then don’t worry about it. Come back and maybe, listen to this episode again.

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Because this is one that probably would be good for you to listen to twice. But if you’re in your office or you’re in a place where you actually have access to a pen and paper.

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This is probably a good episode for you to take some notes on because, again, I know this is in an audio format.

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But I’m going to try to explain and share with you kind of some pictures that you can take a note take notes on and actually write down

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Two by two matrix that we’re going to walk through and put some words in some of the different buckets to help you understand this concept.

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Okay, so the first thing is that as we get in it, you know, again, there is this desire for our profession to be seen as a profession.

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And for us to provide value right as a trusted advisor to our organizations. So why is it that often we are not viewed that way by others.

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And so what I want you to do is if you’re taking notes with this. I want you to go ahead and draw out a two by two matrix. Okay, so, so two along the horizontal two along the vertical access

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Now what I’m going to what I’m going to talk about now is just kind of walking you through. And we’re going to kind of build this little bit of a model.

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Like I said that I’m developing and will be issued here in a little while. So the words may change. And obviously, some of the details and everything will be different when you see this resource in the future.

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But I just want to talk through with you today. Now, if you look at, or think about this matrix in the bottom left quadrant right

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Right. The word ignored. So I know a lot of people end up feeling ignored and that’s kind of this bottom lower left quadrant.

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And I’m going to explain why you may feel frustrated. Okay, in the in the box to the right of that. So the lower but to but to the right. Right. Popular

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Okay, so we’ve got ignored and we’ve got popular now across the top. The two matrix or the, the two boxes on the top above the word ignored. I want you to write the word frustrated

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Okay, so that’s that’s to the left and up is frustrated and up into the right is where you will will put in trusted advisor. So our goal is ultimately to get to that trusted advisor status status, up in the upper right corner right where we where we really want to try to get to

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But as you think about it, we all end up usually falling into one of these four quadrants. So one of the first questions for you to think about is

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Well, do you feel frustrated do you feel ignored. Do you feel kind of like you’re popular and that’s it’s a word, though the word popular means

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People like you. They’re, they’re friendly with you. They invite you to things, but maybe they don’t necessarily think you know what you’re talking about. Okay.

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And then obviously the trusted advisor status. So now you’ve got this box has got frustrated trusted advisor ignored and popular on it. So what are the things

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That help you move from either being frustrated ignored or popular to the trusted advisor.

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This is where we’re going to add in what each of those matrix or what what each of those axis means, right. So the x axis is the horizontal

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And the Y axis is the vertical. So let’s talk first about the vertical axis. So there you can write down

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Some different words and I’m going to try to explain what this means, but effectively your vertical access

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Is your technical skills. Okay, so its technical skills on the vertical axis.

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And so that can be your experience, you know, the experience that you’ve had. You’ve worked for years as an auditor you’ve gained technical expertise.

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You have knowledge. Maybe you have certifications you’ve gone through, you understand how to be an auditor.

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Okay. And so that’s why if you think about the vertical axis. If you don’t have good technical skills, people are probably going to ignore you.

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If you have really good technical skills, you’re probably going to feel more frustrated if people are not doing or kind of responding to what you want would like them to do.

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Because you see this, but they don’t see this, they don’t understand the value that you can provide based on your technical expertise that you have

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Okay, so now on the horizontal axis, this is where I want you to write soft skills. Okay, so we’ve got technical skills on the vertical. We’ve got soft skills on the horizontal

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Now, soft skills are going to be these things around influence and you’ve heard me talk a lot about influence, because I think this is so important for us and actually learning how to influence people the right way.

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But it can also be other things like insight or the impact that we’re actually making in the organization or some other words that you can think about this.

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So in order for you to be a trusted advisor, you need to have both the technical and the soft skills, which means you have to know what you’re talking about.

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And that’s, you know, again, it could be certifications. It could be experience other other things like that but that you actually understand how to audit.

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But even more from a technical perspective, you don’t just know how to audit. But you understand some of these other technical areas and maybe things that relate to your business.

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Right, so other areas like you understand it, you have a basic understanding of it or maybe even intermediate. I mean, the further up you go in the organization.

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You understand risk management, you understand operations you understand finance right depending on what it is that you’re actually doing.

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So if you think about it, right. A lot of those technical skills are the things as an example that we see as topics on the certified internal auditor exams. Okay.

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Those are technical topic areas that you’re tested on in order to get your CI a certification. Now I help people.

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Pass the CPA exam, all the time helping to teach them some of those technical skills right

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And so, you know, again, one of the reasons why sometimes we feel frustrated is as we go through and we are developing our technical skills.

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We go through, we get certified. We have the experience we’ve done all these different things, but again there. People don’t really recognize that

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So as you develop your technical skills. That’s good. But that by itself will not help other people see you as a trusted advisor.

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And so again, one of the biggest mistakes that I see people making is I want to be a trusted advisor. I want to be a trusted advisor, how am I going to do that.

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I’m going to increase my technical skills. I’m going to get more technical skills. I’m going to go back to school. I’m going to get an extra degree.

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I’m going to get an extra certification. I’m going to going to going to and the full focus of that is on improving

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Their technical skills. So that’s why you can see that if you don’t have technical skills, you probably going to be ignored because people don’t think you have any idea what you’re talking about to begin with.

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But if you only are focusing on your technical skills. Again, you’re not going to be interacting with the others in the organization.

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The way that you should from a soft skill perspective, you’re not going to be using some of those influence techniques.

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And so the more experience and that you have and the more technical you become, the more frustrated you are

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Because you understand, you know, from a technical perspective what needs to happen, but other people in the organization are not helping you get it or they’re not seeing the value of it.

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And so that’s why you feel frustrated because you’re only focusing on the technical. Now if we talk about the influence the impact the soft skills on the bottom.

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What are some of those things that we’re talking about, those are going to be things like your communication skills.

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Now again, sometimes people think, well, communication skills we teach that in the CIA exam and everything else.

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Those are technical skills as well like grammar and other things like that. Well, okay, yeah. Part of that is probably technical

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But how you communicate is more of the soft skill, right, because there’s different ways to deliver the same message.

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And if you’re only trying to do it from a technical perspective, like, hey, I went and took a

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You know audit report writing course and the instructor told me step 12345 that I need to do. And as long as I do 1234 or five, then I’m going to be successful, all the time.

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And that isn’t the case because you’re communicating with different people all the time. And so the way you would communicate with one person.

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may work. But if you try to communicate the same way with a different person. You may fall flat on your face, because that is not how you need to communicate with them.

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So that’s why you know some of these things like emotional intelligence.

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Influence, those things are important so that you can actually understand psychology use psychology communication skills to be able to help you in influencing other people

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So if we go back to our matrix and look at it and I said, again, I’ve got this, this one the bottom right. One is called popular, at least for now because that’s the word I came up with today as I’m recording this.

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Those are auditors that people like they’re friendly right people like them. They like to hang out with them.

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They’re, they’re they’re they’re good communicators, but maybe they’re not that technical

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And so again, people like you. You’re popular but they don’t really think you know what you’re talking about.

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Okay, they liked being around you. You’re fun to be around, you can communicate well you know it’s it’s almost like kind of the slick politician, right.

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Perfect hair. Everybody loves them, they shake hands and and everybody feels great. But then you, you walk away kind of realizing, a lot of times there’s no substance.

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Or they really have no idea what they’re really talking about they’re telling you what you what they think you want them to hear

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And they don’t really stand for anything. They don’t have the technical expertise. They’re telling you they can do things, but then they can’t actually deliver on it.

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That’s the kind of what we have down there in that quadrant. So again, as people with great communication skills, let’s say,

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But they don’t actually have the technical skills or understanding and people catch that pretty quick. Right.

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You can start talking to somebody and all of a sudden the BS meter comes out. If people are like, all right. You’re nice, you’re a nice person, but you really don’t know what you’re talking about. Because you don’t understand my business. Now that is a term.

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Excuse me, you don’t understand my business. Okay. If you’re hearing you don’t understand my business, you’re probably either in the ignored.

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Or the popular box because your technical skills and understanding of their business of understanding their business is not there.

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And they can tell they know that you don’t understand their business. You may be a great auditor. But if you don’t understand their business. They’re not going to give you the credit for those technical skills.

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So that’s why I said again the technical skills as both how to audit, but also some of these other areas around your business, your industry.

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You know, other parts of the business like it risk management, some of those other things. Okay, so

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How do we end up getting to the trusted advisor status. Well, you have to figure out where are you at right now.

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And figure out which of these four boxes are you in. Okay. And then you can start to make a plan for how to move to that upper right quadrant where it’s trusted advisor status.

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So if you’re down in the popular area, people like you. You’re a good communicator, but they really don’t probably trust you, or think that you understand the business or understand how to audit.

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Okay, now you know you’re good on the soft skills you’ve got to develop more technical skills. If you find yourself you know either being in that ignored area.

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Right down in the bottom left quadrant. That means you need to work on both. You’ve got to work both on your soft skills and on your technical skills.

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If you’re up in the frustrated area. So you’re very good technically, but you’re just not getting stuff done, you’re frustrated

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In order to move over to trusted advisor status. You’ve got to work on your soft skills. Okay. And again, the soft skills are one of those areas that we don’t spend enough time working on

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We spend lots and lots of time hours years developing our technical skills, but most people ignore the soft skills or they lie to themselves and think, well, I’m a good communicator.

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When they have trouble communicating with other people. Okay, so that’s kind of the matrix side of it, how you can look at and determine where are you at

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And like I said, the title of this is why most auditors are not trusted advisors.

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I would say that probably at least 80% of the auditors out there do not fall into the trusted advisor status there in one of these other three buckets.

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So chances are there’s things that you can do to improve. You just got to first stop and be honest with yourself and then figure out a game plan for how you can move forward.

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So let me now give you, you know, some some different questions that you can ask yourself, right, because these are some of the kind of questions that I would use when I’m coaching a chief audit executive as an example.

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Or some of the concepts that we talked about in the chief audit executive forum, you know, a group of just chief out of executives where we’re working, actually, to help them.

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Improve their executive presence and move them to trusted advisor status. So we’re talking about some of these things that need to be there.

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We’re sharing experiences with each other on you know what’s worked, what hasn’t worked

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So that people can because, again, the goal is to move you improve your executive presence and get you to that trusted advisor status if your chief audit executive right

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So here’s some of the questions that you can go through and actually kind of think about to determine where are you at kind of right now. And this process.

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And again, this whole thing is a process, you are moving for either forward or backwards in your career by how what you are choosing to do and where you’re choosing to invest your time and your money. Okay.

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So one of the questions you can ask is, Is management coming to you to ask for help.

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Okay, we are using the one going to management and saying, Hey, you know, we’re auditing your area. Now, okay, but are his management actually coming to you and asking for help.

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If they’re not coming to you and asking for help, they don’t view you as a trusted advisor.

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Okay, if they are regularly coming to you, you know, if you send a message to the CEO and say, you know, hey, there’s something we need to talk about

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And then literally like 15 or 20 minutes later the CEOs knocking on your door because they came down from their office and are like, Hey, Jason.

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What’s going on, what do you need, what do you need that shows that for that person you have that trusted advisor status. Right.

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If you send them an email. They ignore you. They ignore you. They ignore you. They don’t think you’re a trusted advisor. So there’s something that you need to work on.

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Another one, you can look at. Right. Are you receiving the support and the budget that you need.

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Now again, there’s there’s finite resources every organization has to decide where to spend their money. But if you’re always finding that you’re fighting for everything that you have to do in your budget.

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And you’re just not getting what you need, you know, your company’s not giving you a training budget to be able to get trained

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They’re not, you know, doing whatever right and it feels like you’re always fighting for everything that you get

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Chances are they don’t view you as a trusted advisor who is providing an impact to the organization.

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If they did, they would invest in you and in your department more because they can see a return

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And so if they’re not seeing a return. They don’t think you’re having the impact that you’re necessary you become a necessary evil. Oh, we have to have an internal audit group.

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So there we go, let’s pay him as little as we have to limit the amount of investment because we know we’re not really getting any value, but we have to tell people, we have an audit group. Okay.

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If you’re going through that kind of thing. And having to fight for everything you’re probably not in that trusted advisor status. OK.

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Next one is management pushing back on many of your recommendations. So as you go out there, you do an audit, you know, and again, depending on what you call them.

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Recommendations issues findings, whatever that end up coming out of your Otter report.

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Is management, are they taking those and then like quickly implementing them and saying, Oh my gosh, Jason. Thank you. We didn’t even see that coming.

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Or are they pushing back on all the things. Oh, we really don’t need to do that.

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Or they’re being passive aggressive. Oh yeah, we’ll get to that right and and they they tell you all the things that you want to hear.

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You go away. You come back to follow up six months or a year later and they’ve done nothing. They just effectively ignored, you

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So ask yourself that question as well. If they’re pushing back significantly on many of your recommendations, they probably don’t think that you’re providing value and insight to the organization. They don’t see you as a trusted advisor. Okay, so

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That’s some of the information today. Now I know again. Right. Some of you might take offense, like, well, why are most auditors not trusted advisors. What do you mean, Jason. This is what we’re trying to do.

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This is what we’re trying to do what I’m trying to give you are some practical things to help you actually move to that status.

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If you continue to do what most people are telling you to do for increasing your technical skills you’re never going to get

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To trusted advisor status and I talked to people all the time that are very frustrated and they can’t figure out what is going on.

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And the reason is they’ve spent all their time on their technical skills and very, very little, if any, on their soft skills.

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And as a result, they will never get to trusted advisor status. The same thing if you’re great. In the soft skills, but you don’t have the technical skills to back it up.

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You’re never going to get to the trusted advisor status, either. Now I know that seems a little doom and gloom and I don’t want to insert it that way but

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I’m the kind of person that will say the things you need to hear instead of the things you want to hear because my goal is to actually help you improve

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I want Internal Auditors to get to the trusted advisor status. I want chief out of the executives to really be seen

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As a C level executive in organizations not somebody who’s frustrated somebody who’s ignored, but somebody who is a valuable part of the executive team.

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That has that executive presence and is seen as a trusted advisor. And the reason I’m telling you this is because to get there. You’re going to have to do some things different.

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Than most people are telling you. And that’s just the reality. Now here’s the good news is, once you know where you are and where you want to go.

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It’s easy to make a plan and figure out how to get there. Right. So if you need help on the technical skills. There’s trainings that you can go to

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If you need help on the soft skills, you know, there’s some trainings, you can go to. But honestly, a lot of the soft skills.

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Are developed through other higher level programs, things like the chief audit executive forum where you’re actually

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You know, practicing and working one on one, sometimes with people to be able to help you get to that point.

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It’s it’s understanding the psychology and everything else that goes in it. So if you know where you are and if you’re honest about about where you’re currently at

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And where you want to go, you know, again, go back and listen to this again because it’s going to give you a little pathway.

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For you to know what you need to improve on to be able to ultimately get to trusted advisor status. So again, even though. Like I said, I’m seeing that most auditors are not viewed as trusted advisors.

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I want you to be a trusted advisor. I want you to get to that point. And here’s kind of a pathway forward or at least a little jarring.

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Of you to kind of wake up a little bit and think about what you really need to do to improve. Now I know a 2030 minute podcast doesn’t give you all the answers.

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And so again, that’s why I’m coming up with some resources that we’re working on right now. That will be able that I’m going to share out with people as well so that you can actually have more tangible, practical things to do in really kind of walk through and know how to do that.

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So those are coming. So hold on to the head that that is coming

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Or if you’re at the chief audit executive level and you’re ready to make that next investment and kind of move forward and realize, hey, I do have some work that I need to do.

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And I need the help of other people. That’s what the chief audit executive forum is about and actually currently at this time, you know,

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Depending on when you’re listening to this, but open enrollment is is now for new members coming into the chief audit executive forum, we only let new members in a few times a year.

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But enrollment or we’re accepting applications for membership. So it’s a whole application and interview process, but we’re accepting applications right now through

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Friday, September 13 so if you’re listening to this before Friday, September 13th, make sure and check the show notes below because I’ll leave a link

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For those of you that are interested in that. So you can go out, check it out and put in your application before the 13th.

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If not, there’s a there’s a way to get on the waiting list. So next time we open it up, you’ll know about it and I’ll let you know. But this current open enrollment period closes on Friday the 13th of September. So with that, my friends.

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Let’s go out and start doing what we need to do, do the hard work and and really move ourselves forward to becoming a trusted advisor in your organization.

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I cannot tell you how satisfying. It is to feel like we are really providing value to our organizations and and get that acknowledgement from other people, and I want that for all of you.

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So go out there and Keep on rocking the audit world and I will catch you on the next episode of jam and with Jason. Bye.

It’s easy to focus our attention on shiny objects since everyone is talking about them and they just seem sexy. Elephants in the room are rarely sexy, but can represent a much bigger risk to your organization, and are often ignored or overlooked. In this episode you will hear how to determine if you are spending your time chasing shiny objects, or focusing on the elephants in the room.

How does the elephants and shiny objects analogy relate to internal audit? Quick answer: it’s about what’s on your audit plan. To get the rest of the story, check out the episode.

To access and fill out your application for membership in the Chief Audit Executive (CAE) Forum visit: http://bit.ly/cae-forum-join As a reminder, open enrollment period is only open for a couple of weeks, so get your application submitted today.

If you’d like to sign up to be interviewed for the CAE podcast series, send an e-mail to: [email protected]

To listen and for complete show notes and links to downloads, visit: http://www.jasonmefford.com/jammingwithjason/

or subscribe and listen wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, PodBean, Google Play Music, or YouTube.

To listen to this and other Jamming with Jason episodes for CPE credit, visit: https://ondemand.criskacademy.com/courses/

The #1 #internalauditpodcast in the world has interviews and discussions (jam sessions) relevant to Chief Audit Executives and professionals in #internalaudit, risk management, and compliance.

Transcript

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Hello my friends and welcome to another episode of jamming with Jason. Hey, I am glad and so grateful. Actually, that you are choosing to spend the time with me.

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Today to go through and spend a few minutes actually learning and improving yourself so that you can be a better auditor.

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Now, today I want to talk about kind of the theme that I want to talk about is an analogy about elephants and shiny objects.

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And one of the reasons that I like to use analogies a lot, you’ll hear me use a lot of different analogies is it’s a way for us to be able to understand and process, some of the different things.

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That we need to do. So when we create a story when we, you know, have have a story that has a meaning to it when we think about an analogy.

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It makes it easier for us to actually understand and implement those concepts which can lead to a transformation in us.

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And in the way that we actually do our job. Okay, so today I want to talk about elephants and shiny objects and I’m going to use that as an analogy to be able to describe and talk about an issue.

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That all of you need to kind of address and think about, and as part of that. I’m going to go through and actually give you some different questions for you to ask yourself.

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So that you can determine, are you dealing with elephants, or are you dealing with shiny objects. And I’ll get into that and kind of explain what those are.

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And just a minute. Now before we get started into our actual discussion today, there’s a couple of things that I wanted to make you aware of

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The first one is, I’m starting to record a new series of podcasts, it’s going to show up here in the jamming with Jason

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But they’re topical and what the topic is is it’s lessons from a chief audit executive. So what I’m doing is interviewing chief audit executives.

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So that we can understand kind of the career path on how they became a chief audit executive lessons that they learned along the way that helped them to become a chief audit executive

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And then the lessons from actually being a chief audit executive

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Because I know a lot of you that are an internal audit, you know, you kind of think about your career path and you think, Oh, someday I want to be a chief audit executive

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I know I felt that way, you know, coming out of public accounting and going into corporate life.

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That’s the job that I got was a chief audit executive to begin with coming out of public accounting

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And so I was really excited. I was stoked about my career that I’ve made that move, but I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into.

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And so one of the purposes of these is to again help those of you that are on your career path and want to become a chief audit executive

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To understand what it takes to get there, but also a little bit more about what the job actually entails.

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Now, for those of you that are already chief executives these sessions will actually

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Provide and give you a context. Maybe if some of the things that other chief executives are going through or have gone through

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And what they have been able to do to help make them successful. So like I said, I’ve already got the first few interviews.

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Scheduled and going to be recording these and releasing these out over the next few weeks or months.

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And it’s going to be one of those that I’m going to, you know, continue to do so I’ll continue to interview chief out of executives. So you’ll see those popping up as some of the different episodes.

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Just like you’ve already seen some in the past when I was talking about what to Chief on it executives, but usually we were talking about a particular topic. Okay, so

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The reason that I’m bringing this up is I need to find people to interview right so if you are a chief audit executive and would like to contribute and be interviewed on the show.

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Send me a message, you can either email me or send me something through LinkedIn.

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But also if you’re not a chief audit executive, but maybe you work for someone and you think, wow, you know this person would

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Would do great. They’ve done some great things they should be somebody who’s actually interviewed and on the podcast as well.

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Reach out to them. Let them know about this opportunity, connect them with me and we’ll get something on the calendar, because I’m really excited about this session, these, these upcoming sessions, because I think

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You’re going to be able to learn a lot from the experience of others. And I want to be able to share that with everyone. So again, if you’re already a chief audit executive and would like to participate, let me know.

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And we can go over the details and we’ll talk about that and get the get the recording session done

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And or if you know someone else who you think would be a great person to come on the show, then let them know about that as well and connect us together so that we can get that going.

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So that’s kind of the first thing. The second thing is I today actually kind of formally announcing

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That the chief audit executive forum that I run is actually open for new enrollment.

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Now what does that mean, right, is well the chief audit executive forum is a group of Chief audit executives, so you must be a chief audit executive to participate.

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But it’s a group where we can actually talk about some of the frustrations challenges and opportunities of being a chief audit executive

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But it’s in a confidential environment. So again, you’re able to have this community of peers, where you can talk about maybe the things that are frustrating or challenging you

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And get feedback from others in your peer group. Now this is a confidential environment. So you can feel comfortable actually sharing

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What’s going on and and some of the things that you’re dealing with and be able to get that help from other people.

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Now again, that can be in lots of different ways. It can be, you know, related to you know you as an executive leading a team and maybe some of the things that you’re dealing with. There

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It can be, you know, a lot of times we might talk about things related to our relationship with the audit committee.

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And how we can you know maybe improve the relationship there. Get them to listen to us, you know, because I know sometimes

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Chief audit executives. They feel like they’re being like, they’re like they are a trusted advisor, but the executives and maybe the board don’t treat you that way.

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Or you’re kind of getting ignored and you’re not really sure why. Well, this is a forum where we actually go through and talk about that.

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And, you know, if you’re not being invited to the big kids table and you’re being excluded. We talked about ways to get included and to be able to provide more value to your organization.

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Now it’s called the chief audit executive forum. Some of you may have heard of things like roundtables and so a lot of different you know some II chapters or professional service firms run what they call her for roundtables

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And those are those are great, but a lot of times, you know, they’re a free sort of thing that people volunteer their time or if it’s from a professional service firm. They’re really using it as as a way to

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Do practice development and try to sell you other things. And that’s not what this group is about this group is about having a community where you can actually feel connected

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Where you can actually build friendships that will last throughout your career where you can be open and honest with other people, but it’s in a confidential space.

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Now, this is also something that’s different from a lot of those free roundtables that are out there.

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In that it doesn’t require a bunch of your time. You know, a lot of times the free roundtables require a lot of people, you know, either assigning people on your team, or you have to do it to try to drive and get things going.

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That’s not what this is for. Right. We know that you are an executive you’re busy. And so all of the heavy lifting is actually done by my team. You just need to show up and participate in the group calls

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Or in the group discussions that we have online between the calls. And so there’s usually about 10 to 12 different calls during the year.

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Where we really get into and discuss, like I said, some of these real challenges. Some of the stress and pressure that you might be feeling

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And political landmines that you want to make sure that you avoid so that you don’t have an issue in your career going forward.

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Now you know for me I was when I first became a chief audit executive I was fairly young in that meant I was also naive and so I knew how to audit, but I didn’t understand.

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Some of the political land mines that were in the organization. And honestly, I made a lot of mistakes and even as I grew in my career I continued to

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Experience different things that I never thought or dreamed of that I would actually encounter.

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And you know, when I’m coaching chief executives. This comes up a lot. I remember one person said, you know,

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I’ve had, I’ve had a 30 year career and i’ve you know learned all these some of these textbooks and I’ve worked for all these companies but holy smokes. I never

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Learned any of these things in my textbooks or through my experience. And that’s just really kind of the reality of what it is.

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So again, wanted to make sure if you are a chief audit executive and for and are looking

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For a community to be able to actually participate with and get that support not only from me. But from your peers.

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The open enrollment period is now it’s starting now and and so I’ll include in the show notes down below where you can click on the link to be able to go out and fill out your application.

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Now there’s a couple things that are different about this group. The first one is, we only accept new members into the group, a couple times a year. So that’s why I’m giving you this announcement right now.

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Because in a couple of weeks. It’s over. And we’re not going to accept new members into the group for several more months.

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So if this is something that you’re interested in, you need to act on it now and actually fill out your application.

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The other thing is, again, it’s not a hey, this sounds really cool add me to your, to your group that’s not the way this works either

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Everybody in the forum actually has to fill out an application. They go through an interview process with me to make sure that they are a good fit for the group.

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Because again, if we’re going to have this confidential community. We have to make sure that only the right people.

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That should be in the group are actually in the group. And so again, there’s a process, you have to go through. It’s not just like raising your hand and saying, Hey, add me to your list. That’s not what this is. So again, if it sounds like something that you’re interested in.

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Go out, look at the information, click on the link below in the show notes and fill out your application, you have to fill out the application and go through the interview process.

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To see if will actually accept you into the group as well. So again, that’s out there and and there’s more detail on the website that you can go through

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If anybody has questions you can obviously send me a message or an email and I’ll try to answer that, as well.

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But like I said, because this is only open a few times a year, and it’s going to close within a couple weeks. So make sure that if this is something that sounds like you’re interested in

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Go check out the website and get signed up, fill out your application and get signed up for your interview.

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So okay, so that’s our kind of the two things that I that I really wanted to make sure and and get out there today because those are kind of some time sensitive things

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If you want to come on to the podcast and share on the lessons from a CH E Series or if you want to get into the chief audit executive forum, you need to take action on that pretty quick. So now let’s get back into the discussion today now.

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This, this has kind of come up again from some of the things that I’ve been seeing as I’ve been working with Chief audit executives and internal audit teams either do it through coaching or training.

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It’s also kind of related to some of the stuff that I’m seeing online as well. And in some of the, the things that I’m that I’m really hearing

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So again, it’s about elephants and shiny objects. So let me explain what those two

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Concepts actually kind of main and then we’ll talk about how that analogy actually relates to you in your internal audit profession. Okay.

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So you might have heard the term before an elephant in the room right and so that term really kind of means that you know you’re you’re in this room. Imagine that you’re just in this room.

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And there’s this huge elephant in the room that everyone is ignoring okay everybody sees it. But everybody’s kind of ignoring it because they don’t want to admit

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That there’s actually an elephant in the room, and so they usually try to avoid it. It’s like a big problem that you need to address.

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But most people don’t want to go there and they don’t want to deal with the elephant. Okay, so, so when you think about the elephant. Think about that. That concept of the elephant in the room.

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So what’s a shiny object. Well, a shiny object could again be something if you’re imagining that you’re in the room with this big

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Elephant. There’s also some sort of shiny objects, something that is is reflecting the light there might be flashing lights on it.

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Could be something that’s metallic in nature. And so, the sun is like, you know, glaring off of it and

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And what ends up happening is, is we tend to see those shiny objects because they they attract our attention. And again, if we don’t want to focus on the elephant, we’re going to want to focus on

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The shiny object. So what are, what are some examples of shiny objects. Well, a lot of times you can think about them as those things that are getting maybe a lot of press

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There’s a lot of articles about it. Everybody’s really talking about it. They’re these new buzz words that really

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A lot of times a buzz word is just a new term for something that we’ve been dealing with before. So I’ll give you an example of that.

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A lot of people are talking about our p a robotic process automation and that is a buzz word that’s out there, right, because when you actually stop and think about what is robotic process automation. Well, yes, it may be some new

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tools that are out there, but really robotic process automation how most people are talking about that is no different than we were talking 20 or 30 years ago.

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About how we could use. Here’s an old term cats computer automated auditing tools and so some examples of those from the times before things like idea.

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ACL. Right. And again, those are kind of some brand names of these cat applications. Now what did they do for you, robotic process automation. Right. You could use them.

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To actually automate audit steps, use that technology to be able to help you in your auditing. So, so our PA today is being used as this buzzword, and you’re hearing it all the time.

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And most of the time the people that are talking about it are just trying to get you to buy their software. Okay, and so and so stop and think about it that way. Right.

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Is but but again if you have multi million dollar marketing budget because you’re trying to sell somebody a product you’re going to get that new fancy buzzword out there in front of people all the time.

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When you step back and look at it, you can go well, hold it. Just a minute, this is what we’ve been doing all along, right, with some of these other tools.

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But it’s it’s maybe a different technology. So maybe, maybe there’s a new software program that helps you

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You do data analytics better. Okay, great. Right. But it doesn’t mean that we haven’t been doing data analytics before

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So that can be an example of a shiny object. Right. It’s something that you’re hearing all the time. It’s something that sounds sexy and kind of fun. Right.

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Another example of that is I heard an old term very early in my career called managing by magazine.

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Okay, managing by magazine. Now what did that mean that meant that the CEO of the company, happened to be on an airplane.

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And they were reading a magazine. Maybe it was Harvard Business Review. Maybe it was the you know the the whatever magazine, happened to be in the airline

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And they read some magazine article about some new business concept some new whatever thing. And again, that whatever new thing is probably going to be considered a shiny object.

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They come back to the organization and they say, we need to start doing this right. And so they keep changing the strategy or the operations of the organization.

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Based on the latest article that they’re reading, that’s another example of a shiny object. And so again you can see what people are talking about what people are thinking it’s a big deal now.

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A lot of times those things are actually recycled thoughts from before. Okay, that’s, that’s just a reality. So again,

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If you think about concepts like centralization of an organization versus decentralization

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Okay, for several you know for a certain period of time. Everybody says, Oh, we have to decentralize we have to decentralize we have to decentralize

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And so everybody focuses on that shiny object and they they change the organization and decentralize it

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Now, what ends up happening is a few years later, somebody comes out and says no decentralization is not actually working. We must centralize again.

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And so all of a sudden, all these organizations that just decentralized now start centralizing and so again you can see. What’s old is new and history repeats itself.

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Usually when history repeats itself somebody tries to assign some fancy word to it like a buzzword, to be able to get people’s attention. And again, usually

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Their motive is to sell you whatever that thing is right.

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So if I’m an HR consulting firm and I want to decentralize a centralized company. I’m going to tell you, you must be centralized so I can come in. Do that project decentralized everything

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And a few years later, I’m going to say, Oh, whoops, you know, decentralization doesn’t work as good as we thought it was so how about if we centralize now.

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And they go back and they sell the same company now a centralization consulting package where they just helped them decentralize. And so it really doesn’t actually make a lot of sense.

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When you stand back and think about it that way, but that tends to be the mentality of a lot of people in organizations.

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There’s a shiny object. There’s some flashing thing over there in the corner and they’re drawn to that and they go over there and they focus all of their attention on that.

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Now, when you are focused on shiny objects. What are you also doing you are ignoring the elephant in the room.

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The elephant is not sexy. But the elephant is huge and imagine the damage that that elephant could do in the room.

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If they start to go crazy and start you know stomping around and swinging their, their trunk around

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There’s going to be a lot of damage or we could use the word impact if we’re talking about risk management.

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To the organization from that elephant that shiny on that little shiny object over in the corner is probably not going to have a big impact.

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On the organization. It might be sexy. It might be cool, but it’s not going to have nearly the impact that the elephant does. So why am I talking about this and why am I using this analogy.

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I see that there are lots of people out there in in organizations who are focused on the shiny objects there they’re redoing their work to try to go and deal with those shiny objects.

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And they’re ignoring the big impact risks in their organizations, those things that are like a big gray elephant.

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They’re not sexy. They’re not cool. And they look at it and go, well, look, the elephants just standing there and it’s fine. Anyway, and the CEOs talking about this shiny objects. So let’s go over there instead

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And what I’m here to tell you is don’t ignore the elephant you ignore that elephant. It’s gonna it’s gonna beat up that room. Okay, now

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Let me give you some practical advice for you to kind of help you understand Are you focusing more on shiny objects or are you focusing more on the elephants. Okay.

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Excuse me. So here’s a couple of questions that you might ask yourself. The first one is, you know, is what we are doing really focused on the strategic objectives of the organization.

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So again, if you’re in an audit department. I want you to kind of look at what’s your audit plan for the quarter for the year.

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And are the projects and the things that you’re doing. Are they actually tied back to strategic objectives in the organization.

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Or are you just doing busy work right. Are you just auditing payroll again because we audit payroll every year.

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Or are you looking at what are really the key strategic initiatives in our organization because that’s really where we should be focused

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Instead of either something that’s mundane like doing payroll testing again because we do it every year.

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Or some shiny new object, maybe like cyber security because everybody’s freaking out about cyber security right now. Okay.

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So, so that’s the first question is what we are doing focused on the strategic objectives of the organization.

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Second question, are we focused on an area to try to impress others with what we can do. Ooh. Now that’s a hard question. Right.

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And you really need to be honest with yourself. Because, are you doing things just to try to impress other people in the organization.

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Sometimes again when I see chief audit executives going after these shiny objects. Their goal for doing that is yes. People are talking about it.

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But hey, I want to take this sexy project and I want to show everybody in the organization. How cool we are and how much value we add

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Well, I’ll tell you right now, if you if you’re going down that path. And that is your primary objective, you’re gonna fail because you’re doing something that’s fake

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And people are going to see a lot of times you’re in over your head. And if that particular project doesn’t work out.

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You may be looking for a new job. Okay, that’s the reality of it. So again,

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Why are you focused on that, on that particular area. If it’s to impress people, you’re probably looking at the wrong area. Instead, you should be looking at the areas that are strategic objectives. That was the first question.

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Third one. What are actually the biggest impact risks to the organization. So again, you’ve got to be honest with yourself about thinking, what are the elephants to our organization.

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And like I said, sometimes they’re not sexy and but if that really is the thing with the biggest impact to the organization that’s where you need to be focusing your attention. Okay, another one.

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What forces are going on in the world that could lead to events and impacts in the organization. Now, because in today’s business environment. We are so interdependent.

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Across the whole world. You really have to be looking at and thinking about more what’s going on around the world.

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Because some of these other forces and events that are going on can now have impacts to your organization or maybe 20 years ago they never did. Okay.

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And so you have to start getting better at looking at and thinking about some of those things now. Honestly, this is risk management one on one. And so I’m going to give you another little analogy here to think about when you’re when you’re trying to go through that process.

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When I wear a tie. I usually wear a bow tie. And so again, I want you to picture what a bow tie. Looks like it’s fat on one end, it goes down to a to a knot and then there’s a. It goes back out to a fat and on the other side.

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So when you think about the bow tie. You can think about, you know, if you start on the left hand side of the bow tie.

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There’s a lot of different forces and conditions that are going on in the world that are leading or driving or correlated or causing certain events to happen.

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Now when those events happen. They have impacts to your organization. Some of those impacts are going to be good. That’ll be opportunities.

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Other ones are going to be threats which we then start talking about in the form of risk and how we’re going to manage that risk.

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Versus the opportunities, how we’re going to write operationalize that and take advantage of those things kind of through performance management.

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So you have to be thinking about that because, again, little events that may happen halfway around the world now actually have an impact on your organization.

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You know, if you just look at the supply chain for most companies now. You know, I heard the example before, you know, you take some device like an apple iphone

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And when you start tearing it apart and thinking about all of the different pieces and parts that go into make that particular product.

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Those things are actually sourced all over the world. You know, you can go back to the component level from the components. What did it take to actually create that component

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Where there were probably metals and silicone and all this other stuff. Well, where did that stuff come from and you start to realize that to get an end product like an iPhone.

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Literally it’s probably 30 or 40 places in the in the world where all of this stuff is coming from.

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And any little hiccup in that supply chain could cause you a problem, right. So again, what forces are going on in the world that can lead to events that could impact your organization that’s going to help you identify maybe what elephants are already in your room.

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The last one, then, is are you actually auditing based on magazine articles. Okay, so that kind of goes back again to

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What I talked earlier about with, you know, managing by magazine, are you putting things on your internal audit plan because you read some article online or in some magazine.

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And somebody somewhere in the world said, Oh my gosh, everybody’s got to do this right, if that’s what you’re doing. You’re going about your internal lot of plan wrong.

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You have to think about the things that are actually relevant to your organization and those things that have the biggest impact don’t do something just because somebody else does it or somebody with you know that you recognize

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Your you know from the name as an industry expert says something on a webinar in a magazine article in something else.

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take that information and determine again is what they’re talking about. Is that a shiny object to my organization or is that an elephant. Now, what I will tell you to is with my analogy here about elephants and shiny objects those same events. Okay.

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What is a shiny object to one organization may be an elephant to a different organization.

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And it goes the other way to what may be an elephant to one organization may be a shiny object to the other one.

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So really, you have to go through. You have to start asking some of those questions that I just outlined here.

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To be able to help you figure out for your organization. Are these things shiny objects or are they elephants and then again from a using that analogy to be able to have you get much more clarity.

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On where you need to be spending your time and again I will tell you as we kind of wrap up here. I know that the elephant in the room is not sexy.

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It’s not exciting, necessarily, but that’s where we need to be focusing our attention if you get distracted with the shiny objects eventually that elephant is going to start running around and kicking and it’s going to severely impact and damage your organization.

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So that’s what I got this week, my friends and appreciate you hanging out with me. So this week, you know, kind of as a takeaway go back

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You know, if you listen to the episode. Again, if you need to write down those questions.

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And, you know, be serious about actually looking at and trying to determine what are the elephants and what are the shiny objects in your organization.

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focus your efforts on the elephants in the long term. That is where you’re going to provide more value to your organization.

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Than focusing on the shiny objects. So go forth. Have a great rest of your week. Ask yourself these questions and I will catch you on the next episode of jammin with Jason. See you.

As auditors we need to see the world with different eyes in order to really help executives solves problems. If we only focus on areas within the organization where we believe there is risk, we risk focusing on areas that don’t really matter to management. One of the biggest reasons management does not think audit is adding significant value (and the number is pathetically low based on several surveys) is we are not helping them solve the real problems they experience. We often focusing on the narrow lens of internal audit and provide lower value recommendations, instead of thinking strategically as an executive of the organization.

If we want to be seen as a trusted advisor, we need to provide value and insight on areas where the executives are focused. We need to gain different perspectives to have more empathy and understanding of our audit clients. We need to be part of the solution, not another problem executives need to deal with.

Emilio Rubio has served several times as a Chief Audit Executive and in various executive management roles for companies all over the world. He provides a unique perspective as an auditor and executive manager who has seen both sides.

To listen and for complete show notes and links to downloads, visit: http://www.jasonmefford.com/jammingwithjason/

or subscribe and listen wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, PodBean, Google Play Music, or YouTube.

The #1 #internalauditpodcast in the world has interviews and discussions (jam sessions) relevant to Chief Audit Executives and professionals in #internalaudit, risk management, and compliance.

To listen to this and other Jamming with Jason episodes for CPE credit, visit: https://ondemand.criskacademy.com/courses/

If you are ignored by other executives and frustrated getting resources you need, chances are you’re playing at the junior varsity (JV) instead of varsity level. In this episode we’ll explore some questions to ask so you can assess which one you are really playing, and provide some guidance on how you can level-up your playing so you make the varsity team in your organization.

If you’d like to join the webinar Jason mentioned on influence in this episode, you can register at: https://www.bigmarker.com/crisk-academy/Powerful-Everyday-Opportunities-to-Persuade-that-are-Lasting-and-Ethical-Influence-PEOPLE

Get added to the waitlist for when the CAE Forum opens up to new members visit: https://jasonmefford.mykajabi.com/cae-forum-waitlist-page

To listen and for complete show notes and links to downloads, visit: http://www.jasonmefford.com/jammingwithjason/

or subscribe and listen wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, PodBean, Google Play Music, or YouTube.

The #1 #internalauditpodcast in the world has interviews and discussions (jam sessions) relevant to Chief Audit Executives and professionals in #internalaudit, risk management, and compliance.

Transcript

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Welcome to another episode of jammin with Jason and this week I just couldn’t resist talking about this topic. And so let me kind of kind of

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Explain a little bit about this because there might be using few terms that some of you are not familiar with. So

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You know, really kind of the topic today is, is your internal audit team playing varsity or junior varsity ball or what we call JV and

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So the reason for that, there’s a couple of reasons. Some things I’ve been thinking about and just kind of this time of the year.

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So here in Southern California actually school has started. Even though it’s early in August. A lot of the school districts have actually started so kids are back at school.

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Which means that they’re also playing sports. So when I was growing up, I actually played sports.

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And in the United States in the high school level. So this is these are kids that are between about the ages of 14 and 18

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In the high school arena, they often will play sports after school. And so in the United States. There’s kind of the top level team and a high school is called varsity

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And so usually kids that are playing varsity are going to be juniors or seniors in high school, sometimes not until they’re seniors until they’re good enough for it.

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But it’s really kind of the elite and kind of top level team in any high school. So they go and play other high schools. This could be volleyball, softball football, baseball

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Basketball in the any of these different sports are like with me. I actually ran track and cross country which is a long distance running

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So, you know, as, as a kid, and in high school, you always if you’re an athlete you always want to be on the varsity team.

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Because the varsity is just kind of seen as being the best. And if you don’t get to play varsity then you play the next level down, which is called junior varsity

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Okay, so, so that’s a little bit kind of about the the the background on what I’m referring to when I’m talking about playing varsity or playing junior varsity

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So as I said, since varsity is kind of, you know, the top level. That’s where a lot of high school students want to play.

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In fact, if they’re going to go on and play sport in college, they need to be able to play the varsity level sport.

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So what does this have to do with internal audit. Some of you might be thinking, right. So again, since school is just started and I’m thinking about that football season has just started again.

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Here in the US, it got me thinking a little bit about sports reflecting a little bit on my, you know, short lived very short lived career as a HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETE.

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And how that actually relates to us in the business world.

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Now I actually had a discussion. A few months ago with a chief audit executive and I was doing some coaching with him because he wasn’t really getting

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Some of the support and things that he wanted to see in his career, he wasn’t really kind of moving up in the organization.

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He wasn’t getting the resources that we need and felt like he was kind of getting ignored and as we started talking about it and kind of going through this one of

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The spots or topics came up to where he actually made the comment. You know, I want to play varsity

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You know, be a varsity player, but I’m not being seen that way by others in my organization.

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And so like I said I was thinking about that again and wanted to try to provide and talk a little bit today about some ways that as internal audit. We can be viewed

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As varsity level in our organization, you know, because I get a lot of you are feeling kind of frustrated

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Because often, you may be ignored by other executives in your organization, you don’t feel like you get the support that you want.

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People don’t seem to, you know, see the value that you’re providing. And so, you know, just like me as a as a as a student athlete, you know, as I was growing

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Up in in developing into an athlete. I wanted to play varsity I wanted to get to that next level and it takes work to get to that next level.

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And so I like I said, I hear this from from lots of different people and in varying ways. So I thought today would be a good time for us to actually

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Talk more about this. So what I’m going to do is go through and actually give you some different questions. I’m going to pose some questions to you.

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And depending on how you answer these will help you to know whether you’re playing varsity level in your organization or if you’re seeing as like the little kids playing junior varsity

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Now sometimes and and again I’m gonna I’m gonna be a little frank with you today. And maybe say some things that you need to hear that’s not necessarily what you want to hear.

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But, you know, if you want to. If you want to play varsity sometimes you got to have a little tough coaching. And so that’s what we’re going to, we’re going to talk about

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Today. So the first question that I kind of wanted to get in with you in pose out there is

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Does everyone on your audit committee and your executive team know who you are. And do you know them. Okay. So that’s kind of the first question to start with.

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Do they actually recognize you. Do they know your name. If the answer is no. You’re probably playing junior varsity

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Now, they may know who you are. But do you know them and I’m not meaning just you know their name and their title, but do you actually know them.

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Have you developed a relationship with them so that you’ve actually made that connection with them in the organization. If the answer is no. You’re probably playing junior varsity

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So what do we do, because I’m going to give you, like I said, I’m going to give you a kind of a question and then I’m going to give you

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Some suggestions for how you can improve what you’re doing. So if they don’t know who you are and you don’t know them really

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It’s time for you to take the initiative and get to know them better and actually think about and use the principles of influence.

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Now I’ve talked about those principles before you know that in order to build relationships. People have to like you, or there’s some element of liking that goes along with that.

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There’s the element of reciprocity that you actually have to provide value or service to them and then they will want to provide value or service to you. That’s how relationships grow.

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Under the concept of influence. You know, if you’re trying to help people overcome objections, you know, getting some sort of consensus from them little small yeses along the way. Excuse me.

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And establishing yourself as an authority now authority here does not mean degrees and certifications. So just because you have degrees and certifications doesn’t mean somebody’s going to believe that you have authority.

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It’s going to be more in the way that you actually show them and provide value with them.

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And then the last two kind of relates to consistency, you know, the fact that you’re showing up consistency and consistently and also that there is an element of scarcity with it.

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Now, like I said, I’ve talked about that quite a few times. In fact, I’ve had Brian a Hearn on the podcast before

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And coming up actually later in August. I’m doing an another discussion with Brian about influence. So if that’s an area where you feel like you need some help.

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Make sure to check out and join in on that webinar. It’s free. It’s through see risk Academy and you can find that, and I’ll try to leave a link to that down in the notes as well. Now the second question for you to ask him to think about

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Do you lean into difficult conversations. Hmm, okay. Now I know as humans, none of us really like difficult conversations we are averse to conflict usually

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But when we need to have difficult conversations. Do we actually lean into them and have those difficult conversations

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And again, if the answer is no. If you’re trying to avoid those conversations. If you’re trying to hide and not be there.

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You’re probably playing junior varsity you’re not playing as a varsity executive because here’s the reality executives are comfortable having uncomfortable discussions.

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So if you are uncomfortable having uncomfortable discussions, of course, you’re not going to be at the same level as some of the other executives in your organization.

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So what do you need to do you need to develop that executive presence, you need to start showing up as a varsity executive and one of the things that they do.

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Is they are comfortable having uncomfortable discussions. Now they don’t like having them either. But they’ve learned how to have difficult conversations without destroying their relationship.

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And so that, again, is one of the things that if you’re not doing that now you need to learn how to do that.

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And I get it. This is not something that you learn. Usually, you know, from going to a training course.

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It’s something that requires practice and and learning about psychology, usually a lot of times, this comes from coaching from executive coaching and from talking and working with mentors.

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To be able to help you learn how to do that because like I said it’s not human nature for us to to be comfortable doing that we’d prefer to back away. But if we really want to be an executive, you have to lean into having those uncomfortable conversations

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Okay, the next one. The next question for you to think about, are you more worried about completing the audit according to II standards or building relationships and helping others in your organization.

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Now I know a lot of times you know we pride ourselves on being professionals and and the standards of the AIA are important for us in order to be able to do a quality audit right that

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That is something that would withstand a peer review, but if you’re more concerned about actually dotting the i’s and crossing the T’s on all the standards.

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And standing up and trying to tell people, nope. This is the way I have to do it. And this is what’s what’s important, that I know better than you.

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Chances are, if that’s the kind of person that you are. You’re also going to be seen as playing junior varsity

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Okay, if you’re more concerned about form over substance. If you’re more concerned about, you know, ticking and tying and having the perfect set of work papers.

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You’re probably not focusing on what’s most important. And so instead what we should be doing is focusing first on helping others look good.

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And make their job easier now let me let me get into that a little bit more sometimes auditors feel like they’re the police or the gotcha, guys.

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And and sometimes I’ll even hear them say, Look, I don’t want others in the organization to think that I’m the police or somebody who’s coming to get them in trouble.

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Well, if that’s the case, if you don’t want people to see you that way.

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Then don’t do that. Okay, so don’t don’t come in and think, well, in order to do a good audit. I have to find a whole bunch of recommendations and I have to improve the process and make everybody you know do something better.

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If you get too into that often what ends up happening is you make others in the organization look bad, and they feel like you are there to get them in trouble.

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That should not be our primary purpose, our primary purpose should be first focusing on on helping others look good. Okay.

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Did you help others look good. So if there’s now obviously if there’s some problems that need to be fixed, then we have an obligation to talk about that.

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But there’s a lot of different ways that you can deliver the message. And if you can deliver the message in such a way, and help that manager look good to their boss.

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You are developing a relationship there. It’s not about who’s right and who’s wrong but it’s about helping the organization move forward.

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And being able to improve it. And one of the best ways to do that is help others to succeed if you help make other people’s job easier, they will love you and they will bring you into the fold. Okay, so that’s another thing for you to be thinking about

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Another question, right. Are you being ignored by other executives and having difficulty getting resources. Okay, now again how you’re going to answer that. If you’re feeling, you know, ignored and frustrated and not getting the resources that you want.

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Chances are that the others in the organization are viewing you from a junior varsity perspective. Now this even carries back over into the sports arena. Right.

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If you’re playing major league ball. If you are playing varsity you get the best of everything you’re going to have the nicest uniforms, you’re going to have the best buses to travel on

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If you’re not in that group, you get relegated to the old jerseys and the other things like that. So, you know, again, if you want to get to that varsity level.

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You’ve got to do some things different. And if you’re being ignored by people. There’s, there’s probably a couple of reasons that that might be happening.

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The first one is like we talked about before, if they always see you as somebody coming in to get them in trouble.

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They’re probably going to want to ignore you, and stay away from you. Okay, so that’s we talked about that already.

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But another thing is give them a reason to actually listen to you. Okay. Now, one of the best ways to do that is, again, to help them solve their problems.

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Instead of coming in and making more problems and more work for people, let’s figure out how we can make things easier for them.

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And actually show that we are really adding value again I’ve talked about this before, but I think often what we as auditors think is value.

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Is not viewed as value by the executives and we need to be more aligned with providing value to the executives and what they believe is valuable.

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Instead of what we think is valuable because at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what we think

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If we’re there to help the organization achieve its objectives, we need to be concerned about what that is and how we can actually help in that regards okay now also and I know kind of in this in this format. It’s a little bit hard to kind of see this but but

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There’s an idea behind. I think a lot of people get the concept of trusted advisor mixed up and they don’t really understand what it truly means to be a trusted advisor.

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Because there’s a combination of both experience and expertise that is important to it, but also the impact and influence that you have as well.

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If you’re very educated. If you’ve got lots of experience, but you don’t know how to influence or provide impact you will never be seen as a trusted advisor, you have to have both.

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And unfortunately, I see most of the time people trying to just, you know, try to do the audit better try to do this better.

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Instead of actually trying to develop the relationships and truly be able to influence and have an impact in the organization.

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And I’ll get into that probably more in a future episode because this is something that I actually feel really strongly about. And something that I’ve seen over and over again, my career is people trying to focus on just one or the other. They will not get to trusted advisor status.

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OK, so the next one for you to be thinking. The next question for you to ask yourself, are you showing up every day as the executive, you want to be.

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So are you showing up every day as the executive, you want to be. So if you are currently not acting the way you think you should, you’re probably playing junior varsity

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If you want to be a varsity player, you have to show up as a varsity player. So what does that mean, well let me again share with you kind of from, you know, as I as I was growing up in my high school

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Sporting career. Right. I looked up to when I was when I was a freshman and sophomore in in high school I looked up to these guys who were the varsity players, they were a year or two ahead of me.

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But, but here. Here was the reality right as a freshman and sophomore, I didn’t make the varsity team. In fact, as a junior

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I didn’t make the varsity team either, right. We had some really actually we had some excellent runners top in the state that we’re in our school. So it was very competitive.

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To be able to get that spot because there were only eight spots on the cross country team for varsity

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So, you know, my freshman year I worked really hard my sophomore year, I worked really hard my junior year I even worked really hard.

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But here’s the deal, right, those other people were putting in more time and effort than I was. And they were better than me.

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If I had put in more of the effort if I had actually showing up. If I’d run and trained as hard as they did.

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Chances are, I might have been able to be one of them out. Now, I still train hard but. Was I acting like a varsity player training like a varsity player.

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Obviously I wasn’t because I didn’t make the team until I finally became a senior and got that through my head that I had to actually show up. I had to practice hard every day.

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I had to think and be like a varsity player. Now I got pretty good at it, at least at that point in my career. So were

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Actually got bronchitis at the state finals. Try cross country, meet my senior year and I was afraid that the coach was going to cut me and not let me actually run

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In the state championship race and I worked and worked and worked and I went to the doctor and I got you know pain meds and everything else that I could do to be able to prove to him.

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That I could still run, even though I had bronchitis. Now I didn’t perform as well as I wanted to in that last match because I was sick.

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But I remember the coach telling me, Don’t worry, I’m effort, you’re running, I can see that you’re actually putting in the effort. And of course, I’m going to let you run

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In the state finals your senior year you’ve put in the work. Okay, unless you’re willing to put in the work and show up every day, you’re not going to get on the varsity team.

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So how does that translate it, what is it that we can do. Well, let me let me share with you a little concept in corporate America for the most part, employees are taught

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That when you have something, then you can do it and then you will become that whatever. Okay, so in corporate America, it’s usually have do and be

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But here’s the reality if you actually want to change and become someone different, you have to flip that around.

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You have to be that person today and do those things that that person would do. And then you can have it.

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And so again, that’s probably kind of a great way to somewhat kind of wrap up what we’re talking about today.

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If you want to be seen as a varsity player in your organization, you have to show up every day and be a varsity player.

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Now, if you’re not exactly sure what that means. Let me know reach out to me, I’ll point you some resources, try to help you out. But you have to be that person and do those things that that person would be

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And when you do that, you will have those things that you want. You’ll get put on the team, you’ll get recognized okay executives will come to you and ask for your help.

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Instead of ignoring you. They will actually seek you out and beg almost for your help with certain things. But again, it’s on you to actually be able to go out and do that.

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So, my friends. That’s kind of my message for this week. I want you all playing varsity level and your organization. And like I said, if you don’t know how to get there.

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You know some things that you can do find a mentor reach out to me and ask, ask for some help, you know, I’m happy to share with you some of the things that others have done.

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But a lot of it because it’s individual, you need to have to kind of understand what you’re going through. And what’s going on at your organization.

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Right. And you need to establish a network and the community to be able to help you do that. And so that’s going to be made up of peers of people like coaches and mentors.

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As well, to be able to help you go along that journey. Now I know some of you that might be executives might be thinking, Are you kidding, I’m an executive. I don’t need any help. To which I say

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Okay, I’ve got a couple of videos and you can find them out online Bill Gates. Okay. You all know who Bill Gates is he says everybody should have a coach.

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Bill Gates has a coach Bill Gates has lots of coaches and another video from Eric Schmidt, who used to be the CEO of Google. And again he said the same thing.

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Everyone should have a coach. And so, especially as you get to that executive level, you really need people in your corner helping you.

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To be able to be able to perform

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At that higher level. In fact, when you think about professional level athletes. They all have coaches, even though they’re at the top of their game.

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They would not be at the top of their game they would not stay at the top of their game if they weren’t getting help. Okay, so those are some things that you can do.

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One of the things, the chief audit executive forum that I run this is one of the things that we actually do in that

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Is help to provide that community and support for people who really want to play at the varsity level. So if that’s something that’s of interest to you just reach out to me and I can kind of give you the details on that.

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Again, my friends, I want you to go out. I want you to be varsity level players put in the work. Do what you need to do and and really

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Start working on it, if that’s really where you want to go. You can get their promise you can get there, but it’s going to take some work.

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To be able to get there, but it is so worth it. Once you get to that point. So with that, I’m going to sign off for this week and have a great week, and I will talk to you on a future episode of Jamel Jason

The Beatles were right when they said “I get by with a little help from my friends.” In fact the only way we get by is with help from our friends. Sometime though we get the idea we need push forward and do everything ourself. I get it. We are taught to be independent and do things ourself. This was engrained in me my whole life.

The truth is, we all need the help of others and need to be there to help others. In fact, if you don’t think you need help … you probably needs the most help. Also, the further we get in our career, the more we need help, but the less we reach out.

Trying to do the job alone often leads to emotional, psychological, and even physical pain. Yes, you’ll hear how I broke my hand trying to do it by myself, and also a story of a bricklayer trying to do the job alone that I heard almost 30 years ago that has stuck with me ever since.

I even need your help, and when you listen, you’ll find out how.

To listen and for complete show notes and links to downloads, visit: http://www.jasonmefford.com/jammingwithjason/

or subscribe and listen wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, PodBean, Google Play Music, or YouTube: https://studio.youtube.com/channel/jasonmefford

The #1 #internalauditpodcast in the world has interviews and discussions (jam sessions) relevant to Chief Audit Executives and professionals in #internalaudit, risk management, and compliance.

If you’d like to get added to the CAE Forum Waitlist mentioned in this article, visit: https://jasonmefford.mykajabi.com/cae-forum-waitlist-page

Transcript

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Well welcome my friends to another episode of jammin with Jason. I’m excited to be back here with you today and I’m going to do something a little bit different this week.

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I’m actually going to share a story with you and we’re going to talk about a concept that kind of goes along with that particular story.

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So you’re gonna want to hang around for the whole thing, because I’m going to go through, like I said, share a story with you.

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That actually I first heard about 30 years ago and it’s just a story that has kind of stuck with me that I’ve learned from and I want to kind of incorporate that into the topic that we’re going to be discussing today.

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But before we get to that a couple of housekeeping items for you. First thing, if you’re listening to this, make sure if you haven’t already to go out and leave me a review.

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Now the reason for that is the way the algorithms and everything work on the podcast sites is the more reviews, you actually have

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The higher things will come in the search results. And so the first thing is, you know, I’m trying to do what I can to make sure that people are aware that this podcast exists.

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But I need your help. And so one of the there’s kind of two things that you can do to be able to help me. And so, it asked you to do that.

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To help me again, spread the word and out there and get more people actually listening.

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Each week, so if you find this valuable if you’re listening every week. Here’s a couple things that I would like you to do for me.

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First off is go ahead and share this with everybody that, you know, so if you know somebody else that you think would benefit by listening to the podcast each week.

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friends, colleagues, please make sure to let them know you could send them an email a text, however you normally communicate and say, hey,

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There’s this really great podcast. I’ve been listening to and I think that you would also benefit from that as well. So that’s the first thing to help me is if you would let others know about this.

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Because again, my, my goal is to be here to serve and to provide information and these jam sessions, which usually end up either being me discussing or me interviewing people

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And and have that be relevant for chief audit executives and professionals in internal audit risk and compliance. Not a lot out there.

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For our people and so like I said just the more people that are aware of it. I would be really appreciative. The second thing is, as I mentioned before, the podcast services usually

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They have algorithms and other stuff for search and the more people that are actually providing or leaving feedback and comments about the podcast.

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Especially if you really love this and want to give it a five star rating, the more people that actually do that. It helps in a couple of ways.

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First off, I don’t actually know how many people are listening each week. That’s one thing about a podcast, you don’t really know how many people are subscribing and actually listening every single week. So, leaving a review helps me know that people are actually listening.

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And it also helps in search results. So for example, if somebody you know let’s say an internal audit and says, hey, I’d like to listen to

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A podcast on internal audit if they type search in the search bar and put internal audit in there, leaving reviews will help this to actually get raised in the search results so that people can actually find it now. No, excuse me.

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The other thing, too, is if you if you leave me a review and actually write a review and let me know what you really like about the podcast.

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And maybe some things you’d like to see in the future that will provide me with feedback so that I can always be improving what I’m actually doing and providing to you.

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So like I said, that would really help me if you will do that if you’re listening to this on iTunes or Apple podcast right now.

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Actually while you’re listening to, to this episode. If you go back to the main page for jammin with Jason scroll to the bottom.

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That’s where you can actually leave a review. So take a minute, as you’re listening, just go back to that scroll down, give us a five star review and then put in

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Some comments in that review as well. And like I said, that would really help me and I would really appreciate that. So,

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As I started off with you’ll notice I said a couple times, I need your help. And that’s kind of the, the, the concept that we want to talk about that. I want to talk about today with you is that

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We all need help and you know I think sometimes, especially for people like me. I was raised to be very independent

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My parents taught me that I was, you know, supposed to pull up, you know, pull up, pull on boots on, and stand up and pull my big boy pants on.

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And actually do things and and not really rely on other people but that it was up to me to get things done.

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And so I’ve always had this very independent spirit that, you know, I can just accomplish and do everything that I need to

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as I’ve gotten older, hopefully I’ve gotten a little wiser and I realized that while that is important.

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We all need some help from time to time. And the more that we reach out and actually get the help of others, the better. All of us are

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Because working on things doing things together, we can make much more progress than we can, if we are all individually doing it by ourselves. And so, you know, even. And what I found to, you know, being a chief audit executive two times is

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The further you go up in your career, the more we kind of believe we don’t need help, because we’ve already kind of gotten there.

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But the reality is that’s the time when we probably need the most help. And the reason for that is often we are kind of alone, we don’t have the same peer groups that we did.

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As we were lower lower levels in our career and often the challenges that we’re dealing with are much bigger.

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They have much more of an impact on our organizations and on us personally

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And so, you know, at sometimes those times when you feel like, Well, I’ve already made it. I don’t need any help now.

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That’s actually the time when you probably need the help the most. And like I said, I know it’s it’s a little ironic, but I’ve seen that on my in my career as well.

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And so just kind of throwing that out there. If you don’t feel like you need help, you probably are the one who really does need help.

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And towards the end of the podcast. I’ll talk a little bit more about that because I wanted to move now into sharing a story with you that kind of illustrates this concept.

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Now I’m actually going to read it to you because this, this happens to be. And like I said, this was a story that I heard probably 30 years ago and it’s an old urban legend that based on kind of my research showed up in print somewhere in the late 1800s, early 1900s and it’s been

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It’s been redone and kind of some different formats and slightly different wording and slightly different context, but the one that I’m that I’m going to use is called a bricklayers accident report and this is really

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It’s kind of a funny, funny story about what can happen when we try to do the job alone. And so you’ll see again as I was talking before we all need help.

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And we all need the help of others and and sometimes when you try to do things by yourself, you end up hurting yourself. So, this version was actually one it was. I think this happened to be one that was, was published by somebody in Australia. Because it, it

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Was kind of talking about workers compensation issues and the fact of, you know, if an employee tries to do certain things by themselves.

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The things that can actually happen. And so the way this version of the story is written.

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Is the fact that you know this person who was injured at work. This bricklayer, who was injured at work is actually responding to a letter of inquiry.

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So he got hurt. He filled out a workers comp claim and in this group is sending him a letter saying, hey, can you explain this to us because we’re not quite sure.

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What actually happened. So let me go through and just read this story to your right now.

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And then we’re going to talk about kind of the concept again at the end. So again, imagine that this person is writing a letter back

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And it says, Dear Sir, I am writing in response to your request for additional information in block three of the accident report form.

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I put poor planning as the cause of my accident you ask for a fuller explanation, and I trust the following details will be sufficient. I am a bricklayer by trade on the day of the accident, I was working alone on the rough of a news six story building

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When I completed my work, I found that I had some bricks left over which weighed later were found to be slightly in excess of 500 pounds.

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Rather than carry the bricks down by hand, I decided to lower them in a barrel by using a pulley, which was attached to the side of the building on the sixth floor.

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Securing the rope, but the ground. I went up to the roof swung the barrel out and loaded the bricks into it. Then I went down and untied the rope holding it slightly to ensure a slow descent of the bricks.

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You will note in block 11 of the accident report form that I weigh 175 pounds due to my surprise, it being jerked off the ground so suddenly I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope.

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Needless to say, I proceeded at a rapid rate up the side of the building in the vicinity of the third floor. I met the barrel.

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Which was now proceeding downward at an equal impressive speed this explain the fractured skull minor abrasions, and the broken collarbone as listed in section three of the accident report form.

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Slowed only slightly I continued my rapid ascent not stopping until my fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep into the poly

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Fortunately, by this time I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold tightly to the rope in spite of being beginning to experience a great deal of pain.

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At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of bricks hit the ground and the bottom fell out of the barrel.

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Now, devoid of the weight of the bricks that barrel weight approximately 50 pounds I refer you again to my weight.

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As you can imagine, I began a rapid descent down the side of the building in the vicinity of the third floor. I met the barrel coming up this accounts for the two fractured ankles broken tooth and several lacerations on my legs and lower body.

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Here my luck began to change slightly the encounter with a barrel seemed to slow me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell into the pile of bricks and fortunately only three vertebrae were cracked

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I am sorry to report, however, as I lay there on the pile of bricks in pain. Unable to move, I again lost my composure and presence of mind.

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And let go of the rope, as I lay there watching the empty barrel begin its journey back down on to me. This explains the two broken legs. I hope this answers your inquiry.

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Now, again, it’s kind of a silly story. But like I said, this is something that is I heard a different version of it about 30 years ago and I’ve heard several different versions since then. But this I think really kind of shows again this this man.

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You know encountered all of these different things broken vertebrae legs fractured skull, all these different things, because he was trying to do the job by himself.

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And I you know I get it, you know, we’re told to do things ourselves and to be independent, just like I talked about before, but when we choose to do things by ourselves.

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Often things like this may happen. Now, I’m not saying if you do things by yourself like this that you’re going to get broken legs and everything else like is in the story.

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But sometimes, that is the case, I’ma share story with with you about me here in just a minute.

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And so again, but but what I want to bring home to you is the fact that doing it by yourself is ok you know we need to have this independent spirit.

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But we need to also have the help of others because invariably, what will happen is when we try to do things by ourselves.

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When we know we need help, but we think we’re just going to push through. We’re just going to make it because we can do this even though in the back of our mind, we know we need some help.

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We end up just like this bricklayer. Now, it might not be broken bones, but it can be other things, emotional, mental psychological issues that we have to deal with.

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So let me tell you the story about myself. And this actually did lead to a broken bone. Okay, I’ve done a lot of kind of crazy stuff in my life. I got a lot of cuts and scratch.

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And bruises throughout my life but I have only ever broken a bone one time and it was a it was a bone.

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On my hand and here’s kind of the story of me trying to do something by myself. So my wife and I had just moved into a new home and the closet. You know where we put our clothes was too small. And so I went down to Ikea. And I bought a new little kind of portable or

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Closet wardrobe that I could actually put in our room to be able to hang up my clothes on. And so this was it was it was a big piece of furniture. It was probably almost eight feet tall.

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And about four feet wide and of course with IKEA furniture. If you’ve ever dealt with that you you bring it home and boxes and then you have to put it together.

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And so again, I’ve, you know, I grew up as the son of a contractor. And so I was very familiar with tools and putting things together. So I started putting this thing together by myself.

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Now, of course, in the instructions from IKEA. It has the little pictures that show you know not, don’t do this by yourself and chose a picture of two people.

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But again, I thought, now you know I can do this. This is no problem. This is easy. I put together. Lots of furniture like this before. And so I just started putting it together.

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I got the whole thing together and one part of the story that I didn’t tell you is we chose to get the the front doors on on the wardrobe, we got were mirrored and so the doors were actually quite heavy because we wanted to be able to have that mirror in our room as well.

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So I put everything together. I got it all situated and and set it up pushed it up against the wall. And again, normally you know the the the

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The furniture just sits there nicely. Another part of the story is our bedroom had carpet in it.

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So I pushed everything back up into the corner. It was sitting there, perfectly LOOKED WONDERFUL. Just like it needed to be

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So I thought, okay, this is great. I opened the door and I start to try to put some of my clothes into the wardrobe thinking that I was all done.

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Now when I did that the weight of the doors and the weight of the clothes in the wardrobe caused it to fall over on top of me.

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Now, just like the brittle hair, all of a sudden there I was laying on the ground with this wardrobe of clothes on top of me.

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Now, it didn’t damage the wardrobe. But I was was rather not in a good emotional state. And so I slammed my hand down on the floor in a fit of anger.

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And didn’t realize that there happened to be something on the floor right there and exactly where I hit all of a sudden immediately I could feel the pain.

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And the swelling in my hand and I looked down and I could see that my finger was not right. It was sticking out a way that it is not supposed to be sticking out.

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And so I had to go down to the doctor, get it set all those kind of things. Now why am I telling you this story, because again, like I said, we all need help from time to time.

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And because I chose not to have someone else helped me with a job that I really knew. I probably needed help with

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But I chose to ignore that and thought, nope, I’m just going to do this by myself. The problem was, it ended up leading to me, breaking my finger.

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Now, it ended up that I had a cast all the way up my arm or, you know, up to my elbow on it because they had to, I had to mobilize it and put it in place.

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I had to live with that for the next four to six weeks even fall I was traveling around the world and trying to figure out how to put my clothes on, with one hand because I couldn’t use my left hand.

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So again, the reason why I’m sharing this with you is to realize that when we need help. It’s okay to reach out and ask for help.

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You know certain things are out there. We have groups of friends. We have other things like that. And let me tell you the truth. You know, a lot of times we

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are hesitant to ask for help because it actually takes courage it takes courage to admit that we need someone else’s help

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But what i’ll tell you from, you know, my personal life and my career. The more we try to go alone without having the help of others.

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Eventually it catches up to us and just like my BROKEN HAND, we end up all having some of those things that happen.

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Now in our career. It might not be a broken bone, but it might be getting fired it might be, you know, looking like an idiot in the company and having to deal with the political fallout from that.

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There’s lots of different ways that this can show up. And so again, you know, like I said at the beginning, if you’re someone who feels like you don’t need anybody’s help

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Chances are, you need help more than other people do and it’s time for you to actually have that courage to reach out and help other people because you know when we do that when we try to do things by ourselves, often

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We end up feeling alone and isolated and we just think if I just pushed harder. I’m going to make it through everything is going to be fine.

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But what is actually going on inside of us is often we feel like we’re carrying this huge weight with us.

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And if you’ve ever carried something that is very, very heavy. You can do it for a while, but eventually your legs and everything else start to get very tired.

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And we end up risking falling down and that can happen, like I said, emotionally, mentally or physically in our lives.

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And so, you know, again, it’s better at that point to actually ask for help, you know, join groups get in, get in a mastermind group join a forum like the chief audit executive forum that I have

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Where you can actually get the support and the help of others because like I said when we try to do things by ourselves, inevitably, we end up hurting ourselves.

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So don’t do it alone. Don’t be like the bricklayer, don’t be like me breaking my hand because I was afraid.

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Or thought I could do it on my own. When I should have been reaching out for help.

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So that’s kind of the message today is, you know, realize that it’s perfectly okay to reach out for help if you need help find a coach, find a mentor.

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Join groups or other things like that where you can actually, you know, get answers to your questions get the support of other people around you.

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Because when you do, I promise. We are stronger together than we are all individually. So with that, I’m going to kind of wrap it up.

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Now I did want to let you know to my the chief audit executive forum that I run. We’re going to be opening that up to membership again in just a little bit.

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We only open that up a couple times a year. And so if you’re a chief audit executive and feel like you would like to get some help from other people as well.

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And join a group of like minded people. Or you can have, you know, frank and open conversations that are confidential with your peers.

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Just to let you know that’s going to be opening up again later in August. Now if you are interested in this and would like to kind of get a jumpstart on everybody else.

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I have created a waitlist and so I’ll leave a link here in on the website that if you’re interested.

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In something like this, I would encourage you to get yourself added to the waitlist click on the link go out, add yourself to the waitlist

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Because here’s how the process works. I go through and interview everybody to see if they are actually a fit for the group.

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Because you have to apply for membership and you have to be allowed into the group.

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And it’s on a first come first serve basis. So when I fill up and the number of people that are going to be led in this time.

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When I have that number of people. It’s over. And so sometimes. Again, we might not even get outside of the waitlist and it may not actually go to the public.

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For them to be able to sign up. So on the waitlist you actually find out before everyone else does when it’s actually ready to open so that way you can get your application in

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Before other people do to make sure that you are at the front of the line. So again, if that’s something that’s of interest to you. I’ve got the links down below so that you can go ahead and sign up for that.

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Because we will be opening that up later this month. So with that, my friends go out, have a great week. And remember, don’t try to do the job alone.

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Make sure that you have the the support of others. And when you do need help, have the courage to actually reach out, ask for help and and be there for others when they need help as well. So with that, have a great week, and I will see you on a future episode of jammin with Jason