Jeff Klubeck (00:00)
We judge ourselves by intent, but the rest of the world is judging our behavior. Can I invite the world to actually look at their own behavior? it's a Trojan horse for a very serious conversation is 100 % self responsibility.
Dee Davis (00:20)
Good morning and welcome to the Management Under Construction podcast. I'm your host, Dee Davis, and we are joined today by my friend and colleague, Jeff Klubeck Jeff is an amazing person. He's a lecturer. He's a professor. He's an author. He is just this incredible person that I was fortunate enough to be introduced to a couple of years ago. We've done a few things together. And today I wanted to bring him onto the show to talk about his leadership model called the Integrity Game.
This is a leadership model we're going to go through in a little bit of detail. But first, Jeff, tell us a little bit more about yourself.
Jeff Klubeck (00:57)
I'm a walking dad joke. I, got addicted to the emotion jovial somewhere along the way. So yeah, I'm going to tell a lot of jokes. It'll take myself too seriously, but to be serious for a moment. I've got a master's in communication. I've been all around the world coaching, speaking, teaching, training. I believe soft skills make strong leaders, soft skills, make strong teams, soft skills, make strong organizations. Married
Three kids, two dogs, San Diego, native SoCal. Big baseball fan and proud of my kids. Grateful for my wife. I pay people to help me in the areas I'm weak and I'm fortunate to get paid to talk to people otherwise. It's weird. It's like I get paid to talk to people. You know don't pinch me.
Dee Davis (01:40)
Well, and you're very good at that. Jeff is so versed in the things that he is passionate about and he's passionate about so many things. It's always a ton of fun to talk to you and hear your perspective on all kinds of things. And I love the dad jokes, by the way. I'm a dad joke-aholic, but here's my problem. I can never remember the dad jokes. So I rely on people like you to tell them for me. The integrity game. It's a 10 point.
leadership model that you presented in your book called The Integrity Game. It's a parable that is framed around your very favorite pastime, which is baseball. It's called a leadership model, but it's really about not just leadership in business, but leadership in your life and taking control of your life and making your life what it is that you want it to be.
and clearing the way for a happy and fulfilling life. Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to define this model?
Jeff Klubeck (02:37)
Yeah. And first of all, it can be called anything really. That's the first thing I'd want to say about it is freedom within the framework. And so if it's leadership, we can play the integrity game for better leadership. But back to what you were saying also, looking within, taking more ownership, being more of a guide We want, to encourage a hundred percent self responsibility. I want to make it easy and fun to look within.
the seriousness of it, heaviness that I know I'm leaning into with this work is accountability. So to your question, where did all of this get started? It's in the land of accountability. I learned how to coach years ago, like in 2007. So I've been coaching for almost 20 years now. And when I learned what accountability really is and how to deliver it, how to receive it, what happens in the, in the exchange and the dialogues.
in the wrestling match, the smoke in the mirrors and the slippery slidey of adults being held to account. It's mind boggling how people throw the word around and to make it silly, I accountability is like parenting or driving. Everybody thinks they're really good at it. It's just everybody else sucks.
And so we get into phrases like accountability will always feel like an attack when we're not ready to be 100 % responsible for our own behavior. That's a klooby snack. Maybe you'll ask me for more klooby snacks throughout the interview. So it's born in the land of accountability. And essentially when I committed to personal professional growth for myself, and when I learned how to coach and I attached my professorial experience to it and created my own coaching and leadership training.
Integrity was a concept. was like on one end of the continuum of accountability, the transformational side of the continuum. And then the transactional side is just like self-management, time management, task management. I call it self-management in the model. Most people call it time management, but that's transactional. What are you going to do with these 15 minutes, those 15 minutes, those 15 minutes? Do what you say you're going to do. That's all transactional. But like, why did you say you're going to do that? That's transformational.
So the integrity game was born in the land of accountability. And over the years, as I get more more fluent, it becomes more solidified as the lenses through which I see the world. I got invited years down the road to do a keynote for the specialty advertising association in California. And I just threw the integrity game in the list of topics that I gave them just to make the list look better, to shake it up a little bit, time management, goal setting, the integrity game.
you know, the usual suspects and I threw it in there just to make the list look better Dee they come back to like, what's this integrity game thing? I'm like, no, no. So now there it is. I got to create a keynote out of it. And that's when the 10 points on the model just bubbled up. Like a photograph, the old school developing where the water and the image is just, you know, that's what it felt like to me. This thing just emerged, but it took decades, I guess, almost. would say, when did I come up with it? The keynote was in.
2020. I've been coaching, geez, 13 years. Been all around the world before I came up with the framework.
Dee Davis (05:44)
It's so obvious to me that you have lived and breathed this for so long, just because every time I get the opportunity to talk to you about that or interact with you in whatever forum on it, it just comes out and you can tell you don't even have to think about it. You just live it and breathe it all day, every day. So for our listeners, the 10 points are purpose, gifts, potential, goals, strategies, tactics, and resources, commitment.
action, learn, accomplishments, and give. And I made sure that I wrote those down so that I didn't mess any of it up because I'm not as good as you, Jeff. I can't remember it all as you can.
Jeff Klubeck (06:26)
You nailed it, those are the 10.
Dee Davis (06:27)
I was immediately attracted to the title of it, the integrity game, because for me, integrity is one of my key values. It's really, really important to me personally and professionally. And we can't talk about the entire model today. picked out a few things that we're going to focus on, but before we do that, I want to talk about the overarching idea of the integrity game. If you could give us a.
overview there.
Jeff Klubeck (06:57)
All right, well the quick and dirty jovial side, just to get it out of the way, the integrity game is as easy to understand as it is difficult to play, right? So one way to answer that question is it's a 10 point framework, just convert the 10 points into question sets and answer the questions. Step one, understand the questions. Step two, answer the questions. Step three, make sure your answers integrate with each other rather than conflict.
or dilute each other. And then advanced level play is the bravery to share your answers with an Integrity Game Certified Coach that can hug you accountable to actualizing your answers. So any noun can be strengthened or how as we like to say retrofit. You can retrofit any noun by applying the 10 questions to the noun, seeking answers to the 10 question sets with the noun as the focus, right? So with purposes that
the first point on the model, for example, what's the purpose of life? What's the purpose of my life? If I don't have answers to that, what am I doing? Then from there we can go and you can ask me specifically about the points that you want to ask about, but it's a game. the reason I say game is because as long as you're playing, you're winning and we want to demystify or we want to lower the guard on the whole look within thing.
So don't say it's an accountability task. I say it's an integrity game. So it's an invitation to look within and let's play and whatever we can do to just, lower people's guard and get honest with yourself about what you, who are you, what do you want? And that's the work that most people avoid. So they're expecting the rest of the world to make their life better for them. So everybody's hitting around the water cooler, complaining about what else is going on in the world, which is why they're not happy. And they're just not taking responsibility for themselves.
That's what it is. Hello. It's an invitation to look within and take responsibility for yourself. That's one answer. The other answer is, to, deepen and widen our understanding of the word integrity. Because when I've done public speaking and I've gone around the world trying this and I've done this hundreds of times, how many of you believe you have integrity by show of hands? How many people do you think raise their hand? Like a hundred percent, right?
Yeah. Okay. So I always joke, I do it with my left. I'm like, I'm sorry, please raise your right hand and repeat after me. I do do solemnly swear, swear not to shoot the messenger. Don't shoot the keynote speaker in 44 minutes. I'm sorry. I want good ratings. I want the organizer to invite me back. Let's make sure we're talking about the same thing. then I say, so what is it? Let's make sure we're talking about the same thing. Maybe I'm talking about something different than you.
And what is it? And I invite whoever's in the audience, whatever size to tell me what they think integrity is. What is integrity? And Dee, I've never done this without getting two answers that I always get. Never failed not to get them. They're usually the first two answers I get every now and then there's a different answer. Kind of cool. A lot of times people say an answer. That's just a wordy way of saying the same answer.
And I get to have fun with it and I get to interact with the crowd and play around a little bit. But the two answers are be your word, do what you say you're going to do. That's the one answer I always get. And then the other answer I always get is do the right thing when nobody's watching or do the same thing when somebody's watching as you would when nobody's watching. So those are the two at core, the thought leadership of the integrity game. And this is what I'm hoping for. Thank you for having me on by the way, to let me get this message out.
The thought leadership on integrity game is this, what most people are carrying around in their head is one or both of those understandings. They're cool, but not cool enough. So here's what I like about the two. When we do what we say we're going to do, we have integrated our word with behavior. There is a coming together. When we say we're going to do something, it's just floating around. But when we do what we said we're going to do, now there is a coming together, an integration word and behavior.
are integrated, there's a wholeness there. Same thing when we do the right thing. Regardless of who's watching, there is an integration of behavior with value or moral or ethic. So in both cases, there is an integration of not good or bad, not right or wrong, just did or didn't, together or not together. So most people have so much ego defense that they can't just tell the truth when they're quote, out of integrity on a particular commitment.
or an expectation that was set. They put up the ego defense and they want to explain or justify or smoke and mirror and slip and slide. And it's just a natural ego defensive reaction like flinching at a bee buzzing by your ear. It's no different. It's automatic. It's expected, but it wastes our time and it obviscates to the cloudies. And you understand it gets away from the real productivity of it all and the real integrity of it all. The other thing that we like is that behavior shows up in both integrations, behavior with word.
or behavior with values. So integrity is like when we're integrating our behavior with what we've said or what we cherish. And so it's just, it's not like you lied or you're evil, you know, like these judgments that we put on it. So behavior becomes the evidence of our integrity. Behavior. Not, well, I was gonna, well, I was just trying to, well, anybody in my situation would want to, or I thought you wanted me to, or it's none of that.
We judge ourselves by intent, but the rest of the world is judging our behavior. Can I invite the world to actually look at their own behavior? That's part of it. That's why all the joviality, it's a Trojan horse for a very serious conversation is 100 % self responsibility. Right? Now, what I don't like about these two answers, Dee, is that I can say, I'm gonna sleep on the couch for 24 out of every 24 hours for the next three months and then sleep on the couch for 24 out of 24.
for the next three months. I will have done what I said I was going to do, but could I claim integrity? No. I could say, I'm going to get in the car and drive into the first pedestrian I see and then get in the car and drive into the first pedestrian I see. And I will have done what I said I was going to do, but could I claim integrity? And we know the answer is no. We could play evil or we could play small or we could play it safe or we can play it same. It'd be our word all the time, but never really have the integrity of reaching for something, of growing and everything that's in store for us there.
So it's more than just be your word, isn't it? And then the other thing too is you and I both live in the same country, right? And depending on which news channel you watch, that's gonna determine what's right or wrong, or bad, clean or dirty, savage, right? So do the right thing regardless of who's watching. Yeah, what news channel are you watching? And I'll tell you what the right thing is, okay? That's number one. Number two, to be more, thank you for laughing, to be able to just a little bit more serious and then I'll end on this, answer to this question.
It's a moving target. Okay. You know, sometimes time is money and sometimes patience is a virtue. Sometimes you can't beat the person who never gives up. Sometimes you better know when to cut your losses.
Most of the time people say you should never lie to your human being. Oh yeah, well why are people putting an elf on a shelf for 26 days and quilting their kids into good behavior? Well tell me don't ever lie to your children. Come on, stop it. So in other words, we like the values we like when we like them and we like what we like when we like what we like it. But it's a moving target and what are we doing wasting any of our time walking around judging other people? You didn't do your word. Wait, was my word to you or is my word to me? I negotiate my own expectations.
with myself. This is my side of street, it's your side of the street. So how do we promote 100 % self-accountability, self-responsibility? Oh, I know, let's play the integrity game. So that's a lot of thought leadership. I'm trying to broaden, deepen our understanding of the word integrity and funnel everything back inward so that we can then really, really work from the inside out as a model of integrity. It's hard work. That's why I trojan horse it with the joviality.
Dee Davis (15:04)
Well, and I love the game part of it because all games take practice to get good at. You're not going to just be good at this, right? At the very beginning, you're going to make mistakes. You're going to stumble. You're going to fall. You're going to misjudge. That's life. We're human beings. We're not perfect. And that's okay. That's totally fine.
Jeff Klubeck (15:24)
Yeah, it's definitely not about good or bad or right or wrong at all. So just trying to be the best person we could be. But we have to take responsibility for what that means for us.
Dee Davis (15:32)
I think purpose is something that is really, really important for people to define for themselves, regardless of their role in their lives and their business and whatever industry that they're in. I remember going to a workshop years ago where that was the entire goal of the whole day workshop was to figure out what is your purpose? Why are you here? Why do you do what you do?
It seems kind of silly to explore that in an entire day, but it was actually quite valuable. And, our purpose is like a hat that we wear in our various roles. My purpose as a mother might be very different than my purpose as a manager. Might be very different than my purpose as a business owner or a wife or pick a hat, right? In the integrity game book, in the story of the integrity game, the character Luke struggles with defining his purpose.
And it's presented to him with this question. What is the meaning of your life? And you already said this. What is the meaning of your life? Which sounds really deep. You're just like, I don't know. That's like really big and scary. Right. Some people would say philosophers have been struggling with the meaning of life for as long as people have existed. But here's the thing. It's not what is the meaning of life.
It's what's the meaning of your life and only you can decide that. in the book, you compared it to some sports movies and used a lot of sports metaphors because the whole thing was framed around sports. I'm to ask you to not use sports to try to explain why it's really important for every single person that's listening to this cast right now. Why is it important for them?
to try to define their individual purpose.
Jeff Klubeck (17:19)
Why is it important? Well, in my opinion.
You will never know the value of anything without answering that vital question first. In my opinion, you are more likely to be blown around by life like a feather in the wind, rather than cutting through the winds towards something that you really cherish. You're a pawn in somebody else's game instead of playing your own game. You become dismissable, expendable.
sacrificeable when you limit yourself that way. It's harder to take advantage of you, manipulate you, coerce you, oppress you, hoodwink you, if you've got purpose. You don't have time to be suckered. If you're on your way.
to something predetermined. And I'm speaking in kind of like wax poetic kind of rhythm here on a Friday that we're recording this, but like everything else is at stake. Everything else is on the line without filtered through purpose. If you know your purpose, then everything else either integrates or it distracts or dilutes, right? So I want to know every day, every minute, what I say yes to, what I say no to.
You know, I want to be empowered in my nose and empowered in my yeses. And I think a lot of problems exist in this world because people don't know what to say yes or no to because they don't know who they are. They don't know what they want. They haven't declared purpose. And we were talking about what gets in a way of declaring purpose, but the importance of it. My goodness. I don't know how anything else has any importance without first having the courage to declare some importance around purpose.
Dee Davis (19:02)
Well, yeah, and this is your life, right? Isn't that? Didn't that used to be a show? This is your life. You get one shot, And every day you get that new shot. Just because you messed it up yesterday doesn't mean you can't get it right today. But you get this one opportunity in life to really get out there and tackle it and make it what you want it to be. And without purpose, yes, I agree. I don't even know
where you would start. I think we see a lot of people in that position where they don't know where to start because they don't even know who they are or what's important to them. I've gone through personal and professional coaching with you, with other coaches to help me figure this stuff out for myself, for my business, for me as an individual person. And I highly recommend it for anybody out there who hasn't done that.
to, do that, to take that time to do a little bit of, coaching of yourself. because it's really, really important to figure out who you are, why you're here. and what to do next, to me, right. What do they say? It's after the dash. I was born in 1971. Dash.
I don't know what comes after that, but it's the dash that matters. What I do in between when I got here and when I left. That's your purpose.
Jeff Klubeck (20:27)
Yeah. Purpose is everything. I don't know how we ever arrive at the value of anything without first paying attention to what we value in our purpose. And I would say that from the integrity games perspective, we do want people to have answers to questions of what is the meaning of life. We do want you to think about that. There's got to be some thought leadership in your life somehow, somewhere. We're not saying they have the answer, but have you given any thought to
why life exists, what's the meaning of life, and what's the meaning of your life, So we do want people to imagine thought leadership they've had in their life or where thought leadership may exist right now to connect to the great minds of our universe that have asked these questions about meaning of life, to contribute to our collective understanding of it, but ultimately at the end of the day, to behave.
in such a way as to be consistent with what life or our lives mean. The integrity game will say that we don't care if your purpose tomorrow is different than your purpose today. What we care about is every day without a purpose.
the example without a sports metaphor, there was a time in my life where my purpose was every day of my life, my purpose was to help my parents reach mortality with some sort of dignity and grace. That was my purpose. Everything that contributed to that was a yes and everything that was not that was a polite no, not now. And that was it. And I had focus and it was rough. Now you ask me, Jeff, what's your purpose? Obviously it's to popularize the integrity game. That's my purpose.
But if you said, Jeff, what's the meaning of life? Well, I have a working answer, to me, life exists to reproduce and evolve. That's to me, that's what life does. Reproduction evolution. That's what life is about. Make more, get better, make more, get better. That's my understanding. I don't know if that's consistent or inconsistent with any of the great understandings that exist in the world, but
That's to me. That's what life means is reproduce and make more, you know, get better and make more. know, keep making them new and improved. Right. I always joke with my students by the way, the 18 year olds that can't get off their phones Dee. You know what I tell them? This is so I hope you laugh. I tell them reproduce and evolve. I tell them, Hey, don't worry. You don't have to get off your phones. And they look up and they go, don't like, no, go ahead. Get back on your phones. There's a third eye growing out of your forehead right now.
that will help you protect yourself while you're still on your damn phones. It's evolution, baby!
Dee Davis (23:07)
I can't even imagine trying to teach a room full of 18 year olds. I don't know how you do it my friend.
Jeff Klubeck (23:14)
I do it with humor, with humor, of course. Joviality. But you know, the whole third eyeball, that's not a dad joke. That's a Klubeckian special right here. That's a Klubeck original
Dee Davis (23:24)
Yes, I was going to say, so I didn't actually put this in here, but anybody who hasn't met Jeff yet or been exposed to Jeff's many, many things that you've got going on, you've got multiple books, you've got multiple things going on. He has these things called Klooby snacks. He loves to make little plays off of his name, off of Klubeck And he has these things called Klooby snacks. I don't know how many there are. There's hundreds, I'm pretty sure.
Jeff Klubeck (23:50)
There's over a hundred. There's over a hundred. I don't know if you've gotten quite to two hundred yet, but definitely over a hundred, firmly over a hundred.
Dee Davis (23:58)
don't think we've ever had a conversation where you didn't throw out a Klooby snack. So he's got them in his back pocket all the time. ⁓
Jeff Klubeck (24:07)
By
We've already dropped at least three or four today, even if I didn't call them out.
Dee Davis (24:10)
All right, the second point of the model is gifts. And I think this one's a really important one because everybody's different. We all have these wonderful, different gifts, which are strengths that we have that are unique to us. And we all carry those in our own unique way in our personal and professional lives. We talked about this a little bit in the podcast season.
Two episodes, 19 and 20, when we had a guest named Suzanne Tuliene who talked about personal and business branding. It's all tied together. It's all about getting those differentiators out there to build our brand and those differentiators, those are our gifts. That's another word for the same thing. What makes us different? What makes us strong? And it's all very closely tied with purpose. As a leader, why is it important?
to understand your own gifts and the gifts of the people that you lead and how can that help you in your business.
Jeff Klubeck (25:13)
There's a lot there.
I guess it's the same answer to the layers of the question. First of all, a Klooby snack, everything other than the average is a gift, above or below. So you imagine getting to the bottom of a swimming pool, sounds like that sucks, right? But if you're halfway through and I'm all the way at the bottom, who's going to get to the top faster? I will, because I've got something to push off of and you've got to self-generate.
I'm going to fly by. there's a, there's a, even rock bottom has a gift because of the leverage. And so I just want to make sure that from a thought leadership perspective and kloobysnack, everything other than the average is a gift above or below. Now when it comes to leadership, right? Nobody succeeds alone. And then Yang opposites attract some, some people are extroverted. Some people are introverted. Some people,
are aesthetic, some people are theoretical, some people are drivers, some people are supporters, some people are persuaders, some people are promoters, etc. So it's really important to understand where you're at so you can play to your strengths and you can hire your weaknesses or if you're on a personal quest you can be real about your weaknesses and work to turn them into strengths but you want to know where you're at, where you want to be and what it's going to take to get there and so you want to be honest with
who you are and what you're capable of doing. And then when you're going to need to look beyond yourself for other gifted people, there's a great book out there by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy called Who Not How? And you're nodding. It seems to me that you've read it. It goes way beyond just optimizing one's self.
I love the whole idea. like, wait a second. you're my who? What a great thing that you find your who. It's such a relief. my God, I don't have to do that. I finally found the who. But you know what's really cool about that is it's like, well, guess what? In doing so, you get to be the who for them. So when who's are who in each other, that's magic. It is wonderful. There's a feeling that's indescribable to be connected.
to other moving parts whose talents you get to respect and admire. You don't take the weight of the world onto your own shoulders and feel like you gotta do it all yourself, which is an impossibility. When you get to stay in your zone of genius and keep emanating and keep vibrating from that place and get more out of yourself, out to the world than you would otherwise if you didn't have the other resources, if you weren't aware of how genius you were, if you didn't have the courage to own your genius, you don't.
dimming your flame, then you get to see who else is aware of their genius and there's more opportunity and we keep our head up. There's just such a ripple effect to it all. So I hope that gives a good answer to the question of it's magic. It can be very, let's bring out your brand. What's your competitive advantage? What's your differentiation? Why do people buy from you instead of other people? Why do they hire you candidate instead of hire somebody else? Why did that person get the raise and the promotion instead of you?
And nevermind the politics and the dirt that they have on you. And nevermind that, what are your competitive advantages? So are you able to market yourself? Are you able to knock constantly on doors of opportunity? Are you gifted enough to, to brave the embarrassment, which is often the price of admission to new and next levels. Our gifts fuel us. You deserve our optimization, our celebration, our
sharing our cultivation. They wouldn't call them gifts, otherwise.
Dee Davis (28:54)
And I swear I did not prompt him to bring up who not how I've mentioned that book a number of times on the cast because it is such an amazing concept and we've had some deep discussions about that concept. So thank you for connecting those dots for us yet again on the cast. If you like what you're hearing so far, don't forget to boop the like button and share this episode with a friend.
The next part of the model that I wanted to talk with you about is potential. think potential is an endlessly exciting and fascinating topic to talk to people about because it truly is limitless. One of my very favorite reminders is the saying that the greatest adversary that you will ever face is your own potential. If you're a Star Trek nerd, you might get where I'm pulling that from. For me,
It's home because our potential as an individual human person, our potential is so enormous. And the fact that we are the only ones that can limit it and that we have to constantly challenge ourselves to meet it. We absolutely know it's easy to lay on the couch and do nothing. But when we've gone through and we've defined our purpose, we've recognized our gifts.
How can you not go out and try to live up to your potential? And what is that? I think it's true for individuals as well as businesses. can't tell you how many businesses I've looked at and said, if this business could just get out of their own way, their potential would be enormous compared to what it is right now. How does the integrity game address potential?
Jeff Klubeck (30:37)
First of all, the joviality, when I'm doing public speaking around it or webinars or online stuff, when I'm public speaking on it, say, potential is this really cool word, until we use it in a sentence. You're wasting your potential. You're not living up to your potential. Why can't you reach your potential? Thank you for laughing, but a lot of us get beat down and get beat away from this potential thing. I agree with what you're saying. Limitless, the possibilities. But some people that have been beaten down,
see it as, it's too enormous potential is too enormous. Why bother the couch is easier. And by the way, do we have any ice cream? couch and ice cream usually go together. Anyway, so you understand what I'm getting at? So that's, that's the joviality of it all. That's the standup bit, but we want to put the potency back in potential. You know, we want to reactivate it as something wonderful to lean into. We want to find a way to invite people to actually start to get, get into the potential game.
You talked about like even with your positive attitude because you believe you do everything like podcast books, companies, projects and education courses and community and what else don't you do? Right? Anyway, so here you're amazing.
but not everybody's as healthy minded and driven and well trained and as educated. You're a rarity. Most people see this limitless. All right, well, I'll get my percentage of that limitless. You're like, I'll get my share. You're rare. Most people like, that's, where do I start? It's too much.
So how do you need an elephant one bite at a time? Right? So I decided, how do we create doors of entry? How can we just, just knock on this door to see what the other door go through this door or how can I make an entry point into this, make it accessible potential? Can take it from the enormity of limitless into something a little bit more accessible without losing this very special.
Quality of limitless. So I took this limitless and I reshaped it into vision. Vision is a word that commonly gets used. All kinds of companies have vision values, mission statements, and I laugh. I'm like, what's your vision statement? it's this thing we put on the wall. Don't look at the wall. Tell me what your vision statement is. It's on the wall. No, don't read the wall and tell me what your vision statement is. It's this thing that we decided to put on the wall last year. No, tell me what...
Recite your vision statement for seriousness. Thank you so much. much fun. Vision is the end game of now. I just used a chronological frame. Are you acting to be serious? A chronological frame. So instead of this limitless being 360 degrees all around, like me in the middle of a sphere and potentials, the enormity of the entire universe. I just went no.
Now this limit list is as far out into my future as I can possibly see. So we encourage people to if you can only see one year into the future, then that's it. If you can only see tomorrow, that's it.
as far out into your futures you can possibly see. What do you see? So the first thing that integrity game does to make you accessible is invites people to imagine a period in their life that represents as far out as you can possibly see. It be five years, could be 50 years, could be 10 years, be if you're spiritually believe in reincarnation, could be a couple thousand years, whatever. Far out as you can see, it's up to you. Some people can't see any past tomorrow. Some people could see lifetimes.
Whatever, it's your game. But vision is the point at farthest out you can possibly see. And then integrity game says, okay, describe that. Just what do you see? Just describe everything that you see that you could possibly see farthest out. Then come back to yourself, to mission. So closer to the here and the now is mission, which is still quite a ways away.
but just not as far as farthest out. And so the other distinction between vision and mission and companies mix this up all the time and have their own approach to, no, our vision is, our mission isn't, whatever. In the integrity games vernacular, vision is farthest out we could possibly see and then chronologically closer to the here and now, but still several years away or whatever, is mission. And mission is not a description.
Mission is an achievement. It's an accomplishment. It's a destination. It's an arrival. That's the distinction. Describe what you see when you look at as far. Now tell me what's your mission. What's the biggest thing you'd have to achieve in order to make sure that that is the description when you get that far out? What's the mission on the way to the vision? And then still nearer is objectives that we reserve for annual. All right, what are the annual objectives?
What do we need to do in 2026 as we're recording this? What are our objectives in 2026 that will prove we're on our way to the mission, which will prove we're on the way to the vision. And so we can play around with that, but it takes this enormity and it breaks it down into three really accessible phases of our life, however we want that to be. And I'm just telling you starting points, annual objectives. It could be our weekly objective.
You, whatever the timeframe fits you. But then the fourth coin on the model that you mentioned, and I don't know if you're gonna ask me about this is goals. Goals are so important. They get their own point on the model, but it starts, it's like the fourth piece of the chronology. So just in potential only, we've got vision, mission, objectives, farthest out, still quite a ways away, annual. And then we leave potential to get into goals, which are so important. They get their own point on the integrity game model.
but it's less than annual, quarterly, three to six months or quarterly. You know, we were big, we're big fans of 90 day, 90 day, 90 day, Q1, Q2, Q3 seasons. So that's my response to making potential accessible. First of all, let's make it fun again. Let's make it accessible again. Let's lift the people up that got beaten down by parenting or thought leaders that were living vicariously to the kids and ruin the whole thing for everybody. And let's invite the good.
healthy souls and impressionable minds back to the potential playground again. And let's create a couple of apparatus that can make it accessible and inviting. And that's what we want to do. Vision, mission, objectives.
Dee Davis (37:15)
What you described is kind of the steps of breaking down the proverbial elephant, right? It's another way of looking at it. And I think you're right in that people get something big like that. You're like, potential. What does that mean? That's you. It's like saying, save the world. How do I do that? We cross this bridge in sustainability world all the time. You'll say, we got to save the planet. Great. Okay. And.
So what does that mean exactly? How in the world do I do that? It's really the same kind of problem and breaking it down, looking at the entire model that you've built and defining that stuff based on your own goals and your own purpose and all the other stuff that's in the model helps a lot. It helps focus so that you can get to the point where you're like,
I get it. I can do this. I just got to figure out what the steps are in between the very long shot goal and the closer one. And how do I get everything in between?
Jeff Klubeck (38:17)
Well, as a kloobie snack goes, nothing is insurmountable when coach Jeffrey's holding you accountable.
Dee Davis (38:22)
I love it. You never run out of them, I swear.
Jeff Klubeck (38:26)
do not. of the reasons I'm on the planet, you what's your purpose? Well, it's to promote Klooby snacks, is to popularize the integrity game, is to laugh people's way into the learning. mean, I, it's, it's a very humble a lot, Dee, but I will tell you it is something else to know who I am and what I'm supposed to be doing every minute of the day. It is unbelievable to just live in my own skin and be who I am and know that I've got some really important things to do in this world. And I've got the gift.
in the skill set to package it in the joviality that warms hearts and provokes minds and I don't go for the jugular I go for the hugular.
Dee Davis (39:02)
And this ladies and gentlemen is my friend Jeff. All right. The last one I want to hit on for today's episode is commitment. This is another one of those words that people go, no, this sounds terrible. The C word. Yes. So, but this is something that's incredibly important for every role that you have in your life. Commitment is important for every stage of your life, every role in your life, in your career.
Jeff Klubeck (39:14)
The C word.
Dee Davis (39:28)
I think the most important thing I learned about commitment some years ago was committing to yourself is the most important thing. You are the most important person that you can ever make a promise to and holding yourself accountable to making and meeting your own commitments to yourself is incredibly important. Not just committing to other people and living your life for everybody else, but for yourself. And it helps you manage your state of mind, your moods.
those little voices that creep in there inside your head and try to tell you that you're not good enough or that you can't or that it's too hard. We had an episode earlier this year from a small business owner that talked about that little voice that kept telling her she couldn't until she told it to shut up and said, yes, I can. And she's found some wild success. We tend to put everybody else first and ourselves last in the integrity game parable.
Coach Terry helps Luke and Allie, two other characters in the book, and by the way, you'll have to get your copy of the Integrity Game. It's a fun little read. you. Coach Terry helps Luke and Allie learn how to make commitments that they can keep and be accountable to themselves and each other. How do you see this unfold in real life and why is it so important to get it right?
Jeff Klubeck (40:45)
Have you ever seen a piece of paper crumpled up into a little ball?
That's how I see it unfolding in real life. That's why I wrote the damn book.
Dee Davis (40:52)
Ha ha!
Jeff Klubeck (40:53)
All right. So I always start with the Joe wheel. Okay. Right. Just to be patternistic in my response to the questions. How do I make commitments to self and others? How do I see it unfolding in real life? I see it a lot of different ways. One way I see it unfolding is people that have not made any commitments to themselves. And I'm over committing to others.
People that have made too many commitments to themselves can end up putting too much pressure on others. There's a continuum. How much expectation are we setting for self and what's our fulfillment of expectation that we set for self? There's a continuum and a range, and then there's a continuum and a range of how do we set expectations for others and how do we fulfill on those? I haven't done a scientific study. It would be interesting, right, to try and find some X point where these phenomena.
across and try to be cool. But I think what the integrity game really is most concerned about as a whole is expectations for self. To carry your mask first. If we have not built our relationship with our word first and foremost,
Not much else is good. You know, chasing rabbits after that. It's a slippery slope. It's like, trying to un-melt ice cream after that. So the idea of committed is how do you see it unfolding in the world? Well, what's the divorce rate?
Dee Davis (42:20)
Yikes, I actually just was looking up some statistics on that very topic for a totally different thing and it's not pretty.
Jeff Klubeck (42:28)
But it's more than half, right? More than half ended divorce, right? So that's what commitment means. That's how it unfolds in the real world, is we should be calling it uncommitted.
Which by the way is another book I wrote. It's an integrity game story with my friend and yours co-author Joey Santani. Nevermind, we used the integrity game concept and we did a prequel
Dee Davis (42:44)
familiar.
Get. He's never off by the way, if you're wondering. I'm pretty sure there's no off switch.
Jeff Klubeck (42:46)
Got it in there.
I'm a zot.
Yeah, so those are a couple of answers. Do you know what I mean? There's a continuum that everybody sits on in terms of their relationship to their work. People say, word is my bond. And they're really saying that because that's how they want you to know them. But they haven't really done the introspection of granular level accountability on monitoring their expectations they set for self and others and their level of follow through on that. And the integrity game, by the way, is word slash commitment. So number one,
We want you to be careful about the words you're choosing. Words vibrate, words have energy. There's always emotions attached to words and vibrations and energy. So why say should when you could say could? Why say hate when you could say genuinely dislike or not fond of or not my favorite? Words matter. So the integrity game is an invitation to everybody to be very careful about word choice.
And understand that your words are my window into your mind. The words you choose will help me see into the emotions you're experiencing, the beliefs that you're harboring, and so many other things about your communication, your non-verbals, and so on and so forth. Words are number one. Number two, your word matters. And we, honestly, if you got to start somewhere, start here, right?
build your relationship to your word. What's my relationship with my word? How do I manage expectations I set for myself? And that's what the integrity game is partially here for. So we know not enough people in the world are setting any expectations for themselves. They're just expecting everybody else in the world to bend for them.
So people are walking around with a sense of entitlement or they plug into some media source and they re-agurgitate what somebody else told them and nobody's doing their own thinking. Nobody's figuring out who they are. Nobody's deciding for themselves who they are and what they want. So everybody's complaining about the world or plugging into being on and everybody else's game. And it's, you know, it's an invitation to start with and own your life, claim your life. I know it's hard. We're trying to make it easier. I know it's hard, but just answer this question. All right. I know. All right. Skip to the next question. You come back to the first question.
Enter any of these ten points, just start playing your own game,
Dee Davis (45:03)
All right. In summary, how does the integrity game help leaders become better leaders?
Jeff Klubeck (45:10)
Leader, let's talk about leadership and what, what, what counts as a leader. So on the one end of the continuum, we lead from whatever seat we're in. So just instead of looking at a leader, the leader, no, no leadership is the collection of any and everything that gets the thing more things to the place that everybody has agreed it needs to. So
I can lead from whatever seat on the bus, whatever role I've got, I'm going to lead with contribution. I'm going to lead with resources, ideas, volunteer, helping out, picking up the paper clip off the ground, boundary spanning, staying engaged, whatever seat I'm in. But then there's this other notion of leadership, which is the leader, the person with the direct reports, the person that's got to be out in front, leaders go first, leader of the army, leader of the band, the conductor, the orchestrator, on and on.
So from either perspective or anything in between, leadership will experience pressure tests.
Period. Right? So back to the concepts that you asked me about earlier at the beginning of the interview, what's the integrity game all about? Well, metaphorically, we believe that a building, a bridge or a tunnel will collapse under pressure tests without structural integrity.
But with structural integrity, the winds can blow, the rains can come. In some cases, vehicles can crash in and it'll still keep doing what it's built to do, made to do. So the integrity believes that individuals, including leaders, organizations, teams, we're no different than the buildings, bridges and tunnels. We were all built to do something. We're all here to do something. We're all equipped to do something.
And so the integrity game is providing structural integrity for leaders and their teams so they can do what they're built to do. So they could do what they're capable of doing so they can withstand the pressure tests that all leadership faces on its way to doing what it's capable of doing. You are not going to achieve anything better than the average without facing pressure tests. So the integrity game is here to provide some structural integrity from the personal and professional soft skill perspectives.
You can go get an insurance policy, you can go get a lawyer. Right? But we'll help you with the soft skills.
Dee Davis (47:34)
I love the tie-in to construction with the buildings and the bridges and all that. Thank you for that.
Jeff Klubeck (47:40)
Know your audience, know your audience.
Dee Davis (47:42)
That is so awesome. Well, I thank you so much for joining us today. How can our listeners best reach out to you?
Jeff Klubeck (47:51)
Well, they should reach out to you, Dee, and they should ask you about the Integrity Game group coaching program. Or they can find me and just say, Dee sent me. So if anybody wants to play the Integrity Game with Integrity Game certified coaches and other learners that actually could participate in the peer advisory style of community-based coaching that we provide, ask Dee, ask myself. I'm very easy to get a hold of. Mention Dee, mention the show if you reach me directly.
Jeff Klubeck on LinkedIn is probably the best, but you can go to integritygame.com. Anybody can send an email to jeff at get a clue.net. Any of those ways are great to get ahold of me. But if anybody wants to play the integrity game, you can find it on Amazon in book form. Anybody can email me and ask for a PDF copy. If you reference these show, but I'm hoping that we can see you live inside of our group coaching ecosystem. We do two sessions per month.
And it's different. It's different than any other group coaching program out there. And hopefully my interview with Dee today gives you a little understanding of why and how. So we'd love to see you We'd love to hear from you. And thank you so much for giving me the platform,
Dee Davis (48:57)
Thank you very much for joining us. We'll see you guys next time.
