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Cut the tie to anything holding you back from success. Welcome to the Cut the Tie podcast. Hi. I'm your host, Thomas Helfrich. And in each episode, we bring you real entrepreneurs that really overcame challenges on their journey to become successful. We look at the impact, the moment, how it affected everything in their lives. Follow us on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. Now, let's meet our guest on Cut the Tie podcast.
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Today, we're joined by the guest, Mark Murphy. Mark, how are you doing today? I am awesome, Thomas. Thank you for having me. Take a moment. Introduce yourself. Tell me what you know, who you are and what you do. So my name's Mark Murphy. I founded a company called LeadershipIQ.
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And in essence, what I do is I go out in the world. I study what makes great leaders and organizations better than everybody else, and then I turn that into training and try and teach other leaders how to do that thing. Sometimes it's books. Sometimes it's courses. Sometimes it's hiring for attitude, unleashing our potential, whatever. But it's all based on what works, what's helping people be great, and how do we train that?
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I always ask people this, like, what's the power statement? Why do people pick you for, you know, there's competition in your space. Why do they pick you? The big reason people pick us twofold. One is that the stuff we deal with is
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insanely practical. So, for example, one of my books is called managing narcissists, blamers, dramatics, and more. That's something that people are, you know, always talking about. But if you live in the real world, you will have to manage people like that. The second thing is that everything we do is driven by data, and that's kind of the our reason for existence is we study what works and what doesn't. It's not just my guesses and my biases. It's what does the data actually say is working
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Even if it's unpleasant to hear, that's what we're gonna go with. Yeah. Well, managing narcissist, by the way, is one thing. Working for another, wow. Harder. Yes. I do you cover that as well in your in your course? Because that's the harder one to be in. I actually just released a new book called working for a narcissist,
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which is the basically, how do you survive? How do you survive long enough? Because listen, it's an untenable situation to live in for a decade, but how do you survive long enough that you can hold it together and
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not blow up, not lose your mind completely, but then find your next step. And that's really the key. That's sort of the practical reality of it. In your journey, what was the tie that you had to cut? Like, what was the thing that you had to get over the person you had to exit from? What was the thing that you're like, oh my gosh. Gosh. I needed to get rid of or I needed to start doing what? You know, the big thing for me is it's what's known as the existence bias.
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And the existence bias is the idea that just because something has been around for a long time, it, you know, the existence bias is if it's been around for a long time, it's it must be good. It must be the right thing. Overcoming that requires being willing to challenge the conventional wisdom. And I, like a lot of people, you know, I would look at research on, like, you know, one of my books is hiring for attitude. And I would look at the research and go, okay. Well, that must be why new hires fail, and that must be how you have to interview. That it's always been done that way, and we've been doing it this way for thirty years. So there must be something behind it. And the reality is that sometimes things exist just because of complacency, because they're just there, because it's a system that nobody has ever bothered or cared enough to try and change. And for me, once I started to cut the tie, and it's an ever going struggle, it's an ongoing struggle. But when I started to say, you know, listen, just because it's been here for a while doesn't mean it's the right way to do it. That started to open me up to challenge some of that conventional wisdom. And sometimes, you know, sometimes the conventional wisdom turned out to be right, but sometimes I found something really interesting. It was like, oh, maybe there is a better way to do this. Right. Well, I've been doing one of the things I look for, if you do something to and the answer is because we've always done it that way. It's the process you should definitely look at. Outside of being kind to people or, like, things that are maybe been around for two thousand plus years and thinking, like, or even longer. If it's a process and you're doing stuff and, like, if you're repeating it and that like, oh, we just that's how we've always done it. You should definitely that's where your lens should sharply focus on. Does that make sense? Yes. In your own journey. Right? Do you remember the moment, though? So there have been a few, but one big one, actually so for me, a lot of them came with, some research project, some study that I was doing. And for example, with the hiring one, I did this study, and and I thought, okay. This is gonna be interesting. And did this study, we tracked 20,000 new hires to see why people failed, why they how many, succeeded, how many failed, and, you know, 46% of new hires failed and all of that. And I get done with this study, and it says multi year long process. And I look at it and I go, this sucks. This is boring. This is like everybody else has there are a dozen other people that have done this exact study, and I just spent all this time, and I didn't uncover anything new. And then I step back and I looked and I went, well, what assumption have I made? And the assumption I made is that we understood why new hires fail. And somebody on my team said, Mark, what if we just went and asked people, you know, we know that new hires failed. What if we went back and asked why did that new hire fail? And we did. We went back and asked, and that's when we, you know, discovered 89% of the time it was for attitude. It wasn't for lack of skills. I was like, you know, if I had been willing to challenge this earlier, I might have saved myself, like, you know, two years of work on this, but that was a big moment. Like, I almost completely missed this thing just because I I just accepted that. Yeah. Okay. We understand. We didn't ask why. We understand the why. And the truth is we didn't understand the why. Nobody really understood the why. And that was a big moment for me that I then use that a dozen more times to save myself some time and effort and just go, why?
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How come? And Well, always ask the question why. And and I think, like, you know, just to this is one of the cool use cases of AI is. Data gets better and verified. You can ask it why. I ask it why for all types of things. I try to save my neighbors money building decks because of it. I like everything from business to this. And in your own world, asking that question why, that the moment that you're like, well, we assume something, and you were right to look for the assumption. What's been the impact, though, for your business life in general and apply it to other places? Like, give me the impact. The impact is that it's it's made my life a lot more interesting. You know, sometimes I'll be brutally honest. Sometimes when you challenge the conventional wisdom and sometimes
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you go looking for the why, sometimes the answer isn't fun, and sometimes it leads you to an answer that annoys people. You know, I did a study on why CEOs get fired, and not everybody loved the results of the study. And not every CEO wanted to buy my services after we discovered what was really going on. But it is just I've I feel better. Like, you know what? If nothing else, I'm making a contribution to helping people get smarter. And if I am willing to challenge some assumptions, you know, there are stupid things I do in my own life, not just work life, but things like, why am I doing it this way? Is this actually worthwhile? And, again, sometimes you realize that, yeah, I've been doing it a dumb way, and that stinks, and I should stop that. But it's never taking the next step without asking myself, why am I doing this? And, you know, it it just really, truly, it it makes life more interesting, and it gives me some assurance that
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I'm I'm doing something that is adding some value to somebody. It it's you know, I asked this question, like, do you need the house you have? Do you I mean, I start asking myself, like, some people travel the world. I just had a guest on ahead of us that was he travels the world with four kids and his wife, and they just try a new city every six months. And it's like, wow. What a different life. And that completely challenges the conventional wisdom and judgment. And always asking that question is a dangerous thing to do, but also I think a way for growth and experience in life that you only get one of. So I I applaud you for it. If you were to sum up kind of like your you know, for the listeners, like, what advice do you give someone given the journey you've been on? The big advice is to
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dig behind what you think you know about them. And this is I mean, it's I'll tie it to the you know, my work, the like, with hiring for attitude, it's not skills. It's not the resume that predicts hiring failures. It's the attitude. It's who the person really is. And if we apply that to just our own lives with everybody, who is this person really? Like, they're they're more than just the clothes they wear. The more they're more than the job they hold. The person you're talking to on the phone could be at a colleague, be at a customer event, whatever, and your neighbor, they're more than that. And it is that questioning, trying to find what actually makes this person tick. So, yeah, for me, that also does impact my work in the, you know, the consulting and all that that I do, but it's also just a pretty good rule for living. A woman on my team used it, to vet her second husband just as the same stuff we teach in hiring for attitude. She actually applied it to her dating life and, like, you know, what if I actually dated for attitude and, like, you know, tried to figure out who this person really truly is rather than just, you know, all the I think it's a great idea. The resume superficial or their looks or close a job. You know? And that's the thing is that who are they really? And if you do that, it it's pretty good advice for business, but it's also pretty good advice for life. Do some rapid fire. Who gives you inspiration? One of the things I love about my job is because we do research, we're always talking to high performers, and there is somebody on every team. If there are five people on a team and four people cause me to start to lose a little bit of faith in humanity, there's always one person on the team who you're like, this person cares. They're going above and beyond, and they haven't stopped learning. They're still trying to grow. So the people that give me inspiration, I like those those high performers who are still humble, who are still learning, who are still growing in any job. It doesn't matter. And I'm just lucky that I get to talk to people like that on a daily basis. And, you know, because there are days you look around the world and you're like, oh, for the love of Pete, this is horrible. And then you talk to one of these people that's like, none of my watches is gonna go wrong. And you're like, okay. You know what?
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I I appreciate that. That, you know, gives me a little little bit of energy boost. It's funny. A lot of entrepreneurs, they find a lot of inspiration in their customers. I find a lot in my guests. You find in your kids an an inspiration to youth and your in your relationships. But sometimes, especially an entrepreneur, I think you find a lot in the people that are around you a lot that serve you in your dream. And you see that and you're like, I really appreciate that person. And I tell you, it's difficult sometimes for us because we're out there. Hey, we want everyone on our team to have a side business. Non competitive. We gotta be smart. But I want you to go do a side business. You get four day work weeks. No one tracks your time. You just gotta get your stuff done, but make time to go build something for yourself. I love that. I one of our team, like, you know, they started a taco stand, and I was like, oh my god. Like, because they have this full time job with us, they were able to do this other thing in the evening. I'm like, I love that. But, you know, their family has benefited because they can make money doing that. They had enough to fund it, and it's like, awesome. Great. I love that. I hope you make so much you have to quit. That would make me handy. And at that point, you better fly me to wherever you are so I can get a taco for free, damn it. Exactly. I love that. That's that's fantastic. You know, what's the kind of the best business advice you've ever received? The best advice
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is the minute you've got you think you've got it all figured out is the minute you stop learning, and then you're dead. And that was it was delivered to me by this early in my career by a guy who's about forty years older than me and have been hired by an adviser of the firm I was with at the time. And, he takes me aside and, you know, says a cigar hanging out of his mouth. And, you know, and I was young, and I was cocky. And I, you know, thought I that was challenging some conventional wisdom, but I was doing it a bit arrogantly. And he takes me aside, and he basically lays it out for me. And, you know, listen. The minute you think you've got it all figured out, that's the minute you stop learning, and that's the minute that you are dead because somebody else is gonna come up behind you and knife you, and you won't see it coming because you're too arrogant. And so don't ever think you've got it fully figured out. You know, it was delivered in, you know, harshly, but it was vital advice. What's that one must read book? So I'm gonna pitch two. One is my own, Hiring for Attitude. One of my own, Hiring for Attitude. But I also think if you look at Mindset by Carol Dweck, that's a great one. Hidden Potential by Adam Grant, another great one. I love this all around mindset and how you behave. I'm okay with Shameless Plug. I encourage them, by the way. Currently, though, your business, what's your favorite AI tool technology you're leveraging? The standard ones for us are, obviously, ChatGPT and Claude and using them with custom GPTs so that we can really put all of our research into a particular GPT and then query it, ask it questions, and use it to test our assumptions. And, you know, like you were saying, ask ourselves why. So we'll upload, you know, all of my books and articles and our research studies, and we'll go, okay. Let's start poking some holes in it. But with the with the custom GPTs, we're able to put all of our content in one place and then just start poking at it, you know, relentlessly. Yeah. That's I mean, it's smart. Just people don't realize you can download. It's not very hard. You don't need a computer science degree to do that. That's it. You can it's pretty easy to do. There's installers effectively. You do have to feed the data, though, just to be fair. Day to day to day. But the less you feed it, the more specific it'll be. So, anyway, take that off topic. If you had to start over at any point in your life, so you could pick any time frame here, where would you start over and what would you do differently? If I had to start over, I would one big thing is I would try and learn some of the lessons I learned the hard way. Things like, you know, don't don't just accept things at face value. Don't just, you know, take the conventional wisdom. I would've I would've poked at those a little earlier. And I would've but I would've poked at them in a way that was a little less, in your face, especially early or on in my career, like, in my twenties. I would have been a little less jerky about it. Like, hey. The thing that you all are doing is stupid. This just as flat out doesn't work. I would have approached it a little nicer, you know, but the hubris of youth. And that's the thing that I you know? So I would probably go back to about that point and make a few course corrections, but, really, it's I would not say that I would stop doing what I'm doing challenging because I think that's you know, would I have been more successful and sold more projects if I had done less challenging earlier in my career? Probably, but I would have been not as happy. And that's the thing is, like, it you know, for me, that's that's okay. That I'm okay with continuing to to push a bit. One question I should've asked you today, and I didn't, what would that question have been? How do you answer it? So for me, the the question I mean, we you could apply it a hundred different ways, but let's just take hiring, for example. Why are there still so many companies doing a lousy job of hiring? And you could apply this to leadership. Why? Given everything we're knowing, even AI. Given the potential of AI, why do so few people still use it effectively? You know, we did a study recently where we're finding that the adoption rates is still more than half of people in business still view chat GPT as like a trinket, like a little toy to play with, not as a core business value added. So given everything we're knowing, whether it's hiring, leadership, AI, why are there still so many people not availing themselves of all of the research If you took another layer of that data and sorted it by age with that answer, you'd see the answer.
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So You I don't care. I'm gonna die before this becomes something I have to worry about.
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So I guess, I guess, I'm gonna go get a little bit of retired. I can't It's a it's a real thing. Yeah. It is. A %. Shameless plug time for you. Who gets ahold of you? How do they do it? So, typically, companies that when it comes to hiring for attitude, for example, companies that are sick of hiring talented terrors where they wanna hire people that have the right attitude to fit their company, and they will typically either read the book or they'll reach out to us at leadership I q dot com. What's the problem that you immediately solve? How to pinpoint toxic personalities in a job interview, and you can learn how to do that in about forty five, sixty minutes. That's like you can immediately make a dent in. We have one client that the CEO goes, you know, the single best thing is we just never hire anymore in our company. And I'm like, well, okay. You're not allowing me to make this a good book testimonial because you're swearing every time you say it. But, you know, it's like, listen. You can stop hiring jerks immediately. It's not that hard to do, really. Actually, I think that'd be a great testimony. Like, the quote.
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We no longer buy or hire any assholes.
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Exactly.
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Perfect. I mean, people are like, I'm gonna call that guy. That's what we don't want here. We have enough assholes. We don't need extra assholes. We cuss here. It's okay. It's okay. Well, I'm not worried about my tell you a channel. See, I, you know, I always have to worry. I'd like I I you know, try and be respectful because I know some places I'm allowed to, some places I'm not. I think you should have your own channel called Am I the Asshole on Reddit and and go through this, like your situation. So it'd be a fun channel to read. Yeah. Something that probably will make the podcast is you and I talking. Coming from Atlanta, by the way, or specifically, if you guys know Atlanta, he's in Roswell. He's outside
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the perimeter like myself. We've escaped the the jungles of of Atlanta. Mark, thank you so much for coming on today. I appreciate it. Thomas, thanks so much for having me. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Cut the Time. Let's stay connected. Please hit that follow button on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube. And if you're ready to advance your entrepreneurial journey even further, join our free community at facebook.com/groups/cutthetie. Cut the tie to everything holding you back from success.