The One Thing That Separates Great Engineering Leaders from Good Ones

Just to recap, this is part 3 of a 4 part series, the four parts being the four lessons I learned from my time as a financial advisor:

Basic sales techniques, including but not limited to, being ok with silence, looking for buying questions, and how to take what someone tells you and turn it into a story where you can help them solve a problem (and not to be marginalized, how to write upside down)
Every job is a sales job (you’re selling a product or yourself, but you’re always selling)
Never turn down a free lunch (I would sometimes have 3 lunches in a day where I bought food for other people… and no I wouldn’t eat three lunches… but I’d for sure get a lunch to take home for every lunch after the first one!)
If your job discourages you from being empathetic then your job sucks

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Never Turn Down a Free Lunch

I’m an introvert. I get my energy when I’m able to be alone in a quiet space, watching a show, building a Lego, playing a video game, taking a walk, things like that.

So when I was told that part of my job as a financial advisor was to take people out to lunch every day and be on the phone constantly… I was not pumped. I was gonna do it, because the only thing I cared about more than being left alone was not being a failure. So I did my best.

The way we did it, was by partnering with restaurants to throw a fishbowl on their host stands to have people “win” a free lunch (secret time, everyone won lol), or to just cold call people and offer them a free lunch with them and up to 4 or 5 friends/family. It was an easy win, because the only catch was, you had to listen to me talk for 5 minutes during the lunch. Five minutes for a free lunch? People were IN.

Now your response probably is “well duh Scott, this is an obvious one. Everyone needs to eat, and getting to do it for free, with the only caveat being 5 minutes is something everyone would do”. And you’re probably right! But it’s a blind spot for me. Because for me, I’d rather be hungry than have to eat with a stranger (yes, I do realize this is a privileged point of view, but I’m not going to pretend like it’s not how I act just because I know there are people who don’t have the benefit of that option).

BUT! I learned SO much during these lunches, that even though it’s REALLY uncomfortable for me, I still would always recommend everyone take advantage of the “free lunch”.

A part of this is, I’m expanding the definition of “free lunch”. And, I realize that after these first few posts you could easily reframe this entire series to “Scott trying to say why well tread tropes are actually good” and that’s super embarrassing lol. But it’s what it is!

When I think of “free lunch” I’m not talking about the food (though, I have to tell you, when I was doing this and getting all these lunches set up, the only food I paid for was on Saturdays when I would go to a pub to watch my USC trojans because there was no where else that I could get the games, but otherwise ALLL my food came from these free lunches lol). What I’m really talking about is, when someone is offering you their time, you should take it.

Now, are there going to be obvious exceptions to this rule, for sure. But let me go into how I’m thinking about it and why.

The most precious thing any of us have is time. And as a result the way we use that time is incredibly important. And if someone wants to spend that time with you, there’s a reason. Sometimes it’s as callous as my initial lunches, where it was just that I wanted to make money and the way to do it was to get these people to let me manage their finances. Sometimes it’s just someone wanting to make a connection. And sometimes it’s someone in need of help.

And since we’re supposed to be talking about empathy here, the thing that’s tough for an introvert like me, is that even though I gain my energy from my alone time (or family time, which does the same re-energizing… which feels weird and maybe a thing to unpack later lol) I still need external connection. Introverts aren’t just hermits hiding in a cave, it’s just where you go to re-energize, and then re-emerge to be a part of society.

It’s taken a long time for me to come to grips with how I should behave, and honestly I do a piss poor job of it sometimes, but it’s a long term goal that I want to be that person someone can rely on, and I want to have a village of people I can rely on. So, when someone says they want to chat, or someone just reaches out to say hi, or someone literally wants to go grab lunch, my goal, is to say yes. Yes to engaging with people.

Hold on, we have to go on a few silly side quests lol.

Side quest 1 — I really took this idea of a free lunch for a ride and changed it completely didn’t I lol. I didn’t even do it on purpose! But I want to recognize that I see it. I know what I did. I completely changed the concept and just hung onto the metaphor. Yeesh.

Side quest 2 — I think the Death Stranding games infected my brain. Looking at what I’ve been writing it’s all about connections and interpersonal relationships and how that connects back to empathy and caring your fellow people out there… and damn it’s just another reason those games keep me coming back because it FEELS GOOD to feel like you’re connecting people and connecting to the world and working together to create something better.

Side quest 3 — If you know me, you’re probably reading all this going “but Scott, you refuse to leave your house unless someone makes you”. I KNOW I’M TRYING TO BE ASPIRATIONAL HERE. lol. It’s why I said up front this newsletter was coming out Tuesdays and Thursdays and set myself up with a paid tier because it’s all creating expectations that I have to live up to that I’m not going to do on my own lol.

Side quest 4 — I don’t know if I hope this triggers friends to reach out and say “We should get lunch!” or hope that everyone goes “so many people will do that I’ll just leave him alone” because the lazy part of me LOVES the latter thought process, but the part of me that wants to be a better person loves the former? Being a person is exhausting lol.

Now that we’re back to our originally scheduled programming, I want to just wrap this thought up and start with something that will inform the next post… it’s why sometimes the simple act of being the asker, asking for someones’ time, is the ultimate sign of empathy.

When I was doing all these lunches I met tons of people. They were mostly great, in that they just wanted to get the free lunch and skip out (my favorite, let’s skip the small talk, you’re admitting you’re just here for the food and we let that be our reality). Then there were some that truly bought into the pitch and wanted to talk more. But then, there was the one lunch that is seared in my memory, because it was someone who actually needed help.

I had scheduled the lunch with a woman who didn’t give me any background on herself or her family. I show up to the lunch and meet her very kind and loving family, including her husband, who was in a wheelchair. He had been a factory worker in Ohio his whole adult life. But, in the last year, he had developed ALS.

His job wasn’t just his means to make money but also his identity. And now he lost that identity AND the means to make any money. But his whole life he’d been contributing to his pension and his IRA. And all he wanted, was advice on how to access it so he didn’t have to start selling all of his furniture and belongings to keep his family in the house and eating enough to survive.

He just wanted me to help.

And I was just a dumb kid, I didn’t know how to help and I didn’t know what to do. And I’m sure that after the lunch the response was “that kid didn’t do anything to help us”. And it still haunts me. Because I have no idea what happened to that family. I have no idea whether they have ever given me a second thought. But that’s not the point.

The point is I didn’t help. The point is, that you can’t fix the things you screwed up in the past. The only thing you can do is try and be better the next time. And I didn’t use the word empathy that much in this post, but that’s because all of this is imbued with empathy. You giving your time is empathetic. You asking for someone’s time is empathetic. And you can’t get anywhere alone.

So… maybe not just take the free lunch (I mean always take a free lunch, don’t be stupid here lol), but when you take the free lunch make sure that you’re giving back your attention and care.