My father's death when I was 8 years old shaped who I am today as a leader.

Intro  0:01 

Welcome to the backroom with Bob Howard, where we will explore topics of leadership motivation, sales, workplace dynamics, and trends that are shaping our future. Bob has spent the last 15 years as president of a subsidiary for a fortune 1000 technology solutions company. Bob believes the foundation of leadership starts with integrity, self-awareness, communication, and empathy. Eleanor Roosevelt famously said great minds, discuss ideas, average minds, discuss Events, Small minds discuss people. So let's get started with your host, Bob Howard.

Robert Howard  0:40 
Welcome, everyone. I am Bob Howard. And I am very excited to be kicking off my podcast series called in the back room. And I wanted to be able to use this podcast series to discuss topics of leadership, motivation, sales, industry trends that are shaping our future. But first, I really wanted to share with you why I started my own podcast. So I wanted to connect and share stories of past personal and professional struggles and how people overcame them to be successful. And also to create a diverse community of listeners who can help each other out to be better business people, leaders, and just overall human beings. And podcasts, in my opinion, are also an excellent medium to connect with people about something you're really passionate about. And where people that you normally wouldn't have the ability to connect with on a day-to-day basis. So I was looking up and doing a little bit of research. And from the information I was able to garner from a couple of different industries, data, warehousing, I guess, or just intelligence. And the first one was Nielsen. And what was really interesting was podcast listeners are a very diverse group, 41% of podcast listeners versus the US population, which is 34%. And they are growing at 5x to 6x the other segments. Also, 50% of all homes are podcast fans, and over 60 million homes, listen to podcasts on a monthly basis. So that's a pretty amazing number. And 80% of individuals, when they're listening to a podcast listened to all the most of each of them, which I find to be pretty much on point with my experiences. I know whether I'm at the gym, driving, walking my dog, I do listen to the podcast all the way through and maybe in the last two or three minutes, I might jump out of it depending on what's happening at that point. There is also an industry intelligence website that said in 2021, that the listenership was going to be up 10% to 117 million listeners on a monthly basis. And 60% of those listeners are in that key, what they call a demographic of 18 to 34. And in 21, they're also saying the average time listening is going to be approximately 44 minutes. So that's a pretty amazing amount of time to be able to communicate with folks do interview and be able to share information in a way that people can really take it in and really think about it. Then there's also another website called statistica.com. And 70% of the US population is aware of podcasts and 57% of the population have listened to a podcast. And that's only growing and when you take a look at the worldwide market is actually you know, pretty mind-bending, you know, the audience that's out there. So, you know, that's really why I chose to do a podcast, I just thought that'd be a great way to do it. And I also really wanted to start off by sharing my personal story, not my professional at this point in time, I think over that podcast period, and interviewing different people. We'd be able to really understand and talk about my views on all the business topics that we're going to cover So when I take a look at my personal side that really has shaped who I am today, and I thought I would share my story because it does really define who I am, it really gets to the core of how I approach things. And it really does go back to when I was a child, as a lot of things do for a lot of people. And I just want to kind of share a certain part of that story from when I was eight years old.

And while I've shared this in a lot of different ways, with people I've never really gone into as much detail as probably as I'm going to go into today. So I remember one morning, I was woken up by my mom. It was really early. I remember it was still dark outside. Some of her friends. They were in the living room, they were talking softly. My mom brought my two older sisters into her room, and me while my younger brother and sister were still sleeping. So we all sat down on the side of the bed. And I do remember my mom was kneeling down in front of us. She told us that our dad had passed away. You know, this was devastating to us. And we started to cry and she asked us to try to be quiet a little bit. She wasn't ready to tell my younger brother and sister. What happened yet, as too many things had to be taken care of. She needed to prepare for the week and the funeral. The hardest part was she also asked me to stay with my younger brother and sister at a friend's house until the wake and funeral was over, and that she needed me not to cry, or let them know what happened until she had a chance to speak with them after the funeral. The person that we stayed with was a woman my mom knew I was a stranger to us. She was super nice. She drove a bus for the school system. And we stayed at her house. I don't remember anyone, like any kids or any husband or anything like that at the house. I just remember her my brother and sister. So my brother and sisters slept in a spare bedroom. I slept on a cot. I remember it being a small sewing room with one of those kinds of bi-fold slotted louver doors. And I remember crying into my pillow at night so that my brother and sister wouldn't hear me because it was important not to let them know what was happening. And for the next four days, I didn't have anyone really to talk with or speak with about how I was failing. So I was just learning to push those feelings down the best I could during that time. Well, I wish I could have been with my family for the weekend's funeral. My mom was trying to do what she thought was best at the time. Growing up, I remember feeling very different from my friends and classmates not because they treated me differently but because that's how I felt. At the time, I really can't explain what the difference was. But I felt it. During and after literally games, birthday parties visiting friends' homes, there was just a sense of being different. No one like I said treating me differently looked at me differently but I just felt different from all my friends at that point in time. Also, life became very challenging from a financial standpoint for my mom as she tries to raise five kids. And 1132 square foot three-bedroom raised ranch home. She worked two jobs and try to pay the mortgage. At this point in time, she had us and a Catholic school and put food on the table. I remember one day she was rushed to the hospital which we later found out was related to adult-onset type two diabetes she had gone into a diabetic coma. Her diabetes was out of control and From that point on, it was something that you struggle with her whole life. This did impact her ability to work two jobs, even though she did continue to work.

And at this point, we were really now a poor family living in a middle-class neighborhood, just struggling to survive. We were on food stamps. And you know, thanks to a lot of people like James Hurley, who was the veteran's agent for the town of Randolph. I know that he fought hard for our family to have my father designated as 100%. Disabled vet. He served in the Marines in world war two in the Pacific. And, you know, this obviously helped with a lot of things around health insurance and stuff like that. For my mom, I don't know all the details, other than I know that it was a big help. I do remember, Jim would come and buy food baskets during Thanksgiving, Christmas with Turkey and ham. So we always had a good meal to have in the local church members were a big help from my mom. So growing up was definitely a unique challenge for me. And I do want to follow up with a few other bits of information. Well, not really bits of information, again, pretty life, changing events for our family. Then on New Year's Eve, I think it was 1986. I was driving home from my sister's house and about a quarter-mile from our house, I saw our police and fire truck lights about

On New Year's Eve in 1986, I was driving home from my sister's house. And about a quarter-mile down the road, I can see police and fire trucks as I turned down my street. And I was wondering what happened. And about an hour later, the police were knocking on our door. And they were telling my mom and us we needed to rush to the hospital as my younger sister was a passenger in a car that crashed into a tree. She suffered severe brain damage, was unsure whether she would live. At that point, there were a lot of brain surgeries, I remember that. Like it was yesterday, everything seemed kind of blurry. At that point in time, almost like you're walking in a fog, I'll say. And, you know, going forward, she was quadriplegic, definitely the severe brain damage, she was never the same person from that point forward. And a lot of people helped to raise funds to put a ramp in at the house and prepare some stuff so that she can come home at that point. And we would try to take care of her until it got to the point where, you know, we needed additional assistance, and she had to be put into a nursing home. So the stories that I shared with you really obviously shaped who I am today. And what I've learned from those experiences was that no matter what, never give up, right? It doesn't matter to the level of what those experiences are or what those challenges would be for you. But everybody's experiences while they may be different, the impact to the individual is quite literally going to be the same. But all I can say is things change. Don't quit, you know, never give up on your hopes, your dreams, and your goals. I also learned that you know, in any crisis that comes my way that I'm going to handle it. And I think we really can excel in those situations I can pretty much stay calm. think through what all the different options are. And then push forward. And when you're in crisis mode that can be pretty difficult to do. I also know no matter what the Someone should never really make any type of life-impacting decisions, and have those decisions based on what I call fear-based decisions. You really need to take the time and think through what's best in the long run and not fall into the fear-based thought process. Also, to me, when I take a look at the folks that I've worked with, side by side, and have had that pleasure, that loyalty, honesty, respect for others is really what it's all about. At the end of the day, all you have is your name. So when someone mentions your name, what's going to come to mind, and that's really, to me what's important, you know, someone can make a decision that's just based on the short term, or what might be important, but there's not good for the overall team. And that's something that I want to, I had no matter what I have to live by whatever my moral code is, and be ethical. And to me, when my name comes up, while Yeah, I can be intense at times. I also think that people know that I'm fair, that I'm honest, and that

I'm going to do whatever I can to help them out. And over my lifetime, and I'll be turning 58 in October, I've made many, many, and I've seen many mistakes during my life, some bigger and smaller than others. And I'm still learning. But I'm really still continuing to strive to be a better husband, father, friend, co-worker and leader I know at times that you know, I can become like anyone else really involved or focused on something that's impacting myself or the business. And with that, I really appreciate you all tuning in. And I hope that you take the time and listen to the rest of my series. As they get published. We got some really great interviews are going to be coming out and I think that there's a lot that people can learn from that. So I hope everyone has a great day and I will talk to you later.

Thanks again for listening to in the back room with Bob Howard. And make sure to share your thoughts questions and ideas for future podcasts with Bob at in the back room. podcast.com. Have a great week.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai