What we talked about
Damon Lembi is the CEO of Learnit, a 3x bestselling author, former Division 1 baseball player at Arizona State, and host of The Learn-It-All Podcast. In this conversation with Federico Ramallo, Damon shares how his “all-in” mindset helped him reach 200+ podcast episodes in under two years:because for him, podcasting feels like getting a personalized MBA through deep conversations with great people.
Show notes
Damon Lembi was drafted by the Atlanta Braves out of high school, chose college instead, hit a home run in the College World Series at Arizona State, and then wasn’t drafted again at 22. The identity crisis that followed, ending a baseball career he’d built his entire life around, turned out to be the entry point into a leadership career spanning 30 years. He joined his father’s company, Learnit, as a receptionist, deliberately refusing to be placed in a senior role he hadn’t earned.
What we covered
- Lembi spent his first five years at Learnit working in essentially every position, setting up servers in classrooms, teaching classes, making cold calls, not because he was technically inclined but because he wanted to build empathy for what each team member actually did; when the CEO role opened up, he successfully argued he knew the business better than any outside candidate.
- The “athletic education” he carried from Division One baseball translates directly into leadership: in baseball, failing seven out of ten times makes you a superstar, which builds the kind of tolerance for failure and persistence that most professional environments never teach; athletes also learn to absorb feedback and implement it 30 minutes later, which is the pace of real organizational improvement.
- His framework for the Learn-It-All leader centers on four qualities he calls the four Cs, character (doing what you say and maintaining consistency, including keeping scheduled one-on-ones), curiosity (the drive to question current processes and explore how AI might improve them), courage (because learning requires stepping out of comfort zones, and learning without doing is, in his words, “treason”), and confidence (which builds incrementally as you take risks and act).
- The know-it-all failure mode he most frequently encounters in organizations is leaders who become the bottleneck: when everyone brings every decision to the founder or manager, growth stalls, strong talent leaves, and the organization stops generating new ideas, the fix is setting clear outcome-based goals and boundaries, then genuinely letting people execute.
- His children’s book, The Learn-It-All Leader for Kids, tells the story of a baseball team where the Pandas face the Oaks and a young know-it-all kid who steps into a coaching role learns that he can’t figure everything out alone; his eight-year-old daughter Lucy appears in the book as the catcher who reads books and asks questions, and his four-year-old son Wally is the relief pitcher.
- On imposter syndrome, Lembi offers a four-step framework: label your fear and think through the worst-case scenario to see if you can survive it, take the leap anyway, engage in deliberate practice focused specifically on the weakest areas (not comfortable repetition), and then in the moment of performance, let go of technique and trust your preparation.
About Damon
Damon Lembi is the CEO of Learnit, a corporate learning and development company his father founded, which he has led for 30 years after starting there as a receptionist. He is a three-time bestselling author and hosts The Learn-It-All Podcast, which reached 250 episodes within its first two years.
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/damonlembi
- Website: http://www.learnit.com
Episode 88 of the PreVetted Podcast.
Full transcript
Federico Ramallo (00:00) Welcome to the pre-vetted podcast where we spotlight extraordinary people and remarkable talent reshaping our world. Today we’re joined by Damon Lembi. He’s a CEO of Learn It, three times best seller author, and he built a career around helping leaders and teams get better every day. He’s also a former Division One baseball player at Arizona State, so he blends the lessons of high-performance sports.
with modern leadership, especially the Learn It All mindset, staying curious, taking bolder risks and building adaptable teams in a world shaped by AI, burnout and constant change. Damon is also the host of the Learn It All podcast where he sits down with leaders, builders and high-performance to unpack what it really takes to grow at work and in life. Damon, welcome to the show.
Damon Lembi (00:54) Federico, it’s an honor to be here. Thanks for having me, buddy.
Federico Ramallo (00:58) Yes, and before we start with the question, I’m truly honored to have you. Let me start by congratulating for the 200 episodes on your podcast in two years. That’s an amazing achievement. You mentioned that you already hit 250. That’s an even amazing achievement.
Damon Lembi (01:17) Yeah, sometimes I think that I just get into something and then I just go way overboard, but I really, really enjoy doing the podcasting because just like we were talking before we came on air, you get to meet so many great people. And for me, it’s almost like getting an MBA, getting to spend an hour or so learning from people.
Federico Ramallo (01:36) Yes, yes, I think that the beauty of the podcast is that it’s an intimate conversation, but it’s also you have access to a broader audience. So, yeah.
And I can understand that, you know, I’m doing the intermittent fasting diet and I just set a goal and I keep, you know, I can do it another hour, I can do it another hour when I’m realizing I’m doing 20 hours. So yeah, it’s interesting.
Damon Lembi (02:03) Well, you have more discipline
than me. mean, in 2026, maybe that’s one of my goals to try the intermittent diet. I could use it.
Federico Ramallo (02:11) Right, right. Yeah, I mean, it’s this idea of a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step, right? So, you know, I kind of focus on the next step, right? And that’s how I’ve been able to do it, yeah.
Damon Lembi (02:24) Yeah, I think that’s really important. you look at, if say, for instance, you’re going to go run five miles, don’t think about having to run the entire five miles, just think about running to the next milestone along the way, know, break it, break down these big goals into much smaller milestones is a much more achievable way of doing things.
Federico Ramallo (02:43) Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you keep pushing forward, you keep pushing forward when you realize you did the achievement, right? Yeah. So let’s start by talking about your career, right? When you realized your career would be about helping people run and grow.
Damon Lembi (02:51) Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, well, I never really thought that I’d be in the situation that I’m in for the last 30 years, which I absolutely love. Very long story short, I’m Damon Lembi and I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. And for me as a kid, it was all about playing sports, baseball, football, basketball, 49ers fan giants. By the time I was a sophomore in high school, I realized that if I was going to play in college or professional, it was baseball. Baseball is my ticket. So I went all in on baseball.
Things turned out pretty well. was a high school All-American. And after my senior year of high school, I got drafted by the Atlanta Braves. And so had my first big choice. Do I want to go play minor league baseball professionally or go to college? I went the college route. ended up, I started at Pepperdine, got hurt there, left. They won the College World Series, which I’m happy for them. And then I ended up at Arizona State. And like my wife likes to say,
my glory days, I hit a home run in the College World Series. I was getting ready to be drafted for the third time because I went all in on baseball. I didn’t get drafted again. So here I am 22 years old. My career in baseball is over with and I didn’t really know what to do. And for anybody who had any kind of identity crisis like I did, it was a tough challenge. And so I mean, I can keep going or just stop if you have any questions. But yeah, that’s where I was 22 years old, thought I’d be a baseball player and
It ended for me there.
Federico Ramallo (04:25) Wow, amazing. Yeah, and I think it’s in those particular moments when you have this identity crisis or when you have this extreme situation where you can sink or swim. And if you don’t have that motivation, it’s hard to kind of push forward, right? So I’ve seen that it’s in those situations where you can just…
If you keep moving forward, you can do something great as you have done,
Damon Lembi (04:55) Yeah, you have to take the first step. I felt like I got to be there’s got to be something out there for me. And I think you got to take the first step. It also helps when you have good people around you, whether it’s mentors or families. And it helped me learn that I was more than just a baseball player. You know, I had a lot of other values and baseball is just something that I spent most of my life doing. And I also realized, and I’m happy to talk about this, that
a lot that all the skills I learned playing baseball were transferable for the rest of my career. And so for me, I was really fortunate. I came from a family who had a big real estate background, big real estate portfolio and a bunch of other entrepreneurial type things that my father started. And he was just starting a computer training company called Learn It. And he was doing it to learn how to digitize his portfolio. He took a class somewhere else, thought it was boring. And he said, there’s got to be a better way to do it.
So we hired a guy who is our CFO at our last savings and loan. And that’s where Learn It came from. No five year business plan. They just went for it. And I just happened to be getting done with school. And so I started as a receptionist at Learn It. And I did that for a couple of reasons. One, I was too intimidated to go work for the big real estate company because I never had a job before. Baseball was my job. And two, I didn’t want to be one of those kids where their daddy puts them up.
at the senior vice president level or something. I wanted to roll up my sleeves and show the people around me that I deserve to be there and start at the ground floor and work my way up.
Federico Ramallo (06:31) Right, right, yeah. I think that there is a lot of…
similarities on when you’re raising a kid, when you’re having employees, right? That you have to show by example, right? It doesn’t matter what you say, matters what you do, right? So I can see how showing the rest of the team that you can do every job throughout the level of the organization. I think that’s very insightful for a 22 year old.
Damon Lembi (06:58) Yeah, think what I found that as you come into an organization, if you’re an entrepreneur or whatever it is, say, you’re moving into a new company, learning as many of the roles as possible is important because then it helps you create empathy. So, for instance, I would help set up the servers in the classrooms and troubleshoot if the PC went down or get to learn a little bit about how we’re building a website and HTML. Not because I was a technical person. I wasn’t.
But I was curious enough, which I think is really important, but I wanted to understand from my team members’ perspective what they were doing, what that was like, so I could help them out. And so I did that. I learned some IT stuff, I taught classes, I went out and made cold calls. And within the first five years, I essentially was in every position at Learnit. And so when our CEO wasn’t working out and the board was looking to find somebody else,
I threw my hat in the ring and I said, look, I’ve helped out with IT, I’ve taught classes, I’ve closed some of our biggest deals. I think I’d be a good candidate because I know the business really well. And fortunately for me, that worked out and I was able to move into the leadership role of CEO.
Federico Ramallo (08:11) Amazing that reminds me of this of this I think it’s discovery the show where they they have the job the the boss hidden within the organization right? Secret trickle boss or something like that ⁓ Yeah, it’s very interesting yeah, You’ve done the same thing, but you know, otherwise counterwise, right? Yes, yes so yeah, I
Damon Lembi (08:20) yeah, yeah, Yeah, I like that show.
Federico Ramallo (08:33) I had a similar journey, but on the technical side. So I started as a software engineer, then I moved to leadership of managing teams, mentoring, leading, and then eventually became CEO of my company. And I started doing product management, which is kind of the other side of the engineering, right? On the engineering, we think about the what?
how to build it, sorry, and then on the product, we think about what we should build based on what the people would need, right? So the more I get into these roles, the more appreciation I get into every specific role for the different reasons, right? And I think that’s a very interesting journey for me, yeah.
Damon Lembi (09:25) I think it’s great to see both sides of the situation. Especially, know, one side you’re really creative and then the other side you’re producing something. And if you could mesh those two, because we’ve all seen somebody who created something and it’s like their baby, but then they put it out on the market and nobody wants it. And it’s because maybe not getting input beforehand, you know, and not being open to what other people may.
find most important. So I think that that’s really interesting.
Federico Ramallo (09:54) Right, right, yes, yes. So can you tell us a little bit more about, you you played Division One baseball, right? How you were talking a little bit about this, how that shaped how you live today.
Damon Lembi (10:07) I found that playing sports, whether it’s individual sports or team sports, and you don’t have to play all the way through college to get a lot of value out of it. But you and I both have young kids, and I think there’s so much you can learn from playing sports. I like to call it the athletic education. And I learned discipline, learning how to collaborate with people, perseverance, having that grit. Because in baseball especially, if you fail seven out of 10 times, you’re a superstar.
So you have to just learn to get up and do things over and over again. I’ve also found that athletes are great at learning how to receive feedback. For instance, I go up to the bat, I strike out, my hitting coach has a conversation with me, he tells me what I need to do and change, I need to be able to absorb that feedback, and I need to implement it 30 minutes later. And that’s all carried over into the business world. I’ve also been fortunate, I talk about, I have a book called The Learn-It-All Leader.
And I got I was really fortunate. I played for three Hall of Fame baseball coaches and I learned a lot about what it meant to be a great leader. And I’m sure like you did as well. I played for some pretty bad coaches, you know, coaches who would take all the credit, pass all the blame, who were inconsistent. And I used all those experiences saying, OK, these are what the great coaches do. I want to replicate some of that. And here are some of the things that I learned exactly not to do.
and make sure I avoided that because I remember what it felt like to be on the receiving end of somebody pushing the blame out on me when things didn’t go well. I think sports is a tremendous opportunity to learn from. Of course, you also get that competitive drive. And when it comes to discipline, if we weren’t 15 minutes late, excuse me, if we weren’t 15 minutes early, we were late. And you just don’t see that all the time in today’s business climate. So parents out there, put your kid in sports.
Let them have fun.
Federico Ramallo (12:03) Yes, it’s an interesting dynamic because you have competition, but also if you have a lot of ego, everybody else on your team is going to let you know that that’s not the way, And they’re very, especially teenagers, they’re very effective to let you know that, right?
Damon Lembi (12:22) Yeah, think teenagers
can be tough on each other. When it comes to sports, sure, it helps to have an ego. I prefer to say inner confidence because there is a lot of failure. But at the end of the day, I don’t think it serves you very well to come across as an arrogant person who isn’t know-it-all.
Federico Ramallo (12:25) Yes.
Right, right. I’m from Argentina, so we always talk about Maradona, right? Although I’m the only Argentinian that doesn’t follow football. Yeah, but anyway, and they talk about Maradona because he was this solo hero, right? He would go alone, right? And he would ignore the team, right? So everybody wanted to follow that path, right? And for me, I realized, well, that’s not a long-term
strategy, right? That doesn’t work out, right? Even though he was really good, he had a lot of skills, but again, it’s a, he’s an exception of the rule in that sense, right? And then he moved to Mexico 17 years ago, and then people are saying, Argentinians are so full of ego, right? And then they took with me and they realized, you’re not the stereotype that I was, I was expecting. Yeah. So, so yeah, I mean, what I’m trying to say with ego is that
you know, the dynamic, the team dynamic kind of balance themselves. So you become better on collaboration, you develop discipline, building the relationship with your teammates. And it’s interesting that you mentioned about feedback because I haven’t thought about it that way. And I think that’s a great lesson learned because you’re always evolving. There’s always something.
to work towards to, right? That’s interesting.
Damon Lembi (13:52) I think that there’s always an opportunity to continue to improve. And feedback, I found to be the fuel for learning. I how are you going to get better if you’re not able to have self-awareness, be open to what people have to say? It goes back to even being curious. How can I do this different? How can I be more productive? And in this day and age, leveraging AI. And I think feedback is critical.
Federico Ramallo (14:16) Right. You also, you know, kind of changing topics, but I wanted to talk a little bit about your book. You also published a kids book, right? Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Damon Lembi (14:28) So my first book was the learn-it-all leader and it’s kind of my story of playing for Hall of Fame baseball coaches learning from my dad and also the great team I built Did I’ve been able to be part of and seen behind the curtain of how leaders lead how great leaders lead and learn And as you and I were talking I have a eight-year-old and a four-year-old and I’m always reading them stories at night
And I seen a bunch of authors who were able to convert their book into a kids book. So I created the Learn It All Leader for Kids. And so I’d say if you’re between five and eight years old, really, it’s a story told in the baseball game and it’s the the Pandas versus the Oaks. And it’s basically a story about the coach gets sick, a kid steps in, he’s a know it all, he thinks he has all the answers and he doesn’t listen and collaborate with the rest of his team.
And the story, I don’t want to give away the end of course, but he learns pretty early on that there’s more to life than trying to figure it all out yourself. And it just, I think, tells some pretty cute stories about how to be more curious, how to be more open, not being a bully, collaborating. And I don’t get any better sense of pride than when I sneak in the room and my eight-year-old daughter Lucy
reading it to my four-year-old son Wally and she’s sharing with him the examples of what she learned from it and Wally gives her pushback on it and they’re both in the book, right? So Wally is the relief pitcher and Lucy’s the catcher and she’s the catcher who reads all the books, went to the library and is always learning and asking questions which as a leader, as a parent, as a coach, asking great questions and really listening is critical.
Federico Ramallo (16:18) Wow, that’s amazing. I’ve been thinking about writing a kid’s book and now that I’m hearing your story, I’m more excited about doing it myself. Right, right. Yes, yes. I’m also very involved on my son’s education and yeah, we’re going through different books. We have a list of books that he’s ought to read. So I’m sure at…
Damon Lembi (16:27) If I could do it, you could do it.
Federico Ramallo (16:43) at your book as well.
Damon Lembi (16:44) Well, just send me your address and I’ll send you a copy of it for your kid. See what he thinks. 10 years old, he might be a little past it, but I still think there’s some good underlying lessons for the kids. And I think it’s so important as a parent, it’s just to, like what you’re doing with your kid, reading a bunch of books and having them get curious and learning. It’s so much more valuable, I believe, than just shoving an iPad in front of them and having them play video games all the time.
Federico Ramallo (16:48) great, great, yeah.
Damon Lembi (17:13) Reading is great. I do my best to spend 30 minutes to an hour with the kids every night. My wife’s even better at this than I am. And just having them read or just having us read to them. There’s so many, it’s a great way to spend time.
Federico Ramallo (17:28) Yes, yes, I agree. I think that it’s also a great opportunity to be a kid again, right? Because you can do goofy things that are socially acceptable, right? Because you’re playing with your kids, right? So I like to, you know, play with my son and bring my inner kid back again, right?
Damon Lembi (17:50) One thing I’m doing with them, which is kind of fun, is the I pull up chat GPT with the voice and I let my daughter dictate what kind of story she wants. And she’ll say, you know, chat GPT, can you create a story for a eight year old girl that the second grade reading level and she’ll she’ll ask it to do different things about her friends at school or whatever. Then it will create the story and I’ll have her read it back. So.
She’s even more bought into it because she helped develop the story with chat GPT and this was a great way for her to practice her reading at a second grade level because it chat GPT wrote it a second grade level.
Federico Ramallo (18:28) that’s amazing. I mean, I’ve done something similar with my son when we were waiting on the car and we didn’t have like anything to do with, I didn’t want to put him on the phone and we were talking and we started doing the same thing. And one thing we were curious about and we started doing it but we couldn’t complete the experiment is how crazy can the story go, right? Like, and this was my son’s idea. So, you know, like.
we start building a story, we added our dog into the story, we added my son into the story, right? And then we start asking, you can you go crazy? Can you go more crazy? know, and keep guiding it towards that. And we haven’t like touched the limit of how crazy that story can go, right? And crazy meaning more of a, know, for a 10 year old means more of a, you know, adding more adventure, adding, you know,
more chaos into it,
Damon Lembi (19:20) Yeah, and that helps with creativity and problem solving even, bet. By just thinking outside of the box, I think that’s a great exercise and fun thing to do with your kid. I’m going to try that tonight.
Federico Ramallo (19:32) Yes, yes, I think that that’s amazing. It’s a very fun exercise that I wouldn’t have thought otherwise. Yeah. Yeah. And the thing I’m doing with my son is I’m leveraging his competing with me, right? He’s trying to compete with me. So I told him, well, I wrote this book, right? I did the Spanish version of the book called Open the Valve, and it’s about creativity.
And I said, if you spot any mistake, let me know, you know, because that’s a mistake that I’d made. And that’s when, you know, eyes shine. It’s like, I am going to find any mistake that my dad did. Right. And he was he he had that competition, you know, into into him. And then we start, you know, we start doing the he read it in in in a single sitting. He read the whole book.
So
Damon Lembi (20:25) Did you enjoy
it?
Federico Ramallo (20:26) yes yes and he found errors so you know he was my fiercest editor right yeah yeah yeah and but but for me for him his initial motivation was i’m going to show you know show my dad’s mistakes
Damon Lembi (20:40) I think what’s nice about that is that you showed your son you’re vulnerable enough to say, look, you know, I made some mistakes in here. Can you find those? And when it comes to leading again, I think the best leaders are the ones who put their ego aside and realize they don’t have all the answers and that they’re not perfect. And when you’re a leader like that, people want to follow people like that. You know, they want to follow somebody who’s authentic, genuine, people that you can relate with.
And it goes a long way. And you mentioned this at the very beginning, when it comes to modeling the right behavior, people will get behind and put a lot of trust in their leader if they feel like they’re somebody who is open to admitting when they make mistakes or figure that they don’t have all the answers.
Federico Ramallo (21:28) Right, right. like, probably this is too silly, but anyway, I like the leadership style of Captain Picard of Star Trek Next Generation. You know, he’s a stoic leader, know, he’s tough with his people, but also, you know, vulnerable as well, right? So, you know, I try to follow his…
his leadership style in that sense.
Damon Lembi (21:53) Yeah, mean, that’s the key is having that balance because if you’re trying to be too kind and too nice, you’re really doing your team a disservice because if you’re unable to have a difficult conversation with somebody or you’re unable to keep them accountable, you’re giving them, you’re preventing them an opportunity from growing and learning and achieving what the team needs to achieve to get to the next level. So it’s a balance between.
that accountability, keeping people on track, and also being kind and even giving people grace when mistakes do happen.
Federico Ramallo (22:29) Right, right. And I think that’s one of things that I appreciate the most about that character because he does that, you know, he opens up saying, you know, I’m sorry for what you’re going through, but this is the expectation that we have, the standards that we have for the organization that you have to follow.
So he’s tough but gentle, right? If that makes sense.
Damon Lembi (22:50) And what’s very important with that for everybody out there who’s a leader is being crystal clear in setting the expectations for your team. And what we find all the time at Learn It, people are leaving organizations and they’re frustrated usually with their direct manager because they feel like they don’t have clear ideas or goals and connected with the company. So if you’re not crystal clear and communicating at all times with
here’s what your team goal is, here’s what your organizational goal is, then people are wandering around without clear direction. And it’s tough to, I don’t know, put in discipline and expect things from people if you’re not giving them a clear roadmap on where they need to go.
Federico Ramallo (23:32) Right, right, yeah, I completely agree, yeah. So can you tell us a little bit more about the learn it all mindset?
Damon Lembi (23:42) So the learn-it-all mindset is basically, we’ll start with the know-it-all, which we talked a little bit about. The know-it-all has a bunch of ego. They have it all figured out. I’m sure you’ve seen it, whether it’s around engineers or software developers who are like, this is the right way to do it, this is the right code, we have to do this. And they’re not open to ideas. They have it all figured out. On the flip side of that is a learn-it-all. A learn-it-all is somebody, like to say that table stakes, they’re humble. You have to be humble and open.
And then I’ve created a framework, you know, the four C’s of Learn It All, which is character, curiosity, courage, and confidence. Character, again, you have to have integrity as a leader. Shouldn’t even have to say that, but it’s important. It also means character is saying something and not over-promising and under-producing. Do what you’re gonna say, say what you’re gonna do, and be consistent. Nobody likes having a manager who schedules one-on-ones and then continuously
moves them around, cancels them or reschedules them. So you got to have character as a leader. If you don’t do well by your customer, don’t throw it on them. Take some of the accountability, figure out what can we do to make this better. Then there’s curiosity. We’ve talked a lot about curiosity. I think that should be the through line through every organization. How can we be curious? What can we do to do things differently? What if we tried this? And especially now, Federico, when it comes to AI, how can we improve this process leveraging AI?
What insights can we learn about our company leveraging AI? So curiosity is huge. When it comes to learning, it takes courage to learn. A lot of times people say, well, when you talk about learning, you saying all you just do is learn all the time? No, because learning without doing is treason. You have to put some of it into action. You have to put it into action. And a lot of times you can’t really learn things because people maybe are afraid to get out of their comfort zone. So that’s why it takes courage.
to get out of your comfort zone. And the more you do things, just like you were talking about earlier, it creates confidence. So if you get out of your comfort zone and you take those steps and you try things, over time those muscles build and you have confidence. And that to me is really what a Learn It All leader is. Character, curiosity, courage to try things out, and then it builds confidence. And then you can share that confidence with your team.
Federico Ramallo (26:05) Amazing. I think that it’s hard. What was this? The philosopher was saying it’s hard to feel a cup full of water, So yeah, I think that it’s first being able to say, don’t know all, right? And then being able to learn from it, right?
Damon Lembi (26:23) Absolutely great book that I read recently was who not how and what that books about is a Lot of times leaders make the mistake that they try to do everything Themself they want to get everything done themselves and they do the how Where I had a great guest on my show named Cameron Harold and he says that you should learn to delegate everything But your genius you what he means by that is stay in your your strengths zone and then delegate to other people on your team
something that they could do for you. And if you do that, that’s how companies scale. That’s how teams get better. If you are the type of leader who empower people, put trust in them, it’s okay for them to make mistakes and turn those mistakes into learning opportunities and give them growth opportunities as well.
Federico Ramallo (27:09) Right, right. My first stage as leader was telling people exactly what to do, but then eventually they will come to me with all the decisions of all the company, right? And it was overwhelming. So I had to raise above that and learn how to do better, how to become a better leader and being able to delegate with ownership, right? In retrospect, know…
Makes sense, but you know at that time I struggled with it, right? until I was able to Learn how to delegate better how to give more clear expectations on the outcome and and then being able to set I call it boxes. Maybe that’s not the right term, but this idea of you know Whatever it’s in within these limits you can do right, but I do have to set limits right for liability for you know whether
client as for a specific thing, specific requirements. You know, we always work within boundaries, but once I set those boundaries, I can give freedom within that boundary. And that gives a sense of relief to the person because now they understand where they need to work on, right? And they have the empowerment to do so, right? And instead of asking me, what do I need to do? They start coming up with more
higher level problems, in complexity or on risks. So we were able to have more interesting conversations.
Damon Lembi (28:32) What you said there that was really important at the beginning was that people would come to you to make the decisions and you were just becoming the bottleneck because people didn’t feel empowered at first to make their own decisions. And they said, OK, we’ve to go to Federico to do this, which is very common. We see that all the time with with new leaders. And what you realize is when you become the bottleneck, everything stalls. And again, there’s no growth. But I like what you talked about when it comes to boxes, because what I hear you saying, I didn’t
refer to it as boxes, but focus really on outcomes and what are the outcomes and the goals and then you give them clear direction and maybe some boundaries or guidelines and budgets and timelines. And once you agree with that with them, then just let them go out and get it done. You know, stop micromanaging and just say, Hey, look, I’m here for you if you need me and don’t be afraid to reach out. But I empower you and trust you to get this done. And when you do that,
people are growing around you, you’re making them feel good about themselves, they’re feeling connected to the bigger goal, and at the end of the day, you make your life much easier because you’re not hammering away trying to get everything done, and you’re developing other leaders and allowing yourself to focus on more higher end activities. And I think that that’s great. What that also does is you’ll start seeing ideas bubbling up all throughout the organization.
because people are taking on these initiatives and they’re acting like owners and they have accountability for it. And then they’re trying to figure out, hey, how could we do this better? How could we do it differently? And they’ll come to you. So I really appreciate that approach that you have.
Federico Ramallo (30:08) Yes, I mean, it took me a while to figure that out. then eventually, because if you don’t do that, then as you mentioned, I’m the bottleneck, right? And it’s, everything happens if Federico is there. If Federico is not there, then nothing happens, right? Because you have a,
Damon Lembi (30:23) I’ll tell you one thing
that will happen is if you go out and you hire great talent Federico and then you just say, okay, you have to stay here and you do this and I’ll tell you exactly what you’ll do. Those types of people are going to leave. They’re going to leave your company because you’re not stretching them and giving them an opportunity to grow. Why would you hire an onboard and invest in great people and then not give them the autonomy to get their work done and grow as a human?
Federico Ramallo (30:49) Right, right, and then you end up surrounded by yes men, right? And that’s, you know, maybe it’s good for the ego, but bad for the company,
Damon Lembi (30:58) I like how
you say that because we work with not necessarily yes man companies because they’re typically not the ones who invest in training but invest in their people. But I have a lot of friends or people that I mentor and that’s the type of organization they work for. Yes man organization and there’s no innovation there. And if anything people just show up and they put their head down because they don’t want to make mistakes and they’re never going to challenge the leader. And because of that.
things are very one-sided and people are always looking for confirmation bias and everything. And so I think the yes man culture is the not the right way to go about it at all.
Federico Ramallo (31:34) Right, right. And I had the same issue with my company, we do staff augmentation for development. And most of those companies, they do behave like yes men, right? They just follow instructions and the more explicit instruction, the better, right? And then they don’t deviate because they’re afraid, right? But I’m more of push, I push the envelope and change that to,
come with innovation, initiative, proposals, but also following the policies of the manager, right? Because we don’t know the, know, their why’s behind one decision. So we cannot go, you know, solo, just, you know, making a change or doing something without, you know, the visibility of the manager, right?
Damon Lembi (32:17) Well, you need to be coachable. And if you’re working for a manager and you’re not coachable and you’re kind of stuck in your ways, you got to learn to be able to let go of control and also trust the process. Now, I’m not saying it’s not OK for somebody to question the way something’s going. I wouldn’t recommend doing it all the time. But if you’re curious and you have other ways to do it that improves the process, great. But if you’re always giving pushback, I’ve got an example of somebody that
is relatively new, about a year in sales. And when he first came in, he wasn’t coachable. And he was very stuck in my way. This is how I do it. This is how do it. Well, it’s a different industry and even a different culture that we’re working in here. And he was very unsuccessful until his leader, sales leader, had a conversation with them and said, hey, look, man, if this doesn’t change, you’re going to be out of a job pretty soon. So kudos for the manager having that difficult conversation.
And what I love about this individual, actually talked about it in a solo episode, is that he realized that he needed to give up control and stop worrying about having all the answers and trusting the process. And he’s absolutely crushed it since. And I even asked him, said, what turned around for you? And he realized, well, number one, I would be out of the job pretty soon. And number two, that Bob, our CRO, he’s got all this experience and I just needed to be coachable and trust the system.
and it’s been a game changer ever since.
Federico Ramallo (33:45) Amazing, amazing, that’s very interesting, There was something else you mentioned that I wanted to talk about.
Yes, this is another topic the imposter syndrome, right? You mentioned that in some of your posts And I think that’s something interesting to share with our audience. Can you expand on? What you talk about the imposter syndrome?
Damon Lembi (34:07) I think I don’t think I know we all have imposter syndrome and if you don’t you’re either Lying or maybe you’re a sociopath and Even the higher you go up in your career as a senior leader Whenever I mean there’s always that am I good enough type of thoughts in your head limiting beliefs imposter syndrome The first time I really experienced it was when I stepped onto the college baseball field at Pepperdine. I was always used to being
the absolute best and I was surrounded by everybody who was as good as me and most were better. And I asked myself, do I even belong here anymore? And that’s a human way to feel about things. And you see that a lot of times, especially with women who don’t want to apply for a job because maybe they don’t see that they have all seven things on the list of what’s required for the job and I’m not good enough. Well, for those of you out there who think that if it’s something that you really want,
go for it, try it, go for that position. And if you get hired, whether it’s a new sales position or a management position, or I don’t know, as a first time engineer, whatever it is, first and foremost, I got a four step process that I kind of framework that I follow that I go through. Step number one is label your fear. Let’s say you take on this new role, and you’re you’re worried it’s not going to work out. So what are you? What’s the worst case scenario? I call it purposeful, awful izing.
Federico think about a year in advance. The worst case scenario is I lose my job. Okay, can I survive that? Yeah, I can go out I can get a new job. Is that possible? That’s gonna happen possible, but maybe the percentage is very low So you label your fear so I could overcome that once you know that you could overcome that then you need to take the leap just go in and Go go all in and do it right go for it. Stop worrying about whether or not you’re gonna fail or not
And when you do that, when you start working hard, I’m not saying 24-7, but put in the effort, You know, really commit, get out of your comfort zone and do the work, get in the reps. Step number three is deliberate practice. You know, for me, when I first got into keynote speaking, I really struggled with my closing. And so what I would do is I’d practice that over and over and over again.
and not just in front of a mirror, in front of a group of people who’d give me feedback. And when you get in that deliberate practice and you get better at something, then move on to the next thing. Because it’s easy to procrastinate and just practice a bunch of different stuff. Work on the hard things that you need to get better at. And step number four, and I like to say, whether you’re stepping into a batter’s box in baseball or up on a stage, it’s time to learn and let go. So stop worrying about your technique. Stop worrying about…
what’s going on because you know that you’ve prepared, right? And you’re ready for what happens. And maybe you knock it out of the park. Maybe you crush it on stage or maybe you fall flat on your face. But it’s like we talked about, it’s a learning opportunity. And sometimes we just got to self validate. And what I mean by that is give yourself a pat on the back and just say, Hey, you know what? I tried something because a lot of people pass up opportunities because they’re too afraid. And so I think it’s so important if you want to overcome imposter syndrome, label your fear.
take the leap in, deliberate practice, and then learn and let go. And if you try that, at the end of the day, it’s going to be a win-win no matter what happens.
Federico Ramallo (37:27) Amazing.
so I think that the hero without fear is reckless
and
the hero that has courage is because he’s afraid so it has to go through a difficult place with fear and even with fear going through ⁓
Damon Lembi (37:47) I think fear is
good. Fear is good, Federico, because it shows you that it matters to you. And so then having that the courage, like you were saying, to be the hero. I don’t really think you’re a hero if you don’t have any courage anyways, because you’re it’s hard to I mean, you might get lucky, but you’re going to have to break through that wall of whatever that wall is to be able to get to the other side.
Federico Ramallo (38:13) Right, I mean that was the issue with Superman, you know, it was so powerful, right? They needed to invent Kryptonite, you know, because otherwise it’s not a hero, right? Can do anything, nothing happens to him, right? What’s point, right? The hero needs a struggle to be a hero, right?
Damon Lembi (38:28) I love that I just feel that.
Yeah, I think any movie you watch within the first 15 minutes, you’re going to figure out what the dilemma or the challenges with the hero and how are they going to overcome it.
Federico Ramallo (38:44) Right, right. Yeah, my wife does that. She tells me the finish of the story. know, having watched that movie and she says, this is going to happen. And I’m like, don’t do that, please don’t spoil the movie for me. Yes, yes, yes. And she’s very smart. She figures it out very quickly. yeah.
Damon Lembi (38:57) Isn’t that the worst? Yeah, mean, it’s ruined it for you.
Federico Ramallo (39:06) This is amazing but we’re running out of time. I truly appreciate them to have you here today. Any final remarks before we wrap it up?
Damon Lembi (39:14) I’d say my final remark is for all you out there, I like to say great leaders aren’t born or made, they’re always in the making. So no matter where you get, no matter how far you go, the best leaders I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet or speak with always realize that there’s room for growth.
Federico Ramallo (39:31) Amazing amazing Damon. Thank you very much for those insights and thank you very much for joining us today
Damon Lembi (39:37) Thank you for having me, Federico. I had a great time.