The Fabulous Learning Nerds

Scott (00:05.051)
Hey, everybody, welcome back to another fantastic episode of Your Fabulous Learning Nerds. I'm your host, Scott Chude, and with me, my fabulous co-host, you love him, Dan Coonrod, everybody.

Scott (00:19.463)
Daniel-san!

daniel (00:20.782)
Scott! Fabulous. Man, I like that, I like that, it's good. Fabulous, I feel so, I feel the same. I feel like it is, I feel like it really fits. How's your weekend, how you doing?

Scott (00:25.472)
It's apropos, I think. Yeah, I think so.

daniel (00:33.418)
Yes sir. I beat you to it. I jumped the gun. HAHAHAHAHA

Scott (00:34.335)
How am I doing? Yeah, I know, I know. Well, I'm not as good as you. I have a story. I actually have a story. I kinda wanna get Zeta in when I tell the story. I'm doing okay, how about that? I'm doing okay, but I do have a story and a question that I wanna ask both of you, and then we'll ask our special guests the same question as well, but how are you, sir?

daniel (00:42.097)
Oh!

daniel (00:51.681)
Uh.

daniel (00:56.905)
I think you know.

I'm going to let the drop do the heavy lifting on that one today. That's awesome.

Scott (01:03.575)
Yeah, I know. Good anticipation. It's great. One of these days, I'll change it up. We're going to we're going to shift it up a little bit. That require me to make another drop, and I've just haven't had the time to do it, sir. Haven't had the time to do it. Yeah. Also, who's with us because I do want to tell my story. You love her. Zayda's in the house.

daniel (01:11.658)
I know, it'll catch me off guard.

daniel (01:16.969)
Hehe

Scott (01:31.345)
Oh my gosh.

Scott (01:34.765)
Z-Girl!

Zeta (01:36.14)
How are you doing, Scott?

Scott (01:39.463)
I'm doing okay. I have to I have to ask a question of both of you Because it'll tell you about it tell you about my day really honestly is a bit interesting day, so Would you say that your husband is handy or maybe you are handy? Are you handy people?

Zeta (01:43.308)
Please do.

Zeta (01:55.896)
I would say yeah, if we don't know what to do, we usually YouTube it and then try to like do the best that we can. And if that falls through, there's my uncle. He's very handy as well, so.

Scott (02:08.315)
Okay, all right, cool. So are there, are, oh I'm soup, oh I had that today too. I had to be handy and tech savvy. Like I had to solve an opportunity, which is also another story. I wanna get into the handy story today. Mm-hmm.

daniel (02:09.61)
I think I'd say I'm more tech savvy than handy.

daniel (02:18.473)
Nope.

Zeta (02:22.104)
Both the same thing though, tech savvy and like, and handy, isn't that kind of like a different kind of handy? Or is that a brainy?

daniel (02:25.451)
Nah.

daniel (02:29.386)
No, because I feel like, I feel like handy, like if like the dishwasher broke, if I was handy, I could probably fix that. Tech savvy, I know where I can buy a new one. Ha ha ha.

Scott (02:38.428)
Right.

Scott (02:43.643)
Yeah, no, I'm with you. So, are the, yeah, pretty much, right? So, I'm becoming more and more handy. I am a fixer, so if something breaks, I can't stand it. Like, I have to get it fixed today, right? I can't, it'll drive me insane. I don't know why, I don't know if you're that way, but it'll drive me insane. So, I get it.

Zeta (02:46.112)
Ah, so software versus hardware. Yeah, I get it. It tracks, that tracks, that tracks.

daniel (02:48.617)
Yeah!

Scott (03:12.723)
back from my workout, I try to work out every day, and I walk in and the wife says that the toilet is running. And so I'm gonna pause for a minute. Have either of you done any home handy toilet repairs?

Zeta (03:30.224)
Actually, yeah, I have. With a running toilet, it could be two things, either a tear in the gasket, that's in the flow tank in the back, or it could be even the chain that sometimes gets caught up underneath there. And so you have to like loosen the chain or cut the little ends so it doesn't get caught up underneath there. So was that what happened to you or was it something a little bit more daunting?

daniel (03:30.603)
Yes.

Scott (03:32.317)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Scott (03:53.871)
No, no, that would be nice. So we have one of those fancy Dan water saving one piece toilet bowls that are really expensive But when they break it's a real pain in the butt like I totally get the jig of a handle Doesn't work doesn't work on my on my toilet at all. Um, yeah, no, so I had to um It was not a it was not either one of those you sound very handy. That'd be great It would have been great for you. I had to replace a fill valve if anybody ever replaced a fill valve

Zeta (03:59.35)
Ahhhh

Zeta (04:05.368)
Oh.

Zeta (04:19.073)
I'm not.

Scott (04:19.707)
Would you pay somebody to do that, or would you do it yourself?

daniel (04:20.275)
in the back of a toilet.

Oh man, that's tough. I think I would probably pay somebody to do that because anytime you're messing with water, I get real nervous. Water and electricity, anything that flows, I'm just gonna let a professional handle it.

Scott (04:28.508)
Yeah?

Scott (04:40.559)
Yeah. Yup.

Zeta (04:41.68)
That's, that's, yeah, solid. I would have gotten somebody, someone who knows what they're doing before, like, any water damage could be occurring.

Scott (04:51.975)
Yeah, not me, no, I went to YouTube and looked up how to do it. Yeah, yep, did that. Let me tell you, next time I will pay someone to do that because it's just like installing a toilet. I would not do that, don't wanna do that. Replacing, I've replaced the middle piece that, you know, the flush operating system gets you, you untwist it, you put a new one in, that's easy, but the fill valve.

Zeta (04:55.037)
Oh

daniel (04:55.706)
Oh, YouTube University.

Zeta (04:58.532)
Mmm.

daniel (05:00.351)
Hehehe

daniel (05:06.07)
Really?

Scott (05:21.915)
Yeah, I discovered a lot of things. This was not my first time doing it, but yeah. When you're lying on the floor and all the water is overflowing the bucket you put on the floor and it's covering, yeah, it wasn't very pretty. So that was about it. That was my fun time with the fill valve and next time I'm gonna go pay somebody to do that because it was gross. So yeah, I know, right?

daniel (05:41.082)
No!

Zeta (05:42.561)
Hmm.

daniel (05:47.566)
I'm so sorry.

Zeta (05:51.436)
That's.

Scott (05:51.603)
like is everything okay in there and I'm screaming

Zeta (05:56.76)
Yeah

daniel (05:57.09)
Good stuff.

Zeta (05:59.916)
Nice.

Scott (06:00.223)
She goes, what's wrong? Well, I got toilet water in my hair. As everybody disconnects from this episode, we do have a special guest, and we are gonna talk about learning and development, and it's gonna be a lot more entertaining. And so we're gonna quickly transition out of my story of the week, and we're gonna get to our good friend. We're gonna learn all about him in this little segment that we call, What's Your Deal?

daniel (06:07.534)
Ha ha!

Scott (06:30.579)
John!

John Hardy (06:33.18)
Hey Scott, how's it going?

Scott (06:35.131)
What's your deal, my friend?

John Hardy (06:38.007)
My deal is L&D. I'm excited to share a little bit about my history and getting into that. And the secret sauce in that is that you're just looking to serve people. And at the end of the day, no matter what you're doing, where you're at, if you're in the L&D space, is how can we develop this person? How can we help this person get better? And ultimately, that's going to get you where you want to be as an L&D professional. Now, I'm saying that, and hopefully, my story that I share today will be able to point us in that direction.

Scott (07:08.255)
That's fantastic. I'm gonna pause you in your story for just a moment because I do need to know Would you fix the fill valve by yourself or would you check out some money? Absolutely. I just want to know we have alignment here on my stupidity

daniel (07:15.826)
Ask any important questions.

Zeta (07:18.665)
Oh yeah.

John Hardy (07:21.156)
Let me, no, let me bury the lead and say I'm absolutely paying somebody. I have zero pride in being a male. I will call a friend that knows how to do it way before I try to do it myself. That being said, it is actually a continued L&D conversation because now it makes me think about the way that people learn because the first thing that happens, right, is I ask you a question you think, can I do the thing?

daniel (07:27.182)
Boom.

John Hardy (07:49.495)
you may or may not know that answer. If it's a no, the next thing you do, now I think this is changing because of content availability, YouTube, all the things, but the next thing you do is probably call a friend. You phone a friend and say, hey neighbor, hey friend, do you know how to do this thing? Yes, no. Then the next thing you do is I'm on the Googles. How do I do this thing, right? But then you get the opportunity to practice what you were just taught or you watch a friend, you get the opportunity to learn a little bit for yourself.

And then the next time I ask you that question, hey, I do, I do, I've done it before. I might not be great at it, but again, long story short, I'm still paying somebody. I'm not gonna try myself, so.

daniel (08:30.776)
I love how you went through the full process. Like, hey, here is how I would learn how to do it. I'm not gonna do any of that, but that's what would happen if I thought maybe I should.

John Hardy (08:43.088)
Exactly right. Let's leave it to the professionals, Dan.

Scott (08:47.163)
Little pro tip, get a good handyman. If you got a good handyman, you treat her or him like gold and you give him a call. So that's cool. John, we're gonna back up just a little bit. I love your transition around learning and really kind of shedding light on my poor decision today. But how did you get involved? I mean, what led you to here, talking about learning and development?

John Hardy (09:16.123)
Sure, so I grew up in church and that's sort of where my story is going to start. And from a very young age, I felt like I wanted to work for a church, partially because I was told that I had a sort of a social sort of way about me. I was easy to talk to. I can make friends easily, that type of thing. And in church work and nonprofit work, that's really important. That being said, I...

personally didn't really think a lot about that until I was a little bit older. I had a lot of people sort of pouring into me and offering their wisdom, both at a personal level and at a practical level. And so when I got into deciding what I was going to do for a career, I first ventured into pastoring, which sent me to school. I did school locally here in South Carolina where I'm located, focused on ministry work specifically, and then,

I did some vocational work through an extended school program after my higher education. And out of that, I just offered my support to a local pastor of a church that I had been around growing up. I said, hey, how can I help you out? And he was actually, as fate would decide, I stepped into a conversation about learning and development. I didn't even know it. He had just had a conversation with his pastor about...

starting a professional development program for their staff at their church and me saying, hey, what can I do to help? Just turned into me being his pseudo intern and apprentice, so to speak. So we learned a lot on the fly about how to lead adults into a valuable learning space. And we did initially through live events, lots of classes, right, that we're putting on big events for our staff because that's all.

At the time, really church environment revolved around live events, right? It's Sunday, it's Wednesday, it's all the regular cadences of a church service. And from that comes us trying to replicate that. So we did that for a few years and then we realized that we could be much more impactful, especially in a technology space if we found a way to extend learning outside of just one moment of a teaching class, right? And so we got really good about that.

John Hardy (11:40.307)
online resources, we got really good with, I don't know if we're allowed to name drop on this podcast, but Articulate, we got very good there using Storyline, using Rise, some of those tools there for us that were really helpful starting out. And then after COVID, we really, really took a deep dive into what an LMS could bring us. And so we used an LMS that was really marketing focused, sort of giving people training when they needed it. And so that just kind of

blew up in my understanding of all the things that goes into adult learning, equipping people with what they need in the moment. We all know that people learn best doing the thing. And so the best way that we could provide support while they could do the thing really got us further. After about seven or eight years doing that, I felt like, you know, my wife and I had been married for a few years at the time. We felt like a personal change just in just general life things decided that we wanted to kind of branch out.

from a career perspective. So I dabbled in the marketplace as it were, found myself doing some continuous improvements for a local manufacturing plant. Next thing I know, I'm doing a remote job for a bigger real estate company. The next thing I know, I am doing a role with my current company, which gets to serve 16 to 20,000 people around the world. So.

We're very blessed in the space that we're in and the transition there, which we'll dive into, I know in just a few minutes, but it really is at the end of the day about serving people where they are. And hopefully I can continue to do that as I keep going down this learning and development journey.

daniel (13:19.894)
That's awesome.

Scott (13:20.295)
That's fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's couldn't agree. Go ahead, Dan.

daniel (13:22.838)
I was going to jump in and it's awesome you're talking about nonprofit, religious work, and just from my background and just how I got into L&D, it's this whole other avenue that I've not really thought of. When I've done mentoring and coaching with people and said, yeah, there's really two paths. There's academia and there's corporate.

And you're talking about this third path, which is, which is awesome. That's got you in and it got you started and it got you got you launched. That's super great.

Scott (14:01.127)
Yeah.

John Hardy (14:02.227)
I think I'm biased towards the start too, Dan, and the idea that it really started with the idea that I could give back to some of the staff members at these churches that really kind of grew me up. And ultimately that led to this service mentality where, you know, you're just trying to create things that are helpful for people and no matter the space that you're in. And so ultimately, to your point, Dan, I think that's, that was a, that was a, you know, a blessing to.

to kind of start off in that way.

Scott (14:34.643)
Awesome. Love it. Can't wait to learn more. I do think that there's an opportunity to talk about a third path, maybe even a fourth or fifth path, and we're gonna dive into that everybody in our topic of the week.

Scott (14:53.427)
All right, this week we're talking nonprofit, for-profit, any-profit with learning and development here with John. You know, I'm going to kick things off. So you spent some time in a nonprofit space, and then now you're in a different space. What's the biggest change from working in that church environment to the organization that you support today?

John Hardy (15:19.739)
That's a great question. I think immediately about some of the TikToks that come across my feed. I think about these corporate bros that are just sitting at a computer joking about my whole life is about the shareholder. That's all I think about is the shareholder, you know. And so I have to scroll by those really fast because I realized I'm in that world now, right? It's like, hey, it's all about profit. It's all about that bottom dollar. But what I realized is, at the end of the day, it's just really about helping people.

daniel (15:32.802)
Ha ha ha!

John Hardy (15:48.843)
I think it's ultimately about what do you start with? What I learned in a nonprofit organization is that you start with serving the person a little bit first. What does the personal development look like for this person? What is their family dynamic? What are their financial struggles? What do they want to accomplish in their life? Those types of things is sort of what you focus on first. And then once you get some of that figured out, then you can start to help them.

in a professional space or in a more practical space on some of the things that they decide and pursue out of that. While on the business side of things where you're in the marketplace, you're doing for-profit things, I think it just flips a little bit. It goes to for business development, professional development first, and out of that comes, oh, there are some good things I'm learning in my career on the job.

that can be applied to my personal life. So it really does sort of go hand to hand in my experience, but at the end of the day, it is just about developing that person where they are, what they need in the moment. And I think to summarize, nonprofit, you're gonna focus on personal development first and then work on the professional out of that. While in the for-profit space, I find myself helping a little bit more in the professional development first.

and then leading into personal development out of that.

daniel (17:21.218)
That's a neat differentiator. I'm not gonna, nope, I tried the word, I lost the word. That's a neat observation. There we go. Differentiator, I can't say the word. Don't cut that, let everybody know. You know, you're talking about personal development versus like professional development.

Scott (17:29.543)
Differentiator.

John Hardy (17:32.287)
Ha ha.

daniel (17:45.571)
Can you dive into that, like those differences a little bit more? Like I hear personal development and I've been stuck in like the corporate mind space for so long that like, it's tough for me to like take a step back and split the two up. So I'd love to hear like from your perspective, like what are the big differences there?

John Hardy (18:04.235)
It's a, that's a great question. And it takes me back to when we were first creating those live classes I talked about in my nonprofit space. And what we created and what we were blessed to be able to create was anywhere between 80 to a hundred different classes on a lot of topics, everything from how to manage your calendar all the way to, you know, best advice on raising your kids when they're in middle school or high school. Right. So the, the.

The nuance and the separation there is very vast. So to be a little bit more specific, Daniel, I think the way you do that is sort of put them into specific spaces, right? You say, okay, if you're trying to get better at time management, that could relate to home life as well. But what we're talking about is using your nine to five a little bit better, right? How are you spending your time and how you think about your deep think time versus meeting time? Are those meetings valuable, right?

Stuff like that. How do you carry yourself in and around leaders? How do you network better partnerships? That type of business type of thing when you think corporate speak. We could throw around a bunch of corporate euphemisms in that space, but that's a little bit of a difference and a nuance to your question versus personal development really focuses more in on how do you think about or carry yourself.

day in and day out? What does your self-confidence look like? What is your mindset when you step into certain spaces? How are you looking to take advantage of the places and spaces that you find yourself in? How are you raising, again, raising your kids? How are you leading your friends? What values do you care about and how do you really submit those things? Again,

They're even in, as I say, it feels like they kind of are on the two sides of the same coin because they can be used synonymously. And I think that's the point, right, is that all of it could be used interchangeably. But at the end of the day, I think when we're thinking about where you start from and what your focus is and what your objectives are, nonprofits probably going to start more on the very base level personal development while that for-profit is going to start a little bit more.

John Hardy (20:22.099)
from a professional space first using the context that they are already in and that you're providing help in first so that they can connect with that as a learner, I think, is really the base of it.

daniel (20:34.294)
Love that. Awesome, awesome.

Zeta (20:39.512)
There's almost like a bit of an overlap.

Scott (20:40.416)
So think about your role, go Zeta, go.

Zeta (20:45.08)
There's a bit of an overlap when you talk about personal and professional. I think that they're not completely separate. There might, there may be, oh, we need to be more professional. We have to like kind of put on the professional face. What's as it said, but it's, but it's also part of us as well. So

Zeta (21:09.26)
I guess the point that I'm trying to come across is, when you do learning development, it is for the whole entire person. And if you can only think of one part, you're not actually fixing anything, you're just kind of like addressing one facet. But if you see the entirety, I think you would get a much better result. I don't know if that makes sense. Yeah.

John Hardy (21:30.107)
I agree 100%. No, it definitely does. And I think that comes back to, hopefully, what we can talk about here in a minute, a few of the things that I've learned and sort of carried over, no matter the space that I'm in, whether it be nonprofit or for profit. I think ultimately, what are the goals of the learner? What are they actually looking to get out of what we're offering? You know, and if we think back to if we are just here to serve, then ultimately, we're putting their needs first.

which would mean whatever that is. And so to your point, even if you nuance it out to professional or personal at the end of the day, for pointing people all to that objective or goal or value or vision or mission or whatever it may be that they're after, and we've helped them take a step towards that, then I think we've done our job.

Zeta (22:18.552)
Definitely, no, I totally agree.

Scott (22:23.759)
So, I heard you say that there's some things that you've learned regardless of role. And I'm really, really curious to hear about like what are your top three learnings in your journey so far you try to apply no matter where you're sitting.

John Hardy (22:42.363)
Sure, so number one thing, and Zayda and I were just talking about this, we've got to keep the main thing the main thing. And I think part of that is understanding where people are coming from, what are your top priority needs in this learning, and ultimately getting them to think outside of the immediate I've got to have this done or, you know, skill set created or, you know, whatever it may be by the end of the week.

or by the end of this quarter, you know, that type of mentality, getting them outside of that and thinking, no, what do you ultimately want to see done through this development initiative in your life, right? And again, whatever that touches, because even if you do have a project that you've got to get better at by the end of this quarter to see it meet its numbers or objectives, that's fine. But if you develop it just for that moment, then you're missing out on opportunity to

worth it by extending it way past that, right? And so ultimately that relates no matter where you are in the L&D space, at least from my experience. Keeping it the main thing, I think is vital. The second thing is, and these things relate, is that learners are learners. If we think back to our classical training of adult learning theory, and even if you're an accidental learning and development professional, kind of like myself,

then adult learners learn the same way. And if you have a preference in the way that you learn as far as keeping things short and sweet and not feeling content overload or getting off track on things or asking me to do 10 things by the end of this, whatever, then I think the learner that you're trying to teach is gonna feel the same way. And so obviously we have lots of things that help us know.

in our training what a learner needs and what they don't. And regardless of who the audience is, whether it be in your role being in a nonprofit or for-profit or whatever it may be, profit, learners are gonna learn the same. And obviously that's evolving and changing with time, but we're all people and we all have some of those preferences. So keeping those things in mind, I think is key. And then...

John Hardy (25:06.255)
The third thing is, and this has really stuck with me, and I'm a little bit biased towards this because I've done a lot of and had a lot of this in my life, is leaders matter. And how people lead and the leadership that people bring matters. If leadership is just simply influence, then we know that everything that a leader does is going to determine the ebb and flow of the people around them. And again,

I've always said this, I fully believe this, you know, leaders are the thermostats in the room. They're not the thermometers. And so however the leader is going to be, that is how everyone else is going to be. And so if we can tap into the best parts of leaders, and not just generic leadership, which I think you could Google anything about leadership training right now and get a million things right, we got to tap into the individual who is being tapped to be in a leadership

We've got to identify future leaders. And we've also got to be able to understand the role that we are asking them to step into or understand the expectations of the leader that they're currently in. And so with that in mind, I think all things when it comes to learning and development needs to start and end, in my opinion, with the leader. And how are we developing leaders as a learning and development professional? So that's it. Those are the three.

daniel (26:31.594)
Man, you should have been here last week.

Zeta (26:37.144)
Thanks for watching!

daniel (26:40.438)
That's awesome. That's like, I already did. As John should have been here last week when we were talking about leadership. Uh, I, a hundred percent. Like learners are learners. I love that. I love that sentiment. Like deep down, I really love that. This idea that like wherever you go, however you're, you're getting to them. The idea that like learners are learners. I think it boils down to, we should all be learners all the time. That's.

Scott (26:41.415)
Dan, you had something to say, go for it.

Scott (26:47.799)
Oh, yeah.

daniel (27:08.458)
Maybe a little bit too philosophical for where we're at right now, but I love it. 100%. Like that just rings a bell inside of me deep.

John Hardy (27:17.979)
And if this isn't a better plug to subscribe to the podcast, then learning about all that learners need to know and As far as learning nerds in the podcast, then that's a that's a great plug Get involved and listen to the podcast and you'll learn everything that learners need to know

daniel (27:25.992)
Heh.

Zeta (27:38.024)
That's the hope at least.

daniel (27:38.114)
Look at that, now we got the tagline for this week's episode. That's awesome. Ha ha ha.

Zeta (27:43.096)
Yeah.

daniel (27:45.634)
So I want to jump in here. You talked about your beginning in faith and in ministries. It's an awesome place to get started in learning and development. And I think back to my youth and church and stuff like that. And I never even thought about it from that perspective. But now that I'm thinking about it and now that we're talking about it, I'm like, oh yeah, there really is a lot. Like a lot of the facilitation skills I learned are like.

it would be applicable, I guess, to like the pulpit. But are there any like spiritual aspects in our, in our industry that you've maybe noticed like translate like no matter what, like are there things that you've been able to bring across from, from that beginning into the corporate space and maybe even just so I'm going to ask a follow up first, vice versa.

John Hardy (28:37.515)
Oh, sure. Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. You hit the nail on the head on some practical things. First being, you know, that I have found myself operating in every day in my job is facilitation. And so being in and under someone that is a teacher weekly or multiple times a week, you pick up on a lot of that. You also have, you know, for myself, I had some classical training in school on, you know,

teaching and preaching and so a lot of that translates and how you relate to an audience and all of those different things, even if the purpose or the meaning behind it is a little different, all of those practical skills definitely translate over. And then outside of how you might plan or develop learning or development, I think it also stays the same with the other things that we mentioned in mind, right? Objectives of the learner are still crucial. What are the gaps?

you know, associated with what someone needs to be successful. You know, those things are all the same. But maybe at a little bit of a higher level, the things that translate, you know, spiritually and to drop a little scripture for you all, if you haven't heard this before, but there's scripture that says that Christ being Jesus Christ came not to be served, but to serve and sacrifice himself for others. And I think that really is

a drive for me personally to continue to look for ways to serve others. And the natural professional out of that in my career is learning and development. How can I serve someone through what they need to be better, whether it be being a better person, a better professional, a better podcaster, right? I'm just looking for ways to help people. And ultimately, I feel like that's really the key thing that translates, at least in my motivation, getting up every single day.

daniel (30:29.73)
Love it.

Zeta (30:31.188)
Yeah, love it too. I think that is the main thing that we do as an LND is to serve others, to help them grow, to help them thrive, to help them succeed. So I love that.

John Hardy (30:34.68)
And then.

Scott (30:46.555)
Yeah, it's really interesting. You bring up something that I was mentored on long, long time ago, this mindset of servant leadership, really. Um, and I really, truly feel that those people that I've had the opportunity to serve myself and learn from the most are the ones that we kind of got that. Right. The, Hey, I'm here, um, not to kind of carve out my space, which I see a lot of people do, like I want to carve out my space and I want a bigger space. Right. And.

And when I get that, I'm going to be good, but it's really not about that. I'm really here to serve others, right? So when it comes to my, in my leadership career, it's always been the, Hey, what do you need from me? How can I serve you best? Um, how can I help you grow? Which, you know, tying back some of the things you've talked about, the, the idea of being a gardener, right? So you're watering the plants that are around you, helping those people grow.

The opportunity is that sometimes we don't always see the fruits of our labor when it comes to serving leadership, but I will tell you that those seeds are always there. That mindset around serving leadership and really this, hey, I'm not just trying to make money for the stakeholders. I'm really going to serve the people below me. I'm going to serve the people above me. I'm going to serve the people around me. We're just going to make things happen. Really powerful stuff.

Cause in that process, in that mindset shift, if we're gonna go ahead and make that mindset shift, is the idea of relationship building. And we spoke about this a few weeks ago, like we are all in the relationship building business, all of us. You wanna lead even if you don't want that title, you're in the relationship building business. And I think learning and development people, for the most part, understand that, understand our value in the relationship building business and how powerful.

So I think that's really great that you brought that up. As we begin to think about, just briefly think about how we might start to transition, wind down a little bit, is there anything that you had on your heart that you wanted to talk about today, John, that you just haven't had the opportunity to speak about? If so, go ahead and share that with our audience. I'm sure that they would appreciate that.

John Hardy (33:01.531)
Sure, so I think the one thing that us as L&D professionals must get right, and again, I'm still green around the gills here. There's plenty of others, including in this room, that have been doing this much longer than me, so feel free to cut this out if this doesn't apply. But we as learning and development professionals, we go out every single day and we ask others to engage in development. We're asking them to get better, right?

We're asking them to dive into our hard work, right? We've put this out here for you, so you need to do it. Reality is, if we want people to eat what we're cooking, if we want people to smoke what we're selling, we also have to eat. We also have to smoke, right? We've got to be, we can't be the lids to other people's development, ultimately not getting involved in or.

being afraid of where the learning and development industry is going is a great example of this. I personally find myself scared of the possibilities of AI and tech and all these other things are coming down the pipe, right? Think about all of those things. And then on a personal level, you've got to be able to take your personal time to get better for yourself because you can't lead people where you're not going. You can't. And so when we think back on servant leadership, letting others go first, the very basic

understanding of leadership being, I'm leading someone somewhere. And if we are stuck in a space where we're asking others to develop and we're not doing that ourselves, then that becomes pretty unkind for those that are around us. So my challenge, the biggest thing I think, and I'm saying this to me too, we have got to be really good at and get better at taking intentional time to better ourselves if we are going to ask others to also get better.

Scott (34:58.439)
Oh, twist my arm talking about a growth mindset, huh, John? Right? Oh, oh my, boom. Like, I couldn't, so, so important in my, correct me if I'm wrong, my experience is when you adopt a growth mindset and you're trying to be version 2.0, 3.0, whatever you're on, it's pretty contagious, right?

daniel (35:03.315)
Hahaha!

Zeta (35:03.892)
Preaching to the choir.

John Hardy (35:04.203)
You caught me. You caught me.

daniel (35:05.922)
Boom.

Scott (35:28.291)
Um, and if you're mentoring someone and they know that you're actively getting fed somewhere, like you're actively trying to get better, then the stuff I'm throwing is the stuff that I've been picking up to try to get myself better. Makes it so much easier. And dare I say authentic? Cause I'm going to tell you straight up, like the non-authentic people, they got a stench to them, you know what I'm saying?

daniel (35:54.536)
Ha ha ha.

Scott (35:56.323)
I can smell them. I can smell them around a mile away. You, you, you are not being real, man. Like I, be real, be authentic. And I think that's really, really great

Scott (36:57.183)
John, thank you so much for sharing your journey, sharing your story, sharing your insights. It's all great, can all help us be better and get fed. Could you do us a favor, could you let us know where our audience can connect with you, my friend?

John Hardy (37:11.131)
Absolutely, I'm not super big on the socials, but if you're interested in sports, you can follow me on Twitter at John Hardy J-O-H-N-H-A-R-D-Y Little underscore at the very end there John Hardy's pretty common name So if you found jewelry, you're on the wrong you're on the wrong site. You can always email me. This is my personal email I'm gonna drop for you all Hardy John H-A-R-D-Y-J-O-H-N the number three zero at gmail.com

And then lastly, I'm only famous on TikTok because I was at a Taylor Swift concert and someone filmed me. And so long story short, you can be interested in Taylor Swift or any other music trends. You can find me on TikTok at John Hardy, J-O-H-N-H-A-R-D-Y, two Y's at the end of that one. That's it.

Scott (37:59.839)
All right. That's awesome. Thanks so much, John. Really appreciate your time. We'll have you on again. Would love to hear how your journey continues. Daniel San.

daniel (38:07.886)
I just want to pause this real quick. I want to pause this real quick. We might want to cut out your email. Just like, I don't want to get your email flooded with like spam and bots and stuff like that. So maybe just like Twitter and TikTok.

John Hardy (38:08.463)
grateful for the time. Thank you, Scott.

Scott (38:51.803)
Daniel-san!

daniel (38:52.881)
Yes, Scott.

Scott (38:54.643)
You do me a solid cause you let our audience know how they could get in touch with us.

daniel (39:00.434)
Absolutely. All right, party people, if you haven't already, email us at nerds at the learning nerds dot com. Email us any questions you might have, join in on the discussion. I think for this week, if you could tell us where you got your start in learning and development and what that journey has been like, we would love to hear about that. If you're on Facebook, you can find us at learning nerds. If you're on Instagram, fab learning nerds. And lastly, for more information about us, what we do and updates.

www. Scott.

Scott (41:12.083)
Thanks Dan. Hey everybody, could you do me a favor? Do me a solid. Go ahead and hit that subscribe button, hit that like button, share this episode out with your friends and most importantly make sure you're higher than handyman because you want it done right the first time for sure. And hey, also if you could do me maybe one more favor, just a little, little tiny bit of favor, go ahead and leave a review there either on iTunes or Stitcher or wherever you're here to the podcast. It'll help us know that if we're...

doing a good job or how we can get better. It'll help us grow. But more importantly, it's going to help get the John's message and everybody else's message out to more of you. And with that, I'm Scott.

daniel (41:49.972)
I'm Dan.

Zeta (41:52.105)
Zeta.

John Hardy (41:54.939)
I'm John Hardy.

Scott (41:56.687)
And we're your Fabulous Learning, and we're your Fabulous Learning Nerds, and we are out.