Coming in I really appreciate that brother so to get the ball rolling what I like to do is you tell the people who is David great well my name is Damon lemby I live.
In the San Francisco Bay area in a town called Sausalito and um I'm the CEO of learn it which is a corporate training company um all B2B and we work with customers to.
Upskill managers and and individual contributors and everything from how to be a new manager or how to even use Microsoft Excel and I recently as you could kind of see from behind me.
I uh wrote and published a book that was released uh April 18th thank you um Paul the learn it all leader mindset tools and traits so that's that's me in a nutshell oh I like that so let's go.
Right because you didn't start in San Francisco did you no so how I got started at learn it is rowing up my dream was to be a professional baseball player and um I.
Played all the sports through high school I was fortunate enough after my senior year in high school to get drafted by the Atlanta Braves and um I had a choice do I want to go to.
College or do I want to play uh Minor League Baseball um I decided to go to Pepperdine and that didn't work out but I ended up transitioning over to Arizona State.
Um and I was still had a great career there and I was hoping to be a professional baseball player after my college career turned out that didn't work out so here.
I was uh after spending 22 years of my life figuring out what am I going to do next and um with no real work skills and I was fortunate to come from a family that had.
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Multiple businesses including real - ID Card Make
Estate and hotels and one of the businesses that was just starting off was learn it which my dad uh started and so and that was uh June of 1995 and I.Started off as the receptionist there and here we are I mean June 5th is will be our 20th anniversary so I guess Monday so it's great to be talking to you today about it congratulations crazy.
That is crazy because you think about it right um You had no like there wasn't part of another plan because you don't need to be a baseball.
Player and then you end up studying as a receptionist in a company and now you run it 20 plus years later I'm curious 28 years a lot of business don't even last three.
What's that secret sauce to you guys success man I would say first and foremost never in my wildest dreams did I think that I think I would be in corporate training.
You know um like we said I just put all my eggs in one basket for for sports that didn't work out and then I had a pivot in transition and what I would say our secret sauce is for success is that.
I've been I I believe a leader is only as good really as the people they surround themselves with and I've been incredibly fortunate and grateful to have been able to hire and retain.
Phenomenal Talent over the years and it takes a you know as you small business owners know out there it takes a lot of courage and resilience I I think too uh running a small business is.
Hard everything from you know managing people we have about 50 to 60 full uh employees part-time and full-time and you know there's been plenty of those nights over the years where you're.
Trying to figure out how you're going to
Make payroll next week um you know what I mean yeah let's let's talk about that because you got to think.About it right um a lot of people may see entrepreneurship as being sexy right now is the sexiest thing oh I want an entrepreneur but they don't understand.
Like what it takes to actually run business um you know those sleepless nights thinking about okay I'm gonna pay payroll for these people.
Um we didn't get enough sales now I'm curious throughout your journey because been in business for a long time what was that process like how did you keep to have that positive mindset because.
You know there's the good and there's like the bad yeah I mean think about it we've been through pretty much at least three recessions you know the first one was uh.
The.com um boom and bust and then there was the Great Recession of 2008-2009 yeah uh and then again we you know at the beginning of the pandemic.
Was really really scary and uh and we may be heading in quite honestly you know as we all know into another one so what really is we've been able to do is really learn.
Um through how we did things differently you know the first time in back in 2001 I was really fortunate that I had family support uh where if I had to at that time I had to borrow money to cover.
Payroll um and it was really tough turning to my dad and grandfather asking for that but we got through it was able to pay him back and then we learned for the.
Future when things started to turn in 2008 we made some tough decisions hiring I mean excuse me you know we looked at uh what happened before and we instead of uh we had to make uh layoffs instead.
Of doing it Band-Aid one person here one person there yeah we figured out what's it going to take to ride through the storm and we made those tough decisions you.
Know we let go about 25 of our staff wow I handled it you know my individually um it was incredibly hard but um then turned to the rest of the team and said hey you know I'm confident we've made.
The decision we made the tough choices we had to we're going to be fine you know we put ourselves in a position to be fine moving forward and that was a big one and also for you business owners.
Out there please be smart with your accounts receivable you know uh it got burnt in the in the first one extending credit you know people owed us money um and then companies went on the.
Business or didn't pay you know that was another way we made it through it the next time was we just realized that we we couldn't let Council receivables get out of uh.
That is a big gem a lot of us don't think about that but when situation like this happen we don't have control over it so being a great leader um as you were and be able to really.
Help them navigate the storm by thinking ahead right so which take me to my next question to you is the book that you have right the book around learn it all leader like how did that come about like.
What made you say you know what I need to write this book it's so what really inspired me to write the book was I feel like one I've been you know been at this for 28 plus years.
26 years when I started and I I feel like I've got a lot of great stories um to share successes and failures yeah and you know honestly I really like to uh to share and give back and I'm I'm.
Hoping that others can can learn from some of these stories and that that I've had and a lot of it is uh is around having the mindset of being a continuous learner and being open uh with a.
Beginner's mind and and how to overcome things like imposter syndrome and that that was the main reason the uh the second reason is that I I wrote it also for my kids I got two.
Young ones I got a five and a one-year-old and my father who started to learn it you know passed away about 10 years ago and he didn't they never had a chance to to meet him and so this.
Is an opportunity for them to learn about what a great leader he was and how he's had an impact on thousands of individuals I mean we've probably.
Trained uh in in all the different channels over a million people over 28 years so yeah those are those are the main reasons for for writing the book no I love it and I'm curious right you.
Mentioned something about imposter syndrome um a lot of entrepreneurs who's either coming into success or got very successful very quickly sometimes go.
Through that process of imposter syndrome what is maybe that one you don't got to give us the whole book because we I want people to go and read this what is that maybe one quick tip.
You can share that can help people when it comes to um you know overcoming the Imposter syndrome first of all realize that everybody goes.
Through it you know everybody has a posture syndrome at some point in their career and I would identify what the fear is you know that you're you're worried about and.
Um I really I would say uh the one tip I would give is to you know really focus on what it is and work hard work hard work through it get repetitions in for instance if you're a if you're if you're.
