Building a United Team in a Divided World: A Leader's Guide | Ross Yerger

0:00Welcome to KSHA Business and Money Life. We are joined by Ross Yerger, he is a former Secret Service agent and radio host. He has navigated high-stake environments and protected national leaders and he brings that experience to the business world. And so we learn from him practical tools for bridging divides, handling political tension at work and leading through polarization without losing unity or productivity. Welcome to the show, Ross. Thank you. Thank you, Ravameen. Welcome to the show.

1:00Welcome to India in the online form, Ross. I am sure not just in India, but a lot of people across the globe will benefit from what we are going to talk right now. As said, we will talk about navigating polarization in workplace, how it can still increase your productivity and there does not impact your team in any way. But before that, let's talk a bit about your journey, your background so that the audience knows who they are listening to. Gladly. I started Secret Service about 26 years ago. I wasn't hired right away, which was really disappointing, but the determination I went and became a local police officer and then a second application they accepted me and 21 years later I earned my pension.

2:07Absolutely. Absolutely, Ross. So to understand your life story better, a lot of people who are in the Secret Service, they do have a lot of work after that the way they want to, but yours is a very different kind of story from Secret Service to a radio host, doing so many things from suddenly a secret, almost secret life to a life in the open where you are talking to a lot of people that do on politics. So I started out when I was preparing for retirement, I checked out a type of 401K that we have called a Rift Savings program. It's where I take money automatically out of my pay before even get the pay and then the government matches that amount of money.

3:08And I realized that it wasn't as valuable, as wealthy, as what it should have been for me to retire. And the reason for that was I was putting it into what was more of a savings account than it was something that was more volatile and therefore more productive. So in effort to raise more money, I began day trading and I had an amazing first year. Bitcoin was on the way up from the teens up to its high at the time of 60,000 and other things that I was trading I did really well with. And I wanted to share that with other first year traders. That idea didn't go so well. Apparently those traders wanted to learn from arrogant experience traders. So I dumped that idea, but I enjoyed the podcasting, the live streaming.

4:11That's all I was really doing at the time. So I'm lying in bed one day and a colleague of mine by the name of Dan Bonjino who had already left the secret service and was a talking head at Fox News, a conservative outlet here in the United States, was fired from Fox News, relying. I thought, well, I can do better than he does. And so I thought about what I am as a person because I wanted to be genuine. I think that was part of his problem. And so I realized I'm conservative, but I'm also progressive. I'm also liberal. And so I thought about where I really fell on the political spectrum. I thought at the end of the day, life needs to balance out. There's plenty of conservatives out there. There's plenty of progressives out there.

5:14But we need to hear both sides of an argument and find or compromise and create the best solution. And so that's how I created up the middle. And that's all that for today. Absolutely, absolutely. So how do you navigate this space, Ross? Means you talk about politics and still look, you know, have to be a political or do are you political in that sense? How do you explain to people another part of the world if they want to understand when you say that your radio show, health, Floridians get ready for their morning and learn about political matters for the day? So my morning show is actually my second show that I do. That is more news traffic, whether that's the boring stuff. And that is a political so that I can attract listeners from all over the state of Florida.

6:20The Sunday show is up the middle. And that is no holds barred. I let it out and I give my opinion on things. And the way so many people say, oh, I'm not political. I hate politics. Is that any other thing? Just by saying that shows where you are in politics, because whether you like it or not, you are a governed citizen of society. And that politics affects you, whether you take part in it or not. And so you're crazy not to at least just pay attention to what's happening in the political realm around you. So you at least go out into the world knowing how it's going to affect your day and the days to come.

7:23As far as the morning show, we do talk about political issues, but it's more straight to the point. I don't use my political science degree to talk about anything. I don't use my time in the secret service, rarely to talk about anything. Just because we don't want to turn listeners away because of something I say. And that's how a lot of society seems to be behaving today. Unfortunately, we're not having the political conversations that we should have been having 10 or more years ago. Absolutely. So you tell people to be away from politics or take the middle path or to deal with, you know, to be a part of the politics so that, you know, they're able to make sure that the leaders do the work that they have been elected to part. I tell them to live their lives.

8:26If you are as in our case right now in the United States, if you are a supporter of Donald Trump, go be a supporter of Donald Trump. But unfortunately, there are so many supporters of both the far right and the far left of the political spectrums who are supporting that, but they don't know why. They say Donald Trump is the greatest president of our lifetime. Okay, that's an opinion. But you can still support that opinion by giving the examples why he's the greatest president of our lifetime. And they can't do it. That's because they know he's making a lot of mistakes. And I'm going to keep my language appropriate for the workplace. But maybe he's not the greatest president of our lifetime. What I teach is to do your homework and not just how to do your homework, how to research

9:29your political beliefs, but why? And that's because so much of the media and so many of the politicians today push their beliefs on us and not the other way around. Absolutely, absolutely. So on one hand, you are a radio host. And on the other hand, you are also growing your company, massive media. Is it the same thing or do you have to navigate these two things differently? Help us understand from a business person's perspective also. They are one thing in one part of the life. And the other thing is they have to also ensure that they are growing their company without getting into things that can derail that whole dream. It is a different hat that I wear. When I'm on the air, especially for the political view, I use yurgs and nickname based off of

10:37my last name, Yerger, that I've had since childhood. And I do that because that is very much who I am. And that way, if and when my on air persona is different from the political beliefs of someone to whom I am selling advertising, Ross Yerger, the person selling the advertising, won't get mixed up with Yergs, the person with very strong political beliefs, and defend the person that is buying advertising on our stations. Absolutely. So is it a easy job or a difficult job for you, Ross?

11:39It's an enjoyable job. It's a rewarding job. There's challenges to it, but there are things that are also coming easy. And when you talk about the navigating, that's what can be the challenge is putting down some of the responsibilities that are entertaining, that are fun to do, and picking up the responsibilities that have to be done, that have a timeline, a deadline, and things that have to be done now. Who else? It's not something that's not going to get on the air, or turned into a podcast, or sold, or getting ad spots sold. It means going out into the community and hearing the word no. Before you finally hear the word yes. Absolutely.

12:41So for a lot of leaders who are, you know, who have to deal with their own workplace, with employees who are, you know, following different ideologies, even if they don't speak up much in the workplace about it, that can show in one form or the other, or even in social media, they can be very much present with their views about that, which can, you know, sometimes become difficult for the leaders or the company. How do you manage it in your company? Like how do you want leaders to understand about navigating this difficult life? Today's generation want leaders to be much more open, companies also want to be open about their views on substantive topics, you know, that impact. Maybe not even in the US, but things that are happening outside the US. Correct.

13:44We encourage political and societal discussion, even in the workplace, because the workplace is on the air, where we have those discussions live. And if we can't disagree off the air when we're sitting down and planning for an episode, we're not going to appropriately disagree on the air. And what I mean by appropriately disagree, we can strongly disagree with someone, largely without hating them. I don't hate Donald Trump. I strongly disagree with how he's leading our country, but I don't hate him. He could do much better. I wish he would. Ever since he was first elected back in 2016, even though I didn't vote for him then either,

14:46I wanted him to do well. So when we talk about being in the workplace, there are plenty of colleagues of ours with whom we disagree. It's how that disagreement is expressed. We keep things professional, and that goes with on the air as well. We don't get into what we call Facebook fights, where it's just creating ridiculous memes or resorting to name calling, and the better your meme or the more vicious your name that you call someone means that you've won the argument. Winning the argument means you've sat down and listened to the other side and considered those viewpoints and evaluated the facts that were presented to you. We've stepped away, for example, from doing live interviews with where we're fact checking

15:51each other. If it's a political segment, and if it's one where one of the guests or we as hosts might present information that the other side might not have yet, we stop recording and we let that opposing side do fact checking right there on the spot. And then we pick up the recording again and go from there. We stop what we're doing off the air as well and look up the information that's been presented to us by our coworkers, by my employees. And say, okay, that's a good point, but I don't think that's going to work. And we're here's other data that contradicts that factual information.

16:53And so we keep a professional but disagreeable, potentially disagreeable workplace environment so we can still get things done. And it works. Absolutely, Ross. But in today's time, there is so much of, you know, either political news which is difficult to verify statements which are coming from high offices, may be either not fully true or untrue even. And media takes it on face value, has to report on it. And the second day, it turns out to be totally something else for the general person who is visiting, who is working in a company. And following those things and thinking them as some sort of a truth, how should they navigate these times, especially AI, so many, you know, hard truth, spectra, you know,

17:56fake and all those things, unreal news. How do they navigate this place when it is so difficult to, you know, make, may ensure what is right, what is wrong? How would you suggest workplaces to be ready in the coming day, especially when you talk about that, you know, these things should be talked in workplaces. You cannot run away from that. One of the first things that I teach with fact checking is to consider where you're getting your facts from. And know what that outlet is. For example, Fox News in the United States is considered to be more conservative. MSNBC or what I think is called MS now is very progressive. And CNN, what stands for cable news network is on the left side is progressive, but not

19:02as far as MS now. If you are going to consider one of those television outlets as an example, consider the other from the other side of the political spectrum and get information from that station and compare the information from both. Don't just take information from any one source, whether it's digital, print, audio, video, print multiple sources and weigh the information and then also look at the reliability of what those stations are giving you. Fox News, for example, blatantly says they're not news, they're entertainment. They've said that in US court.

20:03So how can you take something that's entertaining to be educational? You can't. And if you consider that and you realize that it's okay to listen to it because it's conservative like you are, but don't take everything that they're telling you is the gospel. And that goes for any of the other so-called news stations. Always use multiple sources. Absolutely. Absolutely. So one thing I want to understand, from you living the life of a secret service personnel and then coming into public sharing your contacts everywhere, I mean, how did that think come about? How comfortable where you people don't share a lot of things nowadays on social media even today?

21:04We're not in the limelight. We're backstage or in front of the stage, a secret service agent, but out of the camera. But if we have to do our job, we're certainly going to be on camera. And so now I'm just simply doing my job. And that isn't always on camera. This podcast and broadcast is an example. It's audio only. My morning show is also audio only. But I'm still at a microphone and I'm still projecting my voice and doing my job. And at the end of the day, that's it. I'm just doing a job that I'm passionate about being done right. Absolutely. Absolutely. There's so much to learn about all this. From you, Rossin, I'm sure a lot of people would want to, a lot of leaders would want

22:07to connect with you, learn about how you do things. Perhaps, you know, be your client. What's the best way for them to do so? Basically visit mastiff, like the dog, mastiff.media. And there's might one of my biggest pet peeves for independent journalists, particularly and content creators is that they don't leave any sort of contact information. There are multiple ways for you to get in touch with me simply by going to our website, mastiff.media. Wonderful. But this, it's a wrap on this very special edition of the K-Age business and money life. Thank you so much indeed for joining us. My pleasure.