Building Trust and Accountability

We welcome back Jessica Toliuszis, VP of Sales at Highline Warren, and introduce Rob Blitzstein, Senior VP of Vendor Relations and Pricing at The Parts Authority. We unravel the lessons from Northwood University of the Aftermarket's Infusion program, an executive leadership course. You'll hear how unexpected friendships were formed and the lifelong impact of engaging with diverse perspectives in such an intensive environment.

Our conversations reveal the essence of servant leadership and its transformative role within organizations, as we dig into eye-opening sessions on personal accountability and emotional intelligence. We discuss the wisdom shared by former Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, and how these teachings can help not only in reshaping business strategies but in personal growth. The importance of a personal board of directors and maintaining a positive self-image takes center stage as we navigate through the challenges of leadership and the importance of nurturing young talent.

Balancing work-life dynamics becomes a focal point as we discuss our personal journeys, sharing amusing stories of our children and the unexpected lessons learned from them. We delve into creative outlets and finding hobbies to avoid burnout. From forging trust through accountability to juggling the demands of career and family, this episode offers a thoughtful exploration of how personal passions and professional responsibilities intertwine in the complex and ever-evolving auto care industry.

To learn more about the Auto Care Association visit autocare.org.

To learn more about our show and suggest future topics and guests, visit autocare.org/podcast

Transcript

Carpool Conversations for Industry Professionals

Rob Blitzstein 0:00

we're gonna make it all right , so I'm gonna be on 2028 .

Jacki Lutz 0:05

All right , so that was the rest of my life . That was a pretty good rehearsal .

Jessica Toliuszis 0:08

You guys want to just like jump right into it . You want to just go into it , all right . So accountability , folks . Welcome to the spotify . Are we on spotify ?

Jacki Lutz 0:16

this is spotify right yes , we're in spot , bobby gets confused bobby's tired .

Jessica Toliuszis 0:19

See , bobby was never actually invited , but he came . No , bobby doesn't get invited , he just .

Jacki Lutz 0:21

He just comes in you don't know when it's Bobby's tired . See , bobby was never actually invited , but he came , he just showed up .

Jessica Toliuszis 0:26

No , bobby doesn't get invited anywhere , he just comes in . You don't know when it's going to happen either . When the sunglasses go on at night , that's a problem .

Jacki Lutz 0:42

Welcome to Auto Care On Air , a candid podcast for a curious industry . I'm Jackie Lutz , content Director at the Auto Care Association , and this is Carpool Conversations , where we collaborate on today's most relevant power skills . We're all headed in the same direction , so let's get there together . Welcome everybody to Carpool Conversations . I have with me for the first time a return guest , and I don't want to hear anything about it . I had a cancellation and called in somebody at the last minute that I know can talk about just about anything . So I have Jessica Talicious back . Vp of Sales with Highline Warren . Welcome back , jessica . Thanks for having me . I blame Stacey because she gave me the keys to the studio . Yeah , I mean , that was on air , Everybody knows , yeah . So welcome back . And I have Rob Blitstein , senior VP of Vendor Relations and Pricing with Parts Authority . Welcome .

Jessica Toliuszis 1:44

Rob , thank you for having me . I am not going to blame Stacey .

Jacki Lutz 1:47

No , you shouldn't .

Jessica Toliuszis 1:48

No , why would I do ?

Jacki Lutz 1:49

that she wouldn't appreciate it . What's ?

Jessica Toliuszis 1:51

wrong with you ?

Rob Blitzstein 1:52

But the sincerest form of flattery Constructive criticism . Feedback .

Jessica Toliuszis 1:56

A lot of people really love me then .

Rob Blitzstein 1:59

What a title that is .

Jacki Lutz 2:03

Well , we are all at infusion together . That is north . For people that don't know , that is northwood . Uh , university of the aftermarkets executive leadership and strategy course . We're still trying to figure out what infusion means . Yeah , we were . We were trying to look up the word infusion , so that we could say something really don't look it up , it's my went down a rabbit hole and came out empty-handed there . Yeah , we let rob look it up . Maybe Went down a rabbit hole and came out empty handed there .

Rob Blitzstein 2:26

We let Rob look it up Maybe that was our first problem .

Jessica Toliuszis 2:28

It seems to me a continuation from Leadership 2.0 , perhaps which is where we first met and had that program together , which is a very cool program .

Jacki Lutz 2:36

Yeah , it's been kind of fun to have a little reunion .

Jessica Toliuszis 2:39

It's been a reunion . We also have Andrew here . Are we allowed to name drop on ?

Jacki Lutz 2:42

here . Yeah , you can name drop Yo . What's up Andrew ? Yeah , they know Andrew now because he was on our last episode .

Jessica Toliuszis 2:49

I hope that wasn't too loud and gets cut out .

Jacki Lutz 2:51

That's not the kind of stuff that gets cut out .

Jessica Toliuszis 2:53

No , I want that in . I want that in . Leave it in .

Jacki Lutz 2:55

Leave it in and we haven't talked about my favorite part of things like this which of it because there's something to be said when you're stuck with the same . I say stuck in a mean when you're with the same people .

Jessica Toliuszis 3:07

Yeah you're stuck with us forever , jackie you're trapped leave it a body bag .

Jacki Lutz 3:14

I have the keys . You know , being with the same people for five days straight , you just get to kind of you . You kind of hit a different level of friendship and you know connection than you would if you're just , you know , hitting at a bar for a networking event once and then you kind of move on to the next

Leadership and Accountability Discussion

Jacki Lutz 3:32

person . We have . What is it ? 12 , 13 people in this class and it's been so much fun . Some of them are familiar faces to me , some of them are new , but getting to learn more about everybody .

Jessica Toliuszis 3:43

Not too many new faces , which is cool , like a couple .

Rob Blitzstein 3:46

A couple . I think small talk is the worst . So I love the fact that we've gotten to really know each other really well and I think I'm quoting Bazelot , I think that's one of the things that he said Like we like to get deep , we like to really get to know people , and when you're in these sort of small groups with these really interesting people , like Ben who's the head of strategy , I mean the conversations that you can have about the global atmosphere and what's happening at different companies and different parts within our industry is irreplaceable . That experience alone has made this week really valuable .

Jacki Lutz 4:15

Learning like actually getting to talk to Ben Spitz has it's been like the highlight of my week Because I've seen him around like fall leadership days and stuff but like kind of a smile situation . Never said hi to him ever and I enjoy talking to him .

Jessica Toliuszis 4:29

Ben is one of the guys from and I uh this is , uh you know , I encourage everyone you know to have mentors or a mentor , uh , but Ben is definitely someone who I signed up as my own mentor . I don't know if he liked that , I did that , but he's been very helpful in my own journey of growth with the EQ and such . Ben is such a great sounding board and very bright and innovative . So , while I'm giving Ben a bit of a plug there , the point is you need people like that , not only in your organization , to be successful , but , you know , for your own brand . If you're going to be successful , you got to think of your brand and I learned this from you really uh , you got to think of your brand as an organization and you have to treat yourself as such , and if you think that you're going to run the company with good people like that , then you're also going to run your own brand with good people like that , and Ben for me helps me with my own brand .

Jacki Lutz 5:31

That's a great point . I may be using that in my talks .

Jessica Toliuszis 5:34

Did I get a thing too ? Am I a trailer ?

Jacki Lutz 5:36

It's almost like I think we've said like your personal board of directors kind of thing .

Jessica Toliuszis 5:40

Okay , yeah .

Jacki Lutz 5:41

So , like you know , as you look at your career and stuff , you have like mentors all around you . You're mentoring people , all that kind of stuff .

Rob Blitzstein 5:48

Yeah , you spoke at parts authority recently . Did you talk about branding and personal brand ?

Jacki Lutz 5:52

Well , we did Um , yeah , we did personal brand . I didn't go into the LinkedIn stuff but yeah , just like basic personal branding stuff . Oh my gosh , that was such a fun conversation .

Rob Blitzstein 6:01

I , I , again , uh , again . It was from those posts that you put out there around the topic and I learned from it and I remember it was like a year ago it wasn't that long ago that you were putting those posts out there and I had this style about myself that I thought was a way to get through some tougher conversations and that style was to kind of play the dumb card and say things like you know I could be , an idiot here .

Rob Blitzstein 6:29

But right , don't do that . Don't suggest that you know anything negative about yourself . Right , thinking that you know because I , like I'm not the only guy that does that . Right . I saw someone do it . I picked it up . I'm like , oh , that's a good way to navigate that , not a good way to navigate that , because if you say it enough times , people are going to start believing you Like , oh , he's an idiot , right .

Rob Blitzstein 6:46

And you're going to start believing it Damn right .

Jacki Lutz 6:49

I do that all the time , kind of like a self-deprecation . Don't do that Deprecation . Is that the word ?

Jessica Toliuszis 6:54

Defecation .

Rob Blitzstein 6:59

No , the editing , if you want to get some views don't edit it .

Jessica Toliuszis 7:08

Don't shit your pants or bleep them yeah , the greg natelick phase dot episode .

Rob Blitzstein 7:13

You're just trying to have a better clip .

Jacki Lutz 7:14

Oh , yes , trying to lead you guys into just swearing . For the next 30 seconds you ready don't challenge me .

Jessica Toliuszis 7:22

I am from the east coast , represent yeah , so um , but infusion .

Jacki Lutz 7:27

So what do you guys think so ?

Jessica Toliuszis 7:28

it's been well . First of all , I came late because I was traveling , uh , and I missed the first day on Monday , but from my experience that I did get to see . First of all , I want to thank Bosch for hosting us .

Rob Blitzstein 7:42

Their building and facility here is just unbelievable .

Jessica Toliuszis 7:45

Shout out to Brandon yeah thank you , Brandon , for letting us in and out .

Rob Blitzstein 7:51

And again all the time .

Jessica Toliuszis 7:54

Brandon's really been incredible and really I mean just walking into that building . For me it started seeing that as like wow , this is really cool that we have companies in the aftermarket doing this beautiful facility . Like you would not walk in there and think , oh , we're in the auto parts business here , you know it's very cool . And then getting to hear all the different speakers and their perspective really on life I mean this has not been so much geared towards auto parts necessarily- but more like you said , leadership , and I don't know if we're going to call it training or seminars or what , but we had the governor or the former governor .

Jessica Toliuszis 8:38

You don't say ex-governor , that's like .

Jacki Lutz 8:40

I don't know . It feels like it was forced . It got thrown out , but he did a full eight years .

Jessica Toliuszis 8:43

Yeah , no good , he was cool .

Rob Blitzstein 8:47

Jackie that was your favorite part . The former governor . I did . I really liked him .

Jacki Lutz 8:50

I think partially because I have that connection . He was the former governor of Michigan , Rick Snyder , and he was our governor during a really hard time with the Flint water crisis and all that kind of stuff . I just thought he I love that he didn't get political and he really had some great points . I love that he was a nerd .

Jacki Lutz 9:07

And he just flew that flag as soon as he got up there . He's like I am a proud nerd and he could see that and I love nerds that can articulate their thoughts in such simple ways for sure and I feel like most of his message was very simple , like this is what we need to do , and it was like beautiful for our industry , like I really want to get him on the podcast , just to like that would be cool explain that to our entire industry , because I just thought his his was really good that's a great idea , it was was

Rob Blitzstein 9:33

super impressive the people that they have pulled together , like Rick , in order to just talk to us as a small group it really made us feel very special .

Rob Blitzstein 9:40

I liked what he said about his government . Employees came from a place of feeling like captors , like they were in jail and they were only allowed to do certain things and move certain ways , and that his big win was that he was able to free them up to be champions . So what a line right From captives to champions . And he allowed them to do it through curiosity and through confidence and he really reshaped them as people and then was able to reshape the state of Michigan as a result .

Jacki Lutz 10:08

Yeah , he turned a big ship . Yeah , like it's hard to shift a culture of a state and it's pretty neat that you do that walking in from no government experience whatsoever . You know , but he's you know , he's been the CEO of several companies .

Jessica Toliuszis 10:22

Not being a politician is the best politician , agreed .

Jacki Lutz 10:27

Yeah , you know I didn't make this connection until now , but like we had talked about a potential topic for this episode being accountability , because it's such a huge thing in any in any career to be able to one take accountability for your actions also means like people need to feel like they can be accountable and admit their mistakes and failures and not get you know it's a pet peeve of mine , like if you can't admit when you're wrong , you're not going to learn and but you have to create that safe space for people to do that because if they believe they're going to get canned if that's the kind of culture that you have , then you don't have that .

Jacki Lutz 11:01

I almost feel like that could be a piece of this .

Rob Blitzstein 11:04

I think it's everything . As a leader , you want to provide that and as a team member , you want to lean into that or live it . But it's also a personality trait . You know , some people don't like to ever be wrong and they don't want to admit it , and you , as a leader , you have to learn how to deal with that as well . Right , that's the accountability of a leader , right ?

Rob Blitzstein 11:30

If you can't figure that out , then are you a leader ? So yeah , it's a real thing . But to anybody watching this who's younger in their career , the best advice I could give you is to not be afraid to say hey , that was me .

Jacki Lutz 11:44

my bad , sorry about that it's a trust-building thing , right ? I trust people way more when they can say ah , that was my fault , this is what happened . I learned a lesson . Now I know this . Moving forward versus somebody who did not learn that lesson won't admit that , that is a mistake Like that . That , to me , is is it's a immaturity thing and it does not .

Jessica Toliuszis 12:06

It does not instill trust . Making the mistake is not the mistake , it's when you can't learn from it . If you , if you are legitimately in a position where , if you admit you're wrong and you're getting in trouble from that , that's probably not where you want to be anyway . So I wouldn't worry about that . Um , but , but to grow your career , I think that's a really important um , personality trait or skill set , I'm not quite sure . Um , but if , uh , but something you want to work on . If you're not able to do that , there's people in you know along the corporate . If you're not able to do that , there's people in you know along the corporate journey that are not going to deal with that . And it's going to , it's going to be a ceiling for you . Learn the hard way . So let me help you all learn what I had to the hard way . Don't do it .

Jacki Lutz 12:49

But yeah , so , and then it .

Rob Blitzstein 12:50

also , you could fix things quicker . It leads to progression . I encourage my guys . You guys make a mistake , but tell me right away . Don't try to cover it up , don't try to fix it on your own . It's going to be much faster and more efficient . If you tell us , it will help you . We know how to handle these things . Trust me , you can't break something more than I already have . Go at it , and then it's much easier to just work and make progress for your company .

Rob Blitzstein 13:14

Yeah , we've probably all made million-dollar mistakes , right , and I think people on our team have made million-dollar mistakes , yeah .

Rob Blitzstein 13:21

We had a couple of big mistakes that now have a name . We have a Bloody Monday and we observe it every year .

Rob Blitzstein 13:30

Oh my gosh , you have to celebrate your mistakes .

Jessica Toliuszis 13:33

Yeah . That way people have that psychological safety to know it's true , I know we kind of everything I just said is completely true and I think that's part of the psychological safety , the fact that we can kind of smile about it and we have this thing .

Jacki Lutz 13:48

I'm still giggling about Bloody Monday , yeah .

Jessica Toliuszis 13:50

No , it's real , it was not good . It's real , it was not good .

Jacki Lutz 13:53

And it was your fault , or like a team's thing .

Jessica Toliuszis 13:57

It was my fault , sure , by way of being a leader , and we were missing processes that are now in place , but we were missing processes that prevented bad data from going out to our customers . And just wrong price . We were selling things at like $0 for a couple of minutes throughout the day there and as fast as we moved that got expensive quickly . But it was more a lesson in how we could improve our own process and not we needed alarms and flags that prevent that stuff from happening . There's always a bright side to things , right , and I look at that and say , well , thank God , we learned that as a couple billion dollar company , not a $10 billion company .

Rob Blitzstein 14:44

Right , that's a great way to look at it . You can't scale without mistakes .

Rob Blitzstein 14:50

Yeah , that's 100% true . I think a lot of how Parts Authority grew so fast was not being afraid to make those . Randy , our CEO , randy Buller , is a great leader , has great energy and the first guy to admit when he makes a mistake . We make them all the time . If you have a company that you are running and it's this big and growing this fast and you're not making any mistakes , I think you're probably lying to yourself .

Rob Blitzstein 15:18

You're probably not moving fast enough .

Rob Blitzstein 15:20

You're lying to yourself . Things are breaking somewhere , but it's all growing pains and lessons that you learn along the way and it does help improve the company . But you have to have accountability , otherwise you're going to miss those opportunities .

Rob Blitzstein 15:37

Matt from Moto Rad talked about that today , right ?

Jessica Toliuszis 15:40

Matt was great , he was so great .

Rob Blitzstein 15:42

But he talked about yeah , people on his team are going to make mistakes and at the end of the day , it's always his fault . He doesn't , he doesn't dwell on it , but he needs . He needs to be able to , at the the end of the day , say , hey , my team screwed up . This is where we're at At the end of the day , it's , it's on me , and we're going to fix this and we're going to go forward . He had so many good points today . I feel like I , I cried , I loved his .

Jacki Lutz 16:04

I loved his

Servant Leadership and Accountability

Jacki Lutz 16:05

like cause . You know the whole servant leadership thing is huge , but it sounds like they really built that into their entire organization and him , you know , like for what you're saying , it's like the CEO . He looks at him himself as like the biggest servant , right , so he has to make sure his team has the right tools , you know , is going in the right direction , has the training that they need , like all that kind of stuff . If they don't , and mistakes are made , that's why he kind of like puts it on himself Like you know he flipped the org chart .

Jessica Toliuszis 16:33

so if you think , about an org chart upside down .

Jessica Toliuszis 16:35

The ceo was at the bottom , yeah , and really at the top was sort of the customers right so he restructured the business around the different customer segments , um , whether that was , you know , latin america , or that was the us and canada , and then from there everything reported back to the customers , and he was at the very bottom of that triangle he , uh , he all true , and and great point for me , what stood out , uh , when you know from matt's presentation , was how genuine he was about how he's not perfect and and you know he's like hi , you know I'm terrible at these things , or however he put it right and , uh , you know , look , he , and he was , he was very genuine about it . It wasn , you know , saying it in a way where , like , oh , it's no big deal , like I know I can do better here , but hey , we lead this big company , like no , he was like you know , I'm sometimes too rough on people and I know I got to get better at that , and that , to me , is accountability also right .

Rob Blitzstein 17:37

You know , accountability is many things . Um , self-awareness comes with it , which , uh , I didn't do so good on that test today . Yeah , we took a for the for listeners . We took a with with tammy tacklenberg actually did two different sessions today one was with dei , one was with emotional intelligence , which she claims , which she uses as like the baseline of dei , so it was a really nice flow and she has you take a eq test that rates you on what was it ? Self-awareness , social awareness ?

Rob Blitzstein 17:56

I took a picture of there's another there was four things , was it four uh ? It was self-awareness , self-management , social awareness and relationship management were the four .

Rob Blitzstein 18:07

Um , and that's really you know why I said I , you know I . I think my favorite part so far was Tammy's presentation . You know , tammy , well , I think all the sessions throughout the week have done and probably will continue to do this , but Tammy's , you know , asks you to look inside in a way where the you know inside yourself in a way where the others didn't , with the EQ test and some of just the conversation that was had throughout the day and some of just the conversation that was had throughout the day , and seeing that and being aware that you don't have self-awareness is quite awakening . It's like huh .

Rob Blitzstein 18:42

Like where do I ?

Rob Blitzstein 18:42

start , yeah . So , yeah , that's real right . But okay , we have to work on that if we want to get better . And it goes right back to the accountability . Accountability is so huge , you know , and I hope that the people watching A are trying to learn more about our industry and maybe even come into our industry . B are a younger crowd , we want and need younger folks and C hear the message . You know it's not just working in the auto parts business , it's life . You know you want to have a successful career , a successful marriage , successful parenting . You know you have to be accountable .

Jacki Lutz 19:20

Yeah , and I , you know I love the idea of taking a . You know being accountable for your own career too . You know like , yeah , you can . You need to be in the right place at the right time . It really helps to have the right leaders in place , the right manager . That stuff is huge , but there are things that everybody can do to take their career , be accountable for it . Try to get to trainings like this . Raise your hand and tell your manager that you have your eyes set on the Infusion event , or Leadership 2.0 or any of these other courses we want to know .

Rob Blitzstein 19:50

It came up again not to keep plugging Tammy here , but , um , it came up in her presentation where you have a large company of thousands and thousands of people in the company . You got to think that there's somebody you haven't recognized yet who's really bright , or maybe a really good programmer or an analyst , or a salesperson or an operations excellence guy you know like , or a person you never know . And to be able to measure , engage the entire team would be , I think , significant for any company to be able to do that , for the company , right , but also for the person that we're talking about , right , to have that opportunity and to be recognized . Recognized isn't saying , hey , jack did a great job . Everybody , let's hear it for Jack . Recognized is like , hey , this guy should be doing this , this is unbelievable , this person should be doing this .

Rob Blitzstein 20:48

It doesn't have to be a guy .

Building Trust Through Accountability

Rob Blitzstein 20:50

It's a Midwestern thing , I think . Is it Guys ?

Jessica Toliuszis 20:54

For me it's an Eastern thing for me . Hey , you guys .

Jacki Lutz 20:57

I say guys all the time and I don't know . I don't hear that You're in .

Rob Blitzstein 21:01

Michigan . I think you're a Midwesterner .

Jacki Lutz 21:03

Yeah , but I never knew it was a Midwest thing . It is .

Rob Blitzstein 21:08

There's so many people we have a shortage of people and still there's so much unrecognized talent . And how do you find that ? It's easier said than done , for sure , but there are , in today's world and with the technology that we have and the internet and the testing that can be done that way , short profiles . It doesn't take long to figure out hey , potential candidate for something here .

Rob Blitzstein 21:32

I feel like Rob . I've recently met you , but I would have pegged you as pretty self-aware , so it's a work .

Jessica Toliuszis 21:40

It's a work in progress . What are you ?

Rob Blitzstein 21:42

going to do about it now that you have this information ?

Jessica Toliuszis 21:44

I'm going to go home and cry .

Rob Blitzstein 21:45

No , uh , we already cried . You're aware of it Third time today , uh , no , I think .

Rob Blitzstein 21:51

Uh , first of all , you know I'm I'm at a point in my career where I've entered a leadership phase and I think sometimes my experience at least kind of climbing a corporate ladder just for reference , we had a family business that sold to Parts Authority about 11 years ago now and Parts Authority was a corporate ladder and I just , I think the nature of our business you know , in the sense of the , you know old school mom and pop auto parts store , you know it was a bit of a rougher environment than it is today , and growing up in that and then entering a corporate world worked very well for me .

Rob Blitzstein 22:40

And you know there's going to be battles to be had , whether it's with teammates or customers or vendors , and a battle doesn't mean arguing and fighting and screaming . A battle , you know , could be within right and learning how to come past that . But you get to a point where you're no longer battling and you're now leading and you have to separate those two things , otherwise you're going to keep fighting and no one's going to want to follow you . And and again lessons I'm learning as I , as I move through my own career . But it's not easy . It's very , very easy to say , not easy to do , but you know I have been learning a lot , so I appreciate you saying that .

Rob Blitzstein 23:20

Well , I you know you're talking about parts authority and the journey that you've had as a company and different relationships throughout that process , and I I would say from my limited experience with parts authority that one of the things that you really excel at is prioritizing all stakeholders and I think as a company or as a leader , it's easy to prioritize your people right . We all put our people and our resources first .

Rob Blitzstein 23:42

It's easy to prioritize customers because that's who pays the bills at the end of the day , it's easy to prioritize shareholders or board members , because they are also writing the checks that you need . It's a lot harder to prioritize vendors , and I feel like that's one of the things that your company does exceptionally well and , as a result , I think you see that your vendors therefore prioritize you right back , and that's part of where you just got back from Alaska with a lot of your vendors .

Rob Blitzstein 24:08

That is true . Yeah , we did our third annual customer appreciation trip , which is really a customer and vendor appreciation trip , but I would say that it's an incredible opportunity that Parts Authority put together to bring those two networks together your customer network and your vendor network . And I appreciate you saying what you said .

Rob Blitzstein 24:34

I don't have really any experience at this level outside of parts authority and I guess I kind of took that . You know , we talked a little bit about this earlier and I was a little bit surprised that I guess I took for granted our own company's culture and how we do deal with the vendors and we look at the vendor relationship as a major key to our own company's success . And I I don't really know how other folks think about it , but if you think you're going to grow a company successfully without the support and belief from your vendors , you're crazy and that that makes the vendor a customer and me a salesperson . Right , I gotta . I gotta sell this idea and this , this direction and you have to believe in it because it's not going to be easy . I tell my vendors all the time I know I don't make it easy but I hope I make it worth it .

Rob Blitzstein 25:28

Well , especially you're in pricing and you're in vendor relationships , so pricing conversations especially can become very adversarial . It feels like the two of you are against each other , and I think there's a way to do it collaboratively , and it sounds like you're doing that .

Jacki Lutz 25:44

I kind of feel like the accountability thing really comes into play 100% If one of your vendors can't admit to a mistake or vice versa . You guys can't admit to a mistake . There's really like a building trust thing , which is what matt talked about a lot . He's like he started his whole uh speech today saying like how much , how important uh trust is going to be moving forward just with all of the the fake . Uh , what do you call them ? Like ai fakes , what are they ?

Jacki Lutz 26:11

big fakes or something like that deep fakes yeah big big fakes yeah , but like you know , it's building that trust and I think accountability can really go both ways um with building trust , both with between companies , between people , between customers , between vendors , and then between manager , and you know yeah it .

Rob Blitzstein 26:35

Yeah , it's an interesting point . Yeah , look , maybe accountability is a two-way highway . You know you have to be able to do it for yourself . And there's usually not just one person involved in an issue , right ? So when you have one person that does take the blame , that's no longer accountability . That's just like unfair at that point and you're going to lose that person , right ? You don't want to do that at that point and you're going to lose that person , right ? You don't want to do that . So accountability is sensitive , but important .

Jacki Lutz 26:56

Yeah , well , I think for young people , you're afraid to admit mistakes because you're trying to be taken seriously . I see often .

Rob Blitzstein 27:06

I see , sometimes it's not just about not admitting , or admitting to or recognizing the mistake , but it's trying to explain your way through it too .

Rob Blitzstein 27:16

It's like look , just shut up and just say , hey , I messed it up , like a lot of people will say .

Rob Blitzstein 27:20

like I messed it up because I was this , this this , it's like dude , you messed it up . Period , let's go right Like stop wasting time .

Rob Blitzstein 27:26

Or blame others Like well , this person got it to me late . Don't do is a two-way highway , right ? And I think it's the type of thing where make sure your side of the street is clean , right ? And if you're doing that , the other person will either follow along or their side of the street will always not be clean and people will pick up on that . So don't make yourself worse because you can't make others better .

Jacki Lutz 27:47

Yeah , and it's such a huge opportunity for leaders because I think , when even younger people see leaders admitting to mistakes , because , Because I think when even younger people see leaders admitting to mistakes , because , like Jessica , you mentioned in our last episode how you have kind of a system where with your team that you guys talk about failures- you know , and what you learn , so that , yeah , so , like you know , other people have the opportunity to learn from your mistakes so that they don't make the same ones you know , and that's how you kind of move forward at the end of the day .

Jacki Lutz 28:18

And when I see leaders like Matt , the CEO of Motorad , saying today that he takes responsibility for things , that just builds the culture of it's respected to take responsibility for things and can really start teaching that generation coming up that it's okay to make mistakes . We want you to make mistakes . We don't want you to make mistakes .

Jacki Lutz 28:37

We don't want you to feel like you have to hide it and then we can't fix it , and then nobody learns , so we make the same mistake .

Jessica Toliuszis 28:42

You need a leader that fosters that environment . You can't admit .

Navigating Accountability in Leadership Roles

Jessica Toliuszis 28:48

Sometimes people admit to a mistake and think that they admitted to it and owned it and then still find a way to throw other people in .

Rob Blitzstein 28:56

It's like it's not it .

Rob Blitzstein 28:57

You're not there .

Amber Andracsek 28:59

Hi . I'm Amber Andrusak , manager of Membership Engagement at the Auto Care Association . Are you making the most out of your Auto Care Association membership ? Log in to myautocareorg to keep your profile and preferences updated . Not a member yet ? Visit autocareorg . Slash membership to see all our benefits and schedule a consultation with our team . We've got your back . Unlock exclusive tools and resources today at autocareorg .

Jacki Lutz 29:33

I think too , like with taking ownership of things and kind of taking accountability for things and encouraging that behavior in your company , you also have to really think hard about how you're going to handle those things .

Rob Blitzstein 29:47

That's the self-accountability Like I'm going to make up a term here in self-accountability Like you have control of your reaction , right , you don't have control of other people ever and if you try to , they're going to know that's the genuine part . You can't do that . You could only control yourself , which is not , for me at least , is not an easy thing to do .

Jacki Lutz 30:05

Very passionate .

Rob Blitzstein 30:09

You have a very passionate person , which I think we all are . It's so easy to become emotional about stuff and want to fight for it . Going back to you don't have to fight anymore . You don't have to lead right if you can't . We said this earlier you could be right and wrong at the same time yeah , you could be totally right about .

Rob Blitzstein 30:23

Hey , this issue we got to fix it . This is a big problem , but if you run into the room , what the bleep are you guys doing ? Right , like nobody wants to hear that they don't they don't want correctness shoved down their throat , right ? So being a leader and being self-accountable is knowing that . You know , hey , I'm emotional and I can get hot , right , I gotta slow myself down .

Jacki Lutz 30:45

I go like how can you turn this into a positive experience ?

Jessica Toliuszis 30:47

not easy to . I'm not suggesting I've mastered this at it by any means like that's .

Jacki Lutz 30:51

That's the question that leaders need to be asking themselves , like how do I take this thing that you know too bad it happened , but how do we make this into a silver lining when we learned a lesson and now we ?

Rob Blitzstein 31:00

can just like that , exactly what you just did right ask the open-ended questions and mean them right . You can't ask an open-ended question knowing the answer you want , because it's no longer an open-ended question .

Jacki Lutz 31:09

Yeah , it's a setup question people see , you know , people getting their asses handed to them because they admitted to a mistake . They're not going to be admitting to their mistakes , which is my point . Like you know , you need to like create this culture where mistakes are celebrated , and you're you know . Let's move on .

Rob Blitzstein 31:24

Let's learn how to do that , yeah how you do that and I think how you do that I don't think you know . People may wonder like oh well , I see that , how do I do it ? You know I don't you do that . Uh , aside from knowing who you're dealing with , because you have to adjust yourself if you're going to be in a leadership position to all different types .

Rob Blitzstein 31:42

You can't expect people to adjust themselves to your type um , that's , that's what , that's what a leader is , I think right . So , um , and , and I like in my head , it's all just one big accountability conversation so like I hope we're giving you the content .

Jacki Lutz 31:58

You are . And another thing , too , that I was just thinking is all day long . I would rather hold myself accountable publicly than be held accountable by somebody else .

Jacki Lutz 32:09

You know what I mean . Get to it first . Let me throw myself under the bus here . Yeah , it'll hurt less . Yeah , I'm going to scoot out of the way at the end . I mean exactly , I'm going to scoot out of the way at the end .

Jacki Lutz 32:17

I mean , I would rather do that all day .

Jessica Toliuszis 32:19

Yeah , look , that's another thing I want the listeners to hear . Right , this term like oh , he threw me under the bus . That's never a real thing . That is a cop-out comment made by people who don't have any accountability . Like you messed up , right , if you got in trouble because of something I said about it , that's on you . Like you know , that's not my fault . You got to be a little careful there too . Right , my own . This is where I'm working on , on myself there . Right , like you can't show that attitude .

Jessica Toliuszis 32:49

You could be right , but you'd be wrong to say that right so so you're very delicate thing to balance is when you hear stuff like that . But you're going to have to navigate that stuff as you grow your own career . You're going to be in situations where people are going to get called out If you're thinking like , oh , I don't want to throw them under the bus , there's no bus . Where's the bus ? I've never seen one bus run over somebody ever .

Jacki Lutz 33:14

How do you guys feel about managers who take accountability for something that went wrong and it wasn't ? Even though False accountability , yeah , kind of they're almost like protecting .

Rob Blitzstein 33:29

Again , I think it's a delicate thing . If you do that too much , you're not teaching anybody , so you can you know you can protect someone in public and teach them in private , right ? So you don't want them to get blown up . Some people aren't thick skinned , right ? I think we mentioned earlier . So you want to protect those people from the shrapnel of the blow up . Sometimes that's knowing your audience , right . But if you let that person just go through life thinking like , oh , it wasn't my fault , everything's hunky-dory over here , then it's going to happen again . Right , and you're going to . Your leader is going to have enough holes in his own body at some point too , right , so you can't , as a leader , you can't die on the battlefield either , right ? So I think you nailed it .

Jacki Lutz 34:09

I think it's .

Jessica Toliuszis 34:10

Yeah , hold everybody accountability .

Learning From Mistakes and Accountability

Jessica Toliuszis 34:12

We said self but accountability is still accountability . Who should be accountable is a real thing .

Jacki Lutz 34:18

Yeah , yeah , and I think it's great to like correct people in private too , and just make sure that there's a lesson learned there . But it could also be like as a manager , somebody , you know , something slipped , you know , in my world , let's just say like a Facebook post went out with a spelling mistake , something like stupid , like that , right .

Jessica Toliuszis 34:34

Yeah .

Jacki Lutz 34:34

Yeah , no , then I didn't write the social post . So was it my fault ? No , but I probably should have looked or maybe I should have approved it . So it could have been my fault , but making sure that that person understands , you know , this is why we have an approval process , or this is you know , this is you know .

Jessica Toliuszis 34:52

Let's learn something from this and make sure that maybe our process needs an improvement , that you were able to make this mistake .

Jacki Lutz 34:58

Ask the questions Figure out how to fix it , moving forward .

Rob Blitzstein 35:05

That's where I think having that psychological safety is beneficial to the company , because you'll find those opportunities much faster when the people aren't afraid to make the mistake . You can't call people out in public . That's never going to work . You can't hold people accountable in front of other people right , I think , at least you know from from my experience . Uh , you know , if I'm , if I'm wrong , then maybe people are a glutton for punishment and they do better in that environment .

Rob Blitzstein 35:28

But uh , typically I've found , you know , nobody likes to to be corrected in front of anybody . Uh , even if it's like , oh , me and my supervisor corrected it , it's like . If it's like , oh , me and my supervisor corrected it , it's like , no , it's like , do it one on one . Nobody likes that , right , if you want to have two separate conversations , maybe I'm not quite sure , but I do know , or I do believe , that you'd never want to do that in front of anyone , right , it's a totally private thing .

Jacki Lutz 35:50

And maybe like think about patterns too . Like , is this a pattern or was this like a you know , one-off mistake ? Sure , that's how long you need to spend on that .

Rob Blitzstein 35:59

Yeah , look , being a good leader doesn't mean you're going to make everyone good at work . Also , you know you got to . You got to recognize that . You know part of being a good leader is recognizing that you'll have a cancer in your culture , perhaps , right . Like yeah he keeps making the same mistakes . You know you're leader , that you're accountable to keep that away from the company yeah , sure , sure , sure .

Rob Blitzstein 36:26

Yeah , you played a part in it . I think we heard today from Matt that you can either be remarkable or you can be invisible . And you can't be remarkable without having the accountability , but also without screwing up . Without having people on your team screw up , without having people around you screw up , you can stay invisible and not screw up .

Rob Blitzstein 36:45

But , it's important to be able to be remarkable and to be able to remark on it and to be able to bring all of that to the table in order to make those around you better , which was the point , and he used that tree , if you remember the tree , the roots , the roots you better .

Jacki Lutz 36:58

Which was the ? He used that tree , uh , if you remember the tree , the roots , the roots , just for the audience . Um , he told the story way better than I'm about to , but about , uh , there was this . Was it like a experiment where they had this perfect environment , perfect soil ? Yeah , no wind perfect sun exposure and they planted trees there and the trees trees ended up just like dying in the end because they didn't have the root systems , they weren't taught how to live in an environment .

Jacki Lutz 37:25

Yeah , so they didn't have to ever grow roots , so they never actually grew big . So , like his point was , you know , when you go down to where there's constant hurricanes , like Florida or something like that , those trees have the strongest roots , they actually just grow sideways .

Jessica Toliuszis 37:37

I'm serious , that's like I've seen trees growing sideways , like what ?

Jacki Lutz 37:41

They actually have the strongest roots because they are constantly battling .

Jessica Toliuszis 37:45

They learn how to live in their environment .

Jacki Lutz 37:47

Yeah , and I think that that's kind of what you're saying . Jessica , too , is making mistakes , and learning from them is one of the best ways to learn and most important ways to learn .

Jessica Toliuszis 38:01

Right learning from them is one of the best ways to learn and most important ways to learn right . You've got to look at obstacles as opportunities you have to find the calm and the chaos , and be careful not to chop the tree down , you know right , if it's , you know , let's get windy , let's chop the tree and let the tree grow yeah you gotta let you gotta .

Jessica Toliuszis 38:10

In other words , you gotta let people fail . You know , uh , do their job really right . I think is is probably a good . You know , do their job really Right . I think is is probably a good . You know , if you're going to be in a leadership position , let put people in a position to do the jobs that they're going to do and let them do it Right .

Jacki Lutz 38:25

And I think managers too , like smart managers , are good managers . They , I mean my whole life , my whole career .

Jessica Toliuszis 38:32

I have been placed in positions I never felt ready for but like I would tell them that that's the best job to have .

Jacki Lutz 38:38

Yeah , and I was like , okay , I mean , first of all , are you sure you got the right person here ? But okay , you know but , I feel like when they do that , they know that the risk they're taking right , that you've never done this before .

Jessica Toliuszis 38:53

I think Matt said that earlier right , that's . And look , you know , you have a good leader that puts you in that position , that says hey , you have this ability , you have this talent , you have this capability . Um , you know , if you have a good boss , they'll recognize that and they will put you .

Jessica Toliuszis 39:08

That's why I said that's the best job to have is the one you're not comfortable with as soon as you're comfortable , you should say something to your boss , right , like let's move on right . This is I'm a little too comfortable . That's where complacency comes in . That's where we've always done it this way . Comes in because people got comfortable . Absolutely and the company stops improving and you see these case studies like Kodak .

Rob Blitzstein 39:25

Yeah , right , yeah , diamonds are mined under intense pressure . Yeah , and so when ?

Jessica Toliuszis 39:30

you I sparkle baby .

Rob Blitzstein 39:31

Yeah , but that's what you're talking about . You were put in a position . You suddenly started to have imposter syndrome around that situation . But imposter syndrome is sometimes it's your brain just saying , hey , I've leveled up , I'm in a new place , this is awesome .

Jessica Toliuszis 39:45

I want you to explain that term . What Was it you that said it ? No , it was Tammy that was using that today .

Rob Blitzstein 39:51

Imposter syndrome . Do you know what that ?

Jessica Toliuszis 39:53

is . I didn't hear that ?

Rob Blitzstein 39:54

Oh my goodness , yeah , I think .

Jacki Lutz 39:55

Matt talked about it too . Yeah , it's just feeling like you don't belong there , like people are going to find out that you don't know everything that they think that you know because you shouldn't have the seat that you have .

Jessica Toliuszis 40:06

Got it .

Rob Blitzstein 40:07

You're constantly worried that someone's going to find out that you're not qualified for the seat that you're sitting in .

Jacki Lutz 40:13

That's what I felt at the podcast conference a couple weeks ago . People are going to find out that I'm this isn't a normal thing you mean no , it is normal , it is . Oh right , yeah .

Jessica Toliuszis 40:21

Imposter syndrome yeah I feel like that's fake until you make it .

Rob Blitzstein 40:24

Kind of yeah .

Jessica Toliuszis 40:25

Well , that's a strategy for dealing with it .

Rob Blitzstein 40:27

Some people don't have any strategies , some people are stuck in it .

Jacki Lutz 40:29

Huh so like like , even like this podcast , for example . I absolutely love challenges that I know nothing about , because there's so much opportunity , and that's all I can see . It's like , yeah , I'm going to make mistakes . I've made so many . We just talked earlier about like how many times I've forgotten to push record . Should we start over again ? I did that to .

Jessica Toliuszis 40:53

I did that to Eric Sills one time , and it was the most embarrassing moment in my career , I think .

Jacki Lutz 40:56

I think failing fast is kind of fun , like you know , like let's move quickly , let's do the thing , let's stop sitting around and talking about it , let's go , and then like fail fast and keep going and learn .

Jessica Toliuszis 41:06

Fail fast is a cool thing .

Rob Blitzstein 41:08

Yeah , we talked about it . Today I've been asked to take on a new challenge at work and I had with Ken , our president , and I was asking him hey , what are the first three things you would do ? What would you do in the first 100 days ? What do you see as the goals ? And one of the first things that he said to me was don't have imposter syndrome around this . We chose you . We know you haven't already done this before . That's why we chose you and we're putting you in this opportunity and we have faith in you and we're not going to let you fail .

Rob Blitzstein 41:35

So , to say that to someone . I think we should all try to say that to someone Love it .

Jessica Toliuszis 41:39

Yeah , I've had conversations in the past . To me it's a totally normal feeling . I guess , this is the self-awareness thing . That's a thing , right . But , I've had the conversation plenty of times explaining to people that like , look , nobody knows what's going on generally most of the time in the world , everywhere , right , and you know that's like governments , even like you look around it's like . That's why , like , conspiracy theorists always crack me up .

Rob Blitzstein 42:05

It's like you really think people are that organized it could also be part of the midlife crisis is that the the more you know and the more you grow and the more you learn , the less you really know , dude .

Jessica Toliuszis 42:15

So I have a saying that the older I get , the less I know . Yeah Right , like I just get dumber Because you realize there's so much more Like you cannot give that to . That's only learned .

Amber Andracsek 42:27

Right , people try to tell you your whole life .

Rob Blitzstein 42:28

Right , people try to tell you your whole life Like ah , you're a kid , you don't know , right , right , and that's a very normal thing . But then you get to a point you're like I had no idea this whole time and I realized , going forward , I'm going to continue to have no idea and I think accepting that is is , uh , you know , uh , evolution or maturity or getting older , right , and all the above , probably , um , but that's what leads to , to that self-growth and that self-awareness and the self-accountability , right it's like , wow , like you can't get mad at me for that , like nobody knew that's why it happened , right , and it's a very real thing .

Rob Blitzstein 43:05

You know , I encourage every leader listening to this to you know , look for that trait in your own team and your people . That's psychological safety missing . I think you want to fix that yeah , accountability

Finding Hobbies to Avoid Burnout

Rob Blitzstein 43:21

.

Rob Blitzstein 43:21

This is maybe the right time to talk about the midlife crisis like really you're gonna bring that up you're wearing the hat , I am . You wanted us to bring it up I'm also going bald .

Jessica Toliuszis 43:31

That's why I'm wearing the hat . It's just part of my midlife crisis , I think .

Rob Blitzstein 43:34

That's a tough decision . Every man's got to deal with .

Jacki Lutz 43:36

That's the trigger . Yeah .

Rob Blitzstein 43:38

Women too .

Rob Blitzstein 43:40

Look , it's a real thing . I'm 40 plus , which , by the way , I'd like to take an opportunity here to make a recommendation that we change it to 41 under 41 . Because I never got the award . I'm only kidding .

Jacki Lutz 43:57

Oh Wish there was an awe button .

Jessica Toliuszis 43:59

You guys did it already , do you want ?

Jacki Lutz 44:00

some applause , because you'll never have them for that award hey .

Jessica Toliuszis 44:03

You even interrupted my applause .

Jacki Lutz 44:07

Thank you , we're happy for you , rob .

Jessica Toliuszis 44:09

Why did you cut it off so soon ? I wasn't , I'm sorry .

Rob Blitzstein 44:13

You may be winning awards soon in music .

Jessica Toliuszis 44:15

Well , so , speaking of the midlife crisis , right ? So you know I've been asked often throughout my career whether it's like with coaches or . You know , parts Authority invests in its people and you know , throughout my tenure here at Parts Authority , we've had , you know , coaches and you know , consultants and people trying to figure out what's wrong with my brain . Come in and talk to me about it . They've always asked what are some of your hobbies ? Hobbies ? Counting cores . What do you mean ? That's what I do on a Saturday .

Amber Andracsek 44:54

Same , yeah , same .

Jessica Toliuszis 44:56

And growing up in the industry , people are always like , oh , how long have you been doing this ? I'm like , well , I'm 40 . So about 41 years I was in my mother's womb listening to phones being picked up . Can I help you ? I don't really know much else . I'm Tommy boy . Really . Auto parts is my life . We really are right and I make any new hires . Watch that , by the way .

Rob Blitzstein 45:15

As you should , yeah .

Jessica Toliuszis 45:18

So I always kind of had this thing like , oh , you should have a hobby . I don't know what the hobby is going to be . I don't like hiking . I don't want to go lift weights at the gym . That sounds hard . I'm usually tired all the time . But I always wrote music , which I used lightly because I never really did anything with it , but probably more like poetry , I guess , because that's probably what music is when there's no music involved , um and uh . You know , as I got older I realized , you know , I need to be able to get my mind off of this sometimes , because you should not occupy your mind with the job 24 hours a day it's not a good idea .

Jessica Toliuszis 45:58

I strongly recommend nobody does that . So I found writing and I have a co-worker . I'm going to give him a plug . He's probably going to get mad at me and anyone who works with me knows Stephen Lamb . So , interestingly enough , stephen probably his entire life has been making the instrumentals and the beats and the music and Steven and I work . Really he's probably the guy I worked the most with at parts authority and we've been working together for , you know , probably about eight years now and just like a couple of months ago we were like why don't we just try to like put some of this together ? And we did that and we kept doing that and we are really enjoying that . We're not going to leave our jobs .

Jessica Toliuszis 46:41

Anybody watching from part three don't worry , but it's a great outlet for us , but there'll be signs , you'll know when I stop showing up , there'll be signs .

Jessica Toliuszis 46:52

Price files will be out of date , but it's been incredible to teach myself how to take my mind off of the job which is not an easy thing to do when you did it your whole life really and then have something that I could be this passionate about other than work because I'm very passionate about and write about things that are not car parts because you could have gone that direction .

Jacki Lutz 47:15

Yeah , really get some things out of your brain , yeah .

Jessica Toliuszis 47:20

Maybe , but it's been a really fun journey and doing it with Steven , who's Press 1-2, . In case you wanted to follow him on Spotify on Bobby Shots Bobby Shots . We'll take a second here so you all can just kind of go type that in real quick and follow .

Jacki Lutz 47:34

We'll just wait and then come back . Go ahead , it's .

Jessica Toliuszis 47:36

Bobby Shots .

Rob Blitzstein 47:38

Follow . Like , share Follow share , subscribe on . Youtube Five stars .

Jessica Toliuszis 47:44

All streaming services . I think that's my plug now .

Jacki Lutz 47:45

Did I use up all my time ? It was not a short plug , by the way .

Jessica Toliuszis 47:47

Thank you um , so , uh , that's been . That's been a lot of fun doing that and and and helpful , um . Yeah , I find myself sleeping better most of the time when I'm not traveling . I don't sleep that well when I'm traveling , um , but it also , you know , think , thinking more clearly about , you know , giving your brain a break matters right .

Jacki Lutz 48:07

So having those little hobbies and outlets , but yeah , it's been .

Jessica Toliuszis 48:11

It's been a lot of fun and I must say our music's really good it's really good so we're all fans we're gonna keep . We're gonna keep going with that my head nods when I listen .

Jacki Lutz 48:21

Uh-huh nods . You can't me , you can only hear me . But I'm nodding , not like nodding off . I'm like what do you call this Bouncing ?

Jessica Toliuszis 48:28

to the beat , getting a little bouncy with us .

Jacki Lutz 48:30

We'll write a song about it later . I don't mean like I nod off , it's really .

Jessica Toliuszis 48:33

Get bouncy with it .

Rob Blitzstein 48:34

And so you have a studio in your house .

Jessica Toliuszis 48:37

I mean , I have a table about the size of this one , with a microphone that looks very similar to this one and a laptop .

Jacki Lutz 48:43

So it looks like you have everything you need . Let's hear it I uh go listen on spotify I'm not doing it for free .

Rob Blitzstein 48:49

Can you please do a rap for us right now ?

Jessica Toliuszis 48:51

you gotta pay for that it's , it's , uh , it's , it's definitely a midlife crisis um doesn't feel like a crisis . I don't know that that's .

Jacki Lutz 48:59

I'm enjoying it , yeah you just found a hobby in an outlet . That's not a crisis . I'm enjoying it . Yeah , you just found a hobby in an outlet . That's not a crisis . I'm a little disappointed in your crisis . Me too Should .

Jessica Toliuszis 49:06

I just quit my job and go full speed with it Buy a Porsche . Buy a Porsche that I can't afford because I quit my job .

Jacki Lutz 49:12

That would be a crisis Negative .

Jessica Toliuszis 49:16

If we're going to sit here and talk about crises , is it crises ? Yeah ?

Jacki Lutz 49:19

It would create great music . Well , I was thinking more like as a group .

Rob Blitzstein 49:22

Oh , together we have crises . Oh , I thought you meant together we would have a Porsche .

Jacki Lutz 49:28

Like we're going in on a Porsche together through this crisis .

Jessica Toliuszis 49:32

I get it on the weekends . I get it on the weekends . My rights are on the weekends .

Rob Blitzstein 49:36

if we do that , I'll just take it during Christmas and Thanksgiving . You get the holidays . Yeah , I'll take holidays . All right , holidays .

Jessica Toliuszis 49:40

You're watching it during the week uh , yeah , look , uh , maybe it's not a midlife crisis , I don't know , but uh , but , but being able to find this outlet and uh , get your mind off of off of the job , uh , especially as your career grows , it's not going to get any easier . And I've I've used that , uh , when teaching my own team and some of the newer folks on the team , the younger guys . I encourage them , like , don't go home and think about this , go home and go home . And I think that's really important , because I have very passionate people on my team and I'm very lucky for that and I can be very passionate myself , and if I wanted that culture where we're like 24 hours , they would do it and I would be a bad leader for encouraging that in my , in my mind I would work 24 7 , if , if I'm thankful like my kids stress me out a little bit , because in my brain sometimes I'm like , oh , I gotta have so much to do you're working 24 7 already ?

Jessica Toliuszis 50:40

yeah , especially if you're a parent .

Jacki Lutz 50:42

Well , yeah , but like I , I honestly could work on my job 24 7 and not even realize it , because I I am passionate about it yeah , but especially when you have kids . I work so much better when I don't do that , and that's really difficult to explain yeah , look , your children will know it .

Jessica Toliuszis 50:58

You know , when you come home stressed out and you're doing that 24 hours a day to yourself , like your relationship will be strained with your wife , with your kids , your husband , whatever it may be uh , you , no , no one owes that to their company . You know , sell your soul , basically right , don't do that right , yeah , and it's not like it's required .

Jacki Lutz 51:17

I just you know especially not required well , especially with my role . It's more of a creative role , which isn't always easy to do . Nine to five , you know , and like , if it's just , if you're not on , you're just not on .

Jessica Toliuszis 51:27

Yeah .

Jacki Lutz 51:27

So you work on other things and like , sometimes when I'm on is not the nine to five , not when I'm having to , you know , reply to chats and get on and off meetings and that kind of stuff we live in a very tough world to communicate in it is really , really tough .

Jessica Toliuszis 51:46

It's a result of technology , it's a result of COVID , it's a lot of things , but you know , we talked about this neurodivergence right , as somebody with you know a pretty fun case of ADD . That is a really difficult thing to navigate through . You have emails , you have cell phone calls , you have text messages , you have chats , you have video meetings , you have like I don't there's probably other things on , like forget your social media things or whatever you know , like LinkedIn or whatever it may be work related , Cause that's what you should be doing at work . That's a lot , and if you're not like super organized , you better get someone on your team .

Jessica Toliuszis 52:29

That is yeah because this is , you know , meetings , schedules and like everything's so virtual . There's so many more meetings now because it's so much easier to have them .

Jacki Lutz 52:38

There's a lot more communication .

Jessica Toliuszis 52:39

You almost got to be a little careful , like it doesn't turn into over communication I think because I could see that happening where you're not getting anything done anymore because you're constantly on a video call or a phone call so many companies .

Jacki Lutz 52:51

Like you know , and it was a you know in my previous life , I was just back-to-back meetings yeah , the work got done there's something's not going to get done at some point , like Like I get in trouble sometimes . This is a new culture of ours . Right , like most companies , like we , were kind of falling into this .

Amber Andracsek 53:07

So before we had teams .

Jacki Lutz 53:08

how many meetings did we actually have ?

Jessica Toliuszis 53:12

I mean , Before teams before COVID right .

Jacki Lutz 53:17

Like we could have one a day .

Jessica Toliuszis 53:18

You could have two a day .

Jacki Lutz 53:20

Now it's like you could have eight meetings .

Jessica Toliuszis 53:22

Yeah , so , like at Parts Authority and the way our company grew , our leadership kind of got spread out around the country as we grew . So we were probably more in the virtual world prior to COVID , compared to the world in general perhaps . But then when the COVID thing happened , it was like this super force that pushed all this stuff onto everyone and now all the vendors want to have meetings all the time and that you know the customer is going to have meetings with us now and we do that and , um , it's a lot , it's a lot . And you know something I was going to say earlier .

Jessica Toliuszis 53:54

I like I'll get in trouble once in a while for missing some emails . I miss a lot of emails , but I like in my head I'm like , listen , I could read all my emails and not work , or I could work and not read all the emails . Something's not going to get done . There's so much communication and for me that was a stress really . And that's when you go home and you think about that stuff and you lose sleep over that stuff and you're checking your emails at 1 , 2 , 3 o'clock in the morning . That is not a healthy thing to do .

Rob Blitzstein 54:19

Well , Jackie and Rob , how do you put it aside for the most important job you have is raising your kids , I would imagine . So how do you put that aside when you go home ?

Jessica Toliuszis 54:27

You , for me , you learn how to do that . That's not something . You had a kid You're like Okay , you know , this is how being a parent is . I was just no , I don't know that I really do , which is something I think I've actually been kind of vocal about that .

Jacki Lutz 54:38

I'm just never been like even . I think my first episode was work-life balance . Yeah , and I talked about that . I have a terrible work-life balance because even if I'm not working , I'm thinking about it because it does consume my life and I but , it's , it's where I'm very happy working .

Jessica Toliuszis 54:55

So you have to do that with intent , you have to be intentional .

Jacki Lutz 54:58

But I can be with my kids , yeah and be playing with them , be watching teenage mutant ninja turtles singing the song with them , be watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles singing the song with them . But then in my head I'm still . You know , I'm just also thinking about a cool idea or something and working that out . And you know , if they're busy playing with each other , I'm pulling out my computer you know , and it's not my most , you know my best habit . It's not something I love to admit , but it's not my best habit .

Rob Blitzstein 55:24

It's not something I love to admit , but that's kind of my speed right now , but it feels like you pull some of it in because you've been talking about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles this week .

Jacki Lutz 55:30

Yeah , oh , I like it now . Yeah , totally , it's a good

Balancing Work and Parenthood

Jacki Lutz 55:33

show .

Jessica Toliuszis 55:33

I love Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles who doesn't how does your partner .

Rob Blitzstein 55:37

And how do your kids ? How do they feel about ?

Jacki Lutz 55:39

it . My kids do say , like when I call them they'll be like are you in a meeting ? Or if I'm ever on the phone with anybody , they'll be like mom's in a meeting . So I do think that they notice Again , like for people listening . My kids are young . They're two and a half-ish and four , so pretty young . My husband's great he's always been great about my work ethic . He also has a very busy you know busy work life as well .

Jacki Lutz 56:05

We're both very passionate about our lines of work , so that's something we've always supported for each other and we're also really lucky because I have so much support for the kids , you know , living next door to my mother-in-law who retired to be a grandma you know , so like I have a lot of really trusty help and my kids love it there but , they're at ages now where it's not a big deal , but I can see me having to make some changes down the road when they start realizing I'm not there and they start to miss me . Right now they don't really miss me , so it's interesting the age thing , right ?

Rob Blitzstein 56:37

So I have a 4-year-old and an 8-year-old , but when my 8-year-old was about like five , four or five is what I really started like they become more human too , right and like you could now have conversations and like , do things that are like you know like like they're also participating in whatever's going on right and and that , as as my oldest kid , jacob , uh got , got older and gets older , it's requiring more and more of my attention and I want to give that to him .

Rob Blitzstein 57:09

And when you come home from the , I go to work like I go to an office every day . I don't work at home because I want to . It's hard to turn it off when you're working at home and then you're staying at home . It's hard to make that separation . I do enjoy very much going to the office every day and going home at six o'clock , and you know just kind of the way I always did it and I don't know if that's a good thing or not , but I do . I do enjoy the office life , um and but you can have rough days at the office . That's still a real thing . And um , you don't want to go home to an eight-year-old and be mad like they don't get that part yet , but they , but they know you're home , right , so you gotta be a little careful with that yeah , and I think I think it's an adjustment that I you know it's .

Jacki Lutz 57:49

It's definitely because , like I , I absolutely adore being a mother . It's so hard to like you're gonna make me cry on this . I know I like it's it's so every episode I'm on somebody is that right .

Rob Blitzstein 57:59

It's like a jerry mcguire episode .

Jacki Lutz 58:04

No , I know the lights are tough in here um my sunglasses but no I forgot , am I bobby shots right now oh , you can be all right , don't forget to like and follow , if you haven't done that yet no , but like I adore being a mom , um , but it's just , it's never been , uh , the it can't just be the only thing that I do .

Jacki Lutz 58:21

It's never been , you know , completely overwhelming , to the point where , like this , like I could ever , ever be like a stay at home mom , I just wouldn't be fulfilled . I have , I need , I need both and they need to work together , and I haven't figured out yet quite how to make them both work . But what I need to do is stop trying to fit my kids into my work life and fit my work life into my kids , and that's where my prioritization , like I'm trying to find that balance and I think I was actually getting better at it . But then when I switched jobs and you know , the first year in your job , you're doing everything for the first time , you know deciding to do crazy things like starting podcasts and things you know , it's , it's just it's , it's just completely consuming , and I love it .

Jessica Toliuszis 59:01

I'm lucky to have an understanding family , but I realize things gotta change really strong I have a great time , like I've learned to go home and and be with my kids , and I think it's because they're getting older too , but I have so much fun with like they're , like they're a little they're me , they're they're me and they , they say things I'm like oh , man , school in the future , oh , they're going , they they ask to be marched to bed so I've brainwashed them .

Jessica Toliuszis 59:24

Yeah , I did that early on . I told them you're gonna be the auto parts business and you're going to military school . They're all in .

Rob Blitzstein 59:29

You know rob went to military school . Yeah , for the audience . They really are they ?

Jacki Lutz 59:33

did they end up being mirrors of you and you can see your flaws . You can see your strengths , like when I see my four-year-old the way he talks to the two-year-old and how kind he is and he'll just be like , it's okay , let me help you . I see that he sees the good right , but then I'll also see him snap at somebody and I'm like , ooh , I see it that was me , I have , we have it in the two .

Rob Blitzstein 59:56

So we have two boys , and the older boy is my wife . I mean , sweet gentle , he's in third grade and last year he was in second grade . Obviously he didn't skip any grades .

Jacki Lutz 1:00:09

Is that how that works ?

Rob Blitzstein 1:00:09

He's kind of like me .

Rob Blitzstein 1:00:11

I'm surprised he's still in school , but he got an empathy award right .

Rob Blitzstein 1:00:16

And I'm like that wasn't me . I have no self-awareness I took a test and just told it .

Rob Blitzstein 1:00:20

It's from his mom . But then the little guy who's four is tough as nails , like the kid , does not care , he doesn't listen to anything , he rolls eyes . I have one of those too , he's me , I'm looking at this , I'm like I got it . I know exactly how to handle this . I encourage it .

Rob Blitzstein 1:00:44

I know exactly how to handle this . I encourage it . You know it can't be so tough .

Rob Blitzstein 1:00:47

You're going to take an EQ test in about 36 years . You're going to do terrible on it .

Rob Blitzstein 1:00:50

I thought you were still learning to handle yourself . Yeah , no , it's a lot of fun .

Rob Blitzstein 1:00:57

I like to think I'm a good parent and discipline the kids and they show respect and they don't act up when we're out and all that stuff . But they definitely have traits that they have to watch out for .

Jacki Lutz 1:01:07

I can see that Is Bobby Schatz self-aware .

Jessica Toliuszis 1:01:11

No , he's an evil villain that came to Serenade and Destroy .

Rob Blitzstein 1:01:15

Evil villains can also be self-aware . Yeah , that's true . I have no idea . Some of the best probably are . That's true . I have no idea . Some of the best probably are .

Jessica Toliuszis 1:01:21

Bobby Shots is a character in the making and I have no idea what I'm doing with him yet . I'm just having fun with Bobby .

Jacki Lutz 1:01:28

Shots . Let him guide you .

Jacki Lutz 1:01:31

I think , I think so , I think so see where he takes you it's coming from , from the soul can't wait to see the peaks that he reaches well , thank you guys , I really do appreciate you guys making the time

Jacki Lutz 1:01:42

to do this . I think it was very valuable very cool bobby shots you see that , like and follow that's marketing working

Jacki Lutz 1:01:50

at its finest thanks for tuning in to another episode of auto care on air . Make sure to subscribe to our podcast so that you never miss an episode , and don't forget to leave us a rating and review . It helps others discover our show . Auto care on air is proud to be a production of the Auto Care Association , dedicated to advancing the auto care industry and supporting professionals like you . To learn more about the association and its initiatives , visit autocareorg . Hi , if you've made it this far in the episode , I have a little bonus clip for you . This is Rob talking about pricing and how Parts Authority works with their vendors on pricing . I thought it was really interesting and , even though it didn't fit into any of the other narratives of the episode , I think it's really useful for people in the industry . So I still wanted to put it out there . So if you've made it this far , here's a little bonus for you .

Jacki Lutz 1:02:42

So I still wanted to put it out there . So if you've made it this far , here's a little bonus for you . I will , you know , I don't know how much I can or should talk about it , but I will say the fight on pricing is not with the vendor , it's with the customer , the sales team in the marketplace .

Jacki Lutz 1:02:57

You know , not that I'm . You know I'm having those fights , but that's where the fight is . It's in the marketplace , because you cannot control what your competitor is going to do and why they're going to do it , and it's never your vendor's fault for somebody doing something you don't understand , whether you feel it's irresponsible or whatever the case may be .

Jacki Lutz 1:03:20

But it's definitely not a fight that I have with vendors on their price . I'm not ever asking anyone to lower their price because that's not helpful for anybody really , and it is a nature of the beast type of thing in our industry . I know and I'm familiar with other industries and we are definitely more of a price war type of industry than others . Even in the automotive space when you look at collision and the 12-volt world and the radios and the neon lights all of which I've sold in my career those were always the high-margin items . Those guys like going up and the competition in the marketplace is very cutthroat in our industry .

Jacki Lutz 1:04:03

I think that's what makes you guys special , though , in a huge way , is that it kind of feels like you look for win-wins so you don't ask your vendors to come down on price to help you win more . It's like you let them .

Rob Blitzstein 1:04:18

If you're fighting on price for the win , you're going to lose . Yeah , it's more of a partnership .

Jacki Lutz 1:04:22

I think it's like you're really building a mutual trust in each other . Yeah , and you do that and I like that it's . It's almost like you do that 360 degrees .

Rob Blitzstein 1:04:31

Pricing's . Really it's a very light piece of the conversation with a lot of people are . You know , the relationship with the vendors shouldn't be focused on price . It should be focused on what the vendor's job is and in my opinion , I would say the vendor's job is to keep making new products , make them well , make them reliable , make them available , make them , get pictures of them and get the data correct and get the standards of the data lined up with what they're supposed to be . That's a huge job to do and to move those parts around the world .

Rob Blitzstein 1:05:10

Right , that is not something that you know WD wants to do , right , we don't want to Y'all do that . We'll buy everything that you make . Right , that's how this is supposed to work and I think that's our magic sauce . When Randy , or when Parts Authority purchased our family's business , I remember asking him I was so impressed with this company we had . You know , my family had a few options of who we could sell to . By the time we decided we were going to sell and my dad was semi-retired and I remember him saying to me like well , who do you want to work for ? And I was , like well , clearly that guy . So that's what we did and it was a very fitting environment for me . So I remember I said to Randy like what is the magic behind it ? Like how did you do this ? And he looked at me he's like there's no magic .

Rob Blitzstein 1:05:59

You know , I just I have inventory right , and I have it , and I have it all . That makes sense , coming from a one-store jobber environment . We had a 5,000 or 6,000-square-foot building . We could have this much . Inventory Parts Authority has , throughout the country , millions of square feet of warehousing , all the parts that are made . We got it and that's the magic . So pricing is really not the the decision maker in it . Yeah , right , it's . How good is the vendor ? How much do we trust the vendor ? There's going to be problems along the way and when we have a vendor that we know is going to not throw their hands up and say , oh , can't help you like that's not a partnership , right ? So you know .