Why Your Team Doesn't Care How Much You Know

I broke down crying in front of my wife over credit card debt.

She thought I was going to tell her I had cancer.

Instead, I confessed that I'd been carrying business credit cards I couldn't pay, that I'd been skipping my own payroll to make sure our team got paid, that I might have made a massive mistake transitioning Compete Every Day from products to speaking.

The relief on her face when she realized it was "just" money was almost funny. Almost.

"The credit card isn't a big deal," she told me. "We'll get through it."

But here's what she didn't know: I'd been making us both miserable for two years.

Every vacation we took, I'd tense up the second we had to pay for dinner or an excursion. I couldn't turn my brain off. I couldn't enjoy the moment. All I could think about was getting back to work, back to grinding, back to trying to dig us out of the hole I'd created.

The worst part?

I never told her what was happening. She just knew I was stressed about money and couldn't understand why.

That breakdown forced me to spend weeks buried in finance books - Profit First, You Need a Budget, I Will Teach You to Be Rich. I set up budgets. Created savings accounts for everything. Started making small, automatic deposits into dedicated buckets: vacation, furniture, emergency fund, car maintenance.

Seventeen dollars and eleven cents into a vacation account doesn't feel like much. Where could we even go on that?

But week after week, month after month, those accounts grew. And suddenly I stopped stressing on vacation because I could pay for everything from our budgeted account without the sick feeling in my stomach.

Those small, consistent deposits changed everything.

Relationships Work the Same Way

If your relational account is empty, you will struggle to build trust, create connections, or positively influence anyone.

Every relationship needs deposits if you're going to have anything to withdraw later.

It's harder to make one lump-sum deposit than it is to make small, consistent deposits every day to slowly build the account into a larger sum.

Ten dollars here. Twenty-five there. Twelve this time. Small deposits that don't feel like much on their own, but compounded over time, create massive impact.

When was the last time you talked with a peer or direct report about something that had absolutely nothing to do with a work project or the local sports team?

Do you know much about their life outside of the office? Have you asked them about it lately?

Have you asked about their passions in life? Considered introducing them to someone in your network?

It's great to want influence, but we can't magically snap our fingers and have it. It's something we earn by investing in our relationships.

Theodore Roosevelt said it over a hundred years ago: "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

Once your team knows how much you care, you can begin building the trust and influence to best impact them.

Treat It Like a First Date

I know what you're thinking: "Sounds great, Jake, but I have no clue how to do this. I'm not a conversationalist."

You don't have to be. You just need to treat it like a great first date.

Ever been on a terrible first date? I have. You probably have too.

The restaurant is great. Your date looks incredible. But then the conversation starts and you can't get a word in. They're telling you all about themselves - how great they are, how successful they've been, everything them, them, them. They never once ask about you, and if they do, it's more obligation than genuine interest.

The chances you go on a second date with that person sit right around 0.1 percent, right?

On a great date, things are different. That person can't stop asking you questions—genuinely curious about you, your hopes, dreams, and life. They want to know all about you, smiling and laughing as they ask more questions. You feel on top of the world after that date because they made you feel like the most important person in the room.

They were interested.

Being a better leader is about being less interesting and more interested.

I missed this for most of my early career. I strove to be more interesting because I wanted to be more popular. The more interesting I could make myself seem to other people, the more impactful I thought I could become.

But all I was really doing was chasing popularity in a vain attempt to build my name.

Interesting says, "Look at me!"

Interested says, "Look at you."

The Disraeli Difference

In the late 1800s, two rival politicians - Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone - were vying for the same leadership role within Great Britain's government. Both men were single and would go on social dates.

One woman went on back-to-back nights with each of them.

When asked about her impression of the two men, she famously remarked: "When I left the dining room after sitting next to Mr. Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But after sitting next to Mr. Disraeli, I thought I was the cleverest woman in England."

Gladstone wanted to be interesting.

Disraeli focused on being interested.

Not surprisingly, the more interested you are in people, the more interesting you become to them.

A Harvard research study showed that we typically have conversations to do two things: discover information (learn) and increase likability (connect). The study showed that the more one party asked a question and a follow-up question, the more the other party liked them.

They reviewed speed-dating programs and found that those who asked more questions were more likely to get a second date. The same approach worked during job interviews—the better someone was at asking questions, the more interviewers found them likable.

There's a misconception that we have to promote ourselves for people to like us—that we need to show off our credentials or talk about our accomplishments so they'll respect us.

The opposite is true.

It's our genuine curiosity about others that increases our likability. Seeking information, not self-promotion, builds our influence with others.

Besides, who doesn't love it when someone wants to know about us? We all do.

Do the Simple Yet Unexpected

I still remember getting excited about receiving an email. Our mailbox would be full of junk mail, but that precious inbox—only visited after hogging my parents' landline to use our dial-up modem - was a goldmine. It was rare to get an email.

These days, the reverse is true.

Emails bombard my inbox every second of every day. Team messages. Marketing messages. Buy-me promotions. Spam. The last thing I look forward to is a new email.

But my physical mailbox? Bare most days. We get our monthly local magazine, a flyer with discount coupons, the water bill, or random junk mail, but not much else.

Today, we value physical mail over email—especially when that mail is a handwritten note or card that someone took time to write, stamp, and mail. It's not as convenient as typing up a quick email, but it makes an impact.

Legendary basketball coach Pat Summitt was known for her handwritten notes. She would send recruits handwritten letters before they signed with the University of Tennessee. Going a step further, she delivered handwritten notes to players on her team regularly.

Her reasoning? "I could say the same thing twenty-five times, but when it was written down, just reading it once in permanent ink could make all the difference."

Thank-you cards are one simple yet unexpected way to build connection.

I always send handwritten thank-yous after speaking engagements. After one event, I went further - I asked the CEO about her team members and wrote personalized notes to three people, mentioning specific things I'd learned about them. Small deposits. Unexpected ones.

The CEO later told me those notes meant more to her team than anything I'd said on stage.

Make It a Habit

The easiest way to build lasting connections is to make consistent deposits.

Set a recurring event in your calendar each week to write a thank-you note, have coffee with a team member, or review that month's upcoming birthdays.

Anyone can do it once (even though most don't). Choosing to do it every now and then will help you some. But what happens if you intentionally choose to do it consistently every week? That creates positive ripples throughout your organization.

One of my executive coaching clients made having fifty cups of coffee his first order of business when he took over as CEO of a new organization. Every morning, Monday through Friday, he'd take the first fifteen minutes to sit in his office or the office kitchen with one team member for a one-on-one. This wasn't your typical work conversation—work wasn't even a priority.

He'd invest time getting to know this person. Where did they grow up? What's your family like? What makes your spirit come alive outside of work?

He repeated this each morning until he went through every single team member—and then he started over.

Compare that to a CEO I worked with years ago. Despite being on a small team of less than ten people and sitting in multiple weekly meetings together, he never once invited me to lunch, to his office for coffee, or took time to get to know me. He never asked about my personal life or cared who I was—only what I did to make him money.

I wasn't the only one he treated that way.

Which CEO do you think had more influence? Better yet, who do you think team members wanted to work harder for?

You can't withdraw from something that never received a deposit.

Small Deposits Add Up

Seventeen dollars and eleven cents didn't feel like much going into that vacation account.

But it added up. Week after week. Month after month.

The same is true for every relationship you want to influence.

Ask yourself: When was the last time you made a deposit in your team's relational account?

Not a work conversation. Not a project update. Not a quick "how was your weekend?" as you walk past their desk.

A real deposit. A genuine conversation. A handwritten note. A cup of coffee where you actually asked follow-up questions and learned something new about them.

Small deposits require intention but don't take a lot of effort. And they add up in significant ways.

So start making deposits. Set the recurring calendar event. Order the stack of thank-you cards. Schedule the coffee meeting.

Because the people you want to lead? They're not going to care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Make the deposit. Build the account. Earn the influence.

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Jake Thompson is a keynote speaker on competitive mindset who works with sales-led organizations, construction teams, and associations to build high-performance cultures that compete every day through the C.O.M.P.E.T.E. Framework®, inspiring keynote programs, and practical systems that turn inconsistent results into sustained excellence.