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109: Dayna Steele: I’ve never looked at it as failing

Dayna Steele Show Notes

Dayna Steele had a very successful career as a radio disc jockey. Then she decided to quit her job and move to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. After nine months she moved back home without a career in acting. But she never failed. Listen to what she actually did.

Dayna was born and raised in Houston TX with her Younger brother Scooter.  They were raised by two great parents, married over 50 years, but both now deceased.

Dayna actually chronicled her mother’s journey with Alzheimer’s in the book Surviving Alzheimer’s with Friends, Facebook and a Really Big glass of Wine.

Beyond being an author, Dayna has been on a microphone and a stage for the majority of her life. She worked with the world’s greatest rock stars as a Hall of Fame rock radio personality and now presents those true stories and valuable lessons learned to business audiences across the country.

Dayna is the host of The Rock Business, a television series featuring successful rock artists turned successful entrepreneurs with side businesses including coffee, wineries, inventions, bio medical research, foundations, hotels, restaurants, shoes, clothing, marketing companies and more.

Dayna herself is a successful entrepreneur having created The Space Store, Steele Media Services, and a success strategy consulting company. Throughout her career, Dayna has garnered national accolades.

She was named one of the “100 Most Important Radio Talk Show Hosts” by Talkers Magazine, nominated as “Local Radio Personality of the Year” by Billboard Magazine and has been inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame.

AOL called her ‘one of the foremost experts on career networking’ and Reader’s Digest Magazine named Dayna one of the “35 People Who Inspire Us.” ABC News has called her advice “ridiculously sane.”

As an author, Dayna created the popular 101 Ways to Rock Your World book series, LinkedIn: 101 Ways to Rock Your Personal Brand, and Rock to the Top: What I Learned about Success from the World’s Greatest Rock Stars. She is also a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and is the Chief Caring Expert and spokesperson for Caring.com.

Dayna lives in Seabrook, Texas, with her husband, author, and former NASA pilot Charles Justiz, and has three sons. She is a member of the Screen Actors Guild and invests in Broadway musicals. She drinks good wine and plays bad golf.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @daynasteele to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow Click to Tweet

“It’s not just talent. That’s the reason there’s rock stars and then one hit wonders.” -Dayna Steele Click to Tweet

“Find people that love what you do and deliver to their passion.” -Dayna Steele Click to Tweet 

“It’s not about you – it’s about the customer.” -Dayna Steele Click to Tweet 

“You have to have knowledge of everything around you to recognize opportunity.” -Dayna Steele Click to Tweet 

“It’s all about who you know and what you do for them.” -Dayna Steele Click to Tweet 

“Constantly let people know that you appreciate what they do.” -Dayna Steele Click to Tweet 

“None of us get to where we are without help, so appreciate it.” -Dayna Steele Click to Tweet 

“In everything you do let people know what it’s going to do for them.” -Dayna Steele Click to Tweet 

“When I call you I better not recognize you are reading from a script.” -Dayna Steele Click to Tweet 

“I don’t need your processes or your tech. I need to know you’re going to help me.” -Dayna Steele Click to Tweet 

“I didn’t fail. I discovered I couldn’t act.” -Dayna Steele Click to Tweet 

“I’ve never looked at it as failing. It just didn’t work.” -Dayna Steele Click to Tweet 

“Take the parts that did work and move forward.” -Dayna Steele Click to Tweet 

“If something doesn’t work set it aside and try a different way.” -Dayna Steele Click to Tweet 

Hump to Get Over

Dayna Steele had a very successful career as a radio disc jockey. Then she decided to quit her job and move to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. After nine months she moved back home without a career in acting. But she never failed. Listen to what she actually did.

Advice for others

Embrace absurdity and go for it.

Holding her back from being an even better leader

Wine

Best Leadership Advice Received

Always fight naked.

Secret to Success

Wine

Best tools that helps in Business or Life

My husband Charlie.

Recommended Reading

Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life

Contacting Dayna

Website: http://www.daynasteele.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daynasteele

Twitter: https://twitter.com/daynasteele

Resources and Show Mentions

54 Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Competencies List: Emotional Intelligence has proven to be the right kind of intelligence to have if you want to move onward and upward faster. Get your free list today.

 

Show Transcript: 

Click to access edited transcript

109: Dayna Steele: I’ve never looked at it as failing

 

Intro Welcome to the Fast Leader Podcast, where we explore convenient yet effective shortcuts that will help you get ahead and move forward faster by becoming a better leader. And now here’s your host, customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

 

Need a powerful and entertaining way to ignite your next conference, retreat or team-building session? My keynote don’t include magic but they do have the power to help your attendees take a leap forward by putting emotional intelligence into their employee engagement, customer engagement and customer centric leadership practices. So bring the infotainment creativity the Fast Leader show to your next event and I’ll help your attendees get over the hump now. Go to beyondmorale.com/speaking to learn more.

 

Jim Rembach:    Okay Fast Leader Legion today I’m excited because the person I have on the show today, when I met her—her feistiness is just something I had to share with you. Dayna Steele, was born and raised in Houston, Texas with her younger brother, Scooter. Dayna actually chronicled her mother’s journey with Alzheimer’s in the book Surviving Alzheimer’s with friend’s Facebook and a really big glass of wine. Beyond being an author, Dayna has been on a microphone and a stage for the majority of her life. She worked with the world’s greatest rock stars as a hall-of-fame rock radio personality and now presents those true stories and valuable lessons learned to business audiences across the country. 

 

Dayna is the host of the Rock your Business, a television series featuring successful rock artists turn successful entrepreneurs with side businesses including coffee, wineries, inventions, biomedical research, foundations, hotels, restaurants, shoes, clothing, marketing companies and more. Dayna herself is a successful entrepreneur having created The Space Store Steal Media Services and a success strategy consulting company. Throughout her career, Dayna has garnered national accolades. She was named one of the  Most Important Radio Talk Show Hosts by Talkers Magazine nominated as Local Radio Personality of the Year by Billboard Magazine and has been inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame. AOL called her ‘one of the foremost experts on career networking’ and Readers Digest named Dayna as one of the “People Who Inspire Us.” ABC News called her advice “ridiculously sane.” 

 

As an author, Dayna created the popular, Ways to Rock Your World book series, LinkedIn, Ways to Rock Your Personal Brand and Rock to the Top: What I Learn about Success from the World’s Greatest Rock Stars. She’s also a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and is this Chief Caring expert and spokesperson for Caring.com. Dayna lives in Seabrook, Texas with her husband author and former NASA pilot, Charles Justiz and three sons. She is a member of the Screen Actors Guild and invest in Broadway musicals. She drinks good wine and plays bad golf. Dayna Steele, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

 

Dayna Steele:    I am. I am. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Now, I’ve given our listeners a little bit about you, but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better. 

 

Dayna Steele:    You know my current passion is the television show, it’s called The Rock Business and it came about from my speech and from my books where I talk about—what I learned about success from these rock stars, when I started noticing as a lot of the rock stars, especially the older ones, they’re in a position now where they’re successful they’re touring they have time off they have more money than dirt and instead of just playing golf and relaxing and doing nothing, they’re all entrepreneurs at heart. Sammy Hagar, of course, being one of them and the ones maybe people know the most about with his tequila company and his rum company, a lot of people don’t realize that Sammy’s been an entrepreneur for a long time. Way back when he was just a solo artist and he realized how much they were paying in commissions to travel agencies he got license he started a travel agency and that was a bone of contention between him and Eddie van Halen, a little bit later on when Eddie found out they were booking people every day through Sammy’s travel agency. 

 

Sammy was getting a little bit of money off of all that Van Halen travel.  Sammy owns a whole bunch of boutique hotels and restaurants now in the states and he recently, I think his most his latest endeavor is a fire suppression company. When he found out how much she was having to pay companies to put in sprinkler system. He’s just one of the examples you’ve seen, Gene Simmons and all of his businesses on Family Jewels and Celebrity Apprentice, another great story and I could go on forever, but these are the kind of artist we want to highlight. For example nobody knows Bob Dylan as a welder, he’s a certified welder. He welded the artwork that graces the entrance to a new hotel in Maryland. Can you imagine all of the construction workers that walked past this welder with his mask down and have no idea that was Bob Dylan. So I love the fact that I learn about business from these rock stars and then I’m discovering that these rock stars are like me, we are serial entrepreneurs, we can’t just relax and go play golf and leave well enough alone. We’re up every day going, “Okay, let’s start another business. Let’s drive ourselves absolutely crazy and try to create another successful business.”

 

Jim Rembach:    Thanks for sharing that. You know, as I was thinking and you’re talking about these different rock stars I started seeing this connection to the creativity the creation aspect of it and then the creation aspect that we need to have in business that oftentimes is missing. 

 

Dayna Steele:    I always say it’s not just talent, that’s the reason there’s rock stars and then there’s one hit wonders in any business, whether it’s music or insurance or whatever. You see some of these people that they’re so incredibly talented but they just can’t seem to get it together. They just can’t seem to succeed. And it’s the same with musicians and what I discovered working with these people and watching these people and studying and now writing and speaking about these people is that not only do they have the talent and that creativity but they have this incredible discipline and work ethic. They network like crazy. They’re extremely smart I narrow it down to make it easy for people, four rock star principles of success. 

 

The first one is ‘passion’. Obviously, loving what you. But finding people that love what you do and delivering to their passion in every single thing you do. It’s not about you, it’s about the customer. The second thing is ‘knowledge’. It’s constantly learning. If you’re not getting up first thing in the morning and watching the news and knowing what’s going on in the world whether you like politics or religion or sports or whatever you need to have a general idea of everything that’s going on in the world around you otherwise how are you going to recognize opportunity. And the third thing is ‘networking’. It’s all about who you know and what you do for them. And the fourth thing is ‘appreciation’ it’s constantly letting people know that you appreciate what they do whether it’s the fans or your coworkers or strangers or somebody that held the door for you, none of us get to where we are without help so you need to appreciate it. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Thanks for sharing that they’re a really good. And also when you started mentioning the part about customers and focus, a friend of mine who’s a recording musician as well and he shared with me, because I didn’t know the business very well, but he said, “I don’t write my music for me, I’m writing my music for my audience.” And so when you think about business and

these businesses it would seem to be that having that focus and that background in doing things for others, meaning writing music and the creative piece and owning businesses that they would bring that to their businesses and then therefore they would be more successful than maybe organizations that were already in place. 

 

Dayna Steele:    That’s like for example, if you want a raise, you want a raise or a promotion, don’t go in and tell your boss manager how great you are and how much you deserve it and me, me, me—go in there with your facts and figures and say, “I increased the company’s business, I increase the bottom line, if I was doing this instead of this it would make this much more profit. Let the people what’s in it for them. One of the greatest phone calls I ever got, having a husband who flew for NASA I’ve been around a lot of the astronauts for a long, long. Alan Bean, I guess the fourth man to walk on the moon, Alan’s a character and a half, he talks really fast, he talks—you spits it out, spits it out. I remember it was about five years ago on Christmas Eve I got a message from a number I didn’t recognize and I went back and I listened to the message and it’s like, “Dayna, Alan Bean, read your book, love it, love it, love it. Everything you say I love it except when looked at your videos on your website, I hate them. Call me, I’ll tell you why. Click. That’s another thing Alan never says goodbye, he just hangs up, you don’t know if you offended him or—he just hangs up. He’s the fourth man who walked on the moon, I’m curious so I called Alan. He said something that reminded me of something a program director had told me years ago, Allen said when you say the word “I” too much, you don’t talk to the audience about you, what this will do for your business, what you can be doing. He said, “When I learn to make my moon stories, their moon stories I became a much better speaker and a speaker in demand.” And it made me think back to something a program director had said to me years ago which I credit all of my radio success with, because I didn’t do a weather forecast any different than anybody else I didn’t play Stairway to Heaven and Free Bird any different than anybody else, but I spoke differently on the radio than every other DJ on the air and it was because of what I was taught. It doesn’t matter how many people are listening to you, this applies to an audience or a meeting as well, it doesn’t matter how many people are listening to you everybody has one set of ears and one heart and one soul and one brain and everybody wants to think you’re talking to them. So when I would say things like, “It’s really hot in the studio today or how are all of you?” This program director would hotline me immediately and say you just broke the connection, you just broke the connection.

 

And I try to remember that now when I’m onstage I speak as if I’m speaking to one person sitting right next to me maybe in a living room having a conversation, and that’s how I was taught to speak on the radio. You know, in your ads, in your marketing, I get up every morning and do the daily success tip I don’t know why I didn’t name it weekly success tip that would’ve been a lot easier. In everything you do, let people know what it’s going to do for them, it’s going to make them richer, it’s going to make them happier, it’s going to make them sexier, they’re going to get lucky, their family’s going to be happy, their wives going to be happy, their husband—what’s in it for them? 

 

Dayna Steele:    I think what you just said right there is something that I’ve been contending with a particular client of mine that is in the telecommunication space for contact center, they build Omni channel platforms. The marketing people go to the tech people and ask them about what are the things that they should be saying about the particular products. And of course they’re saying, features benefits, features benefits. Features benefits do not talk to the person—

 

Jim Rembach:    Is it going to work? Is it going to make my day easier? How do I make this stupid printer recognize I have two tray options? That’s all I want to know. I don’t want to know the specs. I spend all morning trying to figure out how to get one of my apps to recognize the fact that I have two trays in this printer and I won’t say names. I have looked it up and all I’ve seen is six google page search results of specs, I don’t want specs, I just want to use tray two. 

 

Dayna Steele:    Right.  I think being able to make that switch and understand how those features and benefits can talk to the individual that’s when they start being converted into value. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Yeah, I don’t care how many customers you have, you can be the biggest airline in the world but all I care is about my luggage today, who care about your systems, your processes, the computer doesn’t see it. I want you know real person cares about me and my wants and needs and it doesn’t matter how big your contact center is, when I call you I better not recognize your reading from a script. I want to know you have been waiting for me to call, whether you have or not, and that makes such a huge, huge difference. No matter how mad I am if I’m calling customer service, I learned a trick and I even used it this morning, I had to call on some medical insurance stuff one of the worst contact call centers in the world, but I always say you know they say, “Thank you for calling, this is Theresa. Your call may be recorded, blah, blah, blah—may I have your account number? Like, “hey Theresa, Happy New Year, how you doing today? That throws them off, every time. No matter what country they’re in, they’re like, “Happy New Year—but then you can yell—do see what I’m saying? It’s that human interaction. We’re all humans were not robots. I don’t need your processes, I don’t need your tack, I need to know you’re going to help me or make things better or when I buy your widgets I’m going to be widget happy, whatever. That’s a great piece of advice too because what you did is you cause the pattern disruption. 

 

Dayna Steele:    And you know how I like to disrupt the thing, that’s my job. That comes from years of rock and roll radio. I used to say if I hadn’t been called into the general manager’s office at least once a week I was not doing my job.

 

Jim Rembach:    Well without a doubt. You know you bring a lot of passion, you’ve had the opportunity and be blessing to be exposed to a lot of passion with all the people in the network that you built and the interviews that you’ve had and the people you’ve met. And one of the things that we look for on the show is a leadership quotes because they can contain so much passion and I shouldn’t say leadership quotes, just quotes in general. Is there a quote or two that you can share with us that has passion in it for you?

 

Dayna Steele:    A quote for me or one of my favorite quotes?

 

Jim Rembach:    One of your favorites. Or maybe one from you.

 

Dayna Steele:    Albert Einstein, “If at first the idea is not observed there’s no hope for it.” I got that on a coffee mug from Amazon, when I was one of their very first customers they sent their first customers every single first customer, like in this first year when I think Vesos who’s still in his garage got a coffee cup for Christmas that year—coffee mug—I was so sad when that finally broke a couple years ago, but that was the quote on it. It at first the idea is not absurd then there’s probably no hope for it, I love that. What you got to lose? That works for everybody unless you’re a brain surgeon, please don’t say that if you’re my brain surgeon, people always worry what are people going to think? What if I fail? I quit radio. I quit a pretty highly paid radio gig in 1990 because I always wanted to know what it was like to act for a living. I gave everything up, I sold my house, I surprised everyone, I moved to LA and discovered I could not act my way out of my box but I did discover you could put groceries on a credit card. So, I survived for about nine months ended up coming back and doubling my salary in radio. And people always say to me, well you know that time you failed in LA—it’s like, I didn’t fail, I discovered I couldn’t act and I have great respect now for people who do like toilet paper commercials and stuff it’s not an easy life out there. I think that’s probably one of the best things I’ve ever done in my entire career is to quit and moved to LA and try to act because I’ve discovered I can survive anything. 

 

Jim Rembach:    I love that. So, for me I’m going to definitely walk away with being able to embrace more absurdity.

 

Dayna Steele:    Yeah. Just go for it, what do you got to lose? Again unless your brain surgeon—please don’t do that. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Now, I also know too you just described one of the situations where you have a hump to get over, great lessons learned, but have to have those we have to embrace the absurdity and find out when—maybe it really was absurd, those are all humps that we have to get over. Is there a story that you can share with us when you have to get over the hump? 

 

Dayna Steele:    Probably the acting thing. Getting over the fact that—I can act, it didn’t work let’s move back let’s do radio, I don’t know—somebody said to me once—one of my record people, she even bought me a book, she said, “You tried so many different things and you failed so many times and you just pick yourself up and you just keep going. I really had to stop and think about that because I’ve never looked at it as failing. It’s like it just didn’t work, take the parts that did work and move forward and take the parts that didn’t work and remember that. There’s an old book, the book she gave me was called, There Must Be a Pony. And I love the story I tell this often on stage to all kinds of groups, and the short version is—there are two brothers standing outside a bar and they open the door, the barn is full to the rafters with horse poo. One brother looks at it and says, “Well there’s nothing about horse poo” and he walks off disgusted. And the other brother looks at it grabs a shovel and goes there must be a pony. You know, the hump is the poo. I’m just a firm believer that there is a pony on the other side of it and I’m just going to keep going and if something doesn’t work set it aside and try a different way. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Okay, but I got to know because you’ve got to share. You move out to California, you had all these high hopes, what transpired for you to finally say, Oh, I did the work. 

 

Dayna Steele:    What transpired in the first week, I didn’t know you don’t just go to LA and call a casting director of the number one television show on the air and say, “Hey, I’m in town can I come by?” But one of my record guy that I knew said, “You really don’t him that well, he called me and he said, “I’m just so impressed you would just give up everything and go so bravely out to LA” he goes, “Here’s my sister’s name and number when you get out there tell her I told you to call and who knows—she’s a casting director maybe she’ll have something for you.” But it turns out it’s running, yes cool, who’s casting LA Law, the number one TV show on the air at the time, and again I didn’t know you don’t just call and I think she was so stunned that I just want—Hey, your brother said call, can I come by? She said come by and we hit it off, she said I have a part in next week’s episode for a newscaster—you read this script. So I read the script—why don’t you come back and read for the producers and then we’ll get you in the episode next week. And I’m like, “Oh, that was so cool.” I drove to the gates of Paramount Studios, that you see in all the movies, and I came back to read for the producers and I froze. I was terrified. I had never read for producers, I had done a commercial in Texas at the time when AFTRA and SAG, the two unions were separated, but in Texas if you are a member of one you’re automatically member of the other, so I didn’t realize what sort of gold I was holding in my hand when I arrived in LA with the screen actors guild membership already in my hand, so they assumed I had done television or movies or something because I was a member of the Screen Actors Guild. And I froze, I just froze. And I went on several more auditions and more auditions I went on that very first major audition for the number one television show in the country at the time, I knew when I walked out I’m an incredible DJ, I can be Dayna Steele 24/7 but I can’t be anybody else. I suck. I’m just awful. 

 

I tried a few more and I audition for a cat food commercial that was based on the old Gary Larson comic, what you say to the dog and what the dog hears. And I had to audition in front of these producers and tell them in seconds how great the cat food was only using the word blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was just dating Charlie at that time and he was in town so he waited for me in a coffee shop downstairs and he said you should have heard all these actresses going, what is my motivation? I’m thinking a paycheck, that’s my motivation. I walked out of that, I remember getting in the rental car, getting in the car with Charlie to go get something to eat, he goes, How did it go? And I went, I’m ready to come home, this is ridiculous, this is no way to live. If I loved it, it would be worth it. It was like when I took flying lessons, I had these visions of being Angelina Jolie getting out of my private plane at which point my pilot has said, “You know, she looks good taking the trash—you will get nothing this week sir. That’s why I took flying lessons until the guy said you’re ready to solo and I said, no I’m not. No I’m not, I don’t have the passion I don’t feel the confidence it’s not there. So, that was a hump I didn’t get over. You know you just listen to your heart, listen to your soul, you know if something’s working or not.

 

Jim Rembach:    Thank you for sharing. I had the opportunity to see you keynote at the ICMI contact center conference and that’s where we were able to connect and set up the interview for the show and I’m blessed—

 

Dayna Steele:    Which by the way I love all the people I meet at that conference, everybody is just so—I don’t know it’s always a great—I’ve been very fortunate to keynote that conference twice now and they just keep having me back, and I love them for it. 

 

Jim Rembach:    I’ve had the opportunity to go to a couple of different industry types of events and I’ve talked to people who actually put on those types of events and some of them work with a couple of different industries and they always say, I love doing the customer care events because the people are just so wonderful. 

 

Dayna Steele:    How can you be in customer care event and not care? If you’re in the customer care industry and you don’t care, it’s probably time to go—act in LA or something, I don’t know. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Tell the paper commercials are calling. 

 

Dayna Steele:    Yeah, yeah, go do a toilet paper commercial. There’s my quote, if you’re in customer care industry and you don’t care, get out now. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Definitely. So I know you have a lot of things going on and you talked about the TV show, of course you’re speaking, your media work, your family and there’s a whole lot of things that you have going on but if you’re to look at one goal, what would it be? 

 

Dayna Steele:    To get the rock business on network television. We’re in negotiations so I can’t say the network but it’s a network that does a lot of really fun cool business shows and it would just fit in that network so incredibly, perfectly. But it’s a long process and I’m not very patient, not only am I feisty, I’m—let’s go, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go it’s and television doesn’t work that way so I’m having to learn a lot of yoga breaths when I speak to agents and Hollywood people and I try learning I’m trying, that’s a jump out of my skin. But that’s my number one goal, is to get the rock business season one, eight episodes on network television this year. 

 

Jim Rembach:    And the Fast Leader Legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on let’s get a quick word from our sponsor. 

 

The number one thing that contributes to customer loyalty is emotions. So move onward and upward faster by getting significantly deeper insight and understanding of your customer journey and personas with emotional intelligence. With your empathy mapping workshop, you learn how to evoke and influence the right customer emotions that generate improve customer loyalty and reduce your cost to operate. Get over your emotional hump now by going to empathymapping.com to learn more. 

 

Jim Rembach:    All right here we go Fast Leader listeners, it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown, Okay Dayna the Hump Day Hoedown is a part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So, I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Dayna Steele, are you ready to hoedown? 

 

Dayna Steele:    No pressure, yeah, go. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Alright. What do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?

 

Dayna Steele:    Wine. 

 

Jim Rembach:    What is the best leadership advice you have ever received?

 

Dayna Steele:    Always fight naked.

 

Jim Rembach:    What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success”

 

Dayna Steele:    Wine. 

 

Jim Rembach:    What do you feel is one of the best tools that helps you lead in business or life?

 

Dayna Steele:    My husband, Charlie. 

 

Jim Rembach:    What would be one book, it could be from any genre that you’d recommend to our listeners?

 

Dayna Steele:    Who Moved My Cheese? 

 

Dayna Steele:    Okay Fast Leader listeners, you can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fastleader.net/DaynaSteele. Okay Dayna, this is my last hump day hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you have been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take everything you can only choose one, what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

 

Jim Rembach:    Learning to listen more because I was a talker. I was a talker, I was a mover and a shaker. It was the eighties and rock-and-roll you’re asking me to remember the 80’s and rock-and-roll? Either to listen or to really have appreciated all of the situations I got myself into in the 80’s because I look back now and I was pretty lucky. I was in in rock and roll history in the 80’s it was pretty amazing. 

 

Dayna Steele:    But then but in the 80’s rock and roll the guys were wearing more makeup than the women weren’t they? 

 

Jim Rembach:    Yeah, they were. We shared eyeliner but—

 

Dayna Steele, it was an honor to spend time with you today, can you please share with the Fast Leader Legion how they can connect with you. 

 

Dayna Steele:    Daynasteele.com everything’s there, email I answer it, go for it.

 

Jim Rembach:    Dayna Steele thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom, the Fast Leader legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. 

 

Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader show today. For recaps, links from every show, special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over the fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

 

END OF AUDIO

 

 

080: Paul Maskill: I wasn’t really helping the business grow

Paul Maskill Show Notes

Paul Maskill was doing all of the busy admin work in his business. Paul was working 60-80 hours per week but was not leading his business. He was failing to take his business to the next level. That’s when Paul made a decision that ultimately led him to become the leader that generated the business growth that led him to an even bigger business opportunity.

Paul was born and raised in Goodrich, MI with his older sister Nicole. Both his parents worked, his father own his own hardwood floor business and mother was in financial services.

Started at the age of fourteen working at the local country club washing dishes golf course and worked his way up to a bag boy. Living a somewhat normal childhood Paul fulfilled his boyhood sports dream to attend the University of Michigan.

After graduating with a Finance degree in hand, Paul set out to climb the Corporate Ladder in Chicago all the way to the top. Not long into his career in Corporate America, the buzz of a finance job in the big city lost its luster and Paul was looking for more.

Sitting in a cubicle for 10-12 hours a day while staring at spreadsheets and building someone else’s business, was not Paul’s idea of a living the dream. So, he quit! After taking two months to travel around South America, Paul decided to relocate to Raleigh, NC and start a career that was rewarding…after all, you only live once.

In 2011, Paul invested in his first Teach Grow A (TGA), combining his business experience with passion for sports. TGA makes golf and tennis more accessible to students ages 3-15 through on-campus afterschool programs, summer camps, parent/child events and more. Over the next 4.5 years, Paul grew his business to four franchises, impacting 1,000’s of kids each year.

At the end of 2015, Paul was ready to make his next move. He sold his four franchises for over 6x his initial investment and 3x his net profit. Soon after, Paul was hired by the franchisor to be in charge of Business Development.

Based on his business experience and ability to grow a business to over 40 employees and $400k in revenue in 4 years, Paul now works with current franchise owners to help build their business into an organization with people, processes and systems in place so that the business can thrive without relying on the owner (working ON versus working IN their business). He also works with all prospective franchise owners on putting together their business plan while evaluating all of the moving parts of the business and their geographic area.

Paul currently resides in Holly Springs, NC with his wife Angela and their new baby daughter Amelia.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @PaulMaskill and get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow Click to Tweet 

“Help other people get where they want to go and it helps you get where you want to go.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet

“Being an entrepreneur might not be for everybody.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“It’s okay to be the wingman of an entrepreneur.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“Do the little things and big things will happen” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“If you focus on the little details you are going to set yourself apart from everybody else.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“Most business are pretty much a commodity at this point.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“Whatever you’re selling there’s probably a hundred other people selling the same thing.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“What are you going to do to set you apart?” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“Perfect all of your processes and then start to scale.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“It’s okay to make mistakes, that’s the only way you get to where you want to go.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“Delegating that first task is probably the toughest.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“People in general like to feel appreciated, even if you’re not an employee.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“Once it turns into a job they’re probably going to leave.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“Show appreciation for everybody no matter where they came from.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“You really have to throw your ego out the door and give credit to everybody else.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“Sports give you a lot of tools that you need to be successful in the business world.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“To build a viable business it does take time and patience.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“You can always obtain knowledge again but you can’t teach someone to work hard.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

Hump to Get Over

Paul Maskill was doing all of the busy admin work in his business. Paul was working 60-80 hours per week but was not leading his business. He was failing to take his business to the next level. That’s when Paul made a decision that ultimately led him to become the leader that generated the business growth that led him to an even bigger business opportunity.

Advice for others

Stay organized. Perfect all of your processes.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Going a little too fast for others. I need to take a step back and explain myself before I get ahead of myself.

Best Leadership Advice Received

The golden rule. Treat others the way you want to be treated.

Secret to Success

Time management and organization. When you are organized you’re going to get a lot more done a lot quicker.

Best tools that helps in business or Life

A calendar.

Recommended Reading

Go Giver Bob Burg

The Go-Giver, Expanded Edition: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea

Contacting Paul

email: pmaskill [at] playtga.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulmaskill

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PaulMaskill

Resources

TGA Franchise Info: http://playtga.com/franchise/fast/

54 Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Competencies List: Emotional Intelligence has proven to be the right kind of intelligence to have if you want to move onward and upward faster. Get your free list today.

 

Show Transcript: 

Click to access edited transcript

Intro: Welcome to the Fast Leader Podcast, where we uncover the leadership like hat that help you to experience, break out performance faster and rocket to success. And now here’s your host, customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

 

Need a powerful and entertaining way to ignite your next conference, retreat or team-building session? My keynote don’t include magic but they do have the power to help your attendees take a leap forward by putting emotional intelligence into their employee engagement, customer engagement and customer centric leadership practices. So bring the infotainment creativity the Fast Leader show to your next event and I help your attendees get over the hump now. Go to beyondmorale.com/speaking to learn more. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Okay Fast leader Legion today I’m thrilled the share with you today’s guest because he has had success impacting the customer experience and has defied common practices. Paul Maskill was born and raised in Goodridge, Michigan with his older sister Nicole. Both his parents worked, his father owned his own hardware floor business and his mother was in financial services. Starting at the age of 14 working at the local country club, washing dishes at the golf course, Paul worked his way up to a bag boy. Living a somewhat normal childhood Paul fulfilled his boyhood sports stream to attend the University of Michigan. After graduating with a finance degree in hand Paul set out to climb the corporate ladder in Chicago all the way to the top not long into his career in corporate America the buzz of a finance job in the big city lost its luster and Paul was looking for more. Sitting in a cubicle for 10 to 12 hours a day while staring at spreadsheets and building someone else’s business was not Paul’s idea of living a dream, so he quit. 

 

After taking two months to travel around South America, Paul decided to relocate to Raleigh, North Carolina and start a career that was rewarding. In 2011 Paul invested in his first Teach, Grow, Achieve franchise, combining his business experience with passion for sports. TGA makes golf and tennis more accessible to students ages 3 to 15 through on campus afterschool programs, summer camps, parent-child events, and more. Over the next four and half years Paul grew his business to four franchises impacting 1000+ kids each year. At the end of 2015, Paul was ready to make his next move. He sold his four franchises for over six times his initial investment and three times net profit, soon after Paul was hired by the franchisor to be in charge of business development based on his business experience and ability to grow business to over 40 employees and $400,000 in revenue in four years, Paul now works with current franchise owners to help build their businesses into an organization with people, processes, and systems in place so that the businesses can thrive without relying on the owner. He also works with all prospective franchise owners on putting together their business plan while evaluating all the moving parts of the business and their geographic area. Paul currently resides in Holly Springs, North Carolina with his wife Angela and their new baby daughter Amelia. Paul Maskill are you ready to help us get over the hump?

 

Paul Maskill:    Wow! I am ready as ever Jim. Super excited to be here.

 

Jim Rembach:    I’m glad you’re here! And I’ve given our listeners a little bit about you but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better.

 

Paul Maskill:    Yeah! My current passion really is business, entrepreneurship, impacting people, which is one of the reasons why I still stayed with TJ even after selling the business I just really believe in the impact we can make in the local community. When you help other people get where they want to go I think it’s going to help you get where you want to go. So along with those hang out with the family, playing golf, playing tennis, playing basketball that’s really where my passions are today.

 

Jim Rembach:    Well you know, it’s interesting and one of the reason I wanted you on the show is because there’s a couple things that stood out to me. First of all, when you start thinking about becoming an entrepreneur and owning your own business everybody kind of has this dream of that and a lot of people are trying to find ways in order to be able to do that. You and I met through the podcasting scene and when you think about podcasts and the ones that are the most popular are about entrepreneurialism and so you actually had gone the opposite direction you became an entrepreneur but you are not an entrepreneur, maybe kind of, how did you do that and why did you do that?

 

Paul Maskill:    Yeah. So when I decided to sell my four franchises it really was just timing, the right person at the right time at the right price I wasn’t necessarily actively looking to sell it but if the right price came along, you know I’m a believer of what Warren Buffett says, buy low sell high and the right the right price came along and that really allowed me to do pretty much anything I wanted at that time. I was looking at starting another business a consultant business coach one of those things taking my experience and helping others and lo and behold I was able to get that opportunity with TGA. I’ve had a ton of experience obviously with TGA on a business level and having the success so I really had the opportunity to take what I was able to do and now really impact, I kind of look it and it would impact even more kids because I’m impacting all these business that surf kids.  So I’m still working for an entrepreneurial type business, our headquarters team is less than 10 so we’re still very front facing really entrepreneurial forward thinking, always looking to innovate and I do have a vested interest in the success of the TGA franchises going forward. So in my opinion still sort of entrepreneur but like you said I did kind of step back and now I’m technically working for somebody else but that is not to deter my entrepreneurial passion and enthusiasm and I actually do run an e-commerce store on the side as well. So yeah. I saw it as a great opportunity to take what I’ve done and impact others and continue to fulfill my passion around sports people and building business.

 

Jim Rembach:    Now there’s another thing that stood out to me of course is even when you—and I’m sure this is why you’re possibly working with—and even as you said now have an equity stake within the company as a whole, so your passion is really more than just having your own business and that for me is a little bit hard to understand is that it wasn’t the fact of owning your own business that was really the underlying passion, it was more so in the growth and impacting and making a bigger impact, would that be a fair assessment?

 

Paul Maskill:    Yeah. I would say that’s a fair assessment. I mean when you have a passion for whatever business you’re working in, it just makes that much easier to get to success because you’re driven, you want to make an impact, and you want to succeed. Not everybody, I mean even if you look at people that, say the first ten people that were working for Facebook they weren’t Mark Zuckerberg but they probably instill a pretty good passion for it and still probably had a pretty good outcome. So being an entrepreneur, being your own boss might not be for everybody but it’s okay to be the wingman of an entrepreneur and help them get where they want to go because every entrepreneur needs people and needs to surround themselves with successful people. They get to where they want to go and usually when they do that they also have some sort of vested interest in the outcome of the business.

 

Jim Rembach:    You know I  think that’s a great point. I mean for me I’ve always say that I’m not the person who necessarily has to be the one who has a spotlight shining upon them and really even when you start talking about the format of the fast leader show, one of the reasons I’m doing the fast leader show is to put the spotlight on other folks.

 

Paul Maskill:    Exactly.

 

Jim Rembach:    And I get to do that and I get to learn so much about their stories and the things that they’ve had overcome and gain different perspective and to me it’s just a valuable growth experience and for whatever may come of that in regards coming back to me it’s because I am, like you are saying, focusing on others and that’s my primary objective and where I get passion. And now another thing that we actually look at as far as passion is concern on the show are leadership quotes and I should just really start saying quotes in general because when you start thinking about quotes that impact us they really help us do lead ourselves and others better most often. But is there a quote or two that kind of helps you get up in the morning and be energized can you share that with us.?

 

Paul Maskill:    Yeah. Like you say there’s tons of quotes and if you’re on social media and Twitter and Instagram you’re reading quotes all day, but one thing that I kind of built our businesses around and really built our—the customer experience and the employee experience, cause both those groups of people are so integral in the success of any business, would be: Do the little things and big things will happen. So no matter what the task is if you focus on the little details, you are going to set yourself apart from pretty much everybody else. Most businesses are pretty much a commodity at this point, so everybody whatever you’re selling there’s probably a 100 other people selling the same thing or very similar so what are you going to do to set yours apart? It’s those little things, whether it’s your customer service, taking care of your employees, showing appreciation, anything and everything just take that little bit extra time to do something a little bit quicker, a little bit better, a little bit more well thought out and you will get to where you want to go.

 

So that was really what I kind of preach to our employees and that’s really what I lead by example with as well as if a customer called, call them back right away, email them back right away. It’s actually pretty amazing when you do that. What low expectation most customers have, because when you do that their like, “Wow thank you so much for calling me back within 24 hours.” I probably learned that from my dad originally when he would go out to estimates to people’s houses to take a look at their hardwood floors, he would show up and they’d just said, “Thanks for showing up the three other people we called didn’t even show up. “ So, I think, Do the little things and big things will happen, would have to be my leadership quote.

 

Jim Rembach:    Well I’m glad you shared the because that was also one of the other reasons that I wanted you on the show is because you were able to have success with these franchises  sold it for a profit. Obviously when you start thinking about, even the parent company of the franchisor offering you an equity stake to commit, and that’s huge, so obviously you stood out far beyond all of the other franchisees. When you start thinking about the little things, there’s often little things that can make massive impacts. You shared one thing about the communication response back but what else did you do differently and do you teach now these franchisees to do differently that will make a bigger difference so they did do stand out like you were saying because pretty much all  products and services become commoditized and we all as far as consumers look at our experience from a lot of different companies and compared them to the one that were doing business with in front of us so you know it’s now a situation where even the playing field has been kind of leveled across all different products and services that we purchased. What did you do different?

 

 Paul Maskill:    It probably starts even before. If you take a step back and not even your interaction with your employees or your customers I think it starts before that and really just staying organized. I’m very organized, coming from a finance background I have spreadsheets for everything and I kind of take the approach of when I’m doing something for the first time or I’m building a process or building a system, no matter how simple the task might be I always ask myself, would I be able to do it this way when I have 40+ employees? And would I be able to transition this task to somebody else doing it this way? And if not let’s take a little bit extra time, make it so in that way it’s repeatable, replicable and somebody else could do it and staying organized. 

 

When people start their business they have a lot of time to kind of do a little bit of everything so they’re probably not as efficient as they should be but as you start to scale your business you really have to get efficient. You can’t provide that great customer service or that great employee experience if you’re busy doing all these things that are not really organize from a time management and an efficiency standpoint, so that’s probably really one of the biggest things that I work with people is building that solid foundation so that way you’re setting yourself up for future success. So perfect all your processes get them all documented and then start to scale because then you’re going to have more time to go out in the field and make sure your employees are happy and showing them appreciation and  giving your customers a courtesy call and sending a thank you note to your most loyal customers, all those little things that then get people to promote you as well as continue frequenting your business.

 

Jim Rembach:    That’s some very good insight and thank you sharing it. I have a friend of mine who is kind of like a realtor for businesses. He works on the buy and sell side of small businesses and one of the things that he works with companies that are essentially getting ready to put their businesses on the market to be sold is that he’s working with them to help them build and document their processes.

 

Paul Maskill:    Exactly! Pretty much every time I did a process I would record it using a screen recording software, something like Camtasia as well as do a type up step by step process because I was, if you read the book, Built to Sell, that will really give everybody a good insight of building a valuable sustainable business. Thinking with the end in mind really does help get you where you want to go and when it is time to sell or to transfer ownership or even just to step back and have somebody run your business on a day-to-day basis and you can just kind of collect the profits in sort of a passive income way, having all those things in place will let you do it and make sure there is no bumps in the road from the sense of lower customer experience or lower quality of product your deliverable.

 

Jim Rembach:    Yeah. I think you also bring up this as an important point. Even if you’re an employee of an organization, this is an important point that’s going to help us move onward and upward faster. Even though it does apparently seem to be the case because were stopping and taking the time to document all of these processes, to document the different flows the different, and looking at things from a different perspective but in the long run. And that’s what we talk about a lot on the fast leader show, in the long run you’re going to move onward and upward faster if you have that foundation and those things in place.

 

Paul Maskill:    Exactly, and that’s spot on.

 

Jim Rembach:    So when you start thinking about, gosh, getting to the point as you are now, I mean you talked about going to university in Michigan and there was a sports dream and now you’re living and doing sports kind of through TGA and the work that you’re doing there but there’s had to be humps along the way where you’ve learned a lot lessons, 55555555is there a story that you can share with us on one you had to get over the hump?

 

Paul Maskill:    Yes, I think it would probably be when I was leading TGA and that time we probably had about 25 part-time coaches out there delivering our product and service and getting kids excited about golf and tennis but I was still doing all of the other works. All of the busywork, all the admin work, probably working 60 to 80 hours a week pretty easily which is taking time away for me leading the business having the ability to take it to the next level so really that was probably the hump to get over. I took a few days and just sat back and wrote down everything that I did on a regular basis, so it’s basically a big giant chart, whiteboard wrote down everything I did and I just started dividing them up in a similar roles and then created a team to fill those roles so that way I could begin to really take a business to the next level really continue to lead. I don’t want to get to the point where my employees felt like I wasn’t out there enough with them because I was always busy doing busy work that wasn’t really helping the business grow and then same thing on the customer side eventually you’re not going to build the service always customer. So I really took that step back realize what I need to do and then started putting the systems in people and processes in place so that way we could take our business to the next level.

 

Jim Rembach:    Okay, so that’s interesting and somewhat scary for a ton of folks. Because when you start talking about doing that and turning over that responsibility to other people, how did you get over the fact you still needed to control those things? How did you release that power?

 

Paul Maskill:    It does take a little bit of work because like you said when you start your own business you want to do everything your way and you think that is the only way. The way I got over it was one putting the right—finding the right people that I knew I could trust but then it really goes back to the systems and processes and I try to be as detail oriented as possible so that there was no way that they could do this process some other way, like there was no cracks that they could veer off and then all the sudden, why did you do it this way? You didn’t tell me that I needed to do it like that. So I really took the time to be very detail oriented and then provide them the support, training and leadership that they need to succeed. So meeting with them on a regular basis, showing appreciation, sending them messages and just checking in on to them to make sure they don’t have any questions and letting them know that it’s okay to make mistakes. I wouldn’t have gotten to where I was if I didn’t make mistakes, I think that’s the only way you do to get to where you want to go is making mistakes learning from it an and improving. 

 

And if you get on the same playing field and same mindset with them they’re not nervous they’re not worried about making mistake because they know that—we’ll figure it out together and we’ll improve the process along the way. Delegating that first task is probably the toughest but once you do it and you see it work you feel like a proud parent or something. So it’s like, you know that aha moment that all of a sudden, I can do this they can do this they’ve perfected that task let’s give them another one and give them some time to learn it and let them digest it. The beautiful thing about a few creating some sort of training videos or training library that they can learn it at their own pace, they can pause, rewind and really do what’s best for them. So, once you do the first one and get success then it’s kind of like the floodgates open and it’s a whole new world. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Okay, as you were talking—and thanks for sharing that, is that I started thinking about the flipside of this. One of the problems is that a lot of organizations have and today’s world is a problem with innovation. If you start thinking about, I have employees they now have VST standard operating procedures and everything is documented to a tee. We could possibly fall into a problem of stifling our ability to be innovative and our creative thinking. How did you balance that?

 

Paul Maskill:    Yes, so that’s really a great point because you don’t want to make these employees just feel like robots. We would meet once a month to have those brainstorming innovative discussions, Where are we? Where do we want to go? And how are we going to get there? So what new products we want to add? How can we improve our current products and deliverables? So, we would meet once a month I would take them out to dinner as a little bit of a sign of appreciation, thank you for your time, employees love appreciation, people in general like to feel appreciated even if you’re not an employee. So really, brainstorming with them—okay, this part is going really well can we improve it? What about this how can we make it better? And then what other new things do we want to add? What have you heard from our parents that say, I really wish you offered X, Y, Z. So, it’s really important to have those brainstorming meetings to kind of get the creative juices flowing. And what I found was the most valuable is when you put this team together everybody has different mindset, different mind frame and they see the world totally different than you do and they brought up so many things that I never would’ve even thought of just because my brain doesn’t  think that way so it’s really powerful because then you get 4, 5 people at the table that aren’t afraid to make a comment or make a suggestion it really does keep the innovation going, so I think that’s really important to stay connected with your people. Appreciate them so they don’t just feel like they’re just doing a job, once it turns into a job probably they’re probably going to leave.

 

Jim Rembach:    Okay so, Paul as you were going through and talking about that I started thinking about the word humility. You have to have the humility and be open to listening to all those ideas and thoughts from other folks, when you’ve created this—your baby, right? Where do you get your humility from Paul? 

 

Paul Maskill:    I guess just growing up realizing that one that you’re really not that important in this world. Right there 6 billion people, you’re not really anybody important so don’t treat yourself that way and don’t put yourself up in a pedestal. Everybody out there are probably going something more difficult than you, so I think there’s probably just part of the way that I was raised is to show appreciation for everybody no matter where they came from you don’t know what they’re going through. And then as you continue and start to build the business you really have to throw your ego out the door and you’ve got to give credit to everybody else that’s helping you build this business. 

 

So without employees you’re not going to have a business. Without customers you’re not going to have a business. and once you realize that and you’re okay with that you don’t need to be the center of attention you don’t need to be the first getting all the credit I have no problem giving the credit to other people and I think that really goes back to my passion for sports and when you watch really good teams play. I grew up watching the Detroit Pistons in basketball, basketball’s probably is one of my biggest sports passion is when they had really successful teams it was about the team it wasn’t about one star and they were kind of going against the grain but when you see that and you see people sacrificing something for the betterment of the whole organizational work or the whole team that really does make an impact on you so you know whether are your coaching or playing sports I think sports do give you a lot of tools that you need to succeed in and out of the business world.

 

Jim Rembach:    Yeah I think we’re learning that more and more. Thanks for sharing. So I you got a lot of things going on, you have an equity stake in TGA, you’re trying to build and help others grow their business and make an impact on more and more kids, you just have a brand-new beautiful baby, what are some your goals?

 

Paul Maskill:    Yeah so some of my goals, on a personal level it’s really just continue building businesses to allow me for more freedom. I’m the backend kind of being patient in there a lot of people I think it caught up in the get rich quick, I want to build this business and make all this money and then you know retire in two years but I think to build a viable business it does take time and patience. So you know my goal, they’ve all kind of come full circle when I was working in the corporate world it was like I had two different lives, I left work at 5, 6, 7 o’clock and I didn’t even think talk or deal with work but I didn’t like going at the same time so it’s like two different world now they all kind of come into one and I kind of used them to feed off each other so if I want to go play golf, tennis, or basketball I know that I need to get X, Y, Z done with work and if I want to hang out with family I need to get this done with work and I need to get up early to make sure I have time to do that and then on the opposite side in order to have a family that what we want to do and have the freedom we want, I got to work hard in business. So those are really my goals, is doing all those things kind of in a synergy way and I think the best way to build any business is by the more people that you impact and help get to where they want to go you’re going to be successful and you’re going to be a leader within whatever type of nitch, organization, wherever you’re doing your work, I think if you become a leader and you see that you’re putting other people first, it’s going to help you get where you want to go.

 

Jim Rembach:    And the Fast leader Legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on let’s get a quick word from our sponsor:

 

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Alright, here we go Fast Leader legion it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Paul the Hump Day Hoedown is the part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So, I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us a robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Paul Maskill, are you ready to hoedown?

 

Paul Maskill:    I am ready and ready.

 

Jim Rembach:    Alright! So what do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?

 

Paul Maskill:    Yeah so ironically this is the fast hump day hoedown, it’s probably going a little too fast sometimes for others, so I realize that my mind is probably assuming that people know things that they don’t know. So just going a little too fast and then I should just take a step back and explain myself before getting ahead of myself, especially getting ahead of them.

 

Jim Rembach:    What is the best leadership advice you have ever received?

 

Jim Rembach:    It’s simple you learn it probably when your 3 or 4 years old. It’s the golden rule “Treat others the way you want to be treated”, when you do that to your employees and your customers and give them the experiences that you would want as an employer or customer you will be successful.

 

Jim Rembach:    What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?

 

Paul Maskill:    Like we talked about before, time management and organization when you are organized and you have your time set up for success you’re just going to get a lot more done a lot quicker.

 

Jim Rembach:    What do you feel is one of your best tools that help to lead in business or life?

 

Paul Maskill:    I think it’s simple. A calendar. Kind of working from your calendar, making sure everything’s on your calendar, you got your time blocked off to make sure you get everything done. It’s simple but it still works.

Jim Rembach:    What would be one book that you’d recommend to our listeners, it could be from any genre?

 

Paul Maskill:     “The Go Giver” by Bob Burg I think is his name. Great book, his a great guy, out on twitter as well, his very responsive and love his message and what he does.

 

Jim Rembach:    Okay Fast Leader listeners you can find links to that and other bonus information from today show by going to fastleader.net/Paul Maskill. Okay, Paul this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you have been given the opportunity to take your knowledge and skills back with you but you can’t take everything you can only choose one, what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why? 

 

Paul Maskill:    I would have to say my work ethic and determination. So you can always obtain knowledge again, I mean there’s more resources out there than ever but you really can’t teach somebody how to work hard and hustle, I think you just kind of grow up with it and if you have it you can pretty much do whatever you want, not giving up and you can always go find answers to knowledge that you need. So that would be work ethic and determination.

 

 

Jim Rembach:    Paul it was an honor to spend time with you today, can you please share with the fast leader legion how they can connect with you.

 

Paul Maskill:    Yeah. So if you’re out on Twitter it’s just Paul Maskill is my Twitter handle. You can always send me an email, I’ll respond to your email personally PMaskill@playTGA.com and if you are interested in any sort of TGA information opportunity just head over to FranchiseTGA.com/fast so that’s a landing page, welcome page just for your listeners. You can schedule a call with me if you want to talk about anything, it doesn’t even have to be TGA, there’s a little survey there to see if a franchise might be right for you and more information on TGA in general what we’re trying to do.

 

Jim Rembach:    Paul Maskill, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom, the Fast Leader legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. Woot! Woot!

 

Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader show today. For recaps, links from every show, special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over the fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster. 

 

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