Marcia Daszko | Pivot, Disrupt, Transform

217: Marcia Daszko: I was not familiar with any of those terms

Marcia Daszko Notes Page

Marcia Daszko didn’t know what she didn’t know. Now, she’s a catalyst for challenging leaders to think differently to realize results never before achieved. A protégé of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, she’s co-founded two Deming User Groups, is a co-founder of the non-profit In2In Thinking, and assisted at 20 of the late Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s renowned 4-day seminars.

Marcia was born and raised in Iowa until she moved with her parents and three younger siblings to Los Gatos, CA in the 1970’s. She graduated from Santa Clara University with an English major focusing on journalism and later got her Master’s Degree in Mass Communication from San Jose State University. Her Dad’s career evolved from being a newspaper editor to sales to an entrepreneur of his own company for over 40 years—and Marcia followed his path.

With a natural interest in writing, reading, and teaching, after her college graduation, Marcia held positions as a 7^th grade English teacher to a ten-year career in corporate communications and marketing in various industries. She began working to market the management consulting firm owned by Dr. Perry Gluckman and his team of statisticians and consultants in the 1980’s.

Soon Perry asked her to do business development and she asked, “What am I selling?” He sent her to a 4-day seminar about leadership taught by his friend, the world-renowned Dr. W. Edwards Deming. After that experience, Marcia asked Perry, “What was that all about?” Dr. Deming was in his 80’s, difficult to understand, and used a different vocabulary than Marcia was used to. Perry said, “I’ll teach you” and for the next three months Marcia read, studied, and had 3 to 4-hour conversations about new leadership thinking. Marcia said to Perry, “I want to hear Deming again.” Off she went to learn. At this 4-day seminar, the conference organizer introduced her to Dr. Deming, and he said “Come to dinner tonight.” She went and listened as a tableful of senior Fortune 500 executives, a Colonel, and an Admiral had a robust conversation. She observed and listened. After dinner Dr. Deming invited her to attend the 4-day as much as possible to learn. He mentored her and she attended 20 of the 4-day seminars up until his death in 1993. After getting clients like Dow Chemical and Pepsi, Perry said, “we need your help to consult” and her consulting career began.

In 1993, both of her mentors died and Marcia wondered, “Now what?” With major clients, she continued her consulting work and in 1994 started Marcia Daszko & Associates. Now she speaks and teaches executive teams and her MBA students a new way to think about leadership—without the management fads and “best practices.” She begins every speech with, “My aim is to provoke your thinking.”

Her bold red-hot leadership book, PIVOT DISRUPT TRANSFORM helps people develop their natural leadership and lead with fewer struggles and failures. There is a better, revolutionary way to experience the joy in learning & leading.

Marcia resides in Silicon Valley CA.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @MarciaDaszko to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow – Click to Tweet

“We all have the child inside of us that continually needs to learn and develop and make a difference in this world.” – Click to Tweet

“It takes a crisis in order for things to drastically change and people to step up. But that requires courage and leadership.” – Click to Tweet

“What are we trying to accomplish together?” – Click to Tweet

“Are corporations growing in healthy ways or are they growing due to greed?” – Click to Tweet

“The culture in organizations is a reflection of the CEO, the executive team, and the Board of Directors.” – Click to Tweet

“It takes a lot of courage to not accept what is, but to say what is our future.” – Click to Tweet

“The executives at the top of an organization, it’s their job to develop all of their people, not just their executive team.” – Click to Tweet

“Companies that focus on having everyone learn and work and improve together, those are the companies that are going to survive.” – Click to Tweet

“Always link what you’re trying to accomplish with a customer.” – Click to Tweet

“Success is after everything else has happened.” – Click to Tweet

“Adults keep piling it on, one layer on top of another, until it’s so complex people are not productive.” – Click to Tweet

“Leaders are searching for ways for customers to be served. The issue is, what they need to know, they’re not taught in school.” – Click to Tweet

“Transformative change is like the caterpillar becoming a butterfly. Once you become a butterfly, you’ll never go back to being a caterpillar.” – Click to Tweet

“The more that people think, question and explore, the more they discover new opportunities and can make a difference.” – Click to Tweet

Hump to Get Over

Advice for others

Question based on systems-thinking and statistical knowledge.

Holding her back from being an even better leader

Not enough hours in the day.

Best Leadership Advice

Learn, listen, and make a difference.

Secret to Success

I continually bring problems to the surface, and then try to get people working together to solve those with new ways to think about them.

Best tools in business or life

Curiosity

Contacting Marcia Daszko

Website: https://www.mdaszko.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarciaDaszko

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

Resources and Show Mentions

Call Center Coach

An Even Better Place to Work

Show Transcript:

[expand title=”Click to access edited transcript”]

217: Marcia Daszko: I was not familiar with any of those terms

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.

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Okay, Fast Leader Legion today I’m excited because we have somebody on the show today who is going to defy many of your conventional wisdoms. Marcia Dazko was born and raised in Iowa until she moved with her parents and three younger siblings to Los Gatos, California in the 1970s. She graduated from Santa Clara University with an English major focusing on journalism and later got her master’s degree in Mass communication from San Jose State University. Her dad’s career evolved from being a newspaper editor to sales to an entrepreneur of his own company for over 40 years and Marcia followed his path. With a natural interest in writing, reading and teaching after her college graduation Marcia held positions as a seventh grade teacher to a 10 year career in corporate communications and marketing in various industries.

She began working to market the management consulting firm owned by Dr. Perry Glickman and his team of statisticians and consultants in the 1980s. Soon Perry asked her to do business development and she asked, what am I selling? He sent her to four day seminar about leadership taught by his friend the world-renowned Dr. W. Edwards Deming. After that experience Marcia asked Perry, what was that all about? Dr. Deming was in his 80s difficult to understand and used a different vocabulary than Marcia was used to. Perry said, I’ll teach you. For the next three months Marcia read, studied and had three to four-hour conversations about new leadership thinking. Marcia said to Perry, I want to hear Deming again. Off she went to learn at this four-day seminar. The conference organizer introduced her to Dr. Deming and he said, come to dinner tonight. She went and listened as the table full of senior fortune 500 executives, a colonel, and an admiral had a robust conversation, she observed and listened. After dinner Dr. Deming invited her to attend the four day as much as she wanted to learn. Over the next several years she attended more than 20 of these four-day seminars until his death in

After getting clients like Dow Chemical and Pepsi, Perry said, we need your help to consult, and her consulting career began. In 1993 both of her mentors died and Marcia wondered, now what? With major clients she continued her consulting work. In 1994 started Marcia Daszko & Associates. Now she speaks and teaches to executive teams and her MBA students a new way to think about leadership without the management fads and best practices. She begins every speech with, my aim is to provoke your thinking. Her bold red-hot leadership book, Pivot Disrupt Transform helps people to develop their natural leadership and lead with fewer struggles and failures. There is a better revolutionary way to experience the joy in learning and leading. Marcia currently resides in Silicon Valley not too far from her son Timothy and two wonderful grandchildren. Marcia Daszko, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Marcia Daszko: Absolutely, let’s go for it.

Jim Rembach: I’m glad you’re here. Now I’ve given my legion 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.

Marcia Daszko: My current passion—learning, helping people learn and lead and together in ways that they never have done before and making sure that path is wide open for also children of all ages. Because I think we all have the child inside of us that continually needs to learn and develop and make a difference in this world.

Jim Rembach: I’m glad that you shared that part about the child part because we’re going to talk about that in a second. However, in order to talk about that new way of thinking that difference component and all of that I think it’s really appropriate for us to kind of start off with something that you have. At the front of the book which is a bunch of questions, because for me as I went through these questions when I got to the end I got a big shocker. So let’s do these real—I’m going to do these as quick as I can, so you guys hang with me okay. This is an assessment of your current thinking and your actions—do you believe it’s important to hold individuals accountable? These are all yes-or-no questions, do you believe that it’s important to hold individuals accountable? Do you believe it is crucial to motivate your employees? Do you make most of your decisions based on conversations and intuition? Do you set targets and numerical goals for individuals to achieve? Does the executive team have annual strategic planning meetings to create the vision, mission, strategies, numerical goals, objectives and deliverables? Does leadership create a lengthy mission paragraph for the company? Does the organization continually adopt best practices and benchmark with other companies? Is change management adopted in your company but not much changes? Is resistance to change common in your culture? Do you believe the company should hire the best recruits with the best GPAs from the best schools to achieve the best results? Does management focus on quotas results the bottom line and the stock price? Are reorganizations and restructuring common and frequent? When times are difficult do you quickly respond by cutting costs? Do you believe you should empower employees? Do you believe it’s important to conduct annual performance appraisals and rank and rate the employees? Do you score the appraisals and tie them to compensation and bonuses? Do you incentivize workers and rewards and have a quota system? Now I know it took a while for me to read those but I think it’s really important because at the end from your scoring you say that, if you’d answered yes to more than two of these you need this book. And so for me I’m like, I don’t see how anybody is going to answer less than yes to 80% of those. Is that not true?

Marcia Daszko: Definitely, that’s true that’s what the world we live in.

Jim Rembach: When you start thinking about—how do we turn this tide when it’s kind of like a salmon swimming up river in a current like they’ve never met, how do we do that?

Jim Rembach: I have so many answers for that but I don’t know where to start. We sometimes need a crisis it takes a crisis in order for things to drastically change and people to step up but that requires courage and that requires leadership. And the courage and the leadership I think that we used to see decades ago I’m not seeing that same level of courage and leadership or the knowledge that people need. So for example, when Japan was in a crisis situation after World War II that’s when Dr. Deming went to Japan at the invitation of General MacArthur and helped Japan turn around and become a global competitor. At that point they were in a crisis so they were open to learning they had no way to go but up. And so that’s what we need to address in all of our organizations it doesn’t matter if it’s corporate education our education system is an extreme crisis and it’s a disaster in America we can see that because we see the results. If we focused on education and transform the education system that would impact the issues that we have with drugs and with gangs and with the dropout level and the declining education level in the United States.

Jim Rembach: Oh, my goodness. As you’re talking I started thinking about these massive problems and if they’re already in crisis and you’re saying that we need a crisis for them to transform, how long can we continue to be in crisis before that happens?

Marcia Daszko: Well, we have been in crisis and that continues we can continue to decline. Even if we look at the economy and we think that it’s doing well when it crashes it’s going to be pretty severe. So there are some systems that are hiding some of the problems but we’re seeing those results. Sometimes the good times are just camouflaging the realities of systems that are really in crisis.

Jim Rembach: Okay. Then as you’re saying that I just wanted to ask the question, what systems are you talking about Marcia? What systems are actually the ones? Are you talking about the total government system and the duopoly that they have with Democrats and Republicans, is that what has to change? Is it—what is it?

Marcia Daszko: Yes, I think it leads us to the questions that leaders have to ask and that’s, what are we trying to accomplish together? Or are we trying as a nation and as leaders to have a great education system? A great democracy? A great social system a government agency system that supports citizens when they are in need? For example, mental illness and things like that. Do we have a system supports those things? Corporations are they healthy? Are they growing in healthy ways or are they growing due to greed? How healthy are the people in these organizations? The culture in the organizations is a reflection of the CEOs and the executive team and the board of directors. So if there are organizations across any sector that have high turnover rates and a lot of toxic internal competition then those organizations are reflection of the people that lead them.

Jim Rembach: As you were talking I started thinking about—everybody talks about the Jim Collins book, Good to Great and how that is—a business annal that will live on forever. However, if you look at those organizations that were case studied in 2018 I think only one of them exists I think they’re all gone all the others are gone.

Marcia Daszko: That’s very common. We have about 6,000 startup companies in the Silicon Valley Bay Area now and we’ll expect about 90% of them to go out of business. And of the first Fortune 500 list that came out in about 1955 more than 60% of those Fortune 500 companies are gone. Some of them were acquired but many of them are gone. In the past decade we’ve seen many of them disappear. We’ve seen many airlines disappear we’ve seen Montgomery Ward, and Sears is doing poorly, Circuit City Blockbuster—we’ve seen declines in many industries so that’s when leaders really—it takes a lot of courage to not just accept what is but say, how do we want to serve our customers, our members, our students? And what does that look like in the future? What are our future markets? So the book is really about when I think about pivot disrupt transform it’s really about innovation and leadership thinking and courage.

Jim Rembach: I think for me when you’re talking about that I’m seeing that at all levels of a particular organization because I know especially if I’m on the front line I see a lot of the mediocrity I see a lot of the exceptions and excellence that we have and I see a whole lot of things that we need to be eliminated. However, if I just keep going through the daily transaction on the frontline it’s never going to get fixed I’ve got to stand up. The book is part of an enablement tool for basically everybody within that organization to take what really is, I guess you’d say that, interruption before we have crisis isn’t it?

Marcia Daszko: Yes. The book is about developing everyone’s natural leadership. And the leaders the executives at the top of an organization it’s their job to develop all of their people not just their executive team but to develop all the people. When you think about—okay, if you have two different companies and one executive team believes in developing and investing in all of their employees and another company only invests in a select few like the management track or whatever which company is going to succeed? Because the one who has developed the skills and the knowledge and the systems thinking and focus on having everyone learn and work and improve together those are the companies that are going to make the difference and they’re going to disrupt and survive.

Jim Rembach: That’s a really good point and I think for me then we start getting into discussion of learning quality because you could say that the learning industry, and you can categorize like one, but that’s probably a multitrillion-dollar type of industry, however, there’s a whole lot of different quality in learning that goes along there. More and more chief learning officers and people who are at the upper end of learning and development are talking more about the learner experience today than I’ve ever heard before and also about bent blended learning and having more journey paths for people’s development it’s the training used to be, sit in the classroom and it’s an event and I think that’s going when.

Marcia Daszko: Yes, because it doesn’t engage people. Especially to millennials they don’t have that attention span to sit and be PowerPoint-ed to death and so those things need to go away. But my concern is that people with certain titles, whether it’s HR or chief learning officers or people in leadership and development in organizations, my concern is when they focus on systems such as performance management and performance appraisals and so forth they are just carrying on and trying to systematize bad practices best practices and management fads. It is the leadership oftentimes above them that has to say no. We have to stop these management fads and we have to challenge our current beliefs and assumptions and practices and start asking ourselves some tough questions. Only a few questions it’s not a lot of questions it’s not thousands of questions but it is challenging how they currently think what they’re trying to accomplish and always link what they’re trying to accomplish with the customer, with a member, with a student. Because if they’re not starting with their current market and a potential market they are just going to be like the hamster in the wheel and they’re going to focus on bad practices such as holding individuals accountable from the results of the system. The individuals didn’t create this system the executives did. So they need—if they don’t like the results they’re getting they need to change it. If they’re satisfied with the results that they’re getting even though they have all these best practices my question to them is, how much better could you be doing if you got rid of the best practices and management fads?

Jim Rembach: That’s a phrase that I’ve just actually over the years have begun to loathe which is best practices. To me that means they’re just common is really what it ends up being. One of the particular chapter that you have in the book really stood out to me out because I think it also addresses the issue that you’re referring to in regards to—hey, hey we need to take a step back and rethink question some of these fads and some of the things that we’ve been doing that we’ve been taught that we’re supposed to do and you talk about a child’s lens and new learning, what do you mean by that?

Marcia Daszko: A child’s lens—the children see things simply and directly. Children ask the best questions we’ve heard that for years but when we talk about simply going back to the basic questions and asking, what are we trying to accomplish together? How will we do it? Who are we serving? And how will we measure progress not just success? Because success is after everything else has happened. So the child is able to cut through a lot of complexity and waste we’re adults, sorry, they just keep piling it on one layer on top of another until it’s so complex and people are so quote-unquote busy but they’re not productive. I can go into an organization have a few conversations and pretty quickly identify at least 50 to 80 percent waste of time, of efforts, of resources, when people are not asking the right questions.

Jim Rembach: I think that’s a great place to start is with that simple, innocence and the questions are a critical component and I think all of us probably need to do a better job of doing that. But when we’re talking about these particular issues, crisis, change, transformation, pivot and disruption all that it’s loaded with the emotion. One of the things that we like to do on the show is focus on that emotion in a better direction and we do that by looking at quotes. Is there a quote or two that you like that you can share?

Marcia Daszko: The first one that popped into my mind was one of Dr. Deming’s quote and that was, leaders asked for help and they don’t know what they don’t know so there is knowledge that they need that they don’t have. He would often ask at his four-day seminars how could they know? How could they know there’s anything to learn? And that’s a thing we always have to be learning. I’ve got to give credit to two leaders that they are searching there are leaders that are searching for solutions they’re searching for answers are searching for ways to solve their problems they’re searching for ways for customers to be served the issue is that what they need to know they are not taught in school, that’s one thing. One of my clients recently said to me, Marcia, I’ve been the president for ten years and I have been struggling with the same problems for ten years until you came and you’ve taught us a totally new way to think and you’ve given us new knowledge, knowledge about systems thinking knowledge about statistical thinking. Now we can attack those problems and issues and we’re already making a difference and it’s only been six months and he had struggled for so long. I think people try to learn, unfortunately, they read articles or books or go to seminars or watch videos that are giving them the same old manners fads and best practices. There are probably a hundred books out there about how to improve your performance appraisal that’s the wrong thinking and that’s the wrong book. What they need to do is pick up the book that says abolishing performance appraisals. Get rid of it because performance appraisals end up putting them in a position to judge, blame, criticize, rank and rate employees. Those things are all negative not helpful. Being a judge who likes to do that? When we think about the multi-millions maybe billions of dollars that organizations spend on doing performance appraisals. When you just take the time that managers spend in doing performance appraisals and then giving feedback and if people don’t like the feedback that demotivates them and they feel unappreciated and they go look for another job so the turnover rate goes up.

Jim Rembach: It’s so true and it gets repeated over and again. You’re even talking about the experience that you had that I read in your bio when you first went to Dr. Deming’s seminar and you didn’t understand the language and came back and there was a whole lot of adaptation and learning and humps that you had to get over. And so we learn a lot when guests get to share those stories, is there a time where you got over the hump that you can share?

Marcia Daszko: There are so many humps. The first one was probably when—after Dr. Deming’s seminar I said, Perry what was that all about? Because four days of trying to listen to someone who is difficult to understand in his eighties using a totally different vocabulary of system and variation and control charts and new knowledge and systems thinking I was not familiar with any of those terms in context of improving a business. When I went back to the office—and then Perry guided me. One day I was so excited I was in a bookstore in Palo Alto and I came back to the office and I had a whole armful of books they were about quality and learning and leadership and I didn’t know any better I was brand new. Perry looked at the books and he separated them into two piles, this is good this is good this is trash this is garbage take these back to the store. He had the ability with his knowledge to discern the difference between good leadership learning and the management fads that some people were gurus back then we’re pushing. That’s what it takes us to really learn but question and say, when you look at a system and you want to optimize a system and you want to look at the data over time to make better decisions how can you do that and where can you continue to learn so that it will be effective? If you’re learning and learning and reading and going to conferences and you’re not improving you’re improving you’re not feeling that things are improving and transforming you’re reading the wrong things you’re not getting the guidance from the right people. You need to disrupt what you’re doing and seek out other resources.

Jim Rembach: As you were talking I started thinking about what I’ve mentioned many times is that you can’t be a leader and coach people if you also are not receiving that. Because like you said when it kind of when we started what Dr. Deming said they don’t know what they don’t know you’re asking them for support and questions there’s nothing in the well so you have to continue to find that and you need to have somebody as a coach to really do that. We talked about reading a book and things like that and that’s great because we all can absorb knowledge but I think the critical point from what I’ve picked up from what you said you need somebody to help, encourage you, and challenge you and that can only come from another individual it doesn’t come from a movie or a book.

Marcia Daszko: Yes, and that’s the key because great, I don’t want to go into that coaching name too much label because there’s so many thousands of coaches out there that don’t have knowledge, they can get certifications and they say, oh I’m a certified coach. And it’s like, what is your knowledge? Can you help leaders transform their personal leadership to help them transform their organization and make a difference in the world? And if they can do that, fantastic, but—most I don’t think they can. I think one of the most important traits of a great coach is, number one, they have to have that system statistical knowledge. Secondly, they have to be very provocative in their questions to really get their leaders to think to really challenge what they’re currently thinking, believing, assuming, doing what are they investing in. I don’t go into organizations and help them transform by being their best friends that’s not the aim. The aim is to make that difference with them by challenging them. There are times that when they are in reflection mode, they reflect back on things I used to do. I have had this happen to my surprise several times where I’m having a conversation with one of the executives and they start to cry. And I asked, are you okay? And they say, yes, I was just thinking about how I used to treat people how I used to lead how I used to make decisions and the impact that I had, I’m so sorry about that. But that’s where Dr. Dimming’s quote comes in so powerfully how could they know? How could they know there was anything to learn? They were just doing their best. Best efforts and hard work and making decisions by consensus those are not helpful so we need to learn a different way to disrupt our own thinking and really believe that transforming ourselves and our organizations and our communities and our society it’s important it’s the right thing to do and there is a way. So for example in the book, there are three parts and the first part is things to stop doing because otherwise if just want to start doing new things well they have still in place a lot of bad things those management fads and I tell them it’s like trying to put fresh strawberry jam on moldy bread. You’ve still got the moldy bread and you’ve got to get rid of the moldy bread simultaneously that’s you’re learning how to make transformative change not merely change. Because if you change you can change back. Transformative change means it’s like the caterpillar becoming a butterfly, once you’re a butterfly you will never go back to be a caterpillar. Once you’ve learned new think new leadership thinking based on systems thinking and statistical thinking and strategic thinking about planning not just strategic planning in the traditional sense. Once you learn these new concepts and get help applying them then the sky is the limit. I often say then to my executive teams once they learn those concepts and how to apply them get out of the way of your people because they will take you where you’ve never been before that’s transformation.

One of my clients was a 30 million dollars and wanted to take his company to 35 or 40 million and I said, okay, let’s not think about the numbers let’s do what we need to do. I began working with them and they went from 30 million to 300 million. But had he given them that arbitrary numerical goal of 40 million when they got to 39 to 40 million they would have slowed down or stopped and they wouldn’t have experienced what they got to experience together.

Jim Rembach: That’s a great story. I sure hope that more and more folks get exposed to your work and that we can start attacking those types of problems as well as some of those huge problems we talked about earlier. So 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 Marcia, 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 a robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Marcia Daszko, are you ready to hoedown?

Marcia Daszko: Definitely let’s go.

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

Marcia Daszko: Oh, enough hours in the day. There are so many things I want to do but sometimes I need to sleep.

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

Marcia Daszko: Learn, listen and make a difference.

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

Marcia Daszko: I continually bring problems to the surface and then try to get people working together to solve those together with new ways to think about them.

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

Marcia Daszko: Curiosity.

Jim Rembach: What would be one book that you’d recommend to our legion, it could be from any genre of course we’re going to put a link to your book on your show notes page as well.

Marcia Daszko: Okay, first things that pop into mind first books are one is called, Profit Beyond Measure, it helps people think differently about results in the bottom line. And another one would be The Goal, it’s powerful it’s been around for decades. And another would be, Man’s search for Meaning.

Jim Rembach: Okay, Fast Leader legion you can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fastleader.net/marciadaszko. Okay, Marcia, this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25. And you can take all the knowledge and skills that you have and take them back with you but you can’t take it all back you can just one. So what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

Marcia Daszko: The ability to question based on systems thinking and statistical knowledge. And the reason I would take those questions is because the more that people think, question and explore the more they discover new opportunities and can make a difference.

Jim Rembach: Marcia, thank you for sharing your time with us. Can you tell the Fast Leader legion how they can connect with you?

Marcia Daszko: They can contact md@mdaszko.com or take a look at my website mdaszko.com and for sure take a look at my book there’s contact information in the book.

Jim Rembach: Marcia Daszko, 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 elp you move onward and upward faster.

END OF AUDIO

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216: Rick Miller: All I did was apply the lessons my dad taught me

Rick Miller Notes Page

Rick Miller has turned around businesses during a dot com bomb and lead organizations that had to deal with real bombs. And all he did was apply the great lessons his dad taught him at the kitchen table, decades earlier.

Rick Miller was born and raised outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Rick is the oldest of 3 boys who were raised primarily by their father, as Rick’s mother was hospitalized for much of his youth.

Professionally, Rick’s Dad served as personnel (human resources) leader in the only non-union manufacturer in Central Massachusetts. Rick has been described by many as a different kind of turnaround specialist. Rick describes that difference as his balanced focus on human capital and financial capital, and Rick credits his father for that strategy.

The common theme throughout Rick’s career has been a focus on building highly productive teams. He actually started that practice in high school and college sports, and continued in his early professional life. Rick started his career in computer sales, where he quickly moved up first into general management, and then onto turnaround management as a specialty. In the first 27 years of his career, Rick applied his craft to companies in different industries ranging from a start-up to a Fortune 10 multi-national (AT&T), earning a reputation as a turnaround expert, a servant-leader, and a go-to Chief.

Rick currently serves as an Executive Coach and Confidant in a company he founded 11 years ago. He also speaks publicly at colleges and companies on how to build powerful teams that can achieve sustainable growth.

He shares the secrets of his strategy in the recently released book Be Chief: It’s a Choice, Not a Title, named an Amazon #1 new release in both Leadership Training and Business Management categories.

Rick has earned a bachelor’s degree from Bentley University and a MBA from Columbia University. Rick has been married for 36 years, and he and his wife Diane have proudly raised 2 public servants. Their son Jack currently serves as Press Secretary for Congressman Ami Bera in Washington DC. Their daughter Casey teaches in a bilingual 2nd grade class in New London CT.

Rick and Diane live in Morristown NJ.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @BEINGCHIEF to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow – Click to Tweet

“With whatever cards your dealt, play those cards to the best of your ability with a smile on your face.” – Click to Tweet

“Chiefs are people who connect what they do to who they are.” – Click to Tweet

“There’s a huge power in what you feel once you know what you stand for.” – Click to Tweet

“Once you figure out what you stand for, you can take a stand.” – Click to Tweet

“You know yourself more when you’re present.” – Click to Tweet

“You know yourself more when you choose to be accepting.” – Click to Tweet

“You know yourself more when you are generous.” – Click to Tweet

“It is important to know who you are, so that when you make the choice about what to do, they’re consistent with your values.” – Click to Tweet

“7 out of 10 workers are not fully engaged at work. Many times, it’s because what’s being said and what’s being done from a values perspective, isn’t quite matching up.” – Click to Tweet

“It’s the human capital that will enable financial capital success.” – Click to Tweet

“Power comes from when you line up how you think, how you feel, how you speak, write and act.” – Click to Tweet

“Today’s version of power is so much more attainable by everyone.” – Click to Tweet

“Power today is about energy, confidence, clarity, influence and impact.” – Click to Tweet

“When you learn something new and open up to a new truth, don’t be afraid to change your position.” – Click to Tweet

“Anyone that’s told you they’ve figured it all out, run away, they’re dangerous.” – Click to Tweet

“Open up and be open to all input.” – Click to Tweet

“Never confuse titles with power.” – Click to Tweet

“The language of business is numbers.” – Click to Tweet

“Power is never given, it’s only taken.” – Click to Tweet

Hump to Get Over

Advice for others

Maintain a healthy impatience because it drives you forward and keeps you centered.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Going more deeply into meditation.

Best Leadership Advice

Power is never given, it’s only taken.

Secret to Success

Persistence

Best tools in business or life

My network

Contacting Rick Miller

Website: https://beingchief.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BEINGCHIEF

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

Resources and Show Mentions

Power Compass Survey

Call Center Coach

An Even Better Place to Work

Show Transcript:

[expand title=”Click to access edited transcript”]

216: Rick Miller: All I did was apply the lessons my dad taught me

Okay, Fast Leader legion today I’m excited because we have somebody on the show today who really is going to give us some insight on what it means to be the chief. Rick Miller was born and raised just outside of Boston, Massachusetts. He is the oldest of three boys who were raised primarily by their father as Rick’s mother was hospitalized for much of his youth. Professionally, Rick’s dad served as a professional Human Resources leader in the only non-union manufacturer in central Massachusetts. Rick has been described by many as a different kind of turnaround specialist. Rick describes that difference as his balanced focus on human capital and financial capital and Rick credits his father for that strategy. The common theme throughout Rick’s career has been a focus on building highly productive teams. He actually started that practice in high school and college sports and continued in his early professional life. Rick started his career in computer sales where he quickly moved up first into general management and then on to turnaround management as a specialty. In the first 27 years of his career Rick applied his craft to companies and different industries ranging from a start-up to a fortune 10 multinational, AT &T earning a reputation as a turnaround expert, a servant leader, and a go-to chief.

Rick’s legacy has been built around creating powerful teams that achieve sustainable growth. Rick has proven that sustainable growth is achievable in any organization with appropriate focus on the six C’s, customers, costs, capital, communities and a culture where employees can achieve sustainable growth too. Rick currently serves as an executive coach and confidant in a company he founded 11 years ago. He also speaks publicly at colleges and companies on how to build powerful teams that can achieve sustainable growth. He shares the secrets of his strategy in the recently released book, Be Chief: It’s a Choice Not a Title, named an Amazon number one new release in both leadership training and business management. Rick has earned a bachelor’s degree from Bentley University and an MBA from Columbia University. Rick has been married for 36 years and he and his wife Diane have proudly raised two public servants. Their son Jack currently serves as a press secretary for congressman, Ami Bera in Washington D.C. and their daughter Casey teaches in a bilingual second-grade class in New London, Connecticut. Rick and Diane live in Morristown, New Jersey. Rick, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Rick Miller: I’m ready, willing and able.

Jim Rembach: I appreciate the fact that you’re here. Now I’ve given my Legion 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?

Rick Miller: Well, my current passion is all about a service project that really kind of kicked off with the book. In prior years I’ve focused on kids and helping kids, I actually started a non-profit which I ran for about ten years as CEO focused on kids with diabetes, it’s a wonderful success. More recently I’m focused on helping kids with special needs. Thanks for referencing the book, it looks great by the way right back there over your shoulder and just to let everybody know all proceeds of that book go to help kids with special needs. So my focus right now is on kids with special needs their teachers—we’ll talk about that later on, but right now it’s kids and special needs is the is the passion of the day because it’s been of the year, new year new challenges but special needs focus is going to go on for the next couple years.

Jim Rembach: Well, and so for me—I was reading the book and preparing for our interview together, and so for me, for those that aren’t aware, the education that I get by having some of these phenomenal guests on the show is tremendous and sometimes it hits home in a lot of ways. You shared a story about

Melissa being one of your mentors, and if you could just share that a little bit.

Rick Miller: Sure, I’d be happy to. I share in the book the story of a wonderful six year old girl who is actually one of my greatest teachers. She was a six year old girl, when I first met her she was in a wheelchair she had cerebral palsy. I met her in a rehabilitation hospital where I had volunteered to work with a physical therapist to work in this hundred-degree heated pool to help kids that had muscles that were just very tight. Now this is what Melissa looked like when I first met her in the pool. Her hands were clenched and they up by her shoulders and she actually had one dream. Her dream was to fully extend her arms to grab a little nerf basketball and drop it in a net and scored two points, that’s all Melissa wanted to do.

So when I met Melissa though, I should back up just a little bit, when I first saw her though she was in the wheelchair off to the side waiting for her turn to get into the pool, we had been working with another youngster at that point. But what struck me right away when I first met her years ago was that when she was wheeled in everybody on the staff who had known Melissa prior to be volunteering came over to say hello. She was a magnet for people. They came over said hello went by. And then she sat very serenely looking at us in the pool waiting her turn, she had a calmness about her that struck me. Yet when she got in the pool she was one of the hardest-working people I’ve ever met with. She was focused she was at the tasks you could see her intensity at the same time she was very generous with her smile. She was always very grateful whenever we were done with our session she will say thank you to the physical therapist and thank you to me. We worked together for six months for her to take and fully—that first day by the way we got her right arm extended about five inches. One hour of work and a

100 degree heated pool. So when I think about people that I admire I think about people who are Chiefs people who are powerful, we’ll talk about power in a bit, I think about power are people who are accepting of their situation, who are hardworking, who can be gracious, who can be generous, who can give to others, and I view those people as role models. So if that’s the criteria I think about someone like Melissa and she had an impact on me. I’m talking about her decades later, in fact, the book is dedicated—the money is going to special-needs kids because of Melissa.

I think if the lessons that she taught about how to—with whatever cards you’re dealt play those cards to the best of your ability with a smile on your face. I get goosebumps when I think about her to this day and I get teary-eyed.

Jim Rembach: I told you that’s why for me it just hit home and I shared with you my wife was in a car accident when she was eight years old and she’s in a wheelchair but yet this woman is a CPA, she is the mother of three children that she carried they were all delivered via C-Section when you start looking at the triumph—she doesn’t like me to tell her story she’s very stoic she’s like, I’m just me. Talking about teary-eyed that gets to me too. I think for me I often have to stop and self-reflect just like you were doing with Melissa and talk about that impact, talk about that affect, talk about all of those things. In the book in the beginning you talk about some questions that are important for us to be able to ask of ourselves, such as, how can living my values bring out the best in me and those around me? How can I develop insight and learn more about myself? How can I use creativity to increase my positive impact? And how can I use discipline to manage better? And how can I support others to increase their positive impact? I think you hit all of that when you were talking about Melissa. However, when you start thinking about levels of importance and the things that really are differentiators they all can’t do that. While they’re all important, which one kind of stands out as one that’s like, this is the unique component that I find in a lot of Chiefs.

Rick Miller: Well, we can boil all five of those down by list of five, actually, in two different words but to kind of bring them together. Chiefs are people who connect what they do to who they are. Your wife, Melissa, gifted people, we meet every day they connect what they do to who they are. I generally would say that it’s important to understand who you are because you’re different than me are people we know are all different so at the core of this it’s who are you? That would go to two particular elements. I spend a lot of time in the book talking about insight and values, let’s talk about those two if we could.

Values was actually the first question and values are so important because I regularly talk to people and I say, what are your values? And they will give me a long list, sometimes it’ll be a short ones more often it’s a long one and I will stop and I’ll say, what’s your core for? They’ll look at me and I said, yeah, what’s your north south east and west? What are those that you hold most dear? And many people will stop. The people that I work with I’ll do the same thing and I’ll ask this question. There’s a huge benefit in terms of the power that you will feel once you know what you stand for. Because once you figure out what you stand for, you can take a stand. And when you take a stand you are powerful. So, that’s very much who we are at our core. By the way, very much related to insight and insight is synonym for self-understanding. We talk a lot about in the book and generally about how do you build self-understanding. Everybody says, know yourself. I would say, okay, how do I do that? And I believe this five areas that you can invest in to know yourself better. I think you know yourself more when you’re present when you choose to be present. I think you know yourself more when you choose to be accepting, talked about Melissa was very accepting of her situation. You know yourself more when you are generous when you are grateful and when you choose at certain times to be still to listen to the voice inside you.

To answer your question directly it is important for you to know who you are so that when you make these choices about what to do they’re consistent with your voice inside your values. But first you have to take a little bit of time to figure those out.

Jim Rembach: Yeah, I think that time component is really interesting and I think there’s also an exploration component that has to be involved with it. Maybe that’s where this whole fear factor comes in play for a lot of people is that fear stop them from doing that exploration in order for people to find these things out. Do you find that to be a case?

Rick Miller: Yeah. I don’t know often that it is fear for many people, I just think it’s the question they haven’t asked themselves. If somebody asked you, what do you stand for? Because maybe you haven’t thought about it many people come up—will I stand with family and ethic, you’ll come up with a set of words. There’s an exercise that I use, I’ll put 50 great words on a piece of paper and I’ll hand it to somebody and I’ll say, are any of these words that you disagree with? They’re all great words, they’re great attributes. No, I don’t disagree with any of them. I said, which of the four do you stand for most? Many of them stop and think. And I said, here’s the benefit, here’s the benefit. I said, go to the ten people who know you best and ask them to each give you four attributes of what they think you stand for. You could do the math, they could come up to with 40 different words in some scenario, 10 different people give you four different words 40 different answers. I said, that’s not a bad thing. But if you want to stand for something, if you want people to know—when I think of Jim, I think of family, I think of faith, I think of trustworthy, whatever those attributes you are wouldn’t it be wonderful if you ask those 10 people and rather than give you 40 different answers maybe they gave you a 10. Maybe some said, kindness—well those are kissing cousins you’re still going in the same direction with those. My point is, it’s a choice. Again, the whole book is titled, Be Chief: It’s a Choice not a Title. The choices we make about taking the time, and I don’t think it’s out of fear so much Jim, I think it’s more about to take the time and do the work to say, you know what? I can’t stand for 50 things, I can’t be viewed as

forty—but if I get it down to four then maybe people will bleed over 5 6 7. But am I more powerful in the way I talk? In the way I speak? In the way I act? In the way I think? If I’m constantly reinforcing what is most dear to me. Now, my core for is different than yours or anybody else’s but the exercise of doing it the people that I work with normally come back and say thank you. I wouldn’t have taken this time and I have a confidence now in where I go and how I go there is based on me not a well-intentioned spouse not a relative not a good friend not the media who’s always tripping at me, this is what you should be doing. How do I develop my own confidence? I think it starts with values.

Jim Rembach: As you were talking I did start thinking though that it does require some vulnerability to be able to go and ask those people those questions because you might be afraid of what—you know they’re coming back with even though they’re all positive words. For me I would have to actually go through that exercise and I think I’m going to ask you for those 50 words so that I can actually do that because I do want to know what people think are my—I would like to get it down to that core four. I have a rough idea and some intuition because I think as you go through life you kind of start centering around certain ones, however, it would be nice to see what others perceive and then that is an important piece of feedback in order to be able to get so that you can do exactly what you were just saying, now I can take a stand.

Rick Miller: I think people feel more confident when they do and it’s about your confidence in a world where you’re trying to maintain an equilibrium when everything around you is constantly shifting and changing. Having that insight and having those value set I use that as the core of a topic that I call the compass. How do I use a tool to keep me towards my due north, which is what a compass does, when everything around me is shifting? Everything around me is shaking. I get new information all the time. Things I try to hold true too is constantly getting all this feedback, how to stay and use it in boating analogy? How do I keep my ship pointed in the direction that I want to keep when the waves are coming in from all angles and it’s up but it’s down and all around? How do I stay centered an element of being still? Stillness by the way you can achieve by walking in nature, by listening to music, or by classic meditation, however you stay centered particularly these days really, really important.

Jim Rembach: Well, in addition I started even thinking about when I’ve been within certain organizations and things just didn’t feel right and didn’t seem right to me and I felt like an oddball it’s really going back because of I didn’t share the same values with the organization that I was with and unfortunately I didn’t know that I needed to really put my efforts and then leaving that organization. Many times I would stay and be irritated and I would be the one who was trying to change things when maybe that wasn’t really where I should’ve been putting my effort.

Rick Miller: Such a great point. I have certainly and I tell the story in the book there are certainly at least one organization that I left when it became clear that my values and the values that were at least being practiced. It’s not the values that show up on a piece of paper on the wall or in your wallet insert all organizations, if you boil them down I’ve done work with startups to multinationals in a lot of different industries, a lot of organizations will put their values out there—on the website or whatever else—and many of them look the same. It’s teamwork, respect for the individual, it’s innovation, it’s focus on the customer, you and I can probably come up with 10 and of those 10 everyone’s got five. The question isn’t whether they’re on the card or on the website the question is are they in practice in the organization? And I think for those of us who are values-based if you find ourselves in a situation where they’re not practiced that’s when we have to make a decision about how much we’re going to invest in those organizations. And oh by the way, that’s one of the key business topics in the book, is the lack of engagement. Right now in the United States seven out of ten workers are not fully engaged at work they feel powerless. And many times it’s because what’s being said and what’s being done from a values perspective isn’t quite matching up and people are feeling that and they’re bringing their B-game to the office not their A-game.

And when organizations can do things to have employees bring their A-game that’s the result whether it’s a startup or a multinational you can get organizations to achieve. That’s probably why I’m called an unconventional turnaround specialist because that is my job I generally walk into places where things are really bad or these people perceive they’re really bad so why would we ever go on the outside to bring in this guy. Those are the lessons, frankly, that my dad taught me back at the kitchen table growing up in central Massachusetts because it is a balance of financial capital you certainly have to look at those numbers but it’s the people it’s the human capital that will enable financial capital success. I’m going around a little bit I apologize maybe I had two cups of coffee this morning I’m pretty pumped up to be with you so I apologize.

Jim Rembach: I’m glad you’re pumped up. One of the things that’s kind of stood out to me too is you mentioned something about, I think the phrase you use is for those of us that are values-based, well if we’re not values based what are we?

Rick Miller: I think it’s on a spectrum, okay, it’s not people who are values-based are good people who are not values-based are bad, I’m not going there, I’m talking about the people who for example don’t use their values actively to make choices consciously. I believe that those people who have—many who I’ve worked with have gone through and picked their core four and are constantly reminded in my speaking consistently with those values in my writing consistently with my values and my acting consistently with those values because that’s where power comes from when you line up. How you think, how you feel, how you speak, write and act. If the framework is those values then you are clearly not only values-based but values-action oriented. There’s a lot of other people who just don’t think a lot about their values. The other generally kind of bumping along. They’re not bad people but the focus, which I always translate to power true definition of power, no we’ve not talked about it yet but it’s so important. When I say the word power many people go in their minds to yesterday’s definition of power which was authority, control that came from positions like chief executive officer, chief financial officer, the term chief in fact is interesting to people only because of the power associated with it. If I’m

a chief then I must have power. That’s one kind of power but today’s version of power is so much more attainable by everyone. Because a power today is about energy. Power today is about confidence it’s about clarity it’s about influence it’s about impact so any of those five you can have if you’re on the front line of a company or you’re not even part of a company you’re just who you are. But what choices could you make to increase your energy your confidence and your clarity? You meet people who are clear who are energetic and confident, do they have an impact on you? They do on me, that’s Melissa. She had an impact on me because of just her confidence and what she was trying to do. Do those people make a big impact? They sure do. And those are the people I love to learn from and surround myself with because it is a student-teacher thing I think I’m there to share with them. Like I did when I walked into the heated pool at the rehab facility I thought I was there to help and to teach when in fact I was the student but that happens all the time.

Jim Rembach: As you were talking I started thinking about how much inspiration we actually get from those people and even when you’re explaining and I started thinking about authentic those people are authentic they say they are who they say they are and they behave in that way and there’s consistency and therefore I can trust them I mean all those core foundational building blocks on how you actually create a culture that’s successful. But when I start talking about these things I automatically start thinking also about quotes in in my head and we love them on the show we’d love to hear the favorites from the guests that are on this show because oftentimes they inspire us. Is there one or two that you can share?

Rick Miller: One of the ones that I use a lot is Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous quote from self-reliance which is, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. And so many times when you hear that quote by the way they will forget the word foolish but the true quote is a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds translate that says, be a lifelong learner there are things that you don’t know certainly you go after something with full intensity but when you learn something new when you open up to a new truth and you become deeper and broader in a particular area don’t be afraid to change your position. If you’re concerned about, well what will somebody else think? If you learn something says, you know what? I was wrong or I need to adjust from going north to northeast or north northwest because I’ve learned something new don’t be foolishly consistent no one has figured it all out. Anyone that’s told you that they have figured it all out run away they’re dangerous. We are all learning every day. So I love that because of the light heartedness and a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. I don’t like to think of myself as small-minded so it’s a reminder, open up and be open to all input.

Jim Rembach: I really like that. That actually reminded me of one of the quotes that I like which is, when you know all learning stops.

Rick Miller: Well said.

Jim Rembach: When you start thinking about all of these issues that you’ve run into these humps that you’ve had to get over and all of those they’ve had to have defined where you are today and really solidify those values so you could take that stand. Is there a time though when you’ve gotten over the hump that you can share with us?

Rick Miller: Oh, boy, there’s plenty of humps I thought you were going to go in a different direction. Let me answer the question that I want to answer not the one you just asked. My core four, just so you know are truth, service, equality and connection those are my core four. I’ll go to your question but I want to get those out there not because I think they are the right answers there my right answers yours could be totally different but the fact that I know those so clearly and I live, eat, sleep, and dream them they are my core four. And everything I do that’s the filter that goes in my speech, how I write, how I act. So when I hit those humps and as I say as a turnaround individual life I’ve run into some humps. I’ll give you two ends of the spectrum, in one case I was hired during the go-go days of the Internet boom to take a company public. I was going to be the gray hair to come in and work with a wonderful group of primarily 22 year olds who were destined to take a company and I’ll be billionaires. When I walked in just before it burst, around 2000, the board that brought me in said, hey this is the right move. So I had my first employee discussion and the first hand went up by a wonderful 21 year old who said, can you tell me how many months it will be until we’re all millionaires? Okay, Nasdaq crashed about a month later and over the next 18 months the market lost 68 percent of its value. During that time the people who were questioning why the old guy was here weren’t questioning that anymore. We were able to build, and this is a wonderful millennial team that learned how to serve customers who learned how to pull together, in this particular case despite the market going in the opposite we went from a dot-com to a dot bomb. It was crazy customers wouldn’t return our calls everybody was very quiet people were very scared we went on a road show and we raised 85 million dollars because we convinced Wall Street that we were worth betting on this wonderful group of 21 and 22 year olds we brought us some other diverse ages and things like that. But we raised—we took our IPO and we went public in the middle of the crash. We operated for two years we got products out we serve customers and then we sold the business but when most of our customers are going out of business, we’re going to tell the story in the

book how when the bombs are bursting around you, figuratively not literally we talk about literally in a minute, how do you pull together a group of people who have no experience with tough times to serve customers to pull together and actually drive results? Because all of a sudden we had shareowners. Those are the stories they tell on the book about how people come together. By the way, all I did was apply the great lessons that my dad taught me at the kitchen table decades earlier, simple lessons that can be reinforced and that was clearly on one end of the spectrum.

Other I would say that a big challenge was that when I actually did work in a war zone. I was the president of a unit that earned the right to provide a public safety wireless network that was deployed throughout all of Baghdad and 70% of Iraq. In 2005, that allowed people to put up purple thumbs because it was the first time in the country’s history that they voted, first time. So my team was the team that was on the ground for years, now I was in and out a couple different times, and I tell the story in the book about never confused titles with power. Because when I arrived at Baghdad Airport in February of 2005 I had the title yet there was a security detail, and I tell the story in the book, the security detail of people without titles who were responsible to get me successfully to the Green Zone, the most dangerous road in the world by the way was between Baghdad Airport and the Green Zone in Iraq in the mid-2000’s, but they were the Chiefs they were the people who really had the responsibility and the authority and the control for someone who had a title and all I did was please just tell me what to do. Title meant nothing the power was with people who were on the front lines. I’d say that probably qualifies as a situation where it was a bit of a speed bump. Thankfully we got through safely and I was well cared for but the lessons of dealing with startups to multinationals the talent all around you the opportunity to help people be more powerful and learn from them as they learn from you it’s everywhere.

Jim Rembach: Going through the book I just kept finding myself jumping from these stories from one to another there’s a huge breadth and depth of them. But ultimately it culminates at the end when you start talking about helping folks find their compass and you talk about establishing your power compass baseline. And then you actually have 25 questions and answers to these questions are really going to help you describe yourself. If you could talk a little bit more about that and I think you even said somebody being online.

Rick Miller: It is. So I mentioned earlier I would love people to consider buying the book the book is fantastic for you or anybody you care about and all proceeds go to help special-needs kids. That said, if you want to measure your power, because I think in business what we learn is if it’s important you measure it, as a matter of fact I say regularly. The language of business is numbers. The language of business is numbers so if all this stuff about power and energy and clarity and confidence and influence and impact is important shouldn’t I have a number for each of it? The answer is you can. You can go online anytime with your smartphone. Grab your smartphone will take three to five minutes

and you can actually get a score, actually numeric score, for how powerful you are. I call that tool a power compass. The baseline power compass is you asked about the first time you take this tool you in fact will have a baseline it will be a starting point. You’ll look at the score, frankly you’ll look at the score and you may have a number of reactions, some people look at the score and say, well what should it be? This is a score but how am I compared to somebody else? Is my score higher or lower than Jim’s? Higher or lower than Sarah’s? Wrong question. The real question is when you take these 25 questions how do you feel about your answers? They’re very short. But when you answer a question, by the way you don’t have to pass this test in so you don’t have to cheat you have to be honest, when you answer these questions honestly you’ll kind of come away with your gut telling you something. Your gut will say, yeah I’m good. I look at the energy area and the five questions they’re being asked about how I really build real energy, yeah I like my choices. My advocacies don’t change a thing. But if you answer the question honestly, you go, that’s the truth not real happy or proud of it and it probably is impacting my energy. It gives a choice to go back and look at a small change, a small change, you might make with one of your choices that can increase your confidence, your energy, your clarity, your impact or your influence. So that’s all described in the book, how we apply, and I use two quick words which I think are really important.

There’s a lot of places you can go to get leadership information that is on the supply side. Do these twelve things here’s your eight-point checklist. There’s a wonderful group of writers and researchers academicians who can give you a lot on the supply side of leadership. I think what’s different about this book is it’s not about the supply it’s about the apply. I am NOT an academic, I’m a business guy. I take, and I’ve read a lot, by the way I reference probably 20 or 25 of some of the greatest writing it’s referenced in the book, so I talk about, Good to Great, I mentioned other authors and people who’ve made impact. But my job is how to help a reader take the stuff that’s been supplied and in a simple way apply it. In a startup to a multinational you’re an entrepreneur you got one person in your company and it’s you, how do I actually make this stuff work on the front lines whether you have bombs bursting around you or not? Or market crashes or not? So that’s the focus of the power compass it’s really to be very simple. Redefine your thought it leverages a lot of other deep research that others have done but people don’t have the time to go into the deep research. They wonder, what can I use right now? So I’m a very pragmatic person. I’m a simple business person. The power compass, you can get it online, you go to beingchief.com, which is the name of my company, beingchief.com or you can go to bechief.com which is the book page, either way. You can get a link to take the power compass for free and get your own starter set of, okay, what choices am I making? And could I make slightly different choices that will make me more powerful? And the other thing just real quickly is that there’s a piece in the book that is just so powerful. I’ve come across some research which supports what you and I already know Jim, we already know that when we’re surrounded by positive people we tend to be more positive. In the book we talk about two particular research studies, the work done by Fowler and Christakis which talks about the happiness effect which has been well reported on but there’s a particular piece of research done by Versadi, who did it when she was at Yale she’s now at Wharton, we talked about the positive emotions spreading at work a real research that she did that shows that when you bring someone positive into a work environment they affect everyone else. In the book we talked a lot about this term viral engagement which means sometimes you kind of look up sometimes bosses can have a big impact on how you show up but we don’t really study as much as we could what impact does it have if my peer on either side of me is showing up with a positive disposition? Or is coming in every morning and unloading every negative thought he or she ever had? How does that impact the workforce? So these are things that get a little unconventional but it gets to turn around. When I come into an organization I do look at all the numbers I dot the i’s and cross the t’s and balance sheets and P & L, but we also spend lots of time looking at the people aspect. Where our team’s effective and where are they not? What small changes could we make to make teams happier, more productive and more engaged in bringing their A-game?

Jim Rembach: Well, Rick, thanks for sharing that with us and the Fast Leader legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on let’s get a quick word from our sponsor:

Okay, Fast Leader legion, it’s time for the Hump day Hoedown. Okay Rick, 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 a robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Rick Miller, are you ready to hoedown?

Rick Miller: I’m ready to hoe down.

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

Rick Miller: One of the areas that I’m looking at is going more deeply into meditation. I’m considering going to a five-day silent retreat and meditate daily. But I think if I go deeper into me and delve it even stronger compass that way I think that’s the next step for me.

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

Rick Miller: Remember that power is never given it’s only taken.

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

Rick Miller: Persistence.

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

Rick Miller: My network.

Jim Rembach: What would be one book that you’d recommend to our listeners, they could be from any genre, of course we’re going to put a link to–be chief—on your show notes page as well.

Rick Miller: I’m a big fan of Adam Grant and his book, Give and Take because there’s a misnomer out there takers get ahead. He’s done the research another wonderful Wharton professor and good friend, Give and take by Adam Grant.

Jim Rembach: Okay, Fast Leader Legion, you can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fastleader.net/RickMiller. Okay, Rick, this is my last hump day hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25. And you’ve been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take everything back you can just use one. So what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

Rick Miller: I think what I would bring back is to actually maintain a healthy impatience. I think that there’s an opportunity to learn and everything else and you have to always balance to be patient because sometimes we’re not or to be kind of frenetic. I love the term healthy and patient because it drives me forward and keeps me centered. I would practice healthy impatience.

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

Rick Miller: Sure. Easiest way is the website, let’s go to the book 1, bechief.com there you can download a free chapter you can take the test you can read about the nonprofit the wonderful special-needs facility that’s going to get all the money from this thing and you’ll get started on your own version on your own way of being more powerful.

Jim Rembach: Rick Miller, 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

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Chris Westfall | Leadership Language | Westfall Online

213: Chris Westfall: There are no mistakes

Chris Westfall Notes Page

Chris Westfall wrote down his desired salary on a napkin and the CEO accepted it. He started his new job but only a few weeks later, the CEO ended it. Chris moved his family to a new town for a job that no longer existed. Yet Chris thanks that CEO for the conversation.

Chris was born in Ohio and grew up in the Chicagoland area. The oldest of three children, his father was a field goal kicker and quarterback at a Big 10 University. His mother was a dancer and a performer who appeared on Broadway, and at the Seattle World’s Fair. While Chris didn’t inherit his father’s athletic ability, or his mother’s dancing skills, he did learn about the importance of performing. And performing under pressure.

He went to the performing arts high school in Chicago and went on to study Theatre at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He has appeared in numerous stage productions and television shows. (He met his wife in a production of “The Fantasticks”). Leaving behind a short-lived career as a professional stuntman, he went back to school to earn an MBA degree – Attending the number one school in the country for developing strong business communication skills. While there, he edited the business school newsletter, hosted a weekly radio show, and graduated with top honors, recognized as the MBA Communicator of the Year.

After graduation, Chris began his business career as a “corporate guy” – working for Fortune 100 telecommunications giants, Verizon and AT&T. He moved through a series of progressive responsibilities in marketing and product development, on his way to major account management, sales leadership and executive roles. As a global marketing executive with a division of Unilever, he helped unify a major brand in the company’s portfolio. As a result of his global success, he built sales teams around the world, transitioning into leadership roles in technology and manufacturing.

Chris launched his entrepreneurial career in 2008. Since then, he has helped launch over four dozen businesses, raising over $50 million in capital investment for entrepreneurs, and coaching his clients onto Shark Tank, Dragons’Den in Canada and Shark Tank Australia. Speaking between 60-100 times a year, he regularly works with thousands of leaders, from college campuses and military bases to the C-Suite, spreading the message of effective leadership communication. Recognized as the US National Elevator Pitch Champion, Chris is the author or publisher of seven books. His latest, Leadership Language, was released by Wylie in September 2018.

Chris and his wife live in Houston, Texas. Celebrating 25 years of marriage this past summer, they are the proud parents of two girls. Chris’s oldest daughter lives in New York City, and his youngest is a sophomore at Houston’s high school for the performing and visual arts (where Beyoncé Knowles Carter is an alum).

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @westfallonline to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow – Click to Tweet

“There’s always something missing in life, transformation is about bringing what’s missing into place.” – Click to Tweet

“It would be naive to deny that there are forces around us that go beyond you and me.” – Click to Tweet

“If it looks like everything in life is up to you, look again, there are forces at work.” – Click to Tweet

“There are forces that are helping to build your success, the key to that success is tap into those.” – Click to Tweet

“The strongest conversation always starts with what your listener is thinking.” – Click to Tweet

“Your client is anyone upon whom your success depends.” – Click to Tweet

“When respect goes away it’s very difficult to have a powerful conversation.” – Click to Tweet

“Leadership is not a self-serving role, but leadership is about service.” – Click to Tweet

“Where you put your attention is where you’ll find your results.” – Click to Tweet

“Make sure that you show up in a place that’s ready and prepared for uncertainty.” – Click to Tweet

“Leadership is not scripted, it’s not about copying someone else.” – Click to Tweet

“Imitation is not the same as innovation.” – Click to Tweet

“Leadership calls on all of us to innovate, to create new results, that’s the place where transformation really comes from.” – Click to Tweet

“There are no mistakes; there are circumstances and how you deal with them.” – Click to Tweet

“Just because a train of thought shows up, doesn’t mean I have to ride that train.” – Click to Tweet

“What matters is, what are the results you’re creating for the people around you.” – Click to Tweet

“Whatever results you see in your life, the ones that are most satisfying are going to come from the biggest risks that you take.” – Click to Tweet

Hump to Get Over

Advice for others

Don’t play it safe. Take risks.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

The ability to focus on the people around me.

Best Leadership Advice

You practice like you play.

Secret to Success

Connection

Best tools in business or life

VCITA

Contacting Chris Westfall

Website: https://westfallonline.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/westfallonline

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

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/westfallonline/

Youtube.com: https://www.youtube.com/user/westfallonline

Resources and Show Mentions

Call Center Coach

An Even Better Place to Work

Show Transcript:

[expand title=”Click to access edited transcript”]

213: Chris Westfall: There are no mistakes

Okay, Fast Leader legion today I’m excited because we have somebody on the show today who is really going to give us some very different perspectives that for me I think it’s going to help me move onward and upward faster and I think it’s going to do the same for you as well. Chris Westfall was born in Ohio and grew up in the Chicagoland area. The oldest of three children his father was a field goal kicker and quarterback at a Big Ten University. His mother was a dancer and a performer who appeared on Broadway and at the Seattle’s World’s Fair. While Chris didn’t inherit his father’s athletic ability or his mother’s dancing skills he did learn about the importance of performing and performing under pressure. He went to the Performing Arts High School in Chicago and went on to study theater at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas Texas. He’s appeared in numerous stage productions and television shows. He met his wife in the production of The Fantasticks. Leaving behind a short-lived career as a professional stuntman he went back to school to earn an MBA degree attending the number one school in the country for developing strong business communication skills. While there he edited business school newsletter, hosted a weekly radio show, and graduated with top honors recognized as the MBA communicator of the year.

After graduation Chris began his career as a corporate guy working for Fortune 100 telecommunication Giant, Verizon and AT&T. He moved through a series of progressive responsibilities in marketing and product development on his way to major management, sales, leadership, and executive roles. As a global marketing executive with the division of Unilever he helped unify a major brand in the company’s portfolio. As a result of his global success he built sales teams around the world transitioning into leadership roles in technology and manufacturing. Chris launched his entrepreneurial career in 2008 since then he has helped launch over four dozen businesses raising over 50 million dollars in capital investment for entrepreneurs and coaching his clients on to Shark Tank, Dragon’s Den, which is in Canada, and Shark Tank, Australia. Speaking between 600 to 100 times a year, he regularly works with thousands of leaders from college campuses and military bases to the c-suite, spreading the message of effective leadership communication. Recognized as the U.S. national elevator pits champion Chris is the author or publisher of seven books. His latest, Leadership Language was released by Wiley in September 2018.

Chris’s wife live in Houston, Texas. Celebrating 25 years of marriage this past summer and they are proud parents of two girls, Chris’s oldest daughter lives in New York City and his youngest is a sophomore at Houston’s High School for the Performing and visual arts, that’s where Beyoncé knows Carter. Chris Westfall, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Chris Westfall: I think so. Thanks for having me.

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

Chris Westfall: My current passion is helping people to tell their stories in ways that are more compelling, more engaging and more effective than ever before. But my work isn’t just about helping people to create fiction or write a pretty story or come up with a great lie and help people to believe in it my work really focuses on bringing your story to life. In other words, that authentic story that is made up of words and actions that brings your vision to life. Whether that’s an entrepreneurial vision or a vision for your team in a corporate environment whatever the case may be I’m in the business of helping people to succeed and helping people to turn their vision, their dreams, their ideas into reality.

Jim Rembach: Alright so as you’re talking and having the opportunity to go through your book I have to say that to me it’s a lot deeper than that. I mean it’s almost soulful, spiritual it is a much deeper thing that occurs and then I think you have a lot of different aspects of what can contribute to that. When you start talking about the depth, you and I talked off mic about the word transformation, what do you mean by that?

Chris Westfall: Transformation for me and for my clients is about creating the kind of change that’s missing. When I think about transformation, maybe this is true for you maybe it’s true for the folks who are listening, there’s always something missing in life something that we wish we could we could realize for ourselves for our relationships or business and transformation is about bringing that thing that’s missing into place. So is that a spiritual journey? Maybe. I don’t consider myself a spiritual leader or anything like that but at the same time I think that it would be naive to deny the fact that there are forces around us. No matter what your faith is again this is not a religious conversation but no matter what your faith is it’s easy to see that there are forces at work that go beyond you and me, and I think that denying that is simply naïve. For example, what is it that turns acorns into oak trees? What is it right now that’s allowing me to digest food, for example? Now you can say, Oh, Chris that’s science, that’s enzymes that’s photosynthesis. Alright, okay, I hear you.

But is there something more? And the reason I’m bringing this up is not to say again, it’s not a religious conversation but it’s a conversation about how, if it looks like everything in life is up to you look again there are forces at work. Forces of people in the past who built the roads that we travel on who worked in a factory to create the shirts and clothes that we wear there are forces at work just as you are a force at work to create change for yourself and for the people that you care about. What this means is that if it looks like—if it’s got to be it’s up to me. Look again there are people around you and there are forces around you. Call those forces what you will I’m not here to put labels on it for you. But there are forces that are helping to build your success. The key to that success is tapping into those sources and forces so that you can become the person that you need to be and create the transformation that’s missing.

Jim Rembach: Thanks for sharing that. As you were talking I started thinking about what you have—at the back of the book you have it in the appendix it is titled the 10 leadership factors. And the end leadership factors are the leadership conversation always starts with what your client is thinking and your perspective in your book client means a lot of different things. It could mean customer, it could mean significant other, it could be your employees, significant others, there’s a lot of things the client mean, and we’ll get into that in a second, and it says to get something new start with something known your clients clients sit’s in the empty chair, and we’re going to talk about that, leaders listen with their eyes as well as their ears leaders are deeply aligned with both sides of the conversation context conquers content, leadership language involves your clients in the story and thinking about the high concept, the common perspective is the first step toward uncommon results, the leadership accepts things as they are on the journey, acceptance is the first step to creating things that could be, and I think there’s a whole probably of a lot of resilience and adaptability in there as well, and the simplest message is the strongest. So when you start looking at these 10 leadership factors, when you start thinking about origin and origination and drivers and most importance, how did this come about?

Chris Westfall: The leadership factors came about from observation, taking a keen look at what works. And from number one to number ten there based on my personal observation, research, science the observation of what makes people most effective. Take number one example, the strongest conversation always starts with what your listener is thinking. Now if that’s not true we should talk about how you should kick the door down and come in with a powerful charisma and try to convince people the strength of your will so that you can get them into your mindset instead of their own. How does that work? You see if you want to have a powerful conversation you have to start with what your listener. It’s like the famous quote from Arthur Ashe the tennis star who famously said, start where you are, do what you can never give up. And that starting where you are is a note to look at not just where you are but where your listener is and start there if you want to create real change. So many times we focus on our own content, our own stories rather than the context of the person that we’re talking to. And it’s that context that creates the meaning that context is the key to leadership language because leadership language looks at creating change and transformation for the person that’s right in front of you. In the book I call the person who’s right in front of you your client.

To define that a little bit further your client is anyone upon whom your success depends. So that means that your client of course is in a traditional sense that means your customer, it might mean you know clients who come and visit you if you’re in a therapy role or whatever the case may be that sort of client. It could be an internal client, your client also though is your boss because your success depends upon your boss. Your client could be your board of directors your client could be your shareholders or stakeholders, you see what I mean? I said this once in a workshop when I was explaining the importance of what a client is. And somebody raised his hand he said, so does that mean my wife is my client? And I said, I sure hope so. So the client is the person upon whom your success depends. And the strongest conversation starts with what your listener’s thinking. Another way to say it is it starts with what your client is thinking.

Jim Rembach: It’s funny to say that because it reminds me of a commerce I just had last night with my fifteen-year-old daughter at 10 o’clock when we’re having a conversation with my wife as well. I asked my daughter and said, why would you talk to your mother and I that way when you wouldn’t do that to anyone else? And she says because you’re my parents. And I said that doesn’t matter.

Chris Westfall: I hear you, I’ve got a 15 year old as well. It’s so interesting this idea of because you love me respect is a given and so I don’t have to bring into the conversation and that is something that can be very dangerous for teenagers but also in the corporate conversation. When respect goes away it’s very difficult to have a powerful conversation. I run in the same challenges with my daughter as well she happens to be fifteen as well, but just because you love someone doesn’t mean that you don’t have to focus on the respect that you have for them. I tell my wife that I love her every day we’ve been married for 25 years but I tell her that I love her every day. You know why? Because she might get another offer. Now look, I didn’t say a better offer she might get another offer. That sort of respect and reinforcement is I think vital in terms of letting people know that they’re valued because from that place of value that place of acknowledgement that place of recognition you tap into something that I call in the book a high concept. A high concept, this is a universal theme or idea that we all know and share. And the high concept the universal theme that I’m pointing to is this idea of acknowledgement. We all want to be acknowledged we want to be seen, heard, and understood, recognized for our accomplishment. And respect is the first step in that recognition and it creates that connection that can be very powerful.

Jim Rembach: Well thinking from that perspective is that when you started talking about those people who are affected or impacted. In one of the chapters in the book you talk about influence in the empty chair and then you talk about in the leadership conversation that the chair is always an available seat at the table, it’s a metaphorical seat. You talked about this a second, but I think this definition that you have in the book is important for me to read so that’s why I’m doing it, and it said, it’s for that someone who is going to be dramatically and personally impacted by the change that you propose however that someone isn’t in the room when you propose your change, your ideas, and your vision. You talked about a particular story of a friend who was a CEO and I think he had maybe a few thousand employees and you asked him a question he said, well, I have to be aware that whatever I do or say is going to have an impact on 14,000 people and you’re like, what? How does that work? Explain how he came up with that?

Chris Westfall: My friend was explaining to me that he saw that his decisions impacted far more than just his employees. This guy, he’s a finance guy and he’s good at math and I was like, how can you be saying 14,000 when I know you have you only have about 5,000 employees? But what he was saying was the decisions that I make affect my employees but let’s take an average family size, imagine that the average family, there’s a spouse involved a couple of kids, so doing some quick math he came up with a number of about 14,000. Now his sphere of influence actually might be a little bigger might be a little smaller who knows but the important thing to note is that he as a leader was looking beyond just the people on his team, he was looking in the direction of impact. And the empty chair points in that direction. The empty chair is a seat at the table for someone as you said who’s not in the room but who will be directly and dramatically impacted by any change that you proposed. Leadership conversation is always about change. It’s about change in some form or fashion or challenge to the status quo and that that challenge is going to create an impact, leaders look at that impact. Just to go a little bit further on the empty chair, the empty chair is for example a seat at the table for the third grade student who’s going to read the textbook next year, the history textbook, that’s being introduced into the school district she’s not in the room when the teachers and school administrators are making that decision and yet directly, personally, and powerfully impacted. So the empty chair allows us to look in the direction of service and impact and it’s vital for leaders to see that. My friend the CEO was a great example of seeing the sphere of influence that really is created by any decision that he makes.

Jim Rembach: As you’re talking and I’m thinking about the book and I’m thinking about the conversation that I had just yesterday, there is a particular issue. You even talked about one of the statistics in the book saying like 68 or 69 percent of all leaders feel uncomfortable with having any conversation whatsoever with their employees. When I think about being in a leadership role there’s a duty that we have to actually fulfill. The duties is about us continuing to learn and get better it’s about having others to be successful and helping to develop that. And so when I think about you having to go through and become better at all the things that we’re talking about if you don’t do that you have not earned the position and you absolutely are not fulfilling you know the commitment that is necessary. If you’re only becoming a leader because you want the pay that is the wrong motivator.

Chris Westfall: I agree. If you want to know if your ideas and your focus is correct if you want to know do you have the right leadership focus? Don’t look at the slides in your Power Point, don’t look at your plans don’t look at your dashboard look at what your employees your team are doing. I mean, you ask yourself, how’s your client doing? Because that’s how you really know. It’s wonderful to talk about leadership strategies obviously I wouldn’t have written it in the book book if I didn’t feel it was valuable but at the end of the day the real yardstick is how’s your client doing? Are you creating the changes for the people you care about so that you can gain the results not only that you want for yourself but that your team deserves? And leadership as you’ve pointed out so well it’s not a self-serving roll but leadership is about service. So consider carefully the people and objectives that you serve because where you put your attention is where you will find your results. And when your attention is on yourself, how big is my office? What’s my title? Do I have the right thing on my business card? Looking in the wrong direction. How’s your client doing? How’s your team doing? Are your leadership strategies working? The way that you will know again it’s not on your PowerPoint it’s not on the one sheet it’s not on your dashboard it’s right in front of you with the people around you that are going to be lead to the stratosphere or into the ditch because of your approach.

Jim Rembach: And that’s a hard reality and harsh reality for many to face for sure. Okay, what we’re talking about here I mean it’s just riddled and loaded with emotion and even in the book in several instances you kept talking about infusing emotion being aware of the emotion and leveraging the emotion and—it’s everywhere within the book. One of the things that we use on the show to help influence us are quotes. Is there a quote or two that you like that you can share?

Chris Westfall: The one that I really like is one from Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela who famously said, it always seems impossible until it’s done, and that is a quote that I find to be very inspiring to me. There has been so many things in my life and I’ve looked at and thought, man this is impossible. Starting with when I was a baby learning to walk I don’t remember that but I think it looked impossible to me at one point in time because I was crawling around, I’m guessing I was told. But from learning to walk to learning to drive a car to learning the principles of accounting to even coming to the place where you have the thought that shows up that goes I’d like to write a book someday, all of those things look impossible initially until it’s done. And that’s the quote that really inspires me. Another one if I may, another quote that I really like is one from Mark Twain who said, it’s not what you don’t know that can hurt you it’s what you know for certain but just ain’t so.

And the reason I love that quote is because it really points to I think the spirit of this program, which is asking us to look at things in a new way not to reaffirm or confirm what we’ve already know but to realize that there are always discoveries to be made and life leadership it’s not scripted. We’d like it to be, believe me I’m a planner I’ve got my calendar all planned out but as the saying goes man plans God laughs. And despite our best efforts to organize and to control our schedule things happen, things happen uncertainty shows up. The key for the leader is to make sure that you show up in a place that’s ready and prepared for uncertainty. That is a place where you know that you do have resilience, resourcefulness inside of you. And if you think back in your life resilience, resourcefulness it shows up time and time again. We don’t always see it and we often deny it and in retrospect when we think about it we go, yeah, I was kind of resourceful. Gosh, I did yeah, I was sitting there wearing diapers and all of a sudden there was a table leg and I pulled myself up and all of a sudden I started walking, again I don’t remember that story it was told to me that way.

But the point is this, we have a resilience and a resourcefulness that’s inside of us and that resilience and resourcefulness as you mentioned is driven by emotions. Look, that may sound counterintuitive especially for folks who are who are listening and saying, oh, I’m an analytical person I am not driven by emotions my decisions are driven by analysis. Let me ask you something—here’s my experience, when it came time to buy a house I did not create a spreadsheet and give it to my wife with a detailed analysis of zip codes where we could find a place. No, we went and we looked at houses and when she walked in and she went looked around the kitchen and said, wow, that was when I knew it was time to get out the spreadsheets and do the analysis. The point is the heart drives the head the analysis serves those emotions that drive us all. That is not that’s not a touchy-feely statement that is not a gender bias statement that is a statement about the way things work it’s a principle it’s like the law of gravity. And whether you choose to believe it or not if I don’t believe in gravity but if I drop this pen, guess what’s going to happen? It’s the same thing with this principle, the heart drives the head and that heart also called your gut instinct that place is the place that leaders have to tap into, don’t leave the head out, don’t throw the analysis out, don’t take your pro forma and set it on fire and from the investors. No, you have to have some analysis to support and to drive and to guide but that’s not where the conversation starts it starts on the inside. And that’s a very important part of leadership language it is pointing you towards the place where leadership really lives. It’s not something that’s out there it’s not something where you can emulate a political leader or a military leader or a business leader that you admire and recreate their success. Models are useful but at the end of the day you have to put your hands on the wheel you have to drive you have to make the decision and leadership is not skipped it’s scripted it’s not about copying someone else because imitation is not the same as innovation. Leadership calls on all of us to innovate, to create new results that’s the place where transformation really comes from.

Jim Rembach: Gosh, when you’re talking I’m starting to think about all the things that have gone along the way for you to get to the points where you are today. We talked about those in the show as well, we talk about getting over the hump and I’ve learned so much from other people telling their stories about times when they’ve had to get over. I can actually foresee that many of the humps that are in my future have come down as a result. And so is there a story that you can share that when you’ve got over the hump that will help us?

Chris Westfall: Talk about this in the in the book. I was working with a company with a CEO as a consultant. The company was based in Houston, Texas. The CEO sat me down one day and he said, Chris I’d like to hire you full time, I’d like you to come to work for my firm. And I said, I think that’s a bad idea in fact I think that’s a mistake because I’m working as a consultant I’m working with companies like yours I’m writing, I’m speaking, I enjoy what I do and I don’t think that’s a good idea. I don’t think makes sense for you because I’m not familiar with in history I don’t have a long history my outside perspective is what you value when you take that perspective and put it on the inside. So for about fifty three reasons—wrong, bad idea. And it looked like a mistake look it looked like a poor decision.

After sharing that with the CEO he looked me in the eye and he said, well, how much would it take? So I pulled out that proverbial napkin that you’ve heard so many people talk about and I got my pen and I wrote down a number and I handed it to him and he said done, when can you start? And I thought man I should have put another zero on there. But it was a fair deal. And I said, sure okay. So I began working and at the time I did not live in Houston I was working remotely I’m working for this firm. Just a couple months later I moved my family to Houston, Texas. And then six weeks after we have moved the CEO called me into his office and he said, Chris, it’s just not working out. Nothing against you and nothing against this company but what I wanted to do and what you can do and how we can do it here it’s just not working out. I think rather than let this go on for six months or a year we both need to cut our losses and we need to move on. And I thought man this is a hump, deals in business I’ve done many of them and you do a deal and you think yeah I don’t know because I don’t know this is the right thing. You need to unpack it and that happens but this time I had unpacked all my stuff and moved to a new city just six weeks before so I had a very difficult conversation with my wife that I had to have. And I thought, man, what am I going to say to her? We just moved and now this this great opportunity this opportunity that I moved to a new town to take advantage of, it changed. There was a hump it wasn’t just a hump it was a mountain in front of me.

So I drove around Houston for about two hours, which in Houston traffic I went about six miles, I’m kidding I’m kidding, but I go around Houston for two hours trying to get courage up. I finally did and I came home and of course I walked in the door my wife said hi, what are you doing here in the middle of the afternoon? I said, well I have something that I need to tell you. I sat her down and it just came straight at it and explained the situation. And the first words out of her mouth, which you know I didn’t know what she was going to say, I wanted to force, we’ve got to move back, I can’t believe you did this to me, I mean so many things that were playing in my head. Here’s what she actually said, well just don’t ask me to move. It was the last thing I could have possibly imagined that she would say. But she said that and all of a sudden the hump got flattened the mistake, actually it wasn’t mistake at all the company was very fair to me the CEO paid me through the end of the year it turned out to be a very lucrative decision for me. In retrospect, what I saw as a mistake actually created that transformation for me in my life and in my relationships.

Today we live in Houston, Texas to this day and strange enough we’ve never been happier. My daughter is thriving in the High School for performing arts here in town, and as you know when the kids are doing well it makes a big difference. So what looked like a mistake what looks like a hump, I would just ask everyone who’s listening the sound of my voice, was it really a mistake? Is it a hump? Or is it just a circumstance for leaders or people who are effective? Sometimes things are going to look like a mistake and I could point to multiple stories maybe you could too. Things in my life I thought, oh man, this is never going to work. Sometimes things came off the rails sometimes things didn’t go the way that I wanted. Certainly this conversation with the CEO was not a conversation that I wanted to have and yet I say now thank goodness I did. Thank you for that conversation. Thank you because I realized that I’m just going to say it there are no mistakes. I’m just going to lay it out there. There are no mistakes there are circumstances and then how you deal with them. If you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, what about my divorce? What about the situation where I my partner and I split where he tried to steal the business from me? Blah, blah, blah. I hear you I got those stories too. No mistakes my friends, no mistakes, opportunities for you to react opportunities for you to get over the hump opportunities for you to create transformation.

Jim Rembach: I appreciate you sharing that. For me as you’re talking I started thinking about— I was actually interviewed for a podcast yesterday and I talked about our having to be have become a pivot artist. Just because of all the things that you were talking about, hey you know what? You just have to go a different direction.

Chris Westfall: That’s how life unfolds we’re always pivoting. A career path is a series of pivots.

Jim Rembach: Most definitely and I think the better we get at our lateral movement the better we can actually get to where we want to get, it’s what it comes down to. When you start talking about what you’ve done where you’ve been where you’re going and you think about the kids and everything that’s on your plate you talk about your empty chairs there’s a lot of people who are in those chairs. But when you start think about one goal you have, what’s one of them that you can share?

Chris Westfall: The greatest goal that I have and it’s a constant and consistent one is to always remember that just because a train of thought shows up doesn’t mean I have to ride that train. And what I mean by that is that it’s so easy to get lost in an attempt to reach for a mindset or for a state of flow for some of the things. We were talking about this off mic before the interview started, this idea that there’s some perfect Nirvana that creates peak performance that we’re always chasing—peak performance, I’ll tell you where it lives it lives in the moment. When you’re thinking settles down that’s when you’re at your best. If you think about the athletes that you admire, we were talking a little bit about baseball I’m a big baseball fan being here in Houston where the Astros play it’s easy to be a big baseball fan and I played a lot of baseball when I was a kid, when that line drives coming right at you, you can’t be thinking about attack pattern Delta nine you can’t be thinking about what the coach told you on Thursday you can’t be thinking about anything other than keeping your eye on the ball. And so many times in my life, I get lost in my biggie, I get lost in thought and in a mindset that doesn’t serve me. But the key takeaway and the thing that I want to share is that beyond mindset is performance, beyond mindset is the ball, the game that you’re playing. Whatever it might be in in business by focusing on what really matters not the train of thought that’s showing up. And you know what’s on that train? Our labels like, you’re not smart enough, you don’t have the background for this, your experience is wrong, nobody’s listening to you, all those kinds of things, they show up all the time. It reminds me of that scene in the Avengers movie, you’ve probably seen The Avengers movie, it’s the final scene where these like gigantic 900-foot metal caterpillars are coming out the sky and Iron Man and Captain America they’re going crazy and the Avengers are getting their butts kicked. Iron Man is flying into the scene and he says, we got to get the Hulk where’s the Hulk? They’ve got to bring the Hulk on. Captain America goes, wait I think he’s right here comes banner puttering up on a little motorcycle. And Captain America goes, we got to get you to suit up you got to turn into the Hulk. But how are you going to do it? You got to get angry.

And Banner, he turns back to the camera he turns over his shoulder and he says, I’ll tell you a little secret I’m always angry. And then he turned into a Hulk. And I saw that scene I thought, man that is so true for me. When I go on stage and I do keynotes and I give presentations and stuff like that, people say are you nervous? And the answer is yes, every time, of course I am. But where am I putting my attention? Like the Hulk I’m always angry, I’m always insecure I’m always in love I’m always in hate I’m always angry I’m always feeling things because I’m human being. I’m a human being and I’m not afraid of admitting that because it’s not a sign of weakness it’s a sign of acknowledgement it’s a sign of being aware of what’s going on. But I’m also aware that where I put my attention is where I find my results. If I or it’s Bruce Banner, just like Dr. Banner when he puts his attention on the fact that he’s angry he hulks out. My question for everyone listening is, where are you putting your attention? And how can you pay attention to the thoughts that serve you and recognize that the thoughts that don’t? That’s not your train let that train go by and put your attention on what really matters. For me if leadership is your focus, focus on the people around you. Focus on your clients the people upon whom your success depends and phrase your goals and objectives in terms of impact not only for yourself for them and for the people they care about the people who sit in the empty chair. By adopting this focus it doesn’t matter if you’re always angry it doesn’t matter if you’re always insecure it doesn’t matter if you don’t feel enough what matters is, what are the results you’re creating for the people around you? Keep your eye on the ball.

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, Chris the Hump day Hoedown is a part of our show where you give us good insights fast. 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. Chris Westfall, are you ready to hoedown?

Chris Westfall: I’m ready to hoedown, let’s go.

Jim Rembach: Being from Houston you should be a pro at this. Okay, what do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?

Chris Westfall: The ability to focus on the people around me is always the thing that keeps me from being a better leader. Creating results for the people that I care about is the number one objective to connect and engage with those folks. I can always be better at it.

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

Chris Westfall: My dad told me that you practice like you play. Coming from someone who played Big

Ten football this always stood out for me. It points to the importance of fundamentals and the importance of rehearsal so that you can be free to think in the moment and be at your best when that line drives coming at you at 100 miles an hour.

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

Chris Westfall: The secret to leading in business and life is a simple one, it is connection. There’s a connection that we all share but we often lose sight of it behind differences of opinion and that sort of thing but when we look in the direction of connection we look and we see the people who want to be a part of our solutions and looking at connection is the key to leadership.

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

Chris Westfall: Tool that I use? You can find it actually on my website, is an online tool called VCITA. This is an app and if you click on the contact us button on my website you can go in and you can set up a 30-minunite appointment with me. If you want to talk further about anything that might be on your mind VCITA helps me to collect information from potential clients that have a question on their

Mind. So VCITA, is something that really helps me to be effective in my business.

Jim Rembach: And what would be one book that you’d recommend to our Legion, it could be from any genre, of course we’re going to put a link to your book on your show notes page as well.

Chris Westfall: Great book that I really love, I’m going to give you two, I’m going to give you two the first one I just finished reading and it’s by going to give you two the first one I just finished reading it it’s by a Harari, he’s an Israeli social scientist it’s called Homo Sapiens terrific book. The second is Impossible to Ignore by Carmen Simon. She talks about the science behind being memorable. It’s a really interesting read full of a lot of great information. Impossible to Ignore by Carmen Simon.

Jim Rembach: Okay, Fast Leader legion you can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fastleader.net/Chris Westfall. Okay, Chris, this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you’ve been given the knowledge and skills that you have now and you but you can take them back you but can’t take it all back you can only take one. What skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

Chris Westfall: I would put my arms around my younger self and I would say, Adam Smith the father of modern economic theory said very famously, profit is a function of risk, don’t be afraid to take chances don’t play it safe and whatever results you see in your life the ones that are the most satisfying are going to come from the biggest risks that you take. And that will be what I would share with my former self.

Jim Rembach: Chris, 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?

Chris Westfall: You can find me online in my website it’s, westfallonline.com. Also on my YouTube channel I have over two million video views, that’s youtube.com/westfallonline. And if you’re doing the Instagram thing I’m also there @westfallonline, that’s my Twitter handle. You can also find me on Linkedin, same thing, westfallonline.

Jim Rembach: Chris Westfall, 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!

END OF AUDIO

[/expand]

206: Karen Chaston: I did not honor myself

Karen Chaston Show Notes Page

Karen Chaston tragically lost her son Dan and she went straight back to work. She knew how to be a CFO, not a grieving mother. Eventually, she learned that his passing was meant for her to wake up. She now knows that you can have that career, but it doesn’t have to come at a cost to you.

Karen was born and raised in Sydney Australia. She is the third oldest of 6 girls and 1 boy. The boy is the baby and even now at 53, he’s still the golden child!!

Her parents were married for just under 52 years. Sadly, her dad passed away in 2003, though her mum is still going strong at 88.

In 1973, at age 16 Karen gave birth to a daughter who she adopted out. Karen then decided to not complete her final year of high school and started her banking career which lasted for 10 years.

At the age of 19, she moved north to the Gold Coast which is in South Queensland (another Australian state) with her then boyfriend Andrew. She married Andrew a year later in 1978. Earlier this year they celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary.

They have three boys Ben (37) Josh (34) and Dan. Josh and Dan were twins, unfortunately Dan passed away at age 27 in July 2011.

After the twins were born, she took six months off and then she was offered a 4-week casual job at Dreamworld (a theme park on the Gold Coast), which lasted 14 years. In 1996, when she was Financial Systems Manager, her CFO boss suggested that if she ever wanted to be paid what she thought she was worth she had better go and get her bit of paper. She listened. Then whilst working full time from 1996 -1999 she studied part time at Bond University for Master of Accounting Degree (life was her undergrad). Then in 2001 she was granted her CPA status.

From there she rose the corporate ladder very quickly, eventuating with her and Andrew returning to Sydney to be the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of a publicly listed company form 2008-2013.

After losing her son in 2011 and then 15 months later, choosing redundancy (being laid off) she started on her journey to becoming her own best friend. A journey through life’s university, empowering her with the wisdom to become an author, speaker, trainer, radio co-host and ultimately, her founding the Live Love By Design brand which includes online and offline programs, book, soon to be released Live Love By Design TV and Live Love: Give Back to Teens Project.

Karen and Andrew currently live in Sydney, but plan to move back to Queensland soon.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @KarenChaston4u to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow – Click to Tweet

“Everything starts with you, where a lot of time, we tend to put ourselves last.” – Click to Tweet

“How often do we end up fighting with colleagues, all because we haven’t taken the time to look at them from a different perspective.” – Click to Tweet

“We’re constantly not only battling against our peers, but our self as well.” – Click to Tweet

“We self-sabotage, so many times.” – Click to Tweet

“It’s about being more conscious in everything you do.” – Click to Tweet

“How many roles do we play during a day?” – Click to Tweet

“When you have great relationships, especially with yourself, everything is just easier.” – Click to Tweet

“It’s all about you actually understanding what you want out of life.” – Click to Tweet

“So many times, we don’t even define what success means to us, we take on someone else’s definition.” – Click to Tweet

“There’s a million ways to look at anything, but we get stuck in, this is the way we do things.” – Click to Tweet

“We all forget to breathe, properly.” – Click to Tweet

“You can have it all, but when you drift apart from who you are, life doesn’t work.” – Click to Tweet

“It will take you nine months to birth your new way of life.” – Click to Tweet

“When you start to change, everyone around you will start to change.” – Click to Tweet

Hump to Get Over

Advice for others

You are the only person you are going to spend your entire life with. So, put yourself first, find your strength, courage and truth to make sure you live a life that is true to you.

Holding her back from being an even better leader

Not really very much. I’m only in competition with “yesterday me”.

Best Leadership Advice

Schedule everything in your calendar. Look to if it’s been your joy, moving you closer to your goal, if you should delegate it, or eliminate it.

Secret to Success

I genuinely listen to people and myself. I keep asking questions, is there an easier way of doing this better.

Best tools in business or life

Constantly monitoring my goals and how I’m closing gaps in each pillar under the live love way of life.

Contacting Karen Chaston

Website: http://www.karenchaston.com.au/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KarenChaston4u

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

Resources and Show Mentions

Call Center Coach

An Even Better Place to Work

Show Transcript:

[expand title=”Click to access edited transcript”]

206: Karen Chaston: I did not honor myself

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.

Jim Rembach: Okay Fast Leader legion today I’m excited because I have somebody on the show today who’s going to give us a quite different perspective on our careers and our lives. Karen Chaston was born and raised in Sydney, Australia. She’s the third oldest of six girls and one boy, the boy is the baby and even now at 53 he’s still the golden child. Her parents were married for just under 52 years. Sadly her dad passed away in 2003 though her mom is still going strong at 88. In 1973 at the age of 16 Karen gave birth to a daughter who she adopted out. Karen then decided to not complete her final year of high school and started her banking career which lasted for ten years. At the age of 19 she moved north to the Gold Coast which is in South Queensland with her then boyfriend Andrew. She married Andrew a year later in 1978.

Earlier this year they celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary. They have three boys Ben, Josh and Dan. Josh and Dan were twins and unfortunately Dan passed away at the age of 27 in July 2011. After the twins were born she took 6 months off and then she was offered a four week casual job at Dreamworld which is a theme park on the Gold Coast and that lasted for 14 years. In 1996 when she was financial systems manager her CFO boss suggested that if she ever wanted to be paid what she thought she was worth that she had better go and get her a bit of paper. She listened and then while working full-time from ‘96 to ‘99 she studied part-time at Bond University for a master of accounting degree then in 2001 she was granted her CPA status from there she rose the corporate ladder very quickly. Eventually with her and Andrew returning to Sydney to be the chief financial officer of a publicly listed company from 2008 to 2013. After losing her son in 2011 and then 15 months later choosing redundancy, which is being laid off, she started on her journey to becoming her own best friend a journey through life’s university empowering her with the wisdom to become an author, speaker, trainer, radio co-host and ultimately founding the Live Love by design brand which includes online and offline programs a book soon to be released, Live Loved by design TV, and Live or Live Love: Give back to teens project. Karen and Andrew currently live in Sydney but plans to move back to Queensland soon. Karen Chasten, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Karen Chaston: I certainly am, thank you for having me.

Jim Rembach: Well, I’m glad you’re here. Now I’ve given my legion 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?

Karen Chaston: My current passion is Live Love by design. I just love everything about it and I truly wish that I had this wisdom this understanding when I was a lot younger. Which is why my passion project is a Live Love Give back to Teens Project. I’m very passionate about showing this wisdom with young women especially young women who have had an unexpected pregnancy like I did in their teens or early 20s so that they can understand that no matter what choice they made whether they decided to keep the child, get married, raise it as a single mother or to abort their child or to adopt their child out like I do they still can live their dream life they still can have everything they desire or they require are the keys to their success which I share in the program, Live Love keys to a young woman’s success.

Jim Rembach: As you’re talking I started thinking about a lot of different aspects of I guess you’d say self-sabotage barriers, self-inflicted wounds, our own humps that we put in front of us.

Karen Chaston: Yeah, limiting beliefs the whole lot of it.

Jim Rembach: So when you start talking about the Live Love by design, for me I could initially say, oh this is just all fluffy stuff, but however I also know that you’re a CPA so there’s got to be some structure and frameworks and things like that, tell us a little bit about that?

Karen Chaston: There is a lot of structure. There’s nine areas of life in my Live Love our wheel of life and I like the fact that there’s nine. The reason being is nine is all about birthing, it takes nine months to birth a child and it really does take these nine areas of life for you to birth your Live Love way of life that I like to say. The nine areas are mentally, professionally, financially, family, socially, physically, spiritually, emotionally and environmentally, now that’s a lot to remember. So for ease I’ve bought them into four pillars which is all about you, all about your relationships, all about your expertise, and all about your wealth creation. And it should be in that order that you actually create everything. So everything starts with you, whereas a lot of time, especially women, we tend to forget about ourselves we tend to put ourselves last. And what happens when that happens? We end up in resentment we end up exhausted and we end up going when is it my time?

Jim Rembach: That’s very interesting that you say that. Because when we start talking about development, skill development, personal development, when we start looking at work—I was just reading a study that was talking about training and development at work and one of the things that was saying is that for a lot of organizations where the struggle becomes is that people don’t take the time to do it. Kind of like here in the States people have a lot of vacation or holiday time that they just end up sacrificing, they don’t take it they just continue to work on through. When you start talking about Live Love by design and being able to make sure that you’re investing in yourself and doing those things how do you get people to actually do that?

Karen Chaston: Okay, so I show them the benefits of what happens when they do it. When they do spend the first hour of themselves each day and looking after themselves before they go to work and how different they are when they turn up to work how more productive they are how energized they are all day long. By showing people the difference is how they can actually go, I’m going to do it. And it’s quite interesting that you said that about taking leave and taking time to go to take the time to rejuvenate yourself. I always left every job with at least four weeks annually up my sleeve. I never did it, I worked, worked, worked. That’s why I love this program because I have lived that life of the people that I assist I can say firsthand, I know what you’re going through I’ve done it I burnt out I put on weight I did all of the things that I’m telling you not to do so I’m coming from that experience and I know how different. Not only I would have been but how different my colleagues would have been if I had these gems when I was in that role. Every single person in that organization would have been more productive would have been happier would have been truly coming to work and understanding each other. How often do we end up fighting with colleagues all because we haven’t taken the time to look at them from a different perspective?

Jim Rembach: Okay, so as you’re talking I started thinking about how a lot of folks are saying that the younger generation is kind of requiring a workplace that is more like that. Is it possibly that we’re going to kind of grow into this as the workforce shifts or do we really need to make and take a proactive stance in moving things forward? Let me also add this one piece is that, here in the States there’s this whole gender pay equality thing that’s been existing as long as women have been in the workplace.

Karen Chaston: Yes, it’s the same in Australia, it’s the same reward.

Jim Rembach: So then if we talk about those things, and Live Love by design, is it part of that issue that kind of causes women to have to—I have to prove myself I have to compete at a higher degree I can’t give up—is that contributing to this issue?

Karen Chaston: Totally. I totally agree. I know for a fact that I worked harder than any colleague or any peer of the same level it was because I was constantly trying to prove myself. And of course we’ve all heard of the imposter syndrome, we all have that and I thought it was just women that had that but I’ve spoken to a lot of men and a lot of men have it as well. We are constantly waiting for someone to tap us on the shoulder and say, you know what? You shouldn’t really be in this role you’re not as good as what you think you are. We constantly not only battling against our peers but our self as well we self-sabotage so many times.

Jim Rembach: Okay, we’re talking about a systematic approach that has the nine areas of focus. For me, like you said it was a lot, but then I also thinking about I can’t focus on nine things, maybe that’s a gender problem too I don’t know, from a system perspective how do you get to make sure that holistically they’re actually helping and lifting themselves up in all areas?

Karen Chaston: Okay, so it’s actually quite simple and you’ve got to love the world we live in. We have a calendar, you schedule everything into your calendar and every week you review who you were at the start of the week what your goals were for the week and then you review at the end of the week and you just do that continually. So you’re continually moving forward you’re continually focusing on all nine areas of your life. Once you sort of get into the habit, and this we know it takes 62 days to form a habit, once you actually get into the routine it’s more about tweaking as opposed to, oh my god I’ve got to spend all this time looking at the nine areas how on earth can I possibly do that? It’s just about getting it and starting to understand how better you feel? How more alive you feel? Just by the fact that everything is coming together. How many times do people come home and they bring the worries of the day with them into the home. And then they end up fighting they’re not spending time with their family they’re not really there because they’re still going over the day in their head and they just plop themselves on the couch and sure they might have the TV on but they’re not even focusing on anything. It’s about being more conscious in everything that you do.

Jim Rembach: Okay, you just described my day of the past three days in a row.

Karen Chaston: You need to learn to transition then. And it’s so easy to do it you can just sit in your car for five minutes and breathe and then consciously say, who do I want to be when I walk through that door? And you can be that person. How many roles do we play during the day? There’s a lot isn’t it? And it’s about consciously starting your day walking through your day because you know what your days roughly going to be like and saying, who am I going to be in every different meeting in every different scenario? And then you bring that person into the scenario and everything just works easier because you’ve created it in your mind before you even start it. Sure it might not go a hundred percent the way you are but it’s going to be a lot easier. So you’re not bringing home that really tied burnt-out person and you’re then, okay I’m going to be a husband now I’m going to be an father now, so that you are actually, consciously making those relationships better in your life. When you have great relationships especially with yourself anything is just easier.

I’m trying to think through all this and without knowing exactly the entire system program and all of that but I’m starting to think about isolation. Meaning that, okay I’m trying to do these things I’m trying to execute this system I’m trying to be proactive and get in front of this whole issue because it’s kind of like you–I always used to talk about training of people either you take the time and put in the investment to train those people otherwise you just end up doing it all yourself and they never learn the job and you have to invest upfront have the hard work come first in order for you to enjoy the easy later. I see this being very similar in that perspective. However, I would think that you would need to have some type of peer support at least to have the common thread with somebody else that kind of, hey, we’re going through this together, kind of like that buddy system.

Yes that works but it’s all about you actually understanding what you want our life. So many times we don’t even define what success means to us. We take on someone else’s definition and we wonder why we’re either falling short or we achieve it really quickly and we’re still unfulfilled. So it is about you sitting back initially and defining what success means to you in every area of your life. Then you say and you’ve got to be really honest with yourself now, where am I now? So if 10 out of 10 is success, where am I now? And more than likely you’re below five because you’ve never taken the time to do this. Then you figure out, okay, what are the action steps to get me from five to ten? Then you schedule those action steps keep reviewing, keep reviewing, keep reviewing and then you will achieve it. When you get to ten out of ten you will up the ante. And then you go back to five again and you just keep doing that and that’s how you create it. When you know inside of you what success means to you in all of areas of life you actually then are consciously always going where am I at? Where do I want to be? How do I close that gap? How do I close that gap? And that’s what I love about it is because you’re actually consciously taking control of your life as opposed to just letting circumstances tell you where to go. But every single job I had circumstances got them for me I didn’t consciously go, I now want this role I’m now going to go there. Sure I became a CFO of a publicly listed company but that happened because I was in the current role I told him I was bored I told them I was going to start actively looking for another job and they said come to this company we’re directors here we want you there in that role. I didn’t even have to look for a job it just came to me.

Jim Rembach: It’s very interesting as you’re talking it reminds me of a brief conversation that I had really just yesterday with a friend of mine. She started talking about a lot of her female friends are going through, she call it a mid-career not a midlife I think she called a mid-career crisis. And really not trying to find their way on where they want to go next. And to me as you’re talking I’m like, oh, this is a solution for them.

Karen Chaston: Exactly and they are my ideal clients. Because it all comes from a different perspective. Let’s face we don’t know what we don’t know. It’s about someone else coming who has no agenda apart from helping them to succeed and say have you ever looked at it from this perspective? And let’s face it there’s a million ways to look at anything but we get so stuck in, this is the way we do things, that we don’t look outside of those areas.

Jim Rembach: Yeah, I think that’s an issue in a lot of different ways isn’t it? When I started thinking about the transition and all that you’ve gone through and the pivoting and going a different direction and coming to a lot of these realizations is that I can think of a lot of inspiration that you have found along the way. One of the things that we do in the show is look at quotes for that. Is there a quote or two that you can share that you like?

Karen Chaston: My favorite quote, and I’m pretty sure everyone watching this or listening to this actually have been on a plane and they’ve all heard it, please put your own oxygen mask on first before you assist others. Now I found that’s not an emergency situation that is an everyday requirement. Because when you are all topped up when you are energized when you have looked after yourself first you can have anything come at you and you will not react you will just consciously know how to deal with anything. And you really do assist others all day long nothing fazes you because you’ve taken the time to breathe you’ve taken the time to look after who you are. And our breath is the most amazing thing on helping us in any scenario and we all forget to breathe properly deep into our bellies.

Jim Rembach: That’s a good point because I even talk about breathing, teaching my young middle school baseball players when they’re up and have a whole lot of anxiety and things like that and I’m like, look, stop, pause and breathe.

Karen Chaston: Exactly.

Jim Rembach: They look at me like I’m crazy. Maybe they’ll figure it out someday.

Karen Chaston: Get them to do it get them to notice how different they feel. Like consciously say, how do you feel at the moment? And they’ll feel it. Then say, okay, let’s do a couple of deep belly breaths. I like to call them my conscious loving breath. And then say, how do you feel now? And they’ll go, wow, then they’ll brave all the time.

Jim Rembach: That’s a good point. Okay, so now when we talking about again this transition everything I know you’ve had humps to get over. You and I’ve had the opportunity to chat on several occasions and we’ve had some really good discussions and I know you have a lot of good stories to share. But is there a time where you’ve gotten over the hump that you can share with us?

Karen Chaston: Yes there is actually. It all comes back to when my son passed in 2011. I did not honor him. I did not honor myself. I went straight back to work because I knew how to be a CFO I did not know how to be a grieving mother and to be quite honest I didn’t want to be a grieving mother. And that was meant to be my wake-up call and because I didn’t wake up I had to have another tragic event which was me being laid off. It was my choice when two companies merge together and they decided to offer me 2/3 of my current salary. I started to realize that I didn’t want to do it anymore I just couldn’t do it anymore it was just too draining on me. I now know that Dan’s passing was designed, and I’m pretty sure that we designed it on the other side, for me to actually wake up for me to actually start doing what I’m doing now to help the world to understand that you can have that career but it doesn’t have to come as a cost to you, for your health. There’s a saying, I gave up my health in order to get my wealth and now I’m spending my wealth to get back my health. And that truly was me and I truly believe I was heading for major illness—heart attack, stroke, and diabetes possibly even death. And it was through that life university phase of me actually learning new concepts learning new awareness that I came up with the, Live Love by design. It’s about helping people to actually go, you can have it all. But when you drift apart from who you are, life doesn’t work it may for a little while but it won’t wrong turn and that’s what I love about who I am today. I honestly wake up every day and I just love who I look at. I love my life and I like to say I dance to work and I tap-dance home because it is a new way of doing things as you said the younger ones are looking for a new way. We’ve been doing it this way for so long. Look at all the cancers in the world look at all the illness look at what stress is causing everyone it doesn’t have to be that way.

Jim Rembach: Alright, so gosh, there’s so many things are just flying through my head as you’re talking. I want to kind of get an idea of say a transition period. In other words I am struggling with some of these things today and I do put in or I’m going to put in the effort to make some changes but how long was it going to take me to really start getting some momentum from it?

Karen Chaston: Okay, let’s put it this way as I said in the beginning nine months it’ll take you nine months to birth your new way of life and depending on how focused you are depending on how much you notice how much easier life is you could get there quicker. Okay, now nine months it sounds like a long time but how quickly do our years go by? How quickly do they fly by? It doesn’t take that long. But as with everything it comes back to you consciously deciding consciously seeing who you are today and then designing who you want to be. Because you can do it it’s really easy. You think nine months, come on, how old are you? For me it’s not even 161th of my life, so it’s not that long but you can do it. Not only will you do it when you start to change everyone around you will start to check. When you become happier when you become to truly enjoy your life it’s really easy. And you’ll be like, oh my god, why didn’t I know this when I was 20, that’s exactly what I say all the time. Why didn’t I have this wisdom when I was that young? Why didn’t I look after myself first when I was younger? Let’s face it it’s a lot easier to look after yourself to maintain than it is to do a big major overhaul.

Jim Rembach: Most definitely. Okay, so when you start talking about launching all these things and you’ve been working at this program and this work for a while, this coaching work, what are some of your goals?

Karen Chaston: Some of my goals, well as you said in the beginning I’ve just launched my Live Love by design TV show, I obviously want to get out there I want to speak more I want to go into more corporations. I truly want to be able to go in in to back end, especially in accounting firms and especially in lawyers and all those sort of areas where I was really dealing with, banks and everything to actually go, come on it’s not working like you’re burning out your employees let’s look at a new way of doing things let’s just trial it let’s actually see what a difference this will make let’s actually have your employees work less hours but be more productive. Like how cool would that be? Why do we have to be there for 10-12 hours a day? We don’t, we can if you’re honest with everyone your staff are only working probably six hours of that 10 12 hours. They’re doing other things they’re just trying to cope to get through the day. So let’s actually bring it down so that they actually work less hours more productive you make more money and everyone is happier. That sounds pretty good to me.

Jim Rembach: Does to me too. 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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Jim Rembach: Alright, here we go Fast Leader Legion it’s time for the Hump day Hoedown. Okay, Karen, 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. Karen Chaston, are you ready to hoedown?

Karen Chaston: I am.

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

Karen Chaston: Not really very much, every night I actually really look at my day and I always ask myself two three questions and it’s in answering these questions that I always make sure that I’m continually moving forward and I like to say I’m only in competition with yesterday me no one else.

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

Karen Chaston: To schedule everything in your calendar. To constantly look at it to constantly see if it’s bringing your joy, moving you closer to your goal or whether you can delegate it or eliminate it.

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

Karen Chaston: I genuinely listen to people and myself. I keep asking questions especially—is there an easier way that I can do this better?

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

Karen Chaston: Constantly monitoring my goals. How I’m closing the gaps in each pillar under the Live Love way of life. All about you all about your relationships all about your expertise and all about your wealth creation.

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

Karen Chaston: It’s the, Five Regrets of the Dying from Ronnie Ware, she was an Australian palliative care nurse. She interviewed people for years. The Five Regrets were: number five, I wish I had let myself be happier, number four, I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends, number three, I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings, number two I wish I had not worked as much as I did, and number one I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself not the life others expected of me.

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

Karen Chaston: You are the only person you are going to spend your entire life with. Put yourself first find your strength, courage and truth to make sure you live a life that is true to you.

Jim Rembach: Karen it was an honor to spend time with you today can you please share it the Fast Leader Legion how they can connect with you?

Karen Chaston: They can contact me through my web sites which is, livelovebydesign.com or karenchaston.com.au and please reach out because I would really love to assist you in birthing your new live love way of life.

Jim Rembach: Karen Chaston, 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.

END OF AUDIO.

[/expand]

199: Brannon Beliso: Achievements and success are two different things

Brannon Beliso Show Notes Page

Brannon Beliso as a child had no choice when he was a child, he was a victim. At some point Brannon the man had to make the better choices in his life that have led to greater self-discipline and founding one of the most successful schools in the martial arts industry.

Brannon “The Disruptor” Beliso (Buh-LEE-so) is dedicated to helping others live their best life. His purpose and passion is serving his clients in reaching their full potential through learning, living, and growing.

Brannon is an 8th degree black belt, a former recording artist with 3 top ten hits in the Philippines, owner of One Martial Arts, one of the most successful schools in the martial arts industry, and the creator of One Merit Badges, an internationally distributed life-skills education system.

The Professor, as Brannon is also known, humbly presents workshops and seminars – successful in the martial arts world and beyond – with the mindset that we can all always do and be better. He is committed to being a student for life, and is a dedicated father, husband, and servant to the community.

Brannon’s popular book, Live Learn Grow: Lessons of a Reluctant Tiger portrays his struggles and victories, and the insights that moved him forward step-by- step. He shares these experiences and the wisdom they’ve produced, to help his tribe find their why.

“Service is the New Profit,” Brannon’s mantra, helps him focus his clients to find happiness and success without focusing on money. In his TEDx talk “Happy on Purpose” Brannon uses humor and experience to show how happiness is a choice we can all master.

Brannon and his wife Kimberly live in Millbrae, California along with their kids Teya and Brayden.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @BrannonBeliso to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow – Click to Tweet

“Service is the new profit.” – Click to Tweet

“Consistency is the key to quality.” – Click to Tweet

“Thought by itself means nothing, it’s only when we tie emotion to it, that is the fuel.” – Click to Tweet

“Emotion without discipline is simply a dog chasing its tail.” – Click to Tweet

“Emotion eventually needs to be channeled in some constructive way.” – Click to Tweet

“The one thing that will fundamentally stay the same are your core value, your why.” – Click to Tweet

“Something our culture lacks as a whole is self-discipline.” – Click to Tweet

“A humble heart is very powerful.” – Click to Tweet

“People like to focus on other people’s drama because it makes their drama not look so bad.” – Click to Tweet

“We can only heal with love.” – Click to Tweet

“Achievements and success are two different things.” – Click to Tweet

“What I need most, is myself.” – Click to Tweet

“As we get older, we need to stop dismissing each new generation as incompetent.” – Click to Tweet

Hump to Get Over

Advice for others

Be humble and appreciate more in your life.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Time management

Best Leadership Advice

Lead by example

Secret to Success

My personal faith

Best tools in business or life

Gratitude

Contacting Brannon Beliso

Website: https://brannonbeliso.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu3E-JWdPXotKBn9-b1mCTg

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrannonBeliso

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brannon-beliso-2864657/

Resources and Show Mentions

Call Center Coach

Customer Experience Speaker

Show Transcript:

[expand title=”Click to access edited transcript”]

199: Brannon Beliso: Achievements and success are two different things

Jim Rembach: Okay, Fast Leader legion today I’m excited because I have somebody on the show today who really exemplifies the whole human aspects of being successful at the customer experience. Brannon Beliso was born and raised in San Francisco with four younger sisters. His upbringing wasn’t the typical one it was riddled with a lot of issues that many would think that you could not overcome. But now Brannon is the disrupter he’s dedicated to helping others live their best life. His purpose and passion is serving his clients and reaching their full potential through learning, living and growing. Brannon is an eighth degree black belt a former recording artist with three top ten hits in the Philippines owner of one martial arts one of the most successful schools in the martial arts industry and the creator of one merit badges, an internationally distributed life skills education system. The professor as Brannon is also known humbly presents workshops and seminars successful in the martial arts world and beyond with the mindset that we can always do and be better.

He is committed to being a student for life and as a dedicated father husband and servant to the community. Brannon’s popular book, Live Learn Grow: Lessons of a reluctant Tiger, portrays his struggles and victories and the insights that moved him forward step by step. He shares these experiences and the wisdom they’ve produced to help his tribe find their why. Service is the new profit, Brannon’s mantra helps him focus his clients to find happiness and success without focusing in on money. Brannon lives in Millbrae, California with his wife Kimberly and as kids Thea and Braden. Brannon Beliso, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Brannon Beliso: Yes sir, Jim I’m ready to get you over the hump. I like that.

Jim Rembach: I appreciate that and I’m glad you’re here. I appreciate that you’re here. Now give my Legion a little bit about you but can you share what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better?

Brannon Beliso: Well you made that statement–Services the new profit. Once I really discovered that service was my calling and becoming selfless and becoming more less of a boss less of a controller and more of a true leader a contemporary leadership or service is my foundation everything shifted.

Jim Rembach: I am a lot into customer-experience, employee-experience and I always talk about the human centric aspects of running a business and you yourself we’re a champion and then became the teacher and mentor and I’m sure you were doing that along the way. But now as a business as somebody who is helping others grow their businesses. How much do you feel that the service aspects versus the experience aspects are really related or where do they differ?

Brannon Beliso: I don’t think they differ I think they’re one in the same. And that’s where people really compartmentalize and separate that Jim, it’s one in the same and then we can view it that way then we’ll get that sense of continuity that we need throughout every aspect of not just our business but our lives. I truly believe consistency is the key to quality, it’s a quick, quick thing about that. Go to my favorite restaurant order my favorite dish and make it the way I like it I go back again. If they don’t make it the second time I might give you a third shot. Third time it’s wrong I never come back again. So when you talk about that experience think about Disney, and Disney’s one of the companies I’ve studied inside and out they’re very consistent in their delivery of that customer experience that Disney experience.

Jim Rembach: As I was reading through your book I started really getting an understanding of all the struggles and issues from a family perspective as well as being in the system through childcare system is that—there a whole lot of emotion that’s involved with these things that don’t go our way and how we respond to those is extremely important. Your book is just lesson after lesson and vignette and story that has truth and relevance to it, most of them are your own personal experiences. But when you start talking about emotion and the service experience when you think about that from—hey, you can’t make everybody happy—how do you go about turning a new startup when you’re opening up a new location? How do you turn that into grabbing and capturing emotion so that you can create long term clients?

Brannon Beliso: I was just thinking that Jim, I think everything the way the process goes everything begins as a thought. Now thought by itself means nothing I would have could have should have, it’s only when we tie emotion to it that is the inertia that is the fuel that emotion that inspires us to take action and from the action I get a result. Anyone can walk around—I need to lose 20 pounds. Well, they have a massive heart attack and the doctors looking at them all of a sudden the emotional connection that I could die tomorrow is there they’re more likely to act upon that and change their diet and exercise. So emotion is key but emotional without discipline emotion without vision emotion without an action plan of moving your business a start-up or anything—what it’s going to look like in three to five years is simply a dog chasing its tail. We can sit in a room together Jim and go rah rah rah, there’s a lot of emotion but that emotion eventually needs to be channeled in some constructive way and that’s where the vision, the purpose designing the culture, core values, brand absolutes, all those different things that come with growing a business come into play.

Jim Rembach: So as you were talking I started thinking too about an organization have maybe around for a long time—we’ve been doing things the same way for decades and we’ve been very successful with that and so it’s become part of who we are. However, now I have all this competition I have this total different generation of workforce I have to disrupt myself that has emotion involved with it. How can I be focused enough to say I can’t hold on, because there’s a motion with that, I can’t hold on to what we’ve been doing because we now must do some things differently.

Brannon Beliso: When I look at that say companies like Nokia companies like the Good Guys can you say blockbuster all gone once great, great companies because they stopped focusing on the why. Why are we doing this? We hear that it’s so trendy the why the why and if you read the great book by Simon Sinek, Starting from the Why and Good to Great, by Jim Collins no matter what products change business climate change trends change the one thing that will fundamentally stay the same are your core values are that why. And if I’m constantly revisiting that why living from that why refining that why then all it is a matter of tweaks and adjustments. If you really, really think about it take a great product like Apple it’s still fundamentally the same MacBook Pro same iPhones same iPad they haven’t done anything revolutionary in decades still what iPhone 10.0, it’s iPad Pro it’s MacBook with a faster processor. But what they really fundamentally got and this is important people the Legion as they’re called out there take note of this: when Steve Jobs came back the second time what he had learned the first time in that coup when they squeezed him out and got rid of them what they lacked was loyalty what they lacked was culture nobody drank the Kool-Aid. So what he did with the second coming he brought in Guy Kawasaki the chief spiritual officer as he was called he wore white he almost look like a pastor or a priest and his whole purpose was to live teach and preach the culture of Apple. So people drank the Kool-Aid that’s why you stand in line all night for a phone you can get two days later and walk into the store and Steve Jobs, God bless his soul long and gone, Apple just became a trillion dollar company. So I think that’s what really fundamentally happens is we get away from our why we start living from fair Jim and we focus on—all the bottom line the bottom line bottom line and then we become marketers instead of ambassadors of the why.

Jim Rembach: That’s a really interesting point. When I start thinking about the whole marketing piece and the ambassador piece I started thinking about a lot of those guys and ladies who you’re trying to help build their businesses in different parts of the country may probably even different parts of the world and they’re having to essentially connect with parents in order for those kids to become students of their—what do you guys call them, dojos?

Brannon Beliso: Dojos academies, martial art school but the big thing is martial arts drycleaner restaurant we are service based business and that’s what we tend to forget it’s all about service.

Jim Rembach: So from the service aspect—I’ve always wondered is there something different that’s involved when you start talking about, I’m not selling to the kid that’s essentially my end user I’m teaching the kid but I’m selling to the parent. Is there something that’s lost in translation? Or there’s something you have to do different?

Brannon Beliso: Absolutely the majority of martial arts schools are one guy mom and pop maybe 75 students or less that makes up 75% of our industry. They’ve created a job for themselves they’re a terrible boss and that perpetuates itself. I think the big thing is recognizing there’s different skill sets. I’ll answer your question but I want to give you this first, the technicians like they talk about an EMS, Gerber talked about there’s so many technicians that’s one skill set I’m a black belt great guess what? You need a new skill set to be a great instructor. That’s not enough now you need a whole different skill set to be a great small business owner and then eventually a whole different skill set to be an entrepreneur. What I recognized early on when I say service is the new profit is I’m serving my parents and we know for a fact marketers 99 percent of the people will come to your website and they are not ready to buy, they’re not ready to buy.

So they don’t want to be sold to but because we’re in fear Jim. I got to make rent, I got 75 students I got to make rent I got to make payroll I have to do all these things that we never get to the why and we live in market and behave from the what are we a martial art school, well, they’re a dime a dozen. So, it’s really me as a parent I need to know what separates you from everybody else. And if you focus your business on earning that trust which takes time which takes a lot of investment instead of just simply high $19.99 those cheap promo Black Friday things might be a quick one off but it’s not something you can build a sustainable growth-oriented business on it just doesn’t. Look at Walmart look at the position Walmart’s and now they built it one good cheap products but now with all the lawsuits and stuff going with the Walmart classic example, classic example.

Jim Rembach: Your book is just riddled for me with teachings of emotional intelligence. I also see that there’s a couple things involved with this, first of all that personal drive an aspect of it meaning you knew that you could not respond to things a certain way you went down that path it didn’t go well luckily you were able to turn the tide but then also there was some aptitude and ability to be able to do

That. When you start talking about a lot of the different folks that you’re dealing with do you find, because you talk about—hey, they’re great technicians, so they have to become a more emotionally intelligent in order to have successful businesses, do you find that there is a problem with people’s ability to be able to execute on those things? Like they just don’t have the ability to do it? Or it’s a willingness thing.

Brannon Beliso: Well I say all the time to any client I’m working with whether it’s one-on-one whether it’s a company whether it’s a martial arts school is there’s nothing I can’t give you that you can’t give yourself. There really isn’t, there really isn’t. In our industry you start off as a white belt you stand in line and you look at your instructor you want to please them, yes sir how many kicks? How many pushups? Whatever you say. In my case it was my dad he was my instructor my dad my coach he told me when to eat sleep how much to weigh what to do in a ring so I was disciplined and many people in life are disciplined but they’ve never learned or mastered the life skill of self-discipline, huge difference. One thing is to discipline a child a whole different days to empower them with self-discipline teaching them that tool that life skill. I think that’s really what our culture lacks as a whole is that we lack self-discipline. We’ve been disciplined and now there’s a revolt people revolt against discipline or they fall in line like sheep being led to slaughter and simply stare into their phone and distract themselves with something else. And I think that’s the big chance. When I talk about that disruptive mindset it’s not so much the willingness as it is the awareness, Jim, people like the awareness because I can get lost in my phone.

Brannon Beliso: I sat there in the lobby yesterday and I scan the room and I kid you not everybody was staring into a phone. Everybody and that’s scary that’s really scary.

Jim Rembach: It is true. And you brought up one thing that for me I’m glad you did because in the book you talked about the saying that goes something to the effect of—if you want to eat omelets you have to be okay with breaking a couple of eggs. So when you start talking about this self-discipline aspect when you start going to being able to learn how to become resilient when you learn how to achieve when you talk about interacting and connecting with other people sometimes you’re going to have some broken eggs and you need to be able to push past that. So if I’m a person who’s always been disciplined to—how do I really get past that fear of, gosh! I might break an egg or two?

Brannon Beliso: I think again living from some of my core values, number one is humility. People in a Western culture hear the word humility and they run because it automatically triggers humiliation, I’m being humiliated no you’re not. A humble heart is very powerful. Another one for me is gratitude. I’m thankful and if I don’t get along with you I’m going to take what I learn and be thankful we interacted for a moment a minute a day. And of course empathy. Seek to understand versus being understood. Today’s contemporary leader leads by example today’s contemporary leader like that picture at Facebook—old leadership he’s cracking the whip and everyone’s pushing the boulder—contemporary leadership leaders right up against that boulder with them. So if I’m right up against that boulder with my team pushing that rock I’m more empathetic to their challenges than their needs beyond our business and I think that’s very important in today’s leadership. You could be disciplined and I could be disciplined and if we meet at a level of humility we meet at a level of empathy and we’re both grateful for this moment we have now Jim you and I will learn a lot.

Jim Rembach: Very much so and I appreciate that perspective and talking about the discipline piece. I started thinking about too – I had this question the other day talking about emotion and how important it is to everything that we’ve been talking about a lot of different ways and our response to certain things however our brain gets hijacked when we get in emotional stress and we know and we’ve experienced this ourselves like when we get into a heated discussion or some things just aren’t going and we just feel like we’re getting bombarded we can’t think of certain things our IQ drops tremendously because the whole emotion takes over. Do you feel that actually becoming discipline in the martial arts has helped you not have times where your emotions hijack your thinking?

Brannon Beliso: Only time I get hijacked is with my six and nine year old are fighting that’s the only time my emotions get hijacked because it makes me and my wife crazy other than that what I’ve recognized about that process is when you feel those emotions start to take over you, what do most people do? They run they sedate they drink they avoid they become a victim they live from the victim mindset. When I’m faced with something like that—now let us just take social media, if it’s somebody I don’t know and you call me the trolls the haters whatever and they attacked me at Facebook I simply love them I block them and I delete them. I’ve really recognized to focus on my life what matters most versus what doesn’t matter.

I think as a culture we focus on what doesn’t matter that’s why they sell millions of copies of The Enquirer people like to focus on other people’s drama because it makes their drama not look so bad. And if it’s somebody great like a Tiger Woods or some really rich actor they go, hey, I don’t have it so bad that guy’s got all that money’s more screwed up than me but still doesn’t cure, what’s there? So we sedate we distract we avoid but really what we should do is embrace like a best friend because we can only heal with love Jim. If I have something that’s adverse in front of me I at least want to recognize it let him go with love because I’m not responsible for how you think how you behave you know I’m busy dealing with my space. I recognize that I can’t control people places or things but can I make the conscious choice in that moment so I don’t get overwhelmed to simply say, hey, it’s cool. You think the way you do rock and roll but this is the way I think and if we can agree to disagree then I love block and delete. Life is short life is precious so to spend time around people Jim that that matter I think it’s really important.

Jim Rembach: I think that’s a great valuable points. We’re talking about and I even said it on several occasions is it’s just filled with emotion and one of the things that we look at on the show are quotes to help give us emotion hopefully point us in that direction. Is there a quote or two that you like that you can share?

Brannon Beliso: There’s many. Dali Lama is one of the people I embraced tremendously because his spiritual and humanistic attributes balanced my business mindset. He explains that it’s easy to be great when things are going your way can you be great when life is difficult. That’s what builds character that’s what makes us better people. Gandhi’s got a great one where he speaks about it, I’m not getting all the words right, the customer is not dependent upon us we are dependent upon him he is not a burden on our business he’s an attribute. If we begin to recognize that we treat people differently anytime somebody on my team says, this is my boss, I go, woohh time’s up pencils down I am not your boss the clients are the boss they simply pay me money and I distribute it amongst the team but don’t for one minute think I am your boss I am your team mate. You know some of those things are really important. I love the one by, I think it’s Lao Tze say that, if you’re living in the past you’re depressed if you’re living in the future you’re anxious if you’re in the present moment you’re at peace so I spend a lot of time and learning and practice being here now and I think that’s a big part of my success and happiness.

Jim Rembach: Well and that success and happiness as I kind of mentioned earlier didn’t necessarily come from a place where that is cultivated and grown you chose to go into another direction and field and not be stuck in that. And so there’s a lot of humps that you’ve gotten over and you shared tons of them in the book but is there one that you can actually share with a Fast Leader Legion where we could learn?

Brannon Beliso: I think you’ve done that for me through this whole conversation Jim choice. But I think for me as a child, and was sharing this with one of my clients the other day, as a child I had no choice. I had no choice when I was put in a foster home at 11 months. I had no choice when I was molested. I had no choice when I was beaten by my father. I had no choice I was a victim but eventually at some point Brannon the man had to make the better choices in his life or continue to be a victim. So I recognized that achievements and success for two different things. I was a state champion I had three top ten hits and I was the most unhappy person in the world so I recognized that the bigger house the bigger car more money wasn’t going to make me happy what was going to make me happy was taking that journey inward finding a place of why am I here? What am I here for? Not to buy a bigger car not to add more zeros on my bank account, I’m very grateful don’t get me wrong, you know we do very, very well I have everything that I want and possibly could mean but what I need most is myself and if you have that as far as leadership goes that’s the best example to offer your team and anybody.

Jim Rembach: I think what you’re talking about too from that perspective talking about the leader perspective is there’s a particular study that, I’m just recalling in my head, were talking about the frontline leaders and the people who are on the frontline only 33% of those people who are on the frontline feel that their immediate frontline supervisor is competent. And I think with what you were just talking about is that if you have that sense of self and that awareness and humidity and all those other things that is going to you project a totally different type of know presence that I think that whole concept of competency is going to be thrown out the window people are going to feel that you’re competent.

Brannon Beliso: Especially with today’s true entrepreneur. I’m in my business 16 hours a month for me to walk in there and throw the boss card around is insane. The autonomy I grant my team is tremendous I trust them they’re there in in the trenches every day I need their feedback I need their input I need that because I’m not there. Sure I’ve written the systems and the processes and I’ve established the culture and they run it but—a classic example is I would never walk into a room and demand and tell people I’m the boss, I don’t walk into my businesses and say, hi, how are you doing I’m the owner, I would never do that it’s not in line with today’s values. When you’re dealing with Millennials and Z’s they’re totally revolting against that sense of control and command leadership which perpetuated itself. World War II because we had all the factories I had the higher management the floor managers and the worker base on the assembly line I get that hierarchy that pyramid. We run with a flat line management we don’t have titles nobody calls me the boss and we all coexist and kind of serve each other. I think that creates the culture that we have it and our businesses.

Jim Rembach: Well, I would dare to say that you’re going to find that’s going to be the culture that many, many organizations are going to have to, I don’t want to say revert to, but let’s just say transition into in order for them to keep the top talent that is going to exist within those millennial and Z generations.

Brannon Beliso: Well there’s a lot of talent there. And I think as we get older we need to stop dismissing each new generation is incompetent or lesser than because they do have a cellphone some people will say, well the promise we don’t have critical thinkers today Jim because I can simply google it. The other day I said to my son he was writing report on Walt Disney I said, well tell me about Walt? He was Alexa. I said, no, no, no don’t ask Alexa I want you to tell me. So I think that’s the challenge with technology as I can simply Google it and then watch a YouTube video and then it becomes lore. It’s bred out of people is that critical thinking those soft leaders that we need more and more and more. But if we can really utilize and leverage technology to do the mundane to automate those many tasks that we don’t need to spend our process on but not turn around and start playing video games and not turn around and to snapchat or Instagram but really recognize, I am this different kind of freedom because of technology, and really integrate yourself on a another level of learning of leadership it’s going to change tremendously. Look at Zappos, look at Apple, look at Facebook, I’m right in Silicon Valley so I get to witness this on a daily basis that movement towards a culture driven tribe of raving fans of people that drank the Kool-Aid that get it it’s really the movement because that’s where purpose and passion lives. You keep talking about that at heart level that emotion now people aren’t driven by data, sit with a bunch of seasoned Millennials and go, third quarter report earnings, they’re going to go, what? It doesn’t happen.

Jim Rembach: That’s very true. I know you got a lot of things going on—you get the book, speaking coaching, of course teaching, building, a business you got two young kids—there’s a lot of things that are going on, but if you talk about one goal, just one, what is it?

Brannon Beliso: To continue to find more ways to spend with my kids, that’s really it. I’ve reduced the level of speaking gigs I’m staying closer to home as I shared this summer I think I worked three hours this whole summer other than a few podcasts here and there I discipline myself to spend three months consistently with my kids especially because they’re out all summer. I’m home every night at 6:30 for dinner I help with homework I go to soccer people say well that’s pretty mundane for somebody with all your accomplishments. I said, let’s get this straight achievements and success Jim are two different things I’ve got tons of trophies they sit up in the attic. I have tons of awards none of them hang on the wall because I don’t want to live in the past. So today what I need to do is be successful and success today for me is to find more ways and time to spend with my family.

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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Jim Rembach: Alright, here we go Fast Leader Legion it’s time for the Hump day Hoedown. Okay, Brannon, 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. Brannon Beliso, are you ready to hoedown?

Brannon Beliso: Yes sir, Jim, I’m ready.

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

Brannon Beliso: Time management.

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

Brannon Beliso: Lead by example.

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

Brannon Beliso: My personal faith.

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

Brannon Beliso: Gratitude.

Jim Rembach: What would be one book that you’d recommend to our listeners it could be from any genre, and of course we’ll put a link to, Live Learn and Grow on your show notes page as well.

Brannon Beliso: Yes other than my book I would recommend everybody read the E-Myth by Michael Gerber and The Mindset by Carol Dweck.

Jim Rembach: Okay Fast Leader Legion you can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fastleader.net/Brannon Beliso. Okay, Brannon this is my last hump day hold on question: Imagine you were given the opportunity go back to the age of 25 and you’ve 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. So what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

Brannon Beliso: Humility. Back in my 20s I was so full of myself so much egos so much bravado that came with that age and that time being a state champion a recording artist just at the top of everything I lack humility tremendously and if I was more humble I would have been more grateful and appreciated everything in that process in that time of my life.

Jim Rembach: Brannon, 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?

Brannon Beliso: Yes. Social media of course Facebook, LinkedIn. YouTube subscribed to my YouTube channel please, Instagram we can find me everywhere and of course at Brannonbeliso.com.

Jim Rembach: Brannon Beliso, 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 fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

END OF AUDIO

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Marcia Daszko Notes Page

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Hump to Get Over

Advice for others

Holding her back from being an even better leader

Best Leadership Advice

Secret to Success

Best tools in business or life

Recommended Reading

Contacting Marcia Daszko

Resources and Show Mentions

Rick Miller Notes Page

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Hump to Get Over

Advice for others

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Best Leadership Advice

Secret to Success

Best tools in business or life

Recommended Reading

Contacting Rick Miller

Resources and Show Mentions

Chris Westfall Notes Page

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Hump to Get Over

Advice for others

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Best Leadership Advice

Secret to Success

Best tools in business or life

Recommended Reading

Contacting Chris Westfall

Resources and Show Mentions

Karen Chaston Show Notes Page

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Hump to Get Over

Advice for others

Holding her back from being an even better leader

Best Leadership Advice

Secret to Success

Best tools in business or life

Recommended Reading

Contacting Karen Chaston

Resources and Show Mentions

Brannon Beliso Show Notes Page

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Hump to Get Over

Advice for others

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Best Leadership Advice

Secret to Success

Best tools in business or life

Recommended Reading

Contacting Brannon Beliso

Resources and Show Mentions

199: Brannon Beliso: Achievements and success are two different things