Listen to our exclusive interview with Rod Yapp:

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What makes a great leader in today’s world? Has leadership changed over time? Rod Yap is a high-performance leadership expert who answers those questions for us in this discussion.

Rod Yapp is a former Royal Marine Officer and the founder of Leadership Forces, a program that takes the high-performance principles of the Royal Marines and applies it to leadership development. Rod has exemplified leadership on the front lines (literally) in Afghanistan and Libya and now uses that experience in order to develop leaders within organizations such as Land Rover, HSBC, and NATO.

Learn more about Rod and his work at > https://www.leadershipforces.com

We also recommend:

• Peter Montoya: Becoming a Transformational Leader For a Better Future
• Kenn Costales: Growing Leads and Revenue Faster for E-commerce 
• Bob Berry: Mastering User Experience to Grow Your Biz

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:11

Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show hope y’all are doing well. This is your host, Adam force. Today we’re going to be talking to somebody about leadership. But before I get into that intro, just a reminder, if you missed the last episode that was posted about a week ago, Amy and I spoke about the hard truth around delegating for your startup. This can be a tough one man, you can really get yourself into a financial pickle if you’re bringing in the wrong people at the wrong time. So this is something that we’ve been through ourselves and was kind of like a growing pain, if you will. So some really valuable input there just from our experience that we kind of kick around and share some insights that you may or may not be aware of. So I think it’s it’s a really healthy conversation. And as you’re looking to grow your business, you’ll find some good nuggets in there. So go back, check that If you haven’t already, this week, we’re going to be speaking with somebody by the name of Roderick Yap, calm rod. He’s the CEO of leadership forces. So he’s got a lot of experience as a speaker, a leadership coach, and all that kind of stuff. And he was actually in the, he’s a former Royal Marines officer. All right. And so he led the Marines, all different operations all around the world, whether it was in Somalia, Afghanistan, Libya, and all these different places. And then in 2012, he joined a group called the, your Renko group, and he was actually responsible for developing leaders using an operational excellence model. And then as of 2015, he decided to found found the leadership forces business which focused on developing leaders within organizations and he’s worked with clients such as HSBC, Deloitte, Jaguar Land Rover, Rolls Royce and NATO and all kinds have other great organizations. So he’s really stepped up into this leadership role, and he has a lot of great experience to share. Because it’s so important for our businesses. I mean, great leadership can be a game changer for long term differentiation and success. So we’re gonna dive into this conversation with rod in just a minute. Just a reminder, we always have lots of fresh content coming out on Change, Creator calm, so swing by get all the new goodies. And if you haven’t already signed up for the captivate method, there is a waitlist there, you can jump on our site on the homepage, you’ll find that you can sign up. This is all about how do we how do we communicate effectively with storytelling? And how do we apply that to our business? We call this a digital conversation. really powerful stuff. And we’ve seen some great success from our current students and members. It’s a really fun community. So check that out, and we’ll send you some information. All right, guys, I’m gonna dive into it. Don’t forget to stop by iTunes and other places that we are like Spotify leave us reviews, ratings, all that good stuff. It helps us a lot and we really appreciate your support and ongoing, you know, listenership so thanks again and we’re gonna dive into this conversation with rod. Okay, show me that he Hey rod, welcome to the Change Creator podcast show how you doing today man?

Rod Yap 03:25

Good thanks very, very pleased to be here.

Adam G. Force 03:27

Yeah, well Awesome. Thanks for being here. So, you know, I’m just I leadership is something that as we go into 2020 I’m putting more emphasis on just because it’s such an important part of operating a business that becomes you know, profitable successful. And I think leadership especially when it comes to building a team is really important. So tell me just a little bit about like, what’s going on in your life right now. Like what’s, what’s the latest, the greatest just to kind of tell us where you are

Rod Yap 04:01

So I’m continuing to develop my business I started in July 2015, how they felt that there was sort of something that I could add to this industry. I sort of looked at the kind of market and felt that most leadership development professionals tend to tell us a lot of ex HR, or organizational psychology backgrounds, and I had different, you know, I was more of a sort of practitioner. So I felt I could sort of take that experience, and, and sort of build a business around that. And when I sort of think about, you know, my background is, is obviously, as an officer in the Royal Marines, I think about my career in the military. You know, it really was developing people it was helping my Marines to get better at their jobs to become more effective to comply performance. That was what I enjoyed most about the whole my, my sort of seven years in the Corps. So I wanted to see if I could replicate something similar to that in the commercial world.

Adam G. Force 04:56

Yeah, I love that and what led you to the Marines

Rod Yap 05:00

Really, it was just a desire to do sort of something completely different. I believe in the concept of service. Certainly serving my country, but sort of serving other people. And I sort of thought about it much in the way as many people might think of sort of a graduate scheme. But then I was like, well hang on a sec, what are the graduate scheme puts you through 15 months of pretty demanding leadership and management training, and then your first job is line managing 30 people? Nothing like it right? And no one gives you that sort of that level of responsibility, that level of training, you know, that development as it gets, and I guess in a nutshell, that’s probably what took me in that direction.

Adam G. Force 05:41

Hmm. Interesting. So it sounds like you’ve been are all around the world. And just before we get into some of this, you know, a deeper conversation around leadership. I’m curious. Just about some of your experiences Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, I mean, anything stand out to you experience wise that kind of maybe hits you

Rod Yap 06:01

I mean, a lot of them were unique in their sort of own way. Afghanistan was a very kinetic war fighting environment. What What that means is that people were shooting at us an awful lot. And Libya was one of those environments where we really didn’t have a clue what was going on. Are you really making up as we went along, and then working sort of off the coast of Somalia was, was actually sort of quite quite a lot of fun. I quite enjoyed it, you know, working with small boats in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Yeah. And when I think about some of the lessons that I take from all of those experiences, I think really, serving in the military, like, a bit like travel, gives you a much sort of broader perspective. I served in Afghanistan in 2007. And, you know, when I look back on my sort of time there, we had no real grasp of how that country or how those people lived and operated. Did we approach that that world in that environment with our own sort of set of values and our own ways of thinking about a world? And it just didn’t? It just, it just didn’t compute, if that makes sense? Yeah. And, you know, I remember being there. And sort of one one story from my time there was that when I was based in San Diego, the district district center in the heart of Helmand Province, you know, we would get firefights from time to time with the Taliban. And if we accidentally sort of, you know, hurt some civilians who got sort of caught in the crossfire, what we do is we sort of patch them up, and we would bring them into a bring them into the base and sort of give them some compensation. There’s a fairly, fairly blah, sort of method of reparations, if you like, yeah. And what we started to notice was that, you know, certainly some groups this was kind of incentivizing that behavior. So there’s one tribe or one family that would that would actually grow In members of their family of their group with gunshot wounds, because we were paying to fix these people, you know, despite the fact that this had nothing to do with us that we haven’t been involved two or three days, I just remember thinking, you know, like, if that’s, you know, if that’s how people live here, I just, you know, I don’t have the, you know, the values or that sort of language to really compute how people can do that to each other in order to get paid. So, it just made me realize that, you know, it’s incredibly lucky to be born in the West and, you know, just by pure accident of being born in the UK, you know, I kind of won the lottery that he respects

Adam G. Force 08:40

Hey, now, it’s funny, as you were saying that I was thinking in my head, that birth is a lottery.

Rod Yap 08:47

And you know, it’s a total accident that we were born, you know, in, in the sort of developed world. Yeah, we just have things like you know, eating clean running water, easy access. So those things because they’re things that, you know, a lot of people don’t have.

Adam G. Force 09:03

Yeah, which is it’s an eye opener, it makes you grateful, that’s for sure. And, you know, it’s that I’ve noticed with about at least 80% of the people that I interview, especially when it’s, you know, different social entrepreneurs and such that their inspiration to start something really powerful as a business and change the trajectory of their of their life is from a travel experience. That’s usually what jolts them, it’s like a sensory overload.

Rod Yap 09:29

Hmm. Yeah, I think I think certainly with this sort of social entrepreneurs that that I’ve come across, they really kind of get this concept of, you know, making a contribution towards making a better place somehow. Yeah. And I think whilst a lot of veterans or a lot of people serving the military wouldn’t necessarily Connect as strongly as a social entrepreneur that certainly some absolutely would, you know, some of them join the military or, you know, join the police of the army. Fiber graded because they want to have a positive impact because they want to splice. And I completely see that I get it.

Adam G. Force 10:06

Yeah, I mean, there’s many ways that we can all contribute and you know, so not everybody is the same. And, you know, I can appreciate all the different formats and lifestyles that people have that, that make a difference and contribute and stuff like that. And I think, you know, as business is really transforming quite a bit over the past couple decades, you know, being a great leader, like redefining what a great leader is and how they think and what they accomplished, like, I think is really important, because there’s that trickle down, right, the leader of a different company or organization, when you have values in place that are important to not only the company, but the people that the company serves and all that stuff. It starts kind of like pushing good business. Right. Do you agree?

Rod Yap 10:53

Yeah. You know, I think you know, how you behave sort of sets the tone, certainly if you’re in leadership positions. For the organization, so, you know, I, I contract with a number of organizations that will often say to me, you know, we’ve got a cultural problem. You know, we’ve got an issue that our culture is not quite right. You know, I’m actually Well, you know, I might often say this in the kind of first in a pitch presentation, but actually the problem, they have a problem with the way in which they leaders are behaving as a leader, you need to need to pull off. You know, understanding the culture simply is a reflection of leadership, positive or negative. Yeah, it’s kind of really, really important. And that fundamentally comes down to the behavior of the leaders in your organization. It’s what they do, every single day. It’s the impact that has on the people around them. That’s what sets the tone for the culture of your organization. And I think when you’re relatively small, that’s something you’ve really got to focus on. Because if you’re only a sort of team of nine people and you may you hire someone in who’s potentially toxic as your 10th employee. Now 10% of your organization is going to cultural issue. But 100,000 people that that’s not so much of an issue, but, you know, when you’re small those you know, you need those kind of people that can muck in and help out are willing to roll their sleeves up and do work outside of their job description. And, you know, lots of people aren’t willing to do that. So you know, then certainly right for your your organization.

Adam G. Force 12:23

Yeah. 100%. And I’ve heard a couple, you know, interesting lessons that I’ve learned, which are one great leaders hire great leaders. So you definitely want people that are the right fit for your company culturally and have the mindset that will push the company in the right direction. But also I was interviewing the founder of Tom’s Blake Mycoskie and he said that, you know, one thing he would do differently if he started over would was his hiring because I guess as they got more established, when they were hiring the executive team, you can find people that have great resumes, but what happens is they have this experience As leaders in their particular space and their history, and they bring all that baggage with them, which may not jive with the current culture that you’re trying to create?

Rod Yap 13:09

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s really easy, you know, check yourself and consider, you know, the impact of the things the brand names have on you, and all the assumptions that you bring with them. Because if you, for example, work in a FinTech business, for example, you know, off top my head and you hire people from sort of larger banking organizations, you know, often their experience, you know, if even if they’re particularly senior can be very, very specialized, and they understand how one area, you know, to go and work on what much smaller team will require them to have a far broader remit for the things that are going on. And frankly, to to kind of get involved with actually doing stuff. Well, maybe just to wrap up is I think the hiring was a really interesting one because again, you know, a lot of sticks or a lot of people that want to build a high performing team. Yeah, really thought about that hiring process. is still very much a kind of, you know, couple of interviews, you get off of the job kind of thing and my view that you know, anyone can be good for a couple of hours down the route or you know, give give people some work or give people a kind of case study and see what questions they ask to their, how they approach something that is relevant to the job they’re going to be doing. Because as you know, when you’re a small team, right, that those jobs are going to evolve, the responsibilities are going to change rapidly. So you don’t need people that can do something, you know, very neatly fixing with into into a job description. You need people that are flexible and malleable and can roll with the changes that the company is going to go through. And I realize you know, his family is giving people some work and see how they handle it will give them some things to think about in a sort of scenario based scenario based process.

Adam G. Force 14:52

Yeah, hundred percent. I mean, I think that’s a really important point for anybody listening is that especially when you have a smaller team you in the first couple years I mean, people start out as solo entrepreneurs often and and i would definitely encourage having co founders, but as you start building a smaller team to get extra hands on deck, you, you really do want to think about people that are not just good at a particular job, but that can kind of face challenges and pivot with the needs of the market or the business as you see what’s going on. And you can kind of like you said, Go with roll with the punches. Yeah, that’s powerful.

Rod Yap 15:29

Yeah, absolutely. You need those people that have that agility, flexibility and worked around you. That’s not my job description.

Adam G. Force 15:39

Yeah, yeah. I will tell me a little bit about just from your experience, then around leadership, you know, have you seen an evolution in leadership over the years? Has has the mindset of leadership changed?

Rod Yap 15:56

I’d like to think so. I like to think Leadership is moving away from something that is, you know, is really reserved for the kind of C suite executives and something that people, you know, do or responsibility that comes with a position of authority. I think it’s moving away from that. And I think it’s moving away from that kind of, you know, I’m a leader, I come up with a plan, I tell you what to do. I’m not convinced that approach has ever worked particularly well, but having spoken to, you know, people in the generation above me That said, I get a sense that that’s how businesses and organizations used to operate. And I think nowadays, there’s an expectation that, you know, if you were a leader in a position of, you know, in a position of authority, you know, you asked your team, you know, right, this is the end state that we’re working towards, you know, how do you think we should approach that, you know, you might have a challenge, you invite the feedback, you invite their ideas, and then your job is effectively to cherry pick the best things and, and to sort of build it into some kind of plan because I don’t buy into this nonsense that, you know, Millennials don’t work hard. I think that’s absolutely rubbish. I think that they will work hard, they will absolutely work their nuts off, but they have to be involved in that process, they have to be made to feel like, you know, they were part of the planning. And you know, I that I want to be fit, I want to feel like that as well. So, so that’s where I kind of see things going. I think that people have a different expectation about what their what their bosses are going to do and how they will involve them going forward. But some lasting change.

Adam G. Force 17:39

Yeah, no, I think that’s a great point. And and, you know, organizations are flattening out, you know, from the height, the traditional, like hierarchy structure. I mean, I think there’s always like decision makers, like you said, but the teams are more involved and everybody becomes a leader in their own right, in a sense that, you know, we have to be able to trust and rely that they’re going to get the job done. Based on what the end game is about, right, so if everybody’s on the same page, we can work towards those same goals. And I think that that’s, that’s powerful. That’s a powerful change in mindset. And, you know, interesting, I just did a quick talk about how there’s some new data out that I think 50% of millennials, and 75% of Gen Z are leaving their jobs for mental health reasons. And I was kind of blown away and alarmed by those numbers. And you know, everyone gives them the bad rap. They don’t want to work hard. And so you know, when you have like stagnant low wages, or you’re being overworked for those low wages, like there’s some burnout there, but I also think there’s a lot of misalignment of people trying to get jobs that one they’re overqualified for or two, they’re just not meaningful to them. So they’re kind of like just miserable, waking up every day and doing it so they might be in these bad, you know, job environments.

Rod Yap 18:55

Yeah, I mean, I think that’s a that’s a really concerning issue. But then when you sort of think about it, you know, certainly when my father came home, you know, if the office call, it’s because the building was broken down. Right. But you know, there was a real emergency. Yeah. Now, as companies are more global, you know, you could be working across quite a few different time zones. Yeah. Therefore, your emails and phone calls never really switched off. There’s not that many people or not that many bosses that will will, you know, advise you or sort of say to you that you need to put in boundaries, you need to push back when people are asking for you, you to deliver stuff for tomorrow. And, you know, it’s five o’clock here. And you haven’t, frankly, got any more working hours to give. I think, I think that is a contributing factor. But also, I think, again, I think some of this comes down to leadership, because most of us have worked in a team, right where, you know, let’s say you’ve got sort of six people in that team. Two or three of them are really sort of strong performers and maybe some others kind of, you know, coasting, perhaps a little bit of that generally tends to be a bit of a bell curve distribution around to the performance. And one of the leaders tend to do with the people that deliver all the time, they tend to give them more work. Because it’s a lot easier to do that than it is a performance management conversation with someone else and go, hey, maybe you’re putting your weight here. I need you. I need you to deliver in accordance with my expectations, because frankly, I’m not going to keep giving more stuff to those people who always deliver for me. I think I definitely think that’s part of it as well, that sort of inability to handle those difficult conversations.

Adam G. Force 20:33

Hmm. Yeah, I think that that makes a lot of sense. That’s important. And it is tough. I know a lot of people are uncomfortable with that. And, but I mean, there’s ways to approach it that I guess are it’s more beneficial because you can help somebody else kind of make progress in their own life by giving them that feedback and helping them move forward. And I’m, I’m curious, so you know, you do a lot of leadership training and development to help you know, create a High Performance cultures, I’m just kind of checking out your website here. And you know, I’m curious in some of the things that are important to your process that you see with a lot of the organizations you work with then some of the maybe some key takeaways that might be valuable for our audience to understand when it comes to this leadership. Dynamic.

Rod Yap 21:22

Sure. So I mean, I think the first thing is be really cautious of people that give you a nice sort of type, by definition of what leadership is. Leadership, by definition is about judgment. It’s about making good decisions that get the best out of a situation. So, you know, when people sort of say, you know, leadership is all about empowering people. Yeah, I agree with that. 99% of the time, you are absolutely right. But you know, if you only walk across the road and we see someone get hit by a car, the last thing you would necessarily want me to do in that situation is empower you to call the ambulance you know, you think it’s the right thing to do to Just call the police or the ambulance come and help this individual, you know, that’s an environment where sort of tight command and control and sort of, you know, taking, taking control and gripping that chaotic situation is sort of really, really important. I think some of the things that, you know, I work with with people on are, you know, creating that sort of clarity by having that aligned goal, you know, it’s a really, really simple and sort of common theme. There’s loads of other people that sort of talk about this. But I think it’s really important to have a unifying goal of the team are working towards because then once you’ve got that clarity in the how you can ask them for support on and you can, you know, you can say right, how do we how do we achieve this as a group of people who’s going to do what in everything becomes much easier. Once you’ve got that clearly aligned picture of what you’re working towards. I tend to use and sort of, you know, NASA version man on the moon by the end of the decade is a really good vision with a nice set of time boundary to as well. Once you’ve got that happen You know, it’s one of those things that you you over communicate, so you cannot afford to communicate what it is you’re working towards as a group of people so that people know instinctively right? How do I how does my workstream fit in with the achievement of that vision? You know, unless you’ve got that vision, you can’t really answer that question. You know, holding people to account is really, really important. And accountability is a sort of two way process for me. So accountability involves, you know, turning around to a leader saying, hey, look, you’ve been distracted by the new shiny thing. You said that that’s the vision, we’re working on that don’t change that unless there is a reason to change it. And then we should all get together and discuss it and make a decision based on the facts rather than following your instinct on what needs to be sort of worked on. So lastly, I mean, I’m sort of trying to, you know, try to keep this short. So I’m trying to be concise. You know, laugh, you know, the ability to build strong relationships. You know, how well do you know your people? How well do you know you’re doing I want to ask you that question. And I’m sure there’ll be a lot of people sort of nodding down. Yeah. Oh my people. Okay, would you know? Do you know the names of their spouse? Do you know the names of their children? How old? Are they? Where do they go to college? when they grow up? What do they do with their spare time? What are their interests? What do they want to have a career within your organization? Do they want to stay here? Do they want to be you know, or do they do they want to take this experience and start their own business? The answers to all this stuff, frankly, are less important than the fact that you answer them because you started you ask people that because right what you’re demonstrating by that is demonstrating that you care about them and that you’re interested. And fundamentally, people aren’t gonna follow you because you’ve told them to, they’re going to follow you because they believe they have their best interests at heart. So the sort of clarity that vision, relationships and accountability if I can be really succinct, those are probably the three areas to work on more than anything else as a star. Beautiful.

Adam G. Force 24:59

Yeah. Ain’t no I, when you teach these types of things, I’m always thinking in my head, like, I hear that stuff I’ll make, you know, it’s just a matter of caring. It’s like, you know, who are these people, like you should care enough to ask about how they’re doing, who their spouses meet them. And like, these are people you’re going to spend a lot of time with as well. Right? So I spend I talk every day to my co founder. So these are people that you really want to get to know and you gotta, you gotta like them. You know? Yeah.

Rod Yap 25:29

Social Enterprise why, you know, that that’s confused about this. Because that, you know, if they share that enthusiasm for the problem that you are trying to solve for the people that you are trying to help, and they will walk through because to achieve your vision, and that’s a that’s a great thing.

Adam G. Force 25:47

Yeah, yeah, they need to believe in what the mission is. So you know, people overlook the missions in their company, especially early on like, yeah, yeah, I gotta have this mission statement. It’s just like, boilerplate crap. But it’s not like that clarity of like, where you’re going and why you’re doing what you’re doing, especially the why you’re doing it because people want to get behind something and not everyone’s going to start their own business to get behind something they believe, but they can certainly join something else that they believe in and be excited about waking up every day.

Rod Yap 26:17

Yeah, absolutely. And that’s kind of the key thing. I mean, that would be question number one for me, in a relatively small organization, a social enterprise. Why do you care about

Adam G. Force 26:26

Yes, yes. Love it.

Rod Yap 26:29

Like, you can’t convince me of that, then. Frankly, may I’m not sure there’s a but you know, I’m not looking for someone that just wants another job. Because the reality is, the job description I’ve just shared with you is probably going to change in six months. So I need someone that is kind of willing to be flexible, but enthusiastic and passionate about this purpose or the purpose of this organization.

Adam G. Force 26:49

Yeah, early on. I mean, that’s, that’s probably most important. I think that’s, that’s a beautiful, we’ll wrap it up there. And I want to just let people know where they can learn more about what you’re doing and your programs and stuff. So why don’t you give a shout out to where they can learn more and connect with you?

Rod Yap 27:05

Sure. So my name is Roderick. Yeah. The beauty of having a unique name is that I can pretty much be found on the internet. So hit me up on LinkedIn. I’m an open connector. So you know just assembling changing the text. just invite disconnects are always accept. And my website is leadership forces calm and I blog there about articles relating to leadership, human performance, taking the principles of what I’ve learned in the military, in the nuclear industry in the sporting world, into the corporate world. That’s that’s what I have to do. That’s my, that’s my mission in life anyway. Beautiful.

Adam G. Force 27:41

I really appreciate your time today and sharing your experiences and expertise.

Rod Yap 27:47

Thanks very much.

Adam G. Force 27:48

Great to speak to you. That’s all for this episode. Your next step is to join the Change Creator revolution by downloading our interactive digital magazine app for premium content, exclusive interviews and more ways to Stay on top of your game available now on iTunes and Google Play or visit Change Creator mag comm we’ll see you next time where money and meaning intersect right here at the Change Creator podcast.

Listen to our exclusive interview with Peter Montoya:

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What is transformational leadership and why does it matter to your business today? Find out with expert Peter Montoya who has been an entrepreneur for over 30 years, a best-selling author and keynote speaker.

Most Speakers who teach have not done it for themselves…and most Entrepreneurs don’t know how to speak… Peter is the rare exception.

He’s a thought-leader who has also accomplished big things. Peter bootstrapped his successful software company from an idea in 2008 to a multi-million dollar exit in 2018… without capital, investors or partners.

Peter knows how to inspire people by tapping into their unique purposes. Peter is a truly fascinating and multi-faceted guy, with decades of experience in speaking to audiences about his business knowledge, inspirational journey, and human behavioral insight. Though Peter struggled through school with undiagnosed ADHD, he was admitted to and graduated from the University of California Irvine in Political Science. Post-college he became a traveling speaker and salesman, chalking up over 3000 presentations and living in over 22 major cities.

Peter went on to found a successful advertising agency and software platform, dedicated to financial service professionals. He quickly became the industry guru, writing numerous books, including one of his best selling works “The Brand Called You”, “The Personal Branding Phenomenon” and his newest book “Leadership Power”.

He now pursues his passion for humanity and the planet – he sincerely believes that all people and organizations have a special role in perpetuating the survival of our species, our civilization and our planet. He speaks thoughtfully and passionately about the need for Transformational Leadership in today’s world.

Learn more about Peter and his work at > https://www.petermontoya.com

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Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:11

Hey, what’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show. This is your host, Adam force. I hope that you’re doing amazing. And if you missed last week’s episode, you might want to go back and check that out. We spoke with rod Yap. He’s got a ton of great experience, and we cover off on high performance leadership. Now leadership has been a very big topic. I mean, today we are talking about how businesses evolution, how businesses evolution, how business is evolving, and what kind of leadership is evolving with it, right? How do we lean into leadership for today’s world? And what does that look like? And it’s really important because great leaders create trust, they inspire people, and they do good in the world. And that’s what we’re all about here. So we’re going to be talking to Peter Montoya. Now. Peter Montoya has a lot of experience That we want to learn from. So he’s a leadership strategist. Now. He is a keynote speaker. He’s done a ton of talks over 3000 talks in, I think 20 over 20 major cities. And he’s also a best selling author. So he’s a best selling author for a book called The brand called you the personal branding phenomenon, and his latest book leadership power. Now he started his own company as well. He bootstrapped the software company in 2008. And he had a multi million dollar exit in 2018. So he’s been down the startup road. He’s been traveler, he has been a storyteller. He knows what it takes. And he seen what it takes to be a transformational leader. And that’s what we’re going to touch on is, you know, what is the the what are organizations roles in the future of humanity? What is transformational leadership? And what do you need to know about leaning in to be a great leader for your startup right now, we have some great stuff that has been released on Change Creator calm so before we get into that conversation, I just want to give you a heads Up to a check that out. Just a quick reminder. And guys, you can find our Facebook group, if you go to our website, you can join us on our Facebook group and get involved over there. It’s the profitable digital impact entrepreneur, we’d love to see you over there, we have a little bit more of a tight knit focused conversation around business and startups. So if you have a business idea, or you already have a business, that might be a great place for you to get into that community. One other thing I want to mention is if you are a Shopify user, we recently did a review on a company called Shogun. And the so Shogun offers so much flexibility. They are a page builder for Shopify. So I know Shopify has some like limitations around how the functionality and the analytics, so they not only give you deep analytics, but they give you the ability to really customize every page the way you want on Shopify, so you can increase conversions and do different types of testing and all that good marketing stuff. Go to change. calm. So if you have a Shopify store, search for Shogun, you’ll find our full review, I think you’ll really like it. We were We were pretty blown away by the software and the capabilities, one of our writers had a chance to really dig into it and get like an account to explore it. And they did the review based on that really cool stuff. So I just wanted to throw it out there, I think you can benefit from it, and help drive your business forward. So without further ado, guys, we’re gonna jump into this conversation with Peter and really dive in deeper into the leadership role. Hey, Peter, welcome to the Change Creator podcast show how you doing today?

Peter Montoya 03:38

I’m doing phenomenal. I’m so excited to be here.

Adam G. Force 03:42

Yeah, I appreciate you taking the time. I know you’re a busy guy and yet lots of stuff going on. But I think you do have a lot of great experience to share. So we’re gonna dig into that over the next 20 to 30 minutes and see where it goes. So I always like to just kick it off. Just tell us like what’s going on in your world today. what’s the latest? What’s the greatest? I’m going through another pivot.

Peter Montoya 04:03

So I have been an entrepreneur for 30 years. And as an entrepreneur, you kind of when you start your first business, you’d like to think this one business is going to be my lifelong business. That is not the case. So I probably have started and either closed and or folded in or sold 10 businesses, and I’m probably on my 11th incarnation. Now, I’m going back and rebranding myself as a leadership speaker and high performance teams expert. I have been a speaker for the better part of 30 years, but never in the leadership space.

Adam G. Force 04:37

Yeah, and some of the information I got it sounds like you’ve only done about 3000 presentations. Tell me about your first business that you bootstrapped and had a multi million dollar exit. I think we all like to hear about those, those life, lines of business going from start to finish. Got it.

Peter Montoya 04:57

So I’ve only had one more section. than failure in my life, I’ve had, you know, seven businesses that failed and one business that had a really fantastic exit. I started my first business as an advertising agency back in 1998. I was 29 years old, I thought I knew at all. I was an advertising agency specializing in financial service professionals. And I did that for about 10 years, I became the go to guy. If you were a financial advisor, and you wanted to help marketing or branding yourself, and then I evolved that business in 2007 or so.

Adam G. Force 05:33

Pretty cool. Pretty cool. Now, I guess so once you sold that one, why did you decide to exit and what did you do next?

Peter Montoya 05:42

Well, that business, which was the advertising agency, I basically kind of collapsed it and then started a software business. So the advertising agency was a model where I only ate what I killed every single month. Yeah, and every single month I had to generate between 200 and $400,000 a month in sales, which I was doing myself Using using stages so you know, speaking in front of audiences and selling audiences on our advertising services, and I realized I was really sick and tired of being on a hamster wheel. Yeah, constantly having to eat what I kill. And I wanted a recurring revenue business. So I started a software company called Marketing Pro, which provided automated marketing content for financial service professionals. And we charged subscriptions of 25 to $75 a month, in between 2008 and 2018. When I sold it, we amassed 11,000 subscribers, and we sold it to a much bigger company. The reason I sold it was it was I had all my equity in the company. I mean, I had no debt, but I also had no assets, except for maybe a couple investment properties, a couple cars. So it was up my whole entire nest egg, and I wasn’t passionate about it anymore. I’m an entrepreneur and so I fall in that kind of quickstart category of where you’re always having new ideas and you want to go in new directions. I kind of built it gotten over the hump and lost the passion for growing the business.

Adam G. Force 07:06

Yeah, yeah, you know, I see that happen a lot. And I guess you got to be willing to kind of let go, what you what was the past and be willing to just kind of move forward with new ideas. And I know as entrepreneurs, it’s pretty common that you’re like, top level big picture thinker and you want to try all kinds of different things that focus can be tough sometimes.

Peter Montoya 07:25

Yeah, exactly. So once the problem is solved once you’ve got a workable model, okay, what’s next?

Adam G. Force 07:31

I, you know, my, my co founder, Amy and I were always saying is, you know, it’s really important to us that our business can run without us, because to your point, you want it to be an asset. And as we have the investor mindset, you really want it to be able to operate without you. And, you know, I think that kind of leads you to certain types of decision making. greed. Yeah. So you’re really getting into the leadership stuff. Tell me a little bit about that focus and what you’re thinking there.

Peter Montoya 07:58

So I still think the world is suffering from a dearth in really good leadership? I think there is collectively a large elephant in the room that we as a society aren’t talking about. So here’s what I mean by that. And here’s the question I’ve got for you, Adam, in 50 years from now, if we went forward to 2070, do you think the world and society will be better than it is right now or worse off than it is right now, based on the trajectory we’re headed on?

Adam G. Force 08:27

I want to say that it’ll be better but the problem is I had to actually think about it. be negative.

Peter Montoya 08:37

So that’s kind of how I am too. So based on our current trajectory, it is going to be worst. While you’re talking about climate change, overpopulation, pollution at the lot loss of biodiversity. We are headed 180 million miles an hour in the wrong direction. As a civilization Yeah, so the most important question the most people Dialogue we should be having right now as a species is how can we work together to solve our collective problems better? And on the other side right now, the large the conversation right now is, is how can I make the other side more wrong than we are? So we get our way that is the conversation we’re having right now in this country. And that is a profound lack of leadership.

Adam G. Force 09:25

What do you think is the barrier here? So I mean, I love that you’re focused on leadership because we do need more heart led leadership, we need people that think holistically about not just their companies and businesses and assets, but actually how they impact people in the environment in the world. And you know, we haven’t done that for a long time, which is why we are where we are. However, I don’t know how familiar you are with things like Cambridge analytic and the power of you know, our technology today and data, and just the disinformation and the the campaigns going on. It’s I mean, I see a huge challenge in getting people, I guess clear on like what’s right and what’s wrong because everybody can find a study or report or something that that supports their own agenda

Peter Montoya 10:14

That’s a really, really great point. So what social media is now doing to our society is the same thing the printing press did to the world about 400 years ago. So when the printing press was first invented, there, all of a sudden you thought, Oh, my gosh, I start spreading information and the world’s become more informed. And actually, what happened was a huge proliferation of conspiracy theories about 400 years ago, and actually led to the Christian crusades where they killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. For about 30 years. It took 30 years to figure out how to publish information that was actually accurate. We’re going through the same kind of tectonic train change, change right now with social media. Yeah. And we are only 10 years into it. We may have 30 more years to go until we figure out the platform’s technology, the policy among those platforms to actually start telling the truth. So we can agree on a common set of facts so we can actually solve problems.

Adam G. Force 11:15

Yeah, I mean, that sounds amazing. And I would love to see that I know, I was listening to somebody talk, and they were like, Listen, fossil fuels are no longer the most valuable currency today. It’s its data. And when she said that, I was like, You know what, I actually don’t think that’s true. I think that today, it’s trust. Because you know, especially from a business mindset, like based on what we’re talking about here with disinformation and poor leadership and personal agendas, you can’t trust anything anymore. So if you can earn someone’s trust, you’re gonna get a lot further.

Peter Montoya 11:47

I like that. Well said.

Adam G. Force 11:48

Oh man. So what kind of steps now have you been taking to kind of pursue a shift in leadership?

Peter Montoya 11:57

You know, the biggest thing is one thing I could impose upon your audience is for them to consider what their moral compass is. And so most people have never even really thought about the definition, their moral compass, and it probably is the most important decision they’ll make in their life. So the truth to me is, is that morality is subjective. Those are the objective that your morality is subjective, which means each human being is decide what is the goal of their lives, and to some degree with the goal of people’s lives are around them. And some people go well, you know, it’s easy, it’s God whenever God tells me to do what God says is moral. That is my moral compass, okay? Other people might say it’s the Constitution. So the US Constitution instead of federal laws, if it’s legal that it’s good, if it’s illegal, then it’s bad. Other people have I think the default moral compass for most Americans is personal enrichment. So as long as it makes me money and doesn’t hurt somebody else too badly, then it’s okay. So you know, I want a big house big car. I want to consume a lot. I want a reasonable enough We will listen to me. And then you know, I want to be left alone, and they more or less are living the morality of personal enrichment. Now what I think what I’ve chosen for my life, and I would like more people to choose for their life, and I can’t make them do this is that of human well being? I think everyone’s moral compass should be set to maximizing their own human well being and everyone else’s well being as well. And as soon as you make a decision, the calculus of how you make decisions and what you value changes radically.

Adam G. Force 13:32

Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. And I think, you know, I think there’s a, I guess, an educational gap. Would you agree that over time, there’s an educational gap that could be preventing people from actually understanding that in another word, another way to put it is, you know, people don’t see as clearly that the a shift or transition from an individual or an organism will impact the whole, and they don’t see it that way. Cuz if you did, you’d realize that all these things of thinking for yourself, I have enough money, I don’t want to hurt someone too bad. You know, that’s the wrong way to think about how we operate as a global community.

Peter Montoya 14:16

That’s absolutely right. And you got to look at the culture of the United States and the culture of the United States all moves toward radical individualism, radical individualism, and I want to win as long as I don’t hurt you, or someone else too bad. So as all of our society, I mean, we basically have been indoctrinated for the last hundred and 20 years with what’s called a prosperity doctrine. And the prosperity doctrine basically says, success equals happiness. As soon as I make enough money that I can buy my house in the woods, be completely and totally isolated, live off, you know, live off the grid where the government’s not bothering me. I have succeeded and I will be happy. And what’s amazing about that is those people are the least happy people on the planet. So the Whole aim of our society is going in the wrong direction. And that happens both in religion, it happens in personal development, almost all personal development is geared around the prosperity doctrine. What happens in our educational system? All everything is moving toward How can I be alone? How can I make a lot of money? How can I do this all by myself, it’s all geared the wrong way, which is the opposite of how we thrive. If you look at the schools of positive psychology, look at the studies in longevity, everything’s about having a purpose, which is usually greater than yourself, making the world a better place. And number two, having a lot of interconnected relationships 100%

Adam G. Force 15:39

So, you know, a lot of times you’ll hear like, there’s been massive progress with technology, and people associate that with just overall progress, but we haven’t had you know, I think what we’re kind of getting at is educational and spiritual progress around you know, how we live. I mean, you can hear these guys like Bernie Sanders and stuff, talk about About how they want to help more people, and it’s going to cost taxes and all this stuff. And so people will say, Well, I’m not gonna pay for someone else’s kid to go to school or get health care. And I’m just like, I can just see such a huge disconnect and how we actually are thinking about things.

Peter Montoya 16:14

I would agree with you. So I would say that humanity right now if you look at humanity in terms of a human life lifespan, we are in our college years, and your college years are about is how do you adapt? How do you use unlimited adult vices. So when you first go to college at 18 or 19 years old, all of a sudden, you don’t have anyone telling you and putting restraints on what you can do anymore. And you can drink smoke sacks gamble, what drugs, you have unlimited access to all of the human biases and most people in their first couple years of adulthood adulting they over indulge? And they realize there are prices to pay for doing whatever you want when you want to do it. And we as a society are exactly the same place right now. We are realizing Yes, we can As much carbon as we want as cheaply as we want, we can have as much technology in our hands we want, we can be staring at our screens as we want. However, those things as indulgent and as good as they might feel as easy as they might be, there are huge societal repercussions or societal individual repercussions from that. So we are as a society right now, as a species right now, in those 1819 year old years going, just because we can doesn’t mean we should. And we’ve actually got to restrict ourselves based on what is in the best long term interests of our species.

Adam G. Force 17:33

That’s the that’s the tough one right there is really getting people to I guess, it’s like a reeducation process almost how do we get people to detach from those you know, historical conditioning conditioned beliefs and start thinking in a new direction with you know, I just, it’s a very difficult thing. So I guess that’s why you’re focused on leadership and trying to have a top down effect.

Peter Montoya 17:59

Noticed some degree, I mean leadership and really changed, you know, the military was the prototypical takedown style. You know, I’m the leader, you do what I say. And today, it’s really an inside out job, which means we’re really trying to empower people. So they make better decisions for themselves and for the organization as a whole. We want thinking self leading, empowered people making decisions, so no longer isn’t necessarily a top down. We’re trying to really imbue them with the right tools that make better moral decisions for themselves and the people around them. Yeah, and

Adam G. Force 18:34

I think, you know, so. So basically, getting because I, you know, it made me think of this film the family, I don’t know if you’ve seen it, or saw it. It’s like, they’re like, these are the leaders that have the most impact. And when I say top down, forget traditional corporate hierarchy or anything like that, but people that have been influenced in a sense, it’s like, if they’re out there, spreading the Bs, like, it just makes it that much harder and to Your point we want people to start understanding what this I guess modern day leadership is and not even just what it should be, but what it needs to become and why, right?

Peter Montoya 19:11

Yeah, absolutely. Right. So we’re really focused on self leadership and self leadership really is empowerment. empowerment is one of those terms to a lot of people where they go, it’s kind of a fuzzy word, but they really, empowerment really is very well defined. So here’s what empowerment is. First of all, empowerment is authority, plus confidence, plus competence. So when As for me, as a leader of an organization, I want to give my people maximum authority to make as many decisions within alignment of the organization. So the organization is really clear, the objective is really clear or head is really clear. And we’ll give each one maximum authority to help us achieve that goal. Next, I want to give them the competence and the skills and I’ll ask them questions and training to constantly give them more and more comps, make better decisions, and then with that usually comes down competence. So when they’re sitting there in a decision making situation, they are empowered to make the best decision for them in the organization. I love that.

Adam G. Force 20:09

And so and what are you offering and doing right now that’s that is supporting people to become a transformational leader, if you will.

Peter Montoya 20:18

Great question. So I’m an infopreneur. These days, I’ve got a great YouTube channel which is youtube.com, slash thrive, e union. And on there, we’ve got 54 different videos that basically teach different life skills and leadership. So that’s one thing we do are putting the final touches on a book right now called the 10. Secrets of leadership power, self testable for self leadership and leadership of others want to really kind of break down and get pragmatic steps for people to actually be able to know how to build up their leadership skills. And then also I’ve got a great online coaching community, which is on Facebook and it’s currently free. So that would be Peter Montoya leadership coaching inside of Facebook, go to Facebook search for Peter Montoya leadership coaching, and join our free leadership coaching community.

Adam G. Force 21:09

So thanks for sharing that. And just curious then, as leadership is evolving, and where do you see it? Do you see these leadership styles changing? Obviously, it has changed over time. And do you see it happening more in certain areas? It could be small companies, large corporations, government, whatever it might be. Do you see it evolving in certain places first?

Peter Montoya 21:34

Yeah, it certainly is happening. And I don’t know if you saw it. In the last couple months, the American Chamber of Commerce actually kind of changed what they thought was the objective American business now, whereas the objective of American business was either by default or stated to maximize shareholder value, right. The Chamber of Commerce, more or less said, I think the US Chamber Congress more or less said, we now have five stakeholders and we get to consider all five stakeholders. Clients are one shareholders be another, their vendors, their employees and the communities they serve. That actually is a holistic solution. Now we’ve got American businesses saying making money alone is not it.

Adam G. Force 22:21

Yeah, yeah. No, it’s it’s powerful. And I do recall seeing that and I’m curious at what impact the you know, I think it was Chamber of Commerce, but them setting the tone, if you will, curious on what kind of impact that’s really happening because I feel like you know, there’s probably a lot of old blood out there and a lot of new blood coming. I think the new blood is gonna lean into those ideas, while the old blood is gonna have their mindset on maximizing profit, because that’s just their mentality.

Peter Montoya 22:51

Yeah, I mean, you also understand that money is you know, highly, highly addictive. So human beings have two potential Reasons for living. The default reason for living is your basic survival and this goes back to our homosapien origins and more or less how we survive if human beings is to eat, don’t get eaten and procreate. That’s how we prepare. keeps giving you some of the survival of the species going forward. And making money is nothing more than an extension of that basic core programming. So you say well, how is making money I mean, buying more houses and more cars, just an extension of eat, don’t get eaten and procreate. reproduce. And when more or less people buy cars, have houses have boats have more vacation as a way of attracting mates? If you think Oh no, I’m evolved. I live in a big giant huge house and I’m beyond my core programming. Basically basis rival No, you’re still caught on the hedonic treadmill of that and it takes a level of comfort. consciousness to go, you know what, I’m going to transcend my basic core programming of survival and move on to human flourishing or thriving. And that’s basically when you make the choice that you want to live for human well being. And once you figure it out that maximizing human well being is what you’re going living for. Then you start living for things like purpose, relationships, calm, and you actually reorganize your life in a much more holistic way. But it takes some intelligence to do and discipline to do that in our society.

Adam G. Force 24:30

Yeah, definitely. Now, do you do you think or would you agree that there that we’re actually living through a major transition in in business overall, globally?

Peter Montoya 24:45

But yeah, I certainly hope so. You’re getting more and more Gen Xers like me into the executive ranks, and we have a much more holistic way of looking at the world so I’m really hoping so. Gen Xers have been the biggest disappointment. Is this most not the biggest non generation in history? We haven’t even had a president yet. So we’ve had baby boomer presidents, and they’re looking we might skip right over Gen x’s and just get all millennial if they elect Pete Budaj edge. Yeah, there hasn’t been I don’t think any of the candidates right now for president are Gen Xers were worthless generation.

Adam G. Force 25:20

You know, you don’t hear too much about Gen X. That’s, that’s no, it’s it’s, it’s now millennials and Gen Z. And for some reason, yeah, Gen X gets skipped.

Peter Montoya 25:30

You did.

Adam G. Force 25:32

Man. So yeah, I think you know, there is a big transition. And you know, one of the things I always like to say is that, and I’m curious on your thoughts is you know, as more people as the internet grows and grows, and we have this, all these new opportunities, it’s there’s never been a better time for opportunity for someone to say, I’m gonna I’m gonna escape the nine to five like what we were taught and programmed to do basically, and I I’m going to do something of my own, like, I’m just gonna figure out my own. And what I always want to see people do is like, find harmony, like there is no work life balance, there’s just your life. So you just start creating this harmonious, you know, duality like comes together, right? And it’s like, I’m just gonna shape whatever I want. And now with the internet, you can do that the opportunity is there.

Peter Montoya 26:23

So yeah, it certainly is. I mean, there’s so much technology now that allow you to actually, you know, work from home from home and basically look like a big business. So there is a lot of opportunity in that one regard. And then in another regard, the number of new businesses starting in America right now is less than during the Carter administration. The large businesses on this planet, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Tesla, you know, they are gobbling up a whole lot of mindshare right now. So in some regards, it is easier and in some regards, it’s harder because of the climate right now.

Adam G. Force 26:58

Yeah, that’s an interesting point. I’m always looking for statistics on the number of companies started or you know, failing, like, and I don’t know, like where you get your numbers. Any any ideas on that?

Peter Montoya 27:11

Good question. I would have to google it again. Yeah, I know. I googled it not too long ago and saw those numbers, but it’s, it’s out there. I’m guessing it is. The Department of Commerce is where those numbers are. Yeah. Neil Patel recently posts something around about a 500,000 or so companies start but only about 30. Some thousand make it? Right. Right. And those numbers are pretty powerful. You know, but what’s interesting is I see more people, and you don’t need to be a Tesla to live. So live, what you might define as success, right? So you can grab your small part of the pie and help a small part of the global community in your own way with the skills that you have. And we would call that living your truth. I was at a conference in Toronto and I interviewed a girl by the name of Nasseri Sheikh who is on our magazine cover and when I spoke to her she was a child slave went through all the stuff she got out started two businesses. And I asked her in the end, if you had one opportunity to give a message to the world, what would it be? And she said, I would ask that people dig deep live their truth, because that’s the biggest contribution you can make to the world. Did I lose you? Sorry, I had muted the microphone to sneeze. failed, unmuted. Yes, in my vernacular, that is living your purpose and purpose is the intersection of five of five things. Number one, what you’re passionate about. Number two, what you’re good at what you’re skilled out. And number three, something that benefits humanity. And once you find the intersection of those three things, yes, you are maximizing contribution to our species. And so I really hope that your listeners here are not just doing jobs that they like, and that make them money. But actually, they’d like to Really good at that are helping society beautiful.

Adam G. Force 29:04

I love that. And I and I that’s where I want to see this overall transition go, you know, we have more transparency now with the internet, we could see what’s going on in the world. And hopefully we can find trusted information. And as people get, you know, inspired more than they want to contribute back to help solve some of these problems. And that’s what we’re all about here at Change Creator. So we see a lot of people who do have their hearts in the right place.

Peter Montoya 29:26

Oh, I love what you’re doing here. Adam is fantastic.

Adam G. Force 29:28

Thank you so much. Appreciate that. And I really appreciate your focus on leadership. And you did define it, but I just want to do a final definition and we’ll wrap up. So I have a note here that you know, like we talked about transformational leadership. Let’s just give everybody a very clear definition on what that really means. today.

Peter Montoya 29:49

A transformational leader is someone who changes the fundamentals, fundamental understanding of what something is. So our founding fathers This country 200 years ago, created a fundamental change in understanding what a country could be. Up until that time, most of the countries in the world were all monarchies basically, in powered by God more or less. And the United States of America was the very first democracy and no one thought that model would work. Here we are 200 and some 70 years later, and a half the countries in the world are now democracies, they created a fundamental change understanding of what something is. Steve Jobs is another one. I mean, Steve Jobs probably was a transformational leader at least twice, if not three times. First with what a computer was a computer up until that time filled a room. It was only for governments and research institutions and colleges and things like that. And he basically said, No, a computer is what you put on your desk. It’s more functional. That was probably number one. Number two is probably iTunes. We changed how we got listened to music versus CDs. It was now digital. And the third one was what is a pocket computer Caught a fall, but really it’s a handheld computer. And that was the probably the third time he created a fundamental change understanding was something is, so what in every single time but those fundamental transformation leaders, not only they change the understanding what it is, but they also unlock hundreds, thousands or millions of other leaders. So if you think about it, how many businesses have come evolve because of the iPhone? Well, there’s thousands of or hundreds of thousands of businesses that are created doing software and hardware for the iPhone. And then you also got to think about all the businesses that were started because people could run their whole entire lives off of a handheld computer. So he trance he created other leaders based on his own transformation.

Adam G. Force 31:47

Yeah, I love that. I love the fact that has, you know, Britney bring up a great point about how just creating these transformations such as the iPhone, it just opens up a world of whole a whole other world of opportunity, which is been the case and it’s been pretty amazing. So I couldn’t agree more. Yeah. Well, Peter, listen, I appreciate your time. We’re gonna wrap up here. And I want to give you a chance. I know you gave some shout outs earlier, but let’s just what’s the best place for people to learn more about you and your leadership? approach

Peter Montoya 32:16

our website, which is Peter Montoya calm that should be easy enough to remember. And then I would also go to facebook and join my free leadership community, which is the Peter Montoya leadership coaching in Facebook.

Adam G. Force 32:29

Awesome. Perfect. Alright guys, you heard it, check it out. This sounds like exactly the kind of leadership we need. So really appreciate you sharing all your insights. Peter.

Peter Montoya 32:39

I love that you have this channel and thank you for having giving this gift to the world and having me on it. I really love this episode.

Adam G. Force 32:45

And your next step is to change create a revolution by downloading our interactive digital magazine app for premium content, exclusive interviews, and more ways to stay on top of your game available now on iTunes and Google Play or visit change. Raider mag comm we’ll see you next time where money and meaning intersect right here at the Change Creator podcast.

Listen to our exclusive interview with Steve Cockram:

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We all have an inner leader waiting to take on the world, but how do we make that come to life? We spoke with expert and author, Steve Cockram to find out.

Steve Cockram (UK) and his business partner Jeremie Kubicek (USA), have recently released their 3rd book on leadership – The 100X Leader: How to Become Someone Worth Following. This has been coupled with the release of our new digital GiANT platform, which scales healthy leadership development throughout organizations. Think Netflix meets Peloton with a leadership twist! The platform is disrupting the digital space and our organization GiANT is currently the fastest growing tech business in the USA.

Learn more about Steve and his work at: stevecockram.com/ and giantworldwide.com

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Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:11

Hey, what’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show. This is your host, Adam force. Excited to be here today we’re gonna be talking with Steve cockrum. He is a author of the book 100 ex leader. That’s third book he released with his business partner, Jeremy Kubitschek. So they are they talk about how to how to become somebody who’s worth following, right. And this has been alongside has released this new platform called giant. And that’s designed to help create healthy leadership development through organizations, right. So this is all he’s all focused on leadership. And that’s a big topic I think, especially for today as we’re navigating these uncharted waters. You know, the more we can undertake In the leadership space, the more we can step into our role to become who we need to become with our businesses as entrepreneurs. So he’s looking at really disrupt the space with this platform giant. Sounds pretty interesting. And I was very interested in his thoughts as he is so dialed into leadership space with his books and things like that. So I want to share it with Steve and see what he has to say. If you missed the last episode, it was with the one and only Russell Brunson. He’s the founder of Click Funnels. It’s 100 million dollar company and he has that new book Traffic Secrets. If you missed that, definitely go back and check it out. It was a really energized conversation. It’s on all the the main platforms here for the podcast, but it’s also a live video feed on our Facebook page. So you can catch the video version on the Change Creator Facebook page, you guys can just swing over there and check that out. Guys, we have some updates on the website. There’s always fresh content so don’t forget to check that out. If you haven’t already, you know, we have Change Creator magazine has over 30 Premium additions, but also now the updated app has a flow of articles coming in weekly. So as that’s happening, you guys can get constant content. And the model is changes $10 for the year. So for 10 bucks, you’re getting access to tons and tons of premium content interviews with Richard Branson, Jay Shetty, Seth Godin regular flow of content. We made it as accessible as possible because there’s just so much great content there. So you can just go to Change Creator comm check out the digital magazine, and you’ll find lots of goodies. Alright, guys, we’re gonna get into this conversation with Steve. I hope everybody’s staying safe practicing their social distancing. And we’ll get through this all together. And we’ll keep talking about some of these things on our Facebook page and in the group, the profitable digital impact entrepreneur join us over there. Amy and I are doing conversations and lots of content around Stepping up your marketing with storytelling, but also becoming a leader right now during this pandemic, okay. All right, let’s jump into this conversation with Steve and see what he says. Hey, Steve, welcome to the Change Creator podcast show how you doing today.

Steve Cockram 03:19

I’m doing incredibly well out from across the pond. Lovely to be with you.

Adam G. Force 03:22

And thank you for taking the time. Appreciate it. Leadership is a topic I love. It’s so important in our lives and our businesses. So I’m excited to kind of dive into your wealth of experience on the topic. So maybe you could just kick us off a little bit and tell us what what are you working on these days what’s happening in your world and just give us a little little update?

Steve Cockram 03:46

That’s great. So I lead a company called giant and the best way to describe it is seven years ago, my business partner good friend of mine, Jeremy Kiba track. Basically we both really ended up Our old worlds together. And we started a new consulting group together. And we really did a lot of research and asked our clients, what were the five major challenges they were facing as we move from the late industrial to the digital world? And they said, summary would be is how do I survive and thrive in a world that’s now? 365 24? Seven, it doesn’t turn off. How do I lead through influence more than positional power? How do I communicate and connect in a world that now learns visually interactive media application? How do I build agile collaborative teams, rather than recruit talented individuals, and particularly poignant for right now, Adam, how do I lead in a world which is increasingly digitally connected, but geographically dispersed? So for seven years, we basically built the tools that would work for the new world. That’s what we did well, two years ago, we realized that if we didn’t have a platform solution, then in the end, consulting in and of its own, couldn’t get there. So we now are what we call it. SAS plus business. So we are software as a service people pay monthly for our services. But we still have a fair number of consultants and coaches about 250 around the world who can go in as it were, and deliver the more traditional side of things. But everyone is learning to do remote right now. So that’s a giant and giant.tv is where you can find all that, huh,

Adam G. Force 05:21

pretty cool. So let me just dig into that for a minute. So if you go on to giant, it’s a resource for leadership insights, but like what is what is actually behind the gate? I see there’s a login on the page there. So what are you actually getting as the product?

Steve Cockram 05:39

So I think what we’d say Adam is that the new world requires different intelligence. And so therefore, there is ways in which you can develop self awareness as a leader, emotional intelligence leader and ultimately then how do you connect your IQ competence skill sets, credentials product To the world. So what most leaders are asking is, how do I lead other people because they don’t do what I would want them to do. And whenever I do for them what I would most want done for me, it doesn’t seem to work. So what we’re building really is a resource that anybody who leads any team whether you’re leading to people, one person or whether you’re leading 30,000, there is the issue, which is how do we create the leaders that know how to function and thrive in the world I’ve just described. So there are, you know, and also realizing that everyone is far too busy, no one’s got time. So little and often we found is a much more effective way of developing leaders than the traditional put them in a room for three hours and hope that does it. So there are all kinds of ways that that people are able to learn and engage and bring their team with them. Okay, so we used to do a lot of executive coaching. We Do some but what we found was that team has become the most important unit of productivity more than the talented individual. So that’s really I would say the focus will that platform does, it creates a way that teams can perform at a level they’ve never thought of. And if you think really a, as a larger organization is only a collection of teams. So it doesn’t really have one thing or 50 teams or you know, thousands of teams, we say the sub leaders define the subcultures and it mostly the development only touches the people who are well paid, whereas the reality is on the ground, the most important people are those who interact with your employees and the closer to the frontline they are, the more important they are but they often get less investment than others. So trying to make that affordable and quality and interactive that they can do it. You know, as they travel as they kind of fly as they go about their daily life and really just trying to Say, because his some tools that will help you lead your life and lead your people and lead your family better.

Adam G. Force 08:09

Yeah, no, I mean that accessibility is so important today as everybody’s on the move and opens up the doors for scalability. And I’m curious, you know, you’ve done a lot of studies in the space of leadership and what I guess two things. The first question is, now that we are the dynamic, obviously is always changing. We’re getting more digital, we’re leading teams, different dynamics and all kinds of stuff. So how have you seen leadership evolve between, you know, historical, you know, precedents versus what’s happening now due to this different stimulus of digital?

Steve Cockram 08:46

I say, I mean, gosh, it’s like pulling that from a selection. But I think one of the biggest ones out and that I think maybe interesting for your audience is the move away from positional authority to influence how become more and more important. So as a believes if you’re having to use positional power to get your way or force your opinion through, you’re already undermining your influence, because actually the new world expects you to be prepared and skilled to actually lead others through the influence II have. Yeah, so. So actually, you know, it doesn’t really matter whether you’re leading one or two people or laws fundamentally, as more and more millennials and Gen Z’s enter the workforce, what they’re looking for is a coach, not a boss. And what they’re expecting is they’re expecting collaboration, they’re expressing their opinions of matter. And for a lot of leaders, it’s quite hard to understand. Why Why do you think you can just, you know, have an opinion you’ve been here three weeks. So I would say I would say for a lot of leaders, one of the biggest challenges is realizing people won’t just follow you now, because they have to. They will stay with you because they choose to And all the statistics show that people leave leaders more than they leave companies. So recruitment and retention is pivotal in the talent race right now, because people have more choice than they used to. In the old days, you know where you were born, you might have had three or four options of a job. But in the digital world, those who have those skill sets are incredibly valuable and in demand. And I would say that for most leaders now, influence is largely emotional intelligence more than IQ. Yeah, you’re, you have to have IQ, you have to have skills that people want to buy and credentials to even get a ticket to the game. But emotional intelligence and the ability to establish, maintain and develop long term relationships, inside and outside your business, I reckon is the primary currency of wealth and influence in the digital world. And that’s a very different mindset. A lot of people who were born, let’s just say after 1982 or before 1982

Adam G. Force 11:06

Yeah, yeah, that makes that makes a lot of sense. I, I mean, I, I worked at web D for 10 years, you know, a while back, and I saw just as we were getting into like, oh, responsive website development, and you know, any kind of calls online, all these things like, as these dynamics shift and the mentalities are shifting, I started to see that kind of shift in how teams were approached. And actually, I managed a small team. And I got really into, like, making sure the team all had an opinion and share a voice in what we were doing, making them feel like you know, it wasn’t like a hierarchy. And I guess a big thing is interesting. I took him out to lunch one time, I think you’ll get a kick out of this. And I went around the table and I was like, I was asking people like, what was the reason that you left your last job, and I think I had about maybe eight or nine people around the table. And like 95% of them said, lack of appreciation. Yeah, but that doesn’t surprise you, right?

Steve Cockram 12:10

They don’t. So I mean, we took a lot of work with Google and Google have done a huge amount of research that’s basically authenticated everything we’ve said, for which I’ll always be grateful. And the two things they tried to do a study called Aristotle, they did a subtle called Aristotle, which you may have heard of, where they try to understand what was the common common allergies of the highest performing teams in Google, Google measure everything. Google Analytics is everywhere. And they spent nearly two years of trying to find out what what they nearly gave up. And, you know, they came to the conclusion there were only two things that all of their highest performing teams had in common. One was there was psychological safety, that actually, everybody could challenge the opinion of anyone else in the team, including the leader, without fearing it would jeopardize their career. The second one was in the average team across an average year, each person’s vote roughly equally, in terms of time. Now, that was a salutary challenge to charismatic entrepreneurs like me, he usually liked the sound of their own voice. And most entrepreneurs usually are very opinionated. That was a massive one for us realizing that actually, the ability to listen and draw out the expertise skill sets of the people in those teams was was huge. You know, I’m a German, I ended up having an interview with the HR director again, before we push this any further, we want to know whether you’re googly enough. That was the phrase they use, they actually said nothing has ever changed our culture in the way that your giant resources have. But before we go any further with it, we actually want to meet the guys who founded it to check that you. We resonate with the values and who you are. I was I was blown away. It was luckily we passed and we’re doing other things with them at the moment, but it was almost like They will they were so protective of their culture for leadership, that actually they wanted to make sure not just the tools work, but the people behind it aligned with the same heart and be some of the things I know you guys care deeply about. Yeah, yeah,

Adam G. Force 14:13

no, you’re hitting the right buttons for our for us and our audience. And you know, what we believe in and things like that. I think, really, just more and more people have access to starting businesses on their own. Just like they have more opportunity to get jobs at different places that they might really align to. And as you pursue these things, you become your own CEO and a leader, right, what we’re talking about here. And one of the most important parts of where your marketing comes from is really digging into who you are as a person. So those values become this Northstar for decision making, not just in the first year, but throughout the life of the business.

Steve Cockram 14:47

I always say I agree entirely and by the way, and I say to most startup entrepreneurs, I love them. I’ve been one I continue to be one and go back and do it again, is people always ask me what you know. You’ll be You’d be very successful at doing this. What’s the one thing that you would say to an entrepreneur and I go, guys, or girls, the most important thing is you have to know yourself to lead yourself first. Because always say to me, what do you know what it’s like to be on the other side of you, in the different in the different orbits of your life. So what’s it like to be on the other side of you as a supplier, as a customer, as a client, as a friend, as a father as a, as a boss, so few people have ever really been prepared to look in the mirror and see what we call the broccoli and our teeth because we all we all have broccoli in our teeth, and you’d be amazed how many leaders undermine their influence every single day, and they have no idea they’re doing it. So giants talk is really a catalogue of mine and Jeremy’s failures, and the broccoli in our teeth and we always say, look, if we can identify what the problem is, and I’ll get Give me an example of one in a moment sure, if we can then codify it in a visual tool that an educated 30 year old can understand us and teach their friends, then we can multiply into a world, which is overwhelmed with information and saturated and however good the content is. If they can’t use it immediately, it disappears. The moment you leave the room or start listening to the podcast, or whatever it is book you happen to be skimming through. So I’ll give you an example of one that has changed my life. And and so it’s the simple thing where most entrepreneurs think out loud. So I’m a very external processor. I’m ID ating. All the time, I hypothesize about how things could be. And I almost argue as if I believe it, hoping that you will tell me why you don’t. So here’s the here’s the tool that emerged out of that because you can imagine a lot of people would come to me and go and say, What are you up to the last two weeks they go, we’ll be working on this. So why are you working on that? Last week, you told us that this is what we need to be doing. And I’m like, No, no, no, no, I was thinking out loud. I was spitballing. I was like dreaming, I was inviting you to collaborate with me. You’re telling me that you spent the last few weeks working on that. So we developed a tool, Adam called provisional plan, promise three words that will change your life as an entrepreneur, because what I meant was we created a vocabulary, where now when I start dreaming out loud, what somebody says to me if I forget, they say, hey, see, before we really start to move on this is this provisional, which means you’re just talking out loud, dreaming, getting opinions, or is it a plan? Have we actually together decided, this is what we’re going to do based on the evidence that is available to us and we’ve committed as a team to it, or a promise is something that says this will never change? Right? So basically, there are plans in business, the act Sometimes has to change. Now we’re going through a moment in our world where a lot of the planning of a lot of businesses is changing because of something called COVID-19. Do you see the difference so I’m plan is something we’re committed to, and we’re all aligned with. But it still could get knocked off course, a promise is something that I will never change. These are values that we will live as a community or these will be what we define ourselves as those giant we have like four values. You know, we have self awareness, love engineers, ie heroic goals. If you ask any giant world over, they can tell you those. They are a promise they don’t change. But strategy is usually a plan. And what we found was as entrepreneurs, we were often being provisional, but people were hearing it as a plan bordering on promise and the amount of entrepreneurs that are like that, who actually end up undermining their influence with the people who have the capacity usually to deliver on the dreams. And in the end, people start to go I’m not sure whether I trust you I don’t know whether you’re talking out loud or whether things going on so when I say to you, there’s there’s one that I guarantee you can use them and I guarantee everyone listening can use biggest place that made a difference to me was in my marriage. Why? Why? Yeah, you know, my wife is an introverted detail, very, very organized person. She only speaks when it’s a plan. And the number of times she’s got really frustrated because I was dreaming about something I said, Hey, we might need to get back to America. I’m getting exhausted flying everywhere. Speaking. Good night, darling. She wakes up in the morning, Helens in tears with a spreadsheet, trying to work out how we can tell the kids the grandparents, how are we going to move? Where are we going to live? And when I say Helen, I was only being I was only thinking out loud. Now she just says to me, Steve is this provisional plan or deployment. So there you go. There’s an example out of it. And it’s visual is colorful, but it’s simple enough that the child can understand that even the kids use it on me now. So, hope that helps. We’ve got about 57 of those.

Adam G. Force 20:14

That’s pretty funny. Imagine scenarios with my wife and she’d be, she’d be like, Hell, no, we’re not good night. Your plan is over. That’s a great point, though. It’s a great point on a clarity of context. I mean, you know, one of the things that makes me think of is clarity, and you’re kind of breaking it down into a thought process that provides clarity. And, you know, if there’s one, I always, you know, one thing I would say, and it sounds so simple, and everyone thinks that they’re clear, but if there was one thing that makes or breaks a business, and as a leader, it is clarity in all aspects of your business. So this is your what I see hear from you and correct me if I’m wrong is you have ways of breaking down these thought processes in order to create that clarity.

Steve Cockram 21:00

Yes. So for example, if if it’s all remember I said the new world for learning and communication, this is a bigger change than people realize. The industrial world was about words, books, memorization and data. The new world is visual. It’s interactive, and it has to have a media application. So what we realized was if you couldn’t capture it in a visual tool, that was simple, it would not scale. And so therefore, what we’re doing here is, we’re actually saying, guys, ladies, leaders, you all have tendencies. You all have wired into the way you’ve been made. So while we do a lot of stuff on self awareness, and kind of that, really knowing who you are, I’m a Jedi Master in personality in wiring. That’s one of my other sort of day jobs at it. But once he realized, you can show people what the mirror looks like on the other side of them, they can then begin to make a choice. So I always say that the difference between a good entrepreneur and a great entrepreneur is yes, you got to have a great idea. Yes, you got to do this. But fundamentally, you have to know what you’re great at and where your weaknesses are, where your blind spots are. And you have to make a choice with your actions. So if your tendencies just become your actions, you’ll get it right about most of the time, but when you get it wrong, it goes horribly wrong. The real skill set is self awareness is the foundation of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is what allows you to build your business and connect the product and the skills and the expertise you have to a marketplace which is saturated. And actually how you differentiate long term in a world which basically has almost limitless choice is that relational interaction with your client base, that’s the thing which is gold And it’s more valuable than people would ever really realize in the beginning.

Adam G. Force 23:05

Yeah, yeah. I love that. And I think I was just writing it down. I’d like the the notes there. The self awareness is the foundation of emotional intelligence and emotional intelligence is a key to building a successful business. And I think it makes me ask you the question, you know, we have to know ourselves, and we have to know where we fall short and where we don’t and all those types of things. But have you found that people resist the truth in the sense of they’re not always honest with themselves?

Steve Cockram 23:35

So here’s what I would say I found out is that most leaders are unconsciously incompetent. Right? And you can’t blame somebody for being unconsciously incompetent. It’s they’re not aware of it. Yeah. And the reality is, I don’t know Americans are slightly better at challenging each other. Brits over here. We specialize in hinting and really just just looking down on people without telling them what’s going on. So a lot of what a lot of What john is doing is we’re holding up a mirror and go, Hey, Adam, do you know what it’s like to be outside of you and you go, I get this, I had no idea. We make you consciously incompetent, which is usually a deeply unpleasant experience when it happens. But mostly it is I mean, Adam wants to grow, they want to get better. The reality is, a lot of them just don’t know how. And so therefore, I can’t afford to go on an MBA program. I mean, I’m like going get enrolled in a course it’s going to take, you know, years of my life, and it’s like, No, no, I need some tools right now. Yeah. And I don’t mind if it’s one or two tools that give me something I can work on. And, you know, German, I spent a long time developing something called the five voices, which, if the listeners do anything, for those of you a Myers Briggs experts, he came at it twinned with Myers Briggs, but nobody could ever remember their letters when we went away. So we worked incredibly hard to create something called the five voices of a team. So if he goes to the Giant platform, as I said, you get a free month, if what you do is take the voice assessment on there, there is actually a personalized coaching Development Series for I think it was 15 videos per personality combination, that if you walk through that, that would make an amazing difference to who you are and how you understand what’s there. So, you know, again, join.tv backslash BB will get you a free month on on my, on my account. So that’s another one where self awareness is so, so important, because it’s very hard to be emotionally intelligent without being self aware. And sadly, a lot of entrepreneurs are, are more task orientated than relationship orientated. They do relationship, they do relationship because they, they need it to make the business work. I would say that in some ways that this, the primary skill set of the entrepreneur has to be has to be that relational connectivity and that ability To build long term trusting relationships, because that’s where people come back to. And that’s where you have a chance to be magical almost. And people remember, people remember that people who’ve chosen to serve people, not just transact with people. So it’s so easy when you’re under pressure and thinking, Oh, my goodness, how do I make payroll? How do I do this than the other, you often treat clients as a transaction. And that’s still a compliment that they want to buy something from you. But you’re leaving influence on the table. So many people try maximize the first deal. And they leave long term relational influence on the table. I’m always keen to go. I’m looking for something that I can build over an extended period of time. And therefore I’m prepared to invest financial capital sometimes in the beginning, because I’m trading it for long term relational capital, not because I’m trying to be manipulative, but because What I know is when I can establish a trusted relational partnership with somebody, actually, not only am I able to serve them, but they’re actually able to serve me as well. So, you know, that’s just giving you some of the things that I’ve learned through getting it wrong out. And Robin around. I was the negotiation King, I used to love winning and negotiations, until somebody held the mirror up to me. And I realized that actually, nobody liked dealing with me because they always knew if I was happy about the deal, it probably meant that six months from now they were going to be disappointed. That wasn’t a great reputation now. Now I’m almost the other way of going responsible generosity is a valley that I choose to live by. Because I found it’s a lot better when people think that you are generous as a, as a culture than when, in some ways, it’s primarily about you.

Adam G. Force 27:51

Yeah. And I think that empathy comes into play and that ties into the emotional intelligence factor that you spoke about to really, you know, be understanding And I think tying that into this idea of stop shooting for the short term, you know, game, the short term thinking where it’s like, I need an extra thousand I need to do this deal now. And, you know, we, you know, that was a lesson that we had to learn to and that is to think long term. It’s a different dynamic when you’re doing that, because everybody has this need to for immediacy, so we get panicked and we’re worried we need to make more money, we need their business, you know, so it’s like that panic results in like fear based decision making and then you start making decisions with short term thinking. So, you know, like, we would always take on clients where it’s like, all right, we won’t even offer them anything except a trial period of three months because we just start small and we build the relationship we prove ourselves and it may take more time, but then you get all the renewal business they like you they trust you and all that relationship building that you’re talking about. It does take time and it takes care right.

Steve Cockram 28:56

usually takes seven years to be an overnight success. Adam So no, nobody is nobody has done it faster. I mean, it’s really interesting looking, looking back at the moment, if you think of the financial crisis in 2008 2009, when you look at the companies that were formed in the midst of that storm that we now know as household names, so it’s fascinating to me to realize that there is always the opportunity for entrepreneurial innovation. And sometimes the darkest times the most difficult times are actually one of the most powerful actually forcing innovation and forcing new ideas. I mean, you know, right now, I will guarantee that every single person listening to this podcast is having to go cold turkey on a high touch business model. So a lot of us used to pride ourselves in getting in front of our customers face to face, events, visits, dinners, lunches, I’m losing weight the left you know, I’m not eating a business lunch for about three weeks has been great. my waistline, Adam. But I look at it and go, we’ve had to go cold turkey because right now, we’re in lockdown over here in London, there is no touch. We’re not allowed out. Right. So what’s happening is businesses are having to go digital in the space of two weeks. I mean, we’ve gone from high touch low tech to no touch high tech in the space of two weeks. Right. And I think it’s just a really interesting thing that in the end the businesses that come out of this, and will win in the next season beyond this, I think of those who will learn the lessons again, how do I leverage high tech, and therefore what is the premium high touch that I can put back in again, because I think we will probably get away with doing less touch, and more tech, in that balance of the feature. I’m personally hugely excited by, in many ways. The learning for me again, What does my world look like, in the new world that is coming the other side of the world won’t be the same again, this is not a small thing. I mean, you canonically it will be a huge challenge. But a lot of people are asking, Well, why do I have offices? Or, you know, why am I putting together an event for thousand people to come? When actually we’re doing it online? digitally? Yeah. And actually, people have enjoyed it just as much and it didn’t cost me 250 grand to put on. So there’s so much innovation, but I have sympathy in the sense that, you know, this is what I call that the luxury of self actualization. And when you’re in Maslow’s hierarchy of need, which is I need some money to pay the bills or just to keep the lights on, then in some ways, the reality is you may well have to leverage some of that relational capital is the difference. If you’re a transactional person, people will only transact with you, and they will any do it if it’s advantageous to both parties, right? If you’ve established long relational trust and influence somebody, you can actually go to them right now and go. How are you doing? And they’ll go, we’re doing right. Okay. I could really do with you buying some of these right now. Is there any way you could do something because I’m struggling in relationship, you will be amazed at what is possible when you’ve actually been relationship significant in someone’s life. Is anybody isn’t there? If if it’s just been transactional, because they’re doing something that only occurs in relationship, not in transaction? Yeah.

Adam G. Force 32:33

Yeah. I love it. Yeah, well, it’s it is I think these are a lot of great points. And, you know, as we continue to evolve, yeah, this is a major shift. And we talked earlier just about how it’s kind of, you know, pushing people out of their comfort zones, and it’s kind of accelerating change, you know, which is I always find to be fascinating, and I see it as a positive thing at the same time. While Yes, the virus that we’re going through is a bad thing, but the change That we are all embracing is I think, exciting.

Steve Cockram 33:04

There. I think that’s the reason why we’re entrepreneurs that we always see, we usually go through that, like we need, we probably had a moment of fear about two or three weeks ago when we weren’t Okay, how are we going to what’s going to happen? Yeah. And very quickly, you pivot and go, yes, we need a survive strategy. But what’s our thrive strategy in the midst of the storm? And that’s the kind of, that’s the thing, which I think entrepreneurs are so adaptable, they’re agile, they kind of turn quite quickly. And as always, cash is king. And you need a certain amount of liquidity to work, but the agility of the small is often an advantage in times like this so true.

Adam G. Force 33:44

Yeah, yeah. No, it’s and you’re right. I mean, we’re problem solvers. And that’s the way you got to look at it. It’s just another problem like solving any other problem for people. Right? So it’s really no different at this point. You just gotta be willing to adapt to it and understand it.

Steve Cockram 33:59

Yes, indeed

Adam G. Force 34:01

Listen, let’s give a shout out. I know you also had a really great book I want to make sure people are aware of in case you want to check that out as a first touch for learning more about what you have to say and digging deeper. So this is your third book. I don’t know I can’t remember who it was that you partnered with looked like he had a partner off there but yeah, hundred army.

Steve Cockram 34:20

That’s right, Jeremy and I, we basically co authored everything we do within giant and this was really our manifesto on leadership academy. And when I talked about the thing about the influence is more valuable than positional power. How do you grow influence? How do you be somebody that people want to follow not have to follow? And a lot of the practical visual tools I talked about, I think there might be 20 of them in the book. So that’s for those who love to read, but there aren’t many you love to read by the way and then you will books are really marketing. And they’re really credibility. The fact that you know, we’re a tight we’re a best selling book. Wiley as a New York publisher took our content. That’s usually a credibility, I would say it’s more likely that the people listening I’d love it if they weren’t read the book, because that would get there, the deepest thing we have. But as I said, there are ways in which you can, you can have fun playing with what we’ve created. And in some ways at a time when people are stuck at home, having a having a platform where you can work on who you are, and really develop that self awareness piece. So if you go to giant.tv, backslash BB, and put in your information, that gives you a free month. And what I’d encourage you to do is if you know your land, it’ll guide you, but I would encourage you if you want to the one thing that I say is go to the assessments app and take the five voices assessment that will give you a personality read. And as I said, if you click on the link there, there’s actually a coaching series designed for each individual, the way they’re wired by people who are wired like they are and so seeing different videos talking about what do you bring your best? How do you lead a vasectomy? What’s the things that you undermine your influence with? How do you do work life balance. So basically everything we thought the 15 key issues that we wanted all leaders to address are there. And they’re there for all 16 of the different personality voice combinations. So that’s the thing, which if that’s free, if you want to buy a book, then that’s wonderful, because that feeds my family. But honestly, the free on giant is probably the best place to go. And there’s a whole whole ream of resources that we filmed in the last few weeks about remote teams. How do you how do you lead from home? You know, even that was just created because it was live or what people needed. So join.tv backslash BB gets you a free month on the platform with us. So there we go.

Adam G. Force 36:48

Great. All right. Well, there you have it, guys. You could check that out for free for a month and explore you can check out the book if you’re a reader. Lots of valuable information come from a lot of experience and you know, good conversation. Steve, I appreciate your time today. Oh,

Steve Cockram 37:02

Adam. Thank you. Pleasure. Thank you for being a great

Adam G. Force 37:04

interview. That’s all for this episode. Your next step is to join the Change Creator revolution by downloading our interactive digital magazine app for premium content, exclusive interviews, and more ways to stay on top of your game available now on iTunes and Google Play, or visit Change Creator mag. com. We’ll see you next time where money and meaning intersect right here at the Change Creator podcast.

Listen to our exclusive interview with Jim Lawless:

Subscribe to this show on Spotify  |  iTunes  |  Stitcher  |  Soundcloud

What if you could start doing things that you never thought you could do? How would your life and business change? In this episode, we speak with a top-ranking expert about overcoming fear and operating with risk so you can break new boundaries.

Jim Lawless is the elite team coach of choice for many senior leadership teams around the world. He has been the architect of high performance and change in global organizations, governments, and Olympic teams for two decades. Ranked #6 globally, #1 outside of the USA, by Global Gurus in their 2020 ranking of motivational speakers, Jim has inspired and educated over half a million people on five continents through his mindset-shifting keynotes and workshops and many more through his bestselling book, ‘Taming Tigers’ (Penguin Random House). He delivers in business but also tests his frameworks personally and in extreme settings, giving him unparalleled credibility with his audience. Jim used ‘Taming Tigers’ to become a televised jockey within a year of starting to ride and to become Britain’s deepest Freediver in just 8 months of training. Both whilst delivering his day job (a key element of change). Jim was elected a fellow of the UK’s Royal Society for the Arts in recognition of his writing on culture and change.

Learn more about Jim and his work at: https://www.jimlawless.com/

We also recommend:

• Jacob Morgan: The Future Leader & The Skills & Mindset They Need Today
• Travis Chambers: Scaling Your Marketing With Smart Video Strategy
• Bob Berry: Mastering User Experience to Grow Your Biz 
• The Top 3 Ways to Help Your Business Reach a Larger Audience

Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:10

Hey, what’s up everybody? Welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show. This is your host, Adam force. I hope everybody’s doing well and making out okay during all these crazy times with the political unrest and the Coronavirus. We are definitely living through some important times in history here. So if you missed the last episode of the show, it was with Dan Hill. This was a really unique and interesting conversation. We spoke about reading facial expressions. This is really telling it’s pretty powerful. So Dan Hill also wrote the book famous faces decoded. So we kind of dive into all this really interesting stuff and he gives lots of tips for you to keep an eye out. So when you’re on those sales calls, do you have something to think about? Okay, and that brings us to our next guest, we’re gonna be talking today. We with Jim lawless, and he’s actually a top level, or I should say, top ranking team coach of choice for a lot of senior leadership teams around the world. And he’s been, you know, the designer of high performance and change in global organizations, governments Olympic teams for two decades now, which is a pretty darn long time. So he’s been doing this for a while, has a lot of experience. He’s actually ranked number six globally and number one outside of the US by global gurus in their 2020 ranking of motivational speakers, which is pretty cool. And he’s really inspired a ton of people around the world, right? And through his workshops, and keynote, he does a lot of talks and things like that. But he also has a best selling book called taming tigers. And that’s something you might want to check out. He’s got a lot of great insights. Today we’re going to be talking with Jim about overcoming fear and how to operate with risk. All right, and he has a lot of interesting background because he became like a free diver and This is some it’s a really interesting sport. And I haven’t ever spoken anybody who has done something like this but it is talking about overcoming fear. I mean going and through that process is really it’s it’s something that not a lot of people can really do. So we’re going to dive into lots of different dynamics here and and tackle this topic of fear. And one key thing we noticed with a lot of people when it comes to fear that holds them back, they will say things like, I’m not ready yet because or, you know, my business isn’t ready yet because and they’re not they’re not ready. What they’re saying is they’re not ready to invest in something for themselves for themselves, and a lot of times that is, that is just a sign that you are making up reasons to avoid the risk, right? You don’t believe in what you’re doing enough to actually move forward. And I say this because it is when you say you’re not ready. That is Not a circumstantial thing, it is a decision, you’re deciding that you’re not ready. It’s not the situation or the circumstance, it’s actually the decision. So when we’re not getting the results we need for our business, that’s not the time to hold back. That is the time to reach out for help. That is the time to get fresh perspective, because we have to kind of step into a new role of who we are, if we want to get where we want to go. And if we don’t know what that looks like, it’s really hard, there’s gonna be a lot of trial and error. So working with people who do know what it looks like, can help you get there a lot faster. We’ve noticed this with so many entrepreneurs who have disconnects. And we don’t want them to lose their businesses because we’re here to make a difference in the world here at Change Creator, right. So you know, when your messaging is not connecting with people, this is going to be a big problem. And so this is where we focus on with really supporting your business by putting storytelling at the heart of your marketing in an authentic way, right to really build trust. And finally, get those Consistent sales. So you can stop by you can get on our waitlist right now to enroll in the captivate method, you’ll get a chance to check out our masterclass, learn a ton more about it. I think you guys will have a lot of fun with it. And it’s gonna be super valuable because it’s not a course this is a program with a full coaching experience, right? So you can think of this as a mastermind. And it’s going to take you from point A to point B, way faster, and you’re going to be in a community of people who are your tribe, right? Alright guys, without further ado, let’s jump into this conversation with Jim lawless. Okay, show me that heat Hey, Jim, welcome to the Change Creator podcast show how you doing today?

Jim Lawless 04:41

It was a great pleasure. I’m very well thank you very well.

Adam G. Force 04:44

Excellent, excellent. Um, you know, you have a pretty, pretty interesting and intense background from free diving to steering leadership as some of the biggest brands around the world. So give us a little bit of a snapshot of kind of like what’s going on in your life. world today and how you got there?

Jim Lawless 05:03

Sure, I qualified as a corporate lawyer, worked in the City of London doing mergers and acquisitions work. I left that world at about the age of 29. And I began to work in communications, and communications drew me in to change and change communications change drew me into speaking about that topic and studying it more deeply and then beginning to get really interested in the human, the human aspect of change, which I don’t think we’ve given very much attention to, to be quite honest, how we, how we ask people more and more to go into uncertainty and risk and to adapt at a pace that humans aren’t naturally equipped to adapt at. But we don’t ever teach the skill of adaptations. So I think we’re seeing a lot of issues come out from that my world. Working with that on the broadest sense, and then working with organizations and senior teams, and individuals to assist them come together and deliver change. Hmm.

Adam G. Force 06:13

So what kind of gap care? Do you think like you mentioned that we don’t teach certain things around adaptation and change? Can you give an example or two of the types of gaps that are missing and maybe how they start over how we start overcoming them?

Jim Lawless 06:28

Sure. So we’ve we’ve all been raised for the industrial age, to get it right first time to the satisfaction of an authority figure who can define right and I’ve got two daughters, ones aged six and ones aged 22. And don’t ask is a story for another day. And, and they’re both of course absolutely wonderful. My 22 year old now at university in the UK, studying biochemistry having been completed trained, trained to get it right first time to the satisfaction of a higher authority figure which she, she does admirably. She’s now having to adapt into into a different environment. And that’s causing her some interesting discussions. my six year old, she’s going to be trained in exactly the same way Get it right first time for the boss, but with the with swiping, and and digital tools to help her get it right. So whilst they might be digital natives, they’re not. They’re not in any way trained for a disruptive, uncertain age. They’re being trained in many ways, more than my generation was so going to school in the 80s, where there was still a good degree of risk and experimentation that was it was safe, impossible for us to undertake. So we are asking people to go into risk and uncertainty. That’s all that changes. And we are not teaching people to do that you are saying that’s the broad picture as I see it. Yeah. And and there are two sides to that. One is management and organizations creating impact. vironment where it is possible and safe. So we get into the buzz phrase of psychological safety, which is an important phrase as a how to managers do that in a world where they were told to be the boss bigger and make sure everyone got it right first time historically? And how does the individual who’s received no training, start taking risks when their jobs on the line and so we go around saying, But you mustn’t fear failure, embrace failure and fail faster, which I personally don’t have a lot of time for. In any event, but but it’s utterly meaningless when the big boss says that from a stage and somebody who’s going to get fired if they don’t hit target is listening, thinking but this doesn’t translate to the words that I that you require me to inhale. So we’ve got some real disconnects. Now, when it comes to them, what are we not teaching people what are the gaps, and even just the emotional awareness of what it feels like to go through change or what what is going to happen to the body when we missed it? The sensations we get, which are all fear and anxiety. When we leave this famous comfort zone, we mistake those for genuine, immediate threat. we’re unable to query ourselves and ask why is this happening? Why is my heart racing? How can I work through this situation alone or with others to understand me as a machine as I go through uncertainty, risk and change, which, for example, is a key task for the free diver. Man back to that, but that’s why it was fascinating to go to that work. So I went to horse racing to sit on a thoroughbred racehorse, so I could experiment with this within myself. Robin just just talked about your studying, but we don’t help people understand that process. Therefore they can’t control it. They can’t bring it back in and therefore they can’t go through change. Mm hmm.

Adam G. Force 09:46

Interesting. And I love that you just kind of defined it so simply changes the risk and uncertainty. What does it feel like and you know, as you were saying, that I’m like, so as people today, we have these I guess like these definitions in our mind, which, like you said, what you talk about on stage is not applying to the people and the reality that they live in. And it made me think about when we’re young, and I’m like, you know, we get up, we fall down as a toddler, we get up if we fail constantly, but we never think twice about that risk of falling down or getting up. We’re not afraid of it at that point. So it seems like it’s something that we’re taught over time, to fear risk and change is and it sounds like maybe you’re saying that this is this is the industrial thinking. So it it is it is through a process of how we learn and when we grow up. So is it Am I making sense? You know, what I’m saying like how we I don’t feel like we have those barriers when we’re young. Is that true? Or do you think we’ve always have that fear?

Jim Lawless 10:46

No, we don’t have those barriers when we’re young was, but we acquired them very early on. I was raised Catholic under a very strict school and So I learned to fear making mistakes very in my in my life and how to keep quiet and sit at the back and not put forward my own unique and innovative ideas on things. So so so we learned this early on I think as adults we have to have one not keen on the don’t fear of failure we take bets you know, we have to take bets and that can be a bet within an environment at work and I can I can negotiate with my boss in very real sense about like, I can try this new thing that you’re talking about, but it may have this consequence Are we okay with that boss? So we can we can define parameters of failure and agree the downside of the bet what happens if if we don’t pull this off? And, and we have to any innovative organization is having those conversations on an almost algorithmic level that senior exec level then then we, we in any area of change, we’re going to be placing these bets we have to assess downside either alone or with others or with spouses or with business partners or with boss it’s a downside acceptable we we proceed if it’s not we don’t and that’s why I get in into tangled who’s don’t fear failure and embrace it might be okay if if you’re if you’re a Silicon Valley billionaire me personally I’ve got I’ve got a young a young daughter and there’s that there’s a level of risk of failure beyond which I will not, I’m not willing to tolerate for good reason, you know so. So I think we we need to have adult conversations about what don’t fear failure means but I think we do learn it earlier. Early on, I think we have it in us within for good reason is an evolutionary force. That is that is asking us to resist change, change equals risk and uncertainty that equals danger to us. It’s an evolutionary wiring an ancient wiring that fires up and it does require our obedience, but it does not if we can understand it. Sorry, it requires our attention but it does not if we can understand it before. Find out obedience, we can override it. And when intellectually we believe and can see that that is a good thing to do. I don’t think we’re teaching people how to do that.

Adam G. Force 13:10

Yeah, I mean, and so, I mean, it sounds like you feel there’s probably just a shift in how we’re educating youth in order to be better prepared, I guess, to take on this stuff, because, you know, I think there’s a lot of, you know, fixing around the schools and stuff like that. So as we think about entrepreneurship, you know, we’re not really being taught to become our best self, per se and be creative. You know, one of the most popular TED Talks is how schools like you know, destroy creativity and kids, right? So it’s like, this sounds like there’s just every loose evolutionary shifts that are necessary to help people understand and I guess better embrace these types of things. Is that sound right?

Jim Lawless 13:57

Yeah, I think so. But But, but when Never too late to learn. I mean, I teach this in organizations and in a one hour keynote where I can set up the the basic concepts and constructs and and we’ll talk about really simple ideas like going to approach her a powerful or an attractive other human being and the and the emotions we go through just in facing about risk and uncertainty and consequences are of doing that which are totally manageable, but we don’t, we don’t want to tolerate them, and how we can look to override that risk of that fear of risk and still carry on with with that, with that task. If we decide that I mean very simple ways of helping people understand this emotional challenge what happens when we leave the comfort zone, we don’t even talk about it do we don’t we don’t have a name for that place. We say leave the comfort zone but we never say where you go or how to survive mapless without but it is totally mappable in terms of how we can negotiate and navigate. But I in an hour on the stage people are totally ofay with the principles and within Two hours of workshopping and planning next steps afterwards, they’ve got a plan, which is it doesn’t take long but we just don’t do it. We’ve always focused on the leadership community and got them to, to sort of mix up some metadata. Stephen Covey talks about sharpening swords it seems we’ve always made the the leadership arm that, that moves up and down stronger and stronger and is teaching how to drive change and tell people that icebergs have melted or that cheese has moved. And what we’ve never done is helped all those little teeth to sharpen you know, little people they use and the me’s, the cellular level of the organization to understand how they can each do the new stuff that we’re asking them to do. So instead of just scaring them evermore with these metaphors, why why can’t we help people to understand what how they can move to do things they’ve never done before, which is all that changes at a cellular cellular level in the organization.

Adam G. Force 15:58

Right, right. So Like the example you gave of approaching, you know, powerful or good looking, you know, person and you know, we all like clam up and get so nervous to like approach our guy or whatever. And really in that situation, it’s not like you’re risking your your life, you’re not risking all your money. It’s just like, and we still won’t even tolerate that fear of what rejection, right?

Jim Lawless 16:25

And that’s because the system, the process, the physical process that we never get taught about takes over doesn’t it, and you and I, and anyone listening immediately, if we had measuring equipment on now, our heart rate should be increasing just by the contemplation of this. And because we don’t understand the bet the consequences and why our system is reacting as it is, we move back, you just put your finger on it, that there’s nothing actually at risk here. There’s only three types of harm a human being can come to physical security, either Economic or, or reputational, of course, we’re facing reputational harm, which is why most people would rather rather go out and play a game of American football than then give a presentation, right? Because one’s physical damage written all over it. But however, the other has got reputational damage, which historically, of course, is much more dangerous to us or getting excluded from the community a long time ago was used seriously. So we do once we can understand what it is that our whole body and subconscious mind is, is protecting us from we can intellectually take the risk. So there’s a constant fight between the frontal cortex where the executive decision making the human ability to postpone gratification, to, to want to make a contribution to want to build, to leave legacy, all of that happening in the frontal cortex. All of that requires going into places of uncertainty and risk. And then we’ve got this massive evolutionary system saying don’t go there Adam and Eve. We can understand how to use that piece of kit and override it when necessary requires our attention, not our obedience, we can’t move forward. So, so so everything you described that is absolutely accurate. We don’t want to go and make that interaction, why what’s at risk? And how do I override my physical body, which is saying runaway runaway? Yeah.

Adam G. Force 18:20

And I mean, I, as an entrepreneur, there’s obviously an entire journey of unknown. So I mean, if you if you can’t, if you can’t figure this out, and you know, we always say take calculated risks, like to your point, there’s things you will tolerate that, you know, you have a family and stuff you have to concern yourself about. So you have a tolerance level for certain extreme extreme pneus of risk. And I think as entrepreneurs, I’m just trying to align this here because it’s like, well, we do have to put money in the machine and invest or take a chance on ourselves and believe in ourselves and there’s gonna be things that work out and things that don’t. And one of the things that has helped me overcome certain blocks over many years is really to stop looking at it and saying, Oh, this cost a lot. And I’m worried about this loss. And I started really just saying, What’s the return on the investment that I could get here? And just seeing, you know, is it worth it to me or not? And that has made a big shift for me. So I’m curious if you have any thoughts on the application of, you know, the types of fear we face as entrepreneurs, and some of the steps we can consider or think about so we can intellectually take the risk?

Jim Lawless 19:29

Yeah, sure. I, you know, we went into Nitty gritties, I guess earlier on so let’s, let’s, let’s, let’s come back up for a moment. I think before to address that. We, we, we hold the pen, we’re writing the story, the story of our lives, which will touch potentially millions, even if we don’t set up IBM still going to touch potentially, potentially millions of people. And, and we write that through our decisions and our actions and our results. Every day, what is the story that we want to write during what is a very brief I mean long enough to do great things but a relatively brief time we get in the words of Cat Stevens to dance on the planet and and so that that becomes I think the the driving the driving force for many of us who are entrepreneurs and and whilst I work in the business I do I produce widgets. I’m very much an entrepreneur and set up my own business many years ago. So So I that I think, is a driving force, what’s my contribution? What do I want to make? And we have to keep a sight of that. And then with that, we decide what what am I willing to tolerate in terms of risk along the way, and what am I willing to tolerate in terms of not Dunn’s? And this is really important because the flip side of taking a risk and doing something of course is not doing anything. What does that tack take me on what’s that dirt compass direction, what’s the destination of that if I don’t act and take the risk, and that’s something again, we can we can not take into into account as we live for the moment, I don’t know, the ins and outs of what’s happening in the United States at the moment with the risk of dating and this, this podcast by by going there but at the time of recording, we’re in the middle of it. In the UK big debates about how if we don’t, the cost of not intervening heavily in the economy is actually going to be far out we will multiply if we don’t, the cost will be bigger, in terms of the wreckage caused if we don’t take out loans and and try and preserve the economy through this period. So there’s always a cost both economically but also in terms of life possibility to not acting and then the other element which becomes really important in assessing this risk is Is our perception. And of course we sense the world and we have a perception of risk, according to that, so most of the, the inspirational slash self help literature goes to places like well, you know, never forget that they Walt Disney was sacked as journalists and told it never amounted to anything and Fred Astaire you know, can’t sing can’t act can dance a little and, and so we tend to try and tell stories to ourselves to remind, to remind ourselves that when we look at other great success stories, they didn’t start there. There were setbacks. So when we come to don’t feel failure, let’s let’s not fear failure that we have assessed as tolerable. And let’s, let’s take those risks that we have agreed the downside We will live with if it should come to pass, then that’s like really hard against it. Let’s work really hard and make things happen and move forward. But that’s let’s have those in mind. as entrepreneurs as we move forward, and I think one last thing is that we are in a rush at the moment, so everybody wants to admit it before they’ve paid their dues. And good luck to you. Good luck to you. But I’ve not found the shortcut. And I’m watching everybody do that. And I’m not seeing them having found the shortcut. And I know Mr. Zuckerberg, you know, got it right first time to Harvard or Stanford, I can’t remember was the Facebook Thank you. But but that hey, maybe there was a bit of luck in that. I don’t know. But so that’s that’s not going to be extrapolated across the population of entrepreneurs. And so we are going to take time and maybe we need to go back and pay our dues somewhere to learn the trade before we come out. I set up a retail shop I missed this chapter. When I came out of law. I thought I’ll set up a shop selling environmentally friendly goods to save the planet at the age of around 30 and I went bust real fast. I should have gone and worked in retail for a while. I didn’t know anything about it. I was just going out.

23:58

Yeah,

Adam G. Force 23:59

yeah. Jim, did I lose you?

Jim Lawless 24:06

I’m still him. Oh, oh, I think I pose for you.

Adam G. Force 24:11

This is laughing. No, it’s true. It’s, you know, don’t pay their dues. It is, you know, we hear this a lot, especially from early stage entrepreneurs who are getting started and, you know, they’re like, well, I don’t have the money for this or that I’m like, well, the reality is you will probably have to straddle two worlds for a while, or you know what I mean? Like, you’re gonna have to have a way to fund your ideas. And that means probably working another job, and then building your dream on the side until you can, you know, shift over. But we also like for me, just as an example, I tested out just like you like I started stuff for, like hemp water bottle business, trying to help with plastic pollution, or a rain forest advocacy group and all these different things. And I actually ended up doing a lot of volunteer work in order to get familiar because these were new fields. This is not where I had my corporate experience. And then I put my corporate experience which is digital marketing and media and it came out to Change Creator and that made life a lot easier when I wasn’t starting from scratch again completely I and it’s and it’s so… I will get 21 year olds writing to me saying I want to be a speaker and how should I do it and I said well give us give us a call and in 10 years and I’ll stay in touch in the meantime it gives a call in 10 years because because as you’re gonna have to have something to speak about and you know, I look back just as you as many other people empathize listening on the audio, the broadcast it back, I studied acting and I took lessons and I listened to comedians, obsessively in my car, about how they were crafting their material. I listen to people from Zig Ziglar to whoever else in terms of business speakers, and concepts that are being put across. And then I went and lift them on horseback being dumped at seven o’clock in the morning by a racehorse into the hedge, and then being screamed at by the trainer, and then I then I checked it on out under meters under the ocean, and then I started bringing it back into the corporate world. And that takes a bit of time, and you probably still hadn’t heard of me, but it’s gonna be Seth Godin or Anthony Robbins, and that’s fine. We’re all making a different contributions, we’ll make our different contributions but but those those days are often are often going to have to pay now that’s not to make it sound like some old guy making out that the only way to get ahead in life is discipline and hard work or that probably is true. It’s really to say as reassurance as reassurance It’s okay if you haven’t made it at a young age, and also give up with the with the lifestyle and I mean, it is that there are times when you just can’t do the lifestyle because, yeah, you’re not willing to invest the time to earn the money to do that. Because you’ve got a big dream to pursue. So if we are speaking at some any entrepreneur but potentially younger now if I’m going to take that back because I know I know lawyers who are my age who became lawyers with me who still tell me they can’t pursue their dreams because they can’t give up the big money so you know, you just can’t give up the big house and the nice car you can give it all up you know, you then go go do it. So so we will sometimes have to make real life choices and the Instagram idea of everyone’s made overnight whilst we’re in the top brands whilst so it’s just you know, as clearly as nonsense So, so let’s, let’s, let’s be focused, placed a bet. Gather great people around us be humble, be curious, be be be knowing that we’re going to fall over and bruise ourselves more ego hopefully than anything else. But that will all take us in the direction. Yeah, yes. Makes a lot of sense. And I’m curious, you know, do you tie in when you’re on stage doing your talks and stuff? Do you talk about your freediving experience? And things like that any, any examples of your own life experience, you know, overcoming these challenges.

Jim Lawless 28:06

freediving is, is a beautiful metaphor. And I mean, I didn’t realize how beautiful when I took it on. I took it on for a number of reasons, not least of which my eldest daughter was very unwell. At the time side, I raised some money for pediatric medical research at the time buff the, the metaphor of literally leaving the comfort zone and going into what I call the confusion zone. All right, it’s rehearsed, you’ve practiced so it’s not entirely confusing, but you’re going into a realm of uncertainty, an incredibly hostile environment, and yet an incredibly beautiful environment. At 100 meters, you’re receiving the biggest hug. It’s 11 times the Earth’s atmospheric pressure. That’s 33 times the atmosphere change coming in to land at an airport and you do Another 60 seconds, and not in a pressurized container. It’s amazing, literally being hugged by the planet. But the primary, the primary challenge for the free diver is mental and emotional discipline and control, I have to override the system telling me to run away. So so it’s an act of mindfulness and meditation and it’s an act of remaining in my frontal cortex, never going anywhere near my amygdala being entirely in charge of what neurotransmitters and hormones are active in my system. And should I lose that even if something goes wrong and I move from a potential anxiety which I avoid into real fear because something has happened? Even then, I do not benefit from releasing adrenaline. Most situations we do a free dive, we do not so so that control becomes vital. So it’s a miniature exercise, in moving from certainty into uncertainty in an undeniably hostile if included right to be beautiful environment like a mountain incredibly beautiful, incredibly dangerous environment, going through extraordinary physical change, where the primary job that you have to succeed is the ability to mentally and physically and emotionally retain control. So it’s a wonderful metaphor and the way I use it on stage, I’ll show the film of my dies and I invite everyone to come and hold their breath. And I’ll make the point the breath holding is actually the easiest part. The mental part is big, and then the managing of pressure changes is the huge technical exercise in the breath hold is really housekeeping. But so I’m inviting to hold their breath and we’ll go on this journey together. But during that I’ll talk about the importance of making a decision to leave the comfort zone behind move to the other side. Even if we keep the day job or whatever other elements people need to be considering. alive. Whilst we whilst we do the transfer. We have to commit to get to The other side because the risk of course if I decide I’m going to go to 80 meters and stop there and have a little thing can see with I like it well yeah may not feel like good 80 meters if I stop and have a think about it I probably better just to move past that point and get on with the job and and come home and you know going going through any adventure of change there’s going to be some really rocky days and that’s real and that’s live and that’s why we admire people who’ve been through this journey and and we make movies about people who’ve been through on an extreme level and that they because they they have had to go to places dig deep get stoutly working harder late make me I’m not gonna say sacrifices but big priority decisions in order to get to the other side. If we don’t make that commitment across the the gorge of the confusion zone to reach the sunny uplands. We will will quit and will either come home and get a job. Back in the safe zone, or will quit somewhere in the middle never never really know what our True Potential was. So I like to use a die to answer your question, Adam, in a long answer there, because I wants to talk a lot about the divers, you raised it. I the way I use it most on stage is to talk about the commitment required. I have to decide at the beginning, okay, we’re doing this now. We’re going to 100 meters and we’re coming home unless there’s a big emergency that I’m gonna bail out. If it all goes well, I’ve got to have the mental capacity in the decision to go through that as no point. At the start of this thinking I’m going to go to 80% See how it’s going because 80% anything could be happening on 80% of the journey.

Adam G. Force 32:40

Yeah, no, I love that. You got 100% commit, prepare yourself. It’s an interesting process. What’s the deepest you ever have gone?

Jim Lawless 32:48

One I want the record. I wanted to be the first Brit past 100 I knew that somebody would break my record, right? Because that’s, that’s the deal. But I thought if I pass 100 and I’m the first guy to do that first. To that from my country, I can always say that at dinner parties as an old guy, I can always say, Well, I was the first to pass. Like, we’re not not as impressive but high performing in Maya, right. I mean, that was seriously impressive, but kind of kind of, I thought I’d always have that little thing. So it’s 101 was the deepest. Wow. It’s not, it’s not super impressive, but but for me, it was it was impressive. I think

Adam G. Force 33:26

it’s impressive. I mean, I’ve seen the deep diving through some videos and stuff. And it is, I can imagine as you’re really getting down there, and that you can feel the pressure, the silence, and you’re really, that’s intense. I can imagine the panic that can overcome you.

Jim Lawless 33:44

Yeah, except that emotion. I mean, it isn’t. It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful. It’s I if I’ve created an impression of it being anything other than stunning, I’ve done a poor job. It’s an exercise in mindfulness and meditation being utterly present. In, in mental discipline in I can’t have the luxury of a little drama moment. I’ve got no one to blame. There’s there’s utter accountability and responsibility. I have a tremendous team on the surface, who have worked with me on this and all support me should anything go wrong, but they can’t do the die for me. They can be in charge of how I conduct myself far away from them at the most critical points. So I have huge responsibility and accountability. And so it’s a little bit like I learned to fly recently and I and I am went solo in a helicopter. It was a little bit it really reminded me of that because there’s a moment when the instructor gets out, and you’ve got utter accountability for this slightly flammable bomb above other people’s houses and, and you just got to get it forget, you know, you got to get yourself back right for everybody underneath you. It’s a it’s a I like going to those places where I have to deny my natural ability and I certainly have the natural ability To let what I call the tiger on that, that force, it says back off, you can’t do it right. back into the comfort zone. I like testing those places. And it’s critical, I think, for my job that I have been there.

Adam G. Force 35:14

Yeah, no, I mean, overcoming those things, I always found that exciting too. I like to do push the boundaries and stuff like that. So I have a respect for people that are out there doing that kind of that deep that free diving and those things are pretty intense. And so I always found it interesting. And, you know, I, you know, as you think about being an entrepreneur and running your business, it’s kind of like, you know, how deep Do you go and are you 100% committed because I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs really will. They, they tend to have that fear factor that we’ve been discussing, and because of that, they end up playing it safe, like I don’t want to get too crazy. So I’m just gonna test the water just gonna go in a little bit, and so everything becomes half ass, and it ends up really creating more problems than good because Because they’re not 100% committed, and they’re constantly playing it safe out of fear.

Jim Lawless 36:05

That’s really interesting. I mean, we have to be when I say playing it safe I think it’s important people take bets that they are willing to lose on the downside. I can tolerate that convert so so playing it safe in that regard. Yes. playing it safe, however as in just just just holding back not fully committing and yeah, that that that is that’s that’s a different conversation. I think. I think that’s very dangerous. So it’s like going into a free dive on committed I mean, you could you could there’s anything you need to know you’re gonna go and do and I think that’s definitely the case with with entrepreneurship. And then I think with for entrepreneurs, I would always say, x together. For any for anyone I’d always say work with a mentor. Now this doesn’t need to be a paid. But it could be that’s that’s the paid coaches job. But that job of the mentor who’s been there before, or the paid coaches to challenge the perceptions Why are you seeing this as a risk? Why are you seeing that? You can’t do that? Yes. Because we will put these barriers up. And it can be extreme. Why are you saying you can’t walk across and speak to that senior person? Or that that that person to whom you are attracted? Why, why Why are you saying that? And that can be an What have you got to lose if you did, and those can be very important questions that can help us catapult forwards, a catapult forwards. So don’t do this in isolation. And that comes back to humility, knowing how to ask for help, which we were not taught to do. We were taught to get it right first time independently at our desk, the smartest in the class better than everybody else. This was the prized possession right, right back to the beginning of our conversation. And now we find the people who are really rattling ahead are the people who turn up willing to look the dentist in a meeting and they’ve done their work. They’re not actually dim, but they are willing to ask the big the big open helped me understand educate me quite You know, rather than and then go off and deploy that alongside their own mighty skills, rather than coming in, looking, looking to show off their skills and leave having acquired no more. So there’s a tremendous amount of humility, that, that comes with learning, taking risks entering into uncertainty. And if we’re not able to, to demonstrate that humility or ego needs, need something else, I think we have, we have a problem, a project an existential problem as an entrepreneur.

Adam G. Force 38:33

Yeah, yeah. You know, I, I’ll wrap up on this note, but I some of the things that I’ve read, which are similar, like you talked about going in the room, being willing to ask what some might say is a dumb question or whatever. You know, it’s this act of also just the willingness to be vulnerable, right, putting yourself out there and so many people do when they want to hide in the back of the classroom or, you know, they don’t want to be the one to put their hand up because God forbid they get the answer. are wrong and they look stupid, you know, that vulnerability is part of it too, I guess.

Jim Lawless 39:07

I think it’s the other side of exactly the same coin, you’ve you’ve, you’ve put your finger on it, if we’re going to create change, we’ve got it, which includes setting up successful businesses to create whatever that may be, we have to do things that no one’s ever done. And that certainly we’ve never done. That means by definition, risk and uncertainty. And if you put me out there in public, surrounded by risks that I might get this wrong, uncertain as to how to act, I’m by definition, in an extremely vulnerable naked position. And if I’m not willing to go out there and and tolerate that and have some strategies for surviving with other people who can hold my hand in that position, then I I am at risk as to my success. Yeah, exactly. It is vulnerable. It is vulnerable, and that’s why we admire it and that’s why when you when you speak to someone successful, unless as in some major figures, they inherited it from their fathers and may or may not have enhanced that fortune over time. If it’s somebody who’s gone from the bottom and made it, they’ve got time for you. They’re very genuinely, generally, they will have time for you for a lazy slacker who’s clearly not doesn’t mean they’re going to contribute anything because that’s against their ethos. But if you’re turning up humble and clearly willing to work and interested and asking big questions, I’ve never met one of those folk who was not humble and willing to engage in a conversation with me.

Adam G. Force 40:32

Interesting, interesting. Well, Jim, I really appreciate it. Man. I love these conversations. I think it’s so important. You know, one of the things I’ve learned over many years of doing business and stuff is a lot of it comes down to the way we think and how we respond to challenges and situations and you know, the mindset and the tactical part and the strategy part we can all figure out right? It’s just really how are we responding to those things and approaching them. So I find these conversations to be super valuable. And I appreciate you sharing your experience and expertise.

Jim Lawless 41:04

Adam, it’s been a huge pleasure, great fun to meet you and talk with you and I wish you and your listeners every possible success.

Adam G. Force 41:10

Thank you very much. We’ll talk soon again. That’s all for this episode. Your next step is to join the Change Creator revolution by downloading our interactive digital magazine app for premium content, exclusive interviews and more ways to stay on top of your game available now on iTunes and Google Play or visit Change Creator mag comm we’ll see you next time where money and meaning intersect right here at the Change Creator podcast.

Listen to our exclusive interview with Drew Dudley:

 

Subscribe to this show on Spotify  |  iTunes  |  Stitcher  |  Soundcloud

As you listen to our interview with Drew Dudley, you’ll soon see why he has been called one of the most dynamic speakers in the world. His talks on leadership are captivating and inspiring — so much so that his 2010 TEDx conference talk on lollipop moments was voted one of the most inspirational TED talks of all time. 

For the last 15 years, Drew has inspired countless individuals and corporations to expand their leadership capacity. In our talk, he discusses the importance of not going overboard in the amount of time you dedicate to your business. Working countless hours each week can become addictive, he warns. We promise ourselves that we’re working an insane number of hours now so that we can work less in the future. However, as company leaders, we become addicted to working too much and end up just following society’s expectations of putting in long hours.

Leadership is not martyrdom.

Working a meager 40 hours per week goes against most of what you’ve heard about scaling your business.

“We live in a 90-hour-per-week hustle culture and if you’re not burning the candle at both ends, you’re clearly not committed to your business.”

Drew points out he is failing himself if he’s working more than 40 hours per week. “If you overdo anything,” he adds, “you don’t love it as much.”

Remember Who It Is You Want to Be

Often, we lose ourselves in the process of setting up a new company to the point that we end up forgetting who we are. Drew points out that our values — those core beliefs that govern our day-to-day decision making — should be reflected in our businesses.

Research shows that clarity on personal values plays a much bigger role in happiness, productivity, retention, and overall effectiveness in the workforce.

Drew’s Six Key Values

Drew shared with us his six key values, each of which has a specific question tied to it that helps him make sure that he’s acknowledging the leadership skills in others. These values are:

• impact
• growth
• courage
• empowerment
• class
• self-respect

It seems logical to make business decisions that will avoid any immediate negative consequences. But what if those decisions go against your values? Drew points out that sometimes we sacrifice integrity in order to save the company. The problem is that you will always regret this down the road. Why? Because you’ve gone against the fundamental beliefs that make you who you are.

The Five Year Question

One amazing bit of advice Drew offers when faced with a critical decision to make is this: Ask yourself how a person you respect would react five years from now. Would they support you in having gone against your values to keep your business afloat, or would they be proud of you for sticking to what you believe in and doing what you feel was the right thing to do? Drew promises us that the latter is what will make us happiest in the long run.

Good leaders live their values whenever they get the chance and great leaders create opportunities to live their values.

We also recommend:

• 7 Simple Qualities of Great Leaders
• How to Cut Through the Overwhelm and Start to Enjoy Storytelling
• 3 Ways to Implement Honest Marketing into Your Business Today

Transcription of Interview (Transcribed by Otter.ca; there may be errors.)

Adam Force 0:12
Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome back to the change Creator podcast show. This is your host, Adam Force. And if you missed last week’s episode, it was with Paxton Gray. He is one of the main guys over at 92nd floor. And he’s an SEO and content marketing and strategy expert. So we got into a lot of good stuff there. We even branched off and spoke about Cambridge Analytica. So that was a fun little tangent to go off on.

And today we’re going to be talking with Drew Dudley. Drew is a leadership expert. He’s worked with all kinds of major companies like JPMorgan Chase and major universities. But also, he had his first book, “A Practical Guide to Leadership That Matters” And he’s spoken to 250,000 people across five continents, doing TED Talks, and all that kind of stuff. So a lot of exciting experience and knowledge coming from Drew, we’re going to tap into that conversation in just a minute. And just yesterday, we were talking about how some people are getting very frustrated with their, you know, marketing, not connecting, they’re doing all the social media posts, they’re doing blog posts, podcast, you know, all this stuff. And they’re just not getting the results, you know, webinars that go out there, and they’re not making sales, and we totally get it. We’ve been there; this is a disconnect. You know, there are two things that have to happen: a good product, and a good offer. And then you have to have also a third thing, I guess, which is you’ve got to have your messaging line up. And that’s part of that offer, right? So, you know, when your messaging is out of sync, these things just don’t work.

So if you see other people getting results with the same stuff you’re doing, and you’re not getting the results, that’s usually why. And you know, we we ran a beta for our captivate program in 2018, and worked with a bunch of people like Jay Shetty, and Seth Godin, and got all kinds of advice and put together a program to help solve that problem — to fill that gap, you know, using storytelling, provide clarity, but also how do we use it with our businesses and our startups, and where do we apply it and all that kind of good stuff. So we are on version 3.0, of what we call the Captivate Method now, which is really exciting, guys. So our team has been putting it together, and we’re going to start getting our plans for release. 3.0 is not out yet. This is going to be a much more enhanced program and platform with major community forums and all that kind of stuff. Lots of coaching calls, live sessions, and goodies. So keep an eye out.

I wanted to just give you guys a heads up that we are working hard to help solve for that disconnect that is causing frustration. But more importantly, is causing entrepreneurs to give up on what they’re doing. Right from burnout or just financial strain. Okay? So we need your ideas. You guys are out there trying to change the world, we want you to succeed. So we’re working really hard to make sure you can overcome those challenges. Alright, guys, we’re gonna jump into this conversation with Drew and let’s see what he has to say. Don’t forget to stop by the App Store and leave us reviews. We appreciate it.

Announcer 3:03
Okay, show me the heat.

Adam Force 3:08
Hey, Drew, welcome to the Change Creator podcast show. How you doing today, man?

Drew Dudley 3:12
I’m doing amazing. I’m in my happy place when I do this interview. So I’m really excited to be here.

Adam Force 3:19
Awesome. Yeah, so we were just talking before this chat, and you know, the name keeps escaping me. We tell me that happy place again. Where were you in Canada?

Drew Dudley 3:28
Oh, I’m in Cape Breton Island. So the northern tip of Nova Scotia. And if anyone out there is listening, make this part of your to-do list in your life.

Adam Force 3:37
I’m actually going to write it down so I can look it up when we’re done. Okay. Cool. So yeah, what are you doing out there, you just want to vacation, you got some stuff going on for work? Tell me what you have going on these days

Drew Dudley 3:52
Well, actually, what happened was I have a speech that is happening this Friday, and it’s Tuesday right now. And one of the things when I talk about my work, and we’ll probably get into this a little bit later, is making sure that I never lose sight of the fact that leadership isn’t martyrdom. And you know, it’s all about 90 hours a week and the hustle culture, particularly in the entrepreneurial world is just like, if you’re not burning the candle at both ends, you’re not really committed to your business and to growth. And one of the things I’ve discovered, you know, after doing things on my own now for over 10 years, is that basically, when you’re empty, you have nothing to give. And so I came out here because even though it’s only three or four days of downtime, and hiking, where I can continue to work on ideas, I can continue to work on speeches, and sort of write as I walk, ultimately, I’m so much better at my job if I take even two or three days in a place that makes me feel refilled, as opposed to trying to pack it into, you know, two weeks of vacation once a year. It really is a way of recharging. So it’s something I try to scatter throughout my work. And you know, this might be sacrilegious in the entrepreneurial world. But I’ve come to believe if I work more than 40 hours a week, I’m actually failing myself because I love my work. But if you overdo anything, you don’t love it as much. So for me, it’s sort of like as long as I keep my work organized and efficient and I don’t work more than 40 hours a week, one, I better at my job, and two, work always stays a treat. Because I mean, you could love pizza, man, but if you eat pizza for a month straight, even this thing that you love begins to lose a little bit of luster. So I’m out here to follow my own advice.

Adam Force 5:39
Well, I love hearing that because I’m with the man I’m on the train of you know, not agreeing with this, like I work 100 hours a week, it’s the only way to succeed. And like, you know, I see too many times otherwise, that people who work hard but smart and you know, you accomplish the things that you need to do in a reasonable amount out of time. Right? And you know, I always said when I was in the corporate world, I was like, just because someone’s coming in early and staying late doesn’t mean they’re getting more done.

Drew Dudley 6:09
Yeah, and I think one of the things that gets me is this idea that we convince ourselves that we’re only doing it temporarily, right, like I’m working 90 hours a week now, so that I can, you know, spend more time with my family or I can have freedom later on in life. And what happens is, it’s an addiction, right? So you tell yourself, you’re doing it to create all this time and freedom and security later on. But we never stop doing it, when we have the opportunity to start living a life that sort of is better for us. We just don’t, because we’ve never trained ourselves to do it. And I think that’s something is that we always rationalize that approach is temporary, for long term gain. But I found very few people that once they get, you know, to that place they were chasing, ever give up the lifestyle and and I was one of those people and I am much more productive, much more successful, and much happier now that I’ve sort of said, Hey, those hundred hour a week craziness that I did 10 years ago, they got me to a place where I could take that philosophy. And I actually seize that opportunity. I see a lot of people who don’t.

Adam Force 7:15
Yeah, no, it makes sense. And there is that culture today. And I mean, I guess it’s been around for years, but you hear the words “grind” and “hustle” in everybody’s entrepreneurial vocabulary. And after a while, it just drives me nuts. Everyone’s like, Oh, I’m grinding. I’m hustling. I’m like, and so I don’t know, I feel the same way on different levels with that. And I’m certainly not afraid of hard work. And I do lots of that myself. But I guess it depends on how we define that and what we’re actually spending our time doing, exactly.

Drew Dudley 7:48
Because when you grind things like if you really think about what a grind is, there’s a purpose to it, right? You’re grinding something to sharpen the saw, right? Yeah. And ultimately, if you don’t stop and say, okay, the grinding has now accomplished its purpose, what happens if you leave anything up against the grindstone for an indefinite amount of time? It just gets worn down to nothing. And when you wear yourself down to nothing, that’s a hard hole to climb back out of. And so I’m not saying don’t work hard. And I’m not saying don’t be passionate, I am saying that you need to build a business that serves your life. And by that what I mean is that you need to build a business that is going to give you the last day of work that you want. Look ahead and say, What do you want the last day of work of your life to look like? How do you want to feel? And make sure that you’re building a company that creates that and serves your life, as opposed to you creating a company that you are then a slave to forever. And yeah, you created it. But now it’s now it’s your master. And I think that that’s really important. Because if something you build becomes your master, you know, why did you build it?

Adam Force 8:55
Yeah, and I think something that you said there really stuck out, which is you build a company that serves you. And you know, everyone can have a slightly different variation of what success means to them, right? So you can run a million dollar a year company with you and a partner. And that could be more than enough for your lifestyle, you know, you don’t have to have 100 million dollar a year company. So don’t let other people define what success looks like for you. Right?

Drew Dudley 9:22
Yeah, because for me, success is being completely happy with what you have, even as you’re driven to try to accomplish more like my job and what we managed to build, I’m still driven to take on new challenges and grow. But if there was never another day of growth for the rest of my life, in terms of business, I am really happy with the life that has been created around me. And so I think that true success is when you can say I am driven, I want to get more, I want to grow more, and I want to become something bigger as a person in terms of skill and insight. But I’m really happy with what I have. Yeah, when you’re happy with what you have, and you’re still driven to want more, not because you’re supposed to, but because it’s an innate piece of who you are, that’s a successful life. If right now you say I have built something that makes me happy and I still want to do more, but I’m not sort of addicted to that need. So that’s what success means to me. And, and I think you’re right, the idea that you could make $20 million. And people look at you and say if you can make 20 and you don’t, you’re a fool because you’re not hustling. You know, I’ve lived that a lot of my life. And I’m just like, making more money than I make now means being miserable more than I am now. And as long as what you’ve got is enough to make you live the life you want, why be miserable? Right? Like because honestly, if you’re miserable doing when you work for yourself — like, is there anything worse than just hating your job and you created it? You got no one to look at now.

Adam Force 10:58
You can’t blame the company you work for anymore. Oh my god, this is my own creation; I created a monster.

Drew Dudley 11:05
Exactly.

Adam Force 11:05
So you know, we have a lot of entrepreneurs listening in who are actually — I think a lot of the people that are listening are transitioning or have transitioned from corporate to start something on their own, because they wanted to do something that served them more, meaning it’s meaningful to them, right. So, you know, you want to be excited when you wake up. And I think a tough part for people is, one, when you start a business, there are a lot of moving parts. And you know, as you get started, you have to be a leader from day one. And you have to start making decisions on what to do and how to spend the little bit of budget you might have. Do you bring someone on board or not? And so we’ve gone through all kinds of mistakes, Change Creators, my second company, and I am curious to hear your thoughts. So for that early phase, starting first few years, let’s start a conference around leadership at that point. So any thoughts jumped into your head that you want to just kind of kick that off with?

Drew Dudley 12:07
Yeah, I think one of the things to which we often fall victim when we’re starting our own company, is because it means so much to us, what happens is we start to substitute our to-do list for our to be list. You know, when we start to identify, yes, we want to build this company. But I think far more important when it comes to leadership is Who do you want to be as a person. Because I said your company should serve who you are and should give you the opportunity to create the change you’re looking for in the world. Like, how is your product going to impact people? How is it going to make their lives better? And we get so tied up in how we build the company that we often put aside making sure that we stay true to who we want to be. So one of the things that I encourage everyone, whether they’re starting a business or not, is make sure you define the things you want to define you. And what I mean by that you’re going to be faced with all kinds of decisions, some of the ones that you just laid out, for instance. You’re gonna be faced with all kinds of decisions through building your company.

My question for people is, what criteria are you going to use to make decisions because one of the things that leaders have is a set definition for what their decision making is going to be. And you know, I call it a personal leadership philosophy. And another way you could call it is a decision making philosophy. But what the research shows is, if you’re seen as somebody who has a personal leadership philosophy, or is very clear about how you make decisions, and by that, I mean, you can rhyme them off your leadership philosophy in 30 seconds or less. If you do so, it’s not the first time in the last 72 hours that you’ve done it. And if I asked somebody who knows you well, or particularly works with you, hey, what what’s this personal leadership or her personal leadership philosophy, they’re going to rhyme it off, and they’re probably going to roll their eyes when they do it. What it means is that you’ve repeated so many times how you make decisions. And what that means is that what people may not always agree with your decisions, they’re always going to know, and respect the fact that you’re consistent and how you make them. And so what I always argue is: Define the things you want to define you.

So if somebody followed you around for 30 days, and watched how you built your business, how you interact with customers, how you interacted with employees, and with people you’ve never met before, out, serving you a drink in a bar or a meal in a restaurant, at the end of those 30 days, if I sat that person down and said you follow this person without their knowledge, what three values do they stand for above all others? Like what three values do they hope to leave in their wake, personally and professionally? And what three values do they pivot to every time they have to make a difficult decision? You know, if you’ve been the man or the woman you want it, I’ll ask you, my friend. If that was what I did to you, what three values do you hope that person says they see out of you? What three values you want to leave in your wake everywhere you go?

Adam Force 15:06
Sure, yeah, I mean, one big value is collaboration, I believe in working together with people and not competition. So collaboration, I believe in putting people first. So always thinking about the action I’m taking and the holistic costs behind it. So people first, and my last one would be family. So making sure that my life incorporates family into my overall success.

Drew Dudley 15:40
That’s awesome. And what I do is I know a lot of people do that for their business, they put a lot of effort and time into saying, Here are our business values. And that’s important. But what’s interesting is the research shows that clarity on personal values plays a much bigger role in happiness, productivity, retention, overall effectiveness in the workforce. So one of the things I say to leaders as they’re building is determine your criteria for decision making. So define the values you want to define you. And then ultimately, decision making becomes a simple process, but not an easy one. So every time you have to make a decision, as you start to build your business, what you do is you look at the options available to you, and you hold them up next to your list of personal values. And you ask which one of these options is most consistent with these values? Yeah. And the challenge with that is that often the option that’s most consistent with your values sucks, like it doesn’t allow you to avoid consequences, it doesn’t let you look good. It doesn’t let you take the money or remain in the relationship or stay in the job, which I’m sure some of the people listening to this have already experienced.

But ultimately, it’s always the decision you’re happiest you made five years from now, as you start to build a company, every decision you make, ask yourself, Is this the way I want to describe this decision to a room full of people I respect five years from now. And if you make every decision, as if you’re explaining it to a group of people you respect five years from now, instead of you’re about to make it, a lot of the noise surrounding decisions falls away. Now, ultimately, one of the things I ask people is that if you haven’t defined your values, and a value is only a value, if you always reference it, when you make decisions, like if you don’t think about your values, as you make decisions, then they’re not actually values. But what I always ask people is, if you’ve never taken the time to identify and define your personal values, as a professional as a person, what criteria have you been using to make decisions your whole life? And for most people, and me, myself included, the criteria we too often use to make decisions is, which option will avoid the most consequences right now? And that’s not good business decision making. And that’s not good personal decision making.

So one of the first things I always say is, you’re going to have to make a ton of decisions, and there’s going to be a lot of uncertainty in your life. Figure out what are the core values that no matter what you do, you want to make sure you stay true to those. And make sure that you always reference them when making decisions. Do not allow yourself to make decisions based on what will avoid the most consequences now, always make them on what will stay truest to who I am. Because even if that decision causes you to lose a company, and I know that’s scary to think, five years from then you will still be glad that you made that decision. Because all the short term consequences will have passed and what you’ll be left with is a memory that said, this was the man or woman I wanted to be. And sometimes we will sacrifice saving our own integrity in order to save our company. And believe it or not, you always regret that down the road.

Adam Force 19:01
There’s a lot of good points packed into, you know, what you just talked about. And I think something that stood out to me is, you know, I like the way you phrase it go five years down the road, do you look back? Is this something that aligns to who you are, and that you’re proud of when you tell people? I think it’s important because there’s a level of consistency. So to your point, when you’re making decisions based not just on business values, but just personal life values that translate to your business decision making this then should be consistent throughout the entire digital footprint that you have. Because one thing with today, you know, we have these businesses that are making a difference in the world. And as new businesses come up from entrepreneurs that are not established yet. And you know, trust comes with established businesses. So when you don’t have that people look into who you are. So for example, I went to your website, your book page, or social media, and if I see on your personal Facebook, you’re talking out of the other side of your mouth than your business values, like it’s going to be conflicting and inconsistent to me, which then I lose trust.

Drew Dudley 20:08
Yeah, and that’s something that always bear in mind. I joke that in my book, one of the values that I want to live up to is class, which is a commitment to treating people in situations better than they deserve to be treated. And one of the things I said is that leaders always elevate, they never escalate. and elevate means trying to succeed and escalate means trying to win, which means I’ve kind of tied my arms, just as what you said, because there are times that I pissed off, and I want to tweet, and then I realized, dammit, man, you said that leaders never escalate. And, you know, and if you do look, you’ll occasionally find me not following that. But it’s almost always related to people being jackasses on planes. I’m like, I don’t care leaders elevate but don’t escalate that you take your damn socks off on a plane, I’m escalating that.

Adam Force 20:57
I earned the right to escalate that.

Drew Dudley 21:00
Yeah. So I mean, that’s the thing, right is that I have to recognize that I have made that statement. And now every time that I do not elevate a situation, but I say something snarky or I escalate, or I bitch, ultimately, what I’ve said to people is, Hey, I don’t actually buy that. And the thing is, it’s always in my head. And it really should be in yours as well. And there is no such thing as a personal Facebook page. I don’t care how high your privacy is, and like, personal business, whatever. If it’s out there, it’s out there.

Adam Force 21:32
Yeah, you better be consistent and know that everyone’s looking at it, whether you think it’s just family and friends or not, that’s not true.

Yeah, I learned that. And that’s all connected that stuff. So it’s important. And I think it ties together well with what you were talking about. So something for people to be aware of, as they’re trying to earn the trust from, you know, new people who are learning about what they do.

So so let’s just shift gears a little bit, or just use that as a segue to talk about your book, you mentioned the book, and “This Is Day One: A Practical Guide to Leadership That Matters.” And for anybody that doesn’t know, Drew has done a handful of TEDx talks. One of them was the lollipop moment, and I actually saw that one. It’s a fun story. It’s inspiring, all that good stuff. And it’s been quite popular. So things you could check out through his website. But true, let’s just tap into this book. Obviously, this has been a big part of your life, a focus this whole concept around leadership. And now you have this book where you’re, you’re putting it into practical terms for people. So give us the overview of why you decided to put your time and energy into a book and what you’re trying to convey to people.

Drew Dudley 22:41
Sure, well, the book emerged from a fact that I got annoyed about something, which was I ran a leadership program at the University of Toronto, and I’m surrounded by extraordinary leaders, we’re talking students, staff, students who are trying to foster social justice to raise money for charities, and they just would not call themselves leaders. They kept seeing leadership, something they were training for. And what I started to realize is that we’ve been educated out of seeing ourselves as leaders, because we’ve been taught that leaders are giants, from a very young age, and whatever examples you’re given to demonstrate a concept early in life, not only does it shape the way you think of that concept for the rest of your life, it also limits it.

And because we teach kids about leadership, using presidents and scientific groundbreakers, what we basically have done is educated people out of their leadership. And we created a world where the vast majority of the leadership on the planet is coming from people who don’t see themselves as leaders. Because we have dismissed the idea that individual moments of impact of generosity of kindness, of empathy and of forgiveness aren’t leadership, they’re the little things. And what we do is when we call these moments that have the biggest inner personal impact that we have, when we dismiss them as little we reinforce the idea that leadership, for it to be active leadership, it has to make you rich, or it has to make you famous, or it has to involve power, and followers. And so ultimately, I wanted to outline a form of leadership to which we all can and should aspire, I do not argue that everybody can be a CEO, or a senior executive, or even start their own business. But there is a form of leadership that we can focus on on a daily basis. And ultimately, what I wanted to do is give people a step by step process, to making sure that every day individually, they have engaged in specific leadership behaviors.

And so we created a process called the leadership test, which basically is a six-question test, that at the end of each day, we adopted the philosophy that imagine at the end of each day, you had to prove you deserve another day on this planet. And in order to prove it, you had to pass a test. But you actually were given the questions for the test in the morning. And if that was the case, those questions would be non-negotiable each day. You would not try to fit them in between meetings and emails, you would make sure that you live them each day. And what we did is we created a set of questions tied to our core values. And you can’t answer those questions without living your values.

So we said, you know, impact is a value we wanted to live. Well, in order to do that every day, we try to answer the question, What have I done today to recognize someone else’s leadership? And what we do is my work and the book is designed to help people figure out what their specific personal values are. Because you can’t just ask people, you actually have to walk them through the process of surfacing them. And then how can they create their own version of the leadership test? And it’s specifically a test because tests have questions. And what’s really interesting is when we were trying to come up with a way to make it more likely we’d actually live our values, we discovered that simply saying, Okay, I’m going to have impact, or I’m going to have class wasn’t effective. And so what we did is I actually went to a group of psychology professors, and I said, Okay, what are some subconscious motivators that we could use to make sure that this commitment we have to behavior actually translates into behavior? Because we all know that just saying we’re going to do it doesn’t mean you do. And they actually gave you a couple of psychological effects that we turned into these questions because one’s called this the Zeigarnik effect, which says, things on your to-do list that you haven’t completed, take up a more prominent space, and you’re just doing some things you have. So in other words, stuff you haven’t finished bugs you until you finish it.

And the question behavior effect says, If I ask you a series of questions about a behavior in the morning, you’re way more likely to engage in that behavior later in the day. And so if questions can drive behavior, and unfinished tasks cause psychic discomfort, one of the most powerful drivers of human behavior are unanswered questions. When presented with an unanswered question, your brain will feel uncomfortable until it finds an answer, it will seek a way to answer it. And so when you create a question in your life, and you planted it in the morning, that is tied to particular behaviors, what have I done today to recognize someone else’s leadership? How do they help someone else move closer to a goal today? You know, how did I What did I do today to be good to myself, that’s actually going to cause psychic discomfort in your brain until you answer it. So we basically made our brains uncomfortable, until they did certain actions. And those certain actions were specifically tied to specific values.

So that’s sort of where it all came from the day one concept is, the first day of any voyage is the day you’re most committed, you’re most humble and you’re most forgiving. And so the idea is that you say, this is my first day of my leadership voyage. And here are the non-negotiable behaviors that you make part of that voyage, and then you treat me every day as if it’s your first day on the voyage, which actually, you know, emerged in large part from my recovery from alcoholism. Every day you treat it like the first day of your recovery because committing to a particular behavior for the rest of your life every day is too intimidating. So the key is, choose not to have a drink today. And then just treat every day like it’s the first day because I can’t commit to not drinking for the rest of my life. I can’t, but I can commit today. And if I treat every day of the rest of my life as if it’s that first day, then I can do it. And my argument is that we can claim to be leaders and claim to stand for values. But for the most part, most of us can’t point to a specific thing we’ve done today that lives up to those values, we assume that will do it when we get the chance. And good leaders live their values whenever they get the chance. But what separates great leaders from good leaders is that good leaders live their values whenever they get the chance. And great leaders create opportunities to live their values. So the whole book is about saying, okay, you claim to stand for this. Here’s how you prove it every day. Because it’s not just about proving it to other people. It’s about proving it to yourself. And if somebody says, for instance, family is a core value, but you can’t point to a single thing you did today, that reinforces the value of family. And if you’re working 17 hours a day, you’re probably not, you know, it makes you prove it to yourself. And when you’re proving it to yourself, effectively, you’re engaging in behaviors that prove it to other people. So I wanted to write a book that says, figure out what your values are, figure out your own personal questions and create your own leadership test. And what you’ll do is you’ll start to behave every day in a way that you can’t deny is leadership.

Adam Force 29:44
Yeah, that sounds awesome. I mean, lots of inspirational stuff. I just like the way some of the ideas are framed up to help, you know, understand them and take action and things like that. So I guess the proven method of having questions at the beginning of the day, that kind of gnaw at the brain. I haven’t heard that one before. So that’s actually really interesting. And I’m curious, then do you start your day off with certain questions in mind?

Drew Dudley 30:16
Oh, yeah, I’ve got six. And you know, what’s interesting is when you first start, you really got them front and center. But the more you do them, the more it becomes instinctual. We also have an app that you can download that will ask you your questions and say noon, three, six, and nine.

But I have six key values that I want to drive me in my business every day: impact, growth, courage, empowerment, class, and self-respect. And the questions tied to those impact what have I done today to recognize someone else’s leadership, there’s so much leadership around you. And it might be the people that inspire you, it could be the person who makes you smile every day when they hand you coffee. We have so many opportunities to recognize that leadership. And if you are going to start, you’re listening to this, and you’re going to start with one, that one every day for the next 30 days. What have I done to recognize someone else’s leadership for growth? What have I done today to make it more likely someone will learn something, and that could be yourself or someone else? For courage? What have I tried today, that might not work, but tried anyway? And if you’re interested, there’s a great TED talk by John Zhang, who talks about 100 days straight, where he tried to be rejected. And that’s the whole idea of bringing courage back into our life when we’ve been educated out of it. Empowerment is what have I done today to move someone else closer to a goal?

The whole idea of being if you’re creating a business, we need to get people who’ve come out of the education system, and they’ve been taught from day one, you are competing with one another. And ultimately, that question is about creating a culture that says, Yeah, if you outperform 90% of the people in an organization, yeah, maybe you’ll make six figures. But if you become the type of person where everyone who works with you outperforms everyone who doesn’t, then you’re indispensable. And that’s so much rare. And in order to become that person, what have you done today to help someone else move closer to a goal? class is when did I elevate instead of escalate today, and self-respect is, what did I do today to be good to myself. And what happens is, sometimes you’ll plan ahead and say, you know, what, I’m going to call my former boss and tell them that they were leader in my life. But what happens more frequently, is because the questions — and I like the phrase you use, “gnaw at your brain,” what happens is when an opportunity to answer the question actually pops into your sort of daily life, immediately, your brain goes, here’s the chance, grab it now.

And sometimes that sucks, you know, like, I get pissed off over the course of a day or on a phone call. And as I’m about to sort of, you know, let them have it, the little voice pops in my head and says, shit, here’s your chance to elevate instead of escalate, and you kind of have to because that’s the rule. And it does, you know, it starts to, you know, you got a bulkhead seat on the window, and a guy says, Can you switch seats with me for my middle seat in row 32? So I could sit next to my family? And let’s face it, you know, it’s a nine-hour flight? I don’t want to do that. But in my head is the question, you know, how did I help someone else move closer to a goal today? How did I elevate instead of escalate, you know, and the big overall is this when you don’t know what to do, you ask yourself, what would the person who I want to be do in this situation? And then you do that. You know, I often say to people, when you don’t know what to do, ask yourself, what would a great woman do in this situation? What would a great man do in this situation, and then do that.

And ultimately, the option that a great man or a great woman would take, that is also an option that is available to you. And so that I think is the key to these questions is, every time you’re presented with an opportunity to answer them, you have to fight with your brain not do it. And usually, it’ll win.

Adam Force 34:02
Yeah. And you keep the same questions every day, or do you change them up?

Drew Dudley 34:08
For the most part, they always evolve over time. But for the most part, as long as those are the values I want to live, those are the questions that I personally have. Now, the thing is, I don’t try to get, as I said, all six of them every day, I try to pass the test, which means three out of six. And if I get three out of six every day of the year, that’s still over 1000 conscious pieces of value of actions that I’ve taken, that are completely consistent with my values. And on the days where everything outside of your control blows up in your face, what this allows you to do is still recognize that while the day may have been a loss, it wasn’t a waste, because you did seize the opportunity to be the person that you want to be. And that seems like a simple thing. But it’s often not something that we give ourselves. The whole concept of Day One is the idea that you’re not always in charge of what you have to do every day. But you’re always in charge of who you are, as you do it. And I think that we sometimes lose sight of that fact. And if we don’t flex that power, we forget that we have it.

Adam Force 35:11
I love it. Listen, let’s close up on that note, I think that’s awesome. And love, love what you’re talking about and some of the insights that you shared here. So we appreciate your time to do that. And let’s give a shout out to where people can find more about you and catch your TED Talks. Find your book. I’m gonna let you go ahead and shout out your website here.

Drew Dudley 35:33
Sure, it’s drewdudley.com. And on the various social media, it’s @dayonedrew.

Adam Force 35:47
Awesome. They have it drewdudley.com. You can find his book and all kinds of other goodies on there, guys. So check out Drew and his work. As you heard today, he’s got lots of good ideas, so you probably gonna enjoy his book. Drew, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it and look forward to hearing more from you.

Drew Dudley 36:05
Oh, man, thanks for this opportunity. I love getting to share ideas.

Adam Force 36:08
You got it. Talk to you later.

Announcer 36:09
That’s all for this episode. Your next step is to join the Change Creator revolution by downloading our interactive digital magazine app for premium content, exclusive interviews, and more ways to stay on top of your game available now on iTunes and Google Play or visit changecreatormag.com. We’ll see you next time where money and meeting intersect right here at the Change Creator podcast.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Interview with coach, author and entrepreneur, Moe Carrick

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One of the important parts of any companies success is the team and the culture that is created for the company. The best time to begin creating a great company culture is at day one if possible. As you build your team and bring new people on to be part of the journey, you want to have your culture that will help them thrive.

Moe Carrick offers a fresh, honest, and direct roadmap for leaders everywhere who seek to make their workplace fit for human life as she says. And, she offers advice for workers and encourages them to be their authentic selves, something we truly love at Change Creator.

Her message resonates with leaders in all organizations, at every level, as well as those in development, HR, OD, coaching, and consulting who advise others about organizational culture, leadership, structures, and teams.

Moe’s book Bravespace Workplace: Making Your Company Fit for Human Life shows us the truth of what it takes to make companies bring out the absolute best in human beings, despite our messy, imperfect, needy, demanding, and complex habits, needs and issues.

You might also enjoy:

• 5 Powerful Ways To Use The Hero’s Journey To Easily Grow Your Impact Business

• Nasreen Sheikh: From Child Slave to Powerful Social Entrepreneur Helping Women Escape Poverty

Exclusive interview with Art Barter. 

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As the CEO and cultural architect of Datron World Communications, Art Barter transformed the organization from a $10 million company to a $200 million company in just six years after taking ownership of the company and converting the leadership style to servant leadership.

He says servant leadership is powerful because it leverages influence rather than fear to accomplish a company’s goals. Art believes the word ‘servant’ implies action. And action is what is needed in leadership today–action that puts others first, not ourselves going beyond the effort of making money in order to make a greater impact in the lives and communities around us.

He believes when leaders shift their mindset and serve first, they unlock purpose and ingenuity in those around them. Resulting in higher performance with engaged, fulfilled employees and overall strong relationships and compassion for one another at every level in the workplace.

Today, Art helps others discover and benefit from the power of servant leadership through the Servant Leadership Institute.

Some of the questions and topics we discuss:

1. Where did he start and how did he get where his is today? (from janitor to leading a $200m company)
2. What is servant leadership?
3. What is the power model?
4. What was the big change he made and how did employees take it?
5. How is his impact model structured and how does it motivate people? (They have given $16m to causes)
6. What factors contributed to his success in scaling the company from $10m company to a $200m company?
7. How do you balance serving people and making money?
8. What does a good leader to manage people effectively and get them to do their best?
9. How do you start creating a mission-focused culture from the start?

That just scratches the surface!

[earnist ref=”the-art-of-servant-leadership” id=”33708″]

You might also enjoy:

• How to Hire a Great Leader: 4 Things You Must Always Do
• Life of a CEO: Knife-in-the-Back to Epiphany
• Can Kindness Make You a Better Boss?

Exclusive interview with Echoing Green Director, Kate Hayes. 

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In this interview Adam talk with Kate about nonprofit boards. Oddly, enough this seems to be a much overlooked area when considering social change. Yet, it’s full of potential for impact.

We talk about the traditional role boards have played along with their shortcomings. Kate explains how this is changing today and what she’s doing to help reshape the role boards and their members play.  This is a really exciting topic and a powerful way to become a leader who drives real social impact.

Who is Kate Hayes anyway?

Hayes oversees programming for a dynamic group of emerging business leaders who are dedicated to realizing their full potential as agents of social change.

Prior to joining Echoing Green, she worked as Director of Evaluation and Program Impact in the national office of Minds Matter, where she developed new systems and methods for evaluating organizational success. While at Minds Matter, she led several new initiatives for engaging alumni, scaling the organization, and training 1,700 skills-based volunteers across the United States.

Kate currently sits on the Executive Committee at the Northfield Mount Hermon School, where she also serves as Chair of the Young Alumni Committee.

Some of the questions we discuss:

1. How did Kate get involved with Echoing Green and her mission around nonprofit boards?
2. What do boards traditionally look like and what do you want them to transform into now?
3. How do you make sure the new functions of a board happen effectively?
4. Do board members think big picture or roll up their sleeves to help with the details?
5. How can you drive true change by joining a board?
6. Who is the right person for a board and how big are boards typically?
7. Should your nonprofit have a board?
8. What does great leadership look like?

That just scratches the surface.

Listen to the interview for more.

Exclusive interview with Nobel Peace Prize winner and Issue 13 cover story, Dr. Muhammad Yunus.

In this interview, we talk with Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dr. Muhammad Yunus who is the Godfather of Social Business tackling poverty head-on. Discover his secrets to success, advice to new Change Creators, and what the future holds.

He is known as the “Banker to the Poor.”

“Poverty does not belong in civilize human society. Its proper place is in a museum.” ~Yunus

Dr. Yunus established the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983, fueled by the belief that credit is a fundamental human right. His objective was to help poor people escape from poverty by providing loans on terms suitable to them and by teaching them a few sound financial principles so they could help themselves.

From Dr. Yunus’ personal loan of small amounts of money to destitute basket weavers in Bangladesh in the mid-70s, the Grameen Bank has advanced to the forefront of a burgeoning world movement toward eradicating poverty through microlending. Replicas of the Grameen Bank model operate in more than 100 countries worldwide.

Dr. Yunus is the recipient of numerous international awards for his ideas and endeavors, including the Mohamed Shabdeen Award for Science (1993), Sri Lanka; Humanitarian Award (1993), CARE, USA; World Food Prize (1994), World Food Prize Foundation, USA; Independence Day Award (1987), Bangladesh’s highest award; King Hussein Humanitarian Leadership Award (2000), King Hussien Foundation, Jordan; Volvo Environment Prize (2003), Volvo Environment Prize Foundation, Sweden; Nikkei Asia Prize for Regional Growth (2004), Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan; Franklin D. Roosevelt Freedom Award (2006), Roosevelt Institute of The Netherlands; and the Seoul Peace Prize (2006), Seoul Peace Prize Cultural Foundation, Seoul, Korea. He is also a member of the board of the United Nations Foundation.

It was truly and honor to speak with Dr. Yunus and ask him pressing questions about social business and the future of the economy.

In this interview, we ask questions such as…

1. What was the inspiration for your new book, A World of Three Zeros: The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Net Carbon Emissions?
2. What causes people to have self-doubting beliefs when considering entrepreneurship?
3. Where does someone who takes a micro-loan get their insights to learn how to start a business?
4. Is the money system the ultimate old road that we have to change?
5. Is there ever a place in the future for a different economy that does not use money?
6. If you’re addressing problems like plastic pollution or deforestation is there always a way to make money?
7. As more people start social businesses do you see common characteristics between great leaders?
8. Will automation help spike social business?

Plus so much more amazing discussion!

Exclusive interview with entrepreneur and author, Jarie Bolander.

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Bolander is an engineer by training and an entrepreneur with over 20 years of bringing innovative solutions to market such as Bluetooth, USB, RFID and Semiconductor DNA sequencing. He is currently the co-founder and COO of Lab Sensor Solutions, a digital health company that is applying sensor technology to track the temperature and location of perishables to prevent spoilage.

But the reason we are here now is because he is also the author of, The Entrepreneur Ethos: How to Build a More Ethical, Inclusive, and Resilient Entrepreneur Community. These are essential building blocks of the future for any entrepreneur to better understand and succeed in creating a more just world.

Bolander’s book helps anyone seeking to be an Entrepreneur and needs some proven background experience before starting a successful path. This book outlines mistakes and successes that will help those seeking to be a successful Entrepreneur and how Ethos plays such and important part of success. Well researched with factual cases.

In this interview we ask questions such as…

1. What gave Bolander the knowledge and insight to write such a book?
2. What was your process for putting the book together?
3. How did writing this book impact you as a person?
4. What kind of community are you defining in your book and why?
5. What are some of the key lessons people will learn from this book?
6. Who is this book best suited for?
7. The book discusses successes and failure of companies so does that tie into how they operate their company culture?

Plus so much more!

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