Building Lasting Relationships with Meredith Bell

Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments

Episode Summary

Today’s guest on the Successful Pitch is Meredith Bell, who’s an expert at communication, connection, and listening. She said, “It’s really important that the people you work with and go into business with, that you have the same values, respect for each other and really look at the person with equality.” She said, “When you listen to what’s being said as well as what’s not being said, your intuition kicks in and the person can tell that you really care about them.”

She has some steps on how to be a better listener. They include focus, attention, and reflection. If you listen to this episode you’re going to learn exactly what those secrets are behind those three steps so that you’re going to become a better listener. She also teaches us how to break a bad habit that we might have, which could include not being a good listener but also why it’s so difficult to break them. Enjoy the episode.

 

Listen To The Episode Here

 

Building Lasting Relationships with Meredith Bell

Today’s guest on the Successful Pitch is Meredith Bell, who’s an expert at communication, connection, and listening. She said, “It’s really important that the people you work with and go into business with, that you have the same values, respect for each other and really look at the person with equality.” She said, “When you listen to what’s being said as well as what’s not being said, your intuition kicks in and the person can tell that you really care about them.”

She has some steps on how to be a better listener. They include focus, attention, and reflection. If you listen to this episode you’re going to learn exactly what those secrets are behind those three steps so that you’re going to become a better listener. She also teaches us how to break a bad habit that we might have, which could include not being a good listener but also why it’s so difficult to break them. Enjoy the episode.

Hello and welcome to the Successful Pitch. Today I’m very excited and thrilled actually to have Meredith Bell as the guest. She’s been an entrepreneur since 1982 and she’s an expert in helping companies develop the people side of their business. Meredith is the co-founder and president of Performance Support System, which is a global software company that’s based in Virginia. Their products are used by business consultants, executive coaches and human resource training professionals to help their managers become more effective leaders. Since it’s all about having a great team, Meredith is the expert on that.

One of her big strengths is building strong relationships. She and her business partners have worked together for over 25 years so that says something. Many of the clients and retailers have done business with her for 20 years. She really understands what’s required to build the loyalty and commitment that leads to repeat business and referrals. She takes great pride getting feedback like the one that said to her her system is really the epitome of the client centered high integrity, high support company, with world class products. You could look for a lifetime and not find its equal. I think that’s true not only of her software but of herself as a person. Meredith, welcome to the show.

Thank you, John. I’m really excited to be here with you today. I appreciate your kind remarks.

Well, I’ve gotten to know you and that’s what made me want to have you on as a guest, you really walk your talk. I always like to start with the story of origin. How did you, Meredith Bell, become this expert in people and relationships?

Like any other entrepreneur, it’s through a lot of scraped knees, might even say broken bones. I started out as a teacher in elementary school and got my Master’s and worked in three different school divisions in administrative roles and realized, John, I was not cut out for bureaucracy or politics. Which I think a lot of your listeners have probably experienced that along the way. I just jumped out and decided I was going to start my own business. I had not a single business course to my name or any business experience, but I am a learner and I had this inner confidence that I could do whatever I set out to do. You might call it determination too.

I had at that time experience of course doing training for teachers in addition to just being a teacher. So building on what I felt comfortable doing anyway, which was getting up in front of people, I decided I would do training around communication skills, which was one of my favorite passions. So I just started approaching local businesses and I leveraged what I already could do well, which was speak, into some local speaking in front of the chamber or associations or any group that I felt either could make a decision about working with me or introduce me to somebody in their company who would. That’s how I started out.

I love it because one of the thing that investors look for when someone’s pitching to get funding is, why you? Or the same thing is true is whether you’re pitching to get a new customer. They really typically want to know why you’re doing what you’re doing, that it’s not just a job, that it’s a passion. The fact that you were a teacher before you became an expert in training people how to be more connected with their employees makes perfect sense. That little story of origin is a great nugget for everyone to remember, “Oh, it doesn’t have to be I went to school to study this, but there’s something in my background that gives me the passion to want to teach people what I know, feel comfortable speaking in front of others and figure out that’s my business that’s going to make me successful,” and then you figured out a business model from there.

Yes. I met one of my business partners back in 1990. We started collaborating and we were very compatible. I think that’s a key think when people go into business and they think about forming a partnership, you look for good chemistry but sometimes you get so excited about that good chemistry that you assume everything else will work out, and it doesn’t. You have to make sure your values are aligned, that there’s mutual respect and a real sense of equality. That’s what we discovered and we brought in a third partner who managed the back end.

The three of us quickly came to appreciate each other’s strengths. It’s like a good marriage, you have to recognize it isn’t always going to be happy and everything working smoothly, but having the skills to work through differences is really critical. I think that was an advantage we had because we were already in the business of helping other companies improve communication skills, develop strong leaders. So we had some of that as an advantage in working through differences that we encountered over time.

Let’s talk about that, what communication skills do you think are essential for not only getting along with your co-founders but getting along with your clients?

Great question. Number one, the foundation of everything is listening. People often think, “I’m a good listener, what do I need to know about that?” But that is one the most important skills that is not taught in our world for the most part. There’s no class that most people take on listening. To me, it’s listening to what is being said as well as what’s not being said. It’s using your intuition and noticing the non-verbals along with the actual words, so that you get the full message and you’re not being quiet to just wait your turn, you’re truly trying to understand this other person.

Source: Pexels

[Tweet “Listen to what is being said and not being said”]

Honestly, John, I think that’s one of the key takeaways of everything else we might talk about today, that willingness to set aside your own needs, your own agenda, to truly understand this person who’s in front of you. Because when you have that attitude, they sense it and they become more relaxed, less confrontative because you’re making it safe for them to be honest with you. Whether it’s a potential client that you’re hoping to do business with or somebody that you have to work closely with as a partner, that sense that you value them as a person, no matter what they might say, and you’re not going to take it personally.

You really have to set your ego aside to be able to be willing to have an open mind and not assume you know what the person means. Listening is a combination of taking in what the person is saying, but it’s also interactive because you need to ask questions to make sure you got it right, because I’ve been guilty of starting to jump in and respond to things people say and it’s not even the question they’re asking or the issue they’re bringing up. So taking that time to step back and clarify and state in your own words, just to make sure you’ve got it right before you ask them to continue or before you respond.

That’s so important. I see that happen a lot, when people are pitching to get a new client or pitching to get funded, is they’ll get asked a question and sometimes it might even come across as an objection, and you can’t get defensive. If you don’t answer their question because you didn’t hear it properly, they’ll think you’re trying to avoid the question and really not trust you.

You can eliminate all that by just saying, “Okay, so what I heard you say is,” and then you answer the question. “Is that right?” “That’s right, yes.” “Okay, then here’s my answer.” Then I love to put in a little extra bonus at the end and say, “Did that answer your question?” Because sometimes it didn’t or they have another question from that, and then you really start having a dialog, as opposed to you just presenting, presenting, presenting.

Yes. You know, that word dialog is also key in this whole idea of listening, because to me the very definition of a dialog is keeping an open mind, where you are trying to understand the reasoning behind the position they hold, or the opinion they have, and then also setting the stage for you being able to share what your thoughts are and the reasoning behind that. I think that’s one of the key skills in addition to listening, is in terms of any relationship working well, is being willing to ask, “What’s behind that?” Because, again, we can make assumptions and start judging people and drawing all these conclusions, and we can be totally off base. These are stories we’re telling ourselves about this other person that aren’t even real, but we believe them and we act upon them, and that in itself can create all kinds of issues.

Yes. We’re going to Tweet that out, what you said, “Listen to what is being said as well as what is not being said.” I just love that. You talked about a lot of people think they’re already a good listener, and for the most part, we’re not because we haven’t been taught a class. You’re also an expert on how to rewire our brains to master a new skill or habit, so I think this is a perfect segue to do a little side journey on that because it’s such a key factor to relationships as you said.

Is there some tip you can give us, so we say, “Okay, Meredith, I agree with you. Listening is important and maybe I’m not the best because I’m jumping to conclusions or assumptions, and I’m only just listening, I’m waiting for my turn. How can I … It’s a habit, right? So how do I break that habit of not being a good listener?”

Thank you, I love that. We have a simple three step process that I think people could start using as a way to really start changing the way they listen. We call it focus, action, reflection. If you decide you’re going to focus on listening, then start also focusing on one thing you could do differently than what you do. Maybe it’s, “I’m going to stop interrupting people and let them finish their sentences.” Because that habit can be, “Oh my gosh, I’ve got so much to do, you’ve got to get this finished. Get on with it.” We want to help them along, but we’re disrespecting people when we do that, so that might be a goal, is, “I want to quit interrupting people.”

Source: Pexels

[Tweet “Focus, action, and reflection are key to listening”]

Then you commit to taking action. You hold it in the front of your mind, when I’m in a situation I’m going to catch myself if I find myself starting to jump in. You’re not going to be 100% because the old way is actually hard wired in your brain. You’re trying to lay down a new pathway and that requires practice. The third step is reflection, which means you think about what happened after it happened. So you don’t just keep action, action, action, without processing the experience and learning from it. You look at things like, “Okay, what happened? Why did it happen that way? What were the consequences?” You think about, “What would I want to do differently next time?”

So there’s learning that’s happening it sounds like.

Yes, exactly. It’s even better if you write down your answers to those questions and not just think them, so that you’re repeating that, focusing on the behavior, then acting upon it and then reflecting on it. Repeating that process is laying down the pathway in the brain for a new behavior. John, probably the easiest way to think about it is the old way that you are doing things, the current habit is like a roadway you drive every day to work. It’s automatic, that’s how you do it.

What we’re trying to do now, is create this new pathway but it’s at this point a gravel road. It’s going to be bumpy and uncomfortable and you can experience what we call the crunch point, where you encounter these challenges because it’s hard to get it right when you are competing against the old way. What you have to do is stick with it and persist, and eventually that rewiring with that additional practice over time, the new wiring will eventually overcome the old way of doing it.

You want to stick with it until that new way becomes a very smooth road that you travel in comfort in a way, so you’re not struggling with doing that. So catching yourself when you got to interrupt becomes the natural way that you do it, you’re not having to fight it so much. You’ll have more successes over time.

I think you also gave us an answer on why it’s so hard to learn and master something new, is we’re repaving that road, right?

Exactly. If you’ve never learned something before, then it’s a brand new thing that you’re learning, you don’t have the competing pathways. But for most of us, those inter-personal skills are habits we’ve acquired over time, so we have an existing way of listening to people, of giving feedback, of receiving feedback, all those elements that make a huge difference in our relationships.

Speaking of habits, what personal habits do you think have served you to be so successful all these years?

I would say one of them is that I am an eager learner. I keep an open mind about the fact that there’s always a better way to do things. I’m not locked into doing it one way. I’m also open to feedback. If somebody points out something that they wish I would do differently, I’ve grown a lot in this area because I used to take it personally and get my feelings hurt or think it was, “What’s wrong with them?”

Instead, I look at, “Okay, so let me examine that and see, is there something I’ve done here that I could do better?” One of my favorite quotes to answer that is Steve Chandler says, “Ask yourself, what’s the gift in this?”

Nice.

I think that is so important because it prevents us from judging the other person, from taking it personally, instead of looking at, here’s an opportunity to examine this input and see if it’s valid if it’s something I want to consider changing. I think that’s another critical piece. The other thing that is related to that is I try to look at things that I try because you know as entrepreneurs, we are always experimenting with one thing or another. Whether it’s a marketing strategy or anything else that we’re doing.

When something doesn’t work, again this comes from Steve Chandler and another fellow, Brian Johnson. Put on your lab coat and your goggles and see yourself as a scientist, where it’s all an experiment. So what happens as a result of something you try is simply data.

Yes. It eliminates the fear of failure, doesn’t it?

Exactly, well at least it minimizes it if it doesn’t eliminate it altogether. Because again, it’s not about you personally failing, it’s the fact that you’ve tried this, and whatever the result is, you can learn from it. That has been really valuable for me.

I love it.

Because it keeps me from getting discouraged or giving up. It’s like, “Okay, I just have to think of what do I need to do differently if this didn’t produce the outcome that I hoped it would?”

I love those three habits. Stay open to feedback, be an eager learner and ask yourself, what’s the gift in this? Now that we have those new habits that we can start using, what kind of thinking or mindset’s required for us? Let’s say we want to start reaching out to people and make new connections either for reaching out to investors or you’re just reaching out to potential new customers, what’s your tip there on what we should be thinking about?

Source: Pexels

[Tweet “Be an eager learner and open to feedback”]

There are a few things that I would recommend there. Number one is an overall attitude about being of service to this person and not thinking about, “What can they do for me?” That is so fundamental to forming good relationships. Again, people sense this, anymore, I think everybody’s radar is up, “Is this person going to try to sell me?” I think that it’s very important to have that attitude of, “How can I help them?”

Part of that involves being genuinely curious to learn about them, because again it’s like with listening, most people want to tell you about themselves, so you really will stand out if you ask questions where you’re genuinely interested in learning more about them. Doing some homework in advance I think is also really valuable. When you do, like in reaching out to people, let’s say on LinkedIn. If you want to meet them, their profiles can tell you a lot about them. Instead of just sending out the generic LinkedIn request, you can personalize that invitation so they know that you’ve taken time to check them out. That, that sets you apart from other people without having to say anything about yourself.

You could even do a tie-in and say, “Oh, I see we both went to college in Chicago,” or, “I see you’re involved with XYZ charity, that’s something near and dear to my heart too.” So it’s personalized and letting them see a little bit of who you are, without obviously trying to sell yourself but you are having … I think that’s what you’re really the master at, is personalizing something and at the same time letting us know a little bit about yourself, why you do that.

You have so many great stories, and you know I love stories on the Successful Pitch. Can you tell us the story of how you’ve used your expertise in being of service, letting people know you appreciate their talk or their book, and how that’s turned out to be something really wonderful for you that you didn’t even anticipate?

Yes. You know, there are a lot of them. I think underlying everything John, we’re talking about a way of being, not a specific strategy that you implement.

Nice.

I think that is so important because this one story I want to share with you is all about that. It incorporates another habit that I’ve developed, which is taking action. For many years I went to this conference called GKIC, used to be Glazer-Kennedy. Bill Glazer was the president there for many years. I’ve put on live events myself, so I always made a point of going up to him at some point in the conference and simply saying to him some specific things that I was really enjoying. It wasn’t to butter him up or anything, I just know how people complain about the little things.

Yeah, “It’s too hard,” “It’s too cold,” “There’s no water,” whatever. Yeah.

I would come up with specific things, it might have been a speaker or something he had said, and just go up and say, “Bill, I just have to tell you, I loved ABC.”

Let me just ask you to pause there, because that’s so important. When you give feedback to somebody everybody, don’t just say, “That was a great conference,” or, “That was a great talk.” It’s so much more powerful if you say, “I really liked that analogy you used,” or quote them back, “I’m really going to be able to use that instantly.” That’s so much more meaningful when you give specific feedback.

Yes, excellent point. One of the times I did this, he said to me, “You know Meredith, could I get you to call me every day?” He said, “Because you always say such nice things.” It just goes to show you, because you know Bill was a millionaire back then, many times over I’m sure, and yet all of us as human beings have this need to be affirmed for what we’re doing.

Nice specific feedback, that’s what he wanted, not just, “Oh, have a nice day.” You were really giving specific nice that made him feel good because you took the time, as you said earlier about the preparation, to make that feedback meaningful.

And you know, you just reminded me, one of the other things that happened there is after that particular conference, I sent a thank you note to him. I listed a bunch of different things that had been valuable for me in that conference. The next edition of their newsletter, he had put my thank you note in there, in a full page display.

Yeah, because it’s so rare that someone, A, takes the time to write a thank you note, and B, is that specific.

I think that was really the reason why he did it. But here’s the more interesting evolution of that story, I ended up being featured in their monthly CD that they send out to members, because I had read a newsletter and I had sent a pitch to another person there, saying, “I think I could add value to your members in this particular area.” This other person and Bill were both on the call, and Bill was eating up some of the things that I was saying. So afterward I thought, “I wonder if I could pitch him on the idea of speaking at one of the conferences.”

I sent him a note and I said, “You know Bill, you seem to really find this valuable. What do you think about me putting together a presentation around this at one of the conferences?” He loved it. He said, “Yes,” but what was really unexpected to me is he said, “I think this ought to be a general session.” I ended up speaking to 900 entrepreneurs at one of these conferences. It was one of those things where the relationship was built because I had given him what he perceived as value in advance of making that request, so I had paved the way and made it easy for him to say yes. That would have never happened if I had just contacted him cold and said, “Hey Bill, I’d like to speak at your conference. Here’s what I could do.”

Right, right. It’s so valuable. I think some people might be really curious, maybe we’ve all spoken in front of a conference room of 20 people, maybe if you’ve been a keynote speaker your audience is sometimes 150 people. But speaking in front of 900 people is a whole ‘nother ball game, isn’t it?

It sure is, because I had never spoken to that large a number before. Yes, that in itself was a good learning experience for me.

Right, it’s the same amount of preparation but you’re not going to be able to make eye contact with everyone in the room, let’s start there, right?

That’s exactly right.

You are such an expert on relationships and breaking habits. You help a lot of people who are in human resources at big companies or even small companies. You model it for yourself with your own company and your co-founders. Is there any last piece of advice you want to leave people with? Who’s your ideal client? “Here’s my advice if you’re suffering from this particular challenge.”

I would say that if there’s someone you really want to connect with, learn more about them in advance and look for ways that you can be of value to them. You reach out from the perspective of, “How can I add value to them about something that I can see would be useful to them based on what I’ve learned about them.”

I think not being afraid. I think fear is a key thing that really paralyzes us and prevents us. It’s that inner critic from, “Who do you think you are?” To, “Why would they want to hear from me?” All the things we say to ourselves that get in the way of us taking action because we can so easily talk ourselves out of doing things. It’s all driven by a fear, by the stories we tell ourselves. I think that adjusting our thinking and asking ourselves, “What’s the worst that could happen if I take this step? Well, they won’t want to do business with me. Guess what? They’re not doing business with me today anyway.” So why hold back?

I’m trying to remember if it was Sheryl Sandberg might be the one from Facebook. Anyway, someone had said, “Every day do something that scares you.” It doesn’t have to be huge but something that you normally would be a little fearful about. Take a baby step, just do a little something because what that does is the more you show courage, the more you build up self-confidence. You don’t build up confidence by just doing a lot of self-talk, “I’m confident, I’m confident.” That doesn’t do it. It’s taking action and showing yourself, “By golly, I can do this.”

Therefor, just making a commitment to yourself that you’re going to step out and do something today, because honestly John, we all have a responsibility to show up as our best selves. Somebody is not getting the best of us if we don’t do that. I remind myself of that every day, who am I? Who’s not learning about what I could be sharing if I don’t take this step?

I love it. It’s not just telling yourself you’re confident, it’s taking steps because then that reinforces you have, what I call stacking your moments of certainty. I took this action and that worked, so you remember all the positive things that came out of taking action to continue inspiring you to continue to take action instead of just telling yourself something.

Exactly.

You’re an avid reader Meredith, I’m asking you to recommend one book, but if you want to recommend more than one, that you would think would help people with business, with life, with communication, anything that you really want to share and promote.

I have to say at the very top is a book called “Straight Line Leadership” by Dusan Djukich. I’m always saying it’s in my top three but I can never come up with one that’s ahead of it. The reason I love it is because it’s immensely practical. I recommend every entrepreneur read and study this book. It’s short chapters and not academic at all, it’s very practical, direct. What he does is he positions, he is encouraging you to take the stances that are going to help you show up in the world in a very powerful way.

He contrasts two ways of being in every chapter, like trying versus committing. He has a series of questions in one of the chapters that he asks potential clients. The book is worth getting just for that. I have a way of getting a free copy for people, so if any of your listeners want to contact me, I’ll be glad to tell them how to get that.

That’s very kind. Please tell us the best ways to contact you?

I’m on LinkedIn a lot, so Meredith Bell on LinkedIn. My email address, I’m happy to share, is [email protected]. I’m on Twitter @MeredithMBell.

Nice. I can’t thank you enough for sharing your wisdom, your expertise on listening, on breaking habits and connecting with people in a way that makes you of service instead of what’s in it for you. It’s great advice. I’m sure I can see why you’ve been in business for so long, I can see why your clients love working with you because when you can get them to shift that mindset, they’re all going to be more productive and get along. That’s what the name of the game is.

Exactly. John, it’s such a pleasure being with you. Thank you so much for having me.

My pleasure. Thanks for listening.

Links Mentioned

• Book: “Straight Line Leadership” by Dusan Djukich
• LinkedIn: Meredith Bell
• Twitter: @MeredithMBell
• Email: [email protected]

 

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Destroying Excuses with Tony Grebmeier

Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments

Episode Summary

Today’s guest on The Successful Pitch is Tony Grebmeier, who is the Co-Founder of ShipOffers, that’s doing multi-million dollars in revenue and ranked very highly on Inc’s Startups as well as the founder and creator of something called “Destroying Excuses.” Which is a fantastic way to identify blind spots, be accountable and figure how to solve those blind spots, so that your life and your business takes off. He has really shared some key successes to getting the right team and culture. It has to with the key word called transparency, and he walks his talk. He’s transparent in his life and in his business, and he shows you how to get the right business partners that provide complimentary skillsets, so that you’re hitting the right product, right marketing, the right financial way to run your business, so that everything is seamless and runs smoothly.

 

Listen To The Episode Here

 

Destroying Excuses with Tony Grebmeier

Hi and welcome The Successful Pitch. Today I have a very special guest and friend, Tony Grebmeier. He hosts his own podcast called “The Tony G Show.” Tony is one of those people who not only makes a difference in the world, but is successful in business and in his personal life, and he shares his secrets of how he does that. He’s been an on-air radio personality, you’ll see a lot of personality coming through I’m sure. He’s got this amazing story of two friends that he’s known for years, and how that’s created this fascinating company called ShipOffers, and the culture they’ve created and the money they’ve generated. More importantly now, he’s really helpful and inspired to help entrepreneurs not make the same mistakes that he’s made, but he gives them a road map to make sure that excuses are not destroying your life.

So Tony, welcome to the show.

Well now I feel like I have to do something because you gave me such an amazing intro. So, thank you John first and foremost for the opportunity to be on your show today.

Yes, well … you’re one of those people that you come across in life and you go, “I’m gonna be friends with this guy or this gal forever.” Tim Sanders was one of those people for me, 14-15 years ago and you’re one of them as well. That’s part of the joy for me, of meeting people like you who really don’t just talk about something, but you actually live it and you share your vulnerabilities, and let people see, “Oh, it hasn’t always been an easy ride for you.”

So, If you wouldn’t mind, one of my favorite things to do, cause you know I love stories. Take us back to your own story of origin. Let’s go back to … was it high school, that you became friends with your business partners?

No, I’ve actually known my two business partners … my sister, this is gonna be great. My sister actually changed one of my business partner’s diapers, so I’ve known them all of my life. I lived in the neighborhood, we grew up together. We bumped and bruised, we did life and then we happened to go to high school together, but what my story was unique for me was, I left during the middle of our upgrowing and went across the way and lived with my dad. Went to a whole new school and made a whole new set of friends, and I missed out from fourth grade through eight grade. I was with a whole bunch of other people, and then I came back into the neighborhood and I went to high school with all of them. We just hung out, had fun, had fake IDs together and partied and did life. You know, went to high school and Gill, who is one of my partners, is a year older than us. When I was a freshman, he was in 10th grade etc.

I think I was trying to figure out who I was. It was 11th and 12th and I watched my best friend leave, and now Doug and myself were great friends growing up. I had a period of time where I actually even lived with Doug, because I got my ear pierced and my mom got mad at me, and kicked me out of the house. She said she never kicked me out of the house, I actually truly left, but in reality she was pissed that I got my ear pierced. So, I lived with Doug’s family for a short period of time. Throughout all of this, I really just truly loved people. That’s my key to life, right?

I have a heartbeat, you have a heartbeat. That’s why I think we’ve been able to pair up so well, is that you’re trying to serve your audience, your community and I’m doing the same. These people, that I’ve been able to get together and build a business with, all went of to college on their own. They went to UCLA, Long Beach, Arizona, and here was Tony, who didn’t know what the hell he wanted to do with life. He was an athlete, played water polo. Went off to a junior college, built this idea of being a radio air personality, but I kept in touch with my friends.

I contacted them one day and I’m like, “Hey, what’s up?” And Gil’s like, “Hey, I’m gonna go do this business. I have this idea, would you be interested?” I’m like, “Hey, do you want to meet me in Vegas?” And Gil’s like, “Yeah, I love Vegas.”

So we go to Vegas, Gil pitches me, 1995-96, the internet and shows me the internet for the very first time and I’m like, “What is this?” He’s like, “Do you think you can do this?” I’m like, “What?” He’s like, “Do you think you can build this?” And I’m like, “Is there code?” And I’m like, “I’ll figure it out.”

And so Gil and I actually started in business together in 1996. Purely just from a passion of just, “Let’s do something.” And before you know it, we built a business that about 7,000,000 visitors a day. We were buying and selling traffic to Google and Yahoo and we were actually in business with some of the pioneers of the internet. We didn’t have a set deal with them, but we were selling traffic to what you surf on today, which is Google and Yahoo. We did that for about five years, Gil and myself and then we realized we sucked at counting money, because I’m wanting to like, “Let’s make it and we’ll go spend it.” We didn’t have anybody to balance this out and so, then came Doug. The other neighbor from the childhood friendship, who had this whole background with an MBA, and he’s like, “I’ll help you.” That’s how we transitioned into ShipOffers in 2001.

Yeah. First of all, I love that there’s so many elements to that. The fact that you guys started this idea in Vegas and then say, “We’re not good with money.” I think is hilarious. It’s like … anything that starts in Vegas is gonna have some money issues probably, but what’s also really interesting is the fact that anybody could sell traffic to Google, is so hard for everybody to comprehend today. But back then, that was what was happening. It’s an amazing story.

I love this concept of what really is so important in any business, but especially a startup, is that you have three different areas of expertise; no one is usually good at all three. One is, “I’m the product guy. I really can make this the best product ever.” The second person is the financial guy that’s gonna manage the money and profitability, and the third guy is the marketing/sales personality gal or gal obviously. Do you feel that the three of you fall into one of those three buckets, and that’s why your skills are so complimentary?

Yeah, I mean, look at Doug. Doug is the guy who’s the finance person, right? If I have a question on a deal, I just go to Doug, right? If I need something in operations, or I need the artistic element that I can’t get across necessarily, I go to Gil. And then sales, people come to me and we work together. We have a philosophy that I’ll tell you, is the longevity of our business-

Yes.

We all have to agree, or we pass on the deal. If we all three are interested, we’ll stay, we’ll work and see it through. If, two say yes and one says no, we’ll just kill the deal. It’s not even worth fighting about-

Wow.

I think we’ve had two arguments in 16 years of business, and I think I started both of them, because I’m so passionate about … like, “No, no, no! You guys gotta do this! This is the deal! This is gonna change the trajectory of our business.” And they’re like, “Go back in your office.”

Now, that’s really interesting. So, that nobody feels left out, if you would. Two out of three, sorry you’re outnumbered. That would … you’re not ganging up on each other, and that’s a really interesting takeaway I think. That we all agree or we don’t do it. That’s really fantastic, so everyone’s voice is heard.

Now, there’s a really interesting story that I think will help people, which is the ultimate pivot, right? You started with something called “EyeFive” and that transitioned into ShipOffers. Can you tell us that story?

Yeah. So, 2009 we are living in Southern California, in Van Nuys, California is where our offices were. I was up in Santa Clarita, Doug was Calabasas, Gil was in the Hollywood Hills and business was going well, but it wasn’t where it could be. One day, I think Gil mentioned it, saying “Hey, what do you guys think about packing up?” “Packing up?” I said. He’s like, “Yeah. What do you think about finding a new place to live and raise our kids? California’s kind of crazy.” I’m like, “Okay cool.” Doug’s like, “Sure.”

So, we discovered Colorado after a long winded search of Seattle, Washington, Vegas, all of these places. And we landed here, and our business was actually on oxygen overload, meaning we had none. We had no business anymore and we were needing something. We were needing a fresh of breath air, and I happened to meet somebody in my life, early on here from a mutual friend named Kevin Cohen. Kevin and I started talking and he says, “You know what Tony? The more I’ve gotten to know you, the more I know that you need to get out from behind the table.” And I say, “What does that mean?” He’s like, “You need to get out from behind your desk. Let’s go meet people.” So, he invited me to come to a show in San Francisco called “Traffic and Conversions” and going there, I got a chance to listen to William Shatner.

William Shatner was on stage and he was talking about his brown bag wine club, about sharing a bottle of wine at a brown bag. Didn’t know what it was with some friends, and then talking about the flavor, the taste etc. It was great, but I said to myself, “If an 80 guy at the time, is on stage pitching something as silly as a brown bag to everybody, why can’t we have fun in our business, and create something that every body gets lit up about?” EyeFive was doing some millions of business, but it wasn’t the passionate business that we really wanted.

So, I literally left that and Kevin, Chad, another one of my buddies was there, and I said, “What do you guys think about the name ShipOffers?” Everybody was like, “Oh I love it. That’s fantastic.” Because EyeFive was convenient for California, everybody who’s familiar with Southern California is driven up into Northern California. EyeFive was the name, and everybody used to call us and say, “Can I make an eye appointment today? My eyes are really bad.” And I’m like, “We’re not an optometrist. That’s not what we do.” So one, it was easy for us to differentiate and number two, ShipOffers really sounds more in alignment of what we do. We ship offers for marketers, that’s our current business for 16 years.

So, it gave us a better name and I think, I tell people everything changed the moment we changed ShipOffer’s name. Once we got it right, we said “Let’s go with ShipOffers.” Everything changed, because what we did is we bought fully into the brand. Our business more or less looks the same today as it did in 2001, but the name gave us something that we all bought into. We became really passionate about selling and sharing it with the world, and our story became easier to tell.

Well that’s everything there, The Successful Pitch is all about helping people come up with a way that instantly people understand, who do you help and what problem are you solving? It all starts with the name and the brand. Isn’t there a story Tony about how you guys realized that you might have been losing control of what you were doing, and that caused the willingness to shift then name and move?

Well part of the story for me and the company’s … I think our longevity is I had a mid-life crisis. I personally experienced one of the biggest pivots in my life from 2005 until 2008. I was heavily sedated every single day with drugs and I got addicted to drinking all the time, my marital issues fell apart. My life was basically crazy. I was literally heading towards suicide and I attempted that 10/9/8, but a phone call and eventually, a knock on the door saved my life. Awoken this beast inside of me, which was the passion to truly help people that I was dealing with stuff from my childhood, that I never really identified and never did anything around. Finally, I was able to admit I had an issue and I needed some help and I’ve been sober since 12/15 of 08. That really helped me to become aware of the opportunity which was a rebirth, a rebrand.

So, the rebrand first happened for myself. Then I was able to, I think, build the rebrand into the company. Everybody went into their role; Doug went back to finance, Gil went into ops, I went into sales and marketing. We literally flipped the script and we went and built a company that was low seven. Now, we’re an eight figure business. We’ve been an Inc 5,000 company the last three years in a row. I’m anticipating breaking into the top 500 this year. We’re just growing and what happened along the way, was we saw an opportunity in the market, that nobody else was doing.

Which was an on-demand, pay as you go business model. So, what really happened for us, is that we saw a need and we actually changed and shifted our vocabulary a little bit to get into some networks. From there, we were able to grow into the company today, known as ShipOffers. On average, we ship about 40,000 packages a week to marketers, customers in about 34 countries all around the world. So, we saw an opportunity for the rebrand. And I tell people all the time, “Where’s the opportunity in your life for a rebrand?”

That’s so powerful and it all starts with rebranding yourself. Well, there’s two great stories that I wanted to take a little dive on. Let’s go into when you guys realized that you were depending on someone else to ship your products. Then you said, “You know what? We’re not gonna put ourselves in that situation again, we’re gonna take that over.” Yes?

Yes. So I’m so sorry for that. Great. So in 2002, we were allowing a company to do our fulfillment for us in Southern California and we received some phone calls one day. They’re like, “Hey, we haven’t received our shipment.” I’m like, “That’s interesting.” So, I noted it then got another call a couple minutes later, and then a call from the bank saying, “Hey, customers wanted their money back.” I’m like, “What is going on?”

So Doug, Gil and myself jump in our car like another day or so, and we drive to the fulfillment center and there’s a meeting going on in the very, very back. You walk into this giant warehouse and you can see five or six people, and they’re like in a little meeting. I just happened to look up and we see all of our packages, cause it says EyeFive on all of them, and they’re in bins. And I’m like, “What the heck?” So, we pull them down and we’re like, “These are the orders. They’re not shipping them out. They’re just charging us.” So, we took all the product, we bailed and we took it and said, “We’re never allowing somebody else to screw us.” Because, the problem is we now know that you can’t mess with somebody’s merchant account, you can’t mess with somebody’s marketing and you’ve gotta deliver what you say you’re gonna deliver to your customers; That’s it.

That’s such a powerful story. I love it. We all depend on other people to do certain parts of our business, right? I mean, we’re not gonna do everything and a lot of people depend, let’s face it, on Amazon obviously, if that’s what your niche is. But, whatever your business is, you have to really look at who your partnering with. For example, when Periscope was so dependent on … and then Twitter said “Hey, you’re using our platform. Now, we’re just gonna come up with a competitor.”

So, you can’t be so dependent on somebody outside of your business that if they don’t do what they’re gonna do, you’re whole business falls apart. You guys took upon yourselves to say, “We’re gonna do this and take of our own distribution.” Which I think is a really valuable lesson for everybody.

Yeah. I mean, the key that I found in all the chaos, because that’s what it was at the time. It was a lot of chaos, noise and craziness, and that was a business opportunity in itself. Our motto behind the scenes at ShipOffers is you market and we’ll handle the rest. We were trying to outsource it, cause we didn’t know what we were doing at the beginning. I mean, we’re three kids from Santa Cruz; it’s 2001, 2002. I was in my early 20s. September 11th came, I still remember being in the warehouse when that happened. We were like, “What do we do? Is the business gonna die? Do we stop right here in the moment?” And we were like, “No, we just keep going, but let’s figure it along the way.”

Then Gill’s brother came in and talked to us about how to make money doing wholesale. I came with the idea I’d like to do wholesale, but my price points were wrong. He came in and said, “Charge a dollar more.” Charge a dollar more and our business grew. I’m like, “How can you charge a dollar more and your business grew?” It’s because you added value to a great product, and people saw a value, then wanted to buy it because the price point was different. It wasn’t cheap, there was something behind it. It was the mystique or whatnot.

So, instantly we grew another revenue stream, which was wholesaling products that we were already selling, but we just came up with a new market. It’s been pivotal for us the entire time. From 2001 until today, we’ve been constantly rebranding ourselves. Constantly going back to the drawing board. I think we’ve had four rebrands, even though we’re the same company, we just keep saying, “How do we get better? How do we serve the market better? How do we serve and honor our customers better? How do we bring more transparency to the business models? So that customers and business owners understand how the thing works.” Cause I have no competition, and that’s my belief system, right? I just believe you put out good stuff, people will stay. You take good care of your customers, people will stay.

I’m not fearful of people taking my customers, because at the end of the day, they know they received so much value. I believe my way of being is to go above and beyond what anybody else is even thinking, and that’s because I’m constantly working on rebranding who I am and how we do business with our customers. So, I’m on the phone … one of the owners of the company is talking to the CEO of another company on a constant regular basis. Building a personal friendship and a professional friendship, where we learn how to help each other. So, I open my Rolodex to my clients and say, “What do you need? You want to go buy the product direct and just ship it to me, and then I’ll fulfill it for you? Great, if that’s what you want to do with your cash flow, awesome.”

So, I’m not hiding anything with my customers, I’m helping them to win.

Nice. So, when you help your customers to win, they stay loyal. That’s the tweet I think, that’s really the message that you’re giving people as the secret to winning your successes, yes?

Source: Pexels

[Tweet “Help customers to win and they stay”]

Yeah. It’s the secret sauce to longevity. You help your customers to win, you win every single time.

Yeah, love it. Now, I’d be really remiss if I didn’t unpack that little comment you made about being suicidal, and one phone call changing your mind about it. So, can you take us back Tony, to what that phone call was, what that person said to you that made you change your mind?

Yeah, it was October 9th, 2008. I just gotten out of the car a few minutes earlier, seeing my wife and my kids, and I just gotten home from a trip. My wife and I were coming back from the pumpkin patch with our kids. It was not good. We were really going through some dark times in our marriage and she’d gotten out of the car. As I was getting ready to punch the key pad into the apartment complex, she said, “Hey, I just gotta tell you this. I don’t love you anymore.” And she needed to say it for herself, and I needed to hear her say it, because that was the first time in my life that I remember of someone telling me something to that magnitude.

Now, I’ve always been the person on the other end to say it. Like, “I don’t love you anymore. I want to break up. It’s not you, it’s me.” I’ve always been that person and in that moment, I didn’t know what to do. Fight or flight kicked in, I didn’t know what to do. So I say goodbye and I go up to my apartment, I get out all the drugs that I’ve been on, I was taking about eight different things at the time. From back pain, sleep aids, Xanax, Lunesta, it didn’t matter if it was testosterone, HGH, uppers, downers, anything to kind of keep me balanced, right? Cause I was totally out of whack for a period of time, cause I had been in the midst of addiction issues, struggling with knee pain. I had a whole bunch of surgeries up until that point.

So, I’m sitting on the couch and I’m about to write my suicide note. I take out my phone, I got all my drugs and just gonna text it out. I thought that’d be a cool way to say goodbye. As I prepare, I receive a phone call and my buddy says, “Hey, I’m coming to see you.” I’m like, “All right. Whatever.” And I hang up the phone and I’m like, “Aww crap, now I gotta put all this stuff away.” I go back to the note that I had already begun to be halfway done through it, and it was gone. I was so baffled like, “Oh my gosh. Where did my note go?” Can I do that paste thing and I’m like, they didn’t exist on the phones yet.

All of sudden I get the knock on the door and my buddy comes in, and he gives me a big hug. He says, “You know Tony, your life has meaning and purpose, but what your doing right now doesn’t.” This is time where it’s the darkest of my life, but I also believe in that moment, and I’m just a spiritual being that God sent an angel and it had to be my buddy John. John walked into my life, gave me a big hug and John had gone through a lot of similar stuff. I was able to be there and help him, but also I was probably a bad influence on John in a lot of ways. So, in that moment, I listened to John and I think stayed for about 45 minutes to an hour. In there, was some of the greatest context that I ever heard.

Source: Pexels

[Tweet “Your life has meaning and purpose”]

Imagine sitting with an angel and he says, “You know, your life has meaning and purpose.” I think we all think at some times we’re trying to find our meaning, and we’re trying to find our purpose, but I heard it. Then he painted a picture for me, and then a day or two later came, as I was talking to my pastor, he says, “Tony, you could lead many. You could be in front of thousands.” And I began to understand what people saw in me, but I didn’t see in myself. Because I had been living a lie. I’d been living this life of trying to look good to avoid looking bad. I’d been dishonest with everybody in my life; my family, my wife, my kids, my business partners. So, I had this awakening in the moment like, standing on the beach with your back towards the ocean, and you literally have your toes in the sand, you’re kind of moving your toes up and down. You can feel the sand coming in between and waves crashing over, but not panicking and running, but just allowing the water to crash over you.

That was the wave of emotions that I felt and in there, I became aware of the opportunity that I had and that was, I needed help. I needed help, because I couldn’t do it anymore on my own. So, I reached out to my mom on 12/14 of 08, and my mom said something that was really, really cool. She said, “I dealt with your father.” My dad was an alcoholic. “Your grandfather was an alcoholic.” And so on, and so on, and so on, and so there was this huge pattern. She said, “You could break the cycle. You could end the pattern. You could do something today that would change history.” She wasn’t necessarily saying history for the world. She was just saying my family’s history.

Right.

And in that moment I said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.” But at the 45th minute of her conversation, as anybody who’s ever been sober, knows somebody who’s gone through it. There’s a 12 step philosophy and mom basically 12 stepped me into the rooms of alcoholics anonymous, by simply saying “You need help.” And I saying, “For the first time in my life, I do.” And that changed everything, that changed the business, that changed my family; my wife and I are happily married, coming up on 19 years. Best relationship I have on planet Earth were with my kids, my business partners, my mom, everybody in my life. I just live a transparent life. I’ve shared a lot on this show and I could share anything, because there’s nothing that I have today in my life, that’s holding me back from experiencing greatness.

Let’s talk about this transparency, I think it’s a theme that runs across who you are, and so many people are afraid of being transparent, because they think “If people know this about me, then they won’t like me. If they know this about me, then they’ll leave either personally, or professionally.” But because you’re so transparent and fearless, you then don’t have the fear of losing a customer. You take this willingness to be transparent in your personal life, into your business and into the way you interact with clients. Therefore, I think that is a big takeaway. If you are transparent and vulnerable even, I think it allows people to see you as a person, and they want to connect with you. As opposed to pretending everything’s perfect all the time.

Yeah, let me clarify something, cause for anybody who’s listening, I want to have you understand what I’m about to say and I want to put it in two buckets. So, if you work for somebody, keep some of your transparency to yourself.

Got it.

If you are a professional and you have a business yourself, you can create the rules.

Yes.

I just have to say that, because for me, it’s a huge clarification piece. Because I’m an owner of a company, I live one way; by truth, transparency, integrity, passion. And how I do that, is easy because my stuff became aired out, it got aired out, right? Literally like, “Oh Tony’s that guy, in that neighborhood, that’s the guy.” And so, it became for me, the only way to live my life, which was, I made a lot of mistakes. I just needed to admit them. Once I admitted them, I became free to share. When I was in a meeting once, I shared what happened and all this stuff and I realized, “Oh my gosh, the way to live a life that is worth living is one of transparency, that doesn’t have anything to hide.”

And by doing that, everything opened up for me.

And that’s what’s giving you the content and the credibility to create this program you have called “Destroying Excuses” because you destroyed all your excuses for not being successful and not being happy. And now, you teach other entrepreneurs how to do it, tell us about that.

So, one of the interesting things along this journey, right? I go back to when we were ready to move from California to Colorado, I had to short sell my house with my wife. I put my family into financial debt living in an apartment down the road, addicted to drugs and alcohol, running up tons of bills, driving fancy cars that we couldn’t afford. My ego was so big, I bought a two-seater for a family of four. I wasn’t thinking about anyone, or anyone but myself and so — just about a million dollars in debt, I put my family. In 2015, I was able to pay that debt off.

What I realized along the way was, I accepted personal responsibility for everything. That’s one of the keys to destroying any excuse in your life, you have to own up to it. You have to take responsibility, so once I became aware of that I caused it, cause I’d been asked, “Do you want me to file bankruptcy for you?” I’m like, “No. I got all this debt, I’m gonna get out of it.” No bankruptcy, I just figured it out and made a lot of phone calls, and got really honest with a lot of creditors and told them my story. And simply said, “Hey, you know what? I gotta figure this thing out, cause I got myself in it in the first place, let’s do the work.”

Along the way I realized, I have a lot of excuses along the way of what was holding me back from success. Now, success to me isn’t dollars in the bank. Success is living a lifestyle that gives you freedom to do what you want with your friends, and go where you want with your friends, or just travel by yourself, or whatever. I started realizing that, I’m like, “Man I made so many excuses about my health, my wealth, my business, my family, etc.” So, I started working through some formulas and I did a lot of research. I attended a lot of workshops and events, and I’m like, “That’s great, but that doesn’t really speak to me, that’s a bunch of information.” I didn’t get it the way they were teaching it.

So, I went and decided to create in 2016, an accountability online group. Just to simply put, a bunch of working professionals, six, seven and eight figure mindset people into a program to help them over a 30-day period of time; to really start working on some of the stuff that was holding them back. To literally put everything into a Petri dish, and get it under the microscope and say, “That’s similar. It’s in this person and this person and this person.” And out of that came Destroying Excuses.

So, it’s a new program. It’s something that I’m super passionate about. I help people … that’s my platform for coaching. Is I take people through a 30-day curriculum and help them to identify the blind spots in their life, what’s holding them back, a solution to overcoming any obstacle and literally, to live the best life possible. Nothing works without work and so, everybody deep dives into it. They figure out the number one thing that they want is more time, so they can have the freedom to do what they want. But the number one thing holding them back is all the BS they’ve been telling themselves. So, I help them to identify their excuses and they begin to break through them and create new habits.

Source: Pexels

[Tweet “When you identify your blindspots, you can destroy your excuses”]

So, it’s a two-fold process. A lot of places just say, “Okay, we’re gonna show you what your blind spots are. Now you know them, good luck fixing them.” But, you take it one step further and say, “Okay, now we know what the problem is, let’s come up with a solution.” And that’s what I think is so unique. A lot of people stop at just identifying the blind spots/problem, but you because you’ve done it yourself, can then take people through how to solve those blind spots, it’s not enough just to identify them.

You have this great quote here about “If I change my behaviors, I change the direction in life.” I think that’s what you’re doing with this Destroying Excuses program.

Yeah, you’ve heard it, we’ve done a lot of work around it, but I tell people “I just went to the dealership today. I bought a brand new car. I pay for it. I drive onto the road, two minutes into the driving, I get into an accident. The officer comes up to me and says, “Everything all right? You just got blind-sided”” I’m like, “I did? I couldn’t see them, I had a blind spot.” And the officer’s like, “Interesting. Hold on a second.” Writes a citation to the other person, comes back and says, “Hey, we’re not gonna cite you today, but I want you to be aware of that blind spot.”

So, when you go about your day, you know that’s there. Every time you get into the car, you’re gonna have to use the mirrors to check around and see what’s going on. You’re probably gonna have to look left or right a little bit better. Okay, so now it’s an awareness. And see, most of us already have a lot of blind spots, and now I’m just giving people the awareness so they can see them differently. Then they can make changes and we can come up with better solutions. So, those no longer hold them back. I think the idea is, now people see clearly; where they’re going and what they want. They know they do have limitations, but they’re not putting so much emphasis on those.

Well, one of the big blind spots a lot of entrepreneurs have is getting the right team, right? Not all of us are fortunate to have childhood friends that we have as business partners, but then, we need to grow and scale our business, we still need to hire the right people to fit our culture. I think you’ve really solved that problem and I think if you share your definition of culture, as we wrap up the show. So, the people can say, “Oh yeah, that’s one of my blind spots is hiring. I don’t know how to hire the right people.”

And you say it starts with making sure that you have a culture defined, so that you know whether that person’s a fit. Can you tell us what the culture is at ShipOffers?

Oh gosh, it’s fun, crazy fun. That’s one of our fifth core values here. So number one, this is interesting, it’s gonna tie into your theme perfectly, it’s called transparency. When you interview, I don’t care what’s on your resume, that’s what you said you did. I want to know what you can do for our company, and how you think that you can fit in this dynamic, multi-culture company that has so many distinctive backgrounds. We’re shipping 40,000 packages a week, everybody’s involved in each shipment in some way. So, you have to come in and add some value right away. What can you do? What are you really talented at?

So, we ask crazy questions like, “What’s one thing that nobody knows about you, that you wouldn’t mind sharing with us today? So we get to know a little bit about you.” People are like, “Oh I love animals, but I love curling their hair and putting bows in them.” Cool, so you’re creative. You like to have fun, you’re also passionate about animals. So it gives us a little idea about the type of person you are outside of your work.

I also tell people when we hire them. I actually need to know what’s going on in your personal life. The best that you can possibly share with me, because when you come to work, that’s gonna come with you. So, I just need to know … I don’t ask “Do you have kids? Are you in a relationship? Have you ever been in jail?” Those are not the kinds of things that I’m asking. “I just want to know … tell me about what do you do when you’re not working. What are you super passionate about and excited about? By asking them an open ended question, they’ll actually tell me all the other stuff.

If someone says they’re not passionate about anything outside of work, that’s a red flag right there, isn’t it?

Yeah. You just say, “Hey, we’re probably not culturally … we don’t line up well together.” But the more that they begin to open up, I begin to realize “You know what? You could fit our culture.” We do a lot of stuff, so every Monday and every Friday, we do a quick 15 to 20 minute huddle. I lead that in the morning. We’ll do some kind of fun activity, we get everybody moving and talking and involved. We ask them how their weekend was, and we talk about “What’s one thing you’re excited about during the week?”

Then, we have a huddle on Wednesday, where we bring in all the managers from all the departments, and we talk. It’s about 15 to 30 minutes, and we get everybody really, really clear on how we’re helping our company and everybody in it to win. Cause culture for me, is about getting everybody involved.

Nice.

It’s not about Doug, Tony, and Gil being at the top of the pyramid. It’s actually flipping the work chart over and putting us at the bottom, to support the team; everybody above us. Because, if we can do that, then we can win. See, when you take yourself out of having to be the man or the woman in the deal, and you can actually be the person who’s the cheerleader. I cheer so loud for our team. When people literally clock out at the end of their day, the entire group is giving high fives and happy claps, and everybody’s like, “See you tomorrow.” And they’re like, “Bye!”

Tell me when’s the last time you walked into a business where that happens. There’s 30 employees, it’s not a lot, but it’s still 30. Everybody is excited to come to work, work and go home, and can’t wait to get back.

Wow.

That to me, is created over time, but also by three owners that were passionate about leading, and I did it by … at least, what I say. I take credit for it in my life, is transparency. I’m gonna say, “I made a mistake today. This is my fault. This is my failure.” I just want you guys to know, it’s gonna happen and I’m gonna be there I’m not gonna walk ahead of you or behind you, I’m gonna walk with you.” So, we walk with our employees through this entire organization and employees, bad word. Team members, better word.

Nice. So, transparency and fun, crazy fun are two of the core values that make ShipOffer successful. If anybody wants to really take their business, and their personal life to the next level, I highly recommend signing up and getting involved with Tony’s insights on how you can destroy those excuses that keep you from being successful. Because until you know what your blind spots are, you’re not gonna be able to fix them. So Tony, tell people how they can follow you on social media and learn more about Destroying Excuses.

Sure, so two ways real quick, ShipOffers is my lifeline. It’s how I get to interact with everybody in the world. So, Shipoffers.com if you want to learn more about logistics, products and fulfillment and what we do. And then Destroyingexcuses.com is my online 30-day course where we always have new courses starting. So, you can just go learn some information, get signed up. It’s an amazing program, tons of accountability, small group coaches, it’s a lot of fun. So, those are two platforms that you can learn more about what I do.

You can follow me anywhere on social media. Just type in Tony Grebmeier, you’ll find me on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, all that and I personally love to interact with the human spirit. So, I’ll be the one responding.

Nice. Well, that’s for sure. Tony, I can’t thank you enough for being transparent, being fun and just being an overall great guest and sharing your secrets to success, so that we can all emulate you.

Well, I just want to say thanks. All kidding aside, you came onto my show as a guest, and I told you after we hung up, I said, “You know, I want to learn. I want to learn more your coaching services.” And I said, “Can I pay you for your time?” Because I felt compelled, you were the first person I interviewed and I’d been in the radio business for a long period of time, who literally spoke to my heart. You weren’t trying to sale, you were sharing and sharing is the way to win business, and to really help people in life. And you’re like, “Sure.” I knew right then and there, I literally left the interview, I went down the hall and I’m like, “Gill and Doug, I just had the most incredible interview that I’ve had on my show and I can’t wait for you guys to meet him.” And you’ve been gone to do some work for ShipOffers, you’ve been gone to do some work with one of my business partners.

So John, coming on your show is a complete honor for me, because it’s a way for me to say at the end. Thank you for all that you do to help so many people. You have a gift, you’re talented, and I can’t even repay you.

Thank you. Very, very kind. All right Tony, I can’t wait for this episode to air and I can’t wait for more people to stop just throwing their excuses with your help. So, that they can make the world a happier better place, thanks again.

Well thank you.

Links Mentioned

• Website: Shipoffers.com
• Course: Destroyingexcuses.com
• Twitter: @tonygrebmeier

 

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The Leadership Gap with Lolly Daskal

Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments

Episode Summary

Today’s guest on The Successful Pitch is Lolly Daskal. She is the author of The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness, and she has amazing insights as to how you can be a better leader, and that everyone is a leader who influences somebody, impacts somebody, or makes a difference in some way. She has a formula for confidence, it’s one of the best I’ve ever heard. You’re going to want to be sure to listen to what that is, she said, “Leaders inspire people, but before they do that they have to inspire themselves.” And of course, you have to know yourself to do that. And she said, “Vulnerability is the new strong,” and, “Instead of looking at failure as something to avoid, look at it as a teacher, and not an undertaker.” I can’t wait for you to hear all of her tips on how to become a better leader.

 

Listen To The Episode Here

 

The Leadership Gap with Lolly Daskal

Hello and welcome to The Successful Pitch podcast. Today’s guest is Lolly Daskal. Lolly’s one of the most sought after executive leadership coaches in the world. She’s got cross cultural expertise that spans over 14 countries, 6 languages, and hundreds of companies. My goodness, that’s a lot of languages and travel. She’s the founder and CEO of Lead from Within, which is her proprietary leadership program that’s designed to be a catalyst for leaders who want to enhance performance and of course, make a meaningful difference. Not only in their companies but their lives and even the world. She’s got a really clever mix of modern philosophy, science, and nearly 30 years coaching top executives. One of her many awards is that she was designated a top 50 leadership and management expert by Inc Magazine, and Huffington Post honored her with the title of quote, are you ready for this, The Most Inspiring Woman in the World. So I am thrilled to have her on, she’s got a great book coming out that we’re going to be talking about called, The Leadership Gap: What Gets you Between You and Your Greatness. So Lolly, welcome.

I’m so happy to be here, thank you, John.

I am very impressed that you earned this title. So let’s start with that, The Most Inspiring Woman in the World. How did that come about?

Okay so nobody knows this, I’m blushing right now. I don’t know how it came about. It was something that was done, and something that I don’t really spend too much time reflecting on, and I’m very honored, but my whole purpose is to be of service to others. If I inspire others, then I can sleep at night, because that’s what I’m meant to do.

Yeah, that’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it? But that’s what’s inspiring I think, is I would like to just start with getting you to define, because you have such a global perspective, let’s have you define two words. The first one is, inspiring, and then the second one is, leader. So if you want to combine either one, say, “A good leader is someone who inspires, and inspiring is,” I’m going to let you free form with that.

Absolutely. First of all, I love that. I love this. Inspire, if you look at the word inspire, it’s about in, right? It comes from within. If you look at the best leaders that are out there, there are leaders that lead from within. I think that anything that we do, to leave a mark, to be admired, to make an impact, to make a difference, has to start with oneself. Leaders inspire, and we inspire leadership within ourselves. I think it’s almost like a full circle when you talk about inspire, and leaders.

What I hear you saying is, in order to inspire others, you have to first inspire yourself. Would that be accurate?

Well, you have to inspire yourself, and the thing is, is that you have to find something within yourself that inspires you, right. So inspire yourself about yourself, and then it’s almost like if you understand yourself, you can understand others. If you know what inspires you, you can understand what inspires others.

I like that a lot because it’s all about empathy, isn’t it? If you’re trying to get other people to take action, follow your lead, be part of your vision, you have to put yourself in their shoes and say, “Would this inspire me? Do I see the value in this, and am I as committed as I’m asking them to be.”

In my practice for over three decades, I found something to be very true; is that there’s a pattern in human behavior, is that when one person thinks they’re a certain way, they think nobody else is like that. What I have found is, there is a pattern. If one person is suffering from let’s say, self-doubt, then there are many others that are suffering from self-doubt. We have to realize that we’re not on an island. That as human beings we have a lot more in common than we think, and a lot more going on that is concise with another person. You don’t even have to put yourself in somebody else’s shoes as much as say, “What does it feel like for me, to be in this position? There are times when I felt insecure. There are times when I felt self-doubt. I’m sure that’s what it’s like for someone else.” So we really have to get to know ourselves and to understand ourselves, in order to understand others.

A lot of people are sometimes afraid to show their vulnerability, “I’m the leader, I’m supposed to be perfect all the time. I can’t let my team see that I’ve ever had doubts or worries.” What are your thoughts on that?

I think it was over 20 years ago, I coined this phrase in an organization and I said to the leader, “Vulnerability is the new strong.”

And he was like, “What do you mean? What do you mean?” I said, “The more vulnerable that you are, the more you show your true colors. The more you tell them that things aren’t going right, you’ll have an organization that feels, A, connected to you, B, they’ll want to help you, and three, they’ll be part of the solution.”

So that’s where the strength comes from. I said, “Try it, try it for one month. Try to be more transparent than you are,” because his way of leadership was, “It’s my way or the highway.” I said, “Nobody feels that you’re human, and you have to bring some humanness to who you are, and he goes, “How do I do that?” And I said, “Well, vulnerability is the new strong. That’s your motto.” And it really worked. It took him a little bit more than a month to catch on to what it meant, but people kept saying, “Hey, did you drink Lolly’s Kool-Aid?” Because they were like, “What did you do to him? What’d you do to him?” And I just said, “Well, we tapped into his humanness.”

Source: Pexels

[Tweet “Vulnerability is the new strong”]

Nice. Well, I can’t tell you how many investors I’ve interviewed that say, “You know, when people pitch me for money, be a human. Don’t pretend like you have all the answers,” and the same thing is true when you’re pitching someone to buy your product. You need to show some vulnerability in the pitch, I think. Can you expand on how someone could be vulnerable and strong at the same time that they’re pitching, let’s say to get a new client.

Absolutely. I believe anything that you do in your business, comes to pitching, comes to having a conversation. I think you have to bring your best self forward, and that means, everything that you have to offer, has to be put on the table. Usually, people think I’m only going to talk about all the great things about who I am. And I find it very exciting actually, and very enticing when someone says, “You know, I have these skills. But I notice that I have these other skills that might not always work, but I’m mindful of them, and I’m learning to leverage them, but I’m aware of them.” That to me makes someone vulnerable, makes them strong because they realize they’re a whole person. They’re not only one side of only doing great things, but they’ve made some mistakes and they’re learning about it, and they’re leveraging it. I’d rather be aligned with someone like that than someone’s always like, “Everything is great, and everything is wonderful,” because it doesn’t really work that way.

One of the things that I’ve noticed when I’m coaching people on how to pitch to get new clients is, if you tell a story of a time when there was a problem, because let’s face it, there’s usually some bump in the road during a long experience with a client, but how you handled it. You didn’t keep it a secret from them, you collaborated with them. That’s a much more compelling pitch, “That person is going to have my back,” and you tell the story of when it wasn’t always perfect. That really separates you from just one hit after another.

Absolutely. You know, I always tell my clients that failure should be a teacher and not an undertaker. Some people think it’s like the death of them, and I always say, “Failure is a delay. It’s not a defeat. It’s temporary,” I always tell them it’s a detour and it’s funny because most people want to not talk about it, but I think failure is something that we cannot avoid. It’s something that actually is part of our learning lessons. So I think it’s very important to talk about failure. I fail all the time, and it just means that I have to try a new way, to A, try it in a new way, or do something different. Think in a different way.

Source: Pexels

[Tweet “Failure is a teacher not an undertaker”]

I love that, well I’m all about inspiring people to be confident when they pitch. Let’s talk about The Leadership Gap, your wonderful book that really, you’re defining the difference between what people should be focused on, versus what they actually do when they’re managing people. Can you tell us what the big gap is?

Yeah, so the big great thing about this book is that if you learn this system, it’s situational. That means that every time you have a meeting, every time you meet someone, you can ask yourself this inner question, “Should I stand in my greatness? Or will I reveal my gaps?” And just by asking that question, you will know how the meeting goes. So I’ll give you an example.

Please.

There are seven archetypes within the re-think system. I’ll give you the first one so you’ll understand how it means to stand in your greatness, or stand in your gap. Let’s say you have a business, right? And you want to make an impact in the world and you’re very passionate about this business and this new venture. You need to be a rebel, who is confident, in order to be able to pitch that in a way that it comes across, that it’s a magnificent idea. So you need to be a rebel who is confident.

But guess what? For every single rebel that is confident about what they want to do in the world, and what business they want to create, there is a gap that we feel like an imposter, who has self-doubt. If we are not mindful of that, that means when we get up to pitch, when we get up to tell our story, if we’re not feeling good about ourselves, if we have self-doubt, if we feel like an imposter, that will come across. So we have to ask ourselves, “Will I stand in greatness as the rebel who is confident, or will I allow my gap to lead and show that I feel like an imposter who has self-doubt?” That in itself will be a game changer when you’re pitching.

It’s situational. You can ask yourself that question, and you could pivot and leverage the imposter. In my book, I talk about seven different ways that you can leverage the imposter, that you don’t have to show up with self-doubt. That you can stand, and pitch, and be the rebel who’s confident.

Well, I think almost all of us have experienced that feeling of, someone’s going to tap me on the shoulder and say, “I’m sorry, there’s been a horrible mistake, you don’t know what you’re doing, get out of here.”

Exactly. Exactly.

Can you share with us one of the tips of how to deal with this imposter syndrome that you mentioned, your seven of them?

Yeah. I want to share two because I want to bring as much value as I can, and my research shows that there is 99.9% of us that feel this way. So, if we can help the 99.9%, let’s do that, right?

Yeah.

Interestingly enough I do coach the 1% because he feels he has no imposter, and that he’s filled with confidence, so much confidence, and he hired me because he wanted to learn empathy. He goes, “Teach me how to have empathy, I don’t have empathy for someone else because I have no self-doubt.” Let’s go back to all the rest of us who do suffer from the imposter syndrome, and who has self-doubt sometime or another.

The first thing I think I’d like to share a ritual that I do, that I think can help people. Every night, I do a two part ritual. At the end of the evening before I go to sleep, I ask myself, “Lolly, what did you do well today? What did you do that was really great today? And what did you do,” either it’s a skill, or having a conversation, or making an impact with someone. When I think about that, and I go, “Wow, that was really great.” Then I say to myself, part two, “What can you do tomorrow to be even better?” So I’m doing two things in this exercise, which we’ll learn to leverage the self-doubt and the imposter that maybe I sometimes feel.

The first thing is, confidence doesn’t come from looking in a mirror and saying, “I am great, I am wonderful.” Confidence comes from competence plus capabilities. Confidence is believing you’re able, but competence is knowing you’re able. That’s the difference.

So what I do at night is, I think about all my competencies, and I think about my capabilities and I anchor them, “You did that well,” so I confirm it in my head, “Lolly, you did it. You made it. You’re making a difference. You’re doing it. You’re doing a great job.”

The second part of that exercise, why it works so well is, I’m not comparing myself to anybody else. I’m only comparing myself to myself. I am measuring my capabilities and my competence against myself. Most people out there that feel like an imposter, who have self-doubt, is because they’re so busy comparing themselves to others.

You know I’ve never heard anybody else say that, and I love it. The source of why we feel like an imposter is not because we’re looking at our own progress or lack of, but because we’re comparing ourselves to other people who might have achieved more than we have at the moment, and that’s where it comes from. That’s so great, Lolly.

Yeah, well you know the truth is John, there’s always going to be somebody out there that is better, faster, prettier, smarter, wiser, more handsome, than we are. Trust me, I know that for a fact; but if we take that out of the equation and we only bring it inward, right, where we have that inspire, we inspire ourselves.

So those are two things that really, really work. I’ve been doing their practice for a long time. Guess what? Every single day, I do better than I did the day before. Can you imagine, after 30 days of doing that, where you’re going to be at in your mind, and where you’re going to be at in your business?

Think about it this way. If you’re pitching someone, how can you pitch better tomorrow? What can you do better tomorrow? What else can you add? What else you can delete so it’s much better? So I think that’s a game changer.

That’s a huge game changer. First of all, you’ve given us the real secret formula to confidence as it replaced to competence and capabilities, and then the real secret to why some of us, or most of us, feel like imposters. The fast cure is ask yourself these questions at night, and secondly, stop comparing yourself to other people. Even if you start to catch yourself doing it, going, “Oh, whoa, what am I doing here? No wonder I feel like an imposter,” that combination is a huge win.

I just want to tell you a little secret. Most people that are in the room feel exactly the way you do. Just know that. I sit with very high-level individuals, and non-achieving individuals and they say, “Lolly, I feel like an imposter, they’re going to find out I’m not as smart as I am. I didn’t go to the best schools. I’m sitting on this board and I have thousands of people listening to me. I can’t believe it.” So just realize that we all suffer from it.

Nice, the empathy factor really helps there. One of the things you talk about is why training fails to solve the problem. I’m really fascinated by, okay, you give somebody some information, they teach their team, “Okay this is what we want to do now,” but this whole concept of soft skills is really where I want to take a little deep dive. I’ve worked with architecture firms, and they’re always shocked when they hear from their clients that, we’re going to pick the designer to redesign our offices or build a skyscraper; not on your designs, but on who we like the most. And the soft skills of likability, and empathy, and confidence, and storytelling, are just not taught and they don’t know how to keep using them. They keep going back to, “Oh here’s my design, do you want to hire us.” How do you get people to first see it, and then train their team to do it?

Interesting that you’re talking about that because you might not know this, but I read a book a day. What I noticed was, in the books that I was reading about business and leadership, most books will tell you how to be. They’ll tell you what to do, they’ll tell you even why to do it, and I think that they were missing the core foundational as we talked about earlier, that humanness. What brings you to greatness, is that who we are. I think most people align themselves with the person that knows the most about themselves, and who knows what I call, their greatness. Who stands from their best potential, who brings out their humanness, who has loyalty and trust, and confidence, and integrity.

All those delicious things that people feel connected to. And so, when I work with leaders, I always say, “It has to start with you. You have to lead by example. You have to show others what it means to be a true leader. It means about leading from within. You have to find out who you are and what’s important to you. Then you have to let people know what’s important to you, and how their story, who they are, is important to you. So not only you have to know about yourself, but you have to show interest in others, and it’s the celebration of who we are as a collective, is what makes a company so successful.”

It’s funny I was having a conversation earlier today and they said, “You know, why do you get hired, Lolly?” And I said, “Well most people hire me because they want the results that I was able to give another organization. They were able to reach their targets, their employee engagement has gone up, they’re making more money, all the wonderful things that people hire coaches for,” correct? Then I come in and I say, “Well, we’re going to talk about who you are,” and they go, “No, no, no, no, no, we don’t want that. We want what you did for the other company, we want to know how to reach our metrics, we want to know how we can make more money. We want to know how we can have more employee engagement, that everybody feels connected, here.” And I said, “Yeah, it starts with who you are.” And they’re like, “No,” I go, “Yes, it does. Just give me the six months and you will see the revenue will go up. The results will be met, the targets will be met.”

So most people are like, “We don’t really want to do the work,” I said, “I know, it’s hard work. It’s usually the soft things, right, that are the hardest things to do. They’re not easy at all. Taking a little bit longer when you see someone and asking them how they are and connecting with them, takes a little bit more than, “Okay, do your job. You have to stop, you have to listen, you have to learn about others.” And I think that’s very effective when it comes to training and connecting with people.

I love it. Well, you gave us a little snapshot of one of the seven different archetypes of the rebel, do you have another favorite one that you want to share? I’m really intrigued to learn about the navigator because I think you’re always pivoting when you’re leading and things are changing all the time, but if there’s another one you want to talk about, I think that would be great.

I love them all because they’re within all of us, so let’s talk about the navigator. And it’s everybody on this podcast. It’s everybody who is smart, everybody who is good at solving problems, and the way they solve problems is being very practical and very pragmatic. They can look at something and they can solve it. What makes them really great, is then when people come to them with a problem, they navigate them, they steer them, they guide them, and because they do that people trust them. You recognize a navigator very easily, but, there’s a gap. For ever navigator that is very good at navigating and staring, and having people trust them, the gap is a fixer who becomes arrogant. The fixer sounds like this, “This is what you need to do. This is how you should do. This is when you should do it, and this is why you should do it, now go do it.”

So that fixer, and I’m sure we’ve seen this, A, in our marriages, we have seen this in our partnerships. Somebody comes to you with a problem, and instead of just stopping and listening, we all of a sudden want to solve the problem for them so it goes away. Guess what we’re doing? We’re disempowering them. A true leader, a successful person, will empower people by listening and then starting, but not fixing it. Not saying, “This is what you need to do.” Most people know what they need to do, they just need to be able to talk about it, talk through it and say, “You know what, that’s what I’m going to do. That makes sense.” That’s how we empower people. The best coaches are navigators, the best leaders are navigators, the best entrepreneurs can navigate through things and empower the customers, their clients, their joint venture, anything. They know how to navigate and that’s what we have to remember. At any given moment, we can ask ourselves, “Greatness, or gap. Navigator, or fixer.”

Well, you know men, in particular, have this reputation of trying to fix everything as opposed to just listening. But certainly in a leadership role, when someone comes to you with a problem, you get them addicted if you’re always fixing their problems, right? They don’t even start to think for themselves, they’re like, “I don’t even want to think for myself, I just want my boss to tell me what to do,” and that never develops them into a leader, does it?

Absolutely not, and if you own your company or let’s say you’re a coach, let’s go to that for a second. Let’s say you’re coaching someone, and you’re always fixing their problem. That person’s going to end up blaming you, “You couldn’t fix my problems,” and they’re either going to fire you, or they’re not going to want to work with you. If you’re a boss, and you’re always telling people what to do, and they are not allowed to showcase who they are, they’re going to leave. They’re not going to stay because they don’t want to do it your way, they’re there because they have capabilities and competence, right? And they want to showcase them.

You’re really an expert, Lolly, in giving us contrast and distinctions, and the one I really am curious about is the gap that happens between having an intuition and using that for manipulation or for good. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah, I love that archetype. That archetype is the explorer. The explorer is someone that wants to go into unchartered waters. It’s starting a new business, it’s starting a new venture; something that hasn’t been done before. What I have found is, the best explorers use their intuition. They use their intuition to go to new places, new thoughts, new ideas. Why? Because intuition, the concept of intuition, is letting go of what you know, in order to let something new come in. When you do that, guess what you have to do? You have to let go of control. You have to let go of, this is how it has to be. And when you can’t let go of control, you find yourself in a gap. And you find yourself being an exploiter who manipulates. An exploiter is someone who wants so much control over what is going to happen, that they end up using people, and they end up manipulating people in a way that they don’t even realize it.

It’s someone who comes in and says, “Get it done now, do it my way or else you’ll pay the price for it.” That’s not the way to create something, that’s manipulation. That’s exploiting people. When we go into new places, when we find ourselves at the edge of our discomfort, the thing is that we have to allow to become the explorer and to let things come to us because, the truth is, is that we only know what we know. Intuition allows us to go to a place we might not have thought of. So somebody might say that, “What is intuition? I want to understand what intuition is.” The science of intuition tells us that our brain is almost like a memory chip. We see things and it goes into our brain and there’s a chip, and there’s another chip, and another chip, and another chip, and so what happens is over time there’s all these chips in our brain of information and knowledge that we’ve accumulated. Intuition is that all of a sudden those chips get connected and we say, “Ah, I know what to do.” That’s intuition.

I love that definition.

It’s connecting the dots from all our previous experiences, as opposed to just, “Oh, well, it’s a gut feeling,” I love that there’s some science behind it.

Yeah, the science talks about that it’s the chips in our brains that get connected, that’s why if you ever listen to someone speak who’s very intuitive, they say things that have five words or less. That’s how you know they’re intuition. They go, “Get it. Done it. Know it. Feel it.” They speak in very short words because all of a sudden they got so connected, it’s almost like an energy that comes out that says, “Get it done.” The minute you use the word because then it is not intuition. So be careful.

Oh, that’s interesting. Because you’re justifying something as opposed to just stating it.

Right.

This whole concept of needing to be in control versus trusting your intuition, especially when you’re pitching. If you feel like you have to try to control the potential buyer, and, “You should do this, and you should do it by this time, and here’s why, because the price is going up,” or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and creating all this scarcity, is really manipulation more than intuition, don’t you think?

Brilliant John. I couldn’t have said it better. That’s exactly what it means to stand in your gap. That exactly what’s going to cost you and anybody saying, “I want to work with you, I want to do business with you,” so I couldn’t have said it better.

Oh, thank you. Well, I love what you’re talking about, I think it’s very valuable, I think we’re in the gap and we’re not even aware of the gap. First of all, whether you just want to lead yourself, if you have your own business or you just want to become a better leader, this book, The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness, is so important for everyone. Whether you perceive yourself to be a leader or not, because until we become aware of these different archetypes, and figure out what the contrasts are, we can’t even begin to change our behavior or improve, and then go back to the questions that you ask yourself at night. So I am going to, not only say, “What did I do great today,” but then put it in the context of, “What did I do great today as the explorer, and what could I do better tomorrow as the explorer.” That gives me a whole nother frame of reference.

I love that. I just want to say one thing about what you just said, can I add something?

Please.

For anybody that believes that they’re not a leader, then I say that’s not the truth; because the definition of a leader means, are you influencing someone? Are you impacting someone? Are you making a difference in someone’s lives? And I think every single person can say yes. That to me is a leader. You don’t have to have a title or a position – it could be a mom, it could be a dad, it could be a coach, it could be anybody in your life that is when they talk to you – they make a difference in your life. They’re having an impact. So I believe everybody’s a leader to someone.

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[Tweet “What gets between you and your greatness?”]

That’s so great and so valuable. That motivates everybody’s self-esteem, to start thinking of yourself a leader even if you don’t have the title of manager, VP, or what have you, in or out of a company. I love that, because as a parent clearly, you lead your children. And you know, I think it keeps going back to what you said. You look inside, you gotta lead yourself, you gotta parent yourself-

Since you read a book a day, I guess I want to ask you, in addition to your own book, is there a book you want to recommend that has inspired you or give you some really great insights that you want to share?

Absolutely. So there’s a book that I read every day, excuse me, there’s a book that I read every year on my birthday, so I re-read it and I’ve been doing it for 27 years.

Wow.

The book is called, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. I don’t care what business you’re in, I don’t care how old you are, this book is a book that will give you a code of conduct for the rest of your life. The reason I read it is that it reminds me of, number one is, there are so many wonderful things. It teaches me that whatever I’m going through, whatever challenges I’m going through if I could find meaning in it I’ll be able to survive it.

Nice.

It teaches me when I could no longer change a situation, then I have to change myself. It teaches me that I can’t take anything for granted and that if I need to, as I call in my words, “Move myself to greatness,” maybe I need to change my attitude. It just teaches me these wonderful things and reminds me year after year to just keep grounded in the aspects of how I want to live my life. So A Man’s Search for Meaning is a book that I buy them in droves and I give them out as gifts. It’s just an amazing book.

Well, speaking of amazing books. Yours is certainly up there in my mind, The Leadership Gap: What gets Between You and Your Greatness. And your twitter handle is @lollydaskal and obviously, we’re going to put it in the show notes, you can get the book online. I can’t thank you enough for sharing your wisdom. You really have great insights into how we can all be leaders and make a difference and an impact.

Thank you so much for having me, it was a pleasure and a privilege.

Links Mentioned

• Book: Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
• Book: The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness
• Website: www.lollydaskal.com
• Twitter: @lollydaskal

 

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