Becoming Your Best | The Principles of Highly Successful Leaders

High-performing leaders and organizations constantly look for ways to improve their strategies, their workplace, and their people. They never stop moving forward and always figure out ways to grow. Sometimes, this means bringing someone from the outside world into your company and letting them share their experience. 

Our guest today, Greg, is an expert at helping others find the blind spots in their companies and take action on changing and improving their culture. He shares with us golden nuggets, throughout the entire episode, that apply not only in the professional life but also in everyone’s personal life.  

Greg Spillane is a growth-focused technology leader with an 18+ year track record of success in large-scale business development, architecting, and implementing innovative go-to-market strategies, building high-performing teams with a strong culture and taking technology products from concept to commercial viability by leading the strategy, design, development, and marketing.  

Greg applies all the lessons he has learned throughout his athletic career as a Division I offensive lineman as well as those he learned while developing high-performing teams and organizations, to further improve his skills and help other businesses thrive.  

Listen to Episode 237 of Becoming Your Best, to learn how to better lead your teams, how to build the culture that you want and why it’s important to trust the people that you chose to be part of your organization and let them do what they do best, without micromanaging them.  

Questions I ask:  

• How has athletics, how has that experience as a Division I athlete helped you become a better leader? (03:09) 
• How do you approach winning hearts and minds when you go into a company? (08:07) 
• From your perspective, how important is culture within an organization? (11:04) 
• How can you change a culture that’s already established? (13:45) 
• What do you mean by ‘never stop moving forward’? (18:43) 

In this episode, you will learn: 

• Success comes only through dedication, commitment, and hard work. (04:16) 
• One powerful definition of ‘discipline’ that applies to everything that we do in any walk of life. (06:00) 
• The three pillars of building the culture you want for your company. (11:46) 
• The importance of having a team aligned with your company’s vision, purpose, and goals. (14:35) 
• How to get closer to your goals when they seem too big and far away. (17:27) 
• The reasons why you should truly stop trying to micromanage your teams. (19:36) 
• Doing everything out of passion is ultimately the most important thing in life. (24:58) 

Connect with Greg: 

• LinkedIn 
• Twitter 
• Instagram 
• Email: [email protected]  

Becoming Your Best Resources: 

• Becoming Your Best Website 
• Becoming Your Best University Website 
• Becoming Your Best Library 
• Email: [email protected]   
• Book: Becoming Your Best: The 12 Principles of Highly Successful Leaders 
• Book: Conquer Anxiety: How to Overcome Anxiety and Optimize Your Performance 
• Facebook Group – Conquer Anxiety 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A couple of weeks ago, we did an episode where we discussed Chapters #1 and #2 of our recently released book, “Conquer Anxiety”. We talked about, what is the mind all about? Why do we, as humans, experience anxiety? What’s happening in the brain, that’s causing that? We also stressed the importance of taking the assessment in Chapter #2 because that will help us understand the root cause of what’s causing the anxiety and where that fear is coming from. 

After you understand where your anxiety is stemming from - the nervousness, the anxiousness - now, what do you do about it? How do you conquer that anxiety, overcome it, and learn to move beyond it, so that you can have boldness, confidence, freedom and peace, and be liberated from those emotions that are so gripping to so many of us?

In today’s episode, our dear friend and co-author, Jon Skidmore, comes back once again as our guest, to answer these questions. He shares with us what the five stages of conquering anxiety are all about and how they can serve us as a tool for easing our way into becoming high-performance individuals. 

Listen to Episode 236 of Becoming Your Best, to learn what performance anxiety is, how to prepare for our ‘performance’, and what we should do once the event passes.

Questions I ask:

• Jon, can you talk about stage one of conquering anxiety, which is, “Identify the vision”? (06:30)
• Can you explain to people what Monkey Chatter is? (17:25)
• Talk about stage five – the Post-Performance Debrief. (29:23)

In this episode, you will learn: 

• A brief overview on the five stages of conquering anxiety & some examples where the performance anxiety can kick in. (03:11)
• The mental and physical preparation to conquer anxiety. (10:17)
• The six different exercises in the book that will help you calm your body down when your anxiety gets activated. (12:36)
• The reason why we did the online course that accompanies this book. (16:50)
• How to react in stage three – the Pre-Performance Experience. (20:23)
• The chair flying exercise. (21:57)
• What a peak performance is. (26:43)
• The three parts of stage four – The Performance. (27:40)
• How the avoidance starts to show up when we’re not dealing with our anxieties. (35:09)

Connect with Jon:

• LinkedIn
• Website

Becoming Your Best Resources:

• Becoming Your Best Website
• Becoming Your Best University Website
• Becoming Your Best Library
• Email: [email protected]  
• Book: Becoming Your Best: The 12 Principles of Highly Successful Leaders
• Book: Conquer Anxiety: How to Overcome Anxiety and Optimize Your Performance
• Facebook Group – Conquer Anxiety

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Leadership is a journey and such a driving force in life! It is both tangible and intangible, and where it really makes a difference is in crisis. It makes a difference between a good and a great family, a good and a great community, or a good and a great company, because it takes a great deal of self-discipline to be a leader, to be on time, and to choose the harder right over the easier wrong. 

The perfect place to learn these values is in the army, and oftentimes, the people that have served in the US Military, in high positions, have become excellent leadership examples to follow.  

In today’s episode, Becky and I discuss the qualities and the values a highly successful leader must have, the reasons why everything starts with yourself, and the importance of knowing when to step up and admitting when it’s time to step down. We also dive deep into her experience in the Military and how it was for her, not only to be a woman in a men’s world, but also thrive in there and lead thousands of soldiers in combat. 

Becky Halstead is a retired Brigadier General who founded her own consultancy company - STEADFAST Leadership - after 27 years of service in the United States Army, and one year as the Executive Director for Leader Development with Praevius Group. 

She has been honored to be selected to attend West Point in 1977 - entering with the second class of women and being the first kid from her hometown to graduate from West Point. She's blessed to be the first female graduate of West Point to be promoted to General Officer and she served and commanded in combat, as the first female Commanding General at the strategic level of leadership in Iraq - leading 20,000 soldiers, 5,000 civilians from 2005 to 2006 - a first for our Army and our Nation. 

Becky has also written the leadership book, “The First Person You Must Lead Is You”, so listen to Episode 235 of Becoming Your Best, to learn some strategies she used in the military and how can those translate in the civilian world so that we can all become our best at leading teams.  

Questions I ask: 

• Could you, please, tell us about your background, including any turning points that have had a significant impact on you? (03:00) 
• What was it like to be the first woman graduate who became a general? (10:59) 
• How did you deal with the setbacks you encountered in your journey? (12:45) 
• How did your book come to be? (17:20) 
• What is the value of both practical and tactical leadership, in being able to get results? (21:26) 

In this episode, you will learn:  

• How Becky’s high school coach influenced her decision to go to West Point. (05:19) 
• The importance of not quitting when it gets tough. (07:35) 
• How the death of Becky’s coach has helped her later in life, during her military career. (09:11) 
• What the acronym STEADFAST stands for and the reason Becky decided to make it her leadership model. (19:26) 
• One of the most important qualities a leader should possess. (22:36) 
• The difference between practical and tactical leadership. (23:45) 

Connect with Becky:  

• Website 
• Facebook Page 
• LinkedIn 
• Twitter 
• Book: Becky Halstead – The First Person You Must Lead Is You 
• YouTube Channel 

Becoming Your Best Resources: 

• Becoming Your Best Website 
• Becoming Your Best University Website 
• Becoming Your Best Library 
• Email: [email protected]   
• Book: Becoming Your Best: The 12 Principles of Highly Successful Leaders 
• Book: Conquer Anxiety: How to Overcome Anxiety and Optimize Your Performance 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the last few decades, in our culture, it’s almost been this move-away from being able to have open conversations. There is this fear that people get offended so easily and it seems like there’s a lot of things that we can’t talk about. And that’s unfortunate because there’s so many conversations that we could be having with others if we were willing to have an open mind and an open dialogue, without necessarily worrying about offending others.  

One of these types of discussions that have become taboo-like in our culture, are around God and religion. That’s why today, we invited someone that is literally influencing the world through the short films, movies, and TV series that he produces and are faith-based. 

Dallas Jenkins is the Producer and Director of “The Chosen” – the first-ever multi-seasoned show about the life of Christ. This series was born out of Dallas’s biggest career disappointment, and it encompasses the Gospels in the Bible and shares a beautiful message of hope. The first season had just reached 32 million views and Dallas and his team plan to do seven more seasons and touch on a billion people’s souls.   

Listen to Episode 234 of Becoming Your Best to find out the events that led to the birth of this masterpiece, how it’s impacting people so far, and what the future holds for “The Chosen”.  

Questions I ask: 

• Can you, please, tell us a little bit about you? (03:13) 
• What is your vision for “The Chosen”? (22:38) 
• Up to this point, what were one or two of the biggest highlights from the whole experience of putting together season one? (25:59) 

In this episode, you will learn: 

• How “The Chosen” was born. (04:22) 
• Dallas’s biggest career failure. (07:05) 
• The story of The Feeding of the 5000 and its meaning. (08:44) 
• An example of what “Impossible math” means – How Dallas managed to break the records of crowdfunding. (13:38) 
• How the Pay It Forward program works and how you can help fund this project. (16:09) 
• The top reasons why people have been so passionate about this show. (19:06) 

Connect with Dallas:  

• “The Chosen” on VidAngel 
• “The Chosen” App 
• Dallas Jenkins on IMDB 
• Instagram 
• Facebook Page 
• LinkedIn 

Becoming Your Best Resources: 

• Becoming Your Best Website 
• Becoming Your Best University Website 
• Becoming Your Best Library 
• Email: [email protected]   
• Book: Becoming Your Best: The 12 Principles of Highly Successful Leaders 
• Book: Conquer Anxiety: How to Overcome Anxiety and Optimize Your Performance 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anxiety is something that reaches more people than we realize. It's something that touches us in so many different ways, and it’s crucial to learn where it comes from, to understand how it influences us, and how can we begin to take control over our past experiences that trigger it. 

We wanted to make it easier for you to get all the information you need related to overcoming this feeling, so we worked on a book called, “Conquer Anxiety”, that’s designed to do just that. Co-authoring with us is Jon Skidmore, a licensed psychologist and a professor at Brigham Young University, who has an amazing background in helping people through anxiety and all kinds of performance anxiety-related issues. 

Today, we invited him to share some powerful insights into understanding the basics of how our brain functions, and why we’re sometimes driven by fears that create powerful anxieties that get in our way throughout the journey of becoming our best. 

Jon is committed to getting the psychological skills of peak performance and mental toughness into the hands of performers of all ages and stages. Listen to Episode 233 of Becoming Your Best to learn how the book he wrote alongside with us can help you get a clearer view on the triggers that activate the flight response that stops you from achieving greatness.  

Questions I ask: 

• Why do we experience anxiety in the first place, as human beings? (02:41) 
• There is an assessment in Chapter 2 of our book “Conquer Anxiety”. Why is it so important for people to take it before they jump to learning the other different techniques? (08:41) 
• As you see and meet with people on a daily basis, what are some of the most common recurring things that you see? (16:39) 

In this episode, you will learn:  

• The importance of knowing that you activate your anxiety faster than you can deactivate it. (04:25) 
• The way our adult fears and anxiety triggers are deeply rooted in our childhood experiences. (05:35)  
• How our brain tends to first see the negative in a situation. (10:55) 
• The benefits of doing the assessment in chapter 2 of the book “Conquer Anxiety”. (14:36) 
• The five stages of peak performance that will help you conquer your anxieties. (15:36) 
• The distinction between positive and negative visualization & How they both impact our lives. (18:54) 
• The importance of designing a mindset when we create our visions. (20:46) 
• Facing the anxieties and the fears that you have expands your world and your possibilities. (24:52) 

Connect with Jon: 

• LinkedIn 
• Website 

Becoming Your Best Resources: 

• Becoming Your Best Website 
• Becoming Your Best University Website 
• Becoming Your Best Library 
• Email: [email protected]   
• Book: Becoming Your Best: The 12 Principles of Highly Successful Leaders 
• Book: Conquer Anxiety: How to Overcome Anxiety and Optimize Your Performance 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Taking an idea and starting a business can be difficult and daunting for some people, especially because sometimes they don’t know where to start and what end to grab.  

Did you know that 75% of the new businesses fail? That’s a pretty scary number, but there are specific ways to avoid the pitfalls within the Formula for Failure, and they all come down to having a clear process in place, and well-defined strategies and goals. 

Today, we are going to share with you the keys to becoming a successful entrepreneur and building the thriving business that you’ve dreamed of. The course that contains all of these actions you’re going to hear about in this episode, has proven to be helpful over and over again for people that decided to onboard on the journey to leadership, and we are positive that it will help you steer the wheel in the right direction, too.  

So, listen to Episode 232 of Becoming Your Best, to learn what a business needs from its founder, to thrive, grow, and pivot toward the desired goals.  

In this episode, you will learn:  

• The first key to being a successful entrepreneur – taking care of yourself. (07:37) 
• The things you should focus on during the idea phase of your business. (08:46) 
• The steps to follow in the next chapter of your business: the Go – No-go phase. (11:13) 
• How to develop your USP – Unique Selling Proposition. (14:52) 
• How to develop a strategic plan with clear goals and specific strategies to grow your company. (16:53) 
• The importance of having an exit strategy right from the beginning. (19:05) 

Becoming Your Best Resources: 

• Becoming Your Best Website 
• Becoming Your Best University Website 
• Becoming Your Best Library 
• Email: [email protected]   
• Book: Becoming Your Best: The 12 Principles of Highly Successful Leaders 
• Book: Conquer Anxiety: How to Overcome Anxiety and Optimize Your Performance 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“We were born with a voice box, but it didn’t come with instructions on how best to use it.” – AmyK Hutchens 

Communication is hard, and every single day, really smart people are either attempting or avoiding a tough conversation. But, the fact of the matter is that almost everything we want – whether it’s a salary increase, a better life, better relationships – is on the other side of a difficult conversation, and the more skilled we are to be able to prepare for these critical moments in our lives, the more we get what we desire.  

In today’s episode, my guest, AmyK, focuses on teaching us how to discover what we want and what other people want so that we can create better connections and profitable outcomes. We dive deep into some magical phrases that can ease our conversations and she shares the steps we have to follow to improve the way we communicate. 

AmyK Hutchens is an international award-winning speaker, Amazon best-selling author, and has over 19 years of experience in training and consulting. She has clients such as The Home Depot, Starbucks Canada, Expedia, Lockheed Martin, Walmart, and just a host of others. She travels the globe sharing with executives, influencers, and go-getters how to navigate their toughest conversations, and has been a featured guest on numerous TV and radio networks, including Bloomberg, NBC, Fox, and ABC. 

She comes from a family of teachers and educators and literally, when she was five years old she was playing school with her imaginary students. You can imagine how skilled she is at teaching people, so listen to Episode 231 of Becoming Your Best to learn how to honor your voice, one conversation at a time, to get what you want and create a profitable life.  

Questions I ask:  

• Tell us about your background, including any turning points in your life that have had a significant impact on you, and how did you get to where you're at today? (02:12) 
• What’s your recommendation for people to know what they really want? (07:44) 
• How important is it that people know what the other person wants? (09:57) 
• What are some of the magical phrases that effectively break down walls and create new possibilities? (11:09) 
• How do you prepare for your most important conversations, to ensure really great outcomes? (18:44) 
• How can people honor the worth of their own voice? (20:19) 

In this episode, you will learn:  

• What inspired AmyK to write the book “Get it!” & what the book is about. (03:56) 
• Improving your emotional literacy allows you to better connect with other people and with yourself. (08:43) 
• How the phrase “A Part of Me” gives you a space for dialogue versus getting defensive and armoring up. (11:59) 
• How the phrase “How Might We” leads to more engagement and more inclusivity. (13:13) 
• Using the magical phrase, “I have this story in my head” can lead to a better conversation. (14:42) 
• The phrase “Help me understand what’s the thought behind” is a great way to practice empathy. (16:20) 
• AmyK’s most important advice when it comes to dealing with tough conversations. (23:05) 

Connect with AmyK: 

• Website 
• Instagram 
• LinkedIn 
• Book – Get It: Five Steps to the Sex, Salary and Success You Want 

Becoming Your Best Resources: 

• Becoming Your Best Website 
• Becoming Your Best University Website 
• Becoming Your Best Library 
• Email: [email protected]   
• Book: Becoming Your Best: The 12 Principles of Highly Successful Leaders 
• Book: Conquer Anxiety: How to Overcome Anxiety and Optimize Your Performance 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Being productive and efficient - both in our professional and personal lives - is a difficult task sometimes. There are countless apps and programs that come in handy sometimes, but many of them are not mindful of the fact that we don’t all think and process information the same way - thus, our strategies to increase productivity should be adapted to what works best for us.  

Carson knows all about designing personalized methods for better managing our time to accomplish more in a shorter period of time, and in today’s episode, she is going to share with us powerful insights into the styles of productivity that fit our needs. We also discuss how to work smarter from home and how to eliminate or reduce as much as possible the distractions that keep us from being efficient.  

Carson Tate is the founder and managing partner of Working Simply - a productivity and training firm that served a fast-growing list of clients including Delta Airline, FedEx, Wells Fargo, or Chick-fil-A. She is known for igniting personal transformation through her simple, powerful, and actionable strategies and tools.  

Carson wants people to work smarter, not harder, and she is on a mission to debunk the time management myths that keep us trapped or overwhelmed, and to help us personalize our productivity, so we can work simply and live fully. Prior to starting Working Simply, she worked in human resources and sales functions with Fortune 200 firms. She holds a bachelor's in psychology, a Master's in organizational development, and she has advanced coaching certificates. 

Listen to Episode 230 of Becoming Your Best, to find out which productivity style suits you, where can you find the strategies that apply best to your personality, and how you can simplify your work.  

Questions I ask: 

• Carson, tell us about your background, including any turning points in your life that have had a significant impact on you, and maybe that's even led you to do what you're doing today. (02:07)  
• The subtitle of your book is “Embracing the Power of Your Personal Productivity Style” – what does that mean? (09:31) 
• How can we conquer the overwhelm of working and living in this ever-changing and complex Coronavirus world? (14:21) 
• What are some of the best tips that you have of working together virtually - things that really work, that are productive? (18:40) 
• Any other final tips that you would like to give our listeners today that you think would help them in personal or professional productivity? (24:50) 

In this episode, you will learn: 

• How her book, “Work Simply” can help you increase your productivity. (05:01) 
• The four productivity styles and their characteristics. (06:15) 
• Some productivity strategies for each one of the four styles. (10:26) 
• The importance of knowing the productivity styles of your manager and coworkers. (13:02) 
• The four-part framework to work simply and live fully in the Coronavirus world. (15:24) 
• How to manage the distractions that surround us when we are working from home, by using “The Stoplight System”. (20:12) 
• The role music plays in our productivity. (22:00) 

Connect with Carson: 

• Website 
• LinkedIn 
• Book – Work Simply: Embracing the Power of Your Personal Productivity Style 

Becoming Your Best Resources: 

• Becoming Your Best Website 
• Becoming Your Best University Website 
• Becoming Your Best Library 
• Email: [email protected]   
• Book: Becoming Your Best: The 12 Principles of Highly Successful Leaders 
• Book: Conquer Anxiety: How to Overcome Anxiety and Optimize Your Performance 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"There are only four kinds of people in the world: those who have been caregivers, those who are currently caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need a caregiver." - Rosalyn Carter 

Having to take care of a loved one that is going through some tough situation, health wise, can be overwhelming most of the time, especially if we are the only person that is carrying this burden.  

In today’s episode, Erin points out that we are not alone in this, and she teaches us how to create the support group we so desperately need, to avoid the caregiver fatigue. She also shares some of the strategies she has applied when her sister needed an advocate and how she managed to keep everyone informed and looped in, every step of the way. 

Erin Galyean is an energetic and passionate certified Becoming Your Best trainer within her organization, whose main goal is to inspire others to have an open mindset, develop new skills, and have fun while learning. Based on her experiences with losing both her father and sister to life-threatening diseases, Erin has recently written a book, “Badass Advocate: Becoming the Champion Your Seriously Ill Loved One Deserves”, with the sole purpose of helping other caregivers who are faced with similar situations to handle everything with ease and grace.     

So, listen to Episode 229 of Becoming Your Best, and learn how to plan for something that hopefully you won’t have to deal with, but you most likely will, at some point.  

Questions I ask: 

• Why did you write the book and who is it for? (04:47) 
• What are a couple of the strategies that you've outlined in your book that people could learn from you? (10:27) 
• You wrote the book, you published it – how do you think this will help caregivers going forward? What’s next? (20:21) 

In this episode, you will learn: 

• The improvements we made to the BYB Personal Productivity Assessment. (00:54) 
• Erin’s background that shaped her into the woman she is today. (01:54) 
• How to create, as a caregiver, a support team that will help you feel less overwhelmed. (11:21) 
• Recording the conversations you have with your doctors – with their permission – has proven to be very helpful. (15:30) 
• The type of resources you can find if you go to Erin’s website. (23:59)   

Connect with Erin:  

• Website 
• Facebook 
• Instagram 

Becoming Your Best Resources: 

• Becoming Your Best Website 
• Becoming Your Best University Website 
• Becoming Your Best Library 
• Email: [email protected]   
• Book: Becoming Your Best: The 12 Principles of Highly Successful Leaders 
• Book: Conquer Anxiety: How to Overcome Anxiety and Optimize Your Performance 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An educated population, given the right tools, can solve any problem. That’s why, now more than ever, with the constant evolution of technology and the amount of information we have access to, it’s important to bring education front and center on the list of things that we are supporting. 

University leaders have the responsibility to be responsive to their students’ needs and find new ways to adapt faster and better organize their internal structure so that they can take advantage of every opportunity available.  

In today’s episode, Dr. Saunders and I are talking about the future of education, and what every university should do to quickly respond to change and pivot so that they can align with the constant demands of innovation.   

Martha Saunders is the sixth president of the University of West Florida, and in her 30-plus years in higher education, she has served as a professor of communication, honors director, dean of arts and sciences and as provost, chancellor, or president at universities in Florida, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Mississippi. Her area of academic expertise is in public relations and crisis communication for which she has won numerous awards, including two Public Relations Society of America’s coveted Silver Anvils. She is also the 2011 National Winner of the Stevie Award for Women in Business.  

Her vision for the University of West Florida is for it to grow beyond its beginnings as a regional comprehensive university, and be seen as a leader in innovation and cutting-edge academic programs. Listen to Episode 228 of Becoming Your Best, to find out what is needed in terms of leadership, to bring such an institution – or any other type of organization, as a matter of fact – to a higher level. 

Questions I ask: 

• Tell us about your background and some of the experiences that you've had and what are the things that have led you to where you're at today?  (02:51) 
• Tell us about the University of West Florida - we’d love to hear more about that. (09:22) 
• How is West Florida becoming Florida’s Innovation University? (12:11) 
• Any final tips you’d like to leave our listeners with, today? Any encouragement or any thoughts? (19:37) 

In this episode, you will learn: 

• The importance of being able to accept change and to pivot quickly when needed. (06:03) 
• How learning to lean on your team, trust them, and listen to their ideas is essential for great leadership. (08:00)  
• What the future of education looks like. (16:52) 
• How UWF’s Sea3D Lab is currently helping healthcare workers. (14:59) 

Connect with Dr. Martha Saunders: 

• Facebook 
• Twitter 
• LinkedIn 
• Blog 

Becoming Your Best Resources: 

• Becoming Your Best Website 
• Becoming Your Best University Website 
• Becoming Your Best Library 
• Email: [email protected]   
• Book: Becoming Your Best: The 12 Principles of Highly Successful Leaders 
• Book: Conquer Anxiety: How to Overcome Anxiety and Optimize Your Performance 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.