Branch Out - A Podcast from Connection Builders

The Art of Managing Up, Down, and Sideways with Michelle Acciavatti

It doesn’t matter where you are in the corporate hierarchy. Nearly all jobs require working with people and managing up, down, or sideways. Today we speak with Willis Towers Watson market leader Michelle Acciavatti about the art of managing. Starting at the entry-level, Michelle gives tips on managing up and impressing the bosses by creating ‘presentation-ready’ work. A recurring theme throughout our conversation, Michelle emphasizes the importance of developing an empathetic viewpoint, thinking one step ahead, and trying to understand other perspectives. Linking to his and on the subject of dealing with unreasonable bosses, Michelle advises that listeners operate the framework that 99.9% of people are rational people. Empathy can help you understand their position. We then dive into managing down and why developing your team can free you up to do more tasks. We talk about the false conception that people need managing, when really, your role is to manage tasks, problems, and deliverables. Another key theme, Michelle discusses why teams need trust and honesty before sharing how you can develop this within your team. Finally, we tackle how to manage sideways, with Michelle highlighting the need to build strong relationships. As you move up, Michelle explains, having a strong team that can give you honest feedback is critical to your success. Tune in to hear more about the art of managing — these lessons will benefit you wherever you are in your career.

Key Points From This Episode:

• The three vantage points to consider when managing up. 
• Generating ‘presentation-ready’ work from an empathetic viewpoint.
• How to manage up when your boss seems like an unreasonable person. 
• Finding common ground and operating from the framework that 99.9% of people are rational.
• Common challenges faced when managing down and why no one works for you.
• Developing the people below you instead of managing them.          
• Why trust and honesty are key in developing your team. 
• How to build trust and honesty within the team that you’re working with.
• How not letting the ‘perfect’ get in the way of the ‘good’ can give you time to nurture your connections. 
• Why building relationships is the most important aspect of your career. 
• The importance of developing an honest team when you reach upper-management levels. 
• Seeking out people with different perspectives and skillsets. 

Michelle Acciavatti LinkedIn
Alex Drost LinkedIn
Connection Builders LinkedIn

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Networking has its challenges; it’s not comfortable at first, you are not always going to be good at it, and you are certainly not always going to enjoy it. It is important to keep in mind that you are not always going to be the perfect fit for every room you go into, but if you don’t go out and do it you are never going to get better at it. When it comes down to it, you have to learn to develop your soft skills to help your career advance. Today’s guest is Dillon Zwick, from MeadowLark Advisors, out of Austin, TX. Dillon has a background in heavy industrial design and manufacturing. His primary team role at MeadowLark Advisors is finding opportunities, solving difficult problems, and figuring out whatever needs to get done. He has helped numerous client companies successfully work through the corporate restructuring process, and worked closely with company CEOs, CFOs, and accounting staff to support cash-constrained situations, prove transparency, and strategic analytic support to the process. During our conversation Dillon and I discuss the personal and professional benefits of networking. So stay tuned for this insightful interview as part of our series of conversations with leading professionals to take your career to the next level.  

Key Points From This Episode:

• Why are you networking and what are some of the great values in doing so.
• Dillon shares how networking can help with career advancement.
• How networking has opened up opportunities for Dillon to practice his soft skills. 
• The importance of practice: Working through discomfort, unpleasant rooms, and more.
• Dillon shares some past networking experience mishaps. 
• Job security and how networking leads to success in this area. 
• How networking plays a role in securing you a job amongst hundreds of resumes.
• Dillon shares the personal benefits of networking.
• The difficulty with letting past relationships go and looking for new relationships.
• How networking helps with lifelong learning and access to information.
• Dillon shares his most recent challenges: COVID-19 and networking online.

Six Reasons You Need to be Networking
Dillon Zwick LinkedIn
Alex Drost LinkedIn
Connection Builders LinkedIn
NPR Podcast - Hidden Brain: The Lonely American Man

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Everyone wants to work smarter not harder, and when it comes to building your professional brand, networking offers that exact opportunity. Networking allows you to establish yourself as a helpful resource to others, not only professionally but also personally. Networking is good for meeting potential clients but it is just as effective for building key mutually beneficial connections that might serve you well in the future. And even if someone cannot offer you anything in return, it is in the best interest of your brand to help them anyway since it contributes to a positive reputation. Talking to strangers and putting yourself out there do not come easy for everyone, but by challenging yourself and practicing the soft skills of interpersonal communication and speaking, you will grow in confidence, meet new people, and begin to add value to others, and this will stand you in good stead to take your professional brand to the next level. Joining us today to share his expertise on the topic is Steve Adamjee, a vice president with USI Insurance Services, so be sure to tune in!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Learn what a personal and professional brand involves and how they are built. 
• How networking can be leveraged for brand development. 
• Understanding that networking is a long-term game of serving and helping people.
• Why building relationships and knowledge sharing are such important aspects of networking.
• Seeking mutually beneficial relationships versus helping those who can’t help you. 
• How your unwillingness to help others will be reflected in your brand. 
• Finding better results by seeing how you can be of service to others. 
• Establishing yourself as a trusted resource regardless of the industry you are in. 
• Thoughts on the value of being part of associations and participating in speaking opportunities. 
• Getting involved in associations that are meaningful to you at both a personal and professional level. 
• Growing as a professional by practicing your interpersonal communication skills. 

Steve Adamjee LinkedIn
Alex Drost LinkedIn
Connection Builders LinkedIn

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The Power of a Positive Mindset with Carrie Schochet 

In the society we live in today, we’re being bombarded with negativity from many different directions — whether it be the news, social media, friends, family or our workplace. It is crucial that if you want to establish and maintain a positive mindset you have to choose to do so on a daily basis. We have to intentionally sift through all the negativity and consistently choose to focus on the positive. Our discussion today is around the power of a positive mindset, but not only how to establish one, but how to maintain it once you’ve got it. In this episode, we welcome guest Carrie Schochet. Carrie is the Founder and CEO of Purple Squirrel Advisors, a boutique executive search firm based in Troy, Michigan. With a passion for helping companies grow by creating exceptional leadership teams, Carrie has spent the past 16 years connecting C-level and senior executives with leadership positions in finance, accounting, human resources, operations, sales, and marketing. In our conversation, Carrie and I dive into the topic of the power of a positive mindset and the daily habits that help up to maintain this attitude. So stay tuned for a great discussion on positivity and resilience with one of our leading experts on this episode of Branch Out!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Carrie shares on why it is important to have a positive mindset.
• Some things Carrie does to maintain her positive focus and attitude: Creating habits. 
• The role journalling plays in helping you maintain a positive mindset and attitude.
• Having an accountability partner and changing the outcome.
• How Carrie makes meditation work for her and her lifestyle.
• What are we doing that we shouldn’t be doing: Non-value adding areas.
• The importance of taking time to reflect: Asking yourself why. 
• Scheduling your way to maintaining a positive mindset.
• Why having a positive mindset helps you overcome challenges and reframe circumstances.
• The importance of modeling resilience. 
• What advice Carrie would tell her younger self.

Carrie Schochet LinkedIn
Purple Squirrel Advisors LinkedIn
Alex Drost LinkedIn
Connection Builders LinkedIn

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Achieving Authenticity with Jamil Sanders 

Authenticity is something that is often discussed on our podcast and we often talk about in the sense of professional development and professional growth. Authenticity, by definition, will mean something different to every single person and ultimately we all pursue it differently. However, the key is that you simply have to be authentic in what you are doing. Today’s guest is Jamil Sanders, a Vice President with Key Private Bank. In this episode, Jamil shares his thoughts on what it means to achieve authenticity and we discuss steps that we can all take to become a more authentic version of ourselves. Jamil studied Business Administration and Cleveland State University and completed his MBA at Ashland University, specializing in Project Management. His expertise at Sequoia is centered around working with emerging professionals and successful entrepreneurs and his approach to financial planning and investment strategies are disciplined, strategic, and tailored to each client’s unique goals and primary objectives. Stay tuned for our discussion on authenticity and how to achieve it, on today’s episode of Branch Out.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Jamil shares what authenticity means to him and how he strives to achieve it.
• Moving from mimicking others to forming a truer version of yourself.
• Why we have to be intentional: Is this really who we are? Who I am?
• Jamil shares some challenges he had to overcome when he asked himself who he truly was.
• The importance of giving yourself grace as you go through the process.
• Being grounded in your authenticity as life forces push and pull on you.
• Being conscious of the daily battle and aware of when you aren’t being true to your authentic self.
• The importance of yourself daily to be your authentic self.
• When you establish your values it positively impacts your decision-making.

Jamil Sanders LinkedIn
Alex Drost LinkedIn
Connection Builders LinkedIn

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Leveraging Social Media to Enact Positive Change with George Khalife

Not every professional needs to go out and create a blog, start a podcast, or build a platform, but we all have the opportunity to leverage the technology available to us in order to accelerate our careers. This is why social media can be so powerful! Today’s guest is George Khalife of the Toronto Stock Exchange. George is based in Chicago, where he helps Midwest-based companies access the Canadian public markets, and he is also the host of a podcast Let’s Grab Coffee. George has been able to leverage social media and build a platform to ultimately deliver a positive message and, in this episode, he shares with us how he did it. We discuss the value of building connections both online and offline, knowing your story and telling it authentically, and scheduling time for creativity. George gives us some tips and tricks on how to use LinkedIn to our benefit, and talks about documenting your experiences, building self-awareness, and finding mentors that you admire and respect. Looking to leverage social media to accelerate your career? Tune in to this episode of the Branch Out Podcast today!

Key Points From This Episode:

• How George used social media to build connections, start a podcast, and provide value.
• Advice for people to overcome anxiety and put themselves out there: Document your story.
• Storytelling and coming up with content are both muscles that you can exercise.
• Schedule white space – not all of our creativity happens at work, so make time for it!
• Leverage LinkedIn by following respected people in your industry and being an active user.
• George explains how important it is to build your connections in person as well as online.
• Every story is unique, so make sure to document, create, and talk about your experiences.
• Authenticity and building self-awareness and how George is continuously working on himself.
• The value of having mentors around you who you really admire and learning from them.
• Why it’s important to read or listen to podcasts to develop your mindset and connect the dots. 

Let’s Grab Coffee Podcast
George Khalife LinkedIn
Alex Drost LinkedIn
Connection Builders LinkedIn

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At the end of the day, community is at the center of personal and professional growth, and life is so much more fun with friends anyway! Today's guest is Benny Mathew, the founder of the Orion3 network. Our conversation with Benny is all about the power of bringing people together and his gift of being a connector! Benny tells the story of his difficulty making genuine connections in Chicago initially and how he solved this by putting his gift for connecting people to good use and founded Orion3. He takes us through the growth of this amazing network which now enjoys packed events, also sharing the symbolism of warm connections in its name. From there, we get into the networking mindset, talking about what it takes to build genuine connections, authentic relationship building as a long-term game, and building true friendships in your professional network. We discuss all the benefits of community next and hear some high points from Benny about how his life has changed since he started giving back in this way. Wrapping up, Benny shares a few lessons he has learned along the way, weighing in on the value of having a growth mindset and the role his networks have played in making him who he is today, so be sure to tune in!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Why Benny started to host networking events after struggling to connect in Chicago.
• Benny’s gift for connecting others which he applied to founding Orion3.
• The story of the growth of Orion3, going from 5 to 150+ attendees at their events.
• The symbolism of the name Orion3, signifying warm connections. 
• The importance of the connector mindset, and having connections and community for growth.
• High points for Benny: Realizing many of his friends came from his events, and hearing about the value of Orion3 from participants.
• Gaining value in your own life by bringing value to others, but not making this your motive.
• The idea that building genuine connections has to be conceived as a long-term process.
• Being yourself and building genuine relationships with your professional network.
• How much you can grow by meeting others and your responsibility to pay it forward.
• Having a growth mindset and how Benny learns from mistakes rather than dwell on them.

Benny Mathew LinkedIn
Alex Drost LinkedIn
Branch Out Podcast LinkedIn
Connection Builders LinkedIn

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Finding yourself in a state of poor mental health not only affects your personal life but also infringes on your work productivity. Often our stresses as professionals are sourced from high demands at work and inadequate methods of managing them. It is important that you begin to implement steps towards changing the way you deal with your mental health. If you find yourself in a poor space of mental health, being able to talk openly about your struggles goes a long way in helping you process and work through your challenges. It is key for you, as a professional, to make sure that you are finding time for yourself, finding time to invest positively in your mental health, and finding the right person to talk to. On today’s episode of Branch Out, we welcome guest Erik Daly, a corporate and M&A attorney with Miller Johnson, a west Michigan-based law firm. Erik focuses his practice on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, corporate financing, restructurings, and securities law matters. He also focuses on emerging technology topics such as artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, cryptocurrencies, and other blockchain technologies. Erik studied law at Harvard Law School, where he graduated cum laude in 2007. During our conversation, Erik and I dive into the topic of mental health as a professional and discuss some of the challenges we all face in our careers on a daily basis. 


Key Points From This Episode:

• Erik shares his outlook on talking about mental health in the workplace.
• He shares his background, how he deals with his mental health, and the challenges he overcame.
• What brought the realization to Erik that he was facing some mental health challenges.
• Some quick daily tips for how to deal with mental health challenges.
• The importance of learning to manage the demands of work as a professional.
• The little things Erik does on the daily to make sure he is taking care of his mental health.
• Why it is important to monitor your work-life balance and be aware of the impact it poses on your mental health.
• The importance of talking about where you are with your mental health.
• The role exercise and meditation plays in mental clarity and health.
• The struggle with an “All-or-Nothing” mentality. 
• Why finding a way to talk about your mental health helps you through the process.

Erik Daly LinkedIn
Alex Drost LinkedIn
Connection Builders LinkedIn

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Human Bandwidth: Expanding Your Life with Leon LaBrecque

Burnout, stress, and anxiety are increasingly common in our society. With a never-ending plateful of things to get through, it can often feel like you are just trying to make it through each day. By merely surviving, we are not living up to our full potential. One way to change this and expand our lives is to work on our human bandwidth, and today’s guest, Leon LaBrecque, is here to provide insights on how to do just that. As the Chief Growth Officer at Sequoia Financial Group, Leon has seen firsthand what it takes for people to flourish. In this episode, he shares his theory on the parallels between electronic bandwidth and its human counterpart. Through critical inquiry, Leon has found that four components make up human bandwidth — time, money, happiness, and love. We learn more about what he discovered when he played around with the formula and how an increase of one component leads to nine times more volume! Noise adversely affects electronic bandwidth, and it’s no different with human bandwidth. Leon sheds light on how we can distance ourselves from the mental clutter to see what’s important. We also discuss how to reframe our time-money relationship and the importance of delegation. Outsourcing draining work has cascading effects, increasing your time and money, which in turn grows your capacity to love. We hear some incredible tips on altering your bandwidth inputs too. What Leon ultimately wants us to remember that as overwhelmed as you may feel, making small, consistent changes is what gets the needle moving, so just start. Don't miss out on this great conversation!

Key Points From This Episode:

•  What Leon means by ‘personal bandwidth’ and the four components it’s comprised of.
• Leon’s fascinating discovery about the bandwidth formula and tweaking the inputs.
• The interrelationship between time and money and ways to optimize money and time actions.
• The signal-to-noise ratio is as important in human bandwidth as it is in regular bandwidth.
• How to step back from the noise and focus on what is actually important.
• What construal is and how it impacts our perception of the world around us.
• Rethinking our time-money relationship and looking for opportunities to save on both.
• Increasing our own bandwidth increases everyone’s bandwidth, through network connectivity
• Leon’s tips on how to prioritize activities so that your bandwidth inputs are optimal.
• Why you should try to figure out a way to not sell your time.
• The cumulative effect of small, positive changes and why they end in big results.

Human Bandwidth TEDx talk
Vince Lombardi
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Leon LaBrecque LinkedIn
Alex Drost LinkedIn
Connection Builders LinkedIn

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Most of us are in some form of remote working position right now and this brings about a whole host of new challenges. Brendan McKay is a Principal with Falcon Investment Advisors who has been working remotely for the last few years and today we have him on the show to talk about the lessons he has learned! Our conversation with Brendan is all about creating a productive remote working environment and the value of maintaining social connections between employees for the firms they are a part of. We kick things off with Brendan hearing about his transition from New York to L.A. and how he set up an appropriate space for working. From there, Brendan details his process of slowly realizing that while he was very productive at home, something was missing. The problem was that working remotely doesn’t allow for those informal ‘water cooler talk’ moments which seem unimportant but actually end up playing a large role for firms as far as decision making, and building trust amongst staff. We drill down on the necessity of this type of social interaction, and Brendan talks about the changes he made to incorporate more of it into his remote work arrangement. Next up, we get into the importance of mentorship, the idea that so much of what you learn at work happens through doing. Falcon has been building formalized systems for this into their corporate culture since even before the lockdowns and we hone in on their value as far as the firm’s long-term vision. Tune in to get it all!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Unforeseen challenges remote work presented Brandan and lessons he learned. 
• How technology has allowed for remote working styles, especially in the investment industry.
• The value of creating a separate space at home so that work can be focused on properly.
• How much harder one has to work in a remote environment to stay in touch with people.
• ‘Water cooler talk’ – its role in decision making and the challenge of replicating it remotely.
• Regular catch-up calls and increasing travel cadence: Remote water cooler talk.
• Productivity versus effectiveness, the need for the latter for building trust and decision making.
• Building a corporate culture that values bringing back the informality that is lost remotely.
• How the responsibility rests with seniors to reach out to juniors to build informal relationships.
• The mentorship program at Falcon and the role it plays in formalizing building relationships.
• ‘You only learn investment by doing’ – stewarding apprenticeships through mentorship.
• The role of mentorship in ensuring the continuation of high-quality workers for the long term.

Brendan McKay LinkedIn
Alex Drost LinkedIn
Connection Builders LinkedIn

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