Episode 17 - Situational Leadership: Interview With 'The Magician', Jay Raham

In this episode, I interview Jay Raham. Jay is an award-winning lecturer, consultant, and public speaker. With a vision to enhance the practice of leadership at a global level, so far he's worked with 7000+ aspiring managers in Mauritius, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Morocco. He refers to himself as 'The Magician', creating magical moments impacting innovation, creativity, and sustainability. Recently, Jay has been pushing what he sees as 'professional excellence' to another level; achieving 5 Fellowships, a unique accomplishment taking his skill set to a new level and helping others to think outside of the box. Here, we discuss situational leadership.

You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to Sticky Interviews. I'm Nathan Simmonds, Senior Leadership Coach and Trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. We are the provider of leadership development and soft skills training to the grocery and manufacturing industry. The idea of these interviews is to share great ideas, great concepts and great ways these skills are being used to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do. Welcome to the show.

Nathan Simmonds:

We're digging into some different territory with this next conversation. So I've got the pleasure of speaking to Jay Raham. We've had a bit of a conversation to and fro through LinkedIn. We've had a little bit of a look at each other's leadership aspirations and we are both super-enthusiastic about leadership as a whole and have big visions about what we want to create and what, but I'm not going to spoil that part yet until we get into that. I'll let Jay share that one.

Nathan Simmonds:

First of all, let me introduce him completely by some of his accolades and his current celebratory points along his journey. So he's an award-winning lecturer, consultant and public speaker. He has the vision to enhance the practice of leadership at a global level and he's already doing this through his training of aspiring managers in Mauritius, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Morocco which, in itself, is pretty astounding for any leadership trainer. In fact, he's already clocking up over 7,000 leaders so far that he has supported, guided and mentored. Amongst all this, he's also achieved five fellowships which, in itself, is a unique accomplishment. And one of the interesting places that he likes to start his conversations is about how he likes to introduce himself as the magician. But we're going to get into that in a minute. We're not going to cover that yet.

Nathan Simmonds:

But first of all, Jay, I just want to say a massive thank you for being here. Really appreciate you taking the time to have this conversation with us and develop up some of these ideas for the listeners. Thank you very much.

Nathan Simmonds:

So why do they call you, they don't call you, I don't think they call, I think you started this somewhere. Why do you call yourself the magician?

Jay Raham:

Before I got into that Nathan, I just want to say thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to come on the show and it's always great to work with like-minded professionals and I appreciate you taking the time out and making this happen, so thank you.

Situational Leadership, 'The Magician', Jay Raham

 

Jay Raham:

So, going back to your question if you like Nathan and why I like to introduce myself as the magician. Sounds weird, bizarre, strange. People have said things in the past. But there's a reason behind it; there's an explanation behind it. And yes, it is part of my personal branding. And I believe it presents me in the best possible way. So the reason why I consider myself a magician, so with all my clients, it might be individuals I have developed from the leadership program over the years, what I like to do is create moments that allow them to find that inner voice, that confidence boost and then take that away with them to their office and experience those magical moments where they are able to inspire the team members, they are able to take them on an inspiring journey.

Jay Raham:

And also connect with their clients, their customers. So that is my explanation why I like to introduce myself as the magician. So if you ask me, I do like to create those moments where everyone in the session or an individual level, they feel there's a positive energy to work with and there's something to take away.

Nathan Simmonds:

That's amazing. How much do you know about the Jungian archetypes?

Jay Raham:

Sorry, just say again, please?

Nathan Simmonds:

How much do you know about the Jung archetypes?

Jay Raham:

Not much.

Nathan Simmonds:

Good. So this is the interesting part of it, is Jung says there are four kinds of main archetypes. It's the warrior, the king, the magician and the lover. And actually the magician is the creative energy. He comes up with new solutions, new ideas. He comes with that sort of energy. So even without you realizing it, you say you like to introduce yourself as a magician because you like to create these magic moments, but it is about that creation. So you're channelling that inner-magician which, as you know, is a really nice thing. Whether you're doing it consciously or subconsciously doesn't matter. Because it's all about the people in the room experiencing that, then carrying it and going and doing something different.

Nathan Simmonds:

And I also know about you is that you pride yourself on thinking outside of the box.

Jay Raham:

Yeah.

Nathan Simmonds:

Now, again, it's that magician energy, that magician archetype that creates the new solutions of being outside of the box. That's super important. So it's really nice that you introduce yourself that way because it then sets kind of, not a precedent, you're setting an intention about what you're going to bring to that room, what you're going to bring to your clients and what those people are going to carry when they walk out of that room as well. So that's super important, I like that a lot.

Jay Raham:

Thank you for that. Something I have experienced with my interaction with my clients and learners and all the rest; it's important to set the boundaries; it's important to set the scene. And from my perspective, it's always beneficial when I can share a little bit about my success, what I have achieved with regard to my journey and I do believe there is still so much more I would like to do and achieve over the years. But it's a great way to get a reaction. I've had so many people asking, Jay, why do you call yourself the magician and I'm like, "Give me a minute and I'll explain myself."

Jay Raham:

And it's interesting, once I've had the chance to explain and go over it, often people would approach me and say we really admire your confidence level. We admire the way you present yourself. And it makes sense. So it's just a cliché. It is a part of me.

Nathan Simmonds:

Absolutely that. And I think it's when you're setting that intention as a trainer. And for us, it's all about behavioural change and we'll get into that later on. When we, as trainers and consultants, as speakers, walk into a room, we come with a reason. We come with a sense of purpose. We have our own internal dialogue. And when we walk into that room, we are going to do a certain kind of thing, in that space, based on what we're bringing. That's the reason why we were invited to that room. That's why companies pay us, that's why people invite us to speak and that do the thing, because we come with that reason.

Nathan Simmonds:

For me, my purpose, when I articulate, is I am challenging people's thinking so they can become more incredible than yesterday. That's the first words that come out of my mouth every morning and it's the reason I get up. So when I walk into a training room and I tell people, I am going to challenge your thinking so that you can become more incredible than yesterday. And people look at me like, who's this madman?

Nathan Simmonds:

And then, you can see some of the people, they're like that. Oh, not sure about this fellow, what's going on. And then I ask them, is it okay that I challenge your thinking so that you can become more incredible than yesterday. You know what, it's a loaded question. I know what the answer's going to be. If you say no, then you're in the wrong room. But by doing that, you already prepare the room. You're already creating that atmosphere, that ambience as you as the speaker and the trainer. So people can decide whether they're going to buy into it. And then you go in because you've always set your bar, your expectation, you deliver your content and you want to bring people to that level, to that bar.

Jay Raham:

Absolutely.

Nathan Simmonds:

So when you turn up as the magician, you're there to create magic. Do you know that? I love it. I think it's genius.

Jay Raham:

It hasn't let me down. It's been with me for the last seven years.

Nathan Simmonds:

Nice.

Jay Raham:

And initially when I considered it, yes, it made me feel uncomfortable and I wasn't too sure about myself. And I was on an interesting journey, partially I was developing myself and also looking at ways to enhance my brand, achieve awards and also build my credibility. But the last two years have been absolutely amazing with regard to achieving the fellowships. I believe I'm the only one in the UK who's achieved five and my target is seven, so I've got two more I'm working towards.

Jay Raham:

So it's been an interesting journey and over the years I've found greater confidence in the brand and why it's become a part of me. So, yeah, it's been an interesting journey.

Nathan Simmonds:

I think you have to discover who you are, almost. You have to go into that self-reflection. Who is it I'm bringing and what's the reason I'm bringing it.