Systematic Leader

Noah Kagan is an entrepreneur with an amazing resume. He was one of the first employees at Facebook and Mint. He started his own company, a software marketplace called App Sumo. It’s grown quickly and his leadership style is inspirational. He is back to being the CEO of the company and the insights he shares about his personal growth and leadership skills is super helpful for leaders at every level.

Highlights from the interview:

• What was Noah like as a kid.
• Why he liked money at a young age and how it spurred his entrepreneur journey.
• The importance of noticing the luxury that we often take for granted.
• Having fun things in your life to help make your inner child happy.
• Why treating children with love and respect is important because it makes an impact in their lives.
• His friends approach when he was being negative to himself to help reduce his negative inner voice.
• Personifying your inner critic and how it helps him feel happier.
• Not being judgmental of myself and other people.
• Separating yourself from the experience.
• How he practices being rejected and how it helps him.
• Why people don’t get what they want out of life.
• How chaos and peace affects his life.
• The bigger thread behind our conversation.
• What he does when he feels stuck.
• The practice he does each morning.
• Committing to what we want to change.
• The difference between waypower and willpower.
• Utilizing waypower to help you grow your life.
• The importance of having accountability.
• Two important leadership tips to implement in their lives.
• Why not making decisions for the team helps them grow.
• Coaching people is vital to getting the most out of your people.
• How to reflect and make adjustments as you are learning.
• Why he asks his employees if they can speak their mind.
• Why he surrounds himself with motivated people.

You can learn more about Noah over at App Sumo. You can also connect with him on Twitter.

And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you love the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!

Cara Chace is a productivity specialist and former special agent for the federal government. . She is a fascinating woman with so many unique ideas around productivity. Find out how she makes time to be still and what her end of day routine is so she sleeps better and is prepared for the next day.

Highlights from the interview:

• What it means to be vulnerable and how it helps her in her career.
• The power of getting still and calm.
• How she notices when she is feeling upset or frustrated.
• The importance of doing a brain dump.
• How she trains herself to circumvent issues.
• How her dad influenced her life.
• Why we should practice unlearning.
• How showing up in life is cyclical.
• Understanding how our brain functions.
• Focusing on work when she started her entrepreneur journey with young kids.
• How theming her days helped her daughter with her school work during the pandemic.
• Working smart instead of overworking herself.
• Her morning routine and why she keeps it short.
• Why a productivity routine starts the night before.
• The importance of seeing patterns that are hurting us and how to make adjustments.
• Her end of day routine is to help her sleep better.
• Being fully present with your work and how it helps her productivity.
• The way we talk to our children becomes our inner voice.
• Why letting things go helps her with her inner voice.
• Being more flexible with how I get to the end.
• How she learned that she loves to teach people.
• Deepening our knowledge is a process.
• Finding space to be creative.
• How to be proactive vs. reactive in your business.
• Using your team to help take work off your plate.
• Most impactful book, podcast, and tool to help her in business.

You can learn more about Cara over at her website Cara Chace. You can also connect with her on LinkedIn or Pinterest.

And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you love the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!

Andrew Warner is an author, podcaster, and consultant. He has helped thousands of entrepreneurs figure out how they can grow their businesses. One of my favorite parts of this interview was his story of what happened when he started mowing his own lawn. It’s interesting and funny. 

Highlights from the interview:

• What inspired Andrew when he was a kid.
• How we dealt with difficulties during our recording.
• What triggered him to notice how people have influenced him.
• He noticed how people he admired did things “their” way.
• How he went into debt $75,000 in debt then millions and why he wanted this debt.
• It’s not about the purpose.
• The people that surround us are a big influence over our motivation.
• Why he wants to help entrepreneurs succeed.
• How to do work that you love.
• Understanding the mindset of an entrepreneur.
• Making choices that allow you to fly free.
• How to do things that you love to do.
• The value of trying a bunch of little things to understand what you want to do.
• How he dealt with a recent failure and processed his thoughts and emotions.
• Why he couldn’t finish the book that he stopped and started many times.
• How he was able to complete his book.
• How we define ourselves.
• What he does to deal with his negative inner voice.
• Didn’t realize that he was brushing off the importance of design.
• Finding the right person to collaborate with.
• Why we shouldn’t give up if we really want something.
• What he did to help himself become happier.
• How he learned the missing ingredient to helping his students succeed.
• The people who he admires check in on him.
• How he missed things because of his assumptions.
• What realization he had at the end of our interview.
• Most impactful book, podcast, favorite toy and essential tool to stay focused.

You can learn more about Andrew over at Mixergy where he has interviewed thousands of amazing entrepreneurs. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter to learn more.

And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you love the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!

One of the most important and often forgotten parts of growing our careers is digging into our happiness. We often focus on avoiding or eliminating pain. We forget to focus on what makes us happy and why it brings us pleasure. In this episode we’ll explore these thoughts and ideas. I hope you enjoy the episode.

Highlights from the podcast episode:

• We can’t just focus on the negative all the time when it comes to our careers. We have to see what things we are enjoying and figure out how we can do more of it.
• It’s taking me a long time to accept my strengths and weaknesses, but as I have I’ve become so much happier.
• Work is not just about getting a paycheck or earning money to put our kids to college or for buying the latest gadget. It’s about peeling away our armor and seeing who we truly are in this life.
• The more we learn about ourselves the closer we get to doing work that we love. I was recently digging a trench out front of my mom's yard, so the water wouldn’t just flood the front of her yard and driveway. I noticed that I was having fun digging the trench. This never would’ve happened 10 years ago, but all the work that I’ve put in has helped me appreciate what I can do in the work that I have in front of me and how I can learn more about myself as I do the work.
• I’m going to confess I have not always been a hard worker. I’ve been afraid of putting my full effort into the work because I thought it was a waste of my time. When I realized that work is a way to improve your life and improve your mindset. That’s when everything began to change in my career as well.
• I began to dig into my struggles which we talked about in the previous podcast and I also began to dig into the things that lit me up inside.
• When you notice that you’re enjoying work I want you to feel this sensation. What does it feel like? How does it feel in your body? Why do you enjoy the work? How can you create more opportunities to do more of this work?
• Practice digging into your happiness. Understand it from different angles. Then you can see your truth and work with it. You start to get more creative with your opportunities. 
• This is the power of digging into your happiness, so you can try similar things and fly just a little farther than last time. 

And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you love the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!

I decided to shake things up and talk to you directly. I wanted to share my thoughts on the spiritual side of a career. Too often we look at what our careers give us like money, but we don’t look at all the internal growth that occurs when we do our work. 

It’s amazing how a remark from a co-worker can bother us if we aren’t aware of our thought patterns. We let a maybe innocent remark or not so innocent remark get to us. It’s these situations that can help us peel away our inner armor and become more free in our lives.

I hope you enjoy this episode because I enjoyed sharing how I use my career to grow happier and more productive.

Highlights from the episode:

• How Joshua Becker views his inner voice.
• What Michael Singer thinks we should be doing when we feel struggle in our careers.
• Story about my struggles in my career.
• What you should do when your boss shoots down an idea that you have.
• What you can do when a co-worker says something that you don’t like.
• How to use the Dig to Fly Method to help you process your thoughts and emotions.
• The importance of breaking your thought patterns so you can break free and fly in your career.

It’s important to remember that you have the ability to look at a situation in any way that you like. The attitude that you bring to your life and career will often determine the outcome of a situation. If you can see the opportunity when your boss shoots down your idea then you won’t get knocked down and stay down. You’ll get back up and figure out another way to get what you want.

And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you love the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!

In this interview with Laura Faulkner you’ll learn about how she followed her passion and how it paid off for her. You’ll also see how she had been able to pivot her career into becoming a research designer.

Highlights from the interview:

• How Laura got into design.
• How the design industry has changed.
• Pivoting her career into design.
• What inspired her to make a change in her career.
• Key skills that helped her grow her career.
• How she repositioned herself in her career.
• She noticed how the universe was supporting her.
• How she discovered an important strength and why she leaned into it.
• The importance of problems that you can solve.
• Showing people that you are excited about a project at work can make it easier to change your career.
• Looking at empty spaces that need attention.
• Doing things that aren’t your job.
• The importance of doing work that “does something”.
• How being a designer became a career.
• How we can improve our observation skills and find pain points to help solve problems.
• What happens when you do the extra things that excite you within a company.
• How you can improve your research skills.
• Why context is so important to understanding a problem.
• How we can reduce our biases when we are researching a problem.
• The best way to observe others to help you find breakthroughs that you didn’t expect.
• Learn about how you can get people to volunteer more information that creates insights.
• How to get time with people that can help your career.
• We look at her struggles and how she processes through her failures.
• Why she goes into a new situation with a learner's mind.
• Laura’s most impactful book.
• Appreciating how we think differently and why we need to embrace it.

You can learn more about Laura over at Laura Faulkner’s website. You can also connect with her on LinkedIn to build a relationship with her.

And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you love the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!

In this interview with Martin Rowinski, the CEO of Boardsi, we discuss how he struggled as a teenager due to not knowing the English language and how he built his resilient nature. One of my favorite moments in this interview is when we discussed coaching people to be their best.

Highlights from the interview:

• The mindset around how he grew his career.
• Why he decided to start his own business.
• How his personality affected his ability to network with other business owners.
• How he dealt with immigrating from Poland as a kid.
• His wife’s encouragement helped him get over some of his networking fears.
• The importance of being himself and not trying to be something that he wasn’t.
• Using what people notice about you to connect with them.
• Deepening connections quickly.
• How he uses failure to grow his resilience.
• How he works with his inner voice.
• Why he lets his kids make mistakes.
• Instilling good reflection habits into his kids routine when they make a mistake.
• The values that we have help us make choices.
• How he uses his own life examples to help him coach an employee.
• Why showing them how to fix a situation won’t stick with an employee.
• The importance of getting an outside perspective.
• The reason we can’t figure out our problems on our own.
• How he shifted his personality from being an introvert to being more of an extrovert.
• Most impactful book, morning routine, evening routine, task he uses to stay focused.
• Why he doesn’t like to write things down.
• How he got over procrastination.

You can learn more about Martin over at Boardi. You can also check out his new book The Corportate Matchmaker (Amazon Link). Connect with him on LinkedIn to learn more about him.

In this interview with Scott Young, author and entrepreneur. One of my favorite parts is how he pulls away his inner armor so he is honest with himself and others.

Highlights from the interview:

• What does he appreciate about what he has been able to accomplish.
• Why taking for granted limits your humility.
• Dealing with doubts about starting a successful business.
• Why dwelling on past mistakes can keep you humble.
• Building awareness around how you can learn.
• How he finished MIT online courses in just one year.
• Why making a public declaration that he would complete 4 years of MIT courses in just one year.
• Making goals that check off multiple reasons.
• Why following your curiosity turns a career from good to great.
• How he learned another language quickly.
• Getting comfortable being uncomfortable.
• Why learning a business is similar to learning another language.
• Digging into his failures as an entrepreneur.
• How he processed his failures and came out stronger.
• The importance of committing to challenging projects that excite you.
• How to create good guard rails for a new project that you want to start.
• Understanding your strengths and weaknesses.
• Why authors struggle to write the more they improve as writers.
• Seeking truth in his work helps him be authentic.
• Making sure not to sugar coat his work.
• Not worrying about the judgements of others.
• Understanding that we are all deeply flawed.
• Most impactful book, podcast, tool he uses to stay focused on his work.

You can learn more about Scott over at Scott H Young website. You can check out his book Ultralearning on Amazon. You can also get the 7 Must-know Strategies to learn anything faster. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn.

And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you love the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!

Sarah E. Brown interviews me (Karl Staib). We talk about a few different topics. We touch on the challenges that leaders face in business, the Dig to Fly Method, and the Dig to Fly Routine.

Highlights from the interview:

• Biggest challenge leaders face in business.
• The symptoms that occur from the struggles.
• The importance of feeling worthy.
• The first that occurs after something good happens to us.
• The Dig to Fly Method and how it works.
• Rate Your Day Routine and how it helps people build their self-awareness.
• Creating the data to help you improve your career.
• Building habits to process thoughts and emotions.

And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you love the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!

In this interview with Jason Lavender of Electives will help you understand the value of growing from the events in your life. One of my favorite parts of this interview was how music helped him deal with a traumatic event in his life.

Highlights from the interview:

• Finding the right type of mindset to build great relationships.
• How to not miss the important stuff that can teach you a lot about yourself.
• Cool technique to understand what you value.
• Focusing on the things that bring out the best in yourself.
• What weaknesses he has and how he navigates them in his career.
• Reframing your weaknesses can help you tackle things more head on.
• The best way to give feedback to someone.
• Balancing out your feelings when you are feeling overwhelmed.
• Dealing with burnout and why he decided to follow his heart.
• Processing a terrible event that happened to his family.
• Allowing a traumatic event to help him grow.
• How he works on slowing down his thoughts so he can sleep at night.
• Creating a mindful moment of the week.
• How we see things from a new perspective.
• Pushing ourselves outside our comfort zone so we grow our careers.
• How do we cross train people, so they grow outside of their daily orbit.
• Why you should celebrate failure.
• Building company culture, so it helps everyone in the organization.
• Creating a safe place to fail within the company.
• Helping employees track their progress in their careers.
• Most impactful book, podcast, toy, tool that he uses.

You can learn more about Jason over at Electives.io. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn.

And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you love the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!