The Lead Up Podcast

In this episode, Mike talks about Defining What Success Means to You.

You must first define what it means to you before you can model what it is for someone else. You also have to define success in key areas of your life. What success means for one person can be completely different than what it means to another.  

There are different approaches to defining success- bottom-up or top-down, short-term or long-term. We offer a great tool to help you achieve daily success, the Daily Compass Tool. The Daily Compass Tool helps you to start to create daily success to reach the long-term success you are after.

Define what success will look like, look for others that have achieved this goal, and find out what they did to get there. Make sure to surround yourself with people who are going where you want to go and are doing things you want to do. Do some research so that you are prepared for your success journey.  

Remember, that how you define success may change along the way and you may find a different path, so don't get too set in one way to achieve the goal.

We have created a program to help you achieve the success you are after- Success Rituals. The course is broken into 4 modules,  26 videos, and workbooks that will help you to develop new habits in your life and create a better future for yourself. 

We are joined by special guest Heather Crider on this week's episode of the LeadUp Podcast.

Heather helps high-performing leaders, executives, and organizations reduce their stress and overwhelm, avoid burnout, and really become who they're meant to be. She does this through brain-based neuroscience, evidence-based neuroscience. She says really retraining our brains.

Heather tells us our habits, the things that we do, are what set us up for success or continue down that thread of stress. And the biggest thing is the response versus the reaction. We can't cognitively make decisions when our brain is hijacked constantly by stress.

Our brain is designed for success. And believe it or not, staying in this high-stress environment is success to the brain when that's all it knows.

Heather offers our LeadUp listeners a code to get her self-reflection workbook for free. This self-reflection workbook is a great place to start to really start understanding what questions to ask yourself. She also has a free stress and burnout recovery masterclass on August 27th from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. CST. This is a free class where we talk about some of these things and a little bit more in detail, give a little bit more tips and tricks, and just different perspectives. Click here to register. Follow this link and use the code GIFT for the Self-Reflection Workbook.

You can learn more about Heather on her website- Heatherjcrider.com.

You can follow her on FB, and LinkedIn.

We welcome special guest, Byrd Baggett to the LeadUp Podcast this week. 

Byrd Baggett is a best-selling author and popular motivational speaker. He has been helping organizations develop authentic leaders and passionately engaged teams since 1990. Byrd is the author of True Growth: Simple Insights on How to Live and Lead with Authenticity. 

Byrd has written several books, his passion and expertise are focused on leadership development, and especially helping people become more authentic in their purpose. Helping leaders embrace the transformational power of authenticity, to improve themselves in the lives they touch.

Byrd shares the best definitions of humility, ie authenticity. Authenticity is a noble choice to forego your status, deploy your resources, or use your influence for the good of others before yourself.

We too often take our freedoms for granted. Some of the most authentic leaders of people are our soldiers, blue-collar workers, firemen, or policemen. People that don't look for credit but go out and get the job done.

Listen to this great episode to hear more of this great interview. 

You can follow Byrd on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

In this special guest episode, we are joined by Tom Morris. Tom is one of the world's top public philosophers and pioneering business thinkers. He's the author of over 30 groundbreaking books, including Plato's Lemonade Stand, and is a legendary speaker whose electrifying talks reengage people around their deepest values and reignite their passion for work and life. 

In Plato's Lemonade Stand, Tom blends powerful insights with great stories and good fun to illuminate the path of wise living in the face of challenge and change. Along the way, he shows us how to move with wisdom from difficulty to delight in everything we do.

Tom shares that people who prepare to deal with little things are in much better shape to deal with the big things. "You can learn to pay attention to the little lemons in life, and maybe make some lemon meringue pie or something right. But it's all about learning, cultivating paying attention. And then once you see, once you know that there's a challenge you face, then there are various ways various steps to handling that challenge." 

Listen to this great episode for more insight.

You can follow Tom on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

You can purchase Plato's Lemonade Stand on Amazon.

In this episode, Mike shares 5 Ways to Develop Positive Thinking. 

Our Attitudes really are everything. When we're not feeling great about our lives or how the day is going, everything can seem to go wrong. The problem is, life isn't a steady thing. You might have one really good day followed by another equally bad. With so many things outside of your control from the weather to politics, it might seem impossible to ever truly feel good about anything. 

One way to have a positive mindset is to start every day with purpose and set a direction for your day. One of the tools that Mike uses daily is the Daily Compass Tool.  This tool will help you to prioritize your day and focus on what is in your control. 

You can find more on this topic over on the LeadUp Blog.

Also, if you havent already dont forget to sign up for our monthly webinar Build a High-Performance Culture - it is July 30th at 11:00 a.m. CST.

We welcome special guest, Barrett Blackmon to this episode of the LeadUp Podcast.

Barrett is the author of Metastatic America: Discovering America While Discovering Myself. It is a social commentary on the state of race, religion, and culture in the United States as seen through the life experiences of a Black healthcare executive. The thesis of the book, Metastatic America is really about our choice, the decisions that we make on a daily basis to decide if we're going to spread hope and unity, or if we're going to spread, toxicity and division.

Barrett is a Regional Vice-President of Oncology Services in Houston, TX. He made the decision to do something in this field when his father passed away from cancer when Barrett was just 16 years old. 

Mike and Barrett share the importance of communication in leadership.

"I like to make sure that I engage in conversations with people, especially with people that I don't have great knowledge about, very cautiously, and try to find out as much as I can about them just through listening. I try giving them the platform to just talk and allow them to tell me what it is that they want me to know about them."- Barrett

Barrett shared 3 things he learned from a mentor that he has carried into his leadership. 

1. Be intentional about really getting to know those you lead. Understand what their fears and aspirations are.

2. Be intentional about mentoring. 

3. Be intentional about helping those you lead to be successful.

You can follow Barrett on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter

Be sure to sign up for the July webinar- Building a High-Performance Culture

Mike shares 3 Questions Every Leader Should Ask Every Day.

Statistically, 70% of employees are not satisfied with their leader. The main reason for this is they do not feel valued. Setting daily goals to keep you on track.

     2. What are we doing as a team to improve the experience of our customers? 

We have to make sure that the team is trained and educated to make sure the customer has a great first and last impression. The values of the company have to be evident throughout the team. We have created 8 Ways to Create Championship Customer Service- email Mike to get more information on how to gain access to this great tool.

     3. What do I need to improve in my leadership capacity?

Is there a gap between where we are now and where we need to be? You have to find where the gaps are.  It could be in communication, training, accountability, or coaching. Wherever the gaps are you have to close them.

We have some great tools for you to use to help in these areas. We have shared links below to make it convenient for you to find them. 

July Webinar- Building a High-Performance Culture

Executive Book Summaries

Daily Compass Quarterly Planner

40-Day Success Challenge

Mike shares 3 Questions Every Leader Should Ask Every Day.

1. What am I doing to improve the experience that my employees are having under my leadership? 

Statistically, 70% of employees are not satisfied with their leader. The main reason for this is they do not feel valued. Setting daily goals to keep you on track.

     2. What are we doing as a team to improve the experience of our customers? 

We have to make sure that the team is trained and educated to make sure the customer has a great first and last impression. The values of the company have to be evident throughout the team. We have created 8 Ways to Create Championship Customer Service- email Mike to get more information on how to gain access to this great tool.

     3. What do I need to improve in my leadership capacity?

Is there a gap between where we are now and where we need to be? You have to find where the gaps are.  It could be in communication, training, accountability, or coaching. Wherever the gaps are you have to close them.

We have some great tools for you to use to help in these areas. We have shared links below to make it convenient for you to find them. 

July Webinar- Building a High-Performance Culture

Executive Book Summaries

Daily Compass Quarterly Planner

40-Day Success Challenge

On this episode of The LeadUp Podcast Mike is joined by special guest Jim Kouzes. 

Jim is a best-selling author of The Leadership Challenge. 

They waste no time diving into the gaps in leadership today. According to Jim, the biggest gap is between frontlines and the senior executives.  The farther you get from the leader the lower the scores. 

All the ZOOM meetings and technology that we use now to communicate with our teams can take out some personalized conversations. Jim suggests making some time at the beginning of the meetings to get better acquainted with the team.

Jim also shared the importance of meeting with each individual during the workweek. This could be a 10-minute face-to-face or a phone call. 

Research shows most leaders do not get their first leadership training until 10 years after being in a leadership role. Can you imagine being on a plane and the pilot not telling you they had been flying but without any training? 

Leadership training is so important - leadership is about relationships.

The more you set a good example and make the values of the organization clear the more engagement you will have with the team. Studies show when employees feel like they are making an impact and that they matter the longer they will stay with their company. 

Jim says they are finding in research that employees are needing more compassion and support from their leaders more than ever.

We should ask ourselves as leaders -What are the skills and abilities that I need to have, in order for them to perform at their highest level? After all, what's the job of a leader anyway to make people better, worse, or stay the same?

Listen to the entire interview for more great insight from Jim. 

Learn more about Jim on his website.

You can find Jim on LinkedIn, Twitter, and FB

We welcome our special guest, Diana Hendel to this episode of The LeadUp Podcast. 

Diana is a former CEO of Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and Miller Children's and Women's Hospital in California. She is the co-author of Why Cope When You Can Heal? : How Healthcare Heroes of COVID-19 Can Recover from PTSD and author of Responsible: A Memoir

Diana shares, how midway in her career, she found having an executive coach to be a valuable asset to her growth as a leader. Her coach helped her work through areas of vulnerability that she might otherwise push aside.

Diana talks with Mike about trauma and crisis and how they can create a lot of unnecessary stress.

"Crisis does not make us a leader, it reveals whether we are a leader," Mike.

Diana shares a traumatic experience she had while being CEO. An employee came into her hospital and shot and killed 2 supervisors and then turned the gun on himself.

She learned a very important lesson as a leader that day - that it was crucial for her to be able to guide those she leads through this crisis.

She was the leader but had also gone through the same trauma the rest of her team had endured.

In her book, she talks about the importance of not just coping but processing the cause to move towards healing and closure. 

Be sure to pick up a copy of Diana's books and follow her on FB and LinkedIn