The LeaderShifter Show

Did you know that 96% of small businesses don’t make it to their 10th birthday? And of the survivors, 91% never cross the $1mm revenue mark? If this is your world and/or you’re an entrepreneur struggling to work ON your business instead of IN your business, listen to my colorful conversation with growth coach Bradley Hamner. He specializes in working with small service-based businesses to help them beat the odds, asserting that “business is not a bathrobe” – meaning not one-size-fits-all. He coaches clients on six principles for success and prompts critical strategic thinking with such provocative questions as:

Bradley is also the host of the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. Take his Rainmakers Dilemma Assessment to identify the gaps and areas of growth in your business.

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Calling all sports fans! You’ll love today’s episode with Sean Murray, founder of RealTime Performance, a leadership training and organization development firm and author of recently published book, If Gold is Our Destiny: How a Team of Mavericks Came Together for Olympic Glory. The book recounts the story of the U.S. men’s national volleyball team, a group of individually focused (#euphemism) players who lacked mutual respect, trust, and resilience. Despite immense individual talents, they failed to perform well as a team. To drive trust, Coach Doug Beal had the team embark on what he called a “Shared Significant Life Experience,” which was an intense three-week Outward Bound hike across 100 miles in the Canyonlands and Abajo Mountains in Utah. The team would climb 11,000-foot peaks and carry 70-pound packs. They were less than thrilled as you might imagine. Think Miracle on Ice but volleyball instead of hockey. Needless to say, the experience did the job, and they went on to win the 1984 Olympics and become one of the greatest indoor volleyball teams of all time.  We have a powerful discussion on the many leadership lessons from this team that carry over to the work environment. Sean is also the host of The Good Life podcast, where he interviews authors and business professionals on leadership and how to get the most out of life.

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Join me today for a super interesting and witty-banter-full conversation with leadership expert, Susan Brady. Among the topics we explore are:

Susan has a CV that rivals any I’ve seen! She is the Deloitte Ellen Gabriel Chair for Women & Leadership, CEO of The Simmons University Institute for Inclusive Leadership, Emeritus board member for non-profit Strong Women, Strong Girls, and author of a mere four books: Mastering Your Inner Critic and 7 Other High Hurdles to Advancement, The Inclusive Leader’s Playbook, The 30-Second Guide to Coaching your Inner Critic, and the newest, Arrive and Thrive: 7 Impactful Practices for Women Navigating Leadership, based on advice and experiences from 24 of the world’s most successful leaders. Also, check out her podcast, Better Understanding, and her fantastic app, our.love based on seven love skills.

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Attention entrepreneurs and small biz owners: Do you often feel stuck on what to post to your feed? Are your posts failing to attract, engage, and convert? If so, today’s episode is for you. My guest, Sophia Parra, founder of Coach Social, is a social media strategist extraordinaire. She advises that before even considering content for posts, take a step back to Marketing 101 – where do your ideal clients hang out online? What pain points do you help alleviate? Then, consider a propriety 4-step process that she teaches clients:

We also discuss the myth of being a slave to ever evolving algorithms. Rather, Sophia explains that what really matters to the various platforms is engagement time. In other words, the longer your followers stay on the app because they’re engaged with your content, you are rewarded by showing up more often. If you’re interested in learning from Sophia, check out her community, What the Heck to Post. She is also launching a podcast soon called Marketing Unfiltered.

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Jon Rennie is seriously one of the coolest guests I’ve interviewed…if you agree with me that a former U.S. Navy Cold War nuclear submarine officer who had seven deployments is a total badass! So, what does it mean to “earn your oxygen”? Well, on a nuclear sub a newbie is jokingly referred to as a NUB = a Non-Useful Body. Not in a derogatory sense, but think about it…until new crew members master the complex inner workings of a nuclear sub and its weapons, you don’t want them touching anything! They become valuable by rounding with what’s called a Qual Card, a process in which they rotate around the various positions to learn, and then experienced crew members sign off to verify each competency. What a great concept to apply in the workplace . We also discuss the concepts of shared vulnerability, no escape mindset, Fridays on the floor, and controlled failure. Jon is the author of three books: I Have the Watch: Becoming a Leader Worth Following, You Have the Watch: A Guided Journal to Become a Leader Worth Following, and All in the Same Boat: Lead Your Organization Like a Nuclear Submariner. I’m fascinated by You Have the Watch because it provides daily leadership skills, guidance, and reflection for an entire year. In addition, he hosts the Deep Leadership Podcast #punintended! If you want leadership advice from a different lens than you’ve experienced before, tune into this episode!

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Meet my instant new best friend on today’s episode! Michelle Johnston, PhD is an award-winning professor studying leadership and business communication, and her research has shown a clear link between a team’s effective communication and its positive financial performance. She serves as the Gaston Chair of Business at Loyola University in New Orleans, where she teaches in the graduate and undergraduate programs in the College of Business. We spent time discussing the highlights of Michelle’s recently published book, The Seismic Shift In Leadershift, including that caring and connection starts from within and then extends to fostering a TLE, or Team Listening Environment. She articulated why owning your calendar is such a critical aspect of connecting with your team in that it dictates HOW you spend your time. Specifically, the most effective leaders get away from their desk often, make “rounds,” and keep their finger on the pulse of what’s happening across their team and organization. Glowing praise for the book from one reviewer was it’s “for fans of Brene Brown and Adam Grant” – high praise indeed! Michelle also shared one of the best stories I’ve heard in a long time, about Juan Bautista Martin Alonso, Global President and CEO of KIND Bars (my favorite snack!). His primary KPI is generating 250 million acts of kindness across his sphere of influence, and they can be performed within the company or anywhere else. Yes, you read that correctly – 250 million! Every act of kindness creates seven more acts of kindness, so they can gain momentum pretty quickly. Also, learn about her new podcast, The Seismic Shift, on which her mentor Marshall Goldsmith was the inaugural guest. #impressive

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The internet made information universally accessible, Google organized it, and now Mindstone combines it with the science of learning to help people not just consume, but also truly learn from it. Today’s guest, Patrick Cootes, is the co-founder and Head of Product at Mindstone, a startup that makes it faster and easier for “work athletes” to optimize their performance as well as officially document informal learning. It’s a B2C platform (web and mobile apps) that allows users to tag any online content directly into the app; think articles, email newsletters, images, videos, podcasts, and more. We discuss some of the scientific approaches built into the app, including spaced repetition and interleaving, as well as highlight how developing interests and healthy habits OFF devices is the other key to success. We all know that lectures have long been outdated, and Patrick illuminates just how outdated they are, with the origin of word dating back to 14th century! As a lifelong learner, I have been looking for a “better mouse-trap” for curating, sensibly storing, and easily re-accessing the immense amount of great information I take in. Now I’ve found it, so have a listen if this appeals to you too!

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Today’s guest joins us from the U.K. with some great advice on team resilience, which remains prominent in the organizational zeitgeist post-pandemic and going into a potential recession (at least in the U.S.). Julian Roberts coaches high performing leaders, athletes, and teams with extreme ambitions and will “challenge their bullshit.” He is also the host of “Helping Organizations Thrive” podcast, on which I was a recent guest . Julian stresses that the whole of a resilient team is greater the sum of individuals’ resilience, yet team resilience is rarely a focus. An effective way to encourage teams to bounce back is to authentically reflect and learn together in a psychologically safe way after any mistake or failure. Then build the learnings into future processes. Reframing failure as feedback entails a mindset shift as a leader and as a team. Make no mistake, mindset shifts are not simply Pollyanna positive thinking. Rather, it’s about giving up ego and becoming servant leaders whose purpose is bigger than ourselves. We also discussed how leaders can unlock people’s potential by using certain languaging and tools that essentially rewire the neurons in the brain to mitigate conflict, detach from myopic perspectives, and re-anchor a negative experience in a positive way. Tune in for this highly topical and interesting conversation!

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If you are continuously trying to improve your presentation and presence skills, you will want to listen! On today’s episode, I had a truly insightful conversation with Richard Newman, founder and CEO of Body Talk, an evidence-based communication training company. Against the odds, as a former introverted, shy, high-functioning autistic, Richard overcame a crushing fear of public speaking to teach advanced communication skills to business leaders globally. He shares his fascinating story that began in September 1995 when he lived in a Tibetan monastery for six month, teaching English to monks. Initially unable to communicate with each other in their respective native languages, they successfully relied on non-verbal communication, a universal way to connect and build rapport. Upon return, he worked with McLaren’s Formula 1 team, delivering a presentation to multiple stakeholders 1,000 times. Those iterations were a real life learning lab where he could experiment with different techniques to identify the most resonant ones. He then went on to conduct quantitative research to validate the powerful learnings from the Tibet and F1 experiences. He tested 2,000 people, and he found that a combination of open palms and balanced stance improved communication effectiveness by 44%! The former subconsciously conveys authenticity and the latter suggests gravitas – literally not being a figurative pushover based on how easy it to literally push someone over when they’re in an unbalanced 1-sided stance. In addition to giving us the gift of two easy-to-implement keys to success, he also shares his conviction that truly effective storytelling is less about the story itself and more about tapping in people’s emotional vs logical sides.

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Having impressed influential TED Speaker Simon Sinek after a company training, David Mead became the first of Sinek’s “Igniters,” a role in which he shared “Start with Why” ideas in over 225 organizations on five continents. He also co-authored, with Sinek and Peter Docker, Find Your Why: a practical guide for discovering the WHY of an individual, team or organization. After working with Sinek for over ten years, David struck out on his own as a leadership consultant, trainer, and speaker. On today’s episode, he shares a framework for exceptional leadership that I adore called “The 3 H’s,” as follows:

If you envision those three attributes as a ven diagram, in the middle is trust. David also gives some great suggestions for frictionless habits to support a daily practice of honesty, humility, and humanity. To name a few, be the last one to speak or give your opinion in a group, share the spotlight, and send handwritten notes. We also have a lively discussion about the ongoing challenge humans face to detach our identities from our job, status, wealth, and other external factors. The recipe for putting that tricky ego in its place is “Show up to give.” Plus, as a special offer to LeaderShifter Show listeners, David will conduct gratis 45-minute coaching calls with the first five people to contact him at [email protected]! He’ll help address questions or challenges you’re facing with culture, people and trust.

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