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Welcome to "Visionary Voices" the podcast where we dive into the minds of business owners, founders, executives, and everyone in between.
Each episode brings you face-to-face with the leading lights of industry and innovation.
Join us as we uncover the stories behind the success and the lessons learned along the way.
Whether you're climbing the corporate ladder or just starting your business journey, these are the conversations you need to hear - packed with visionary voices and insights.
Let's begin.
So Sarah, thank you so much for taking the time to join us on today's episode.
Could you give us a top level view of what it is that you do right now and your journey so
far?
Yeah, thank you for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
I'd say that where we are right now is what's rise me motivates me is imagining a world
where people don't just show up to work, but they feel truly inspired.
I love the work that I do.
And so helping others to feel truly equipped to lead, connect, grow for every interaction
can help all of us be more positive, build better relationships and really drive their
success.
So I try to show up that way for others, how you can be insightful and connected and the
catalyst for growth.
either coaching leaders, supporting teams, building connections, is what we call really
around the everyday skills.
know, people have called themselves skills before, and I think they've evolved to the
things that you use every day, not just at work, but in life.
And this really can help people set them apart and feel more confident and more joy with
the work that they're doing.
And so I don't think we're there yet, any stretch that everyone's like skipping to work
every day.
But I do think that every conversation, every skill learned, every leader developed brings
us one step closer.
So that's really kind of what motivates me now.
How I got here was a strange and twisted path.
Although I think all of us can look back on our lives and say, oh, that makes sense.
In hindsight, we can tell a story, we can arc that story, but it's not the one we would
have designed for ourselves when we were kids, perhaps.
There's exceptions for sure.
So maybe some professional athletes.
But most people make the next best decision that works for them.
Um, so, you 25 years ago, like an MBA in organizational behavior design, and I loved how
people work and they can work together.
But I asked, learned finance and went off in that direction.
And it really realized over time that the people part of it and empowering them and
developing them was the part that I enjoyed and loved the most.
And so now I've come together with other people that believe that same thing.
Um, and I think right now more than ever, I this is the slowest year of the rest of our
lives.
the way technology is, not only the smaller portion of our lives, so that's factually
true, but then because of technology, because of AI, what's happening, this rapid change
in development is going to keep happening.
So if people don't have the skills to try to navigate through that, it just creates more
stress, more challenges.
It just functions considerably, right, and how we interact with each other.
So that's kind of a little bit kind of how we got here and why I do what I do.
I'm super passionate about it, so I can go on and on, but I don't want to bore you with
All about me, me, me.
Yeah, of course.
mean, such an interesting journey in the work you do.
think the mission there is really strong, which is really cool to see as well.
A lot to unpack, but I think I'd love to zoom in a little bit to the early days of getting
into the business world.
How did you find that transition yourself from maybe working within corporate and then
moving into actually having ownership of the business and re-steering the ship in that
sense?
Yeah, yeah, no, it's an interesting thing.
Everyone does it right now.
And I actually encourage people not to.
If someone says that they want to go out and do their own thing, I say only if you must.
And if you must, then do, right?
Because it's, mean, you may know this as well.
It's incredibly hard and harder in ways than I thought.
It's worth it, but only if you really love it.
So if you're going to go out and do something in entrepreneurship and start out and it's
not something that you're really passionate about, I think it's incredibly harder.
It has to be.
But I used to do also consulting.
So I worked in corporate world and then do some consulting and then work for those clients
and then go back and forth.
each time, and then finally I stayed in the side of being an entrepreneur in development
once I really kind of found this niche.
But going back a bit into the corporate world, I didn't really know what I wanted to do
for a long time.
And I tell people all the time, I don't know my passion is, I don't know what I want to
do.
Like it's okay if you don't, it's important to ask the question.
And so I asked the question for a long time before I kind of figured out what that was and
how to transition over that.
but spent 20 some years in corporate America, what I call building repeatable, scalable,
profitable machines.
How do you take a business and really grow it and help it to accelerate from where it's
been?
Which really frankly helps with companies now, because I sat in a lot of their seats or I
could have more empathy for the challenges.
It's easy to sit here and say, oh yeah, just repeat back to someone, help them feel seen
and heard.
It's like, yeah, but I hate that person.
So how do I do that?
So I think trying to be a little bit more realistic about what those needs are and how to
help support them is because of, I've done this thing before and I've done lots of
different jobs, be it sales or marketing or leading a team, that the different ones help
to give some kind of insights and understanding to what the needs are now.
Yeah, it's interesting you, you mentioned that, right?
It's like, have all these past experiences from working in corporate, which you can take
with you now and it helps you, um, you know, create your business as it is today, because
a lot of people getting into the entrepreneurship game, like myself, right?
When I started, I had like a year's worth of corporate experience, like nothing crazy.
Um, and then I was straight into working into startups.
And so the, industry knowledge that I had was, it's very thin, just in all areas and like
how business is actually operated and.
all these different skills that you develop when you are working in corporate for a bit of
time.
And so I actually went back into working for a period of time because I was like, do you
what, there's a big skill deficiency here.
I think I need to get back into actually working to learn the skills I need to learn, then
go off and pursue my thing again.
And then that's process I went down and it's worked really well for me.
So it's interesting that you've taken those lessons as well and you utilize those because
I think it's just very tough when you're entrepreneurs, if you don't have any type of
foundation of how business works in general.
And it's difficult to make those associations again without the history there.
Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of like having and hauling in my head to be like, look away and
come back because I'm thinking about it because the reality is yes and no, I think.
I yes, there's absolutely something to be learned from actually sitting in those seats.
I probably did it too long.
know, some place maybe between what you do for one year and me for 20 is maybe the right
answer.
I don't know what that is.
But I do think that there's something to be said that when you're more naive.
about business world, not that you are, but like when someone's more naive as far as like
what it really takes, you don't have all those wounds and scars tissue to kind of say,
don't do this or that won't work.
You're naive enough just to do it, which I will say that has been an advantage in stepping
into entrepreneurship because I hadn't done it.
I thought I could.
Now I thought it would be much, know, we've success would happen much faster.
It hasn't, it's great.
But it was harder, right, to get there and frankly, good.
because I actually have a sign up, like, while it says, of course it's hard, it's supposed
to be hard, it was easy, everyone would do it, and then hard is what makes it great.
And I have it because everyone, the first part of that quote, we all hear that, right?
Like, of it's supposed to be hard.
But then the hard is what makes it great, is the part that I really love, because like, I
was naive stepping into it.
I didn't know.
If I knew how hard, I probably wouldn't have done it.
But the hard part is also what makes it great.
It helps give me an understanding and empathy in...
the warts and the challenges and responsiveness and authenticity, right?
When someone asks you something about your business or starting out, you can speak to it
with authenticity.
You know the ins and outs.
You know what's challenging about your business and you can have empathy to someone
else's.
So I love the idea that it is hard is what makes it great.
And so that some days also helps because it's hard.
It's like, this is the good part.
I completely agree with that train of thought, If it was easy, just, like, no one would
actually enjoy it, right?
And it's so interesting because when you're in the hard moments within this whole game,
it's painful, right?
It's horrible.
And you're like, oh, can't wait for this to be over.
we're through to the other side.
But then when you look back on your journey, you look at the hard points, like, was
actually the most exciting points within the whole journey that we've had.
And so so interesting how that kind of flips and changes.
ultimately,
the naivety is needed in the beginning for sure to get you started, I think, and having
those unrealistic, let's say, expectations of what it is that you're going to be able to
do.
But then ultimately that is what gets you started, right?
And so you can use that and you've got to what you've got initially.
So I guess, like the start of your entrepreneurship journey, what were some of the
biggest, I guess, mindset challenges that you might have had transitioning out?
Because I know you did have a bit of a period where you transitioning, but what challenges
did you see there?
Yeah, I mean, think the biggest one, God, there's so many, right?
I mean, it goes from, you think you know what you want to do until you really get into it.
And then it frankly, it's disrespectful to the people who've been doing it for a while to
show up and think that I can just, yeah, no problem.
They're just going to welcome me with open arms.
Like, hello, you're not the only one here, right?
Like earn your strikes a little bit.
But also I think really figuring out what is it that, you know, your company does that's
unique and
and that you really, the skills that you bring and your team brings that's different?
And what is that business problem you solve, right?
Are you providing someone who has a headache and it's because they have a vitamin
deficiency and so do you need to give them vitamins or aspirin?
It's maybe a bad analogy, I'm making it up live.
But, you know, yes, they may need the vitamins long-term, but right now they need the
aspirin.
And so are you providing the aspirin or the vitamins?
Because the vitamins are nice to have and the aspirin's a need to have.
Again, I think this analogy is falling apart a bit, but.
You know, again, the idea about really making sure that you're being empathetic to the
challenges that the business has.
You know, we're really focusing on client success teams.
Right, because I think that as we go into further into this year and beyond that there's a
lot of change happening in the world.
There always is, but right now it seems a little bit more than normal, especially in the
U.S.
with AI digital transformation.
And so I think there's going to be a little bit more kind of conserving
Where do put our resources?
What do we do?
Right?
And how do we spend our money and building up relationships, which AI is not going to take
the place of at least for right now.
And so how do we support those teams and make sure that they're successful?
Because in a capitalist society, you know, it's not always sexy to keep your current
clients, but keeping your current clients and keeping them happy pays dividends well
beyond.
And then how do you grow that base?
And also that every new client come in, if that works, if that team's doing great, every
new client that comes in is going to have a positive experience.
So it makes the whole ecosystem more secure.
And so I think really making sure that those client success teams are enabled and guided
and can handle difficult conversations, building trust, relationships, know, I don't mean
blanking out, critical thinking skills, whatever they need.
I think it's so important.
Yes, the whole organization needs them, but what's gonna be pinnacle?
And I think there's coming year that those teams for sure will be.
Yeah.
It's so interesting you mentioned that because one of our big plans for this year is
focusing on that, client retention, because it's so much easier to keep kind and find new
ones.
Right.
And as you said, like, once you have some type of system in place for customer success and
you got that feedback loop, so you're always improving the product.
Then you create that foundation of clients that are with you for the, for the long run.
Right.
And so then it makes that scaling and no, it's an exponential curve going up then.
If you can master that side of it.
So so interesting that you mentioned that that's also a focus for you right now.
Um, but I guess moving into AI as we're going to that bit of the conversation, how do you
foresee or what have you seen change within your work?
Um, and what have you had to adapt internally in order to adopt it or to help your clients
adopt it as well and to see those changes that could be coming up.
Yeah, I think it's a tool like anything else.
It's a very powerful tool.
I've heard that sometimes actually people who have a little more work experience are
better with AI because they know what good looks like.
It's hard to really know what's good with AI, right?
Because if you put garbage in, garbage out, and if you put something in, it comes back
with something you need to be able to filter that out.
But to answer to your question, I think there's both, like how we use it and then how do
we adapt or use it with our clients, right?
So internally, we use it, every single person on the team uses it from the standpoint of
You know, just checking emails or polishing things up or do what do we forget?
We tend to draft things and say or fill this out and then challenge it.
Use it as a thought partner versus a doer of work.
You know, if you have to have the thought and thinking it through, but you don't need it.
I'm not as if they're wordsmith.
And I think there's an art to that and people who can't God bless them.
But like, I'm not that person.
But I do think some of that can help you from that standpoint.
So those are increasingly so using more and more all the time.
I expect us to use it.
There's a few different things we're testing out for this year.
But when it comes to working with our clients, there's also a few different ways we use
it.
One is kind of like a needs assessment, right?
What is the customized needs of what the team really needs looking across?
You can go and meet with the individuals and do quant or qual studies pretty quickly,
pretty efficiently, and then let AI kind of come back to it.
Again, I'll say, because having run data teams, I'll go in and say, yeah, but
What about this?
What about that?
Like it doesn't do the same.
You need the human lens, I think for right now to really interpret and direct it.
Then one of the other things that's interesting is we use it in our group coaching
sessions.
We have a tool to sit in the sessions to give participation, engagement and sentiment.
So it's not just who showed up, but how is the tone of the meeting?
And it's all neutral third party, right?
It's not a saying and raking it.
And so it can be a tool if clients want it.
They can be depending on their AI and security.
Another way we use it is either in recording coaching sessions or taking detailed notes in
coaching sessions, again, with a person's approval, stripping out the client confidential
stuff or the client names and then saying to AI, okay, what did we miss?
What are the different things?
What are the insights?
What are the questions?
What are the resources?
Which is great because now you're having a human show for a human, a one-on-one
professional coaching development conversation, helping them work through every challenges
they have.
But then you're bringing technology into it and saying, let's bring the other experts as
well.
What could I have missed?
What could be better?
And then sharing that back with the client.
And so now you're getting the best of both worlds in my mind, right?
You're getting not, yes, someone can touch me in technology, but they have to know what to
ask AI if you want to coach you.
And then the next question is the hard part.
so fully embrace it from the standpoint of pre assessing understanding client's needs.
using it within the session.
And then finally, the last way use it is within metrics.
I love having accountability.
How are we going to know who's the needle?
I do, because I think otherwise, why are we here?
What are we doing it for?
Why would you trust us to do it again?
Like, okay, they felt good.
There's a little intuitive just like, we like them.
This we think this worked.
But is this actually moving the needle?
Is this actually having a business impact?
What is the quantifiable ROI for the value program?
Ideally, you identify that in advance.
So then you already know, so now you have a goal to hit.
So it's not, at the end, it's really easy to use David to tell a pretty story.
I did it for years.
I can do that.
But I'd much rather begin the beginning and say, the Covey, begin with the end in mind.
What do you know?
What does success look like?
How will you know we've achieved it?
you're going to get greater client retention.
You're going to get greater employee retention, more productivity out of your team.
Or maybe their employee scores go up.
They have their own internal metrics.
Those are even better.
It's a long answer to your question, but there's kind of three layers that we use it with
our clients as far as the before, the during, and the after.
Yeah.
I mean, I think the general theme there is from the efficiency standpoint where it's not
completely replaced, say a department within the business or anything like that, but
you're just making those departments work better, quicker, and, know, to different levels,
I guess, of the work quality as well.
Because that seems to be a common theme with all the owners, co-founders, CEOs that I've
been interviewing on this podcast is none of them have said, okay, we're going to strip
out this whole department and it's all now running on an AI, but they've all said, Hey,
we're just
supplementing these, other different tasks that are done by different team members with
AI, just to speed up the efficiency.
And it seems like what everyone's looking for is, you know, if we can speed up, you know,
5 % here, cost 5 % there, and you do that across the business.
Ultimately, what you're going to find is your business is going to be 10 times more
efficient and, you know, cost reduction might be through the roof as well because of just
all those little changes adding up and compounding over time.
So it seems to be that that's the common trend again with
people were looking to implement AI at this stage of the process with AI.
But that being said, I think it's going to be so interesting to see what happens over the
next kind of five to 10 years to see how companies start to embrace it even more.
Because, I mean, you look back at AI two years ago when it was generating like an image
and it was terrible.
You could tell it was AI.
But now you're at a point today where actually some of them you can't really tell it is
AI.
It's really good.
And so it us wonder.
within five years as the exponential improvement of it continues, how will businesses
begin to adapt even more and fully integrate it into the business as well?
I mean, within your industry, it's an interesting one because I feel like you just can't
replace the human conversation element of it.
And to create change, you do need to have a human conversation as well.
So how do you foresee maybe in the next 10 years, it impacting the work you do when you're
looking forward at all these potential changes that could happen?
And what would you want to keep?
I guess the same within the business and maybe not change that and get it automated into
some type of AI process.
Yeah, great, great question.
I think 10 years is too far to predict with AI.
just do.
think, you know, I had someone that I was talking to who's a bestselling author.
He's like 60 % of jobs will be replaced within two years.
I don't think that'll happen that fast just because testing and budgets and rolling out of
things, but maybe I'm naive in that too.
I don't think 60 % of all jobs within two years.
think that's, I just don't see the, you'd have to start now in my mind, right?
Like they are somewhat, but to your point, I think it's more about efficiencies right now
and.
I actually see there may be more of a gap of more junior people and junior leaders really
is that gap not individual contributors as much as managers.
But back to the point about, think, so I do think we'll see drastic changes over the next
two years.
So you're out two years ago with an image and it's exponentially getting better, right?
So it's not even just images, it's everything.
But I do think, and I do think, look, if you just have a question at work, go and ask AI.
I'm doing this.
Pretend you're maybe these two or three different coaches or experts in the.
industry, how would you respond to this and get their insights?
I teach different parenting.
I've gone and said, Hey, I have this pondery at the percentage of these three different
authors and mix it through three different offers, authors, what would you recommend?
Yeah, that's really good.
Right.
So I think there makes sense with that.
That being said, to your part, what part do I think will make true is people do business
with people.
think relationships still matter.
think humans will still exist on the planet and they're still going to want to have some
sort of human connection and trust.
And that is still going to require the people to come together.
And I think that this technology and all these things is making some of those skills
weaker.
Right.
We see it now.
We see the generation that spent part of their college years in COVID and are coming out.
I hear it from companies all the time that, you know, they just never really developed
those skills because then they were COVID and they were working from mode and being remote
and they didn't get to see what that's like.
What does good look like?
And even now when companies are doing this return to office, okay, fine, they're back in
the office, but they're putting their heads down and putting their headphones on and
staring at a screen.
They're not interacting the same way.
So if you don't get the guidance and the space to do it, it'll falter, which means the
innovation falters, the connections falter, you get friction, you get competing goals, et
cetera.
So I do think creating those connections is important, but you don't have to just do it
and like, oh, let's all get along.
Do it in a business way.
Do it in a way that makes sense digitally, right?
I mean, I'm not just one digitally metrics wise.
But I think so that's the point of I think AI will continue to improve and enhance many
jobs and functions.
I'm a techno enthusiast overall.
That doesn't mean we should just shove it everywhere.
I think that, you know, supporting the people and helping the people be successful will
always matter.
And so that part is what I want to preserve.
And that's why frankly, our company's called leading humanists because we want to lead
with the humanity.
Yeah, with the humans.
Right.
It's not
It's not for the end game of the computers.
Capitalism and money and the idea is so that people in theory have enough to provide
themselves, national's hierarchy of needs of food and shelter.
And then from there you start to buy into, buy into, before you slip, more freedoms and
choices, right?
And so it's supposed to be a tool also we get.
Yeah, some people get to astronomical levels of wealth that are no longer about that, but
that's not most of the people on the planet.
most of us are about, okay, did we cover our basic needs and beyond there?
How can we do some things that bring us some more joy and freedom?
Yeah.
So way off the topic.
No, no, definitely.
I think it's great.
But I want to protect that part, right?
What we would protect is that human part that helps to support all of that and use the AI
as a tool and not as a way to take over.
Yeah.
And we're seeing in the marketing world a lot now, you know, the last two, three years,
people became very transactional in the way they were handling their marketing and sales
process.
You know, you can see it with check your emails or the cold emails you get is it's all
very transactional now.
It's ridiculous.
And that's all sped up thanks to obviously automation and AI getting better and better.
People can send out more volume and do all these different things.
But what we're seeing now is the conversion rates on those style of campaigns where
they're very much transactional.
is just going, getting lower and lower and lower every single year, every single month.
And now what we're seeing is companies being like, okay, this isn't working anymore.
What is working?
Well, relationships and part of that is going to be content as well, because content like
sales reps now, they're starting to build personal brands around this, which is so
interesting.
Whereas before they didn't have this, but now they do because they understand that trust
authority matters.
And the only way they're going to get sales is if people can form those strong
relationships with people.
which is a complete, you you turn off automation and AI within certain departments as
well, which is going to be an interesting, again, thing to watch over the next few years
of how different departments will implement it and how different departments will be
negatively affected by it and what they're going to to overcome that as well later on.
Yeah, one of the places that we're seeing and we hear it from people is when looking for
jobs, right?
We hear about all these jobs and unemployment numbers and stuff are talked about.
Maybe I'm just more sensitive to it, but it seems to be talked about more these days.
And they say up to 75 % of jobs that are posted, they already have a person in mind for
that job.
They already have no idea who they're going to hire, right?
And that didn't come through someone applying or posting that job.
It's just of the jobs posting.
So that leaves 25%.
Of the 25 % that are posted, the legit jobs,
or that are not already have a person in mind, I should say, there's a good portion of
them that are bots or placement are kept up longer so that site can prove, we're looking
for data scientists, we have this traffic, whatever they're doing, it's a real job, but
it's just kept up longer.
So there's a very small percentage, and I don't know the exact number, but it's less than
25%, the data says that is an actual job that they're looking for something.
And the number of people that I've said that they churn out their resumes to be
customized, and they say, I'll do it.
good, go for it.
And because AI, AI machines are on their side.
So AI is talking to AI, yeah, he was involved, but those people aren't really getting the
jobs.
Yeah, right.
Because 75 % have them through the relationships and the networking.
So one of the things we do is teach people how do you build your network?
How do you create it?
Like last year, I set out at beginning of the year to do 300 connections in 300 days.
And it was actually way easier than I thought.
And I did about 100 days.
Because if you talk to about two people a week for happening,
and you put them in touch with two people and they put you in touch with two people,
that's 10 connections in a week.
So the math works out to be over 400 people.
Now you just follow up with each one of those.
So it takes more than an hour overall when you have any conversations.
But most people don't need to talk to 300 people in 300 days, right?
You talk to two people a month and you put them in touch with two people and they put you
in touch with two people.
You'll talk to a hundred people or more in a year.
And that's a good way to do it now.
Okay, fine.
Talk to one person then.
Just talk to one person a month that's new, right?
Build a little of your network and you're gonna keep that going and live, which a lot of
people don't.
We all do.
We all get lazy doing our day jobs and working and we have lives and things.
And so we don't focus on networking and we look for a job.
We have to go revamp it again.
Rather than just keeping it live.
So I do think that that's an interesting shift where we see AI stepping in and because AI
steps in and their computer's talking to computers, then it's going back to what are the
relationships.
Now the data to that are,
you're having like-minded people, right?
You're having, I love one time a company I worked for said, we don't want a culture fit.
We want a culture ad, right?
It wasn't like they wanted someone who's running against their culture, you know, one of
the opposite, but it was like, how can you blend in and bring us to a higher level?
And so I think that that's kind of the idea, right?
How can you work within the system at race to a higher level?
And if it's just the machines talking to each other, it's not working.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, there for sure.
And it's so cool what you mentioned there about your, your challenge where to speak to,
you know, 300 new people, because for me, and this is something that I drill hard into the
kinds that I work with now is look, the more people you speak to, the more money you'll
make naturally as a business.
just optimize for more conversations, more relationships.
And, you know, to the point of like having a podcast and a platform for this is I've
managed to speak to, um, you know, I think conducted about 200.
Introductionary calls now we've got about 40 episodes that are released or scheduled to be
released so far.
And from all those conversations, it's been incredible what I've managed to learn who I've
been connected to who they've been, you know, referred me onto and connected to as well.
Not only personally in terms of what I've learned, but also then for the business point of
view, what's helped the business and all even potential clients as well.
And that all just came through conversations itself.
And so, yeah, I completely agree with everything you're saying that conversations are just
are so critical for.
for business to really work nowadays, but it's going to be interesting to the shift over
the next few years with AI as we mentioned.
So I guess changing topics a little bit and talking a little bit more about the service
delivery that you have as a business.
So what does that look like when you're trying to go into a business and create change?
Like how do you do that?
What's the process there?
And then we can dive into that a little bit more.
Yeah, so, you know, we go through and try to change change.
We try to change behaviors.
There's three things you need.
You need motivation, you need opportunity and skill, and you need all three.
Think through it a little bit.
It becomes kind of obvious.
So on a job, you have an opportunity, but we give micro opportunities.
And I'll tell more about that since that's what you asked in our programs.
And the motivation has to come from the individual or their circumstances that they.
you know, it's challenging, they want to do better.
And so we really focus on giving them a skill.
We tell them why it makes sense, but they have to believe it.
They have to tell them why this matters, right?
So our programs really, I said, it's customized.
We're a customized boutique organization.
So we work with, I like to work with the business leaders in partnership with their people
leaders, because we really want to sell a business challenge and be accountable to that.
And so identifying what that is.
And typically then we build out a program that has about six to eight weeks.
for sessions and each session is a different topic.
You can say critical thinking, negotiation, difficult conversations, et cetera, across
those weeks.
And we do watch redo, which in advance, so advance the session, less than 15 minutes,
quick snippets of information to help people learn that skill before they show up.
Then they come into a group session, group cohort session live with humans, human blood,
people together, not going and watching a video, whether they're playing a game at the
same time or something else, because I would, but with real humans showing up.
Then we walk, you know, do a quick quiz, just read us the knowledge.
We walk through the framework.
We do a quick dorky corny modeling behavior thing so they can see it and be like, can do
better than that.
Send them off to practice it in like a dyad, like a safe environment.
And then come back and talk about it in debrief.
So there's five different levels of learning that we walk through.
We do it.
And then everyone, and then we follow up with like an action guide of the framework.
Here's what we did.
Here's the key takeaways.
So they have that as a reference.
And then everybody also gets a coaching session.
a one-on-one confidential executive coach trained, really experienced deep bench that we
have of wonderful coaches to help them with whatever challenge they're having or applying
the information, applying the knowledge.
And so we go through, do that and do the AI, like I mentioned, the pre and the post and
with the manager's feedback as well on the program to show that it had an impact.
And then what most clients do is they then have us help support them in a follow-up and we
can help them do it.
or we can do it or a combination of both to just kind of check in on those, you know,
how's it going?
When you actually tried to do this, when you actually had to go back to that difficult
client, yeah, it was really challenging.
Did this work?
What didn't work?
Great.
Let's talk about that.
Right.
Because that's how everybody else will learn to get better.
Or was there a success?
Were you able to do, you know, activists, the number of times in a day that I say to a
coaching person or in a week, can say as you know what,
Just say back to the person what they said to you and try to use their words.
And if you bonus points, say, tell me more.
So if you just say back to person, so if I hear you saying, I don't agree with them,
you're just telling them, I heard you, this is what you're saying.
You're like, yes, you get me.
Okay, tell me more.
wait, you're paying attention?
You're not just waiting for me to stop talking so you can start talking?
Sorry, I'm back on potential.
So that's how our programs run, is that we do the pre kind of customization.
It's not a heavy lift because we know people are very busy.
than the sessions in the cohorts, six to eight weeks, one session a week.
We have them condensed, excuse me, we've done like four sessions over four days in a week
to give everyone kind of a more condensed program.
But we do not bring people in, they're virtual and they're all live, but we don't bring
people off into a conference room for three or four or eight hours.
I talked to someone the other day who said, oh yeah, last year we had to do this thing for
three hours and a quarter.
I'm like, you can't, your brain shuts down.
Right?
Right.
Especially if you're just listening and absorbing.
That's why we're like, not going to flip the script.
We're not going to sit there and try to teach you.
We're the Khan Academy school, right?
Of like, go learn and then come practice it together and let's help optimize it.
That's really how we think about doing it.
And so far the data has been really successful.
And touch wood, so far today, every client has come with us and stayed with us.
Amazing.
That change.
That will change.
I know one day that will change.
But for now, that's our story.
We're sticking to it.
So that's really back to that client.
you know, success, that's really important to us too, because we actually want to teach
them to fish and not give them the fish, right?
Like how do you actually help elevate them and get better?
Um, and someone said to me once, you know, can you really change somebody in 45 minutes?
He said, no, they have to want to go do it.
We're going to give them the skills, but I can also tell you they're going to be better
off than if we didn't.
Right.
If your team is not good at what we hear a lot of is that,
especially for customer success is that they want to serve the customer so much that they
just go and do what the client asks, which is great.
But what's behind the ask?
What do they really need?
What do they really want?
That's where the customer success comes in, because now you're thinking about them, you're
thinking about their needs and taking that next step further.
But it's that critical thinking, that pause and frankly, the confidence.
They have to have the confidence to pause to say, huh, what do they really need?
And sometimes the time I get it, are busy, but
to say, what do they really need?
Huh, what if I back and offered that?
Or what if I asked that?
And so we'll talk through sometimes also building confidence and leadership we start off
or self-awareness at some place we usually start.
Yeah.
And I find as well, when you go down that route is clients really appreciate that because
ultimately a lot of times clients don't know what they don't know, essentially.
And so they think they need this thing, but actually what they need is this other thing.
And so when we go in and say, actually, look, I know you said this, but actually this
makes more sense because of export-wide said reason.
They trust you a lot more overall.
And they're really, they're really happy with that, right?
Because ultimately you're doing what you need to do, which is consulting with them to get
these results.
But it's a very interesting service delivery, I think, to create.
that change within people, right?
Or empower them to make that change within themselves.
Because now I've been to a lot of training before, right?
Sitting in a room for four or five hours.
After an hour, right?
I'm done.
Like I'm tired.
I'm not, I'm turning off now.
I'm not listening.
But it that you managed to really crack it where you can increase the engagement through,
you know, the different types of learning that you have.
And then also you've got that feedback group to keep the service, you know, keep making
the service get better and better.
Which is also really cool.
So I guess within the service delivery itself, what are some of the key principles you
think it takes to create or empower people to change?
Because I think the problem that I sometimes come across with sometimes is making them see
the change they need to go through, if that makes sense.
then they go through that changing process.
So how have you managed to structure that within the work that you do to create and
empower that change within people?
Yeah, I mean, they have to feel something typically, people either go towards something or
away from something, right?
And if they're if they're too comfortable where they are, then no change will happen.
Right.
So oftentimes, we change because there's pain.
Sometimes we want something we want to go towards it.
I want to, you know, go run a 10k.
So I'm do it.
And I love the atomic habits work of, you know, find your sneakers, don't go run a mile,
find your speakers if you want to run 10k.
And that same idea, right.
So
You can go towards that.
Typically what happens, especially when comes to work, is that people are having a
negative feeling of pain.
having, you know, the teams are overwhelmed, they're burnt out, they're just taking
orders.
They're coming to me.
I'm having to solve all their challenges.
There's some sort of, that's why I said I'd to go back to like, what is the business
problem that you're trying to solve?
Or it could be, what is the opportunity?
Right?
Like, well, our team's doing high growth and they need to, then they need to prioritize.
You got a high growth, fast moving team, even if you're trying to hire people, you're not
going to hire them as fast as you're growing.
So how are you helping your team prioritize to what's most important and what do they need
to do?
So I think with regards to the change, and like I said, we'll tell people, here's the
benefits you get, here's why it should be the change.
But if they don't actually believe it, they won't actually change.
And I'm not going to try to pretend to tell you different.
I'm not going try to pretend like, yeah, we got it.
They have to, you know, we try to express to them like, here's the negative of that,
here's where you may see it coming up at work.
But typically,
They do see that.
They do want that, right?
There's a reason they can be like, yeah, I know these two people on my team are just not
getting along.
How do I help make that better?
Or I don't have to call that client.
I don't want to call them.
I just don't want to talk.
know, like that first you just kind of, the client you have to call.
Maybe it's because you legitimately have to give them bad news and you really like them,
right?
But there's a lot of ways you can do that to be more positive.
Yeah, no, for sure.
And having these difficult conversations is very, very difficult, especially in the early
years of being a business owner.
remember the first, even the first like networking event I ever went to back just probably
four years ago, I remember just walking around the room about to go up to someone and then
I was turned away, but now I'm not going to go up and talk to them.
And then even when I signed your clients and stuff, having hard conversations to them, you
know, and I have an opinion on what they need to do from the experience.
expertise that have, but I just didn't feel confident enough to bring that across.
Um, you know, it takes a lot to be able to change that.
But for me, you know, I think, as you mentioned, it is, everyone's got some type of pain
somewhere.
And so when you start to dig into that pain a little bit more, then ultimately that's when
the, the, the breakthrough or the change can, that can happen or the transformation can
happen.
Um, but I guess it's leveraging that or a goal as well and helping them bridge that gap
towards their, um,
And creating that, I think, like an emotional response within them to change.
I think it's super critical to get the end result of that because ultimately if they're
not emotionally bought in, then realistically it's probably not going to happen.
I think it all stems from emotion as well.
But we start from emotions, right?
So we have another program called Epic, is emotions, purpose, investing, connect, which I
won't necessarily walk through now.
But because we start with emotions.
When you go to grab something hot off of a stove, the first thing you have is an emotional
response, right?
Because there's pain.
So you're like, this is uncomfortable, right?
Your nerves are sensing something physically, then you think then you're like, this is
painful.
Then you pull your hand away.
I it happens quickly.
But we, yeah, it's a root first we use emotion.
So the same thing happens when we're at work.
You have an emotional response and emotions are there to help protect us.
They're not a bad thing.
Oftentimes they get demonized like, oh, you're being too emotional.
It's like, well, no, control your emotions.
They don't control you.
But what are they trying to tell you?
What can you learn from that?
Right.
Because otherwise I often, I just need to get over it.
And I'm like, I think you need to get into it.
Don't get over it.
You're upset about something bothering you.
There's something not be in that moment.
but it sometimes step back and say, what about this really bothers me?
Right?
What else about, cause it's not that of the person.
Cause if someone says to you like, oh, you kick puppies all day long, you'd be like,
that's a weird thing to say.
I don't kick puppies.
I love dogs.
What are you doing?
Right?
But if someone said to me like, you know, you're not a great mom.
I'd be like, oh, you know what I did?
He only kid that once.
there's part of me that thinks it's true.
And so it resonates with you.
once you unpack that and realize that and bring that like darkness of yourself or your
thoughts into the light goes away.
So when you think about the same thing from going back to emotions, we will get react and
have emotions at work.
If we can pause and just say, help me understand your passion here, right?
Rather than agreeing or disagreeing with them, but if someone gets really heated at work,
help me understand what makes you care about this so much.
Help me understand what's driving you in this.
Because if you understand that part, then they're gonna drop their defenses a little bit
because they see that you're actually showing up with authenticity to have a conversation.
And it also forces you to slow down and not just come back at them and be defensive and
respond.
And so that's oftentimes the biggest thing also is just to slow down and ask, says the
fast talker.
Yeah.
I mean, power of questions, right?
Is so important.
like I've seen it a lot with the clients I have and like teams that I've worked in is the
best teams I've been in, or the best managers that I've had were empathetic in the way
they would ask the question.
so let's say, for example, something's not happening or didn't work out very well.
The managers that asked in an empathetic way is like, what's going on?
Like, you know, what's the situation here?
It lists it's then a very authentic, truthful response about whatever's happened.
However.
different team dynamics where it's been more authoritative, let's say.
And that makes the team very closed off and they don't tell what they need to tell to the
higher management or whatever to create the next steps.
And so it's the power of just asking the question, right?
Whenever you need to just ask the question, like what's the worst that's gonna happen,
right?
You're gonna learn more information that you need to learn and hopefully get to the truth
of whatever it's gonna be.
But yeah, think asking questions is such a simple concept, but it's just not done by...
just so many people inside of the workplace or entrepreneurs or whatever that looks like
is being able to ask a question.
Yeah, it's hard to do, right?
Because we start having thoughts, we start having reactions and emotions and feelings and
things.
And especially if you're debating and you disagree with where the person's coming from,
you want to get that out versus asking one more question, you know, and slowing down will
actually get you further.
And it's something I will say, honestly, I learned later in my career.
And one of the things I like to give is a tip to people often that I learned that I love
is when you're asking questions, is try not to ask why there's times when you can't but if
I say to you, why did you wear that shirt today?
versus saying, what made you wear that shirt today?
It's a very different question.
The first one makes you feel like you have to explain and defend your choices.
The second one is about curiosity and telling, help me understand your thought process.
And so whenever you can, whenever any of us can, and I do it too, is try, if I ask
somebody like why, I immediately try to switch it.
know, why'd you do that?
What's behind that?
know, I try to cover that and step away from it.
Cause it just brings down the temperature just a little bit.
Yeah, that's so interesting.
I've never thought of that before.
You know what?
Not why essentially.
Yeah.
Yeah.
remember.
or went, like you know, again, it's something I was taught.
I wish I could claim coming up with it, but it's something else that I was taught as well.
And it's just a small tweak in language, but it'll play huge dividends.
Yeah, definitely.
So I really enjoyed this conversation that we've had today.
One of the last questions we always ask guests in the show is if you can go back to your
18 year old self and you can only bring three things with you, whether it's some, you
know, mindset tips, some philosophical things, whatever that, you know, it could be
anything.
What would those three things be and why would it be those things?
Um, I would say one is, is a mindset, right?
think there's a certain amount of excitedness, but anxiety when you're 18.
I don't know if that's the word in today's society and how we use anxiety, anyways,
apprehension, unknowingness, there's excitement as well, but just appreciating and saying,
you know, that things will be okay and work out if you keep working at them, I think is
one of them is very much so.
I think another one is, um, appreciation of others.
Right?
Because we get so kind of driven and not realizing, you know, what is the Gandhi
expression?
I think that I couldn't get that wrong, that everyone's fighting their own journey, right?
Everyone's fighting their own battle.
And so just being really much more appreciative and patient with other people and the
journey that they have.
And then three, if I brought the money back to now that I have now to then when I'm 18,
what's the value of money and inflation?
I'm not going to I'm not not going to lie.
I'm not lie.
I'm lie.
I'm I'm going I'm I'm not not I'm not not
That's why I capitals hungry at the end and said money.
Amazing.
Well, thank you so much for taking the time today.
I've really enjoyed this conversation.
Thank you.
as well.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you so much for giving me the time with you.